Rheinische Post, 10 October 2010. Translated excerpts: Germany is significantly behind other countries in hotspot deployment, said Bitkom president August-Wilhelm Scheer. One reason is the uncertain legal situation. That refers to the operators of Wi-Fi hotspots having to register their users. This leads to uncertainty, according to Bitkom, particularly with smaller vendors such as cafes, as they can expect to be held liable for illegal downloads by their guests. Currently, there are in Germany 18 Wi-Fi hotspots per 100,000 inhabitants. Thus in the international rankings Germany was in 15th place behind countries such as Portugal and Belgium. At the top is Sweden with 85 Wi-Fi hotspots per 100,000 population, followed by Switzerland with 74, Ireland 58, France with 47 and Britain with 46. The United States has more than 23 hotspots per 100,000 population, placing them at 10th place..."

by Jens Zander, The Unwired People, 6 October 2010: "Watch this Nokia video! A somewhat wide definition, maybe, since it considers 'cognition' (=smart, intelligent) in general and not only with respect to spectrum allocation..."

ictQatar, 10 October 2010: "The Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR) is seeking views and comments from interested parties on its proposed Radio Spectrum Policy for the State of Qatar. ... ictQATAR will carefully consider all submissions received through the public consultation process in finalizing the Policy. The closing date for comments is November 28, 2010. Comments can be sent via email on consult@ict.gov.qa or by courier..."

by E. Parton and H. de Groot, European Medical Device Technology, October 2010: "...Once wireless sensor nodes become mainstream, a multitude of new applications will emerge. The sensor nodes can be integrated into an array of products including blankets, car seats and clothing. A baseball cap with integrated EEG sensors could continuously measure the brain activity of an epilepsy patient, for example (Figure 2). A shirt could double as an ECG monitor. The possibilities are endless..."

Conventional wisdom suggests buying into the convenience and performance of converged infrastructure means buying into the dreaded vendor lock-in problem. As it turns out, however, that doesn’t have to be the case — Dell and Egenera are two players leading the charge for open converged infrastructure.

by Sean Poulter, The Daily Mail, 10 October 2010: "...A warning that Apple's popular iPhone should be kept at least 15mm away from the body is buried deep inside the manual. BlackBerry goes even further, saying customers should use their devices hands-free or keep them an inch from the body 'including the abdomen of pregnant women and the lower abdomen of teenagers'. Again, this advice is hidden in the instruction booklet. All other manufacturers, including Nokia and HTC, carry similar small-print warnings despite insisting that holding mobiles against the ear and head is harmless..."

by Jeff McDaniels, VoltsXamps.com, 8 October 2010: "...The wifi router needs to be able to support the open source Linux firmware. This firmware will replace the original firmware and give the router much, much, much more options and features that it did not have with the original firmware. Like being able to repeat any open wifi signals automatically. And yes, you still have an online browser based control panel..."

Rovio Mobile, the Helsinki, Finland-based company behind the hit iPhone game, Angry Birds has no immediate plans to launch a Windows 7 version of the game anytime soon, the company tweeted  this morning. It seems Microsoft has placed an icon of Angry Birds on their site without talking to the Finnish game maker.

“We have NOT committed to doing a Windows Phone 7 version. Microsoft put the Angry Birds icon on their site without our permission.”

Angry Birds has become one of the must-have games on all mobile platforms. It’s currently one of the best-selling apps on Apple’s iOS platform, and is also available for the Palm’s WebOS (s hpq) devices. A full version of the game will be available for Symbian devices, including the new Nokia N8 (s nok),powered by Symbian^3 OS. So far, Angry Birds Lite is available for Android and Symbian OS. A beta version of the game for  Google’s Android OS has attracted over a million downloads.

