Category: Mobile

Wade Roush wrote:

Venture investments in Boston-area mobile technology companies decreased in both volume and value in 2009, plummeting to levels not seen since 2005. But payouts from mergers and acquisitions hit a record level, raising overall deal flow to an unprecedented $1.5 billion, according to data compiled by Mobile Monday Boston.

Venture investing started out strong in 2009, according to the report, with $208 million invested in the first quarter. But investors couldn’t keep up the pace. They doled out only $24 million in the third quarter and $40 million in the fourth quarter.

By year’s end, venture capital firms had handed out only $339 million, a decrease of 40 percent from 2008’s record figure of $565 million. The total number of companies in the region receiving venture funding also fell, from 45 in 2008 to 32 in 2009.

The drops—which were paralleled in other sectors, and likely reflect the venture industry’s own travails rather than any fundamental decrease in venture-fundable innovation—brought an abrupt end to a three-year run of increasing venture investments in the region’s mobile industry.

Even as the venture well became drier, though, a number of more established mobile companies were acquired, providing exits for their own investors. The value of acquisitions in the mobile business zoomed upward from $473 million in 2008 to nearly $1.2 billion in 2009, Mobile Monday Boston found.

A single acquisition, 72 Mobile Holdings’ $530 million purchase of Chelmsford, MA-based wireless broadband equipment maker Airvana, accounted for nearly half of the $1.2 billion total. Compuware’s acquisition of Lexington, MA-based Gomez, Prime View International’s acquisition of Cambridge, MA-based E Ink ($215 million), and KPN’s acquisition of Burlington, MA-based iBasis ($93 million) significantly boosted the numbers. (Apple’s acquisition of Quattro Wireless isn’t counted in the figures, since it was announced in early January; in any case, the companies haven’t disclosed how much Apple paid.)

Mobile Monday Boston organizer Kate Imbach, of Skyhook Wireless, presented the investment data at Monday night’s meeting of the group, and plans to detail them further at Xconomy’s Mobile Madness event today.

The report also detailed mobile investments by category. Hardware companies were the luckiest in 2009—19 percent of the 32 companies that won venture investments were in this category. Applications and software companies tied for second place at 15 percent each, followed by voice and advertising companies (tied at 9 percent each), and wireless infrastructure, content and RFID companies (tied at 6 percent each).

No need to duck out of work early, now you can watch March Madness games live over your iPhone, and for the first time—anywhere over AT&T’s 3G network.

The application, which is expected to be available Monday on iTunes, will cost $9.99—twice as much as last year’s version that was limited WiFi networks. Rob Gelick, the SVP and GM of CBS (NYSE: CBS) Mobile, expects the demand to be there for live streaming video: “Last year, we were the first to do a live sporting event with the March Madness app, and since then the appetite for video and live video has grown massively for us…We one-upped ourselves. Now people can stay connected regardless of where they are.” [Note: The NBA streamed the All-Star Game live just prior to March Madness in February 2009.]

A free ‘lite’ version, which is sponsored by Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), provides on-demand video highlights from every game, live scores, and news coverage. CBS will also launch a free version for BlackBerry, which will be sponsored by Mercedes Benz—but it won’t have live video, or on-demand clips. The only other live video will be available on AT&T’s FLO TV service, which will get all 63 games. AT&T (NYSE: T) is the Exclusive Wireless Partner of the NCAA , so Verizon Wireless’ FLO TV service will be limited to general coverage that’s available on CBS. The opening round game is March 16.

The paid CBS iPhone app will also provide live radio broadcasts from Westwood One throughout the entire tournament, and push alerts to the phone to let you know if a particular game has gone into over time, or there’s a potential upset on the way. Gelick: “Part of the challenges we had last year, was that there’s all of these great games going on at the same time, which one should you watch?” Both the free and paid apps will have an interactive tournament bracket that updates with real-time scores, plus news and the ability to send comments to both Facebook and Twitter. 

Interestingly, both apps were developed in partnership with MLB Advanced Media, which has built an extensive streaming video platform in-house.

When asked why CBS didn’t produce an Android or Palm (NSDQ: PALM) app, Gelick responded: “Not this year. I think that you try to make sure what you are delivering is world class, and we’ve expanded from last year’s base by almost 2x in terms of the number of touch points. It becomes a scale issue….This is the nicest product we’ve delivered to date.”

Related

• First (Round) Look: Uneven March Madness iPhone Experience
• March Madness: CBSSports.com Puts Live NCAA Video, Audio On iPhone For $4.99
• CBS Mobile Fills General Manager Gap With Veteran Rob Gelick

Google is looking to integrate its Latitude and Buzz offerings, according to a story today in eWeek.com. Which means Buzz’s privacy problems may be about to get even bigger.

