Facebook's Initial Privacy Offering

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

My Wall and Wall Street are about to become an item: we're all going public, and you'll have to issue a profit warning each time I unlike you nth kitten picture.

Yet Facebook Initial Public Offering remains a non-event: Facebook has been milking our relationship from the beginning, and even with his 11M+ friends, Mark Zuckerberg has never been much of a philanthropist. The question was "when", and the answer is "now".

Now the other question remains: until when?

It doesn't have to come from the next big thing (a 4D, 5G meshroom cloud? the SOPAtriot Act?): remaining at the top happens to be difficult, even for a free, pervasive platform. And even a 800 pound gorilla can get off your back (I recently mentioned the potential Tripodization of Facebook: "Cloud Portability"). Furthermore, money won't do you much good without a vision. Look at Rupert Murdoch, who after losing over half a billion bucks on MySpace, delivers his pearls of conservative wisdom* for free over Twitter. And speaking of doing good: Google started being evil after its IPO...

... Come to think of it: Zuck started as a bad guy.

mot-bile 2012

*if such a thing exists.

Cloud Portability

You is everywhere. Ubiquitous, yet with different levels of thickness depending on platforms and contexts. A change of temperature, and parts of your cloud precipitate into big drops for everyone to look and feel.

You is the marrow of the backbone. The bread earner for a Google or a Facebook, maybe a former unwilling employee of a Yahoo! or a MySpace.

You is stuck in a net, hooked, dependent. You has the mother of all monkeys on you's back. You can't kick the habit. You can't see a future without the virtual past you amassed over the years.

You probably doesn't remember Tripod, the killer app of yore. Picture this: a customized homepage, featuring whatever you fancy about you...

You, online.

Tripod joined Lycos (yeah, go-get-it Lycos, a star of the silent internet times - limited colors, dial-up, only background track the faxlike connection), and followed its master to Germany (Bertelsmann), Spain (Telefonica), and Korea (Daum). Now both brands belong to Ybrant Digital (India). Tripod fetches domain names for the digital marketing group. Unlike most internet ventures, Tripod took some time to deserve its brand: is still walking around, but with a cane. At least, they're making a few bucks with the brand. Yahoo! totally euthanized Geocities.

I'm not digressing. Lycos was the first netco to make a decent living. And the most disruptive moment I remember about Tripod is when they announced the portability of homepages. Competition remained one click away, but you could switch with all your belongings.

Social network portability is much more complex. Friendships and synapses reach beyond simple pages or links. But we'll have to get there some day.

And who knows, 20 years from now, some South Sudanese venture shall sell capacity under the brand Facebook.

mot-bile 2012

Face Recognition: When Smart TV Goes Too Smart

Samsung wants to implement face recognition in certain smart TVs. The function is already available for mobile devices but here, the idea is to adapt content to viewers, for instance in order block adult content when a kid is watching (tadaa - how about Junior in his Spiderman costume?). Swiss researchers have been studying the concept for years, but for a monitor equipped with an arm that allows the screen to follow the user (picture yourself in your kitchen with flour all over your hands and the urgent need to browse recipes).

Speaking of mobile and TV and following our previous updates about M-VNOs in Korea*, CJ HelloVision just launched "Hello Mobile" on Korea Telecom, and the country's second MSO could post interesting figures with the contribution of parent company CJ Group, still a food franchise powerhouse but now the country's multimedia leader (CGV, CGmedia, CJ Home Shopping...). CJ already proposes many mobile apps and multiplatform services (ie tving), but expect more e-commerce synergies ahead, particularly following the launch of Mobile E-Mart, also on KT. Homeplus (Tesco-Samsung) also considering entering the arena as MVNO.

Hello Mobile follows Insprit (Enspert tablet on Wibro) and SRoaming (Skype Roaming phone rental), also on KT, still the leader with a little more than 300,000 MVNO lines compared to about 50,000 for SK Telecom. Remember: KT struck the first deals two years ago*.

mot-bile 2012

* see "A Kbiz MNO ? SMEs vs Korea Inc", "Korea Telecom signs the country's first MVNOs", "Korea : Onse Telecom wants to be a MVNO"

Samsung Flexible AMOLED

Buzz of the day: a viral ad from Samsung Mobile Display featuring a flexible and transparent AMOLED screen / tablet:



This concept Samsung Flexible AMOLED has it all: 3D holograms, enhanced reality, fresh udon, you name it. Definitely one of the best teasers of the decade.

