Author: Martin

3GSM: Picks of Day 1

Jouni on the right and me on the left
Jouni on the right and me on the left
NTT DOCOMO mobile art
NTT DOCOMO mobile art


So many things to see at the congress and so many interesting discussions that it´s easy to loose track if you don’t take notes. Here are my picks of the day:

As promissed on their blog, some of the bloggers of s60.com are in Barcelona for the week and I had the luck to talk to Jouni Juntunen, aka MKTMAN at the s60 booth (picture 1). Great discussions on S60 features (of course), Nokia policy towards blogging, the competing products and great demos at the booth.

This is the third year in a row I visited the Kineto booth who work on the integration of cellular and Wifi. The technology is called UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) and basically replaces the GSM air interface layer with Wifi. This year they seem closer than ever to reaching their goal as a number of mobile phone manufacturers such as Nokia have announced GSM/UMTS/Wifi phones. But these days I think they will have strong competition from SIP and Skype, especially on phones such as the Nokia N80. Their advantage: They don´t bind the user to the cellular operator as UMA does and thus could potentially be cheaper. For the user, competition is good and will have a positive influence on prices.

NTT DOCOMO of Japan combines art and technology on their booth. Picture 2 shows some mobile phone art. At the booth they demo 3G video streaming vs. HSDPA streaming at 2 MBit/s. Big difference! And they have technical experts on the stand to discuss their view of wireless evolution: 1 GBit/s, 100 MHz channel bandwidth  (compare to 5 MHz of UMTS today), QPSK and 16QAM modulation, OFDM downlink, CDMA uplink, 4×4 Mimo. Heavy stuff, but speed has it´s price.

My last pick of the day is Picsel. They have a great eMail program and file attachment handler for S60 (and Java for other phones) that removes file attachements and downloads a mobile adapted version of the document. Very fast, very slick and reduces the amount of data you have to download or store on the phone.

 

Pre-3GSMWC: Everybody is busy

Sun 12/02/2006 12:53
Sun 12/02/2006 12:53
Sun 12/02/2006 12:52
Sun 12/02/2006 12:52


Sun 12/02/2006 12:53
Sun 12/02/2006 12:53
Sun 12/02/2006 12:56
Sun 12/02/2006 12:56


Like on a Formula 1 weekend. As you can see on the pictures, there are trucks everywhere and people swarming around to prepare equipment. It is going to be great!!!

Pre-3GSMWorldCongress: HelloMoto and HelloSamsung

I have to admit that I had some doubts whether the plane would fly to Barcelona yesterday evening when we drove to Stuttgart airport in a snow blizzard. This morning, however, the weather was great and we made it to Barcelona without any problems. What a beautiful city, I will post some pictures in the next couple of days.

As in Cannes, the 3GSMWC decorates the city. This year, Motorola (see picture) and Samsung have plastered half the buildings between the airport and the fairground. Motorola advertises it´s cool design while Samsung points out that they are the ones with the first HSDPA mobile phone. Design vs. technology 🙂

Tip for those arriving early: Get your badge with the barcode you have received already on Sunday. Might save you some queueing time.
Sat 11/02/2006 15:08 Text note

 

Milenage – How to make GSM even more complicated

Once upon a day, GSM authentication and encryption was quite easy. A key, a random number, a little algorithm and off you go. Seems that was too easy for some people so they came up with a new authentication and encryption system called Milenage. Very hard to find  information about this written for the ‘non cryptanalyst’. Fortunately, I’ve finally found an exception. Take a look here. Enjoy!

How to Moblog from the 3GSMWorldCongress


One thing you want to avoid at the 3GSMWorldCongress is to carry a notebook computer around all day long. So here is my equipment lineup for this year to ensure mobile blogging from the event and Barcelona in general (see pictures): Barcelona CD from Monserrat Caballé and Fredie Mercury as MP-3 files on the phone to get in the mood, Nokia 6680 with keyboard, travel guide, and a Moleskine book to take notes the Hemingway style. So watch out for the moblogs from Barcelona to come!

 

The Personal Mobile Web Server

Apache_2
Every day, mobile phones and the Internet come closer together. Recently, Nokia R&D have announced that they’ve ported Apache and Python to the S60 OS. They envisage to use the mobile web server to create new services for people on the net depending on the location of the owner. Indeed, interesting thoughts. I say let’s turn the stick around for a moment and think about what a web server embedded in a mobile phone can do for the owner.

Python_1
A web server in a mobile phone combined with Wifi can also be a powerful personal platform, i.e. serving mainly the owner of the device. We are not far away, Nokia has already announced Wifi support in the Nokia N80 which should be on the market very soon. Here are some applications for a combination of Apache, Python and Wifi in a mobile phone:

  • While you are at home, the mobile phone is part of your network via Wifi. Instead of using the small phone keyboard for many things like writing text messages or to change settings, you can use a web browser which communicates with the personal web server on the mobile phone.
  • Today I use Yahoo! Go for synchronizing my calendar and address book with the web. This way, I can edit my contacts and my calendar via a web browser while at home or at work and synchronize back and forth between the desktop and the mobile phone. With a personal web server in the phone, no synchronization is necessary anymore. Everything is always in the phone. Of course there should be a function in the phone that automatically sends a backup of all data to a server while I am at home.
  • If you are away from home and in the office, you can still use the web browser instead of the mobile phone as the web server can also be accessed via the cellular network.

Wifi_1 These are just a few example of what the combination of web server, programming language and Wifi will enable people to do with a mobile phone in the future. Not to speak of all the other things Wifi on it’s own will bring like Voice over IP in the Wifi network at home and in the office, storage of all your music and videos on the phone and distribution to devices like the TV and stereo set at home, personal file server.

Almost everything is in place, now a couple of people just have to take the next step.