Google continues to draw flak from privacy advocates over Buzz, which launched last month. The company has scrambled to alter certain features and give users more control after some complained that their Gmail and Talk contacts were publicly released, and Google eventually admitted that the product had been rushed out the door.

Latitude, which launched last year, enables users to find friends and broadcast their whereabouts to others. Those aren’t revolutionary features, of course — Loopt and Useful Networks are just two that have gained some traction with similar friend-finding offerings. But Latitude’s tracking functionality is potentially more invasive than Buzz, which requires users to check in every time they want to update their location. And Google a few months ago sparked controversy by adding location alerts and history, features that inform users when their fellow Latitude friends are nearby and allowing users to see where they’ve been. (To its credit, Google wisely requires additional opt-ins for the new Latitude features.)

Integrating Latitude features with Buzz — which has millions of users — will further complicate a service that for some is already too confusing and who are likely to inadvertently broadcast their location information to Buzz-using friends even if Google does a good job of informing them that the two offerings sometimes work as one. Unless Google first makes Buzz much simpler, CEO Eric Schmidt will have a lot more opportunities to blame users for misunderstanding the service.

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Photo courtesy of Flickr user Doug88888

Since the start of March, some European versions of Microsoft Windows have been delivered with a so-called “browser ballot screen,” a screen designed to give users a choice of 12 web browsers instead of having Microsoft’s Internet Explorer forced on them. But while it’s already bringing new users to alternative browsers, criticisms of the screen are being leveled, too.

The European Commission’s hope for the screen — which is the result of a settlement between it and Microsoft — was that it would preserve healthy competition among web browsers, and promote choices for users. And there are signs that progress is being made toward reaching those goals: Opera Software says downloads of its browser have tripled since the screen’s introduction. Rolf Assev, chief strategy officer for the Norwegian browser maker, told Reuters that the surge in downloads varies from country to country, with particularly strong upticks seen in Belgium, France, Spain, Poland and the UK.

And Mozilla, maker of the popular open source Firefox browser, says some 50,000 downloads of Firefox can be directly traced to the new ballot screen. That’s not a huge number, though, as Mozilla’s CEO John Lilly has confirmed that Firefox typically gets more than half a million downloads a day in Europe.

So the ballot screen seems to be having some effect, but there are also problems with its execution. Most glaringly, as ZDNet has noted, there are 12 browsers listed in the ballot screen, ranging from well-known names such as Firefox to less popular browsers such as K-Meleon, but it only displays five at a time, as seen here:

Six of the seven browser makers whose offerings aren’t displayed on the default ballot screen view have already produced a petition asking the European Commission to deliver a version that shows all 12 browsers at once. There are also complaints being lodged by makers of browsers not found on the ballot screen at all.

Still, despite varying results for increased downloads of alternative browsers, and some problems with its execution, the ballot screen is likely to increase usage of numerous browsers over time. Thus far, it has only reached a minority of European users. One has to wonder if Microsoft may end up being required to offer U.S.-based users of Windows more choice in browsers, too. That’s probably going to be the focus of the next petition from the alternative browser makers, and the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) has already asked for the ballot screen to be repeated around the world.

Related Post On GigaOM Pro:

What Does the Future Hold For Browsers?

Online ad vet Eric Bader (image) is coming back to the traditional agency business after leaving that segment three years ago to help found mobile ad and marketing consultant Brand In Hand. Interpublic Group media shop Initiative has hired Bader as its first worldwide digital strategy officer. He’ll report directly to Initiative CEO Richard Beaven. John Hadl, founder and CEO of Brand in Hand, told paidContent that Bader will not be replaced.

Before heading to Brand In Hand in January 2007, Bader was the top digital executive Initiative’s rival MediaVest, which is owned by Publicis Groupe. He was replaced in the role of MediaVest’s SVP, director of digital connections, by Amanda Richman, who had been serving as the digital group client director on the media agency’s Procter & Gamble account.

In his new post, Bader will work with three of Initiative’s worldwide leaders, who will chart strategy across the network. The team will comprise three areas: strategic planning, digital and performance. Bader will be closely aligned with Sarah Ivey, Initiative’s director for Communication Planning Worldwide, on the further development of Initiative’s end-to-end planning approach Exchanges. He’ll also work with Bant Breen, Worldwide President, Digital Communications to drive the network’s fully-integrated digital capabilities.

Lastly, Bader will join Jeffrey Graham, Worldwide Director Performance, as Initiative rolls out its performance-led approach to communications around the network. Graham is also a recent addition, joining Initiative last year and is working with all CEOs and functional leads to ensure that clients see the benefits of the network’s performance approach.

Before his time at MediaVest, Bader built and led the online business at CSTV before it was purchased by CBS (NYSE: CBS) to form CBS College Sports. He also spent seven years at Ogilvy, where he was Senior Partner, Executive Director, Interactive Marketing & Strategy.

