CHINA – I wanted to write that out in a headline, just to see what half a billion actually looked like in numbers. The actual number of subscribers to China Mobile is closer to 502,936,000, but that doesn’t look as good in headlines. China Mobile is the largest mobile phone operator on the planet, when you count subscribers, and it’s just announced the jump in numbers that means it’s broken through the half billion mark. It’s a little less than half the total number of people who use a Nokia device, give or take a hundred million or so, and almost twice the population of the USA. Yes, the entire population, and then some. All subscribed to one mobile phone network. Am I the only one who doesn’t get the scale of this? Continue reading>>
BOSTON, USA – When a plane crosses high up in the clear sky, it sometimes leaves behind a trail of conensed vapor, called a contrail. Some days, you can look up and see contrails crisscrossing the sky, revealing patterns for those who know how to look for them.
For a long time now, our mobile devices have been watching us and, in some ways, leaving a contrail of our paths behind us. This contrail could be broadcast by the various radios the devices carry, or by some app communicating continuously (or even intermittently) to some box out in the Cloud.
A recent article (see below) got us wondering how far we want to take this permission we give devices to leave these trails.
GLOBAL – If you’ve been wondering just how you can get your N900 to interact with a Speak ‘N’ Spell, View-Master or a rolodex, then fear not, as the folks at Tinker.it have released some more details on how they did it. Okay, so you’ll be short of an N900 until they actually go on sale (soon, we’re told) but at least you can start assembling the required parts in time for your very own hackathon. Continue reading>>
GLOBAL – A few days ago we posted a reader poll to open up a discussion on how many phones you carry (if you haven’t already, get your vote counted today). We’re only a few days into the voting and already the response has been great, with over 700 of you getting involved. Notably, the current poll figures show that 56% of the Nokia Conversations readership carry two or more phones. Equally as interesting is the fact that the topic of dual SIM phones has somewhat naturally bubbled to the surface in tandem and become the hot topic of debate related to the question how many phones do you carry? This week’s award goes to one of you keenly involved in the debate.
Read on to find out who wins this week’s copy of the Gravity Twitter app, and to join the dual SIM discussion.
GLOBAL – It’s funny, this sounds like a somewhat outdated question from a bygone era of mobility where one pocket was reserved for the work phone and one for your personal device. Not so, as Gary H highlights in our recent story Excitement at reading the tea leaves, resurfacing the question with his comment declaring that he carries multiple devices: “Well how’s this – how many people carry 2 phones now. I’m using 3!”
Later this week we’ll be running a piece asking you what makes a good enterprise device, but in the meantime, we’re interested to kick-start a conversation around this topic of carrying multiple devices, discussing why we do, and if it’ll ever truly become a thing of the past.
Cast your vote today, and if you carry more than one device, please share the reasons why you do in the comments section further down.
BOSTON, USA – One of the benefits of knowing the unknowns, the things that are unknown to the public, but known to the company, is that it gets exciting when folks start speculating – about launches, devices, direction, moves. And I like speculating as much as the next guy.
Of course, we don’t substantiate rumors or talk about those known unknowns (that’s usually called a leak). And it’s a hard balance to say enough to show where we are going, without giving the game away. In some cases this can put us in an unfavorable light. For example, it’s sometimes foolish to suggest we released a solution in response to a competitor device or service, when in actuality, solution timelines were long set before the competitor revealed its solution. Or, all of us have to wear a Finnish poker-face, because we can’t really to talk about a leaked product everyone is excited about.
Today, there are some links we’d like to share. In the past week, we’ve had more than enough concrete stuff to be excited about. But here are three articles that are examples of the hopeful speculation we usually like to read. There is also one, to remind us that even when we do reveal something, it might not be so exciting in the end.
LONDON, England – Once more Dan and Rob enter the fray to highlight the juiciest news nuggets from the last seven days on Conversations. Blogbite is a great way to catch up on the latest stories on Conversations, specially if you haven’t stopped by for a few days, as the all the most important stuff gets picked up. And this week is no exception. Mopping up the final bits of Nokia world, taking a look beyond the latest tech, as well as at the latest tech, all form part of this week’s show. Continue reading>>
ESPOO, Finland – On Friday Nokia announced it bought Plum, a small social network outfit focused more on family and letting you create and manage closer-knit communities. One user on Plum.com, David E, aptly explains, “Plum is like Facebook for my family, but more private and intimate.”
Read on to find out more and to join the social network debate.
That piece and this week’s winning comment do something that is often sidelined in favour of many of us lingering on our irrepressible appetite for what’s next (guilty as charged) – both refreshingly stop to enjoy the now, in this case web browsing on Nokia touch devices such as the N97. So it’s funny that earlier today on my morning Stumbleupon stroll that I read a quote on refspace from Socrates that clearly led me to gravitate towards Phil’s story and the winning comment associated with it. Socrates once said, “He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
That comment certainly would’ve earned a copy of the Twitter app, Gravity. Wonder if Socrates would’ve been a Nokia sort of guy? Perhaps less profound, but still in the spirit of Socrates, read on to find out who has won this week’s best comment award and a copy of Gravity.
GLOBAL – As we reported yesterday, Conversations has been awash with great comments since the build-up to Nokia World 09 took hold, with over 680 comments and trackbacks centered around new products and solutions that were recently announced. So we’ve scoured through the mountain of opinions and debate highlights to hunt for the comment of the week from all our NW09 coverage.
Read on to find out which comment has won this week’s copy of the Gravity Twitter app.
CHINA – I wanted to write that out in a headline, just to see what half a billion actually looked like in numbers. The actual number of subscribers to China Mobile is closer to 502,936,000, but that doesn’t look as good in headlines. China Mobile is the largest mobile phone operator on the planet, when you count subscribers, and it’s just announced the jump in numbers that means it’s broken through the half billion mark. It’s a little less than half the total number of people who use a Nokia device, give or take a hundred million or so, and almost twice the population of the USA. Yes, the entire population, and then some. All subscribed to one mobile phone network. Am I the only one who doesn’t get the scale of this?
BOSTON, USA – When a plane crosses high up in the clear sky, it sometimes leaves behind a trail of conensed vapor, called a 
GLOBAL – If you’ve been wondering just how you can get your 
GLOBAL – A few days ago we posted a 
GLOBAL – It’s funny, this sounds like a somewhat outdated question from a bygone era of mobility where one pocket was reserved for the work phone and one for your personal device. Not so, as Gary H highlights in our recent story 
BOSTON, USA – One of the benefits of 
LONDON, England – Once more Dan and Rob enter the fray to highlight the juiciest news nuggets from the last seven days on Conversations. Blogbite is a great way to catch up on the latest stories on Conversations, specially if you haven’t stopped by for a few days, as the all the most important stuff gets picked up. And this week is no exception. Mopping up the final bits of Nokia world, taking a look beyond the latest tech, as well as at the latest tech, all form part of this week’s show.
ESPOO, Finland – On Friday Nokia announced it bought 
GLOBAL – Yesterday morning Phil posted a piece on 
Perhaps less profound, but still in the spirit of Socrates, read on to find out who has won this week’s best comment award and a copy of Gravity.
GLOBAL – As we reported yesterday, Conversations has been awash with great comments since the build-up to 
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