Related GigaOM Pro Content:

• Needed: A Neiman Marcus for Mobile Apps
• Microsoft’s Mobile Gaming Strategy is a Mistake
• Will Killer Apps Affect Which Handsets Consumers Buy?

by Travis Larchuk, US National Public Radio, 9 October 2010: "...Free Public WiFi isn't set up like most wireless networks people use to get to the Internet. Instead, it's an 'ad hoc' network - meaning when a user selects it, he or she isn't connecting to a router or hot spot, but rather directly to someone else's computer in the area. Though it doesn't actually provide Internet access, the network has spread across the country thanks to an old Windows XP bug..."

by Rik Fairlie, New York Times' Personal Tech blog, 8 October 2010: "The politicians have it all wrong. We are not addicted to foreign oil. We are addicted to Wi-Fi, the wireless networking technology that holds our youth in its wavy grip. How bad is it? Seventy-five percent of American respondents to a survey sponsored by the Wi-Fi Alliance said that a week without Wi-Fi would leave grumpier than a week without coffee or tea..."

most web companies publish detailed post-mortems on site interruptions. These are usually an attempt to appease impatient customers and share a lesson the company learned. The write-ups by Facebook and Foursquare provide a few business and technical lessons that we should note.

"ACMA developing spectrum trading site," by Josh Taylor, ZDNet.com.au, 8 October 2010: "The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) is aiming to simplify Australia's spectrum trading and leasing market with a number of new initiatives, including a new online system for spectrum trading..."

When Wired launched its magazine app for the iPad in May, it got a wave of publicity — in part because it was the first, and also because it released a gee-whiz video pointing out how the ads actually moved, and so on. But now there are more and more iPad magazine apps every day, with Esquire’s only the latest example from the Hearst empire, and one thing is becoming clear: publishers mostly just want you to look at their content, and are hoping that you will forget all about the Internet and social media and all of those irritating things that get in between you and the consumption of their wonderful content.

Everyone talks about how what publishers love about apps is the ability to charge readers for their content again, especially now that Apple says it will allow them to charge subscriptions. But the app economy marks — for now at least — a return to the good old days when the walled-garden approach to publishing was the norm, and the Internet was just some pesky chat room for nerds. Wired’s app provides a slick interface to the magazine, but no way of actually sharing it, or of linking it to related content somewhere else — not even to Wired’s own website. It’s like an interactive CD-ROM from the 1990s.

The new Esquire app also has plenty of “interactivity,” if by that you mean the ability to click and watch an ad for a new Lexus, or listen to cover boy Javier Bardem recite a Spanish poem, or swipe your finger and watch a timeline of the construction of the new World Trade Center. All of those are very cool — but if you are looking for the kind of interactivity that allows you to post a comment on a story, or to share a link via Twitter, or to post anything to a blog and then link back to the magazine, you are out of luck. In fact, if you like the app or any of the stories within it, your only option is to close the app completely and then email someone to tell them that you liked it.

Esquire editor David Granger admits in his editor’s letter for the inaugural iPad issue that magazine apps are “a mixed bag” so far. “They’re convenient, I guess, but boy, some of the added features are either stupid or annoying,” he says — while assuring the reader that the Esquire app is “pretty good [and] it’s certainly not annoying.” I’m going to have to take issue with him there, however; I found it quite annoying in a number of ways.

To take just a few examples, it isn’t clear that you need to tap on the screen once in order to remove the table of contents, which obscures the text and can’t be moved. And whenever you click on the cover image, you have to watch a Lexus ad, or click the “close” button, even if you have seen the ad already. Also, when you click on the Bardem story, it’s not obvious that you have to swipe down to see the rest, rather than swiping to the right (which moves to the next story). If you swipe right and then go back, you get the ad again. And the ad itself, which is a movie clip, first appears as a tiny square, so you have to tap on it and then use the pinch-expand motion to enlarge it — and while the magazine is only viewable in portrait mode, the ad is designed to be viewed in landscape mode.

