The consumer is being confronted with many many products that should be easy to use without any difficulties.

 

However the reality is that 'simple to use' is often just a phrase.

 

I found an interesting blog about usability, called uselog.com. As you are involved in the development of new products, just have a look at this blog. 

The European Parliament formally adopted a range of new telecoms measures yesterday but significantly watered down plans to create an EU-wide 'super regulator' that would have power to overrule national regulators, reports Reuters. Instead, the Parliament has backed the creation of the Body of European Regulators in Telecoms (BERT) group, an enhanced version of the existing European Regulators Group (ERG) that comprises the 27 member state national telecoms regulators.

 

Rather than giving the European Commission a veto over regulatory decisions - as was the original plan - BERT will take decisions by a two-thirds majority. BERT will be funded by a mix of EU money and national government money, says Reuters, also watering down a proposal for full EU funding that would have made the body independent of national governments. The decision to create BERT was first reported in the summer after a number of national regulators were understood to have objected to the original proposals. 

 

According to Reuters, the new regulations will also allow national regulators to impose functional separation on incumbent fixed-line operators, and also remain in charge of decisions on spectrum - rejecting plans for a pan-EU approach to spectrum allocation. Other measures include increased consumer rights disclosures and increased e-privacy provisions.

 

Source http://www.gsm.org/

 

This week, The Photokina in Cologne takes place. We will put some news about products who might be interesting to CAT-iq technology.

 

 

Kodak Debuts World’s First OLED Wireless Frame, Unmatched Image Quality from Any Viewing Angle Delivered by Kodak-Invented OLED Technology

 

 

Eastman Kodak Company has introduced the world’s first consumer-available wireless picture frame featuring innovative Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology, a Kodak invention that produces exceptionally sharp and vivid image quality. The frame will be on display at the Kodak booth (Hall 5.2) at Photokina. OLED technology generates greater color depth and saturation than other displays, on panels that are substantially thinner, resulting in a sleek, low-profile design.

 

 

The new KODAK OLED Wireless Frame features built-in Wi-Fi technology that enables the display of pictures as well as access to videos and music stored on a PC elsewhere in the home. The wireless feature also enables connectivity to online photo and video sharing sites and Internet content portals for news, weather, sports and more.

 

 

At the heart of the new KODAK OLED Wireless Frame is an ultra-thin, 7.6-inch diagonal digital panel that produces stunning image detail regardless of viewing angle. The viewing experience is further enhanced by KODAK PERFECT TOUCH Technology, which automatically processes images to improve exposure, brightness and color, and KODAK Image Science, which optimizes image quality for display on OLED panels.

 

 

The KODAK OLED Wireless Frame requires no backlighting, and incorporates an ambient light sensor that optimizes the viewing experience by adjusting display brightness based on the surrounding light.  Kodak has also designed a premium audio system into the frame, providing outstanding sound reproduction for videos, digital music and online content.

 

 

Pricing and Availability
The KODAK OLED Wireless Frame will retail for US $999 (MSRP) and will be available at kodak.com from November 2008, with additional online and retail distribution to be announced later in the year.

 

According to a new report from Informa Telecoms & Media "Mobile Broadband Access at Home: The Business Case for Femtocells, UMA and IMS/VCC Dual Mode Solutions", mobile traffic generated in the home environment was estimated at 40% in 2007. By 2013 it is expected to reach an overwhelming 58%. The Analyst firm expects Femtocells deployment to help operators offload up to 8% of total mobile traffic to fixed networks via end-user broadband lines.

 

 

The report finds that mobile voice minutes of use (MoU) in the home environment will approach 42% of total mobile voice traffic by the end of 2008. As the price gap between fixed and mobile calls narrows mobile voice usage at home will gradually increase to reach 49% by 2013. The office environment will come in second position with a 30% market share, while only 9% of calls will be initiated on the move - when walking, driving, or on the train or bus - and the remaining 21% of calls will be generated from other public environments.

