The Driving Force Behind the Open Source Mobile Movement

Device and hardware makers are discovering the flexibility of the Linux stack as the foundation of a platform for mobile applications that bring value to the wares they want to sell. Complications exist, but manufacturers are working through them to further drive the adoption of the Linux stack.

In a sagging economy, doing business as usual is rarely prudent and usually disastrous. Companies often must change the course of strategies, or in some cases accelerate them.

After a spate of business meetings during the marathon that is Mobile World Congress, one takeaway is the acceleration in the mobile handset market of operators moving to open source More about open source software-based devices. Two specific device types are driving the increased adoption of open source software stacks: smartphones and netbooks, with many operators and OxMs also forming plans for Linux-based mobile Internet devices (MIDs) in the coming year.

Projections for Growth

The trend is more than anecdotal. In-Stat notes that "smartphones with Linux OS (including Android) will see the highest growth and the second highest volume behind Symbian More about Symbian. Linux OS will outpace Windows Mobile, RIM and iPhone OS X."

Meanwhile, industry analysts' projections for netbook (running either Linux or variants of Windows) sales growth rates in 2009 range from 50 percent to 128 percent. Many of these are being offered through operators with (profitable) data plans underwriting their already low costs. MIDs are also starting to appear on the horizon, fitting squarely between the smartphone and netbook.

Indeed, operators are viewing Linux as a strategic terminal platform on which they can build new revenue sources, new business models and a new customer base, regardless of device type. A Linux-based terminal platform offers them significant benefits over the legacy and proprietary platforms that formed the foundations of yesterday's mobile devices. Based on an open source license, these platforms give operators a significantly greater ability to customize, tailor and brand the platform for their network. And, as the base for various open source consortia including the LiMo Foundation, Open Handset Alliance and Moblin, these platforms offer operators the power to influence their development and direction. Many operators are reviewing where to put their investments, some are outlining plans for a single platform while others continue to work with multiple platforms.
Stacking the Deck

Operators, OEMs and semiconductor manufacturers are now taking these open platforms and creating reference designs that will accelerate product development. Operators are integrating signature applications and other legacy assets with the open source platforms to create an operator-specific version that will be provided to OxMs as the starting point for final product development. OxMs are rapidly building competency in these open platforms to be better prepared to quickly deliver mobile devices for the operators. Semiconductor manufactures are also investing to pre-optimize their hardware platforms with these open source stacks to reduce early development cycles, differentiate their hardware platforms and accelerate hardware adoption.

This cross-value chain collaboration points to a new form of industry cooperation enabled by open source. By starting with a baseline open source software stack and a pre-optimized hardware-software platform, operators and their suppliers are innovating on new mobile devices at more effective levels -- the much vaunted value line shift higher up the stack that has long been promised by open source but rarely realized. By not having to worry about first enabling a video stream or building support for 14 Bluetooth More about Bluetooth profiles, when utilizing the community's stack investments, the ecosystem can now focus on developing new consumer features, services and advanced user experiences that will drive chip, device and subscriber sales.

Getting to the point where all the benefits are realized is proving to be more of a challenge than some have anticipated for several reasons:

* Open source mobile software stacks are relatively new, and expertise is not as widely available as with older, proprietary stacks (but is rapidly improving). Indeed, who will develop these reference stacks is a major question for operators -- are they in the software development business themselves?
* Open source license provisions and how they affect open source software's integration with an operator's signature applications must also be addressed.
* Discovering ways to speed the testing process for the integrated stack without sacrificing quality may be the key to achieving development project reduction goals.
* The specter of fragmentation haunts the reference stack architecture, as no one wants to find themselves alone on a branch two years from now with no inexpensive way to rejoin the mainstream.

Despite these issues, operators are clearly moving full steam ahead with a variety of open source projects, including Android, LiMo and Moblin. The opportunity to quickly get a differentiated mobile device to market that will drive average revenue per user and subscriber growth is too alluring to ignore. Operators are driving the ecosystem to make it happen -- look for the mobile devices soon!