Bader will leave Brand In Hand on March 30, Hadl said. In a note to the company’s clients, Hadl noted that Bader exits Brand In Hand at a fairly good time for the consultant.  Brand In Hand was just tapped by BestBuy to manage its mobile ad strategy. Hadl is also working on staffing up the agency’s media group, putting together its first mobile “upfront” event and is opening a Minneapolis office within its local partner agency, Frwd.

Commenting on Bader’s decision to leave Brand In Hand to become Initiative’s global digital head, Hadl told clients, ” As you can imagine, a job of that caliber is a great honor for Eric.  This is the first time a leading agency has ever named a career digital person to lead all strategy services (not just digital) — a sign of true ascendance of digital as the future of the advertising industry.”

Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) may have lost its exclusive search deal with T-Mobile USA, but it is banking on a major reorganization to help recharge the company’s mobile efforts.

The changes, which involves breaking up the mobile group and redeploying those employees across the company’s individual product groups, is the result of a review by CEO Carol Bartz, who has been an advocate of having fewer silos in the company. The reorganization has led to the departures of a number of senior mobile executives, most recently Yahoo’s Mobile General Manager Mitch Lazar, who announced his resignation this week.

Departures aside, integrating mobile into the company’s various properties makes a certain amount of sense, as mobile becomes a larger opportunity than the PC. In fact, rival Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has been making strategic shifts of its own to emphasize mobile in relation to the PC.

Yahoo’s move underscores just how important mobile has become to large content and internet service providers. The company has one of the largest mobile audiences in the U.S.—more than 37 million unique users a month, according to comScore/m:metrics, which is second to Google. It’s no longer an experiment. General mangers for Yahoo’s top properties will be held accountable for not just web traffic, but also the growth in mobile.

In addition to Lazar, other departures from Yahoo’s mobile division in the past few months include: Marco Boerries, Yahoo’s EVP of the Connected Life Division; Marc Davis, Chief Scientist; and Steve Boom, SVP of Connected Life. The reason for Lazar’s departure, and perhaps others, is now pretty clear: Most of his direct reports had been reassigned to other divisions, leaving him without many people to manage. Engineers and product managers that once worked within the mobile group have been reappointed to various teams, such as the home page, Mail, Messenger, News, Sports and Finance.

The biggest signal that this transformation was taking place may have been when Yahoo Mobile’s Chief David Ko was promoted to Audience head in late November. In addition to monitoring the company’s mobile efforts, he is now in charge of all of Yahoo’s content sites in North America, including News, Sports and Finance.

Cory Pforzheimer, Yahoo’s senior manager of corporate communications, who confirmed the group’s reorganization today, said: “We are infusing mobile throughout the organization, rather than having a specific team for mobile…The importance of mobile in Yahoo has increased and we are re-aligning the organization to do just that.” He said Yahoo will continue to have small regional teams that will manage the company’s more than 80 carrier partnerships worldwide. But now “mobile is top of mind for everyone, and it’s part of regional teams, business teams, product teams,” he added.

Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said last month at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that there’s a fundamental shift in how we access information, as phones and wireless networks become faster. In fact, Schmidt says Google has instituted a new rule, called “Mobile First,” where engineers are encouraged to come up with ideas and projects for the mobile phone before the PC.

Related

• Yahoo Reorgs Connected Life Division; Next Phase Focused On Making Money On Mobile

Today Appcelerator is launching version 1.0 of their Titanium app-building system which allows developers to build mobile and desktop applications using standard web technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS. In addition to supporting desktop platforms like PC, Mac, and Linux, the new version of Titanium now supports both iPhone and Android with RIM Blackberry and Apple iPad support just around the corner.

Unlike other DIY toolkits that promise mobile apps without needing to know code, Titanium lets web developers leverage their existing skills to build native mobile applications that do anything any app built using that platform’s specific technologies could, like access the phone’s camera or stream video, for example.

Sponsor

What’s New

Titanium’s code base has been improved over the past few months resulting in a number of upgrades to performance. Notes the company, “load times are under 3 seconds, down from 10-20 seconds, transitions between pages are instantaneous and processing speed has improved five-fold.” They’ve additionally added more features to offer over 100 native UI controls, native 2D/3D animation capabilities and data and media presentation capabilities. With these new improvements, developers can now build branded apps, casual games and augmented reality applications that run on any of the supported platforms.

Why Titanium?

When asked to explain what really made Titanium different than the other app-building services out there, the company’s VP of Marketing, Scott Schwarzhoff explained that many of its competitors were simply offering web apps disguised as native apps as opposed to offering the real deal. Every other offering is not even close, he says. “Native user interface (over *100* native APIs)? We’re the only provider. Push notifications? We’re it. Native maps? Same thing. Facebook Connect? We’re the only one. Application analytics? That’s us. Augmented reality? Ditto. The list goes on and on.”

