Thursday November 02, 2006
Java ME: De-fragmentation
Every developer for mobile devices faces the same problem: fragmentation of the Java ME market on the mobile phone handsets... The practice of creating an own version per each handset is not only costly and wasteful of resources - it is confusing to the end user. Additionally it inhibits the growth of the market for Java ME Platform.
Together Sun and Orange have worked to produce a set of guidelines for Java ME Platform programming that aim to reduce the practice of generating a distinct executable version (jar file) of an application for each and every phone. Last week, a joint paper has been announced and is now available at developers.sun.com. These guidelines look at some of the causes of fragmentation, and offer suggestions as to how an application may be written to achieve the optimal balance of application performance and coverage of a large number of phones.
Techniques for de-fragmentation
So, to use these guidelines, look at the capabilities that your application needs, for example screen output. Look at the guidelines for re-sizing images, determine what tolerances will work for your application, and apply the techniques to use one image to cover a range of varied screen sizes where the variation is relatively minor. The same can be done to cover different keypad inputs.
Generating one version to cover all phones is unlikely, but the fewer versions means a wider market and lower costs.
So to maximize the number of compatible devices per version, identify the platform and context that is relevant to the application. Then, for each point of variability, choose the technique to handle it. There is no general rule for selecting variability handling techniques, since some techniques may have different impact on different kind of applications.
More at developers.sun.com.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Nov 02 2006, 09:20:52 AM CET ) Permalink
Monday October 30, 2006
lab.30 – Augsburg's small but own Ars Electronica Festival
Beginning November 2 the fifth lab.30, a four-day-long Media Art Festival will start a again in my Hometown Augsburg/Germany. Lab.30 will once again serve as an interface for electronical soundscapes and visual fictions with playful projects facing the exploding tecnical possibilities and also meeting point of the virtual netlabelscene in reality. Three intensive nights full of clicks, cuts, galaktical melodies and the sounds of large cities: Soundscapes, digital playgrounds analog strokes, computer freaks, installers, sound tinkerers and video monsters, between competley averadge people from canada to columbia from oberhausen to bogenhausen: glocalisation in real time. Again there will be three days of electronic music, digital/electric art in an exposition and lot's of party in Augsburg's art house "abraxas" with international artists and performers I'm looking forward to.
"Technology gets more and more inportant in our life. And this affects as well the kind of expression of art. The playful use of technology is one important attractiveness of our festival", highlights Elke Seidel from Augsburg's department of art. She is one of the curators of this festival besides Professor Robert Rose, University of Applied Sciences for Multimedia, Augsburg and Peter Bommas, managing director of an Augsburgian theater for kids.
In the fifth year you really can see that lab.30 might really grow to a small sister of Austrian's Art & Technology Festival Ars Electronica, which has already a 27 year old tradition in that small, but quite picturesque austrian town at the river Danube, called Linz. But different to the Ars, lab.30 is focussing on music and not on art exhibition and a always very interesting conference. Additionally there's no thematically main topic in Augsburg.
If you're interested in Robotic Concerts (Pierre Bastien), crazy Supermodel Bands (Sebastian Giussani and Deniz Khan's "Midi Model Manipulation") or Websound-Acts ("SoulSeek Night") by international Artists like Saskia from Spain or Deaf Center from Norway and much, much more - Augsburg might be the place to be for you at this weekend. (If you'll be there, give me a mail or a call!)
And if you're artist - perhaps you want to apply for taking part in next's year festival?! More info at the festival page at http://www.lab30.de.
More about this festival and it's agenda at my german blog at http://www.e-thieme.de (more picture, more info and some more links).
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Oct 30 2006, 02:16:22 PM CET ) Permalink
Tuesday September 26, 2006
TCPA - I really don't trust you!
Trusted Computing Platform Alliance - an initiative to manage rights on hardware level - isn't really a thing I trust in. two designers from Augsburg (where I live in Germany) Benjamin Stephan and Lutz Vogel have given a video statement which you HAVE to see.
A better resolution is available at http://www.lafkon.net/tc/.
Why I think TCPA isn't good
TCPA stands for Trusted Computing Platform Alliance. For the technology we will speak from TCP (The trusted computing platform). This plans that every computer will have a TPM (Trusted Platform Module), also known as Fritz-Chip, built-in. At later development stages, these functions will be directly included into CPUs, graphiccards, harddisks, soundcards, bios and so on. This will secure that the computer is in a TCPA-conform state and that he checks that it's always in this state.
This means: On the first level comes the hardware, on the second comes TCPA and then comes the user. The complete communication works with a 2048 bit strong encryption, so it's also secure enough to make it impossible to decrypt this in realtime for a longer time. This secures that the TCPA can prevent any unwanted software and hardware. The long term result will be that it will be impossible to use hardware and software that's not approved by the TCPA. Presumably there will be high costs to get this certification and that these would be too much for little and mid-range companies. Therefore open-source and freeware would be condemned to die, because without such a certification the software will simply not work. In the long term only the big companies would survive and could control the market as they would like.
More info at http://www.againsttcpa.com/.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Sep 26 2006, 04:46:49 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [1]
Wednesday September 20, 2006
Be tracked wherever you are by your employer!
Trisent is a technology company that has created a revolutionary new way to continuously track the location of mobile phones. Unlike Cell-ID technology the system is continuously aware of the location of the tracked phone, when a phone moves the location is automatically updated. This is a real alternative to GPS and it uses standard mobile phone handsets! Trisent argues: "GPS handsets are expensive, they drain your battery quickly and in many situations they cannot see the satellites so they don't always work. Trisent's technology overcomes these problems by using off-the-shelf technology which works anywhere with mobile coverage."
Trisent, a scottish mobile company, partners together with russian operator Vimpelcom to roll this service out. Perhaps a nightmare for every worker but a great control about their employees for the companies using this service. The only opportunity NOT to get tracked is by switching of the mobile phone...