Take the apps separately, and you don't have anything really new. But I really like how they wrapped it, and the way they boosted two apps: picking a dish from a menu (the above mentioned noodles), and instant translation. Here, the user puts the gizmo between himself and his interlocutor. Each one can talk and read from each side of the screen because the text the said interlocutor needs is written in reverse. A simple but smart detail: transparent means see-through and both ways. Likewise, foldable means two ends of the screen can directly see each other, and there's also a video call app leveraging that.

Not the first concept screen from SMD, but definitely a giant marketing leap for their research teams.

mot-bile 2011

Amazon, Facebook Smartphones? Who cares for Nokia Siemens Networks?

The coming holiday season is strategic for tablet market shares, and that's one of the main reasons why Apple blocked the Samsung Galaxy Tabs in key countries. Cupertino lawyers didn't even try to stop Amazon's Kindle Fire in spite of its vague iPhone 1G design: this low cost gizmo is not a direct competitor, it contributes to democratize the tablet format, and by contrast enhances the coolness of iPad in places where Galaxy's not available.

If the commoditization of tablets will take more time than it did for smartphones, it won't take ages either. Apple obviously intends to milk the cow as long as it can, and to make sure it doesn't miss the next wave. Meanwhile, Samsung doesn't seem to make the most of its leadership in bigger screens because what Smart TV needs is a leader in value aggregation. Unless your TV remains a dumb screen and your smartbox grows wings.

Smartphones will keep getting smarter, but frankly I don't care if Facebook, Amazon, and the countless players rumored to work on them launch one or not.

I care for the 17,000 people kindly fired by Nokia Siemens Networks by the end of next year, a measure shamelessly presented as a "new strategy" ("Nokia Siemens Networks puts mobile broadband and services at the heart of its strategy; initiates restructuring to maintain long-term competitiveness and improve profitability").

Fair enough, networks have never been sexy in this sector. Except maybe when there were more base stations than mobile subscribers, and when handsets were bigger than Macintoshes. But NSN can sound as attractive as SNS, and if it really wants to put "services at the heart of its strategy", all it has to do is to rephrase its press release.

I'd suggest: "Introducing "Newstrategization", our latest killer app".

mot-bile 2011

tech+ 2011

If I had received one Korean won each time the name of Steve Jobs was pronounced yesterday at the 2011 tech+ forum, I'd probably be a few million bucks richer today.

The thing is, the late Apple founder used to herald the convergence of humanities and technology, and that's precisely what this forum is all about : tech+ stands for technology, economy, culture, and human, wrapped up in / multiplied n-fold by resolute optimism (the final +).

While I'm at acronyms : the event was organized by the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT), and the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE). Overall, 7,000 people showed up at Kyung Hee University's Grand Peace Palace, an impressive cathedral overlooking the splendid campus at its autumnal best.

Day 2 featured no less than 9 keynote speakers and a final wrap-up speech, but time flew seamlessly thanks to perfectly rhythmed transitions. A refreshing change from the usual verbose introductions : dynamic animations on a giant screen launching each speaker like a rock star.

Actually, the most convincing orator happened to be an expert in music : Stanford University's Ge Wang rocked the audience with his musical demos, winning more than a few hearts with his 'Ocarina' version of Arirang. The young Chinese professor delivered the ultimate stevejobsian show : same black top, same beard stubble, same voice pitch, and same gadgets (iPhone, iPad, imCool). Even his Center for Computer Research in Music and Accoustic (Stanford's CCRMA) echoes Steve's sense of Karma. But Ge Wang is a truly original and passionate individual, with an universe of his own (inhabited by such Zorgians as Smule, ChucK, MoPho, or SLOrk*). Bonus: unlike "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named", absolutely not arrogance whatsoever ! Bonus redux: an almost Mozartian touch (short high pitched laughters very reminiscent of Milos Forman's Amadeus). In a nutshell : the inspirational leader every innovating team loves to follow.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Hyundai Motors R&D VP's presentation was almost bad PR for the company. Since I've got the charisma of an anvil on stage, I can't blame him for not being as fun as Ge, but innovation is certainly not about repeating 'convergence' like a mantra without obviously understanding the word, and stamping it on every page of the company's catalog (I'm pretty sure these guys recycle always the same slides with a different keyword depending on the flavor of the month : 'well being', 'ubiquitous', 'premium'...?). Likewise, SK Planet's presentation reminded me of countless shows I attended fifteen years ago, introducing the next deja vu netco with a complete line-up of me-too applications (this time: Sundew, musicBunk, StyleTag, DishPal, Facecard, StarCall).

