This weekend I went to the do it yourself supermarket, as I had to repair some things at home.

While walking through the supermarkt, I noticed the shelfs for security systems. All sort of products wirelessly connected with each other.

I thought "another wireless standard in the home, like so many others". This could be very interesting for CAT-iq.

Link your securty system with CAT-iq to the telephone, so that the user can have two way control.

Interesting for the operators and/or internet service providers as well.

An idea for the design competition?

With the announcement of the Symbian foundation (see below), the open platform CAT-iq could profit from these developments.

Using existing platforms as OS for CAT-iq producs offers application developers to make applications not only for the mobile environment, but also for the home environment. This even could accelerate the fixed mobile convergence.

Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS™, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone they plan to establish the Symbian Foundation to extend the appeal of this unified software platform. Membership of this non-profit Foundation will be open to all organizations. This initiative is supported by current shareholders and management of Symbian Limited, who have been actively involved in its development.

Plans for the Foundation have already received wide support from other industry leaders.To enable the Foundation, Nokia today announced plans to acquire the remaining shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own and then contribute the Symbian and S60 software to the Foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola today announced their intention to contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO has also indicated its willingness to contribute its MOAP(S) assets. From these contributions, the Foundation will provide a unified platform with common UI framework. A full platform will be available for all Foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the Foundation’s first day of operations.

The DECT Forum, the worldwide association of the wireless home communication industry, in partnership with Jakajima in the Netherlands, is pleased to announce the first international CAT-iq Design Competition. CAT-iq provides an open platform for pioneering IP service applications as well as new form factors for non-computing communication devices. The DECT Forum invites design students from all over the world to compete for cash prizes by applying their creativity and engineering skills to trend-setting products and services for tomorrow’s IP based home network.

The CAT-iq Design Competition is aimed at meeting the following main goals:
Provide an opportunity for students from a variety of design backgrounds (industrial design, interactive design, gaming design, etc.) to demonstrate their problem solving and design skills in an international competition, provide the CAT-iq industry with refreshing perspectives on how designers from different disciplines and different parts of the world approach a common design challenge with respect to the new CAT-iq technology.

Students can also benefit from industry leaders who might be interested in taking over their inventions for new classes of products or services.

“For almost 100 years home telephony has not substantially changed. The introduction of cordless phones based on the DECT standard was the latest significant innovation of the industry, which was highly accepted by the consumers”, says Erich Kamperschroer, Chairman of the DECT Forum. “With the introduction of the broadband era and the emerging new networks connected to millions of homes, the communication equipment is currently in the process of originating new form factors and services.

With this competition we would like to inspire design students to create out of the box products and exciting services. CAT-iq is the technology which offers unique and boundless possibilities to combine voice communication, home networking and multiple IP based applications.”

For more information go to the site.