More info at http://www.trisent.com/.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Sep 20 2006, 05:33:45 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [1]
Thursday August 31, 2006
Windows Media DRM Hacked
A hack to Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) versions 10 and 11 (the latter being a new beta version) has appeared on various sites. The so-called Fairuse4wm program finds the encryption key to WM DRM files and uses it to circumvent the DRM from legitimately obtained audio and video files. The application will strip Windows Media 10 and 11 files of their DRM.
In the online music world, the overwhelming market share winner is Apple's iTunes Music Store, whose protection has been bypassed several times already. Microsoft's Windows Media has been a perpetual also-ran, but it has too received attention from the hackers. In 2001, the version that came with Windows Media Player 7 was defeated by a hacker going by the pseudonym "Beale Screamer." Microsoft then updated their protection, and for years have been touting its invulnerability to hackers.
Again this shows that Digital Rights Management can never be really 100% secure. And that proprietary solutions from single vendors might not help as well... I am very sure that DRM is all about keeping the honest people honest - if someone has enough energy to hack music, software or whatever he will be hack it... It's only about making it VERY difficult, isn't it?
And again, I think it's finally time for a community approach for DRM. Sun's project DReaM is an initiative to develop open Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution for multiple domains (media, documents, enterprise, personal, etc.). DReaM specifications are developed through Open Media Commons (http:///www.openmediacommons.org). This open source project develops an end-to-end Reference Implementation for the DReaM Specifications.
Read more about Hacking Digital Rights Management at arstechnica.com.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Aug 31 2006, 10:26:34 PM CEST ) Permalink
Friday August 25, 2006
Next Generation Game Development issues - Ten Trends for the Future
As I already mentioned I attended the Game Convention in Leipzig and its Developer Conference, named GCDC this week. Like last year I was there to be a speaker again and so I introduced our SunLab project around a game- and device-agnostic Gaming Server, called Project Darkstar . If you haven't heard about this please find a short report and interview here at Gamasutra.com (and many thanks to Chris Melissinos to point me to this article as I haven't seen it before).
At GCDC I visited some other slots as well. One of the most interesting speaks had been from Don L. Daglow, President of 1988 founded game company Stormfront Studios Inc (The Lord of the Rings: The two Towers (EA), NASCAR (EA), Neverwinter Nights (AOL) and actually finishing Eragon for Vivendi). He shared his ideas about “Next Generation Game Development issues - Ten Trends for the Future”.
Here are his Top 1: Trends:
- Next Gen is THIS Generation. Future is happening now!
- Fewer titles: Average Budget will jump sharply and being able to manage large teams is now an essential skill. Handheld games take a larger share. Good time for new ideas and new IP. Bad time for second-tier licenses: “I've got a movie which will come out in near time which will be kind of good! Do you want to buy a license to built a game?” This won’t work any more…
- Daglow's Law of Media (“I do every year a new law, hoping it makes me more important…”): Bigger budgets mean more “suits”. Creativity most come from “jeans”. Quote: ”In any entertainment industry, the degree to which predictability is valued over creativity grows at the same rate as the ratio of suits to jeans.” Inevitably, the budget managers exert control over the creative managers.
- Sony will succeed – “don't underestimate the ability of change in prizes” so Don in his list. The battle for the living room: Which rooms of the house do we spend money to fill? That's at the end of the day, where we have the most expensive things - beginning with our sofas and ending with the biggest TV, the best audio system and the loudest music. Sony is in every technical system - Microsoft is coming from the desktop area. Nothing is sure - but future will not be decided in 6 months. “European people understand this because of their understanding of history. For us in America things are very old if they're 200 years old. In San Francisco already if they're 100 years old - and in LA, if they are 2 weeks old...”
- A handful of mayor studios control much productions and distribution. Only they can afford to promote films to create mainstream expectations. But with all their money no studio can guarantee a hit. Money is important - but creativity will help you to get absorbed into the systems, even if you have no money. Exampel: Sim City which was refused by all of the big companies to publish.
- New Champagne and old Magazines: The phenomenia of aging on the shelf: Like the short fiction magazines in North America - after a period of exploration and innovation, the survivors settle into niches. There will be more good games than customers to pay the rent for their developers.
- The future is not only with Massive Multiplayer Online Games – but by 2008 most major titles will have multiplayer functions.
- Multiplayer - but not always online. The “Guitar Hero” effect: Games with focus on family and groups. Here are smaller budgets needed and they won't require special and fullblown PCs.
- It is WE who put the “next” in Next Gen. The HW manufacturess set the table - but it is the game designer who prepare and serve the meal. “Our precious children are the ones who will shape our future...”, so might have said an old greek philosopher, “unless we can band together and stop them first!” (Homer Simpson).
- The Individual drives the Art. Passion can be inspired but not required - and without passion (“commitment of the heart”) you cannot create great games. “Kings, Dictators and Captains cannot compel a game to be a hit.”
Finally Don ended his passionate preso with german poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.”
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Aug 25 2006, 12:39:30 AM CEST ) Permalink
Thursday August 24, 2006
Mobile Video to Boom Worldwide like crazy!
In a report entitled "Mobile Video Devices, Services and Subscribers", analyst firm Infonetics Research projects that revenue from mobile video services will soar from US$46.2 million in 2005 to US$5.6 billion by 2009, representing a staggering increase of 12,000 percent over a five-year period. If mobile video providers are able to resolve a number of quality- and content-related issues...
Mobile operators are expanding the bandwidth of their existing 3G networks through HSDPA and MBMS, rolling out dedicated, RF-based broadcast networks, and deploying new mobile video service delivery platforms (SDPs), all steps that pave the way to offer the same content as we see on regular satellite, digital, or cable TV at home.
