Mobile

Overheard: Municipal wireless and privacy

While some cities have seen their dreams of providing wireless Internet access for all fade, others have forged ahead with wireless networks for an altogether different purpose: surveillance. Joshua Brockman, Cities Gone Wireless: Safety Or Surveillance?

Today, public safety is the “largest and most successful sector” in the municipal wireless market, according to MuniWireless.com, a Web site devoted to tracking wireless broadband projects and technologies.

Overheard: Qik — streaming video from your phone

I shoot video using my cell phone all the time. Transferring it to other sites was a major pain until Qik came around. Using Qik, any video you shoot is streamed live, and also archived at the same time, so you can watch it again later. Eric Zeman, Qik Offers Its Mobile Video Sharing Service To The Masses

I can see this really taking off — it makes much more sense to me than Twitter does.

I wonder how they’re going to handle the pro-privacy backlash — it’s bound to be an issue.

Overheard: iPhone and the Enterprise

The various iterations of the iPhone Configuration Utility could be successfully used in smaller, depot-style support environments, but the tools as currently structured lack the security and remote reach for large deployments to use effectively. Andrew Garcia, Apple’s iPhone Configuration Utility Disappoints

Overheard: Location awareness — is it finally here?

GPS brings a whole new level of precision to the mobile experience. Cell phones have been required to be location-aware for several years in order to comply with the needs of emergency response agencies in the U.S. However, the primitive triangulation system that basic phones use isn’t very precise. With GPS, a user’s location could be pinpointed to within a few feet. Paul Gillin, The Promise and Pitfalls of Location-Awareness

If you do a search on Google for location awareness, you’ll find lot of articles written by people who are excited about the possibilities of mobile devices and location awareness. Advertisers, particularly seem excited. If you look at the dates for a lot of those articles, however, you might be surprised to see they were written in 2001. Will the iPhone really be the tipping point for location awareness 3rd party apps? I’m not going to hold my breath.

Overheard: 3G iPhone might as well be EDGE

I’m not so sure that all the usage won’t bog down the 3G network until it is little more than EDGE, at least for a while. Even with “regular” 3G phones, the system has encountered issues from intense usage, causing slow downs, crashes, and complete shut-downs. teddgcm, 3G iPhone, Will the Network Crash?

Overheard: The iPhone — death by monthly payments

We have had nearly 24 hours to jump out Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field and put common sense behind the announcements made yesterday – especially the company’s iPhone 3G. Christian Zibreg, WWDC 2008: Will the iPhone 3G kill the iPhone?

Christian Zibreg thinks the money iPhone users shell out to AT&T each month is the deal killer. It is for my family.
Just as I was posting this, Verizon called and offered my whole family free phone upgrades and extra minutes. Coincidence? LOL!

Overheard: WiMAX gets a marketing makeover

It turns out the announcement isn’t a new vaporware wireless technology, it’s my favorite old vaporware wireless technology, WiMax. Sprint finally figured out what to do with it. The unbelievably frustrating part is that Sprint has pretty much slipped the deployment plan for WiMax by another two years. It’s hard to get excited about a new technology, no matter how great the investors, when I have zero confidence in the companies’ ability to deliver. Michael Mace, WiMax gets closer and further away at the same time

The involvement of Google means we’re very likely to get a pretty much open ecosystem on a major wireless network, which Silicon Valley has been collectively screaming about for years. The size of the investments mean there is a lot of money available to build out the network. People ought to be dancing in the streets here, but instead most of them appear to be either yawning or throwing spitwads.

I’d be out there dancing myself if it weren’t for the slip in the schedule.

Hat’s off to Michael Mace for explaining the real buzz around WiMAX.

Overheard: iPhone vs. Blackberry

I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it. It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.” Mike Lazaridis, as quoted in BlackBerry’s Quest: Fend Off the iPhone

Overheard: Bluetooth will piggyback 802.11 when it needs more speed

This is the wireless technology equivalent of ‘low hanging fruit. What we’re doing is taking classic Bluetooth connections – using Bluetooth protocols, profiles, security and other architectural elements – and allowing it to jump on top of the already present 802.11 radio, when necessary, to send bulky entertainment data, faster. When the speed of 802.11 is overkill, the connection returns to normal operation on a Bluetooth radio for optimal power management and performance. Michael Foley, Ph.D., executive director, the Bluetooth SIG.

50% of traveling workers will leave their notebooks at home

Even though notebooks continue to shrink in size and weight, traveling workers lament the weight and inconvenience of carrying them on their trips. Vendors are developing solutions to address these concerns: new classes of Internet-centric pocketable devices at the sub-$400 level; and server and Web-based applications that can be accessed from anywhere. There is also a new class of applications: portable personality that encapsulates a user’s preferred work environment, enabling the user to recreate that environment across multiple locations or systems.

Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organisations and Users in 2008 and Beyond