But even those are mostly just design irritations — the biggest flaw for me is the total lack of acknowledgment that the device this content appears on is part of the Internet, and therefore it is possible to connect the content to other places with more information about a topic, or related material of any kind, let alone any kind of social features that allow readers to share the content with their friends. Some magazines have made some tentative steps in this direction, but so far they are few and far between. Meanwhile, Flipboard and Pulse have taken Twitter and Facebook and RSS and turned them into magazines — and much more appealing ones in many ways.

About the only magazine that has taken any kind of creative steps in this direction with its iPad app is Gourmet magazine, which used the services of Anil Dash’s Activate design consultancy to come up with an interesting experiment: the Gourmet Live magazine app is what Dash calls a “massively multiplayer magazine.” As you read the contents — and share them via Twitter and Facebook — you gain points and thereby “unlock” new content, in the same way a player would in World of Warcraft. The content that is unlocked in some cases is a profile of a specific person or a set of related recipes.

I’m not convinced that the Gourmet Live approach is going to appeal to readers, but at least they are trying something different — and they are taking advantage of being connected to social media and the Internet, instead of trying to pretend it doesn’t exist.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• How to Make Google Matter in Social Media
• Will Games Help Google Figure Out How to Be Social?
• Why Google Should Fear the Social Web

by Barbara E. Hernandez, PC World, 8 October 2010: "The major player is Gogo Inflight Wireless, a wireless provider that serves 15 airlines including AirTran, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, United, US Airways, and Virgin America. It was started in 2008 by Aircell. Gogo offers different rates based on the length of the trip: from $4.95 for a single flight of up to 90 minutes, $9.95 for a flight lasting between 90 minutes and 3 hours, and $12.95 for a flight longer than three hours. However, frequent fliers can buy discounted access from its website..."

A lack of easy discoverability plagues the mobile app world with each new title that comes to market. But operators who can help solve that problem have a chance to regain their relevance in the exploding space — if they keep in mind four useful tips.

Android phone maker Motorola released not one but six new Android phones this week. The new smartphones cover a wide range of forms and target audiences, from the Kin-like Spice to the enterprise-ready Droid Pro. The new phones will be divvied up between AT&T and Verizon, and look to augment Motorola’s successful Droid line currently with Verizon. Two of the phones (Spice and Citrus) have introduced a new BACKTRACK panel, a small touchpad on the back of the phone to make navigation on the home screen easier.

Hackers looking to modify the system software of the newly released T-Mobile G2 discovered the phone has hardware that detects such modifications and removes them automatically. The G2 can be “rooted,” the first step in customizing the software in the phone’s firmware, but that change is quickly reverted back to the standard system software by hardware in the phone. This is a first in the smartphone world, and since Android is an open-source software system, the enthusiasts who are unable to customize the G2 aren’t very happy with this new development. If this method of onboard software protection is successful at stopping custom ROMs from being used on the G2, it’s likely we’ll see it appear on other handsets in the future.

Firefox fans who want to use the browser on Android smartphones have a reason to be happy: Firefox released its first Android beta. We found mobile Firefox to be worth watching in the future, but not quite ready for prime time. Our review of Firefox for Android points out slow performance and web page rendering issues that mar an otherwise decent first effort by the folks at Mozilla.

At CTIA, Motorola showed off its new Android app MotoPrint, which allows users to print from an Android device to a networked PostScript printer. MotoPrint will help those users for whom Android smartphones are becoming their primary computing device.

Good Technology noted that Android devices are making their way into the enterprise, with the Droid X ranking among the company’s top five new activations utilizing its enterprise-level services.

Adobe AIR for Android was released on Friday, which Ryan Kim notes “will allow Flash developers to build desktop, browser, iOS and now Android device apps that work off the same source code. Working with Flash tools, they can easily package an existing application for Android with minimal work.”