Infonetics’ report indicates that sports will serve as a major content anchor for most mobile video service providers, as exclusive coverage will help drive advertising revenue, subscriber growth, and support for other prime time programming. In the US, Sprint/Nextel has a 5-year $600 million deal with the National Football League (NFL) to deliver highlights from the week's games and real-time updates of scores and player statistics. And in South Korea, Japan, and throughout Europe, mobile video operators who streamed and broadcast the 2006 World Cup games and highlights saw a huge spike in mobile video subscriptions. Infonetics says we can expect more of the same in the future.
Please find in following the main findings of this report:
- The number of worldwide mobile video subscribers will jump 8,006% between 2005 and 2009
- Asia Pacific leads with roughly half of the world’s mobile video subscribers and the largest portion of mobile video service revenue, every year from 2005 to 2009
- The number of mobile video handsets sold worldwide is expected to grow from 28 million in 2005 to 336 million in 2009
Tuesday August 22, 2006
Java Masters: And the winners are...
The winners of the international developers’ competition Java Masters, organized by BenQ Mobile and Sun Microsystems, have been decided. In the “Student” category, Weijian Chen from the People’s Republic of China convinced the jury with the music player application LyricShow Player which runs song Iyrics synchronously, and enables to show E-books in parallel. In the “Professional” segment, the German developers Thomas Bauer and Heiko Vogeler prevailed among the 10 finalists. Their GPS application Bike GPS Mobile is a Java-based application for outdoor navigation. It enables active mountainbikers not only to track downloaded routes and altitude profiles, but also recording of GPS tracks is enabled with this application. Actually - it's gone public already and can be found here: http://www.bike-gps.com/.
The participants in the Java Masters 2006 competition were required to develop new Java applications for the Siemens SXG75, S75 and CX75 mobile phones. The prizes were awarded yesterday during the Developer Conference on August 22 at Games Convention Developer Conference (GCDC) in Leipzig, Germany. (A short report will follow about this conference - please be patient...)
The aim of the Java Masters is to motivate developers around the world to dedicate themselves to programming new mobile applications on the basis of the Java Platform (J2ME). This year’s competition again attracted a high level of international interest. The most numerous submissions came from countries like China, India, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, and Brazil.
More than 10,000 online voters visited the www.javamasters.org website from June 16 to July 16 and reviewed the 10 best candidates on the basis of demos and project descriptions in order to select their favorites in both categories and vote for them. The liveliest interest came from Turkey, China, UK, and Brazil. All applications were specially developed and submitted for the Siemens SXG75, S75 and CX75 mobile phones.
The jury in the elimination round, which comprised technology and marketing experts from BenQ Mobile and Sun Microsystems, based its evaluation not only on the innovative potential and user-friendliness of the applications, but also on their commercial possibilities. The final winners of the “Java Masters” were decided by online voting of visitors to the Java Masters website.
This year’s prizes were awarded for two categories: “Student Java Masters” and “Professional Java Masters” In the first category, apart from Weijian Chen from China, who took first prize for the music player application LyricShow Player, Vladimir Vasilyev from Germany came away with the second prize for the Webcam Application Mobile Webcam (server based), where the pictures from your camera phone can be sent directly in your internet album. Cumhur Cevik from Turkey won the third prize with the community based multiplayer game ChatRise.
Among the professional Java Masters participants, the winners Thomas Bauer and Heiko Vogeler from the Germany took first prize with the GPS application Bike GPS Mobile, while Markus Koch from Brazil garnered second place with the dancing game Dance Mania. The Thailand’s Permbun Aimsupasit came third with Sim President, a economy simulation game which can make the game player acting the role as the country's president who manages and controls the countries economy to grow.
Here's a picture of Weijian Chen, Vladimir Vasilyev and myself in the middle:
The prizes were awarded to the winners on August 22 during the Developer Party at Games Convention Developer Conference (GCDC) in Leipzig, Germany. The first prize winners receive high-end BenQ-Siemens mobile phones and their travel costs to the awards ceremony, as well as a visit to the Games Convention in Leipzig combined with a few days’ stay in the historic city. Attractive technological prizes from BenQ Mobile and Sun Microsystems awaited the second and third prize winners.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Aug 22 2006, 11:50:18 PM CEST ) Permalink
Thursday August 17, 2006
Does mobile gaming remain a niche market?!
"Mobile games to remain a niche market" an article by Guy Daniels for TelecomTV mentions the latest Frost & Sullivan report about Mobile Gaming in Europe. According to this report the launch of new handsets and game titles will support growth in mobile gaming markets across Europe. But growth will be steady rather than exponential, due to games remaining a niche market application and the complications of implementing effective billing mechanisms. The report reveals that the European mobile gaming markets earned revenues of €850 million in 2006 and estimates this to reach €2.4 billion in 2012.
Frost & Sullivan suggest that off-portal storefronts, combined with "super-distribution", will be the most important sales channel for the mobile games markets. While operators will attempt to create awareness and educate customers about with embedded offerings, the market will grow and mature only with the variety offered by large off-portal storefronts who play the role of discounted super-markets.
Meanwhile, a new US-based mobile gaining company launched yesterday, offering free downloadable games to consumers. GameJump.com offers over 75 games and relies on advertisers to offset costs. "We've shaken up the existing model for pay-to-play mobile games and introduced a way for everyone who owns a mobile phone to access and play games for free through our ad-supported network," said CEO Michael Chang. "By taking a percentage of the advertising revenue, we can offer a wide collection of popular mobile games."
Saturday August 12, 2006
Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies names Web 2.0, Real World Web and newSoftware Architectures as most important topics
According to german newspage TecChannel Gartner has just published his new Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. Gartner's Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies names Web 2.0, Real World Web and new Software Architectures as most important topics.
Interesting - beside of Web 2.0 technologies Gartner mentions Social Network Analysis (SNA) as very important as well. Social network theory views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. In its most simple form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied.