OK. I'm a more than demanding audience as far as innovation is concerned, but the least you expect is people really enjoying and believing in what they do. So everybody welcomed Yon Namgoong, another man of music and member of the Stevejobsian Adventist Church, and a true model for Korean students who massively attended the event: yes, you can succeed and have an impact, even if you didn't go all the way to the university. Yes, Korea needs to make more room for creative people with diverse backgrounds and a contagious eagerness to share. Yon was clearly more relevant when he developed interesting concepts bridging music with technology than when he interpreted corporate strategies, but did he have fun playing drum on stage !

Significantly, Ge and Yon delivered the same key messages through similar quotes about the evolution of technology : Ben Shneiderman for the hairy Chinese (old computing is about what computers can do / new computing is about what people can do), and the power shift for the bald Korean (power used to come from owning the tool, now it's about how you use it). Both pitches were clearly in the strike zone for the forum's "Technology@me" agenda.

Jay Elliot's job was basically to make sure we didn't forget to mention the late Jobs, and his qualities as a true leader in innovation. From a man who worked closely with him and other giants at IBM or Intel, a rather pleasant chat by the fireplace (i.e. Ge Wang's virtual lighter app for iPhone).

Neither Richard Florida nor Zhong Qui Wang brought disruptive insights either, but it's always useful to remind Korean corporations that stress can be counterproductive, and that staff shouldn't be considered as mere cost centers (and not only in R&D units). I guess Zhong must have an even tougher time trying to convince 'nouveau riche' Chinese entrepreneurs of the virtues of frugality and other Lao Tseuities...

What else ? I wish the 'creative space' presentations had reached deeper because there's so much to say about urbanism and architecture in a 'tech+' perspective for this country, but that leaves more threads to pull for future editions.

I don't know about Steve's second coming, but I'll be back.

mot-bile 2011 (also on Seoul Village : "tech+ 2011 - technology@me"

* respectively the company for which he serves as CTO, a sound programming language, the Stanford Laptop Orchestra, the Mobile Phone Orchestra.

NFC goes shopping : live in Seoul

As announced (see "Grand NFC Korea Alliance"), the heart of Myeongdong, a major shopping neighborhood popular among younger generations and Japanese tourists, will be a key test bed for NFC transactions in Korea next month.

This "NFC special district" operation is organized by the KCC (since security is key, the national authority delegated the mission to its KISA unit / Korea Internet Security Agency) and involves all 3 operators (SKT, KT, LGT/LGU+), 9 credit card companies, and key players and enablers listed last June (more are expected soon, particularly in ticketing / couponing applications).

Now for the hard(ware) part ? Terminals are ready on both ends : 100 shops will be equipped with dongles, and enough enduser should be enabled from day one. The NFC payment solution has already been embedded in the Samsung Galaxy S II and other recent models, and rival iPhones can join in thanks to a plug-in developped for Korea Telecom.

Microsoft might join later, but I'm not sure the Samsung Series 7 Slate has already the solution.

mot-bile 2011

Steve's Wonders

The first computer I owned was a Mac. That was back in 1989. I switched for my third one, but even now I keep a special affection for Apple.

I'm not a member of the Stevejobs Adventist Church and I never quite liked the guy, but I always respected the innovator.

Not the inventor but the innovator, the person who decisively accelerates the adoption of something new. People like to quote Steve Jobs quoting Picasso ("good artists copy, great artists steal"), or to remember how he "stole" Xerox's inventions (the windows interface later copied by Microsoft, the mouse)... Nokia and others could argue the Apple Store and iPhone borrowed more than a few characteristics but you've got the general idea : the company suing Samsung & co is not exactly the Saint it pretends to be.

Of course, Steve Jobs was not the only brain in Cupertino, and not the man who brought up new ideas. Of course, his fingerprints will be all over Apple's releases for the next few years, and the company has the money to remain a top competitor far beyond that.

But Apple lost the heck of a decision maker.

