We launched this in the past and I did not notice it was reviewed!

I still remember we all had a great time designing this, and thanks to Lavinia, Guido, Mauro, and Adam!

Momo Design MD-300H from higui on Vimeo.

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I Was An Engineer
HSPA Data Cards

These are some interesting links I would like to share.

• Icones.pro, la plus grande collection d'images PNG et d'icônes –
• 50 Useful Tools and Generators for Easy CSS Development : Speckyboy Design Magazine –
• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
• The 50 Best Premium WordPress Themes – Nice collection of premium wordpress themese
• 40 High-quality and Free Icon Sets – A nice collection of free icons set

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Bookmarks for September 4th
Bookmarks for June 20th through June 24th
Bookmarks for January 30th

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No related posts

Just to be clear from the beginning: I am definitely a big fan of Android Devices.

Android

I have played a lot with the first G1 device, went through the HTC Magic and I am now playing with a Samsung Galaxy device.

Anyway I think that all of the vendors out there are missing a huge opportunity.

We all understand, hopefully, the mobile phones market dynamics. When the G1 hit the market I was thinking that HTC was putting a milestone. We have been the very first company to deliver a commercial Android device to the market. I am fine with that and I understand why it has to be done.

Was the G1 a good device? It was because it was the first device with Android. It wasn’t because of materials that looked cheap compared to other HTC devices on the market at the same time (e.g. HTC Diadmond, jut to name one).

Since then I have seen every single mobile phone manufacturer on the planet planning Android devices to be launched, sooner or later.

Did they introduce something new on those devices?

This is the sad part of the story: the answer is no.

They basically took a vanilla version of Android and started building their device around that. They have great support from chipsets manufacturers, they have the OS and that’s all they need to bring and Android device to the market.

The main point I want to make is: you have an open operating system that you may customize as much as you want and you deliver the standard implementation to the market?

HTC hit the milestone to bring the fist Android device to the market and it should be time to bring something different.

Android devices are not going to be cheap, at least in the next six month. They need quite a lot of processing power and this is going to cost money. If handset manufacturer will not focus on innovating around Android we will see the usual fight for low prices with no innovation.

At this point in time I think we can say that Android is still a big missed opportunity.

On the bright side I think there are plenty of opportunities for third parties company to deliver innovative Android User Interfaces and applications.

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This is the speech I gave yesterday at the ExperienceCamp09 in Milan.

I had a wonderful time and I wish to thank Luca Mascaro, Nicola Mattina and Stefano Mizzella for being such great hosts.

Guys, see you next time!

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Sometimes I happen to miss something relevant.

This is a fantastic concept and application. Something I would like to investigate for the future of mobile applications.

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I have been working into Innovation for a long time and part of my day job was trying to understand which side use our customers could make of the technology, product or service I was analyzing.

iPhone Baby Monitor

One of the golden rules is that users are always more creative than you. They will always find different ways to make an effective user of your technology, product or service. Sometimes the way you product is used is very far from your original concept.

Take Twitter as an example. The service was launched to allow the user to answer a simple question: “What are you doing?”.

Over time Twitter has evolved and now you can check if your plant needs water, you can monitor stocks, you can be alerted of calendar events or you can even unlock doors with a simple twit. I am sure that Twitter creators were not thinking about these applications when they conceived the service.

Yesterday night I was browsing the Apple application store and found an interesting application: Baby Monitor.

This is the description of the application coming from the developer web site:

Monitor your sleeping baby with this iPhone app. Simply place the iPhone near your sleeping baby, if it detects noise, it places a phone call to the number of your choice, you can then listen in for activity from your baby.

Isn’t this cool? Yes it is.

Ok. Let’s have a closer look at the application description:

• Place the iPhone near your sleeping baby. This is the original use of the application. The first thought I had is that I can place the iPhone in a meeting room, anywhere in my house, or in a bag that someone can bring with him.
• It detects noise and place a phone call. This means that I can receive a call whenever someone starts a conversation in the meeting room, or answer a phone call in the living room and so on.
• You can then listen in for activity from your baby. I can listen to conversations happening in any of the places I have described before.

We can now rephrase the original sentence:

Monitor your subject with this device. Simply place the device near the subject you want to monitor, if it detects noise, it places a phone call to the number of your choice, you can then listen in for activity from your subject.

Isn’t this the perfect description of a spy device?