Since June of last year, the Titanium platform has attracted over 27,000 developers thanks to what the company has dubbed their “native advantage.” Described here on the company’s website, this includes support for things like native controls, location-based services, social sharing, HTML5, online or on-device databases, integrated analytics, rich multimedia and more.

With the launch of the iPad only weeks away, Appcelerator is promising support for Apple’s new slate device by the third week of March. Blackberry support will follow in May/June. Titanium’s Community edition will be completely free while a pro version offers premium support, analytics and beta access to new versions.

Discuss

Apple’s iPad is the subject of no fewer than four panels at the upcoming South by Southwest Interactive festival next week despite the fact that it won’t be out until two and half weeks after the show ends. No matter — the iPad is one of the hottest memes welling up in advance of the show. A quick glance at tweets, panels and a few conversations with hopeful attendees reveal that the others will be Android, location and real-time anything.

Sure, Ev Williams of Twitter is keynoting and will hopefully provide us with Twitter’s revenue model, and Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek is up for a talk as well (perhaps to tell us when the rockin’ music service will be finally available in the U.S.?), but it’s the iPad — and the mobile experience overall — that’s underpinning South by Southwest Interactive this year. The iPad is the most visible symptom of the mobile trend, but the underlying cause of the iPad excitement is the search for the best mobile experience for users.

That theme is exemplified with Google’s all-day Sunday Android Hackathon going up against Facebook’s Developer Garage (among the gathering’s hottest events in 2008 and 2009) on Sunday. The SXSW “who’s attending” function appears to be broken, so it’s hard to know which event will have more participants. But my guess is that the promise of building mobile apps for multiple devices will win out over social networking.

Other indications that mobile is taking over are the panels which focus on iPads, location (one that focuses on both), new user interfaces for phones and several on augmented reality. In a very cool way it’s like South by Southwest Interactive has realized that the interactivity the began with blogging and progressed to social media is now ready to invade our gadgets, thanks to smarter, more power-efficient chips and ubiquitous wireless. So even as attendees scratch their iPad itch, the true cause of that excitement isn’t just a new tablet, it’s the opportunity for mobile computing that’s, yes, interactive.

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Wade Roush wrote:

Here at Xconomy we love organizing forums and events—in fact our next one, Mobile Madness: The New Future of Computing, is tomorrow. There are only two downsides to putting on events. They’re relatively small (reaching hundreds of people rather than thousands, the way we can online), and pretty soon, they’re over.

To counteract those two facts this time around, we’re pleased to bring you the Mobile Madness Innovation Showcase, an illustrated catalog of many of the companies whose executives will be participating in tomorrow’s forum, plus a few more. The list includes some of the newest and coolest mobile companies in New England, as well as one special guest from way out of town (Ottawa, Ontario-based bitHeads). We’re proud to have sponsorship for this online showcase, as well as the live Mobile Showcase at Mobile Madness along with Apperian, from AT&T.

The descriptions below were supplied by the companies themselves, with slight editing for length. This showcase is meant to be a permanent resource, and we’ll continue to add to it even after Mobile Madness—so if you’d like us to include your New England-based mobile company free of charge, just write to Erin Kutz at [email protected]. (We need your company name, your location, your URL, the year you were founded, a 100-word description, a graphic or screenshot, and—optionally—the names of your investors.)

Quick Directory:

AccelGolf (mCaddie)
Adva Mobile
Aerva
Apperian
Appswell
bitHeads
FitnessKeeper
High Start Group
Illume Software
Jumptap
Localytics
MobileEd
Public Radio Exchange
Raizlabs
SoftArtisans
Sparkcloud
Textaurant
Tiverias Apps
WherePhone
ZINK

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AccelGolf (mCaddie)
Portland, ME
Founded: 2008
Backers: TechStars and angel investors

AccelGolf is a golf analytics and improvement platform that leverages mobile and social applications to aggregate and analyze real-time performance data.

---

Adva Mobile
Wayland, MA
Founded: 2008
Backers: Self-funded to date

Adva Mobile provides a software service that enables businesses to create closer relations with their audience through mobile fan clubs, using mobile marketing services including mobile messaging, mobile web presence, mobile content fulfillment, mobile commerce, and mobile social sharing. Launched in January 2009, over 650 businesses use Adva Mobile to pro-actively connect to their audience on mobile phones with a rich media experience.

---

Aerva
Cambridge, MA
Founded: 2005

Aerva is a pioneer in developing interactive mobile technology that integrates mobile applications with the web and digital display networks. Aerva’s dynamic mobile applications platform MoApp, allows you to create and manage applications that are compatible with all wireless carriers throughout North America and Europe. MoaApp offers opt-in connectivity to subscribers through a variety of media including digital mobile, print, radio, television, digital out-of-home, and more.

