Click and mortar v. Click and mortar

Where you live, where you work, and where things happen are not necessarily the same places. Yet, even as technology abolishes distances, major trends tend to emerge from creative ecosystems that are not too stretched.

The model becomes more challenging where real estate and technology bubbles coexist. Will San Francisco ever recover its soul? How long will Berlin or Montreal remain affordable? Artists can hop from Brooklyn to Queens or New Jersey, but can they still feel the vibes when they return to Manhattan?

All majors are building artificial ecosystems around new headquarters, following more or less open patterns (See "Google's Gtown wins over ZeeTown and the Large Apple Collider" after "Zee Talk of Zee Town").

Somehow, these utopian projects celebrate urban failures, a mutual transplant rejection.

If startup ecosystems often play crucial roles in urban regeneration, it's more complex for big players to play god beyond a simple hotspot, such as a Google Campus for instance.

Xavier Niel's Station F is truly monumental, but neither open, nor really connected to its direct neighborhood - how many smaller fishes will fray near this titanic aquarium? how far can it stretch and transform eastern Paris?

Talking about massive concrete platforms... I'm also curious to see how my beloved Seun Sangga will evolve. The city of Seoul wants to turn this whale of a building into a startup hub, leveraging its unique DNA. But can you force it down its throat? Can the fragile ecosystem survive storytelling, even well intended?

One thing seems clear: if good and sound urbanism can foster and nurture innovation, you shouldn't overplan, and you should make space not just for the insiders and outsiders, but also for the fifty shades inbetween.

mot-bile 2017

Comfort zones

Whiffs of déjà vu from Barcelona's Mobile World Congress: a Nokia 3310, a BlackBerry keyboard (KeyOne), and soon a Motorola DynaTAC Vintage Edition?

After sending millions on Pokemon Go quests, Nintendo Switch-es back to hardware.

Google plays its classic from-service-to-device branding gimmick, positioning Google Home + Google Assistant against Amazon Echo + Amazon Alexa.

Google Home had to extend its footprint before Samsung Assistant hits the shelves, and will reach beyond Android to tickle Apple Siri. Rumor (and Android Police) has it Google will be the first multi-user device on the market.

At this stage, it doesn't matter much if the platform remains Google-centric, with at least 9 in-house brands among the fist 30 partners:

out of 30 partners to date, at least 9 belong to google

Nevermind this gizmo: the A.I. behemoth is less venturing into new territories than trying to defend its comfort zone.

mot-bile 2017

* "Pitching Google Pixel in 3 strikes"

CES 2018: tighten your 2.5 ppm helmets

So you came back from Vegas with your LG bendable OLED screen (needed to wrap those smart gimbap rolls), your Hushme mask (needed to give Hannibal Lecter a call), and your Plume Labs Flow (needed a cheese grater that doubled as a air quality monitor).

Hushme mask (gethushme.com) allows you to mask your voice using various sounds (Minions, R2D2, rain, wind...).

Plume Labs Flow (plumelabs.com)

And you wonder what CES 2018 will bring you next year. Here's an exclusive preview of the 3 gadgets that will define the event:

• Xiaomi 2.5PPM Helmet: after purchasing Plume Labs and Hushme, the Chinese manufacturer created an air filtering mask with an airbag that inflates around your head as soon as nanoparticle levels hit the roof. In this safe bubble, the air is pure, your eyes don't hurt, and no one can hear you scream. 
• Alphago D-Bunk: this cloud-based A.I. service boosts your messaging and SNS apps, and sorts fake news from verified stories. Or at least it used to until Russia hacked it.
• Samsung Gear Fit Cuffs: clip the smartwatch on your left wrist, the other end of the handcuff on your right wrist. It beeps and flashes LED rainbows as soon as LEE Jae-yong moves 200 ft away from his cell.

mot-bile 2017

Quick, Draw! Help Google crowd-accelerate Singularity!

ICYMI, Google gamified its A.I. experiments with Quick, Draw!, a game where you have 20 seconds to sketch a subject recognizeable by their system.

quickdraw.withgoogle.com

aiexperiments.withgoogle.com

Of course, the more people play, the smarter the A.I., and the stronger Big G. A bit like they use Captcha to decypher ancient texts scanned by Google Books, only with countless more applications.