This picture is from TecChannel's german article:
Tuesday August 08, 2006
E-Commerce - With 20% growth still a growing market
Worldwide E-Commerce Market ist still growing. In the first two quarters of 2006 consumers spent around 80.8 billion USD shopping in internet stores. That's a incline of 20.1 % compared to last year. According to a new study named Total E-Commerce Spending by Consumers from market research company comScore, booking travels in WWW raised by 15.1%, retail sales by 24.6%.
Several retail categories achieved significant growth compared to last year. Office Supplies, the top gaining retail category, saw online spending rise 54 percent, while Computer Software grew 39 percent. Also experiencing strong gains in the first half of 2006 were Sport & Fitness (up 38 percent), Home & Garden (up 36 percent), and Toys & Hobbies (up 33 percent).
Total Online Spending to Reach Approximately $170 Billion in 2006
Overall, comScore forecasts that total online spending in 2006 will reach approximately $170 billion. Of that total, comScore estimates that non-travel e-commerce spending will hit approximately $102 billion in 2006, breaking the $100 billion threshold for the first time. Approximately $24 billion is expected to be spent on non-travel during the 2006 holiday season (November 1st – December 31st).
“Despite the sluggishness of retail growth in general, online consumer spending remains strong,” noted Gian Fulgoni, Chairman and Co-Founder of comScore Networks. “Growth in non-travel online spending continues at a rate of 25 percent year-over-year, which suggests that consumers’ online purchase behavior has been relatively unaffected by the general economic trends. This news certainly bodes well for online retailers for the upcoming holiday season, with online consumer spending expected to reach $24 billion in the November through December period.”
Monday August 07, 2006
How the Game is played...
A colleague of mine, Jeff Kesselman, did a really good job! Explaining how you can write a text adventure he started a serial about this topic... Please find more infos at http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/gameguy (all the other articles can be found after this entry from July 26, 2006).
Just wanted to share this with you as I think this is really cool! And sorry for the short entry! 
Saturday July 29, 2006
Heavy Rain: "The Casting" brings emotion into computer games
An young actress moves in. A voice asks her if she ever has been in a casting before. The actress proves that she knows to play and demonstrates many emotions. Normal? Yes - for a movie casting absolutly. But not for a computer game! An impressive demo at this year's E3, "Heavy Rain" from Quantic Dreams grabbed the attention of a lot of curious show-goers thanks to its excellent visuals, believable actress, and the fact that it's an all-new adventure game from the same folks that brought us 2005's award-winning "Indigo Prophecy".
On IGN.COM Guillaume de Fondaumière (Executive Producer Quantic Dreams) says in an interview: "Initially, this demo was a purely internal technical prototype that was not supposed to be shown outside the company. Our original goal was just to define if it was possible to create a next-gen character able to express complex emotions and what it would take on a technical point of view."
For more info have a look at Edge magazin, where Founder and CEO of Quantic Dream, David Cage has given a big interview and more backgrounders about his work and his plan to get more emotions into computer games.
The movie can be downloaded here (Corporate / Thu 11 May, 2006).
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jul 29 2006, 11:47:41 PM CEST ) Permalink
Wednesday July 19, 2006
China: 123 million people are already online!
By end of June 2006 around 123 million people had been in internet, 2 of 3 using broadband access. That's still only 10% of overall population in China (around 1.3 billion people) - but if you look at the numbers, the market is growing and growing. According to a report China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) has presented today the number raised by 20% compared to last year! The usage of broadband access has raised by 45% - for sure a result of China Telecom's enormous invests in new network infrastructure.
Internet shopping got more and more popular as well: 30 millions practice online shopping. That's an increase by 50%. And around 25 million chinese people use internet for searching new jobs. At this point 28 millions have already started their own blog!
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jul 19 2006, 09:54:07 PM CEST ) Permalink
Tuesday July 18, 2006
YouOS: A revolutionary web operating system
Have you ever heard about an Web OS? No? I too but now there's YouOS. A complete operating system "booted" in your browser! You can edit a document at home in a text editor and then go to school or work and instantly access the same text editor and document. In fact, you don't really even need to own a computer. You just need to borrow one on occasion. Working out of internet cafes or libraries? Your desktop, applications, and data travel with you from cafe to cafe, session to session. And tedious things like data backups and archiving? YouOS will take care of them for you.
YouOS and its applications run entirely within a web browser, but have the look and feel of desktop applications. An application's code and data reside remotely but are executed and modified locally.
Everything in YouOS is built upon a set of open RESTful server APIs. The default YouOS client implementation (AJAX), the developer portal, the IDE - everything is built on simple, open xml accessible through the http protocol. What does this mean? It means anyone can write a client of their own - whether it's in another web page, a Flash movie, Konfabulator, or even a native Windows client. Don't like the IDE? Build your own that fits your needs!
You like the idea? Use it and play around. It's still an experiment but runs already quite stable.
Do you want to have it for your company? Hm - why don't you got to Sun Microsystems and use their great Sun Ray technology. By this you get rid of the old platforms and get a ThinClient which isn't only a slim PC - it's really a complete different concept. The Sun Ray client is a compact plug-and-work device that processes only user input and screen output. It is a "headless" device that is compatible with standard VGA monitors, designed to allow leverage of existing IT investments. Not really new, but getting more and more traction day for day. Chck it out! Ask a Sun employee - he'll take you to one of our offices and will present how we work on these machines...
Tuesday July 11, 2006
Worldwide more than 3 billion mobile phone subscriber until 2008!
According to ITU's "World Society Report 2006" more and more people are connecting to mobile networks than ever. Especially in China, Russia and India are driving this business, so International Telecommunication Union (ITU) reported. From worldwide 2.1 billion mobile subscriberin 2005 ITU is expecting more than 3 billion users in 2008 - pretty 50% of all people on earth...
Vanessa Gray, Telecommunication Analyst at ITU said in a press release that "there are now more ICT users worldwide and more people communicating than at any other time in history," said Gray. "By the end of 2004, the world counted a total of 3 billion telephone subscribers, 1.8 billion mobile subscribers and 1.2 billion fixed lines. Both the number of mobile subscribers and the number of internet users more than doubled in just four years. The world had over 840 million internet users, which means that on average 13 per cent of the world’s population was online."