Used along with Aerva’s AerChannel digital display platform, MoApp adds mobile interactivity to public displays. Founded by MIT alumni, Aerva provides the simplest to use, most powerful, and most cost-effective solution to integrated mobile interactivity and social media with display networks.

---

Apperian
Boston, MA
Founded: 2009

Apperian is a leading provider of solutions for creating, deploying, and managing mobile applications for enterprises. We have a team of world-class developers, strategists, information architects, and award-winning designers whose experience in building transformative mobile Apps and helping companies leverage iPhone is unmatched in the industry. One of our most recent iPhone Apps is TaxCaster from Intuit, which will help you see how much you’ll get back from Uncle Sam this year!

Apperian has created over 35 business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-employee (B2B) iPhone apps for companies including American Greetings, Estee Lauder Companies, FedEx, Intuit, Progressive Insurance, Timberland, and Warner Brothers. Let Apperian work with you to create, deploy, and manage your next iPhone app!

…Next Page »

German researchers are working on mobile phone technology that would convert silent mouth movements into speech. It’s an ingenious way to have a noiseless conversation, but if they don’t get it right there could be some unfortunate mix-ups.

The tech—developed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology—involved uses electromyography, and measures the electrical potentials generated by muscle activity in the face to translate mouth movements into speech. You’d be able to speak silently, but the person on the other end of the line would hear what you were saying loud and clear.

Of course, lip-reading is an inexact science—even more so, I would imagine, when implemented by a machine. So while you’ll be able to share PIN numbers without sharing it with the whole room, you’ll want to proceed with caution on more intimate conversations. [Cellular News via Dvice]

Burbn, a stealthy startup that brings mobile location check-in gameplay (à la Foursquare and Gowalla) to the mobile browser, has raised $500,000 from Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Burbn founder Kevin Systrom confirmed the round to us after it was written up in TechCrunch this afternoon.

Burbn is a nifty little HTML 5 mobile web app that offers yet another place to tell your friends where you’re grabbing a coffee or seeing a concert. But what’s cool is how it runs through a mobile browser without losing much of the experience afforded to native iPhone and Android apps. Burbn loads quickly and pulls in GPS information through the browser just like an app. The only material difference is it sends text message alerts rather than push notifications. That mobile web app experience is rather compelling given Apple’s tight grip around its App Store and Android’s increasingly splintered implementations across different phones. In many cases it would be nicer to have one web app that just works everywhere.

We don’t know what Burbn’s broader plans are, but we do know how hot HTML 5 apps and location-based social tools are these days. The fact that Systrom was able to raise the round in the short time since he left a product management role at Nextstop earlier this year (before that he was at Google) is proof enough.

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T-Mobile USA has ended its year-old exclusive search deal with Yahoo, and has replaced the company with its chief rival—Google (NSDQ: GOOG).

The deal shifts the U.S. mobile search dominance away from Yahoo and in favor of Google, which now works with two of the top four carriers. The hand-off between Yahoo and Google was completed as recently as Wednesday, and when visiting the T-Mobile portal from a BlackBerry today, it showed Google as the prominent search provider at the top of the screen—not Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO).

A Yahoo spokesperson confirmed it was no longer working with T-Mobile for search, and a T-Mobile USA spokesperson declined to comment.

Sources say T-Mobile is also working with search provider Medio Systems, which typically indexes and returns results for content, including ringtones and wallpapers, unlike Google, which returns results for the web.

While Yahoo is no longer providing mobile search, a spokesperson said it is still working with the fourth-largest U.S. carrier on other content services, such as Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, News, Sports, Finance and Flickr. Yahoo also continues to work for T-Mobile International in Europe, and more than 80 carrier partnerships around the globe. The shake-up follows the discovery earlier this week that AT&T (NYSE: T) replaced Google with Yahoo on the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) BackFlip, a Google Android device. At the time, we wondered if T-Mobile USA would do the same for Android-based devices, but now that seems highly unlikely.

The pay-off for the often pricey alliances between carriers and search providers is still largely unknown. While carriers can make it easy for a consumer to use one search provider over another, they are still at liberty to visit the search provider of their choice from the mobile browser. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) reportedly paid about $500 million to be the exclusive search provider on Verizon-branded phones. Yahoo continues to work with AT&T, and T-Mobile and Sprint (NYSE: S) now work with Google.

The deals can apparently also fall apart quickly, too. A year ago in November, T-Mobile USA and Yahoo made a big splash when their partnership was first unveiled. As part of it, T-Mobile revamped its entire portal strategy it calls web2go. Ironically, Yahoo first rolled out on T-Mobile in Europe, where it replaced Google. Since last year, Yahoo’s search was rolled out on most handsets, including feature phones, but not Android-based devices or Sidekicks.