As you can see this application was original built to help parents monitor their child when you are traveling but it can also be used for more nasty activities. I am pretty much sure that developers has were never thinking about this nasty applications.

Something you may want to consider when thinking about your next iPhone application.

Actually from a quick investigation I did the very same kind of application is available for almost any open Operating System mobile phone.

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I think that 2009 is going to be a very interesting year for mobile phones.

Actually there are five things that are gaining momentum in most mobile phone manufacturers programs:

1. Touch User Interfaces. It is no doubt that Apple with iPhone has set a trend. Every single vendor is going to offer a variety of touch mobile phones in 2009. Implementations will vary from proprietary RTOS to Windows Mobile and Android. This will somehow change the rule of the game. In past years everybody was trying to reach the smallest form factor for a 3G phone while now, touch User Interfaces will require much more real estate to provide the customer with a great User Experience. From a technical standpoint touch mobile phones will be faster than they predecessors since they will (usually) require more processing power. The challenge will be on battery life and User Experience. Unfortunately developers will have to deal with a greater level of fragmentation since no standard exists today for touch management.
2. Application Store. This will be one of the greatest trend. A lot of manufacturer are working on this and some of them have already announced their willing to implement this for their mobiles. Unfortunately I do not think they will be able to have the same success Apple had with their Application Store. The main reason is that payment is already highly integrated in the iPhone experience while all the other will have to find a way to bill the customer. Whichever method they will chose it will be less friendly than the one Apple uses today. As of today I think that the closest experience is the one coming from Android.
3. Android. It is definitely emerging as an alternative to high end operating systems like Symbian and Windows Mobile.
4. Social applications. From the launch of the INQ1 mobile phone every vendor is going to implement some sort of strategy to address this area. This requires a paradigm shift in both mobile phone manufacturers and operators. We will see how well they will execute.
5. Applications and Services. Everybody seems to be interested in launching their independent set of applications and services. Still to be verified how operators will handle this. The risk is that the customer is going to pay.

[Photo credit: fore]

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This is one of the most interesting things I have seen recently. The video says it all.

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These are some interesting links I would like to share.

• Where Real Innovation Happens – This is a great article. A must read.
• Toshiba TG01 with 4.1-inch WVGA touchscreen: a world's first Snapdragon – Engadget Mobile – This is a fantastic device!
• Put Google on your Business Cards – Brilliant ideas for a business card.
• The myth of width: When wide screens don't work | Crave – CNET – I cannot agree more on this… I definitely hate my 17 inch home laptop and switched a long time ago to a 15 inch MacBook Pro.
• PI: NoLogo/ Il Controllo – One the best things I have read recently… Very passionate.

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Yesterday Toshiba announced their TG01 product, a WindowsMobile 6.1 smartphone.

Toshiba TG01

Let’s have a look at the basic specs:

• 4.1 inches WVGA touchscreen color display
• GSM, HSDPA, WiFi, GPS
• MicroSDHC slot up to 32Gb
• 720p HD Video Playback

Fine, you will say, why are you so excited about this?

Well, the answer is: I definitely think that something is going to change in the mobile market after the release of this device.

The first thing, and the most important thing, is that this device is based on the new Snapdragon QSD2850 chipset from Qualcomm.

I have been working very closely with Qualcomm in the past years, they provide us with the chipsets for most of our local projects, and I have always been impressed by these guys. They have a vision and they can definitely execute on promise.

I first heard about Snapdragon about 15 months ago and I was impressed by the vision that Qualcomm had on the subject and by the power of the chipset itself. The basic idea behing Snapdragon is to build a new and efficient processor core with best of class 3G connectivity.

It is interesting to quote what Qualcomm writes on their website about Snapdragon:

Combine a 1GHz processor core, our sixth generation DSP and 3G connectivity with ultra-low power consumption to create new mobile devices with the performance to revolutionize the world of mobile computing. The Qualcomm Snapdragon platform empowers a new generation of Pocketable Computing Devices (PCDs) and Mobile Computing Devices (MCDs) that deliver real-time ubiquitous communication, high performance multimedia, location-aware content, full Internet browsing and productivity applications, all with the lowest levels of power consumption for all-day battery life.

When you deal with Qualcomm you know that this is not only marketing stuff. They are talking about real products.