Help Google crowd-accelerate singularity and build A.I. dystopia by playing with its QuickDraw (twitter.com/stephanemot/status/799484363305992192)

Similar games can be imagined in 3D, VR environments (not just for Big G's Tilt Brush), your every stroke or move tracked by eyefluence, and so many completely different kind of games...

Now, playing kid stuff in a sandbox can help grow singularity monsters. 

Yesterday, a philosopher friend wondered if A.I. could create philosophical concepts, but Jorge-Luis Borges already answered the question decades ago. 

Simply by mapping and applying patterns from different panes, you can easily come up with strikingly beautiful concepts and conjectures that could keep experts awake for eternities. 

If you run out of A.I. systems or monkeys, even elephants will do:

Just don't forget to invite once in a while a Magritte to your Quick, Draw! games, or a Woody Allen to your Quick, Think! sessions.



mot-bile 2016

Pitching Google Pixel in 3 strikes

Google unveiled its Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL handsets.

What strikes first is the convergence of communication codes between Google, Apple, and Samsung, confirming the difficulties of differenciating in commoditization times. That said, Samsung has beefed up its human side, Google its pedagogy dimensions, and Apple... well Apple remained Apple.

What strikes next is the focus on image, from the name (Pixel), to the pitch ("highest rated smartphone camera", "Unlimited storage for all your photos and videos"). This is not only a Google Phone, but also a Google Camera, and a boost for Google Photos. The Pixel is marketed almost like a featurephone, with a message more... focused than its competitors, even if Apple did stress iPhone 7's "advanced new camera systems", and even if Samsung's ill-fated but polyvalent Galaxy Note 7 offered new arguments ranging from sensors and lenses to Samsung Cloud.

The third strike comes from Google Assistant. We knew it existed, we knew it had in its DNA the capacity to help you defeat LEE Sedol*, but its namelessness makes it an even scarier A.I. monster, plugged to both your personal environment (controled by Big G), and to Big G's phenomenal reach in queries about anything, anytime, on any platform. Yes, Siri has a name, but its brains have just been purchased by Samsung, who snatched Viv Labs, the startup created by Siri founders.

But if one player has been struck out here, it seems to be - for the moment at least - Andromeda: the OS of Google Pixel is Android 7.1 Nougat, not Google's hybrid Android-Chrome OS. And Pixel was the perfect alibi, since the brand was introduced on Chromebook...

For Google, launching a competitive smartphone was probably more urgent than rolling out its new convergent OS.



mot-bile 2016


* see "Man v. Machine, Garry v. Gary"

The Special G Diet Plan

Mercury News reported that Google paused the roll out of its Google Fiber network across the Silicon Valley, and considered wireless (mmWave) instead of fixed (FTTP) for building connections. Big G purchased last June* Webpass, an ISP operating in 5 markets including the Bay area, and proposing both fiber and point-to-point wireless broadband solutions.

 
Google can use unlicensed spectrum and get a significant base to test broadband services, particularly for companies. These small, captive cells could become interesting entry points for 5G, without waiting for WAN technos to emerge. 

Will Google Fiber have to rebrand itself? Well you always need some for the backbone. And since Alphabet is also into medical fields, they already know that one fibers can't be digested, and two fibers can facilitate digestion.

Webpass won't be the last one to be wolfed down.

mot-bile 2016


* " Google Fiber agrees to acquire Webpass" (Webpass - June 22nd, 2016)

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

DeepMind Your Language

In Wired's special on "The End of Code", Jason Tanz heralds the end of human programmers ("Soon We Won’t Program Computers. We’ll Train Them Like Dogs").

It's not just that artificial intelligence will be better at coding than humans (what could you expect from the control of the most basic - pun half intended - of all languages?): machines have already started to create their own languages, and Tanz mentions the very 'black box' I feared we should never allow to blossom in my focus on singularity "I'm with stupid".

We're not talking generational gaps, like these teenage codes and languages parents can't decrypt.

We have already surrendered as a species, given up the most elementary level of monitoring. And even if we started training sniffing dogs to spot rogue dogs, we would end up chasing a tail only us would believe to be our own.




mot-bile 2016

Networks: the TIP of Facebook's iceberg

Earlier this year, Facebook gave us a TIP (Telecom Infra Project*) about what could come next for them at the infrastructure level. Most members of the project, starting with Intel, Nokia, SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, are also on board of Facebook's much wider Open Compute Project, which also claims top coopetitor Google.