Related

• AT&T Strips Google’s Search Off Android; Will Verizon Or T-Mobile Follow?
• Microsoft Beats Out Google To Win Verizon Search Deal
• T-Mobile USA Relaunches T-Zones With Web Content And App Store
• T-Mobile USA Picks Yahoo For Search

The WSJ is reporting (via engadget) that Sony is working on several new devices in a bold direction for their mobile device line. Apple has dominated mobile products as of late and with the upcoming iPad, Sony must create that “hit” item they’ve been seeking for a while. There were two products mentioned in the article – a Playstation Phone and a tablet based device.

Apparently Sony is on target to release a smart phone capable of playing Playstation games. I would imagine that this phone would have Android, 16m color LCD (would be incredible with OLED, but pricey) and 1Ghz processor (at least), as they have used that in other Sony Ericsson devices such as the XPERIA X10.

That’s not all, however – apparently a possible tablet device of some sort is in the works. The WSJ specifically refers to another product “as a portable device that shares characteristics of netbooks, electronic-book readers and handheld-game machines.”

This leads me to speculate. What will it be based upon? What is the form factor? Tablet? Thin, ten inch screen size, minimalist appearance and metal build? High quality plastic for cost? What about OS – Android? If it’s Windows 7, that would be great. Now when they say it could also play games, what does that mean? To me, it sounds like games off the PSN that run beautifully on the high resolution display? That could be pretty nice.

WSJ also reports that Sony will finally reveal to the world later this month about their new online services, which include Qriocity and some other bold initiatives. Why does it feel like things are going to be so different in six months?

Wade Roush wrote:

The impressive lineup of speakers we’ve assembled for next Tuesday’s Xconomy Forum, Mobile Madness: The New Future of Computing, is doing the trick–we’ve sold most of the available seats at Microsoft’s New England R&D Center, and only have about 20 more available. Now’s your chance to secure one of the last seats. If you missed the earlier announcements, this will event will explore the newest mobile devices, mobile infrastructure technologies, mobile application platforms, and mobile marketing and advertising opportunities, with an emphasis on the space that these developments are opening up for entrepreneurship and business growth.

We guarantee you’ll find this event both educational and entertaining throughout an afternoon of talks, panel discussions, and special segments. One unique and somewhat experimental session will be the “Mobile Smackdown,” where teams representing four of today’s leading mobile platforms—Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, and Windows Phone—will engage each other in a head-to-head debate.

Which operating system is the best for developers? Entrepreneurs? Consumers? We’ve instructed our four teams to put their passion about these questions on display. Each team will explain why its preferred operating system has the best phones for consumers and business users, the best app store, or the best software development ecosystem, and why it’s the one that creates the most opportunities for innovation, entrepreneurship, and profit. There may even be a little trash-talking involved (in fact, we encourage it). I talked today with the Android team, Carter Jernigan of two forty four a.m. and Henry Cipolla of Localytics, and they’re raring to go.

Local tech legend John Landry of Lead Dog Ventures will be on hand as our referee. His job will be to keep the teams in line—or, if necessary, rile them up! The first half of the segment will be a no-holds-barred debate, but for the second half, Landry will lead a calmer, more reasoned mini-panel discussion of the relative merits and demerits of each platform. And at the end, we’ll ask the audience to render their verdict vote on which team did the best job of representing its platform and which platform is most apt to support a flourishing ecosystem of innovative and profitable third-party apps. May the best platform win!

But the other parts of the afternoon will be equally exciting, including scene-setting talks by Jhonatan Rotberg of the Next Billion Network and Kate Imbach of Mobile Monday Boston, keynote talks from representatives of Microsoft, Cisco, and Nuance Communications, and a leadership panel featuring executives from mobile companies AT&T, Jumptap, Raizlabs, uLocate, and Zink. (The full agenda is online here.)

We’ll close with the Mobile Showcase, a lineup of 10 (mostly) local startups and organizations doing important work in various corners of the mobile industry. Representatives from …Next Page »

When Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) unveiled Windows Phone 7 last month, we figured that was the extent of its comeback plans in mobile. But now, there’s evidence that the software giant has something else up its sleeve.

Two reports released today from unnamed sources indicate that Microsoft’s “Project Pink” is alive and well. Reuters reports that a new phone could launch with Verizon Wireless as soon as late spring or early summer, beating Windows Phone 7 to market. Separately, Gizmodo reported that based on third-party marketing materials, the phone looks a lot like a Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre; is not based on Windows Phone 7; and is likely running on software that Microsoft acquired when it bought Danger, the maker of the T-Mobile Sidekick.