Innovating is about making decisions, trading-off at all levels (time to market, availability of key features, readiness of distribution channels...)... and this is the fastest-changing of all environments. Steve Jobs knew when to say no and when to say go. He could launch the first iPhone in 2G because he knew he could count on the customer appetence for the brand (a key asset built over years and perfectly entertained by the King of Hype), and because he had to leverage on the iPod / iTunes momentum without waiting for competitors to soak the market with 3G novelties. But some decisions must have been tougher, and future decision makings will be tougher without him.

It's time for Apple to expose its real innovation engine. We don't necessarily need to hear it roar now and then, but constant purring would be a nice surprise.

mot-bile 2011

Apple employee walks into a bar...

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Again, an Apple employee walks into a bar, where he leaves unattended the company's latest prototype (this time a tablet*).

Highest stage of incompetence or ultimate marketing genius ? This incident feeds the buzz and tells the whole industry nothing has changed in Cupertino following Steve Jobs' resignation.

Want to hear the latest Polish joke ? Steve Wozniak walks into a bar of justice with a Samsung lawyer...

mot-bile 2011

* probably an iPad with a very Random Access Memory

HomePlus subway virtual store gets "real" (from click and mortar to billboard and click)

Following the success of its QR code-based advertising campaign in Seoul subway with Cheil Worldwide (see "HomePlus subway virtual store - 2011 Cannes Lions"), Korean retailer HomePlus, a Tesco-Samsung JV, launches its first permanent virtual store in Seollung station, Gangnam area.

Since you liked it (over 10,000 views), I'll play it again, Sam :


This time, 2D shelves will stretch deeper into the station : with screen doors and pilars simulating popular sections and products of the hypermarket chain, all commuters have to do is to direct their smartphones to the items they please. HomePlus also decided to beef up backhaul, multiplying the time slots available for home deliveries.

Major hypermarkets being already open 24/7, now there's no way consumers can escape from contextual shopping traps.

mot-bile 2011

Supercharging Whom ? Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility

"Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies." That's how Larry Page explains the twelve billion purchase in the official Google blog.

The blog is titled "Supercharging Android: Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility"*, but one could wonder who will be supercharged in the end. Third parties and endusers may start asking themselves what will come out of a landscape where former archrivals Microsoft and Nokia tie the knot, or where the mother of all netcos swallows a former giant manufacturer. SonyEricsson theoretically went even further on the value chain, but the union was celebrated in completely different times, when networks were not precisely clogged with mobile internet traffic.

More moves are expected. Apple has been rumored to be in a mega purchasing mood for quite awhile, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Samsung making something big. Lee Kun-hee just pointed out the necessity for the company to evolve, an evidence we recently repeated (see "Huawei Vision : a view from the cloud"). This should go beyond such acquisition as Grandis, a specialist in memory wolfed down earlier this month by the South Korean chaebol.

Anyway, the Motorola episode reassesses the importance of patents in the legal war raging worldwide. Apple claimed a few significant victories : a big chunk of Nortel patents, plus a suspension of Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in key markets.

The problem is Apple is not John Grisham, an entity that makes money with legal stuff. Being the next NTP is not exactly "cool".

And the consumer is not likely to beg "supercharge me".

mot-bile 2011

* where the king of the 80s is kindly put at the same level as bankrupt Nortel : an empty shell with a collection of patents

Huawei Vision : a view from the cloud

Huawei Vision runs on Android 2.3 but comes with a 160 Gigabyte spot in the cloud for every owner, positioning the Chinese player at the strategic gateway between that soft spot and its own hardware (scheduled for September in China, along with 4G). Apps agregation starts with the usual suspects : music, images or video that you may not want to transfer forever from laptop to laptop or to XX century storage solutions (ie CDs, DVDs).

Hardly disruptive : Alibaba just launched a similar concept, and of course Apple made a splash with its iCloud earlier this year. But Huawei was supposed to be essentially about hardware.

Sounds like that business model may not be sustainable anymore. Clouds may pass in the sky, replaced with new UFOs, but the truth is starting to sink in : smartphones are not much smarter than computers, and differenciation is getting more and more difficult every year. Worse : product cycles are even shorter and being cool never lasts long.

Food for thought for Samsung, who's been threatened by the Nokia syndrome even before claiming the leadership in handsets. But at least the Finns did venture into new business models. Never forget that OVI preceded Apple's App Store iOs by one year.

