Mobile Marketing Blog by Punchkick Interactive

This is very exciting news as I can’t think of a single thing that could more quickly expand the reach of Flash Lite.

Sony Ericsson announced today at its Developer World conference plans for a new technology that bridges Adobe Flash Lite and Java ME development platforms.

The technology, called Project Capuchin, allows Java ME (formerly known as J2ME) applications to use Flash Lite as the front-end interface for mobile phone applications.

“In using Flash, you typically can’t access properties of the phone. But with Capuchin, you can get at information and applications in the phone and use that info with the Flash display,” said Christopher David, director of long-term platform planning at Sony Ericsson.

The Java ME/Flash Lite connection will be a two-way street, so both can invoke the other, according to Ulf Wretling, director of Sony Ericsson Developer World. But most importantly, Flash content is packaged as a Java JAR file for use on Java ME-compatible mobile phones.

Read the full article on InternetNews.com

It would seem that WiMAX’s impact on mobile technology in the United States might be closer than we all originally thought.

NextWave Wireless Inc. (Nasdaq: WAVE), a global leader of all things WiMAX, announced that it has retained Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank to explore the sale of its extensive spectrum holdings in the United States. NextWave’s U.S. spectrum footprint covers over 251 million people in the United States and includes major markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Houston, and Detroit.

What drove the surge? Possibly Allen Salmasi, chief executive officer and president of NextWave Wireless, when he remarked:

Since the completion of the recent 700 MHz auction, we have received multiple offers for our U.S. spectrum assets. [N]ow is the perfect time for us to sell these valuable assets while network operators are trying to finalize their band plans and spectrum holdings for their continuing 3G and planned 4G rollouts. Monetizing the value of our substantial spectrum assets would allow us to further strengthen our balance sheet, retire debt, and continue the commercial introduction of a wide range of innovative wireless broadband and multimedia solutions such as our high-performance WiMAX and RFIC chipsets, advanced multi-mode, multi-band TD-CDMA, WiMAX and LTE enabled base station platforms, breakthrough MXtvTM and TDtvTM mobile television systems.

Ryan and I had the chance to visit Chicago on business last week, and decided to make a long weekend out of it. I love the city of Chicago—there’s plenty of great restaurants, first-class shopping, and friendly people. Ryan’s favorite part of the trip? It wasn’t Shedd Aquarium, the largest indoor aquarium in the world. Nor was it the Brazilian churrascaria Fogo De Chao, where a waitstaff hovers around carrying skewers of perfectly grilled meat, serving all-you-can-eat portions until you are nearly-comatose. It wasn’t even the Water Tower, which could fit all of Northeast Ohio’s retail locations within it.

No folks, it was the Nokia store. That’s right, the Nokia store. Normally calm-and-subdued-Ryan became what I can only describe as “frantic.” There’s nothing quite like sitting in the Nokia store for an hour while a geek runs from phone to phone with a crazed look on his face.

Note: The device in Ryan’s hand is the Nokia N810. When he realized he could pull up the Punchkick Interactive site on it, a wave of joy overtook him. You know you are in trouble when electronics sales-associates look at you funny.

• AT&T is offering unlimited voice for $99 and unlimited connectivity and messaging for $35. One year contract is required for new subscribers and data plans are unchanged, though.
• Analysts are expecting Sprint to, “offer flat-rate calling plans at up to 40 percent discount to it’s rivals” — bringing unlimited wireless minutes into the $60 range for sprint customers.
• $99 buys you unlimited voice and text (including text, picture and IM) at T-Mobile. Previously, the Deutsche Telekom owned mobile operator has been selling unlimited text messaging for $14.99 and 5,000 minutes of calls for $129.99.

Sources: IntoMobile, Reuters

20+ Tools For Working With Colors
Sometimes all you need to get inspired to build a site is picking a color scheme, or even if you get stuck later in development you need some color help. Mashable.com has gathered 20+ tools for helping the “color challanged” designers.
Source: Mashable

The Analog Cellphone Timeline
Source: Gizmodo

Hide an Image in HTML — Reveal it by Highlighting Text with your Mouse
Source: BoingBoing
p.s. This is really cool.

