"Green Taxi" - follow this cab

London invented pink cabs for the ladies by the ladies ? Seoul replies with its Green Taxis. Don't expect any environmental friendly gimmick : GTs are about removing the fear factor from the cab experience.
It's late and you're alone in the dark. Enter Travis Bickle with his mohawk (a.k.a. Robert de Niro in Scorcese's Taxi Driver). Friend or foe ? You decide to take the chance, but to play it safe you RFIDly download his ID (license plate) on your cell phone. Tadaa : your family knows who's taking care of you and where you are.
And Travis knows he's being watched. He also knows you don't trust him.

The Green Taxi concept ? A frustrated psycho killer driving a paranoid customer.

I prefer another killer application : 3,500 to 5,000 Korean cabs will accept credit cards, including seamless payments with your mobile phone.

iPhone, you Zune - soon on Apple TV

Apple reached an agreement with Cisco on iPhone trademark issues on time for MacWorld and the CES.
Apple reached an agreement with Yahoo! on mobile searches and Google on mobile mapping.
Apple reached an agreement with Microsoft on the compatibility between iPhones and Mac / Windows.
Microsoft warned Apple : phones are a tricky business and even Redmond eggheads are struggling. Adding a keypad to your iPod won't solve everything. If it were the case, we would be launching our own Zune phone. And if we knew how to solve anything, we would even have launched a good Zune in the first place !
Apple TV is not so HD (720p instead of 1080p), not so high storage either (only 40G), not so multimedia (games ?), and definitely not so innovative... but anyway, the iPod itself is far from being the best Portable Multimedia Player around. And Apple is Apple.
Is it ?
Apple is no more about innovation but about hype. Apple is no more "Apple Computer" but "Apple Inc". Apple doesn't make computers anymore ; Apple sells Apple.
Sony also used to enjoy the sometimes too comfortable position of the "cool" brand.
Actually, Sony should be leading the multimedia convergence, being into computers, TVs, handsets, game consoles, and even entertainment. It unfortunately tackled convergence with hardware solutions (Memory Stick) while Apple focused on software (iTunes, iPhoto...).
Neither will dominate because either way, the industry doesn't like standards owned by only one of them.
Apple TV will certainly contribute to the democratization of enhanced home entertainment. And iPhones will sell, even at such a high price. But the more they do, the sooner iTunes will be forced to open up, and Apple itself to change business models.

CES 2007 - a cup of T before China-To-The-Home

Another year, another light bulb show on The Strip. The 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show shouldn't bring major disruptions, only display the ability of some players to deliver more goods after Christmas.
Sin City ? Forget the booze and take a cup of T : the time has come for the mass market to hear about terabytes more often. Massive hard drives on one end, heavy entertainment on the other, and FTTH in between, the dice are rolling.
Spin City ? From "Let It Snow" to "Get It Now®", Verizon Wireless adds V CAST Mobile TV to V CAST Music, V CAST Video (YouTube ? YouBet !), Mobile Web 2.0(SM) and co. Yet, VZW won't be the star this year. Qualcomm ? He'll try to fool the paparazzis with his former Korean proteges (Samsung SCH-u620, LG VX9400), but Samsung and LG already displayed MediaFLO handset last CES 2006 and both are openly courting DMB and DVB*. Besides, Qualcomm is still being sued in Korea, where Microsoft is strictly monitored and Intel just decided to cancel a promising R&D center.
Sim City ? Is K-Pop still ruling the show ? LG's Points Of Presence also include dual format Blu-Ray / HD-DVD players and drives, and as far as content (with himself) is concerned, Bae Yong-jun just listed part of his company in Japan, where Yonsama on mobile keeps selling (there, this utterly corny hallyuwood fake is still considered a great actor)... put Helio On Top of it and you may think Korea holds a full house. Except China's massive investments in R&D and entertainment start showing. If not this year, on time for CES 2008.


* speaking of T, DVB-H and Las Vegas : I didn't hear any bird sing on the Hiwire / T-mobile trial.