Overall, the digital divide has been reduced. "Our statistics show that within four year, from 2000 to 2004, the gap separating the developing and the developed countries has been shrinking in terms of mobile subscribers, fixed telephone lines and Internet users", said Gray. The gap (or digital divide) is measured by dividing the ICT penetration rate in the developed world by the ICT penetration rate in the developing world. "Phenomenal growth rates in the mobile sector, particularly, have been able to reduce the gap from 9 in the year 2000, to 4 by the end of 2004. This gap has also been reduced in terms of fixed lines, from 6 to 4 in four years, and from 15 to 8 in terms of Internet users", Gray explains.
Yet, major differences persist in penetration levels. In 2004, almost one third of the population in Europe and the Americas was online, compared to 8 per cent in Asia and the Pacific. Europe has almost 15 times the internet penetration of Africa, where less than 2 per cent use the internet. In the Arab states, too, less than 6 out of 100 people are online. As for broadband access, Africa and the Arab states are lagging behind Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North America which account for 97 per cent of all subscribers.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jul 11 2006, 09:57:55 AM CEST ) Permalink
Tuesday July 04, 2006
WiMAX auction in Germany
After auctioning Germany's UMTS/3G licenses for around 50 billion Euro the german government is working on the next round... Again there'll be an auction, again there are more bidder than licenses. But the technology is named now WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). The auction will happen in this calendar year and will be held for each of 16 Germany's regions.
At the moment there are 1221 offers from 102 companies (Alcatel, Arcor, Deutsche Telekom, Broadnet, City Carriers like Netcologne and Kabel Deutschland (biggest TV cable provider)). 9 offers apply for Germany-wide services but only 3 companies can get this frequencies. Because german government doesn't see a chance for a compromise solution they have now decided to auction the frequencies. But will it be the same success story for the government like 2000 with UMTS? And will the companies make the same fault - paying to much money without a chance to amortise the invest?
Why is it so important for so many bidders to go for this auction? WiMAX is designated as the metropolitan area network (MAN) technology that can connect Wi-Fi hotspots with each other and to other parts of the Internet and provide a wireless alternative to cable and DSL for last mile broadband access. However, the field of uses is broader and overlaps those for mobile WAN (wide area networks) and WLANs.
It's not only "the last mile" - it's a bit more: The technology provides up to 50 km linear service area range and allows connectivity between users without a direct line of sight. This might be the opportunity to connect business or consumer housholds with shared data rates up to 70 Mbit/s, which, (enough bandwidth to simultaneously support more than 60 businesses with T1-type connectivity and well over a thousand homes at 1Mbit/s DSL-level connectivity!). While Deutsche Telekom (DTAG) wants to connect households and companies which are to expensive to connect with cable the incumbant's competition tries to get independant of DTAG infrastructure.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jul 04 2006, 09:19:00 AM CEST ) Permalink
Thursday June 29, 2006
P2net went offline...
... but it was nothing to do with the libel lawsuit Sharman Networks (which is the big daddy behind the Kazaa P2P software) and it's CEO Nikki Hemming launched against it. This time it was only a server problem. But the case could still ultimately mean huge trouble for any Canadian site which publishes anonymous, or otherwise, comments.
p2pnet.net went online in August, 2002. It was one of the first Internet web pages to carry daily, frequently updated news stories, features and commentaries discussing developments in the p2p and digital media arenas. p2pnet's focus is on digital media, distributed computing and file sharing, but the ultimate goal has always been to help launch a non-profit, collaborative and censor-free international news service through which on- and offline community print and electronic media outlets can access and exchange news which hasn't been spun, filtered and pre-digested by vested corporate interests.
In a strange new turn of events in the Kazaa saga, Sharman Networks and its CEO, Nikki Hemming, have filed a defamation suit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia against P2Pnet operator, Jon Newton, his ISP, and four as-of-yet-unnamed users of the site. Apparently, Hemming and Co. are feeling insulted over a few of the articles and postings. A detailed article can be found at TheRegisters article: "Kazaa's P2P libel suit threatens to mute Canadians" where you get more background about the whole story.
I understand that publishing anonymously might be problematic. In one way an anonymous post can act the same as a confidential source. But what about lies? On the other hand we know we're all in WWW where everybody is able to post stories, which might be not very close to reality. Nobody really believes a story which can't be doublechecked or proved with other sites (by the way: THIS means Web 2.0!). And perhaps "free speech" means as well the right to do not listen...
Read more about the downtime, or the Blogsuit.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 29 2006, 10:02:02 AM CEST ) Permalink
Friday June 23, 2006
Mobile Data: Messaging or Media?
Analyst Ovum has just published a new report regarding mobile operators which is very interesting. "Mobile messaging services: a market overview" provides an overview of the mobile messaging market, and examines the current status and prospects for MMS, mobile email and mobile instant messaging.
In fact the last years, mobile operators in mature markets have had to deal with a heavy deceleration in their voice revenue growth. Their answer had been to offer mobile data solutions.
But what is meant by "mobile data"? SMS, MMS? Java games? Access to enterprise applications or is it email services? In consumer market they starting to offer mobile TV.
There is, however, a clear distinction between data services that are basically about content and those that are basically about communications: in other words, messaging.
The last thing is easy to do for mobile operators as they know this game. It's more about upgrading the the communication systems...
But while mobile operators are moving to build up their content revenues on the other hand, the process is a very challenging one. It requires them, in effect, to become media companies, and to build the organisational structures, business relationships and marketing strategies that the media business demands.
Additionally they have to migrate from telco networks to all IP networks (Next Generation Network) to offer these new services.
Good for them that they can trust in Sun offering the right strategies and having the best partner ecosystem to manage these challenges.
Read more in Global Telecoms Business: CEO and CFO Guide to Networks in the 21st Century (Issue March/April 2006).