Naturally, Menlo Park wants a front seat for next gen network premieres - typically, early bird SKT is expected to be the first on 5G. But recent announcements*** at the F8 days confirm that the company intends to reach deeper into the value chain to secure and strenghten its leadership, particularly where innovation in network performance can prevent bottlenecks in these pervasive big data / heavy content times.

Terragraph (WiGig WiFi on 60 GHz) proposes ultra efficient W-LAN coverage for dense urban areas. You only need a station every 200 to 250 m. Of course it doesn't provide seamless handover, but a 200 m radius allows you more mobility than your typical hotspot.

Project ARIES (Antenna Radio Integration for Efficiency in Spectrum - MIMO) is more into W-WAN for rural areas. It combines 96 antennas to manage 24 simultaneous data streams, and aims at over 100 bps / Hz compared to 71 in early trials.

Here too, for a fraction of the price of a standard infra...
 
Could Facebook become a non-2-to-5G MNO, or a player in the game of standards? Not so fast. But an even more competitive value aggregator, certainly.

mot-bile 2016

* telecominfraproject.com
** opencompute.org 
*** "Introducing Facebook's new terrestrial connectivity systems — Terragraph and Project ARIES" (Facebook 20160414) 

And Then There Were Three - Beyond Iliad's Odyssey

L'Express reported* that Xavier Niel (Iliad / Free) met with EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, officially to check which crumbs could fall on his lap following the O2-3UK merger.

They probably talked a lot about another 4-to-3-player story, the purchase of Bouygues Telecom by Orange, which was collapsing at that very moment. Martin Bouygues precisely blamed Niel and Free for demanding too big a share of the Bouygtel pie expected to be splitted among Orange, Free, and SFR**.

Note that L'Express happens to belong to Altice and Patrick Drahi, who happens to own SFR, and, reportedly, to hate Niel's considerable guts ever since he took Michael Boukobza back from him. Note also that Drahi is making the news in both senses of the expression: his name appears in the Panama Papers, and that's unlikely to quiet the jitters about his burgeoning EUR 50 bn debt (for instance, to remain UK-wise, Drahi's Numericable paid a fortune to get the Premiere League rights for France, beating both Canal+ and BeIN Sport).

Now beyond Niel, Drahi, and Bouygues, who's France's key fourth player? France Telecom's Stephane Richard's not much of a divisive character.

Without naming names, Martin Bouygues mentions troubling positions from the government, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were conflict of interests between President Francois Hollande, who wants to run again in 2017, and his Minister Emmanuel Macron, who also nurtures plans for the presidential elections. 

There was a lot to gain politically from the new deal in the French mobile market, particularly since it involves key players in the media: Drahi bought L'Express-Roularta and BFMTV, Niel owns Le Monde, and Bouygues TF1 and LCI. And let's not forget Vincent Bollore: if his Vivendi sold SFR to Altice, he still calls most of the shots, and this time, he might not bet everything on Sarkozy...


mot-bile 2016

* "Angleterre: Xavier Niel a rencontré la commissaire européenne à la concurrence" (L'Express - 20160401)
** "Martin Bouygues : «Pourquoi je n'ai pas vendu Bouygues Telecom à Orange»" (Le Figaro - 20160403)

"Fourth Industrial Revolution" passed Go, but singularity not yet a stone's throw away

Fun to hear the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" buzz at the WEF in Davos: years after Germany coined the corny "Industry 4.0", we're still applying XIXth century terms to XXIst century issues.

In a revolution, the old order is toppled by a new one. But in the previous 3, humans were in charge. So we're not just talking industries when we're talking 'bout a revolution, as Chapman sung (Tracy, not David).
What matters is that, in case you missed Elon Musk's howls of outrage weeks ago, worries about singularity are really getting mainstream. They're making headlines every day and Google's AlphaGo defeating a Go master* just confirmed the impression that our irrelevance is only a stone's throw away.


Impressive, but AlphaGo succeeded by studiously analyzing every move made by said master in his previous games. Here's a quick learner, but not yet a fully disruptive mind. Even go is finite, after all. We have yet to see A.I. set really new rules, invent really new games.

And get really silly.