 

 

Mobile data usage is also expected to increase over the coming years, thanks to the aggressive flat-rate data-plans pushed by mobile operators, the rollout of mobile broadband networks and most importantly the advances in mobile terminal software. In particular, advanced user interfaces are leading to the proliferation of new type of smartphones and mobile internet devices, including Apple’s iPhone and Google’s G1.

 

 

2007 was a watershed year for operators in terms of their strategy regarding the development of new non-voice services for their customers. "While mobile operators continue to develop their own services and strategies around applications such as music, games, TV and video, there was a realisation during 2007 that a far greater opportunity exists in providing unrestricted broadband access to the Internet" said Malik Saadi, Principal Analyst at Informa and lead author of the report.

 

 

"In the same way that voice traffic has moved from old fixed line telephony service PSTN to mobile, there is reason to believe that a significant percentage of Internet traffic generation will move away from fixed personal computers to mobile devices including mobile handsets, mobile Internet devices (MIDs) and connected notebooks" he continued.

 

 

These strategies are starting to pay off with the leading mobile operators seeing data revenues surpassing 40% growth in 1H 2008 compared to the same period last year. Australia’s Telstra for example announced its non-SMS data revenues have jumped 84% to Aus $360 million in 1H08 from Aus $196 million recorded for the same period last year. Verizon Wireless recorded 49% year on year data revenue growth in 1Q08 and AT&T 57%. At the same time mobile data traffic is surging with operators now recording growth ranging from 120% to 250% over their networks. However, Informa Telecoms & Media has estimated that annual revenues generated by 1 PetaByte of data traffic will decrease by a factor of 4.9 by 2012 to reach US$125 million - down from US$612 million in 2008.

 

 

In 2008, the home environment will already be responsible for more than 43% of total mobile data traffic but this traffic is expected to predominate with an overwhelming 60% by 2013. The growth will be driven by users increasingly initiating longer and richer data sessions in the relaxed environment of their home, through browsing the internet, watching longer and richer video clips, downloading music and video content, exchanging pictures, or using VoIP and on-line chatting.

 

 

"This does not mean that mobile broadband services will fully substitute fixed broadband, but users will prefer to keep some applications on their mobile or portable devices since these offer greater privacy" said Malik Saadi.

 

 

In order to cope with the explosive mobile data traffic growth, operators have invested heavily in offering better 3.5G+ coverage in busy urban areas. However, these areas are also data-hungry hotzones, where the majority of smartphone and connected notebook users reside, so this will eventually result in overloaded networks and low bandwidth per user. In addition, as the 3G/3.5G+ signal travels away from the base-station or penetrates thick concrete walls in residential or business environments, the received signal strength deteriorates considerably, resulting in a significant drop of bandwidth in inbuilding environments, which could in turn affect the overall user experience.

 

 

Mobile operators have a vested interest in ensuring that call connection, call quality, and mobile broadband capabilities are as high as possible in the home environment. Mobile Broadband Access at Home clearly shows that, if implemented properly, mobile access at home (MAH) solutions including femtocells, UMA/dual-mode, VCC/dual-mode, and alternative technologies have the potential to help mobile operators offload a substantial part of mobile traffic to the subscriber fixed line. This could potentially lead to significant savings by relaxing network capacity upgrade requirements while enabling considerable improvement in both coverage and capacity of mobile broadband access in the home environment.

Today we could read that LG in the UK has decided to use phone stores for their netbook (a notebook with an embedded SIM card) launch. Until 2009 no sales via the traditional computer retailers until 2009, instead launching the device through Phones4U shops. According to a spokesman of LG the combination of a laptop and mobile broadband will become very important, even for the Christmas season, and that requires other sales channels.

 

What has that to do with CAT-iq, you might ask. 

 

 

Originally, CAT-iq sales have been seen as “operator only”, meaning that the operators would install CAT-iq-enabled gateways, and that handsets would be sold to connect to the gateways, mostly through the operator channels. More or less the same as routers are being sold, a combination of a ADSL subscription and a router.