Year Of The Golden Pig - sorry, no golden geese

This toddler of a blog (established 2 years ago) wishes you a happy new year.
A few days in advance for the solar calendar and a few weeks for the lunar one, according to which 2007 happens to be the Year of the Golden Pig. People born in such a year being supposed to grow wealthy, you want to keep an eye on new ventures.
Yet, investors are worrying : 2007 looks like a financial terra incognita. Something's gotta give somewhere and somewhen but what, when and where ? Up or down ? East or West ? Not to mention Middle East ?
Did China delay its decision on 3G just to wait for a Year of the Golden Pig and give TD-SCDMA a good fat sheng fuishy boost ?
Does the year of a filthy animal mean even higher profits for mobile adult contents and mobile casinos ?
Do Vodafone's new ambitions in India mean the "I" in BRIC will experience a sudden concentration in telecoms... or does the rebranding of Bangalore into Bengaluru mean Indian players will at last claim the spot they deserve in the global markets, sidelining former colonial powers ?
Will big medias end up in manure or will they eventually understand M-VNOood may not be, for them at least, the best way into the US wireless market ?
Stay looney tuned.

Is SKT's MelOn-opoly MP3 game over ?

One day SK Telecom is fined 3.8 billion wons for illegal subsidies and the next 330 million for anticoncurrencial behavior in the mobile music field (these days KRW 1,000 = about EUR 0.827 or USD 1.090).
Even ten times lower, the second punition could be most bitter to swallow : if "subsidies" were a simple breach of clearly written rules (decision by Korea Communications Commission), market dominance demanded a much more complex analysis and reached a much higher level (decision by the Fair Trade Commission). In any case, two blows in a row cannot be considered good news.
The KCC gave SKT 60 days to allow the subscribers to his service to play MP3 files downloaded from other providers.
As seen earlier in these columns, MelOn is Korea's favorite flavor in the juicy market of mobile music, with millions of subscribers paying 5,000 wons a month to download from their mobile phone as well as from the web. Yet, it gives SKT the music major a 60.2% market share on the mobile music market which is only slightly over that of SKT the mobile operator. This isn't what I would call a MelOnopoly. But from the "customer share"'s point of view.
SKT appears to be eventually experiencing the drawbacks of its pervasive strategy, and may not remain free of entering any given market without assuming the burdens of his leadership in mobility. At home at least.
On the other hand, compelled to open up its entertainment / financial / you name it activities could lead it towards even higher ambitions.

Pandora's set top box

The F.C.C. ruled that municipalities had to take quick decisions (within 90 days) regarding video franchise agreements with telephone companies. Due to excessive delays, telcos often cannot compete with cablecos on their highly profitable turf (Comcast & Co charge an average $43 per month, 5% more than last year and double the rate of 10 years ago). And the battle reaches beyond services : rolling out a fiber optic network can be prevented on the ground that it can deliver television and video.
But Verizon & Co haven't won yet. Is the F.C.C. the relevant authority ? Is the American broadcasting ecosystem ready to open all gates at such a crossroads (convergence, DRM issues, free DIY n-to-n casting for everyone...) ?
We already know that USA doesn't mean United Spectrum of America, but things are not that easy in the fixed arena either, where Federal, State and local layers also pile up. We already know that US operators always finish last in the lobbying race : media / content groups are tough opponents and high tech players make sure the game remains open to all of their kind.
Ten to fifteen years ago, Europeans would dream of a US like market where local calls would be free and hundreds of TV channels available to almost everyone.
Nowadays, I guess many US players are envying their European counterparts. If they cannot even leverage on the scale of their own country / continent, they should be worrying about yet another set of competitors (Asia, Middle East, you name it).

Skype Web TV - Life is a Venice beach

"The best of the Internet with the best of TV" ? Here's The Venice Project by Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom*. Maybe the founders of Skype were jalous of MySpace and YouTube. Maybe they think they could have asked more from eBay.
If they want to outscore these video whiz kids, I'm afraid they'll have to offer the worst of the internet with the worst of TV... in which case they'd better rename it The Santa Barbara Project.
Unsurprisingly enough, the techno relies on peer-to-peer and the founders are not worrying about DRM issues. They can talk about advertising revenues but they can't fool us. Their customer is not the end-user anymore. They understood the customer is really king when he means business and offers big bucks. Especially when he knows how to negociate with major broadcasters and editors. Heck, he could even be one ov'em.
For those who missed the previous platforms, please take your ticket.

* "according to FT.com : Skype founders to offer web TV" (20061217)

TF1 Sat bis with Bouygtel ?

France's TF1 group seems to be ready to strike again. After losing ground to competitors (LCI challenged by iTelevision, BFMTV and France24, TPS wolfed down by CanalSat, TF1 itself targeted by TNT bombers - French free DTV channels...), TF1 took a large slice in Groupe AB.
That was enough to revive rumors of a new satellite adventure. France's leader in audience would start late but with a total freedom of movement (no M6 around anymore), a strong brand portfolio and a vivid crash test experience.
Other rumors can now be reignited as well : a SKT-TU Media like combo with Bouygues Telecom, new international partnerships...
For the moment, TF1 Group focuses on France's 2007 Presidential Elections. An ambitious satellite program demands a powerful launching pad and Martin Bouygues has been betting on Nicolas Sarkozy from the very start.