Of course, back then, Jorma Ollila was already gone, and Steve Jobs still cool.


mot-bile 2011

A Kbiz MNO ? SMEs vs Korea Inc

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses (KFSB or Kbiz) wants to join SK Telecom, Korea Tecom and LG U+ (LG Telecom) as Korea's fourth mobile network operator.

This bid looks like a complete joke : a Kbiz-led consortium of 900 small businesses would invest about KRW 100 bn (USD 94 M) in "4G Wibro". How could it succeed where much stronger players failed and where MVNOs themselves cannot thrive* ?

Kbiz claims 2.7 million SMEs, but I don't see this greenfield player take those demanding customers from the big boys.

WiBro, a WMAN technology competing with WiMax, remains a Koreano-Korean thing with a convenient 4G label. Typically, KT is advertising about their "4G WiBro" coverage as SKT launches its LTE as the "real 4G", but eventually all 3 MNOs will implement LTE. Note that KT is also willing to close its 2G CDMA networks and proposing nice 3G/4G plans to die hard users, some of which have been keeping prehistoric handsets because of unbeatable unlimited rates.

Kbiz needs Samsung to propose WiBro, and that could be the actual aim of the game : not the candidacy to a license, but the PR operation behind the announcement.

Samsung is the ultimate chaebol, the perfect symbol of those almighties who rule over Korean economy and are often blamed for the weakness of the nation's SME ecosystem. Worse : they create their own SMEs to benefit from pro-SME incentives and suck even more value from the market. Even LEE Myung-bak, the CEO president who came from Hyundai Engineering and Construction, is campaigning about a 'fair society' where chaebols would allow small fish to survive.

I don't know if Kbiz will really go all the way, or if Samsung will pretend to play their game for image's sake... but Korean market remains fun to observe.

mot-bile 2011

* see "Korea : Onse Telecom wants to be a MVNO", "Korea Telecom signs the country's first MVNOs"...

HomePlus subway virtual store - 2011 Cannes Lions

Cheil Worldwide won the Media Grand Prix at the 2011 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival of Creativity for its amazing HomePlus campaign in Seoul subway, three years after claiming a bronze award for an outdoor advertising campaign "Plus to your life - HomePlus" with the same customer (Samsung Tesco).

Pushing to new levels the now decade-old barcode mobile advertising concept, "Homeplus Subway Virtual Store" transforms a subway station into a replica of supermarket where commuters can register and order online with their smartphone. This is not only spectacular and smart, but efficient : the number of subscribers and the turnover skyrocketed, helping the retailer overtake Emart as the national leader in online sales* :



Of course, you don't want to miss your subway and you won't fill your virtual cart through this sometimes tedious process, but you can just load the first items and quietly finish shopping on the way home.

Expect more of these. I already can see Amazon setting up his own virtual libraries near rival brick and mortar shops...

mot-bile 2011

* a key channel in Korea, see "Online sales become the first distribution channel in Korea - or is door-to-door back ?"

Grand NFC Korea Alliance

Ten years ago, SK Telecom would carpet bomb Korea with 400,000 terminals ("dongles") to boost its Moneta mobile payment service. Yesterday, Korea Inc. announced 300,000 NFC-enabled Point Of Sales by the end of 2011 to put the country ahead of the pack in this very very strategic sector.

The difference ? This is not a solo act anymore : SKT alone couldn't succeed in setting the new standard in mobile payments at home and pushing the concept overseas, but this time, the whole value chain and ecosystem is following. And if it works, each player will claim a nice slice of a much bigger pie.

Under the regulator's umbrella (KCC, the herald of "NFC-based Mobile Smart Life Services"), over thirty Korean CEOs met at the Seoul Press Center to sign this decisive MOU in Near Field Communications, and if you throw in the members of the recently formed Grand NFC Korea Alliance, you've got the closest thing to a mobile payment dream team :

- all 3 Mobile Network Operators : Korea Telecom, SK Telecom, U+ (LG Telecom)
- the biggest card players around : Visa, MasterCard, Shinan Card, Kookmin Card (KB), Lotte Card, Hyundai Card, T-Money, MNO partners (Hana) SK Card and BC Card (KT)...
- key authorities and associations : KCC, ETRI, TTA, KISA (Korea Internet & Security Agency), MOIBA (Mobile Internet Business Association), RAPA (Korea Radio Promotion Association)...
- top manufacturers : Samsung, LG, Pantech...
- top enablers: UbiVelox, KEBT, MtekVision, 3ALogics Inc, KICC...
- top payment enablers / billing service providers : KSNet Inc, Mobilians, Galaxia, Danal Corp., KCP...