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 23 2006, 04:14:24 PM CEST ) Permalink
Sunday June 18, 2006
The 10th RoboCup World Championships in Bremen/Germany
While everybody is watching high priced FIFA Soccer World Cup (c)/(tm) matches some really amazing people organize their own world cup: At the RoboCup world championships being held at Messe Bremen from the 14th through 18th of June 2006. And today it's already the day of the finalists! 440 teams from 36 countries will fight for 33 world championship titles. Yout think this isn't sooooo amazing like a real soccer match with real human players? Then it might be that you haven't seen this...
From fairest creatures we desire increase... (Shakespeare)
There are many special leagues to compete in. Smaller and bigger robots, 4-legged or on wheels. In the Humanoid league, robots play against each other shaped with human like bodies and configured with sensory equipments. Actually this league sounds fantastic but is more slow than these on wheels - so I found it more boring than the other confrontations... Much more funny - and girls would say "sweater" - the 4on4 League...
Let the dogs out!
Participants within Aibo Dog league at RoboCup aren’t allowed to change the structural design of this robot - so this is a special interest for robotic soccer trainers without indeep SW/HW knowledge... Anyone who wanted could purchase a Sony Aibo Dogs from a dealer - but only until March 2006. As part of its ongoing cost-cutting and reorganization effort, Sony has cut its line of robotic Aibo dogs, along with another, more-expensive, humanoid robot called the Qrio, which was never sold as a product. So it might be that the 4on4-League will not happen next RoboCup Word Championship.
“After 50 years of research within artificial intelligence, it has been determined that these things can be better researched using soccer than the game of chess. We have advanced a fair bit for this 10th year of Robo-Cup” says Hans-Dieter Burkhard, the Vice President of the RoboCup Federation. RoboCup is an international joint project to promote AI, robotics, and related field. It is an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined. RoboCup chose to use soccer game as a central topic of research, aiming at innovations to be applied for socially significant problems and industries. The ultimate goal of the RoboCup project is by 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world champion team in soccer. Crazy? Perhaps. But it's really funny to watch as well.
In order for a robot team to actually perform a soccer game, various technologies must be incorporated including: design principles of autonomous agents, multi-agent collaboration, strategy acquisition, real-time reasoning, robotics, and sensor-fusion. RoboCup is a task for a team of multiple fast-moving robots under a dynamic environment. RoboCup also offers a software platform for research on the software aspects of RoboCup. One of the major application of RoboCup technologies is a search and rescue in large scale disaster. RoboCup initiated RoboCupRescue project to specifically promote research in socially significant issues.
Catastrophe simulation
So the Robot World Championship began five day ago with a catastrophe. Smashed cars, smoke, flashing blue light, casualties – helpers of all kinds were needed! But above all it was the robot colleagues who had to get down to work. During a disaster simulation on Bürgerweide in Bremen, rescue robots showed what they’re capable of. The scenario portrays the situation after an earthquake in a town whose outline is reproduced in a computer. Robots support the work of human helpers. In a different situation the robots have to prove themselves in an exercise in which they must gather information in a contaminated area resulting from a simulated chemical accident.
More information at www.robocup2006.org.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 18 2006, 03:31:02 PM CEST ) Permalink
Saturday June 17, 2006
Now it's up to you! The Voting process has been started!
It is up to YOU to make the final decision NOW! Who'll be the Java Master 2006? Between June 16 and July 16, you have the chance to select the best applications and vote for your favorites. And if you are lucky you can win some amazing prizes!
After the submission period has ended on May 21, the final decision in Java Masters 2006 is all yours. We have received numerous interesting and innovative applications. We from the jury, comprising Java experts from Sun and BenQ Mobile, have pre-selected the 10 best mobile phone applications in the 'Student' and 'Professional' Java Masters categories.
Never heard about Java Master? What a pitty! Because for some people live has definitly changed by this Java Mobile contest for Mobile Phones. Please read Jiabin Feng's story.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 17 2006, 09:25:16 AM CEST ) Permalink
Friday June 16, 2006
Be a Systemheld!
You think Benchmarks are cool? You like playing around with hardware and software, trying to get evering out of your systems? Now - I can help you!
So here it is: Have you ever thought about how cool it would be to test a Sun System free for 60 days? Or have you done it already? And where can you find so cool stuff about T2000 as an iTunes Streaming Server ?
There are many people out there playing with the same technical stuff, for example with one of those new T1000/T2000 servers! And have been able to get 100% utilization out of all 32 threads of one single processor... And some of them have already published some free tools to proof these benchmarks.
These people we call real system heroes - or in german language (= Vorsprung durch Technik!) Systemhelden! And some of them are sharing their ideas and ideals in Blogs. Those blogs are now aggregated for the Systemhelden community. So go visit the german webpage www.systemhelden.com and read what our heroes write about technology, fun and all the rest of it.
Or link yourself in and be a part of this community!
By thew way: Have you seen the cool Blog from BM Seer? His Blog subtitle is: Benchmarks: Facts & Questions from an Anonymous Source. Go for it. Go.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 16 2006, 10:21:25 PM CEST ) Permalink
Tuesday June 13, 2006
History of Video Games: ATARI 1972
La Petite Claudine, a spanish blog, has found a Discovery documentary about the history of video games from Atari to Nintendo.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 13 2006, 10:00:33 AM CEST ) Permalink
Friday June 09, 2006
World Cup 2006: May the games begin!
Will Michael Ballack play in Germany's opening World Cup match or won't he? Will Lehmann be the only But even with its captain injured and on the bench, Germany is still expected to beat Costa Rica in today's opening World Cup match in Munich... Let's see getting the numbers in and hope for a peaceful, friendly World Cup in Germany!