Crash Test Thumbies

The ITU released "digital.life", the 8th part of its "ITU Internet Reports" started in 1997.
In this episode, the young wizzard Harry Wireless Potter experiences new powers with his thumbs. Even the nerdest readers may learn some useful tricks like the origins of the word "avatar" : "I'm not wasting my time in silly games, Mom - I'm paving the way for the descent of God". Dubya may object this rather Darwinian approach doesn't leave much room to the Intelligent Design theory according to which the rise of the Thumb Generation was programmed from the start by the God of Operators.
Like all reports, this one was obsolete even before being released, but as an history book it has some virtues and I found it quite refreshing. It was like reading a old series of articles published ten years ago (remember the digital world of tomorrow, the sociological and psychological impacts, the new id and all those paradigm shifts ?) but with the actual figures instead of wild projections.
Now 2 billion mobile subs could have sounded wild ten years ago.

888.com mobile and other crimes

You can draw but you can't hide. Poker and casino invaded our screens and not only in the late night hours, where other non glamorous but lucrative programs used to rule (porn, TV shopping...). People enjoy watching other unathletic nobodies become wealthy superheroes just like that, sitting at a table. Later, when they turn to dumb their online gaming automats, they believe each winning streak is due to their talent and each losing one to bad luck. Gibraltar-based virtual casinos can submerge all European medias with their greenbacks ; they know the ROI will be huge.
And this goes far beyond the Rock and your usual sin cities : if Macau SAR gladly returns to the colonial rule of the roulette, Tony Blair also wants to turn Brighton & Hove into Western Europe's Las Vegas. Never mind those medical reports on gambling addictions (nor the statistical reports : half a million French citizens hooked to online poker within a few months !). In the US, one can wonder if the theo-cons who recently managed to have some speakeasies banned are not themselves involved in legal joints. Religious fanatics actually served as a convenient cover-up for the main lobbyists : Sin City Inc.
France's most vocal moral safeguards happen to be the two public-controlled incumbents : La Francaise des Jeux (lotteries) and the PMU (horse racing). Both enjoy legal monopolies and mean to keep them. They can read Nielsen Netratings and they know that in the UK, The National Lottery only holds 35% of the sweepstakes sector, followed by a pack where William Hill (6.3%) and Ladbrokes (5.6%) seem about to be overwhelmed by the new tide (6.2% for Partygaming, 4% for Pacific Poker, 3.7% for Cyberslots...).
FdJeux sponsors a cycling team for a few million euros a year and just couldn't let newcomers massively sponsor most of the Ligue 1's pro soccer teams. The incument got Bwin's top executives arrested but also, and as a side effect of this rather mediatic event, the attention of Bruxelles. As a proof of its moral virtues, FdJeux just decided to start a campaign to sensibilize the public to the dangers of over-gaming... after decades of shameless aggressive marketing campaigns.
Meanwhile, 888.com Mobile was launched late last month. Anyone can download the program for free (but for the telecom- and, of course, the gambling part) and the company claims a 85% coverage of the European market because 340 devices are supposed to be compatible. The die is cast, "faites vos jeux, rien ne va plus".
US players crushed by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, European players waiting for a clear legal framework... will Asia become the ultimate eldorado (even if the 2nd Mobile Gambling Summit Asia didn't bring any major disruptions) ?
MNOs want their share but fear for their image... They can do cute things* but big bucks may involve meeting with wiseguys and goodfellas, or even getting nasty. Dealing with timeslots backstage definitely looks simpler than dealing cards or managing slot machines for your customers.


* see "iPub by O2 - boozer friendly" (20060301)

You are Commander of the T-World

SK Telecom are sipping T more aggressively than a Liptonic britton. After TTL, Ting, TU Media* - , T Roaming or T-PAK**, they branded their new one stop online experience T-World (tworld.co.kr), yet another layer between SKT and its services brands. The logo appears on many ads and looks like a big orangish T (which should please both T-mobile and Orange) popping out of a screen. It nurtures its own "events" such as a T World festival.
The T World website mostly constists of a frame connected to all the other brands websites.... Definitely less interactive than "You are Commander", SKT's latest MMORPG.