Source : http://www.technewsworld.com

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Nokia most ecofriendly electronics maker: Greenpeace

The world's leading mobile phone maker Nokia earned the top spot in Greenpeace's ranking of big electronics manufacturers' eco-friendliness, the environmental organisation said Tuesday.

Nokia scored seven points out of 10 in a report ranking companies on their policies regarding chemicals, waste and energy. Japanese game maker Nintendo came in last with a score of 0.8.

Greenpeace praised among other things Nokia's improved return programme in India, where it has 354 collection points enabling customers to return their old mobile phones to the maker for free.

"Nokia scores very well on toxic chemical issues, launching new models free of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) since the end of 2005 and aiming to have all new models free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and antimony trioxide (a chemical flame retardant) by the end of 2009," Greenpeace said in its report.

It also noted that 25 percent of the energy used by the Finnish handset maker in 2007 came from renewable sources and that it aims to increase use of renewables to 50 percent by 2010.


"We want manufacturers to eliminate harmful chemicals in their product design. We want to see an end to the stories of unprotected child labourers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets," the group said in a statement.

Korea's Samsung came in second position with 5.7 points. It scored well on chemicals and waste criteria and for making energy-efficient products.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers took the third spot with 5.5 points, having set late 2010 as its deadline for eliminating toxic PVC plastic and all BFRs from its products.

Greenpeace slammed Nintendo and US software maker Microsoft for their use of toxic chemicals and poor handling of discarded electronic products. The companies received scores of 0.8 and 2.2 points respectively.

Source : http://www.spacemart.com/

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Technology Delivers War Propaganda to Gaza, Israeli Citizens

To the suicide vest, the rocket and the battering ram, those longtime staples of conflict in the Middle East, add the cell phone.

Both sides in the Gaza war have employed cell phones as a form of psychological warfare, among other purposes -- part of a trend toward using new media in a century-old conflict.

Hagar Mizrachi, a 25-year-old Israeli, recently received a text message that said rocket attacks on all of Israel's cities were imminent. The message was signed "Hamas" and the sender name was listed as "Qassam.hamm," he said. Qassams are rockets that Hamas militants have been firing from Gaza into southern Israel. "It's unnerving to receive something like that," said Mizrachi, an editor at an online news service. "It feels like they've invaded you."


Effective Tool, Poor Grammar

Yaniv Levyatan, a psychological warfare expert at the University of Haifa, said cell phones are a natural tool because soldiers and militants are generally young and have grown up using them. Israel and Gaza are small, densely populated areas blanketed by wireless service, making the phones' use even more effective, he said.

Levyatan said the messages from Hamas to Israeli cell phones were generally crude and not targeted very well. "The Hebrew was terrible," he said.

Palestinian phone users report receiving calls on both cell phones and land lines, encouraging them to turn in Hamas militants or warning them their home is about to be bombed, said Amman Aker, head of the Palestinian mobile phone company Jawwal, which operates in Gaza.

"We can't do anything about it," Aker said. He said the calls come in from international carriers and cannot be traced or blocked.

Israeli officials say they are doing Palestinians a service by advising them of impending attacks so civilians can get out of a building.

"We have to do what we can to warn civilians," said Maj. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli military spokesperson. Dallal declined to discuss how the Israeli military obtains cell phone numbers in Gaza. Land-line phone numbers here are generally available in phone books.
Leave Them Behind

Jonathan Fighel, a retired Israeli colonel at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, based near Tel Aviv, said it's relatively simple for both sides to use cell phones and land lines to spread their messages. He compared the technology to that used by telemarketers around the world, who obtain lists of phone numbers and then use computers to place automatic calls.

This isn't the first war in which cell phones have been a relevant issue for Israel. During the war in Lebanon in 2006, Israeli soldiers commonly tucked their phones into their cargo pockets when they went onto the battlefield and regularly used them to call home or keep in touch with friends.