14 Hidden Hotel Fees to Avoid
Source: Fodors

Hottest Google Search Terms for February 18:
1. patricide
2. ziggs
3. dancing with the stars
4. alex cambert
5. dan cortese
6. kit carson
7. my dad is better than your dad
8. ziggs.com
9. marlee matlin
10. juicy campus

Engadget reports that they have received a flood of tips stating that Verizon to offer unlimited voice, data, and messaging packages. It is reported that starting Tuesday, February 19th the following plans should be available:

• $100 - Nationwide Unlimited (voice)
• $120 - Nationwide Select Unlimited (voice, SMS, MMS)
• $140 - Nationwide Premium (voice, SMS, MMS, VZNav, VCAST, email)
• $150 - Nationwide Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and data)
• $170 - Nationwide Global Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and international data)
• $200 - Family plan with two lines, $100 per additional line

Additionally, the sources at Engadget claim that premium paying subscribers will also receive the following additional perks:

• The 5GB cap on data will be lifted
• The plans will be available on one or two year agreements
• There will not be a contract extension for current customers
• All plans include mobile Web 2.0 portal access
• No roaming or long distance charges

Mobile phone users will now be able to project videos, photos, games, give business presentations, video conference, or anything else that they want onto a 10-20 inch surface using a mini-projector developed by Samsung. The Samsung mini-projector is expected to hit the market as early as the Q2, 2008.

Source: fareastgizmos.com

I often hear people asking about ways to project the screen of a mobile phone to a PC during presentations, so I decided to compile a short list of mobile phone to PC projector options. If you have any experience with mobile to PC projectors, please post a short comment.

The four discussed here are:

Mobilola	Remote S60	Screenshot	Project-a-Phone

I personally use Mobilola Remote Control by Warelex ($35 USD). It’s a C++ app that works with Symbian S60v2 and S60v3 phones. I have been using it through an emulated WinXP (via Parallels on my Mac laptop) and it’s still really snappy. It also was extremely easy to set up. A few of the Mobilola Remote Control features are:

• Shows your phone screen on your PC
• Option to fully control your phone via PC
• Zoom in/out
• Full screen presentation option
• Snapshot
• Video recording
• Works over Bluetooth or USB
• Demo your phone through Skype Video and record YouTube video presentations directly to YouTube with webcam driver functionality

Remote S60 Professional ($30 USD) by MobileWays is a similar tool. I have not personally used this tool, but I hear that it works very well.

If all you need is a single frame capture solution, then you should give Screenshot a try (if the link fails, then refresh your browser—I have noticed a problem with their servers). Screenshot for Symbian OS is a FREE program to take screenshot on your Symbian OS mobile phones (UIQ or S60). You can capture screenshot and save it to a file in JPEG, PNG, BMP or MBM format. The screenshot can be sent directly to a PC via Bluetooth or infrared and another mobile phone. It also supports continuous mode that allows you to capture screenshot every a few seconds.

If your looking for a hardware option, I have heard great things about Project-a-Phone ($295 USD).

I stumbled across the self-proclaimed “World’s Largest PDA Database,” and as soon as I did I thought, “I can finally get a tally of how many Windows Mobile 2002, 2003 or 5.0 devices are on the market!” In total I found 584 devices. Unfortunately, however, there is no data on the penetration of these devices.

Why is this important? Adobe offers installers for Flash Lite 2.1 for Windows Mobile 5.0, Flash Player 7 for Pocket PC 2003, and the Flash Player 6 for Windows Mobile 2002. Although this does not have the mass market appeal of Verizon Wireless, it is certainly notable.

Flash is pre-installed on:

• 70 Nokia Phones (includes N96)
• 58 Sony Ericsson Phones
• 13 BREW Phones
• 6 Sony CLIE PDAs
• All NTT Docomo handsets
• All KDDI handsets

Flash can be installed on:

• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC Phone Edition (166)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC Premium Edition (52)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC Professional Edition (10)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 for Smartphone (61)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Phone Edition (25)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Premium Edition (54)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC Professional Edition (6)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 for Smartphone (11)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC Phone Edition (57)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC Premium Edition (41)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Pocket PC Professional Edition (4)
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition for Smartphone (35)
• Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition (20)
• Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Premium Edition (33)
• Microsoft Pocket PC 2002 Professional Edition (2)
• Microsoft Smartphone 2002 (7)

Note from Adobe.com:

Note: This version of Flash Player is for the individual use of developers of Pocket PC devices. For more information about Adobe’s Flash Player distribution policy read the FAQ.

When you download the free player, it is provided “as-is”—which means that Adobe will support it only for Windows Mobile 5 and Pocket PC 2003 OS devices through available online resources on our website. If you experience any problems for non-certified devices, you should discuss them with other developers in various forums.

The World’s Largest Handheld Database

Nokia Germany has posted the N96 specs. There are still no official images, but I imagine that it will be similar to the N95. The most notable visual changes will be the size; the N96 is slightly longer and wider, but .7 inches thinner than the N95. No official release date as of yet.

