LiMo - stretching Linux Mobile

Launched mid-June 2006 and operational since January, LiMo, the Linux for Mobile Foundation, happens to be a non-for-profit initiative launched by notorious philanthropists : Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone all have in common the envy to reshape the mobile internet paradygm beyond the old Nokia-Microsoft rift.

The Foundation Platform, "a Linux-based, open mobile communication device software platform", also reaches beyond Nokia's Open Mobile Architecture (OMA). Opening is definitely in the air : Orange changed its moto for a sober Orange open, and even Redmond has its Microsoft Open License (hey, that's Microsoft, there's to be a license with it).
But true opening has a cost : the ODP / DMOZ recently hiccuped after troubles with its generous patron Sun / AOL, and Wikipedia desperately needs cash to survive because of its growing success. So let's not spit on the hand that feeds the ecosystem - provided the ecosystem remains clean.

Anyway, Linux over mobile is good news for consumers, operators and manufacturers who focus on hardware. Cellcos decide to remain involved in their own future : they let 3G to Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm who didn't do the best of jobs, they don't want to miss the next steps at the OS as well as at the network level (ie LTE).

* limofoundation.org - soon to lose its fully open DNA : the homepage's title reads "LiMo Foundation: Welcome" but if you google the foundation, it still appears as "SourceForge: Welcome".

Report bad link - Meshed Potatoes.org

The good thing about updating your favorites is you check every now and then how a techno is doing. Take Near Field Communication for example : the NFC Forum website's last press release is dated march 2004 and working groups remain to be seen (anyway, who would buy a technology labeled with such approximation ?). Elsewhere, the rebranding around the UWB (Ultra Wide Band) family obviously brought some confusion : launching the WiMedia Alliance sounded like surfing on the WiFi-WiMAX wave but in the meanwhile the tsunami took the UWB WG's url away. uwb.org now leads to a commercial site for radar products which would be very much needed in the war of standards between MB-OFDM (supported by the Multiband OFDM Alliance, about the same players as for WiMedia) and DS-UWB (Direct Sequence UWB), supported by the UWB Forum. Judging by how that forum allows a chinese spin-off, I wouldn't be surprised if China decided to build their own standard. Motorola seems to bet on it. For all I now, the rest of the UWB Forum can turn into meshed potatoes, squeezed between this MBOA and the WUSB initiative, a.k.a. wireless USB, a likely Bluetooth-killer if the Viking keeps wasting time and opportunities. You can watch the one year old WUSB toddling somewhere on USB.org, under the nose of mighty naughty fairy godmothers : some board members of the USB Implementation Forum (intel, Microsoft, HP, NEC, Philips) plus Samsung... who decided to bet on all horses (also a UWB Forum member).
As a matter of fact, WUSB is already working. And focusing on a major and demanding application : broadcasting live music. That's on WUSB.org. That's also on 90.1 fm, live from the University of Sonny Brook, NY. And guess what, WUSB's sister station is none other than the WPKN I used to tune to back in '86.

Wake up you should

"Mobile TV broadcasting consider I will", says master Voda. The dark side of the 3G force is taking over Japan : KDDI led in december net adds just ahead of DoCoMo while J-Phone stalled (less than one thousand customers added over one month - not much less humiliating than the first losses last summer). The score for wireless data access services stands now at 43M for i-mode, 17.5M for EZ Web and 13M for J-Sky. And when it comes to 3G, Vodafone trails with a meager 366,000 base - far behind FOMA (8.5M) and Au 3G (16.8M).
So ta-daa, here comes Vodafone Japan's answer : when 2-3 years ago, SKT would broadcast TV over 3G EVDO, and as MBCo and TU media keep releasing DMB novelties, the closest thing to a buzzing laser sword master Voda can produce is a NEC V601N. Basically, a mobile phone coupled with an analog TV. Mercifully, the scotch tape happens to be honorably transparent.
If you look at the brighter side : Vodafone was bound to suffer for at least two years in this battle on W-CDMA early bird's home turf and against a cdma2000 operator. This very challenge was the ultimate test to spur its innovation drive, the heck of a wake up call, boosting the collaboration with DoCoMo on Super 3G. If it weren't for Japan, master Voda may have lost one more year (put aside the inevitable "lost in translation / lost in transition" time following the purchase of Japan Telecom) contemplating levitation stunts performed in a far far away archipelago. Stephane MOT