The only players missing on the picture are the endusers.

And as we saw before, pedagogy will be key in a country where hacking happens to be a national pastime (if you include North Korea in the package), where few people protect their handsets with a PIN code, and where distrust in smartphone security keeps spreading like wildfire.

Of course, "Near Field" meaning 10 cm and below, close encounters of the third thief will require more intimacy than via Bluetooth. Besides, many Koreans are already used to contactless micropayments thanks to T-Money (ie Seoul public transportations and taxis, thousands of convenience stores and vending machines...). Furthermore, NFC trials have been under way for quite a while : for instance KT's "Mobile Stamp" couponing system, SKT's Mobile Commerce Zone or Q Store pilots, or cross border trials between SKT's T-Cash and Japan's KDDI and SoftBank...

This MOU aims at multiplying testbeds and giving momentum to the technology, the bulk of the infrastructure being planned for Q4 2011. So where will NFC-based payments be available ? GS group plans to implement them in its convenience stores (GS25) and gas stations (GS Kaltex). Major retailers (Lotte Mart, Emart...) are joining the party. Seoul and Gyeonggi-do buses and subways, as well as many taxis will be converted. A major shopping area for tourists (particularly from Japan), Myeongdong has been identified as a strategic hotspot to feed the buzz.

Needless to say, the number of NFC-enabled handsets is another essential element in the equation. The alliance targets an ambitious 5 M units by the end of the year, leveraging on existing devices (Samsung Galaxy S II and Sky Vega Racer opened the way), and the Google-Apple war : since Android Gingerbread OS supports NFC, Cupertino had to consider it for iPhone 5.

And oh. This non-event : Samsung is expected to surpass soon Nokia as the world's top handset manufacturer.

mot-bile 2011

* sorry, not yet in English : "국내 통신사·금융(카드)사 CEO 최초로 한자리에 모여 NFC 서비스 활성화를 위한 MOU 체결"

KT and Softbank wed in the cloud

Two years after the merger of Korea Telecom with KTF, the group claims 27% of its turnover in the "non-communication sectors", and targets 45% by 2015. "Non-communication" covers "convergence, IT service/media and global operations", which have something to do with communication but nevermind :
- 'Communication' means wired and wireless comms + call centers (KRW 18 Tn in 2010, 22 in 2015).
- 'IT service/media' stretches over 'SI/NI, cloud, solutions, contents', so typically Software as a Service (SaaS)... (evolution 2010-2015 : KRW 2 to 6 Tn).
- 'Convergence' includes 'communication-finance convergence' (KT will absorb BC Card and challenge more directly Hana SK Card or the duo SK Telecom - Hana Card), 'car' (KT Rental), 'security', 'ad/commerce' (evolution 2010-2015 : KRW 4 to 8 Tn).
- 'global operations' collects the rest : 'investment, IT and communication' (!), and probably real estate (evolution 2010-2015 : KRW 1 to 4 Tn)

In this last category, KT intends 'to expand its global markets for Smart City, Cloud, and ICT Solutions', and 'to secure more than ten new business items, such as Smart Home, Smart City and Digital Signage', or to 'develop globally competitive products and services and consider expanding its business worldwide from the launch of a project, as in the case of KT Kibot and CCC'. For your information : KT Kibot is a cute robot.

CCC means, of course, Cloud Communication Center. And that's where Korea Telecom and Softbank decided to create a 51/49 Joint Venture next September : a huge cloud data center will be created in Busan, with a back-up system in Seoul. A smart risk management move from ethnic Korean Masayoshi Son : the March 11 earthquake + tsunami followed by Fukushima meltdowns caused major business disruptions and massive energy shortages. This center will start with a 6 MW capacity (the equivalent to 700,000 PCs or 10,000 servers according to KT), and quickly reach 20 MW. A dedicated 10 GW line will secure the traffic and that's another reason why Korea's second biggest city was chosen : it's very and one of the closest to Japan (210 km or 130 miles), with all the right IT and human connections.