Remember the MOMU*** ? SKT decided to launch an international version of its online Mobile Museum. Forget the "museum" thing. This "Global MOMU 2006" (eng.momu.co.kr) appears to be a display for SKT's latest services, technos and solutions ; the perfect pedagogic tool to serve its international ambitions.


* now dubbed "Real DMB TU" - a positive way of distinguishing SKT's pay S-DMB from free T-DMB, which doesn't hold virtual market share as we recently discussed (20061124) in "3M DMB subs - SBSM on its way", in which I also mentioned RFID, but without mentioning SKT and KTF's latest shows of mobile RFID and instant payments at RFID/USN Korea 2006 as well as across U Seoul. Not the University of Seoul but "Ubiquitous Seoul", the expression covering the NFC / WiFi / Wibro / Whatever cloud envelopping Korea's capital city. Koreans love to label everything with popular expressions. Like "Well Being" (pronounce "wellbing"), "Ubiquitous" is becoming a "must have" flavor. All high tech brands have now their ubiquitous exhibition lounges for trekkies (including SKT's U World, a virtual town exposed in last year's edition of U Magazine and a little bit more animated than T World).
** see "Pervasive Korea in US, China, Vietnam..." (20061030)
*** see "Finding MIMO ? after MoMu and MoMa" (20050422)

3M DMB subs - SBSM on its way

SK Telecom should hit the 1M mark by the end of this year for its TU Media S-DMB service (4% of which being in-car accesses). T-DMB claims 2.2M users because the service comes for free... but for the handsets, whose prices are bound to decrease : over 2.5M T-DMB devices sold this year, good news for Korea Inc.
Now its KTF's time to shine with a first : W-CDMA - HSDPA SBSM handsets are to be released within days.
And yesterday, the draw was held for Seoul Sup Hillstate appartments (Seoul Forest Hillstate). Among other home networking gizmos, the lucky winners will have an elevator waiting for them each time they park their RFID-enabled cars at their parking spot. From their terrace with jaccuzzi and BBQ, they will enjoy a breathtaking view on the Han river as well as on the collapse of the real estate bubble.

MVNO commodities

In France, mass distribution eventually makes it into the MVNO arena* : after Auchan Mobile (by Auchan Telecom - auchantelecom.fr) on SFR, Carrefour Mobile (carrefourmobile.fr) picked up Orange.
If Auchan's Hyperlibre prepaid cards claim a fun and content factor, Carrefour delivers a much cheaper message : mobility metaphorically lies on the same shelves as eggs, mineral water or pasta, the equivalent of commodities in foods, basic products for which the World's #2 retailer holds an impressive market share.
Not as impressive as that of #1 Wal-Mart if it were to purchase Carrefour... but right now, WM has its own fishes to fry in the US (Movida - only 100,000 subs to date and 500,000 expected by the end of 2007) or in Germany, where even hard discounter Aldi* struggles.
A retail and / or financial know-how definitely makes sense for tomorrow's MVNOood (and Rabobank is considering its home market in the Netherlands), but it takes more to succeed than a strong brand or an expertise, be it in content (look at Disney struggle in the US and postpone its launch in the UK). A MVNO is a service provider and service should remain the major, even with a discount / content / mcommerce / mwhatever flavor. Pure players can succeed provided they can - well - provide and deliver the goods (ie TracFone - tracfone.com).
Consider Mobile ESPN's failure in the US : ESPN is a beautiful brand but only a one channel brand. Like TF1 Mobile, you like to have it on your mobile but you want all other channels as well. Quad players stand a better chance : Qwest Wireless makes a living, but US cablecos have yet to really enter the race (Comcast with T-Mobile again ?). In the UK, the NTL - Telewest - Virgin / NTV combo should deliver because Virgin being Virgin, Virgin Mobile refreshes the parts other MVNOs cannot reach.