Let’s have a look at the Snapdragon specs:

• 1GHz CPU
• 600MHz DSP
• Support for Linux® and Windows Mobile®
• WWAN, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity
• Seventh-generation gpsOne® engine for Standalone-GPS and Assisted-GPS modes, as well as gpsOneXTRA™ Assistance
• High definition video decode (720P)
• 3D graphics with up to 22M triangles/sec and 133M 3D pixels/sec
• High resolution XGA display support
• 12-megapixel camera
• Support for multiple video codecs
• Audio codecs: (AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, FR, EFR, HR, WB-AMR, G.729a, G.711 , AAC stereo encode)
• Support for Broadcast TV (MediaFLO™, DVB-H and ISDB-T)
• Fully tested, highly-integrated solution including baseband, software, RF, PMIC, Bluetooth, Broadcast & Wi-Fi

They are definitely impressive.

You will probably say that this specs are not much different from any Intel Atom processor on the market.

That is true but there are a few things that make Snapdragon absolutely stunning:

• Snapdragon has 3G, HSDPA and WiFi connectivity on board.
• A-GPS is part of the core.
• Broadcast TV Support.
• A high efficiency DSP processor in the core.
• Support for up to XGA display
• An extremely low power consumption

This kind of approach paves the way for smaller devices since device manufacturer will not have the need to put on the board additional chips for advanced functionality. Almost everything you can dream as a customer is already in there.

As a direct consequence, price will be lower since the BOM will have less components.

The low power consumption will, finally, make these kind of devices really usable for more than a day. I had the opportunity to see a demo of the chipset and, even if I cannot disclose the real data, I can say that it really consumes a lot less compared to its nearest competitors.

Less power also means less heat to dissipate. This will lead to better electronic design and, finally, more usable devices.

During the demo I saw we had this reference design playing a high definition 720p video. I was asked to put my finger on the Snapdragon chipset. Well, if you ever tried to do that on a standard microprocessor you can rest sure that you will have left your fingerprint on the chip due to heat. Snapdragon was only warm and not hot at all.

Kudos to both Toshiba and Qualcomm.

In the recent past I had some concerns about Mobile Internet Devices or Pocketable Computing Devices as Qualcomm calls them. I was thinking that they were too close to a mobile phone and too far from a netbook to be successfull.
I have changed my mind. With this new kind of architecture you may really bring the power of a netbook in the form factor of a mobile phone.

As of today the Snapdragon chipset will support Windows Mobile and Linux even if Qualcomm already announced that will have also Android on the list of supported Operating Systems.

Sure, if the Toshiba TG01 was an Android smartphone that would have been perfect. We will wait and see.

One last word on the TG01. As you have read it is a Windows Mobile 6.1 device. On top of the standard Windows Mobile UI Toshiba has developed their own UI just like we have seen on HTC devices. This is a great choice but, gain, I think it is time for Microsoft to provide its OEMs with something more appealing.

Finally I would say that this is the first real competitor to the Apple iPhone.. if it only was Android…

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Since I had the Apple iPhone in my gadgets list I have to say that I have been very impressed by the AppStore.

It is definitely a quantum leap in application distribution.

iPhone AppStore

In the past we had only a few means to distribute applications on a mobile device:

• Pre install the application on the mobile device. This is something that only an handset manufacturer or an operator can do. Everybody in the industry knows that this a pain. You need to plan this kind of distribution with great advance and most of the time you end up pre installing a boostrap application that downloads and install the real application at the customer first use of the application itself. Moreover you will not get any money for this. The advantage of this method is that all of the customer base for that particular mobile phone will get the application but you do not have any guarantee they will use it.
• The other provisioning mechanism is sending a message (SMS/MMS) to the customer with a link which the customer may check in his browser and download the application from there. One of the major problems with this kind of distribution is the fact that the redemption is usually very low.
• In a similar way to the previous one you may put link to the application on your mobile portal and wait for customers to download and install it. Again, very low redemption.
• Several handsets manufacturer have tried to put on their devices an application catalog (e.g. Nokia) and this was one approach quite close to the one that Apple took with the AppStore. The point is that there was no business model attached to this or, at least, quite loosey-goosey. You install a trial application and then get an activation code from the web (mobile or fixed).
• For business customers and open operating system you may provision applications over the air using some sort of device management software but this will not definitely scale. At least for the masses.
• Finally you can shop for applications online (e.g. on sites like Handango) and the provision your mobile phone using your personal computer.