The constant phone calls from the field became a security issue since Hezbollah militants had the capacity to listen in on conversations. "We know it was common in Lebanon that the bad guys were eavesdropping on cell phones," said Shlomo Brom, a retired Israeli brigadier general. In Gaza, soldiers have been ordered to leave their phones at their base, Dallal said.

The cell phone battles are part of an aggressive effort by both sides to use technology to shape the world's perception of the Gaza war. Except for occasional news media tours set up by the Israeli military, foreign journalists have been prevented from reporting from the battlefield.
Other Techy Tools

The Israeli Defense Forces started a YouTube channel shortly after the conflict began Dec. 27. It was the brainchild of a couple of soldiers and has attracted millions of viewers, said Maj. Avital Leibovich, a military spokesperson. The Israeli military posts videos of precision airstrikes and ground forces operating in Gaza. "We want the world to see the conflict from our point of view," Leibovich said.

YouTube allows the Israeli military to communicate directly with the audience, without the filter of traditional news media. "We don't have a mediator here," Leibovich said.

Hamas has a Web presence and has continued to operate a television station called Al-Aqsa. Israel's military has occasionally cut into broadcasts of the Hamas channel to urge the population to turn against militants.

On Jan. 3, Israel's Channel 10 News aired a video it said appeared that day on Al-Aqsa, featuring mug shots of Hamas leaders who had been killed and a ticking clock. "Hamas, your time is running out" flashes across the screen.

Israeli military officials have declined to discuss the reports -- or whether they use phone calls for other means, such as deceiving militants.

"All I can say is we call them, especially when we're going to target a building," Dallal said.

Source : http://www.technewsworld.com/

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GPRS Technology Explained

Historically data speeds on mobile phones has been very very slow, in fact when modems were @ 56kbps (dial up) the mobile was still at 9.6kbps and it stayed there for quite some time, in fact if you don't have GPRS or a high speed data service and use wap you'll be using a 9,6k dial up connection.

The arrival of GSM technology gave the chance for a different type of data connection one where data is moved in packets, IP data is already packetised and bytes of info are sent all round the world in this form everyday

GSM networks are made up of a number of transmitters or cells each of these can have a range of a few kilometres or just a few hundred meters depending on their proximity to each other, the range of frequencies used by each transmitter cannot overlap with its neighbour. In the UK 2 main GSM frequency sets are used GSM 900 and 1800 (1900) is used in the USA, a transmitter will work within a 200mhz band and split this up into a number of radio channels or time slots.

The GPRS system may not be allowed to use them all, but dependant on the class of GPRS network the operator is running the mobile device may connect to multiple channels to achieve a greater bandwidth. Also the coding schemes shown below can effect the bandwidth systems will drop to a lower coding system (CS-1) if the radio reception is poor as it includes higher error correction much like an FM radio might switch to mono if the stereo signal get too weak.



GPRS sits on top of this GSM technology and mobile service providers can offer the general packet radio service to its subscribers as an always on connection rather than the traditional dial up data connections.

Cells that have been upgraded to GPRS add a packet control unit that distributes data over one of the radio channels to your device and also GPRS gateways or nodes these bridge the data between the mobiles network and the outside world or internet. The packetsied nature of GPRS data allows networks to dynamically fill the unused voice channels with GPRS data, providers normally allocate a minimum bandwidth to GPRS data but at off peak times you can get much more throughput perhaps 4 times as much. Lets not forget this is a far more efficient way of delivering data from the network providers as they no longer need to use a whole voice channel to deliver data GPRS users effectively buy the left overs from voice users.

So what are the benefits of GPRS to the user?

For a start its always on, the mobile device will gain an IP address from the DHCP pool available at each cell, the network will then allow you to exchange data whenever you need to without having to dial up an authenticate. Practical uses of this allow for swift recovery of email with frequent pop3 checks of your mailbox and messenger style applications can work on GPRS too so having MSN on your mobile is possible, although Symbian messenger and other 3rd party applications are far more common.

Of course there is the much vaunted benefit of speed, while GPRS theoretically could deliver 172.2kbps by using all 8 timeslots without any error correction in practice network configurations will allow up to 40kbps which is a 4 fold increase on the 9.6kbps still offered as a data service.

