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Mobile Phones


From the newsfordev database of articles
	1-25 > Next 25

Nokia shares drop 11.3% on warning of reduced market share of mobiles
EMM | European Media Monitor | World news 07 09 2008 NOKIA, THE world's largest mobile phone maker, yesterday warned that its market share would shrink in the third quarter of the year, bringing to an end a period of almost uninterrupted growth and wiping more than 10 per cent off its share price.

Why so serio.us? Take a new look at quick.as!
Alt Search Engines | Web Log 07 09 2008 About Quick.asAbout what?Quick.as!Quick.as what?Oh just watch the video!One homepage for all devices. Quick.as allows you to create a homepage or “personal portal” that is accessible on your computer or mobile phone. It allows user to quickly access sites optimized for the device that they are using (e.g. iphone.ebay.com for an iPhone and m.ebay.com for a [...]

Indonesia Stumbles Over Faith Pluralism
Far Eastern Economic Review | Essays 06 09 2008 Finding an Islamist ideologue in Jakarta, a low-rise city of traffic tailbacks, mosques and malls, isn’t hard. As our car approaches, Siroj Alwi is standing outside, mobile phone in hand, to wave us down. Smiling, he directs us to a parking spot opposite the narrow lane where he lives in a modest house with his wife and four children. My interpreter and I go inside, sit on a rug and are given bottled ice tea to drink. It’s time to talk religion and politics, the intersection through which Indonesia’s path to modernity runs. .
Posted Sept. 5, 2008

Lex: Nokia leaves a message
EMM | European Media Monitor | World news 06 09 2008 Nokia leaves a message Published: September 5 2008 20:50 | Last updated: September 5 2008 20:50 The world’s largest mobile phone maker by volume warned on Friday it was losing market share to rivals that had slashed prices ....

Africa: From Anarchy to Normalcy
Atlantic.com | The Current | Headlines 05 09 2008 Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe was heckled and jeered by a feisty opposition as he opened parliament recently.

The decline of Mugabe, an odious dictator in a class with Kim Jong Il and the Burmese generals, will give a seal of good-product approval to a continent that, despite persistent catastrophes, finally looks to be the beneficiary of a series of positive global trends. Even without Mugabe, governance will be dicey throughout Africa. Just a few weeks ago, a military junta overthrew Mauritania's first democratically elected president. Off the coast of Somalia, piracy -- the maritime extension of anarchy on land -- is worse than anywhere in the world, including Nigeria. The governments of Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Chad still need United Nations peacekeeping missions to monopolize the use of force. Kenya and Sierra Leone, the victims of ethnic and tribal-based rebellions, are healing but remain fragile. At the root of many of these problems are a youth bulge and high rate of young male joblessness: over 40 percent of the population in most sub-Saharan African countries is younger than 15. African countries still dominate the bottom ranks in all human-development indices. On no other continent are institutions so weak or nonexistent. Operating against these bleak realities are equally powerful -- and hopeful -- positive forces. Freedom House reports that the number of robust democracies among the 48 countries south of the Sahara has risen from three to 11 since 1977. Grassroots democratic movements are spreading, and are contributing to Mugabe's ongoing demise. Economically, real GDP in sub-Saharan Africa expanded by 6.5 percent in 2007, the highest growth rate in decades. If trends hold, poverty in Africa should be halved by 2015. Oil production is already booming, and food production may follow suit. Africa is the only part of the world without a green revolution. Scientific breakthroughs that tripled crop yields in Eurasia and Latin America have bypassed Africa's, mainly because no single solution fits the continent's diverse farming systems and varied agro-ecological zones. But high-yield varieties of major African crops like sorghum, millet, maize, and cassava may soon be custom-fitted to Africa's micro-terrains and climates. Moreover, as Martin Walker, senior director of A. T. Kearney's Global Business Policy Council, writes, the booming economies of China and India now have a fierce interest in developing Africa's food potential for their own needs. China has supplied African countries with technical assistance in tea planting, soil analysis, and irrigation. China is leading the Asian dash into Africa, with investments as diverse as in chocolate in Ivory Coast and in copper in Zambia, and plans to build or modernize railroads, highways, and dams across the continent. America, which will in the next decade be getting a quarter of its oil from West Africa, will compete with China on development projects, to Africa's benefit. Beyond China and India, sovereign wealth funds in the Persian Gulf could be the next big investors in Africa's raw-material base. Of course, there are problems: sovereign wealth funds are not charities. Billions of dollars dumped on Africa could erode, rather than promote, efforts at good governance. Still, a slow-moving megatrend is beginning to take shape. The economic rise of the former Third World is leading to money flows into Africa. In this way, the Third World, rather than the West, will end up rehabilitating its own ground. And that will be one of the great ironies of the 21st century. And there is something even larger going on: the end of Africa's millennia-old, geographically imposed isolation. In addition to suffering from disease and poverty attributable to the world's hottest climate, Africans since antiquity have been physically cut off from the great cultural traffic of human affairs. Though five times larger than Europe, Africa's coastline, in relative terms, is not nearly as long. And with some exceptions in East Africa, the continent has few good natural harbors. Few rivers are navigable from the sea, and the Sahara Desert has for centuries hindered human contact from the north. But geography may no longer be destiny. Globalization has finally reached critical mass in Africa. The mobile-phone industry is now worth $10 billion across the continent, with subscriber growth running at 40 percent annually. New air routes are opening up with the Middle East and Asia. Africa will be influenced by the rest of the world to the same degree that countries in Eurasia along the historic path of migrations always have been. Africa will lose some of its distinctiveness, even as it closes the gap with the rest of humankind. But one big thing could impede progress, and it has to do with geography: climate change, to which Africa's primitive, rain-fed agriculture is particularly susceptible. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Africa is "very likely" to warm faster than the mean global rate, with decreased rainfall in southern Africa causing droughts, and increased rainfall in East Africa causing flooding and soil erosion. These are only two examples of pan-African climatic upheaval that could interact adversely with politics, ethnic relations, and local economies. The outlook for Africa is mixed. But that is an improvement over the 1990s, which saw several state collapses and the persistence of dictatorships. When the curtain finally does come down on the decades of Mugabe's misrule in Zimbabwe, it will have more than symbolic value. Africa is about to begin a new cycle of history.