Yet. If Korea is spared by tsunamis and earthquakes, it is frequently attacked by North Korean hackers, and that's the reason why mobile banking and finance, a traditional strong point in the country, is not booming as fast as smartphone sales.

NFC-based Google Wallet* will have to overcome even more resistance there considering the company's image in Korea these days and the intense lobbying campaign from local netcos against its potential dominant position.


mot-bile 2011

* see "Coming soon: make your phone your wallet"

Don't catch a Chromebook cold

In "A new kind of computer: Chromebook", Google announced for June 15th the first Chromebook computers from Samsung and Acer.



Big G claims 160 million Chrome users, and that's more likely Chrome the browser than Chrome the OS. The new devices are supposed to take 8 seconds to boot. How long to catch a virus that may leave you with a useless piece of metal desesperatly knocking on the cloud's door ?

mot-bile 2011

Showing off : Google I/O, World IT Show, Android@Home, Flixster@omized...

More news from Google I/O* :
- Google loves contents and furthermore, how it's conveyed to you : beyond Music Beta by Google (see "Skype keeps moving, Google googling"), "Movie for rent" sounds like the killer app for (or rather against) Flixster & co.
- Android rocks and keeps gaining Gmentum in the hardware and middleware wars : 100 million activated Android devices (+ 400,000 every day), 200,000 apps in Android Market (4.5 bn apps installed from the same joint)
- on the go : handsets and tablets to converge in the Ice Cream Sandwich version of the OS
- in the more "fixed" range : with the Android@Home concept, Android starts sniffing around your place for friendly devices (including the Project Tungsten designed for Music Beta by Google)

... deja vu all over again for Apple, even if Google won't dominate the OS world the way Microsoft did.

More modestly, the World IT Show (WIS) started at the COEX in Seoul, with LG back on tracks (LG Optimus 3-D handsets, 3D TV war on Samsung, who also pushes its Smart TV and its dual core, 4G Galaxy S2), and SK Telecom showing off its own novelties (N-Screen, LTE network, Wibro CCTVs...).

mot-bile 2011

* "Android: momentum, mobile and more at Google I/O"

Skype keeps moving, Google googling

Microsoft purchased VoIP 1.0 leader Skype. Not for the technology but for the address books and the entry point to interhuman communications, something Redmond still has trouble getting into.

Google Music sounds like Google Book redux. No agreements yet, but a statement, and an invitation to store your stuff on Big G's cloud. You know, Google, not the major media company but the tech nerds with the big servers that never crash (take that Jeff - see "Melting clouds"). And as YouTube turns 6, Google promotes user generated quality content (YouTube Next, YouTube Creator Institute, YouTube NextUp...). So beyond storage, the idea will soon be to source new talents and to give everyone the opportunity to broadcast oneself.

The main news here is not the service but the branding: it's not "Google Music" but "Music Beta by Google", which allows a future brand to fill the blank (ie a future purchase), but furthermore echoes Google's pervasiveness on Android. In Korea, for instance, a country where it was lagging far behind Naver or Daum, the company managed to accumulate an impressive content far beyond mobile searches, through its no-logo apps and in particular in the LBS fields (maps, places...).

The debate shouldn't be only about collecting personal data but about dominant position in collaborative contents.

mot-bile 2011

Did you slap your PaperPhone on ? Snaplet

Foldable screens and e-ink technologies have fueled our imaginations for years (remember the downloadable newspaper ?), and teams of North American researchers* added the logical next next step, with a PaperPhone prototype to be on display next Tuesday at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Vancouver. They went one notch further with the Snaplet, a wristband which becomes "a watch when convex, a PDA when flat and a phone when concave"**.

The Snaplet is a really interesting concept because it adds a human touch and provides a wearable solution for the rollscreen (call it a tablet or a phone depending on the circumstances). Of course, it won't be that simple (consider sweat, thefts, or shocks, for instance), but that's a nice upgrade for the snappable watch, and a perfect support for promotional gifts : I don't see people paying fortunes for a rugged version, but couple this with the disposable phone...

mot-bile 2011

* from Human Media Lab, Queen's University / Motivational Environments Research, Arizona State University
** both unveiled by the Beeb, see BBC's "Flexible phone made from electronic paper to debut"