Then there are the rich media applications which while publicised by 3G providers are equally at home on a 2 or 2.5g GPRS enabled platform, very little content on the 3G networks is streamed it is far more likely to be downloaded to the phone and then viewed.

So despite the higher speeds of 3G the current GPRS services are enabling video to mobile application to operate successfully at least once you get past the fact that each network has differing video standards!

Applications that work well on GPRS are those that fall into the category "I want it now" that can quite easily be email or the latest goal scored by your team, but this can also extend to web browsing on a long train journey or Navigation applications. In fact a real life example is the ability of LP to manage the technical parameters of this site and view live statistics via his GPRS enabled P800.

GPRS technology will continue to evolve, but now it is driven by users rather than a government frequency auction so we should see more and more useable applications and cheaper access packages.

source : http://www.lordpercy.com

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China to issue 3G licenses

China will issue third-generation mobile phone licenses as early as this month and expects companies to spend 200 billion yuan ($30 billion) on installing equipment, the industry minister said Friday.

China has the world’s biggest population of mobile phone users and adoption of 3G — which has been long delayed — was eagerly anticipated by equipment suppliers, which are seeing demand elsewhere decline due to the global financial crisis.

“The 3G licenses will be issued either later this year or early next year,” Li Yizhong, whose ministry regulates telecoms, said at a news conference.

Third-generation mobile phone technology supports Web surfing, video downloads and other added services. Its adoption in China is expected to boost demand for mobile service and spur growth of new services.

China’s mobile phone market…

Source : www.lirneasia.net

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3G and 3.5G Phones - New Technology,New Way of Life

With the advancement of technology mobile phones have become more sophisticated than ever. Do you still remember those mobile phones with a limited set of features? If not, it's a quick reminder-the earlier mobile phones were used only for talking-there was no camera feature, no music feature. It's just a matter of few years back, mobile phones had witnessed the tremendous growth in technology. Built-in VGA camera is passé. Mobile users are now using high resolution cameras to store their memorable moments forever. Technology is vrooming ahead at a lighting speed. Isn't that?

Most of the latest mobile phones are 3G enabled. Now, what is 3G? 3G (third-generation) is a wireless communication technology that has emerged from the first generation analog and second generation digital communication systems. 3G is capable of offering increased voice capacity and higher-speed data rates. It allows users to receive TV signal, stream video and send large files.

What's more, with the help of 3G technology you can make face-to-face video calls. The entire Nokia N-Series range including Nokia N76, Nokia N80 is 3G enabled smartphones. Other manufacturers like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola have also brought some high end 3G phones like Sony Ericsson W880i, W850i, W950i, Samsung F500, F510, F520, Motorola KRZR K3, RAZR Maxx, RAZR V3x, RAZR V3xx and so on. But the most sought-after 3G phone available in the market at the present time is the Nokia N93i.

Another technological wonder that is creating great stir in the 'mobile fraternity' is 3.5G. 3.5G is nothing but a technology standard used in HSDPA. Now, what does HSDPA mean? HSDPA is an acronym for High Speed Downlink Packet Access. It's an improvement upon the 3G protocol for mobile telephone data transmission.

HSDPA provides download speeds equivalent to an ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) line on your mobile phone. Theoretically speaking, with HSDPA it is possible to reach data transmission speeds of 8-10 Mbps. That is the reason, HSDPA enabled mobile phones are more faster than the WCDMA 3G phones.

To get some of the best deals on latest 3G handsets like Nokia N76 and Nokia N93i in UK, please visit the site.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Elizabeth_Wills

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Nokia N85 - 8GB, 3.5G & 5MP Camera Phone

Nokia N85, the latest Nokia Nseries multimedia computer made to set new standards for mobile entertainment, gaming and sharing. Along with an eye-catching 2.6" OLED screen and smooth, sleek finish, the Nokia N85 redefines the mobile experience. It boasts N-Gage gaming, music with in-built FM transmitter, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and geotagging capabilities, three month integrated license for turn-by-turn voice navigation and high-speed connectivity, all in one device.