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• Why Google Launched App Inventor
• Rogue Devices: The Consumer Influence on Enterprise Mobility, Part 1
• Transient Apps: The Consumer Influence on Enterprise Mobility, Part 2

Amazon’s rumored Android Store, which is still not official yet, could add confusion and more work to the lives of developers. But in talking to some Android developers, they see a lot of potential in the new store and improved prospects for selling apps, which says a lot about the current state of Android Market. Make no mistake, even if Google had done a better job establishing, supporting and marketing its Android app marketplace, it might not have prevented Amazon, Verizon Wireless or other competitors from launching competing stores. If Google had spent more time on Android Market, those stores probably wouldn’t have as much interest from developers, many of whom are clamoring for an alternative that can make them more money.

“It remains to be seen if it’s good in the long run but what’s exciting is Amazon has proven the ability to move product,” said Ben Gottlieb, president of mobile app maker Stand Alone Inc. “It all depends on the implementation. But if they live up to what they say, we can make more money.”

That’s a real issue. Gottlieb, who sells a crossword app, says he makes 20-30 times more selling his apps in the App Store compared to Android Market. It’s gotten a little better lately, but it’s still discouraging trying to sell in Android Market, which has more than 80,000 apps. Developers like Gottlieb say the store needs more recommendation and discovery tools, more categories, a better check-out system and more marketing muscle. These are all things that Amazon could immediately address.

Arron La, maker of the Advanced Task Manager app, said Amazon could help ignite sales by giving better recommendation tips and making checkouts easier for users. He said Google Checkout can be a nightmare at times, sometimes charging people multiple times for one app. A reliable and familiar system like Amazon’s could prompt people to open up their wallets, something they don’t do that much of in the Android Market. He also hopes that Amazon will do more to promote apps and advertise its app store, which Google has shied away from.

Google, for its part, is working on a number of changes, including a new web-based Android Market and a reported deal with PayPal (s ebay) for payments. And it just expanded the number of countries that can buy paid apps.Even with those improvements, La feels better about Amazon because the company seems more committed to making money, something Google seems less interested in. Google claims it doesn’t make any money from Android Market.

“Once you have the right things in place and you get that ecosystem going, you can definitely make money out of it,” he said. “But that’s been what’s hurting Android Market. Everyone using Google devices, they want and expect everything for free. When Google released Android market, they had no paid apps in the beginning.”

To be sure, an Amazon Android store or a similar market from Verizon Wireless could be a headache for developers. Developers would have to get in the habit of submitting and updating apps in multiple markets. Users might get confused as to who to turn to for apps or support. Amazon will have the ability to turn down apps and has stated it won’t approve offensive or pornographic content. It could lead to some gripes from developers about rejected apps, similar to complaints about the App Store, and it’s unclear if it will be as easy as one click to buy an app and get it on an Android device.

If Amazon proves to be a real player in the app market, expect a lot of developers to look Amazon’s way. They’ll be happy to get something closer to an App Store experience for their apps. “Apple is about the making the whole experience pleasant while Google is just focused on getting the job done and it’s not always pretty,” Gottlieb said. “Amazon is somewhere in between and it’s definitely closer to Apple than Google.”

Related research from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Why Google Launched App Inventor
• Is Amazon the New Self-Publish Kingpin?
• Why Carriers Still Hold the Key to Handset Sales

Sprint executives leave Clearwire board: I missed this story of a week ago until sensationalist headlines started to appear reading more into the tea leaves than the murky water at the bottom of the cup. Sprint is the majority owner of Clearwire. That remains the same. Sprint has the power to appoint seven of the 13 board positions. That remains the same. Four of the seven board members appointed by Sprint remain in place, and Sprint will nominate three replacements for its executives.

The issue appears to be concern over whether Clearwire and Sprint's business objectives diverge sufficiently that Sprint executives or employees would make decisions that could be construed as anticompetitive or even detrimental to Clearwire shareholders. The SEC, Congress, and other forces have been pushing since the Bush administration to require boards made up of independent directors who have little stake in the current management of a firm.