 

 

Strangely enough DECT products are mainly sold via the retailchannel, and still quite sucesfully.
Why couldn't this be valid for CAT-iq as well. Is this not mainly depending on the type of products? I would guess that a sort of router could be sold via the operator channels, but other more home communication products and 'phones' could be sold in the retail.

 

 

It is still too early to see where it is going, as there are not many CAT-iq products around, but operators and retailers be warned. You have to think about the sales channel  fo CAT-iq products.

An interesting combination of high tech and historical tech.

This Hulger's latest addition, the world's first wooden VoIP phone made from American walnut and brass. The PAPPA*PHONE is available at: hulgershop.com

 

 

New input device may change the way we type ...

 

"The screen of Apple's iPhone has focused much attention on touch as a user interface. iPhone users can rotate and resize images with finger gestures for instance. Many personal computers will likely have similar screens in the near future. But touch interfaces are nothing new -- witness ATM machines.

 

How about getting completely out of touch? A startup called LM3Labs says it's working with major computer makers in Japan, Taiwan and the US to incorporate touchless navigation into their laptops. Called AirStrike, the system uses tiny charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras integrated into each side of the keyboard to detect user movements. You can drag windows around or close them, for instance, by pointing and gesturing in midair above the keyboard.

 

Read the full article

You should be able to buy an AirStrike-equipped laptop next year, with high-end stand-alone keyboards to follow.

Today I read about the Dutch Telematica institute that has developed a location system based upon Bleutooth for indoor use. Immediately I had the idea that this could be implemented with CAT-iq as well.

Although this is more a B2B application I thought that this might generate some new ideas for the home environment.

 

 

Here is the information about the indoor localization concept of the Telematica institute  

For outdoor environments GPS (Global Positioning System) provides an effective solution to determine location of GPS enabled mobile devices. For indoor environments, however, such an effective solution does not exist whereas people spend 95% of their time inside buildings. BlueWhere ^TM mainly focuses on using Bluetooth for indoor localization.

 

Real Time indoor localization technologies are increasingly becoming affordable and portable. These systems aim at locating people and assets based on sensory data obtained from RFID, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. Indoor localization technologies have applications in different sectors such as military, healthcare, postal/courier, and recently retail and agricultural. Localization systems are expected s to become a $2.71 billion business in 2016 (Real Time Locating Systems 2008-2018, IDTechEx, July 2007).

 

Bluetooth is a pervasive technology nowadays as it has become a common feature of cellular phones. Mobile devices have found a mature market in large parts of the world. For example, in EU and USA there is almost one phone per person (Gartner report “Important Mobile and Wireless Market Directions, 2008 to 2012”, June 2008). In the Netherlands, 84-91% of people use a mobile phone regularly (Consumentenbehoeften mobiele communicatie, Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, February 2008). Bluetooth is present in 90% of the cell phones sold in Europe and the USA (the same Gartner report), and  67% of people are familiar with Bluetooth and more than half of them (i.e., 41% of the total) use Bluetooth to download music on the mobile phone (the same ministry report).

 

The Telematica Instituut has been a leading partner in several national and international research projects on context-aware applications. Within these projects, the use of Bluetooth as a context-source/sensor was a specific research item. The research results were used to develop a Bluetooth-based indoor positioning system for room level localization of (static) users. Technical characteristics and advantages of our system are:

• Reliance on response rate of Bluetooth inquiries,
• An infrastructure based architecture, and therefore no need for change, update or enhancement of mobile devices of users,
• No need for knowing the topology of the deployment area (i.e., the real world model) as being a fingerprint based method,
• No need for establishing Bluetooth connectivity between a target device and the infrastructure as designed for the Bluetooth discoverable mode of mobile devices.

 

The devised system is deployed and tested in our office building. It is an integral part of a context aware application called Colleague Radar ^TM  to locate employees in the building for their colleagues.

