Tag: mobile

Enkin

“Enkin” introduces a new handheld navigation concept. It displays location-based content in a unique way that bridges the gap between reality and classic map-like representations. It combines GPS, orientation sensors, 3D graphics, live video, several web services and a novel user interface into an intuitive and light navigation system for mobile devices.

wow. headmap, here we come

Nomads at last

The most wonderful thing about mobile technology today is that consumers can increasingly forget about how it works and simply take advantage of it. As Ms Canlas sips her Americano and dives into her e-mail in-box at the Nomad Café, she gives no thought to the specifications and standards that make her connection possible. It is the human connections that now take over. Since humans, as Sigmund Freud put it, must arbeiten und lieben, work and love, in order to find fulfilment, this report will start off by examining how they will work.

very good work as usual. coworking, weak ties, serendipity, locative, sensor web, the death of the suburb all make an appearance

Smartphone Ending Poverty?

“You don’t even need to own a phone to benefit from one”. Part of I.D.E.’s work included setting up farm cooperatives in Nepal, where farmers would bring their vegetables to a local person with a phone, who then acted as a commissioned sales agent, using the phone to check market prices and arranging for the most profitable sale. “People making $1 a day can’t afford a phone, but if they start making more profit in their farming, you can bet they’ll buy a phone as a next step”

chipchase gets the NYT writeup.
2008-04-13:

Americans, and particularly those in lower-income groups, are deriving clear economic benefits from phones—even though low-income groups are far less likely to own a phone. if the 38% of these 45.2m low-income, bottom quintile households that do not now have phones were to start using them, and earn money at the same rate as those households that do own phones—it would add $2.9b to household incomes.

i am especially interested in the m-banking aspect. death to payday loans. somewhere, koranteng is smiling.

Playing tag

But to those building so-called “mobile” social networks, it is nirvana, linking virtual communities such as Facebook or MySpace with the real world. The idea is not new, but so far such services have not gained much traction. They have to be able to pinpoint people in order to work, but satellite positioning does not work indoors. More importantly, it is hard for such a service to gain critical mass: why join, if it does not already have many users?

A new generation of mobile social networks may have found ways to overcome these barriers. One is Aka-Aki, a start-up based in Berlin. Users of its service download a small program onto their mobile phone. The software then uses Bluetooth, the short-range radio technology built into many mobile phones, to check whether any friends or other members with similar interests are within 20m. If so, the program pulls down the person’s picture and whatever information he or she is willing to reveal from the firm’s website.

Where the economist gets all headmap.