The issue of whether this signals a partnership with T-Mobile or dropping WiMax seems secondary to the larger antitrust problem. And, if the company were considering partnering with firms other than Sprint for ventures, Sprint employees would be required to recuse themselves constantly, which is awkward for governance. Google CEO Eric Schmidt left the Apple board in part because of the growing competition between Apple and Google, and how often he had to leave the room while business was discussed.

Whether WiMax continues to be Clearwire's 4G flavor of choice won't be directly decided by this move. Sprint and Clearwire still need to prove billions of dollars invested to buy spectrum and build out a network weren't for naught. The widespread affordable availability of LTE is still two or more years away. Verizon might be launching dozens of LTE markets this year, but the gear will be 1.0, power hungry, immature, and in limited varieties. Clearwire can't afford to wait on LTE, and will still be deploying WiMax even if it makes a technology decision to switch to LTE in the future.

InfoWorld's Galen Gruman makes a number of conclusions in his WiMax Is Now Likely to Die article that I disagree with. Sprint execs leaving the Clearwire board won't affect ownership of Clearwire by Sprint, nor the inter-tie contracts in place between the two for network use and roaming. However, the likelihood of all US carriers and most worldwide carriers converging on LTE seems ever more likely.

Copyright ©2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.

 

Yahoo plans to bring its popular Yahoo Messenger client to iPhone and Android phones, enabling FaceTime-like video chat conversations across multiple platforms, both mobile and PC. David Katz, Yahoo’s VP of Mobile for the Americas region, shared the news with Reuters, saying the apps are on their way soon to the iPhone and Android platforms, pending approval. The apps, which would operate on both 3G and Wi-Fi, would take advantage of new forward-facing cameras on devices like the iPhone 4, HTC EVO and Epic and the upcoming myTouch from T-Mobile.

The competition among mobile video chat providers is heating up. We just wrote about Tango, the latest mobile video chat client that tries to compete against Apple’s FaceTime, Fring and Qik. But a Yahoo Messenger client would offer the prospect of conducting video calls not only between mobile phones but also between mobile and PC-bound users. Yahoo reportedly has 81 million Yahoo Messenger users worldwide.

FaceTime has proven to be a popular feature of the iPhone 4 and a major marketing point for the device. However, the service only works between iPhone 4 — and now iPod touch — devices, and only over Wi-Fi. Tango and Fring have worked to reduce some of those limitations by enabling 3G and cross-platform interoperability, and it seems like users are excited about the prospect of more video chat capabilities on their phone. Tango shot up to No. 3 in the App Store in the U.S. on the free social networking category shortly after launching late last month.

It’s still hard to match the overall ease of use that FaceTime provides, which enjoys the advantage of being built right into iOS. If done well, Yahoo Messenger could be a worthy alternative, because of its reach and the promise of communicating between phone and computer. And it will help Yahoo further position itself in mobile. Skype should also be in the market as well and it’s still surprising they don’t have a mobile video chat product available.

Hopefully, we’ll see the Yahoo apps shortly, although there’s no guarantee Apple is going to play along. The company hasn’t opened up FaceTime to 3G calls, perhaps for fear of overloading AT&T’s network. While Fring and Tango have been approved, allowing Yahoo video calls on AT&T’s network might give AT&T some pause.

Related research from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Shopping Matters When it Comes to Location-Based Apps
• How Google Voice Could Change Communications
• Report: The Consumer Video Chat Market, 2010-2011

Government Gazette, 29 September 2010: "...Interested persons are hereby invited to submit written representations, including an electronic version of the representation in Microsoft Word, of their views on the Draft Radio Frequency Spectrum Regulations by no later than 16h00 on Friday, 19 November 2010. Persons making representations are further invited to indicate whether they are requesting an opportunity to make oral representations which shall not exceed one hour. The public hearings will be held on the 01 - 02 December 2010..."