Niche MVNOs keep blooming and ethnic MVNOs flourishing : MobiSud** targets Europe's Moroccan community, Ay Yildiz (ayyildiz.de) the Turkish diaspora and Red Pocket Mobile delivers 24/7 Mandarin and Cantonese service in the US. Others prefer to focus on the "international calls" dimension of the service across minorities, like Oblio Telecom's Bravo Cellular in the US or Ortel Mobile in Belgium (ortelmobile.be).
In a Marketing 101 frenzy, Firefly Mobile (fireflymobile.com) targets mobile kids, Xero Mobile (xeromobile.net) college teens***, Jitterbug by Greatcall (gojitterbug.com) seniors and technophobic Baby Boomers, and as the name suggests, GAYmobile (gaymobile.dk) doesn't target homophobes. No one dares launching a truly green mobile service but you can still subscribe to a feel-good provider : Call4care (call4care.nl), which federates all major NGOs including the Red Cross.
Yet, youth-oriented MVNOs remain the main variety.
And a demanding job. Ask Helio, which reached the audience it wanted, but not the kind of wallets it expected. The younger generations love the handsets but SKT and EarthLink would rather have them actually purchase the damn gizmos.
Amp'd Mobile isn't playing in the big leagues either with its 50,000 customers, even going on 150,000 by the end of the year. Yet, it goes international : Canada with TELUS (now a major shareholder) and Japan on KDDI (TTM march 2007). I don't think Amp'd impressive slugging average (a $100 ARPU) will remain that high when the saint subscribers go marchin' in, but Let's see if TELUS can be as efficient as Sprint Nextel with Boost Mobile (boostmobile.com).
To be continu'd.


* Virgin, FNAC or Darty happen to be retailers, but with a strong flavor / major.
* see "CAPEX and the city - curb your enthousiasm or six feet under" (20051205)
** see "MSN, Mobile Centric, Mobisud" (20061019)
*** if they really want to launch next January, they must first target deep pocketed and short sighted investors

Geotagging and slipping like a log

Context, context, context, location, location, location...
You already can sort your travel pictures on a map with Google-Picasa or Yahoo!-Flickr, and videos should follow soon. But you still depend on a mapping service provider for the location match.
Storing is one thing, organizing another. And it's scary how much digital content you can produce and forget.. ' better let the techno do the job and slip a few logs while you sleep like a log !
Some high end Nikon cameras already geotag directly photo-files through GPS plug-ins, and tomorrow's mobile picturephones / videophones should be able to do this seamlessly. Actually, your cellco should encourage you to upload any info you can add on any given location (photo, video, memo, the vcard of a store...), and share if possible.
Eventually, I guess we'll virtually carve on every tree we pass by : here I took a picture of a monument, there some crook stole my handset, there again he used it to purchase a watch... and I guess here is the public phone from which I called my lawyer.

Pervasive Korea in US, China, Vietnam...

SK Telecom seems to speed up its internationalization process, more than doubling its subscriber base in Vietnam within one year to reach the 1M mark and targeting 4M by the end of 2008, which would at last sound like a significant position overseas.
But investors tend to be more impressed by less spectacular moves on more demanding markets and Helio doesn't seem to claim many customers in the US. Yet, SKT's UI, T-PAK, is coming up on some Motorola handsets soon. And NATE just locked interesting deals on mobile search engines with Google, and on telematics and in-car entertainment with GM Daewoo cars (TTM 2008) : telematics through NATE Drive, movies through Cizle, music through MelOn... Korea's leading cellco is eventually leveraging on its Jeju Telematics trials*.
Middleware, content and enablers are a surer bet than airwaves, even if Korea Inc keeps pushing its own technos : strong presence during the 2006 China Int’l DAB/DMB Forum & Expo in Beijing, recent deal clinched on WiBro in the US**...
Airwaves do cross the seas, but the other way : W-CDMA / HSDPA were already gaining momentum thanks to SKT and KTF, and now LG Telecom announces GSM-enabled phones by the end of the year. Of course, LGT will invest KRW 400 bn in EV-DO rA over 3 years (including 170 BS in Seoul), but only 15 will be spent by the end of 2006 instead of the 40 planned earlier.


* see "Jeju Telematics celebrates the wedding of GPS and DMB" (20060510)
** Neupara from Columbia, MD (neupara.com), chose POSDATA for its 2.3GHz WiBro trial in the US. Posco's subsidiary joins Samsung in the US market and Neupara keeps pushing Korean technologies after T-DMB in India. Its CEO, Mr John J. Shin, happens to be a Korean-American.

