Today, mobile phones have become inevitable in one’s life. We’ve seen it grow from a mere luxury to now a necessity. The transformation in the lifestyle of we, the people is a major reason for this change. What started with a several bucks for incoming call has moved on to a plethora of plans which have free outgoing calls today.
The two primary Twitter applications for the desktop – TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop – released new versions in the past 24 hours.
Both are the latest salvoes in a battle where one winner could gain supremacy as the app on the desktop for keeping in touch with what’s happening on Twitter (and, if you wish, Facebook as well).
I know that is a shocking and controversial headline, but there are a number of serious points to be made.
Firstly I like linking to people who link to me, whether on the post they first wrote, or on the syndicated copy that now appears on SEOmoz, even when the name referenced is “Andy Beal”.
If you look over to the right side of my blog you’ll see a Google Latitude component.
What does that do? It shares my location with you.
The crushing dominance of the iPhone is broken—at least for now—having given way to the BlackBerry Curve. This just-released report has come in from the NPD Group (www.npd.com), a prestigious consumer research agency. After months of topping the charts, the iPhone acquiesces to what consumers have pegged as their number one choice—the BlackBerry Curve. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been experimenting with Microsoft WIndows 7 beta on my Mac OS X system through using VMware and while I don’t know of anyone else doing this, I have read on the Internet that it’s a viable combo. Problem is, when I actually try it, I find that there’s no Internet access and Windows 7 complains that there’s no “Ethernet driver” installed? How do I fix that? Read the rest of this entry »
A few random updates of interest from last week’s CTIA Wireless event… CTIA was as interesting and busy as ever, although I would guess that the numbers were likely way down this year for obvious reasons… on the up-side, Vegas is pretty much giving away hotel rooms due to high vacancy rates so if you need to go there for a business trip you’ll be able to do so on the cheap very easily (airfares are also very reasonable). I caught wind of some amazing technologies in the mobile space while there, many providing data sharing solutions using mobile technology that take advantage of the cloud so you can easily share documents with colleagues, interact with your docs via mobile and even communicate and access remote computers at home of office from your phone! If mobile media is important in your job you’ll be pleased to know that some great solutions are coming enabling you to do much more and likely wow your colleagues at the same time.
While it is no surprise that mobile Internet access and usage is one the rise here in the US some of the percentage increase numbers start to get eye popping pretty quickly. comScore reports that of the people who access news and information the Internet via mobile devices daily has doubled in size from January of 2008 to January of 2009. As with the early days of Internet adoption rates the percentage increases are large because of the smaller sets of users but it’s hard to ignore that kind of growth regardless of where we are on the growth curve.
If you’re a Verizon customer, you’ll want to read this. Verizon has automatically opted all customers into a new program which allows them to share your information with just about anyone they want. Apparently some customers are receiving a notice via mail but for some reason I did not and others haven’t received one either. Verizon is clearly hoping to keep this under the radar.
Here is the legal language from Verizon:
Verizon Wireless and its affiliates (the “Verizon Companies”) provide services to you. In doing so, we may each collect certain information that is made available to us solely by virtue of our relationship with you, such as quantity, technical configuration, type, destination, location and amount of use of the telecommunications services you purchase. This information and related billing information is known as Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI). The Federal Communications Commission and other regulators require the Verizon Companies to protect your CPNI.
Read the rest of this entry »
Possibly the most interesting news so far to come out of the Mobile World Congress taking place in Barcelona this week is that there seems to be clear agreement among mobile operators and equipment manufacturers to develop and bring to market a universal mobile phone charger.