• Quadband EDGE
• Dualband HSDPA 850/2100 MHz
• DVB-H Class C
• 92 cc volume
• 125 gram weight
• 103 x 55 x 18 mm
• 16 GB internal memory AND a microSD slot; 24 GB total if you spend an extra $80
• 950 mAh battery
• 6.1 cm (2.8 inch) 320×240 display with 16 million colors
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• WiFi (802.11b/g)
• AGPS
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens that also does VGA video recording at 30 FPS
• Dual LED flash that can also be used when video recording
• S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (Flash Lite 3 enabled web browser included)
• microUSB

Via [IntoMobile] and [Nokia]

As a resident of the United States, I’ve longed for the latest mobile phones from Japan, Korea, and other more “tech-fortunate” countries throughout APAC and Europe. I live in arguably the most powerful industrialized nation on the planet, and yet I still can’t video chat from mobile to mobile like they do in Japan. My free-phone-with-a-two-year-commitment doesn’t come with a QR Code™ reader pre-installed. And, let’s be honest, most entry level phones in the States don’t even include Bluetooth or a 1.3 megapixel camera. Until recently, I was convinced that the U.S. mobile market is behind the times.

So what gives?

Very recently, a number of studies have surfaced leading me to think that maybe, just maybe, things aren’t so bad on this side of the pond. For example, according to the CTIA in Wireless Wave Fall 2007 - A Continental Idea:

[..] earlier this year Merrill Lynch reported that Europeans still pay an average of 19¢ per minute for an average of 153 minutes a month, compared to 5¢ per minute for 834 minutes a month for customers in the U.S. The U.S. is the leader in offering bucket plans, driven by competitive market forces to offer more minutes at a lower effective rate.

3G penetration stats are looking up, too. According to industry analyst Chetan Sharma, President of Chetan Sharma Consulting, “Because of the heavy penetration of the Internet over the desktop, as well as the late advent of 3G in the market, there was not a big driver for mobile Internet until the last one or two years. As 3G penetration has been increasing[,] now we’re up to 15 to 16 percent penetration (in the U.S.).”

M:Metrics — which conducts an on-going survey of thousands of wireless customers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the U.S. — recently found that a slightly higher percentage of U.S. consumers browse wirelessly for news and information than their European counterparts.

The study also shows that the U.S. is at the top in average number of minutes used per month at 832 (Canada, the number two country, averages 429 minutes). The country with the lowest average revenue per minute — a measure of the effective price per voice minute — is again the U.S. at $0.04 USD (South Korea and Mexico are tied for the number two spot at $0.11 USD). And finally, the number of wireless carriers with over one million subscribers is the largest in the U.S. at 10 companies. The country with the next highest number is the England.

My conclusion? Maybe it’s true that the grass is always greener on the other side.

Bill Perry (Mobile evangelist for Adobe) has just posted the Flash Lite install base forecasts for 2008 from the Strategy Analytics Flash-Enabled Handset Forecast from January 4, 2008. The forecast includes the installed base of Flash Lite devices by Region, Country and Version. Bill’s PDF highlighting the 91% Global Growth of Flash Lite in 2007 can be downloaded here.

Worldwide, the totals for 2008 add up to: 461,733,000 mobile devices with Flash Lite pre-installed.

The score card for 2008 reads:
1. APAC - 154,761,000
2. Western Europe - 107,832,000
3. Japan - 77,603,000
4. Americas - 64,561,000
5. CALA - 32,024,000
6. Central Europe - 24,952,000

What are the biggest surprises?
I truly did not expect the Flash Lite 2.x numbers to be so high. Adobe is forecasting that in 2008 the Americas and Western Europe will have higher Flash Lite 2.0 or 2.1 adoption than 1.1! Despite this, Flash Lite 1.1 will still most likely stay the obvious standard.

I am very excited to see that the Americas are so close in numbers to Japan. Additionally, they have more than double the numbers of Central America, Latin America, and Central Europe. It’s no surprise that Western Europe and APAC still top the charts.

What does this all mean?
As companies like Verizon continue to grow with Flash Lite, consumer adoption rates will no doubt go up as well. As a full service mobile marketing firm that is passionate about mobile and pushing the medium forward, we can continue to pursue Flash Lite development with our clients—knowing that one day in the near future it will become the mobile standard of third party development.

We have been working commercially with Flash Lite for some time. Our projects have ranged from oem user interface development, to consumer content such as custom applications and games. We couldn’t be happier about the news.