Until then, as always, "I'm with stupid".

mot-bile 2016

* see "AlphaGo: using machine learning to master the ancient game of Go" (Google Blog 20160127)

Do Seamless 5G Communications Start With Flawless 5G PR?

Last March, NTT DoCoMo, KT, and China Mobile announced technical collaboration on 5G, each one with an Olympic event in mind: Pyeongchang 2018 for Korea, Tokyo 2020 for Japan, Beijing 2022 for China.

China Mobile, who started 5G development 5 years after DoCoMo, is clearly the laggard here. But by its sole presence, the World's biggest operator already brings considerable leverage for the standardization as well as for the ramp up phases, securing the full involvement of an ever progressing Huawei*.

NTT DoCoMo just presented at the Yokosuka Research Park the results of its recent trials**:
- on October 13 with Nokia Networks (2 Gbps transmission on 70 GHz, in Roppongi Hills, with the help of "two new technologies: beamforming, which focuses radio waves in a specific direction, and beam tracking to control beam direction according to the mobile device's location" - beamform me up, Scottie!),
- on October 26 with Fujitsu (multi-BS, multi-device 11 Gbps on 4.6GHz),
- on November 12 with Samsung (2.5 Gbps reception on 28 GHz, in a moving vehicle in Suwon),
- on November 18 with Huawei (MU-MIMO transmission of 43.9bps/Hz/cell, outdoor in Beijing), and
- on November 19 with Ericsson (MIMO 10 Gbps reception on 15 GHz).

A concise and impressive display, and a nice PR operation for a leader willing to show it covers all the bases. I'm curious to see how KT follows. In a nation already 70% converted to 4G LTE, Korea's #2 mobile operator has been the most vocal about 5G, and even about 4.5G following the launch of GiGA LTE last June. The names of Samsung, Ericsson-LG, Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei have been announced for collaborations at the new 5G Research and Development Center (in Umyeon-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul), and such technos as MIMO, Millimeter Wave, 3D beamforming have already been tested, like multipoint transmission in a moving car (with Ericsson last May, Distributed MIMO, 2 Gbps).

KT also demonstrated 'core technologies' for 5G (5G drone, 5G hyper-virtual reality, 3D hologram), which got a few Korean media confused between 5G-friendly services and 5G 'networks'***.

GiGA LTE or 5G? "Drone Ski Jumping with 5G Network" feeds the confusion

That's one of the differences between DoCoMo's 'engineer/product/provider' PR and KT's 'marketer/service/user' PR. 

We already saw how the pedagogy of 2.5G, 3G, or 4G worked, and we already know that quantum leaps at the operator's level can seem mere upgrades at the user's level. Let's not fret over hair-splitting debates between 'post-4G', 4.5G and 'pre-5G'.

mot-bile2015

* ZTE focuses on 4.5G ("pre-5G" deal with SoftBank)
** "DOCOMO Successfully Conducts 5G Trials in Actual-use Environments - Trials carried out with Nokia Networks, Samsung, Ericsson, Fujitsu and Huawei" (NTT DoCoMo 20151126) - see also "DOCOMO 5G White Paper" (NTT DoCoMo 201407)
*** e.g. "KT demonstrates 5G network at National Assembly" (Korea Times 20150902)

Mi Mobile on MIUI - Mi IoT on Your Network

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has awarded over 40 MVNO licenses since 2013. Among the recipients, many service providers (e.g. telcos like YuanTel, Snail Mobile, or specialists like Hainan Airlines, Ping An Insurance, CMBC bank, or Youku Tudou - video sharing), retailers (from the big netcos like Alibaba - who launched 'Qinxin' last Summer - or JD.com, to mobile phone retailers like D.Phone or FunTalk, to mobile service retailers like AiSiDi or Telling, to home appliance retailers like Suning or Gome),  manufacturers (e.g. Lenovo, Hisense, Foxconn, or Xiaomi)...

As of August 2015, 26 of the licensees had launched their services, claiming over 10 million subscribers (up from 8.2 the previous month), including 1 for YuanTel. 9 M subs were on China Unicom, 1 M on China Telecom, 0.1 M on China Mobile, which was just starting in the game... and boasts about 820 M subs.

Xiaomi, who sold 60 M smartphones last year, launched "Mi Mobile" last week on China Telecom and China Unicom networks. Surprisingly for a manufacturer, they offer SIM-only services. This company is used to making little margin on each handset, but also to leveraging its customer base through peripherals and convergent service platforms, particularly around its MIUI platform on Android. 