What this means for telecommunication services? All mobile telcos start mobile Television. For exampel debitel, a mobile service provider in Germany reselling minutes from all Mobile Network Operators (MNO), startet may 31st the first german mobile TV basing on DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting)standard. Partnering with Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland (MFD) they're first in Germany to provide mobile television services commercially - but starting with only 4 channels (ZDF, MTV, n24 and ProSieben/SAT1). In parallel T-Mobile, Vodafone, O2 and E-Plus use DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) signal to test their own future offering with 16 channels. The trials will go until mid of august and will be available only in 5 major cities over Germany. Their plan is to establish a joint platform for mobile TV offerings.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 09 2006, 02:15:17 PM CEST ) Permalink
Wednesday June 07, 2006
Mobile picture blog - thanks to Java ME!
The picture you see here is from my Mobile Web camera. A Mobile Web Camera? Yes - as my mobile phone can act as a web camera thanks to russian developers and Mobile Java!
The programm Mobile WebCam gives you a possibility to send the pictures directly from your cameraphone in an internet album. The program can work in two modes: photo camera for a single upload and webcamera (pretty interesting for hobby spies).
Having made a picture you can send it to your online album, and it will become accessible from the WWW immediately. Or the programm can send the images from your phone in given intervals. Additionally with the help of this very small Java ME program (around 22k) you can easily put webcamera to your own webpage.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 07 2006, 05:22:33 PM CEST ) Permalink Comments [1]
Friday June 02, 2006
Update to Telecommunication Conference in Bonn (3)
For Detlef Spang, ad interim CEO, COLT Telecom GmbH it's all about Solution over IP (SoIP). Already 14% of midmarket companies are using VoIP servies. And COLT's hosted PBX solution helps them to have "plug and play" IT services. COLT's strategy is named "Universal Network" and tries to offer simplicity at its best: one device, one number, one directory, one voicemail and only one bill.
My presentation for Sun gave an outlook about the transformation of telco networks to all-IP networks (Next Generation Networks/NGN). Objectives of building NGNs are heavily dependent on Subscriber Management (Identity Management) and Service Management (OSS/J initiative and SOA/Java Composite Application Platform Suite). As the transition to NGN services will be gradual and driven by Services ROI there are two important steps to take: Step 1 - Gain Flexibility: Capitalize on the Subscriber's Identity by introducing flexible (federated) Identity Management. Step 2 – Cut Cost: Streamlining of OSS landscape to cope with New Service complexity while reducing cost of operations.
Roger Fawcett, Marketing Director from HP had exactly 20 minutes for explaining what will happen with Fixed mobile convergence - the future for the fixed line provider versus the mobile provider. To be honest - it was nothing really surprising tohear that there are only three opportunities: full convergence, light convergence or fixed mobile convergence. True but well known. To be fair it was a really entertaining presentation and a not easy to hold slot - right after lunch aon friday afternoon...
"Delivering the Mobility and Convergence Vision" was the name of the presentation of Steve Andrews, British Telecom's Chief of Convered Communications Services. The nightmare customers are facing today (too many access opportunities like WIFI, HSDPA, 2G, 3G and too many voiceboxes, too many portals, tooo many devices...) should be appeased with more convergeced services for consumers (BT Fusion, bringing together fixed line and 2g phones devices) and several services for enterprises.
Philipp Humm, Speaker of T-Mobile Germany expects for T-Mobile growth rates in Germany about 3.1% and in Western Europe around 2.6%. Three main topics are in T-Mobile's strategy: mobile data (UMTS versus DSL), boost voice and segmentation of customer tailored offers.
The market for mobile data is expected to be around 5.5 bEUR in 2010 - a large opportunity to grow in. And compared with around an average of 13% "mobile only" users in Europe, there is an additional growth opportunity in Germany with actual only around 5% subscribers which have no fixed line phone access any more (actually T-Mobile copies the successful strategy of o2 Genion with an own offer named T-Mobile@home, getting in parallel in trouble with their sister T-Com). And yes - people are still not long enough online: While german users are around 81 minutes/user/month in calls, USamericans have an average of 798 minutes/user/month!
Michael Krammer, the new CEO of E-Plus fought for lowering prices per minutes from actual average 23 Euro Cent. He sees a clear correalation between price per minutes and minutes people call (Germany 23 cent / 81 minutes/month and Spain 19 cent /150 minutes and Finnland 9 cent /220 minutes).
Again Telekommarkt Europa was a great event and THE telco conference in Germany to go to.
I'm looking forward to visit the event again next year.
Thursday June 01, 2006
Update to Telecommunication Conference in Bonn (2)
The last part on thursday is all about regulation. Matthias Kurt, president of the Bundesnetzagentur, the german regulation agency, spoke about consequences of high dynamics of competition in Germany and how this affects his daily work. "Neither we face the doomsday in this industry nor that everything would be very easy and happy", so Kurth. The Bundesnetzagentur is supporting the plurality of access technologies and is very interested in all new services like HDTV, IPTV, DVB-H and DMB and sees no problem in the plurality of the standards in this area as well as a value for the customer.
One big discussion in germans telecommunications industry is that the incumbant Deutsche Telekom asked for "regulatory holidays". They say that if they should invest 3 billion Euros in VDSL infrastructure they don't want to open this networks immediatly to their competition and want some years protection (what I can personally understand). But the European Union doesn't want to allow this - other than the german government and the regulator (Bundesnetzagentur) who wants to allow escape rules in new markets. But: What is a new market? So far there is no decision - and after the first discussions and several reports from experts there is still a big confusion: but on a much higher level. (More infos here.) Again - to understand this discussion which seems very specific to Germany's telco market, you have to know that there are only around 10,4 million DSL subscriber (80m inhabitants), 76,1% owned or controlled by Deutsche Telekom and nearly no users with cable access (120k subscriber).
Last discussion topic was Network Neutrality (the principle that network operators should not discriminate among network applications). Kurth assured the strong interest in openess and standardizations - compliant to EU laws. But an existing problem is Quality of Service for special applications and the solution might be in extra fees for extra services as long the customer can decide freely and nobody from other service providers are dicriminated.