As you can see looking at these applications distributions models the operator is out of control for most of them. Operators do not really know what customers are going to install on their mobiles. The only perception they have is the data traffic that may be generated by some applications and by which they get money for.

Now let’s have a look at the mobile phone. If you install an application on a non open Operating System (e.g. Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc.) the application is probably a Java application that will be placed in a non organized list in the Java Application Launcher that in most cases is well hidden inside the mobile phone MMI.

You need to have a strong will to use that application since to launch it you will need at least three or four clicks.

Smarter phones will allow you to put your application in the upper levels of your menu structure making is easier to find and launch installed applications.

With the AppStore, and the iPhone, Apple has solved both of these issues:

• All applications are put at the main level of the MMI. Somehow we can say that all applications are created equal.
• There is a simple and unifed way to purchase and pay for applications. A user name and a password is all that you need.
• All applications are backed up on your personal computer making it easier to manage them.
• Developers have a unified Business Model to make money from their application. You get 70% of the application price and Apple gets 30%. As you can see from this model the operator is out of the game and has no control on this.
• Even if some criticism has emerged only approved applications will make their way through the AppStore. Yes, Apple has complete control on that but from a customer standpoint it is a guarantee that the application should comply with some quality and security standards.
• Users have the option to provide the developer with feedback and that feedback will be public and integrated with the AppStore itself. This is something I definitely like even if you will have alway to cope with personal opinions.

So it seems that Apple has done it right.

The question now is: is this approach usable on different mobile phones? Can low end mobile phone have the very same approach to application distribution?

My answer is yes, even if with some caveats:

• From a technical standpoint it is possible to move Java application out of the Java Application Launcher and place them anywhere in the mobile phone MMI.
• It is definitely possible to develop an application store with the same rewarding model for both developers and operators and mobile phone manufacturer.
• The main issue is that we may see a lot of different stores coming from differente companies leading to a fragmentation of the market. There will be no single point of reference for mobile applications and at the very same time you will not have a single, simple and efficient way to shop and pay for your applications.

Google is going to launch his own application store for Android. In this case the model is a little bit different from Apple. The developer will get 70% of the revenue while the operator will get 30%. In this particular case the operator will still be in the game.

Anyway the developer will have the option to distribute his application outside of the application store ecosystem implementing his own billing mechanism and so getting 100% of the revenue from his application.

From a customer perspective this is going to be a little bit more dangerous. Usually the iPhone is sold with flat data plan that allows to consume some bandwith on a per month basis. Customers do not really care about how much their application consumes in term of data transfer since they are on top of this flat data plan. This may greatly vary on all of the other customers.

There may be surprises for these customers.

I definitely think that Apple has signed a milestone in this area and I am sure that 2009 will see the rise of other application stores for mobile devices even if I think that Apple will still win hands down.

What will be the operator role in this is still to be seen.

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On November 21st, 2008 Research In Motion ltd launched their BlackBerry Storm flagship product.

According to what I can read RIM spent almost two years on this project in a tentative to build a strong iPhone competitor.

I have been working in the mobile phone ecosystem long enough to know that two years is not really a great amount of time to design and deliver an innovative piece of hardware and software. Nevertheless it is not the most challenging timing I have ever seen on a mobile prhone program. It seems just a fair amount of time.

BlackBerry Storm

This is why I have been suprised to read two articles from Engadget and the Wall Street Journal:

• BlackBerry Storm is off to bit of a bumpy start
• RIM CEO: buggy smartphones software is the “new reality”

It seems that RIM spent almost 100 milions USD in the marketing campaign for this device. This is quite reasonable since you want to compete with Apple and iPhone, and Christmas campaign is critical for volumes.

As the Wall Street Journal writes, “people familiar with the matter say that the company sold roughly 500.000 units in the first month”. Great, mission accomplished.

Well, not really.

People started to compain about buggy software and sluggish perfomances.

RIM soon released a new version of the device software that solved some of the issues of the first commercial software but it seems that people still complain.

I think that the most important thing in the Wall Street Journal article is what Mr Jim Balsillie, RIM co-Chief Executive, says about what happened:

the companies made the crucial Black Friday deadline “by the skin of their teeth,” after missing a planned October debut. Mr. Balsillie said such scrambles — and the subsequent software glitches that need to be fixed — are part of the “new reality” of making complex cellphones in large volumes.

