Now MAP me: Facebook testing OpenCellular

A promising start-up is "Introducing OpenCellular: An open source wireless access platform", "an open source and cost-effective, software-defined wireless access platform aimed to improve connectivity in remote areas of the world", "supporting everything from 2G to LTE".

This Mobile Access Platform prolongs the equally open Telecom Infra Project, and sports the same green-white-blue colors.

Green white blue? Is this humanitarian NGO from Sierra Leone?

Well that's tree hugger green, open source white, and Facebook blue. Spot the oddball. 

Facebook, the control freak of your personal data, wants to be a driving force in next gen wireless through the whole value chain, and Zuck doesn't want to miss a beat (see "Networks: the TIP of Facebook's iceberg"). If Facebook failed at the handset level, they want to be in the loop for future standards.

So their PR provided another picture, less appealing to the great( outdoor)er audience, but more relevant for the core target of developers, who must hop in, chime in, and make this platform the winning proposition for MNOs across the world...

... particularly the ones in developping nations with booming consumer bases and huge coverage issues.

mot-bile 2016

Nokia Maemo 5 - Nokia RX-51

Paparazzi keep spamming the media with quasi official pictures of Carla-Nicolas romantic summer, or sneak peeks of Sylvio with Noemi, Patrizia, Maria, Claudia, Anna, Loretta, Rosetta, Carla (another one), Alessandra, Donatella, Paola...

Geeks prefered to browse* snapshots of Nokia RX-51, a.k.a. Nokia Maemo 5, a slim linux-based tablet that can take photos and probably call.

The Maemo community (maemo.org) claims 16,000 registered members and 700 projects. A far cry from Symbian, but Nokia is first of all into manufacturing phones that sell, and they are also working with Intel on oFono (ofono.org - open source telephony).


* ie on engadget : "Nokia RX-51 tablet captured in the wild"

Google Chrome : more open source, less open space ?

Enough piggybacking on IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera & Co : Google Chrome beta for Windows is launched tomorrow (see "Fresh take on browser" on the Google blog).

What can be said of it ?
- many things that could have been guessed : Chrome is based on Open Source, suggests websites, and leverages on browsing history...
- some non-disruptive user friendly innovations : Google Chrome puts the tabs on top of the search box, allows to split tab series
- the brand is a disaster. Chrome is about showing off, not about substance. More SUV than Prius. A heavy leaded browser rather than an agile tool. The only comic part of the comic book released as a teaser : don't worry, there won't be too much Chrome. To kill a mockingbird ?

Last week, IE8 Beta announced an intimate space for the user. Today, Google suddenly shrunk our Google-free space.

More than IE, Chrome threatens other competitors, and first of all the main innovator Firefox / Mozilla. This new Google platform is less likely to boost diversity than to endanger it.

Windows of opportunity

Nokia merged their S40 and S60 platforms with Symbian, and their destiny with NTT DoCoMo and SonyEricsson in the open source race against Google and the Linux family. But the Symbian Foundation is not competing with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ; it's only inviting people to stop throwing money out of the Windows, and to put Apple in the same (waste ?) basket. The aim is not to become the sexiest techno on the market, but to make sure the bulk of the value remains in familiar hands.

Which could be a moto for Qualcomm. The San Diego Chargers want to surf on ip.access' success in femtocells, and their strategy is to purchase the joint and collect the royalties. Business as usual, but will ip.access remain as popular ? Will Qualcomm succeed in closing the door to competitors or in motivating them to enter through the windows ?

Virgin Mobile USA decided to open wide both in a Totally Unlimited move : get all you can spit voice for $79.99 / mo, and add 10 bucks for a data combo. Some commuters may prefer working from home to spending a little bit less than a hundred a month for a little bit more than 20 gallons of oil.

Samsung SDI Co designs windows that generate solar power. This BIPV (Building Integrated PhotoVoltalic) technology could help Korean buildings become more energy efficient. Or Korean mobile phones to charge while catching a sun tan ? Uh. Not such a brilliant idea. My deduction is that induction will do this at a quicklier and safer pace (more "electric Wifi" demos are expected this August at the IFA / Internationale Funkausstellung in Berlin).

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".

Qualcomm and Microsoft - the unusual fees plus expenses

Microsoft are in danger. Washington sent a diplomat to Brussels. As if Redmond Inc needed lessons in that field. From the Administration that sent John "UN Bomber" Bolton whack the United Nations...
Qualcomm are in danger. After the EEC, Korea's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating the CDMA Ksar, even visiting its offices in Seoul. We're talking about the very state that invested in Qualcomm a few years ago, creating a CDMA heaven in a GSM world... a state that is now not very likely to let MediaFLO bloom in the land of DMB.
The royalty of royalties are in danger. Windows and Office are going Live and the company that used to not believe in the worldwide web may find a way to counter Linux, Mozilla, OpenOffice & Co, but neither Microsoft nor Qualcomm will enjoy the same wealth ten years from now if they don't change their business models or better, their ways of doing business.

Happy birthday, happy new year of the foxy dragon

History tells us Tim Berners-Lee invented the WorldWideWeb back in 1989 at the CERN.
Headline news tell us the first web page was published 15 years ago on time for Christmas 1990. The first web page could be published because the key to the web had been created.
15 years later, competition seems to revive in the browser area. Thanks to mobile access but also thanks to a cute penguin and a foxy dragon.
My stats for december 2005 show that Firefox snatched 15% of the traffic for this excuse for a blog (+ 1% for Mozilla). Safari hunted another 2,5% while Konqueror ruled over 1%. Opera charmed yet another 0.3% to which Netscape added 0.2%. MSIE claimed 80% of this humble pie. Down from 90% 3 months ago.
If Netscape is almost dead, Mosaic is still alive. Behind the question mark on your Internet Explorer toolbar, that is. MSIE was not brought to you by Microsoft inventors since Microsoft never invented anything but virtual cash cows ; IE is based on NCSA Mosaic (TM), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
I happened to visit the Urbana-Champaign campus back in 1989 on my way from Chicago to New Orleans. Instead of trying a few lousy pitches in the stadium that Fighting Illini built, I mighta coulda shoulda... sent better pitches.
But I waited till 1993 to use the web on a regular basis and join a online gaming company.
The thing is OS and browsers are not much fun to me. Even with a cute penguin or a foxy dragon.