Why Microsoft would choose a two-pronged mobile approach is not clear at this time, but perhaps it feels two platforms is necessary in order to satisfy the various different user bases in the market. Unfortunately, unless it’s done right, it will likely cause confusion and more fragmentation in the space.

Things should become more clear in the upcoming months, perhaps as soon as the end of March when the industry will gather in Las Vegas at CTIA.

For now, Gizmodo has some unconfirmed details about Project Pink (and more here):

—It looks like a Palm Pre.
—Verizon is a launch partner, but may not be the only launch partner.
—The phones aren’t running Windows Phone 7, unless it’s really hidden.
—It’s all about social networking.
—It has apps, which are likely not compatible with Windows Phone 7, so that leaves the door open to another SDK, or maybe suggests that it will be a closed app environment.

Regardless of how Project Pink turns out, it’s encouraging to see Microsoft moving quickly in mobile after taking a hiatus for the past year. At Microsoft’s financial meeting in July 2009, it said it was committed to mobile, and was ear-marking $1 billion in operating expenses for the division. For perspective, that that’s about a quarter of what it spends on PCs, and about half as much as it spends on search and advertising. In a statement, regarding its investments in mobile, a Microsoft spokesperson told us: “Mobility is one of Microsoft’s top investment areas and we are 100% committed to Windows Phones – now and in the future.”

Verizon continues to say it will launch its fourth-generation, super-fast Long Term Evolution wireless network to cover 100 million people by the end of this year, but it’s also been clear that it expects its LTE network speeds to be just 5-12 Mbps. So how does LTE — a technology that can deliver a theoretical 150 Mbps — get whittled down to less than a tenth of its top speed?

Thanks to the recent attention on the potential shortage of wireless spectrum for mobile broadband, and the hope that mobile broadband could act as a decent substitute for wired broadband, it’s worth figuring out how spectrum, cell towers and subscribers all factor into the speeds a wireless carrier can offer. Peter Rysavy, a wireless analyst, offers a great explanation using Verizon as an example. Note that in a Network World article, Tony Melone, executive VP and CTO of Verizon Wireless, confirmed that the carrier will use all of its 700 MHz spectrum for LTE service. Here’s what Rysavy has to say on that:

“Looking forward to advanced technologies such as LTE, capacity will higher, but it will still be extremely limited compared to wireline capacity. Verizon Wireless’ LTE network will operate in the 700 MHz band using 10 MHz radio channels. With a spectral efficiency of 1.5 bps/Hz, this delivers sector throughput of 15 Mbps.

Meanwhile, there are about 1000 subscribers in the US for every cell site, which makes for an average of 333 subscribers per sector. If 10% of them were using the LTE data service, that would mean 33 users for the 15 Mbps data channel. Now, compare this with a subscriber of a wireline high‐speed Internet service of 50 Mbps that is dedicated, and not shared, as shown in Figure 2 (below). The point is not that the wireless network cannot deliver extremely useful and valuable services, since it can, but rather that wireless capacity is inherently limited compared to wireline capacity.”

Basically, Verizon can cram only a certain number of bits into each hertz — a function of how LTE allocates bits and a physics constraint. Multiply that number of bits times Verizon’s 10 MHz channels, which are dictated by regulatory policy as well as what Verizon paid for during the spectrum auction, and you have the top speed. Deliver those 15 Mbps channels to your cell sites (determined by Verizon’s investment decisions as well as community regulations that govern where towers are allowed) and divide by the number of devices sucking bits.

It’s complex math getting the infrastructure in place, but add in the infinite variables of iPads, smartphones, M2M sensors and even human traffic patterns and you have a situations in which delivering fast mobile broadband looks nothing short of miraculous.

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Forget building your own iPhone app, you can now build your own mobile social network! Two companies – Shoutem and Socialight – are offering platforms that allow anyone to design, develop and launch their very own social networks for mobile devices. Although neither service will likely lead to the next creation of the next Twitter or Foursquare, the tools they offer are perfect for design a niche site for a select group of users. Whether it’s a closed network for you and your friends, a fan-based network for celebrating a favorite TV show, a one-time use network for a particular conference or event or even something designed for use within a particular company, these services have you covered.

Sponsor

We’ve already seen social network DIY services take off on the desktop, mainly due to Ning and their niche network building tools. That same concept can now be reproduced on the mobile platform thanks to Shoutem and Socialight.

Shoutem: Niche Networks for Communities

Having recently exited its beta testing phase, Shoutem’s globally available service lets users easily create private mobile social networks without needing programming and development skills. With their platform, anyone can control the access and the design of their network and launch it as a mobile application for the iPhone, Blackberry and soon, Android.

Shoutem recommends using their product to build specialist niche sites for sports fans, clubs and events. Already, some companies have launched their own small networks using the service. NFL Shouts, for example, lets game fans communicate with each other during football season. Ranch and Rodeo, meanwhile, connects an international audience to a destination site where fans can interact.