MSN, Mobile Centric, Mobisud

In the latest Orange - Microsoft deal, France Telecom's DNA prevailed over Hans Snook's. France Telecom the incumbent and former monopoly, not France Telecom, the brilliant innovator and solutions provider, father of the CNET (now France Telecom R&D).
Competitors can worry now that two major predators team up in the convergence arena. They're meaning business, market share and furthermore, share of client.
Bouygues Telecom remains a Microsoft partner, but with a less exciting revenue sharing deal and a smaller pie to share. And don't count on i-mode for a long lasting differenciation. Convergence ? Sorry lads, rival SFR keeps an eye on your pal Neuf cegetel (as a strong minority shareholder and a friendly M-VNO host for Neuf Mobile) while building an ADSL offer on the ashes of Tele2 France.
"Mobile Centric" SFR also promotes its own SFR Messenger and a teletubby-sounding Happy Zone. Cute, but will this stop pervasive MSN and ubiquitous unik ?
In a cross continental move, Vivendi is building a telecommunity MVNO on SFR's network through another subsidiary, Maroc Telecom. MobiSud* will naturally serve France's strong Moroccan community as a start, but Telefonica should expect quite a few skirmishes accross the Mediterranean ring.

* dot fr or dot com ? Both have recently been locked, the latter by the adco JumpFrance.

DoCoMo beyond DoCoMo

DoCoMo will soon expand its HSDPA coverage beyond Tokyo in Japan's major cities. 33,000 FOMA HIGH-SPEED handsets were sold during the first month of operation last summer and the MOVA / FOMA ratio fell from 54% to 45% between end of March and end of August 2006.
NTT DoCoMo's overall marketshare keeps going down too, but at a much slower pace (not even one point over the last two years). Churn rate even flirted with the 0.60% line lately. But MNP should boost it back up to 0.85%. And Softbank Mobile starts releasing impressive series of 3G W-CDMA handsets.
i-mode still suffers at the global level and e-Wallet / m-payment services seem to be the only promising driver right now : end of August, DCMX claimed 800,000 users (the service was launched in April) and Felica almost one third of DoC's 47.1M customers (15.5M enabled handsets). Besides, iD will share a common platform (PoS reader / writer, data center) with JR East's Suica next January and others will follow soon afterwards (JCB Co.'s QUICPay and bitWallet Inc.'s Edy). But nothing really new under the sun : JR East and DoCoMo have been working on it for over a year*.
Well... "DoCoMo Vision 2010" is getting older and it starts showing. Multimedia and Ubiquity didn't bring any major disruption, and Globalization looks gloomy. In Europe at least. Teaming up with KTF was the smartest move in the past few years.

* see "Zero noodle. Korea goes South" (20050730)

Wibree

Wibree is not the offspring of WiBro and Brew but Nokia's latest attempt to federate the industry in the near field communication arena (oh, by the way... the NFC Forum recently delivered their yearly press release : the relevantly named SmartPoster could help them post 4 specs within a 12 month span).
Wibree's logo is a maritime and bluetoothish version of the golden goose : a four legged orange sea star laying blue eggs around. As a matter of fact, "Wibree technology complements close range communication with Bluetooth like performance within 0-10 m range and data rate of 1 Mbps. Wibree is optimized for applications requiring extremely low power consumption, small size and low cost". Beyond catching Dubya's brainwaves, this should include (according to the user cases proposed by Noknok's marketing geniuses) such applications as sports and health monitoring, entertainment management and ergonomics at work.
I'm not sure dual mode Bluetooth-Wibree chips will reach the $5 retail price initially announced for stand-alone Bluetooth, but the Viking must welcome this newcomer on board. The crew includes Broadcom Corporation, CSR, Epson and Nordic Semiconductor (licensing), Suunto and Taiyo Yuden (interoperability).

---
Wibree : wibree.com

Google DIY - SketchUp before YouTube

Let your customers do the job. When you're nothing but an empty shell, where can you get substance for a better price ? Google Earth was a really smart move to aggregate content and value but it takes time to build a virtual world... so why not ask your visitors to build their ownhomes ? See SK Telecom : an army of minimes designing their own environments and even paying for the virtual stuff they add (show me the acorns : cyworld's totoris) !
Google may not end up hammering down competitors with YouTube, they keep giving their users potentially dangerous tools and Google SketchUp, an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program, could turn as addictive as Earth or even Hell. For those who tend to plan ahead at least. Probably not the kill app for the masses, but one for a rather interesting target for announcers.

Broadcom - Qualcomm - chips and magnum

The "Anticompetitive" label definitely stucks to Qualcomm these days. In the last throes of a Sun vs Microsoft like insurgency, Irvine based Broadcom claims some good news from the legal side. For all you know, the San Diego Fee Chargers could even enjoy a rather disturbing scissors crisis with decreasing CDMA fees and increasing legal fees...
On the other hand, if Q manages to prevent B chips from cruising along the West Coast and beyond, its weakened competitors could land in a Middle Kingdom very much in need of patents. Beware, Doc Jacobs, be China aware...