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 01 2006, 06:07:27 PM CEST ) PermalinkUpdate to Telecommunication Conference in Bonn (1)
In following you can find some notes I took during the conference today. Sorry - some speakers I don't mention, but they have mostly presented company strategies which can be found already at their webpages and have no really brand new informations for us telco-insiders...
Carsten Schloter, CEO Swisscom AG (Switzerland): At the moment all application worlds (TV, PC, mobiles devices) are stuck in silos. Schloters pointed out that there are many ways to handle convergence and consilidation. E.g. consumer customers struggle with huge gaps between these application worlds. Convergence is for Schloter the key, but he sees that this won't happen because of standardization of services than through integrated service providers (buzz words: Triple Screen / One Service). These integrated service providers can offer bundles which can't be offered by service providers which focus in one or two services only. By this integrated service providers can manage prize battles much better. Additionally they face bigger cost reductions by going to only-IP networks. By convergence of networks they can drive much better consolidation and gain value in an economy of scale.
Rolf Hansen, Founder and General Manager of SIMYO (MVNO, Germany): The manager of germans no thrill-mobile discounter presented right to the first birthday of his own company, the first german MVNO named SIMYO. The joint venture together with E-Plus (the german KPN subsidiary) is still the leader and agenda setter in Germany - and this with only 29 employees. Hansen demonstrated how importent market research is for a new market and how he did his researchs. And finally he dropped some words about marketing: His slogan - combining the simpel DNA of a protozoan with a SIM card - is still a hit! Trends (he named them "Mobile 2.0", let's see if this word will get a own branding as well) Hansen identified in this market: fixed/mobile convergence, marketing (blogs, community, newsletter...), Web 2.0. At the end he gave an outlook that SIMYO might offer fixed line services in future as well - at the moment they're still analyzing the market. Stay tuned for news in this area...
The countdown is running!", told us Carsten Ahrens, General Manager Ericsson GmbH (Germany) and meant the World Soccer Championship in Germany and the revenue opportunities for mobile carriers. In his presentation about New Media Revenues he tried to answer the question where the revenues are coming from in mobile TV market. Opportunities, so Ahrens, are from monthly fees over interactive services and special fees ("Vote and Greet" Model), classic advertisement to transactional models. And again - one of the buzz words of the event: Next Generation Networks & convergence in all-IP networks. As a Sun employee (= IP in my own DNA as well) I can only say, that this is a very good story.
Versatel's managing director Peter Knauer started his slot with a provocing thesis: Wireline is dead - Long live Wireline! Some years ago everybody deckined a growth in fixed line. This was old school and so boring... And now broadband is back - stronger than ever. Why is it? For Knauer it's all about competition - and competition in DSL started in Germany very late in 2004. The broadband market (he is thinking about DSL market, because he argues that cable market has missed the window of opportunity in Germany) is still growing and Versatel as well. Three "C" are important for Knauer: Convergence, Consolidation and consistance in regulation. Exampel consolidation: Its growth is explained though dynamic growth and acquisition of other companies (19 companies since 2001).
Posted by Horst Thieme ( Jun 01 2006, 05:01:29 PM CEST ) PermalinkConference: Handelsblatt Telco Market Europe
Numbers about the telco market in Europe? You can get them in one conference - and the newest update about strategies of leading companies in this great industry! Yesterday Telekommarkt Europa (Telco Market Europe), a telco focussed conference organized by the newspaper Handelsblatt started. Sun is a long time sponsor of this annual conference and we have again a speaking slot as well (in the last years we had our CTO EMEA Hellmuth Broda, VP Telco Darrell Jordan-Smith and many more - this time it's up to me).
Today master of ceremony and key speaker Prof Dr. Torsten Gerpott started the second conference day with his annual view on the numbers. If there are a statistics which shows which mobile services catholic non-smokers in Madrid or Berlin is using and how often - Gerpott knows them. In short here's what Gerpott summarized:
- Growth of telecommunication services (source EITO 2006) in
- Western Europe (EU pls Norway and Swiss): +1,7% from 217 bEUR to 280 bEUR from 2005 to 2007,
- Eastern Europe (Bulgary, Chechia, Estony, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slowakia, Slowenia): +5% from 21 to 23bEUR
- USA: +2,4% from 191 to 200 bEUR
- Japan: +1% from 115 to 118 bEUR and
- Rest of World: 7,5% from 252 to 291 bEUR
- In the same years (from 2005 to 2007) growth will be in Western Europe in
- Classical fixed line calls: 3,1%
- Data services: +5,4%
- Wireless services: 3,3% and
- CATV services: 1,5%.
- Germany has the biggest decline in revenue in fixed line services and as well - compared to other western european - only a average growth opportunity in wireless.
- In Eastern Europe Poland and Romania are the most interesting countries if we have a watch on growth opportunities...
- After the first round of buy-outs in the cellular phone industry the question arose as to the strategic advantages of attempting to move towards consolidation among alternative and established fixed network carriers.
Have a watch on the agenda - it is one of the lonely conferences which really makes sense. It's good to be here, meeting so many of our customers, partners and our competition as well.
By the way: My speaking slot will be on friday morning - the last day of the three day conference - about "Next generation OSS – challenges and outlook". I'll talk about
- Going IP: converging networks
- Stay flexible: SOA-enabled SDP
- Increase profitability: the value of consolidation and standardization
Wednesday May 31, 2006
We feel fine. Thank you.
Jonathan Harris and Sepandar Kamvar have created We Feel Fine, a something in-between of a tool and an art project that analyzes and parses the emotional content of blog posts. We Feel Find is a simple Java applet that runs in the browser. It scours RSS feeds and seeks out posts that contain the word "feel." The tool presents the writings in six different ways, or movements.
Please see as well The mood of the Internet...
Posted by Horst Thieme ( May 31 2006, 10:22:14 AM CEST ) Permalink