For more information please refer to our publications. 

 

Furthermore, the design and implementation of BlueWhere ^TM  has given us in-depth knowledge and expertise on Bluetooth technology and standard. This knowhow can be exploited in different problem areas like establishing connectivity, sensing, tracking and tracing, trust establishment, and security enhancement. Example application areas are:

• Crowd and queue detection,
• Statistical analysis of users mobility patterns (e.g., their paths, stops, pauses) in shops and venues,
• Prediction of user destinations, times of arrival, etc.

according to Georges Penalver, EVP of Group Strategic Marketing at Orange, as Orange announced that is has extended its Unik service to include 3G handsets and services.

 

“With the launch of the world’s first 3G UMA service, we are making life as simple as possible for our customers, whilst helping them get more from their mobile phone,” says Georges Penalver, EVP of Group Strategic Marketing at Orange. “Orange was one of the first to bring the benefits of UMA technology to our customers in 2006 with the launch of our Unik service. Today, with our new 3G UMA platform, our Unik customers will be able to take advantage of 3G’s capabilities delivering exciting multimedia services, such as Orange Music, Downloads, TV and Video. We have increased the benefits of this innovative technology, delivering a simple and cost-effective solution to meet our customers’ needs. That’s why UMA is at the heart of our convergence strategy.”

 

Orange's Unik service currently has more than 1 million users across France. Wi-Fi and UMA technology provide a natural complement to 3G services by improving mobile performance indoors, offloading the macro network and delivering a high-speed mobile data experience.

 

Orange has added two new 3G/UMA handsets to its lineup as part of this service extension. The latest additions to Orange's UMA range are aimed specifically at a younger audience, Gareth Abel, director of marketing operations at Orange's devices division, told Total Telecom. "Until now Unik has been a family-oriented service, but with these new handsets [from Sony Ericsson and Samsung] we are targeting a younger audience, one which is more likely to access [mobile] multimedia services."

 

Digital TV growth continues apace, with Informa Telecoms and Media forecasting 67 million households to be added in 2008. This figure from Informa’s Global Digital TV 8th edition report will bring the worldwide total to 343 million, meaning digital penetration of TV households at 24% by year-end.

The North American penetration rate will exceed 77%, with Western Europe at 63%. A further 62 million digital homes will be added to the total in 2009.

 

By 2013, half the world’s TV homes will receive digital signals – or 636 million households. Simon Murray, author of the report, said: "This indicates that digital growth will accelerate as the decade progresses, especially outside North America and Western Europe. More than 293 million digital homes will be added between end-2008 and end-2013."

 

China will be a major contributor to this increase, accounting for 79 million of the extra homes. Other significant rises will come in the US (30 million more), Japan (14 million) and India (26 million). Murray continued: "These four countries combined will take half the additional digital households. However, most countries will experience significant additions to their digital household total."

See attached table for Digital TV household composition in 2013 (million):

http://informamedia.msgfocus.com/c/12F33Akn5pqGVjyVy1

 

Cable will be the main source of digital TV households, bringing in 290 million homes by 2013. Pay DTH will be the next most popular delivery system at 129 million. Digital cable overtook pay DTH during 2007. There will be 111 million DTT homes and 51 million freesat homes (both of which do not subscribe to cable, satellite or IPTV services) and 54 million households paying to receive IPTV signals.

However, Murray commented: "627 million homes will still take analog signals, so digital growth is likely to extend way beyond the forecast period." The North American market will be very close to complete digital conversion by 2013, with Western Europe also enjoying high rates. Penetration rates will vary considerably from one country to the next, even within more ‘developed’ regions such as Western Europe.

More than a fifth of homes will take digital cable, with high penetration in North America boosting this figure. Digital DTH will be strong in North America and Europe, but less so elsewhere. DTT will be taken by 9% of global TV households, but will be as high as 34% of Western European homes. Free-to-air satellite will appear in 4% of global TV households.