Among the gizmos found on Mi.com: Mi Pad, Mi Box, Mi TV, Redmi Note, Mi Band, Mi Power Bank, and even Mi Air Purifier:

If Mi Mobile is more the Airpocalypse-fighter than the airtime-killer kind of MVNO, MNOs and fellow manufacturers must beware: even before becoming an operator, Xiaomi had the IoT-ready approach players like Samsung lack. And they have a better focus and drive than local rivals Hisense or Foxconn...

mot-bile 2015

Alphabet Inc. or Google Offshore? Driving Investors MAD

So Google opened its books as Page wrote a letter announcing Alphabet.

"G is for Google"
G is for acceleration
G is for the G-spot of investors
G is for gee!

But wait. Is that an Easter Egg on Alphabet Inc.'s website (abc.xyz)? Does Larry Page plan to drive investors MAD?

Why Alphabet? Of course there's the Standard Oil of the Internet syndrome, the urgent need for transparency ahead of big decisions from European regulators (not to mention the need for creative ways of securing massive offshore war chests), Page's love for the Berkshire model (as if Larry and Sergey were about to move into Warren Buffet's house in Omaha), or why not Page's quest of eternal life (in the beginning was the Alphabet?)...  

Anyway, Google seems to be gaining agility at the financial level (from a conglomerate to a holding company), but it it true at the operational level? Yes if you consider for instance partnerships of equals with third parties, or internal / external coopetitivity. Not so much if you consider the implications of transparency. Beyond what each unit earns, transfers between units will have to be measured in terms of money and resources. Even if subsidiaries are allowed to use the Ferrari engine for free like any other partner team, how about these in-house engineers who did all the fine tuning at critical entry points, sharing all key knowledge across the organization? Is core business at risk of becoming less fast, more furious? Let's see how this Service Pack (Sundar Pichai) performs.

Will Alphabet remain Google? Now I see a classic net company from the late 90s, maybe even a VC surfing the bubble with its core cashcow and a decent portfolio featuring potential great spinoffs, managing risk with different levels of priority, ready to dump activities as quickly as it ventures into new ones...

What matters is not whether ABC/G sells for USD 700 a share. 

Time matters. Time is of the essence.

And I'm afraid time is more likely to become a luxury in Alphabet City.

Not just because the Founding Father of The Great Foundation may not be as eternal as he wishes he were.

mot-bile 2015

Why top-down approaches of innovation in Korea never fail to fail

This map shows what's wrong with innovation in Korea: each "Center for Innovation and Creative Economy" is led by one chaebol, but the startup ecosystem demands actual clusters* and truly open approaches.

Korea innovation centers* too chaebol-centric. Startup ecosystem needs real clusters
* koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3007182 (KJD 20150729)

The contradiction is obvious, but the Korea JoongAng Daily article this map came from ("Outside Seoul, new centers have a sleepy feeling" - 20150729) doesn't even mention it as a reason why these centers fail, like all attempts from previous administrations.

Again (see my essay on "Heralding cultural diversity - a stronger and more sustainable Korean wave" - particularly part III, on the business dimension), the chaebol seldom act as true cultural leaders, and that's a drag for the nation.

Yet change is coming to Korea. In spite of the inability of most chaebol to truly adapt, and of governments to push for true reforms. And if these changes are not necessarily positive, they make Korea Inc.'s posture even less sustainable.

As expected (see "The Bigger, The Bitter"), the money recently poured over the nation by Google and many major international V.C.s to put a lock on the most promising startups is at the same time fueling the local and global bubbles, and weakening the chaebol sphere of influence. Now being the only new kid on the block isn't enough, and the time Yellomobile could purchase dozens of startups for a song has ended.

One of the most positive side effect could be the evolution of mindsets towards enterpreneurship and startups. The fear of failure, a major impediment to innovation in Korea (see "Too proud to fail? Not so simple."), is on the vane. 

And that's not just blind belief in the latest tech bubbles: more among the nation's brightest students prefer to give it a try rather than join Samsung and Co. even if they know chances are not on their side. They welcome failure as a positive experience, and they know that it's better to start with it, that they will learn more during these 'wasted' months or years than by following the mainstream lemming race.

