My Digital FootPrint

So Google buys Moto – there are now 1,000 stories written and to quote from the Google Blog by Larry Page…. “We recently   explained   how companies including Microsoft and Apple are banding together in anti-competitive patent attacks on Android. The U.S. Department of Justice had to intervene in the results of one recent patent auction to “protect competition and innovation in the open source software community” and it is currently looking into the results of the Nortel auction. Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies. ” This I am sure will split the room on opinions so why not come and join the panels and voice your own insights at Mobile2 in SFO in Sept 1 st .  If you have not yet registered, please do so ASAP. If you send us an email at info@mobile2event.com , mentioning this Blog, we will send you a s

   This report introduces a new way of measuring openness of open source projects like Android, Qt, Symbian, MeeGo, Mozilla, WebKit, Linux and Eclipse.   The report documents how in fact Android has limited transparency, its development is mostly closed to outside contributors and Google dominates over handset make-up and Android application distribution. The report analyses Android's closed nature in what in the past has been only speculated - e.g. see    - Techcrunch http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/26/open/   - GigaOm http://gigaom.com/mobile/heres-why-google-is-holding-honeycomb-back/ - Engadget http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/24/google-keeping-honeycomb-source-code-on-ice-says-its-not-ready/   The Powerpoint has the report's key insights - and the full 45-page report is here http://www.visionmobile.com/OGI Open Governance Index - Key insights.ppt Download this file

Source: Vision Mobile

Good article by Alistair Fairweather titled Four Very Different Mobile Payment Services  - there is more on the article than here and worth a read This is his advantage and disadvantages and my added comments in colour Approach one: Phones as credit card machines (Square) Advantages Ubiquity and familiarity of credit cards (at least in developed economies); A clever and comfortingly familiar payment interface; and The focus on small businesses and vendors has given them cheap and effective market penetration. Disadvantages Requires physical proximity between buyer and seller; Requires a smart phone and special additional hardware (although it is free); and Requires the buy-in of (historically unfriendly) banks and credit card companies (which may slow or limit international adoption). All your lovely data is still not yours and make is easy for the status quo to remain, you can see some natural support from certain players who want to remain in power. Approach two: pho

This is an Article from Banking Technology by a sound and hugely respected friend David Birch ------ As the mobile payments area looks set to take finally take off, the next big area for payments services will be identity and authentication, according to a leading commentator. Digital money specialist Dave Birch, a director of Consult Hyperion, this week told the annual Payment Strategies Conference - organised by Experian Identity and Fraud - that "the evolution of an identity market is the next big step" in developing mobile payments and related services. But he warned that "the technologies involved are very different to those in the connectivity space". "In the mass market, biometrics are about convenience, not security," he said. Birch lambasted traditional banks and payments providers for their failure to grasp the nature of the opportunities presented by mobile technologies, which has led them to miss the boat. "I'm almost embarrass

https://www.tokenpay.com/ Mission is to provide a full service, 100% anonymous online transaction solution.  Claims to take privacy and security to all new levels of protection through a closed-loop network allowing for complete anonymity and untraceable online transactions. You are able to maintain undisclosed your online spending habits as we pass absolutely no personal or account information on to the merchant. With Token Pay you keep your money, financial details, and identity safe, secure and private. They offer Indemnification of transactions and no chargebacks. And they are located…. DRS Holdings, Chancery Court Leeward Highway, Turks And Caicos Islands, BWI Assuming you keep your own “data” – this has the weakest of all levels of security !

Mobile usage is highest among teenagers   From VentureBeat  by Tom Cheredar on 8 th June 11 The teenage demographic spends the least amount of time watching television, talking on the phone or using personal computers, according to a Nielsen report about how young people engage media. Mobile technology appears to be what they use most. Teens are using text messages to communicate with their social circle over twice as much as any other demographic, the report states. And teens also watch more mobile video content than any other demographic. The 12 to 17 age demographic viewed an average of 7 hours 13 minutes of mobile video per month in Q4 2010, while the general population viewed an average of only 4 hours 20 minutes. Not surprisingly, the report also states that mobile advertising has the greatest impact on teenagers. Implication is for which screen: There is no surprises here – however the youth are leading on using [interacting with] several screens at the same time

infographic courtesy of Microsoft Tag. Smartphones are creating smarter shoppers – so how does that affect you? Check out our new infographic below to learn about the growth of mobile e-commerce, including how people are shopping on their phones, how many retailers have mobile sites (it's astonishingly small, considering over half of smartphone users would buy something from a mobile site), and which demographic makes purchases on their phones the most. This will be on the test...because by 2015, it's predicted that mobile purchases will total $119 billion globally!

Is Anything Private on Your Phone Anymore? is a blog/ article from Lookout "Outlook decided to look at the range of personal information on your phone, explain the top privacy concerns and give simple steps you can take to put your mind at ease."  Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt sell - especially if you are selling security.  