With a strong lineup of multimedia features, the Nokia N85 is taking the world of mobile convergence to the next level. Gaming, photos, navigation and music blend together with the newest Ovi and third party services via 3.5G HSDPA and Wi-Fi

Each Nokia N85 comes with an 8 GB microSD card, up to 30 hours of music playback time and its high-fidelity sound means favorite tracks can be enjoyed virtually anywhere. Build a personal music collection from the millions of tracks and playlists available from the Nokia Music Store or other online music vendors, or synchronize PC and mobile music libraries via USB cable. Alternatively, consumers can enjoy RDS radio or a wide selection of stations via the internet. The 3.5 mm audio jack makes connecting a top-quality headset simple and an in-built FM transmitter lets the Nokia N85 play wirelessly through a car or home stereo to really crank up the sound. connectivity to make discovering and sharing experiences quick and seamless.

estimated retail price $599-$699

Source : http://www.itswami.com

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SPEEDY

What is Speedy?

SPEEDY is the product of the Internet access service end-to-end from PT. TELKOM with the base technology Asymetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), which can distribute data and voice simultaneously through a single phone line with the normal speed which are pledged with the service package, which was launched from the modem to Bras (Broadband Remote Access Server).


What is DSL?

ADSL (Asymetric Digital Subscriber Line) technology is a modem that works on the frequency between 34 kHz to 1104 kHz. This is the main cause of the difference in speed transfer of data between the ADSL modem with a conventional modem (which works on the frequency of below 4 kHz). Benefits of ADSL is the ability to provide high-speed internet access and voice / fax simultaneously (in the customer using the line Splitter to separate phone line and modem).


Are all the phone can be used for Speedy?

Not all the phone network can be used to service Speedy. Contact Customer Care Telkom 147 for more information


What is the understanding and upstream?

Downstream is the speed of data flow when customers do with a maximum download speed of up to the ADSL connection Speednya (384/512 Kbps).

Upstream speed the flow of data is when customers do with the maximum upload speed of up to 64 Kbps


What if I forget my password?

Take the contract or subscription charges with evidence last SPEEDY pay to the nearest Plasa Telkom.

Source : http://www.telkom.co.id/

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GSM Modems

A GSM modem can be an external modem device, such as the Wavecom FASTRACK Modem. Insert a GSM SIM card into this modem, and connect the modem to an available serial port on your computer.

A GSM modem can be a PC Card installed in a notebook computer, such as the Nokia Card Phone.

A GSM modem could also be a standard GSM mobile phone with the appropriate cable and software driver to connect to a serial port on your computer. Phones such as the Nokia 7110 with a DLR-3 cable, or various Ericsson phones, are often used for this purpose.

A dedicated GSM modem (external or PC Card) is usually preferable to a GSM mobile phone. This is because of some compatibility issues that can exist with mobile phones. For example, if you wish to be able to receive inbound MMS messages with your gateway, and you are using a mobile phone as your modem, you must utilize a mobile phone that does not support WAP push or MMS. This is because the mobile phone automatically processes these messages, without forwarding them via the modem interface. Similarly some mobile phones will not allow you to correctly receive SMS text messages longer than 160 bytes (known as "concatenated SMS" or "long SMS"). This is because these long messages are actually sent as separate SMS messages, and the phone attempts to reassemble the message before forwarding via the modem interface. (We've observed this latter problem utilizing the Ericsson R380, while it does not appear to be a problem with many other Ericsson models.)

When you install your GSM modem, or connect your GSM mobile phone to the computer, be sure to install the appropriate Windows modem driver from the device manufacturer. To simplify configuration, the Now SMS/MMS Gateway will communicate with the device via this driver. An additional benefit of utilizing this driver is that you can use Windows diagnostics to ensure that the modem is communicating properly with the computer.

The Now SMS/MMS gateway can simultaneously support multiple modems, provided that your computer hardware has the available communications port resources.

Source : http://www.nowsms.com/

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