Kenyan Mobile Phone Provider to Upgrade Network
CIO.com | News 05 09 2008 Mobile phone operator Zain Kenya has commenced a two-year, 25 billion Kenyan shilling (US$366.3 million) expansion program with an initial investment of 3 billion shillings to upgrade its network.

Got Full Bars? Improve Your Mobile Phone Signal
Wired Magazine | Science | News 05 09 2008 Dropped calls? Spotty coverage? The first step to overcoming a poor cellsignal is to understand why your phone is acting up. We'll give you a quickprimer in this how-to. And when common sense fixes fail, it's time to bustout the gadgets.

Find The Hottest Events in Major Cities with Buzzd
Read/WriteWeb | Weblog 05 09 2008

Most mobile social networks are quite alike. They're all competing for a host of information from you and your circle of friends. This information ranges from various messages to the most embarrassing photos of your friends that you can find. Here is where NYC based start-up Buzzd differentiates itself. Interested in finding out what's going on tonight in your town? If the hottest club or event of the night is what you're looking for, then Buzzd has you covered.

The Buzz on Buzzd

Buzzd is a mobile social network that caters to the latest events going on in your town. Want to know where your friends are right now? How about finding out how many people in your network are at an event you've been debating on attending? Buzzd could be just what you were looking for. The award winning service has the scoop on all the hottest bars, clubs, and social scenes in your town. All of which is conveniently available from your mobile phone browser or via a text message.

Features

With multiple partnerships with Flavorpill, TimeOut, and Zagat, Buzzd provides its user base with over 1.2 million venue listings. With each venue listing users can grab maps, directions, and live reviews before heading out the door. All of this is readily available from the Buzzd WAP site, meaning no download required. Users can also add their favorite venues to their Buzzd profile to receive notifications of upcoming events. If you're a promoter, stay tuned for more news on a future release for Buzzd PRO. This service will allow promoters and artists to gain mass exposure on the Buzzd network with their own custom profiles and more.

Partying With Buzzd, but Only in Metropolitan Areas

The service is available across a plethora of handsets. It also works with just about every American mobile carrier. We recommend checking out the service if you're in a major metropolitan area such as New York, San Francisco, L.A., or Miami. However, like every other mobile social network, Buzzd is only valuable in the big city. We tested the service in Atlanta and Miami and found plenty of places to go and venue reviews to help us decide what was worth our time and money. Once we traveled to less tech oriented lands, it was clear that we'd have to resort to more arcane methods of finding what's buzzing. Don't get us wrong, we think Buzzd is one of the best mobile networks for finding events, but only if you're in a major city. Sorry suburbia.

Virgin Mobile Branded

On the other hand, Virgin Mobile subscribers are in for a real treat. Today, Buzzd announced its latest partnership with mobile carrier. Virgin Mobile will be the first carrier to formally offer Buzzd to its subscribers. Virgin Mobile subscribers can look forward to a ton of exclusives and can access a Virgin Mobile branded version of Buzzd from the Virgin Mobile WAP homepage. This partnership will allow subscribers of the Virgin Mobile network to share their latest happenings with others on the same network via Buzzd. Hopefully by partnering with Virgin Mobile, Buzzd will be able to expand its networks offerings not only to smaller carriers, but smaller cities.