Socialight: Better for Brands, Businesses…and Mom?

The other company to recently launch something in this space is Socialight. With their new Socialight Community Platform, anyone can create networks which are accessible via the web, a WAP site or an iPhone app. The company seems to have more of an enterprise focus than Shoutem, noting how their tools have helped “companies and brands” create their own apps. However, the tools Socialight provides can be used by anyone, even individuals…even your mom as explained in this video on Vimeo.

Not Just Mobile, Location-Based

What’s interesting about both launches is their focus on location-based services. In Socialight’s case, they offer tools for sharing geo-tagged photos and other location-based community content, all of which can be viewed on a map interface. From the mobile application, users can upload and share anything – whether that’s a photo, video or text – and have it posted to the network.

Shoutem does much of the same thing with tools that enable file and photo uploads. They also target their app to local communities like colleges, cities, restaurants, bars and clubs.

Why Niche Networks for Mobile?

Considering that there are already several popular mobile social networks out there, including Brightkite, Loopt, Gowalla and Foursquare to name a few, you may wonder why people would need to join yet another. The answer to that question is two-fold. One difference is access. These niche networks can be closed communities for just a select group of people working on an invite-only system. The second difference between those publicly available services and the ones designed with these new toolkits is that they are laser-focused on a single purpose. You may not want to spam up your Twitter account where you promote your business to discuss things related to your local book club for example, but you could easily do so via a niche network.

But perhaps an even better example involves how local businesses could use these tools in building apps for their customers. On Socialight’s homepage, they’re currently featuring “Socialight Concierge,” a toolkit for the hotel and tourism industry which lets companies create “curated concierge experiences” where “guests access location-based information about restaurants, shops, and places to visit, together with city tours and historical points of interest, all in a branded environment.” The richness of this mobile application goes far beyond anything we’ve seen with the simplified DIY mobile app building tools. These are no mere informational apps, they’re comprehensive networks where some content is managed by the business, but the real value comes from the customers socializing within the community.

You can start building your own network today on Shoutem here or Socialight here.

Discuss

If you’re a fan of the iPad, like I am, here’s some good news. Apple says it will start selling the Wi-Fi versions of the iPad on Saturday, April 3. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will arrive in late April. From a company press release:

“iPad is something completely new,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical and revolutionary product and connect with their apps and content in a more intimate, intuitive and fun way than ever before.”

Apple says it will start taking pre-orders for both models on March 12. The iPad costs $499 and up. It’s 0.5 inches thick and weighs just 1.5 pounds and has a theoretical battery life of up to 10 hours. The Wi-Fi + 3G models start at $629. You can reserve a Wi-Fi model and pick it pick up on Saturday, April 3, at an Apple retail store, according to the company. All models of the iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

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Compiled Networks, a stealthy Austin, Texas-based startup, is building an appliance that can securely link two clouds at the network level. But before it started on its cloud product the founders also managed to develop one that ISPs can use to deliver Wi-Fi that behaves less like a fixed wireless network and more like a cellular one, with seamless handoffs and one-time authentication. One unnamed ISP is already using it for its Wi-Fi network.

But Compiled, which is searching for a Series A round of $2.5 million, has its eye on the cloud. The software it uses to make a series of Wi-Fi access points into a seamless network can also run inside an appliance located inside a cloud, and virtually extend a data center’s Layer 2 Ethernet network to a cloud. In doing so it offers an IT operations person a level of security and control that they might not get from other private virtualized networks such as Amazon’s or even Savvis’s data-center-in-a-box offering, which tend to operate by managing IP addresses at Layer 3.

Jasson Casey, founder and CEO of Compiled, says the company’s appliances allow an IT manager to build a virtualized version of a network inside a cloud, without adding latency or requiring the addition of more CPU power. Other companies are attempting to virtualize the network and bridge clouds using managed software but Casey believes those methods are unwieldy and won’t scale as well.

Casey didn’t offer any more details about the software, citing the company’s relative stealth, but said for now it is working on a deal with a large cloud provider that could buy the Compiled appliance and pop it into the its cloud as a way to offer customers a more secure form of virtualized networking. In order to work, the Compiled appliance has to be inside the cloud, which could be a barrier for the company if it can’t get large infrastructure-as-a-service providers interested. Even large companies trying to move applications and workloads to public clouds may not have the cachet to demand a Savvis or Terremark put an appliance inside the ones they offer.

In the meantime, Compiled has a cloud product and a potential partner willing to try it in its cloud, and a deal with an unnamed ISP for its Wi-Fi product. I will say that the company has certainly managed to straddle two large markets with its technology. Now we just need to see if it can sell into them.

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