RIM has been famous for delivering high quality products to the market and in the past we have not read many complaints about the quality of their products. They are also a big company with a huge team of professionals at every level of the organization.

I would say that what RIM has experienced here is the classic transition from keyboard to touch. It’s a mind shift for every mobile phone manufacturer. It is definitely a hard task to design, develop, test and deliver a completely new touch User Interface and User Experience. Touch based devices are a totally different ball game compared to key based devices, and a much tougher one.

Maybe RIM has made some mistakes and has probably been too keen to accept defects to be included in a commercial software build but I am sure they have done their best.

Sure, we may have the suspect that the approach “Deliver and we’ll fix that later” has been used here.

I am a surprised to hear a CEO saying that this approach is the “new reality”. A many of us may know this is not something new but it something you are not willing to say to your customers. I understand that RIM gave exclusivity on the device to many operators worldwide and that they had to meet deadlines and commitment with them. But, at least, “keep the secrete” and put in place a recovery plan in the form of a software maintenance release. This is not new practice in the industry.

The main question to answer is “Why did Mr Balsillie said that?”. I do not have the answer.

As a last consideration I would say, based on my own personal experience on the field, that the perception of usability in a touch device is much more subjective that in keyboard based phones. The truth is probably in the middle.

[Update - January 28th]

I read from gadgetsonthego.net that Verizon has just announced 1 million BlackBerry Storm sold from the official launch to date. At some degree this cannot bee defined as a “bumpy start”.

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links for 2007-08-06

A few months ago I was intrigued by the concept of spime.

What is a spime?

In simple words a spime is an object that is aware of his position, is able to collect data from the physical world (e.g. CO2 level, noise, etc), has some sort of memory to store read data, and communication capabilities to send the data stored.

On the other side there should be an infrastructure capable of retrieving all the data collected by spimes, store it and make it available to anyone who is concerned.

If we think at the definition of spime it is quite easy to think at our mobile phones as potential spimes candidates. Most of them are able to gather location data through their GPS sensor, they have memory to store data and they can communicate with the internet through their packet switch connection.
As you can see there is only one element missing in the picture:sensors. What kind of data is a standard mobile phone able to collect from the environment?

Well, there is one obvious answer: noise! All of our mobile phone have a microphone and they are able to capture sounds from the environment and sample them to convert from analog to digital. Some mobile phones, like the iPhone, allow the developer to have a little bit more information. On the iPhone you can measure the level of the sound coming from the microphone. May applications use this kind of technology: Ocarina, just to say one.

It seems that an iPhone may become a perfect spime.

There comes the idea of Widenoise. Widenoise is an iPhone applications that samples the noise around you, gather your location and let you send the collected sample to the cloud. At the very same time it is able to show you a map of your area and display other collected data, if there is one.

So your iPhone has become actually a spime and, at the very same time, it is a consumer of data collected by other spimes. In some way you are making noise a social thing.

I definitely think this is one of the most innovative applications I have see on the iPhone and I had no problem at all giving the guys at www.widetag.com the 1.99 USD they charge for the application. The application has also a fantastic look and feel for the price.

Again, the mobile phone may be the perfect spime, but with limitations. Its capablity of collecting informations from the physical world is very limited. Noise, as we have seen is a great examples, speed may be another one in particular situation. Unfortunately you are not able to measure the levels of CO2, or temperature, or level of rain. It is quite possible that in the future may emerge from the market devices with these capabilities.

I would like to make some additional considerations.

I think that the concept of spime is definitely social and based on collaboration from entities the are not coupled. You sample the physical world and send the data back to the cloud using your own device and resources. Well, this is, at least, what happens with Widenoise.

We have seen that the mobile phone may be the perfect spime but it is missing the hardware to gather data from the physical world.

I can imagine sensors deployed in the physical world with some sort of short range communications capability (e.g. bluetooth). When a mobile phone comes in range the sensor may ask the phone to couple with him to be a temporary spime, offering the sensor GPS location data, storage and communication. As a user I would be happy to offer my device and a few cents of my phone bill to allow the data to be collect and sent.

You may find some more informations on the subject here:

• Widenoise. The official web site.
• Widetag, Inc.. The first company that makes of the Internet of things their core business. I had the opportunity to meet with some of the founders in the past and they are all brilliant guys.
• The post from Leandro Agro’, one of the founders of Widetag, on the release of Widenoise.
• OpenSpime.com and OpenSpime.org

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