Now Korea also needs a couple of greatly successful failure stories, and a fairer balance between the conservative and the disruptive.

I'm feeling certainly more optimistic than a couple of years ago, and I've met more than a few young brilliant minds trying promising things. They know they can't expect much from the big fishes or from the government, but it wouldn't hurt if said big fishes and said government actually decided to prove them wrong.

(intitially published on SeoulVillage.com as "Non-Centers = No Innovation, No Creative Economy"

mot-bile  2015
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* and it's not just about bringing everybody on the same place either (see "Redrawing Korean Maps - Innovation Clusters")

carbon3d's CLIP: the MTV of 3D printing? a bouncing and dripping Sagrada Familia?

These videos may make you reconsider 3d printing.

If you've already handled 3d-printed objects, you know how easily they can break, even if you don't let them fall. Yes you can give them an illusion of flexibility through structural gimmicks, but this elastomer is truly something different:



Remember the drilling sound of ye olde inkjet printers, remember the relief the first time you used laser printing? That sleek, seamless, silent efficiency? I felt a bit the same watching this CLIP (yeah, timelapses do help, but it took only 7 mn to 'print' that Eiffel Tower):

 

These dripping structures reminded me of Antoni Gaudi's inverted force models for his Sagrada Familia: instead of piling up layers of bricks, forms seem to emerge naturally...

Gaudi's force models

... except they don't emerge from thin air, but from liquid, the L in carbon3d's CLIP technology (Continuous Liquid Interface Production).

If carbon3d say that they do true 3D printing, while 'traditional' technologies multiply 2D layers, it looks as if they bend 2D, pull it up like on Sketchup. And forget about those limited cubic printers...

This is how it actually works:



Again, carbon3d video killed the 3D printer stars. And again, remember: that fascination watching, back in 1991, Robert Patrick rise up from the tiled floor in Terminator 2? You new reality was different, but sci-fi movies suddenly got much cooler:

Anyway, congratulations to Joseph DeSimone and his teams. carbon3d's CEO "is one of less than twenty individuals who have been elected to all three branches of the National Academies: Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering". Maybe the 3d in his brand stand for 3 deans.

You can watch his TED talk of last March:




mot-bile 2015

Korea's fourth license reload

According to The Korea Herald (May 29), the Korean government is considering reviving the project of a fourth MNO license as part of a plan to stimulate the market.

Is there a need for another 4G network? Korea is well covered with LTE to LTE-A, beefed-up locally through pervasive femtocells and WiFi. And the three incumbents don't want to sit on their laurels: Korea Telecom promised 5G trials for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, and SK Telecom announced a partnership with Google on augmented reality ("T-AR for Project Tango").

Is there a need for more competition? It depends on the profile of the new player, and the impacts on a M-VNO ecosystem that, at long last, is biting into a pie still dominated by SK Telecom, Korea Telecom, and LG U+.

According to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), M-VNOs were claiming a 8.8% market share as of April 21 (up from 2.9% in June 2012), thanks to prices on average 57% cheaper than the MNOs.

But it's not as if you had one fourth player with a 8.8% market share, big enough to contest the leaders on more profitable segments. Today, Korea has 27 M-VNOs, most struggling to make their first profit, and likely to never see it. Significantly, their number of subscribers started to explode when they targeted more discount-seeking audiences (the youth, Chinese migrant workers...).

A perennial candidate for the 4th spot is actually a consortium of M-VNOs: KMI (Korea Mobile Internet) revived their candidacy in October 2013, and defending the existing M-VNO ecosystem could be a stronger argument today. In December 2011, the Korea Communications Commission not only rejected KMI's bid, but also that of IST (Internet Space Time lost the backing of Hyundai Group at a critical moment). Note that the KCC also canceled the auction for the WiBro spectrum. I explained a few months earlier ("A Kbiz MNO ? SMEs vs Korea Inc") how the attempt by the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses (Kbiz) to enter the market looked more like a lobbying stunt to push WiBro.

A much bigger fish could also seek the fourth license, with more brand power. Typically, CJ Group is already a major player in telecom, IPTV, or multimedia contents. It has the money to invest on new networks (Daum Kakao or Naver would need serious backing), the customer bases to leverage, and the contents to fill the pipes..., but don't bet on price wars with fellow chaebol on the juiciest segments. 
 