UGANDA: Using mobile phones to fight HIV
UN | Irin Africa | News 04 09 2008 KAMPALA, 4 September 2008 (IRIN) - Uganda's rising HIV prevalence is forcing policy makers to look for inventive ways of educating people about the virus. Their latest tool is mobile phone technology, whose rapid growth has provided an avenue that could potentially reach millions with messages.

Rwanda gets locally made handsets
iConnect online | News 04 09 2008 A-Link Technologies, a Chinese electronics company, has unveiled its first mobile phone handsets manufactured in Rwanda. This makes Rwanda the first country in the region to sell locally manufactured mobile phones.

Kenya: Equity Launches Cellphone Banking
AllAfrica | ICT and Telecom | News 04 09 2008 The next battle frontier for banks will be fought on the mobile phone, signalling a widely anticipated drop in banking transaction costs by customers.

Google co-founder expects Chrome for Android (Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)
Techmeme | News 04 09 2008

Stephen Shankland / CNET News.com:
Google co-founder expects Chrome for Android — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Google's new Chrome browser is for PCs today, but company co-founder Sergey Brin expects the technology will make its way to Android, the company's mobile phone operating system and software suite.

The Survey Says: Tivo Saves Relationships
ArtsJournal: Daily Arts News 04 09 2008 xx_quotation_xxSome 79 percent of 1,000 DVR owners reported that the technology has improved their relationship, according to the NDS DVR Report. DVRs were cited as the second most essential household technology item they canxx_apos_xxt live without, second only to the mobile phone. Among non-technological household items, DVR was beaten out only by washing machine and microwave oven.xx_quotation_xx...

Google co-founder expects Chrome for Android
Megite Technology News 04 09 2008

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--Google's new Chrome browser is for PCs today, but company co-founder Sergey Brin expects the technology will make its way to Android, the company's mobile phone operating system and software suite. (Read on Source)

NDS DVR Survey: 7 Out of 10 People Who Own a DVR Say They Can't Live Without It According to NDS Survey
Megite Technology News 04 09 2008

Owners rank the DVR the second most essential household technology item they cannot live without, beaten only by the mobile phone Asked to rank the relative importance of a variety of household appliances, DVR owners ranked the DVR as the third most indispensable item after the washing machine and the microwave oven (Read on Source)

Google co-founder expects Chrome for Android
Megite Technology News 03 09 2008

Google co-founder Sergey Brin speaks at the Chrome browser launch event. (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News) MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.-- Google's new Chrome browser is for PCs today, but company co-founder Sergey Brin expects the technology will make its way to Android, the company's mobile phone operating system ... (Read on Source)

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 to land next month
The Register | News 03 09 2008

Firm's first Windows Mobile phone release announced

Sony Ericsson has overcome most of the problems it encountered attempting to run Windows Mobile 6.1 on its upcoming Xperia X1 handset and has set a firm release date for the phone.…

Big demand for pay by phone tech, claims Nokia
The Register | News 03 09 2008

The sole manufacturer of NFC handsets

Nokia is championing the success of its UK NFC trial, claiming that almost 80 per cent of users want contactless payment systems on their mobile phone - a happy coincidence for Nokia, since no one else is making NFC handsets as yet.…

Welsh fisherman claims to have seen a Great white shark
The Telegraph | Earth | News 03 09 2008 A fisherman from Wales claims to have photographed a Great white shark on his mobile phone.

Nail an API, Get a Sweet Job: FriendFeed Hire/Acquires FFToGo, RSSMeme
Read/WriteWeb | Weblog 03 09 2008

There are a lot of great reasons for a company online to offer an Application Programming Interface (API) for outside developers to build on, but one we're starting to see more of is an API as the ultimate recruitment tool. Red hot lifestreaming service FriendFeed announced this afternoon that the company has hired Benjamin Golub, the creator of FriendFeedToGo, the mobile interface of choice for FF users.

Golub is also the creator of RSSMeme, a memetracker that tracks the hottest shared stories on Google Reader. We wrote about RSSMeme this spring when that service launched an API of its own. More obviously relevant to FriendFeed is Golub's project FFToGo.com, which this author uses throughout the day every day. The app does a great job making the native javascript-heavy interface for FriendFeed usable on a mobile phone. The guy knows how to parse and make usable streams of data that are flying around from user activity. He should fit in very well there. If you'd like to meet up with ReadWriteWeb staff on FriendFeed, see our profiles there and the RWW Room. Photo of Golub by Megen Vo.

Can The Fire Still Burn?

