Jeju Telematics celebrates the wedding of GPS and DMB

Jeju-do, Korea's capital island for honeymooners, has been a test bed for enhanced telematics since 2004. When the trial period ends next July, the Jeju Telematics consortium promoters (beyond the MIC and a few VCs : SK Telecom, SK Communications, SK C&C, Samsung Electronics...) could start exporting the concept to mainland ROK.
Nothing revolutionary there : LBS, 3D navigation, multimedia broadcasting... but you can tell SKT are involved : e-mail since the beginning, Cyworld, DMB games and TV for the second phase started last month. Samsung's 3.7 inch touch screen PMPs (Portable Multimedia Player) complete the multimedia oriented consumer experience. It definitely beats NATE Drive's handset craddles for seamlessness.


=> Jeju Telematics website : http://www.jejutelematics.com.

Prime time and fare play

Speaking of mobile TV, one device is changing the way people watch it big (prime) time : your car. I guess I would have a tough time driving a car without GPS and TV in Seoul now that I'm hooked to it. No wonder prime time is moving towards traffic time there.
I'm not sure Italy's MICE TV (Mobile Information Communication Entertainment TV by Advanced Communication S.r.l) or UK's CabVision propose the best business model : a cab is as good a hotspot as an airport but specific video content didn't prove to be the killer app there. On the other hand, these players mixed technologies an interesting way : broadband wireless for video (WLAN for MICE, DAB for CabVision) + GPRS for news tickers (MICE) and remote monitoring (CabVision). MICE adds an interesting feature : movement sensors make sure passengers are comfortably seated before starting the potentially 50 mn long program. Only 22% of CabVision users find the concept intrusive but I wonder how many cab drivers will turn mad and the whole shebang down before their fifth customer of the day.
You want your personal in-car video system to be a touch screen you can hop on, plug-in, tune-in, surf on as much as you want but that would be a terrible idea for a cab concept. I guess the passenger should be able to zap and reach a selection of non specific channels and wouldn't mind part of the screen being devoted to sponsors (with the possibility to zoom on and out of an ad, for example - that would mean a pad of half a dozen keys next to a screen you don't want to look greasy : on/off, program +/-, volume +/-, adzoom +/-). Autistic me would enjoy such a gizmo, especially since more than 22% of cabdrivers prove to be intrusive.