A true new entrant from overseas? Global MNOs know how difficult it would be in a country where foreign majors are seldom allowed to take or maintain leading positions (see retail for example: Carrefour and Wal-Mart already gone, Tesco on the back seat). But joining a consortium, or creating one remains a rare opportunity for international platforms to push their solutions in an otherwise locked Korean market. And nowadays, the dominant platforms do not necessarily belong to telecom operators...

Anyway, expect more lobbying ahead of the government's guidelines, expected by the end of June.

• See also "Daum Kakao, Google Campus... Korean platforms on steroids", other posts related to innovation in Korea.

mot-bile 2015

* "Consortium to bid for 4th mobile carrier in S. Korea" (Yonhap News - 2013/10/08)

Free launches Android TV on Freebox mini 4k

A pioneer in box combos, Free launched a new Freebox that runs on Android TV:

It includes 4k / UHD readiness, the Android TV Remote Control with voice search, and Google Cast interaction with your devices, which can monitor your TV.

Definitely a major boost for Google and Android in the smart TV arena. Free also revives its own maverick aura in a rather gloomy market. 

Not so good for the Free clients who happen to be Apple users, but iPhone fans can more often be found within Orange or SFR ranks.

mot-bile 2015

Google's Gtown wins over ZeeTown and the Large Apple Collider

As soon as Facebook revealed the plans of Zuckerbergville ("Zee Talk of Zee Town"), Google presented its future headquarters on its official blog*.

Big G will still reside in Mountain View, but in North Bayshore District. And double its capacity to 20,000 employees.

Waterway? Check. Highway? Check. But the rendering is much sexier and futuristic, and there's a nice video to support it (YouTube of course):

With its organic touch and absence of cars, Gtown looks more like a city of the future than Zeetown, probably because Google is much more into hardware innovation than Facebook. Furthermore, the architect is not a 85 year old legend (Zuck's Gehry) but two fun looking younger guns: Bjarke Ingels (Bjarke Ingels Group) and Thomas Heatherwick (Heatherwick Studio). Where Z looked for a brand, G went for sense and the essence. 

Granted, I'm unfairly comparing headquarters with employee quarters, and the constraints are not the same. But these projects speak volumes about differences in approaches and projected images.

Nothing as scary as the dystopian panopticon / large apple colliderish Apple Campus 2 announced two years ago. Now that's One Infinite Loop if I ever saw one:

Consistent with a hardware manufacturer used to proprietary systems...

mot-bile 2015

* see "Rethinking office space"

Zee Talk of Zee Town

Welcome to Zuckerbergville, 200-acre of sentient brick-and-mortar right across the Menlo Park headquarters, a paradise where Facebook will be able to monitor every move of 10,000 employees: who's buying what where? who's sleeping with whom when? just like your good old Facebook, but In Real Life.

Looking for the Hatespeech Arena? Start from Hacker Way, follow Push Marketing Avenue, and at the Cookie Roundabout, take a right turn. Never leave the NSA lanes, and try to avoid the Snowden Cul-de-Sac.

Frank Gehry has been invited to run his software and to propose a curvier cityscape than this dull 2012 project:

The 2012, Pre-Gehry Zuckerbergville

Gehry's fee must be comfortable, but only a tiny drop in Zuckerberg's multibillion dollar Zanadu. The land itself didn't cost too much: $400M for the last 55-acres, that's only $1,800 per sqm. You're on the waterfront, but also on a highway. And your HQ are on the other side of the Bayfront Expressway. Maybe they'll dig a tunnel for the commuters, and soundwalls to make sure employees get some sleep. Some Privacy? Don't even think about it. Your contract stipulates that you let your Samsung Smart TV on night and day*.

Ironically, the main street in the area is called Constitution Drive. Maybe Zuckerberg, who likes to build "the Hacker Way"**, has also his own special definition of the word 'Constitution'. I wonder if We the People of Zee-Town will enjoy Net Neutrality. And if visitors will need to sign special terms of service when they enter the Zee-Zone.


mot-bile 2015

* the EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) just filed a complaint with the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) over privacy concerns regarding private conversations.
** "As part of building a strong company, we work hard at making Facebook the best place for great people to have a big impact on the world and learn from other great people. We have cultivated a unique culture and management approach that we call the Hacker Way. The word “hacker” has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done. Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I’ve met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world. The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo."