Looking Forward to ‘Mobile University’ One-Day Event
We’re excited about the Mobile University event that’s being put on by the Heartland Mobile Council. The one-day Chicago event promises to address the importance of a long-term strategic approach to mobile marketing, as well as demonstrate how to integrate mobile into your business.
Here’s a description of the event by the Heartland Mobile Council:
“Mobile University 101 is the interactive one day educational event that will address the importance of a long-term strategic approach to mobile within your business. Whether you’re interested in creating a mobile marketing campaign, or understanding the various kinds of rapidly evolving mobile technologies, Mobile University is the place to get started with a mobile strategy, and begin to leverage mobility to improve your bottom line.”
There are going to be some great educational topics covered at the event, and both Ryan and I will be leading a break-out session focused on different ways to successfully integrate mobile within an overall marketing strategy.
Pre-registration tickets for the event are $99 and can be purchased here.
If you’re interested in reading the official release for the event, click here.
Adriana Gil Miner created a great video for her blog, Digital Ecologist, outlining today’s issues with SMS spam, privacy, and how mobile marketing law in the United States may be influenced over the next several years by the CAN SPAM Act. This follows up on Pogue’s Post about The Worst Spam Ever.
Learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s mobile marketing capabilities.
Punchkick Interactive has officially been approved by Apple to become part of the Apple iPhone Developer Program, and we are curious as to the number of other developers who were also approved—so, we decided to start a tally.
If you have been approved by Apple to participate in the iPhone Developer Program, then leave a comment. We will update the tally here daily.
1 developer has been approved.
As a bit of background, U.S. applicants rejected received an e-mail stating: “Dear Registered iPhone Developer, Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. As this time, the iPhone Developer Program is available to a limited number of developers and we plan to expand during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. Thank you for applying.”
Applicants outside the United States received an e-mail stating: “Dear Registered iPhone Developer, Thank you for expressing interest in the iPhone Developer Program. We have received your enrollment request. At this time, the iPhone Developer Program is only available in the US and will expand to other countries during the beta period. We will contact you again regarding your enrollment status at the appropriate time. Thank you for applying.”
Learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s iPhone software development capabilities.
We are excited to announce that Mobile Ocean, a Flash Lite screensaver that we designed and developed, has been selected for the launch of Adobe’s new Flash Mobile Gallery within Adobe.com.
Hopefully, it will be the first of many featured items for Punchkick Interactive on Adobe.com. The Punchkick Interactive Mobile Ocean screensaver can be viewed within our company Web site on our Flash Lite Screensavers and Wallpapers page or purchased from Handango.com.
Learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s mobile screensaver design capabilities.
Adobe’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen, said Tuesday that Adobe has officially started development of a Flash player suitable for use on Apple’s iPhone and hopes to finish development by June.
Narayen made the comments during a conference call with investors, explaining that Apple’s recent release of an iPhone software developers kit (SDK) has afforded his company the necessary tools to finally begin work an iPhone version of Flash Player.
“We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone,” he said. “We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves.”
Adobe hopes to deliver their missing product via Apple’s new App Store, set to open in June alongside the release of iPhone software version 2.0.
So much for Jobs’ comments about the iPhone not being able to support Flash because of a limitation with the Flash player. It seems ridiculous that Apple’s position is a limitation in the Flash Player given that the Flash Player works perfectly on the Nokia 810, countless other portable devices, the Skyfire browser, Pocket IE, and Opera Mobile 9.5. I am very happy to hear about Adobe’s new position on the issue.
Source: Apple Insider, Wall Street Journal
Learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s iPhone software development capabilities.
Flash Lite 3 to be Shipped on all Windows Mobile Devices
Yesterday, Bill from Adobe announced that Microsoft has licensed Flash Lite 3 and Reader LE for future Windows Mobile based devices. Flash Lite 3 will be pre-installed in the Internet Explorer Mobile browser on future Windows Mobile devices. Additionally, Reader LE will be pre-installed to allow consumers to open and view PDF documents while they’re away from their computer.
How many Windows Mobile devices
Recent information for Windows Mobile devices states that devices were 11 million shipped in 2007 and 20 million are expected in 2008. Also, according to Strategy Analytics, in 2007 1/3 of Windows Mobile devices shipped in North America (33%) with other regions representing other values: Western Europe (29%), APAC (20%) and the rest of the world (18%). Visit Microsoft to provide guidance on future handset shipments but you can visit their site to get a sense of the range of devices they have in market today. This deal is different than other licensing agreements Adobe has with OEMs. Because the license agreement is with Microsoft, it will be part of their Windows Mobile OS in the future meaning any OEM that will ship a Windows Mobile device will have Flash Lite 3 pre-installed. Today these OEMs include HTC, iMate, Samsung and others.
Google May Build Huge Wireless Network Using Floating Balloons
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is considering either a partnership or a full-on buyout of Space Data Corp—a company that provides balloon-based wireless networks. If you think that seems a little strange, consider this: the balloons can help bring wireless service to individuals in rural areas and they can be launched on the cheap—about $50 to launch the balloon, $1500 for the receiver, and a $100 finder’s fee for recovery after the balloon returns to earth.
Additionally, a BusinessWeek article from last month revealed that Space Data believes it can cover the whole country with a WiMax broadband network with just 370 balloons. Compare that with the 22,000 or so towers that would be necessary using traditional methods.
Sources: Gizmodo and WSJ and BusinessWeek via TechCrunch and Broadband Reports
Reuters Reports that Toshiba to Give Up on HD DVD — Ending the Format War
A company source within Toshiba told Reuters that Toshiba was in the final stages of planning to exit the HD DVD business and that an official decision would be made soon. Given all the hype surrounding the format war between HD and Blue Ray, I’ll bet that most people already assumed there was an official announcement. We’ll file this under the category of, “Sorry to see you lose hundreds of millions, Toshiba.”
All that said, I guess it’s about time for Sony to have a win in the format war. Let’s recap the list of proprietary losers in the companies past:
- Betamax — Beat by VHS
- MiniDisc — Never had a chance
- ATRAC Audio Format — Beat by MP3
- SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound) — Beat by Dolby Digital 5.1
- Memory Stick — Beat SD cards
- Super Audio CD — Beat by good old fashioned CDs
- Universal Media Disc for movies — LOL
- 1GB Hi-MD discs — Have you even heard of these?
- 125 MB Magneto-optical discs — Again, have you even heard of these?
List of Mobile Phone to PC Projector Options
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:
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| 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).
584 Flash Capable Windows Mobile Devices in World’s Largest PDA Database
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
