Future Technologies

Is ‘Internet of Things’ already under our noses?

By Mike on 17 July 2008

INTERNATIONAL – There are some ties to the physical world that we just can’t seem to shake off, like the humble old business card. Appreciating that, the new Multiscanner business card reader built into the E71 and E66 enables you to take a photo of card and then squirt the info electronically into your address book. You might need to change the odd bit of info here or there – the tech used is called Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and can sometimes be more of an art than a hard science – but it will do the bulk of the heavy lifting for you.

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Products & Services

Nokia merges multiple personalities

By Mike on 16 July 2008

INTERNATIONAL – No, this isn’t quack psychology, but rather news of Nokia’s new roll-out of a universal login across its multiple Internet services. Simply called Nokia Account, this is one of those subtle changes that will evolve and expand over time, stretching from the likes of Ovi to N-Gage and beyond, but more significant is what it means for us as users and looking forwards.

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Sustainability

Nokia casts recycling net across the blogosphere

By Mike on 16 July 2008

INTERNATIONAL – Last week we hit you with stacks of news on Nokia’s new recycling initiatives, following its global survey that highlighted that only 3% of us recycle our old mobiles. It’s been great to see many of you posting insightful, positive and passionate comments on the subject. Another exciting aspect is Nokia is really practicing what it preaches, pushing the mobile recycling agenda internally.

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Products & Services

Nokia Chat: how open do you want to be?

By Mike on 15 July 2008

INTERNATIONAL – Last Friday we posted a story on the release of a beta version of Nokia Chat, an instant messaging micro app with GPS location-based features. Since then, I’ve been playing around with it with the team, setting it up, but have barely scratched the surface. In that first piece I simply asked “What do you think to GPS-enabled instant messaging. Good or bad?”, and one response from a reader, Sven Koerber, raised the interesting point of ‘trust’ and when you’re using a service like this – a little mentioned, yet extremely important word, that is definitely worth us all considering with regards to a location-based communication apps.

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Products & Services

Location-based services shift into top gear

By Mike on 15 July 2008

INTERNATIONAL – At the tail-end of last week Nokia’s acquisition of pioneering digital map maker NAVTEQ was finally rubber-stamped. Sure, mammoth deals such as this are strategic and smart on a number of levels, but what’s most interesting about Nokia’s purchase of NAVTEQ from my perspective as a user is the huge emphasis on innovation this promises with relation to the rapid evolution of location-based services.

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Products & Services

Red panda and rare N96 in cahoots

By Mike on 15 July 2008

INTERNATIONAL – At Conversations we try to steer clear of marketing campaigns and all that stuff, but having seen the new facethetask.com website I’m compelled to write about it for a couple of reasons. First is that the site is giving you the chance to own a limited edition N96 before it goes on sale in your country – something I’ve not witnessed from Nokia before. Secondly, you’re not ‘buying’ the phone, you are in fact giving a donation to the WWF to help save the endangered red panda – a noble cause, yes, but why an animal and why the red panda?

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Our Business, Products & Services

Nokia batteries – simple security shake-up

By Mike on 14 July 2008

INTERNATIONAL – Whether consciously or unconsciously most of us place blind confidence in the hardware and services we choose, and security is one of those unconscious lynchpins in the equation of trust. Nokia takes this responsibility of delivering secure products seriously, and recently revamped and improved the security of its batteries to help ensure behind the scenes that all confidence is warranted.

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Future Technologies, Products & Services

Location based services still do not measure up? Or do they?

By Charlie on 14 July 2008

SOMEWHERE – The term, Location Based Services, or LBS, has been kicking around for a long time. Like many terms full of baggage (WAP comes to mind), there are lots to like and lots to dislike. A comment by Alfie Dennen a week or two back has been bouncing in my head. So, today I did a perusal of some posts on LBS to see what the sentiment is.

Overall, LBS is still viewed as a failed promise. But I get a feeling that, unlike many years ago, we seem to have a better grasp of what we want (or not) out of it. Also it has faded into the background as an enabler, hence we don’t see it for what it is (’LBS is dead. Long live LBS’?). Read my take in the post below.

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Products & Services

Be careful making comparisons

By Charlie on 14 July 2008

GLOBAL – All right then! Yes, we are keeping an eye on the iPhone. Who doesn’t? All because we don’t start a whole nasty fight à la Coke-Pepsi (or even Apple-IBM) doesn’t mean we aren’t buying iPhones and combing over them with an electron microscope (we’re not actually, but we are looking closely).