We're excited to see what Golub does at FriendFeed, though his distinct work will likely be harder to discern than it was when he was an outsider. When Marco Kaiser, creator of the very popular Twitter interface Twhirl, was the subject of a hire/acquire by video chat service Seesmic in April - we said the coming together offered a vision of the future of the web. That may be, but Twhirl releases feel different now and the app is being replaced on the desktops of many early adopters by the insurgent Tweetdeck. What will happen to these fireball projects once they are brought into the fold? We hope that at least some of the fire will still burn, but at the very least it's evident that offering and building on an API are good ways to find good developers from around the world and a good way to get a job if you are a very good developer.

Twitter Novels: Not Big Success Stories Yet
Read/WriteWeb | Weblog 03 09 2008

In Japan, mobile phone novels called "keitai shousetus" have become so successful that they accounted for half of the ten best-selling novels in 2007. Here in the Western world several would-be novelists are attempting to use Twitter to create the same phenomenon. Some of the novels tweeted so far have been interesting and engaging, but others, sadly, appear to be abandoned. Will micro-format fiction ever take off here as it did in Japan?

Twitter Novels

Smallplaces - a Twitter novel written by news media editor/novelist N.L. Belardes.

Slice - A novel put out by Penguin Books was the story of a girl and her parents and was delivered by serialized LiveJournal and Twitter postings. (our coverage) Novelsin3lines - From Félix Fénéon, these tweets are the "poems and novels and novels he never otherwise wrote."

GoodCaptain - The completed novel "The Good Captain," was a story by Jay Bushman and was based on "Benito Cereno" by Herman Melville. Mrichtel - Matthew Richtel, NY Times reporter, is experimenting with Twitter as a place to write a real-time thriller. His is about a man who wakes up with amnesia and has a haunting feeling he is a murderer.

3MIAB - UK T-Shirt shop conceptTshirts started twittering a novel called "Three Men in a Boat," but seemed to have given up a year ago. 140novel - A Twitter novel created by Molly Wood, Tom Merritt, and Jason Howell of CNET's Buzz Out Loud podcast alongside Leo Laporte, who suggested the idea when he was guest on their show one day. (Read the whole thing here).

DailyLit - This online book club site which lets you read books via email or RSS recently added Twitter reading groups, too. Now you can read the following novels via Twitter and more will become available when these are completed.

TwitterID: DailyLitMagicK
Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
TwitterID: DailyLitPride
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
TwitterID: DailyLitSucceed
Tom Peters's 100 Ways to Succeed/Make Money

Unfortunately, they seem to have missed the concept of the Twitter novel altogether and are using Twitter to link to their web site instead:

Twittories - a collaborative effort where anyone can contribute to a Twitter novel that only runs for 140 entries. An author can only submit one entry per "twittory." Read the first Twittory here. Quillpill - Write your own Twitter novel! Quillpill novels aren't actually on Twitter itself, but use the app's Twitter-like 140-character-like system. You're encouraged to write and read novels from your call phone and they offer both a mobile and iPhone version.(our coverage)

Big in Japan Doesn't Mean Big Everywhere

Some of these efforts have been fun to follow, like 140novel and the latest "Twiller" from Matt Richtel, but could it be that they already have appeal because of the well-known personas of the authors? In Japan, the cell phone novels are making stars out of unlikely authors - like high school girls, for example, who were writing the short fiction in between their classes. Would a Twitter novel written by an unknown have the same appeal here? So far, we don't have a true winner yet. Perhaps this is one trend that doesn't translate?

Twitter Novels: Not Big Success Stories Yet
Read/WriteWeb | Weblog 02 09 2008

Twitter Novels

Smallplaces - a Twitter novel written by news media editor/novelist N.L. Belardes.

TwitterID: DailyLitMagicK
Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
TwitterID: DailyLitPride
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
TwitterID: DailyLitSucceed
Tom Peters's 100 Ways to Succeed/Make Money

Unfortunately, they seem to have missed the concept of the Twitter novel altogether and are using Twitter to link to their web site instead:

Big in Japan Doesn't Mean Big Everywhere

Nokia to launch music service for mobiles
Megite Technology News 02 09 2008

Nokia, the world's largest mobile phone maker, is planning to launch its new mobile music service in the UK next month, and will extend it to continental Europe and Asia next year. (Read on Source)

Government committed to improving access to communication
AfricaNews | Web log 02 09 2008 Replies: 0Last poster: Richard Chirombo at 02-09-2008 12:49Topic is OpenMalawi's government has vowed to make communication available to all, in the quest to improve the country's access to communication ratio.Civic Education and Information Minister, Patricia Kaliati, says that is why her ministry encourages mobile phone service providers…

Growth in Symbian Phone Sales Continues to Slow
CIO.com | News 02 09 2008 Mobile phone OS developer Symbian's growth continues to slow down, the company reported on Wednesday.

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