Image from the BBC An article written by Daniel Solve http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/ is about Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide' to which he asks questions such as  "So do you have curtains?"  or  "Can I see your credit-card bills for the last year?" His response to the "If you have nothing to hide ... " argument is simply, "I don't need to justify my position. You need to justify yours. Come back with a warrant." I don't have anything to hide. But I don't have anything I feel like showing you, either. If you have nothing to hide, then you don't have a life. Show me yours and I'll show you mine. It's not about having anything to hide, it's about things not being anyone else's business. The long article is worth a read and you quickly see that Andrew is on a different side of the coin to say Jeff Jarvis - worth listening to their BBC inte

(The meeting of the waters at the source of the Amazon!) This started life as a private letter to Nokia and Microsoft about what they could do to revolutionise the mobile industry as competing on UI, apps and shinny things are unlikely to bring about a massive share price hike.  With a few hours to spare on a flight to SFO I started but concluded that an open letter would be more fun as I modelled how Nokia & Microsoft could look to offer the operators a better deal by changing the economics and it looked to attractive to hide. Working assumption - All you can eat is a broken model..... When the mobile market was about voice and SMS there was a finite limit to how much you can talk and SMS and all you could eat worked based on some well presented statistical calculations.  But unlimited data, even with fair use is a problem when social media feeds and video create a perfect storm.   There are a few really limiting factors in the mobile world: battery life, network capacity,

A response to the new p rivacy policy for mobile from GSMA http://www.gsmworld.com/our-work/public-policy/mobile_privacy.htm as I agree that there is a need: to move away from compliance, for consistency, and to help the user manage and make decisions. Here are the proposed guidelines (they are seeking wide input and reflections by June 10 th 2011. Here is how to add your views via email to pwalshe@gsm.org or mobileprivacy@gsm.org ---- My personal view is that the issue ultimately will not be about the policy framework as set out as it is already rounded, professional, grown-up, workable and practicable but will rest on four other issues: who will crack the UI to make this work, local preference, contract law and policing/ enforcement. The UI . In many ways this is where it all starts and finishes and the question is that when Apple solve the UI problem for privacy policy will they licence something really unique for everyone and the common good or will they lock it up in

Original blog : https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/03/carrier-intransigence-harms-internet-security Love little stories like this as who is paying. Apple side load new updates via iTunes and therefore no OTA (over the air) update, therefore no cost to the operator. All the other create an OTA cost for the operator and why should the operator pay to update software that is not their business problem. However, who do I have the contract with! Implication. Free sounds good until you actually need to call someone to fix it. “By delaying or even blocking security updates for mobile devices, mobile carriers put their users, their business, and the country’s critical infrastructure at unnecessary risk. Mobile security problems plague the entire software stack — the baseband, the kernel, the application frameworks, and the applications — and carriers continue to resist shipping regular and frequent updates. Mobile carriers are chiefly to blame for this problem. Although Apple, Google, and Mi

Original blog : https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/03/carrier-intransigence-harms-internet-security Love little stories like this as who is paying.  Apple side load new updates via iTunes and therefore no OTA (over the air) update, therefore no cost to the operator. All the other create an OTA cost for the operator and why should the operator pay to update software that is not their business problem. However, who do I have the contract with! Implication. Free sounds good until you actually need to call someone to fix it. “By delaying or even blocking security updates for mobile devices, mobile carriers put their users, their business, and the country’s critical infrastructure at unnecessary risk. Mobile security problems plague the entire software stack —  the baseband , the kernel, the application frameworks, and the applications — and carriers continue to resist shipping regular and frequent updates. Mobile carriers are chiefly to blame for this problem.  Although Apple, Google,

Original blog : https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/03/carrier-intransigence-harms-internet-security Love little stories like this as who is paying.  Apple side load new updates via iTunes and therefore no OTA (over the air) update, therefore no cost to the operator. All the other create an OTA cost for the operator and why should the operator pay to update software that is not their business problem. However, who do I have the contract with! Implication. Free sounds good until you actually need to call someone to fix it. “By delaying or even blocking security updates for mobile devices, mobile carriers put their users, their business, and the country’s critical infrastructure at unnecessary risk. Mobile security problems plague the entire software stack —  the baseband , the kernel, the application frameworks, and the applications — and carriers continue to resist shipping regular and frequent updates. Mobile carriers are chiefly to blame for this problem.  Although Apple, Google,

Original article http://www.gizmag.com/die-zeit-interactive-tracking-mobile-phone/18295/ “While most of us know it is theoretically possible for our movements to be tracked by detecting which tower our mobile phone is connected too, it might come as a shock to see just how much of a digital footprint we leave as we go about our daily lives. German Green Party politician Malte Spitz and German newspaper  Die Zeit  have provided a frightening insight into just how much information can be gleaned from the digital breadcrumbs we drop every day by creating an  interactive map  showing Spitz's movements and activities over a five month period based on mobile phone data and information freely available on the internet.”

Image from http://www.cocatalyst.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/24/did-you-know-how-many-different-types-of-innovation-there-are/ I propose that the cost of Mobile innovation is about change….. When there was a limited number of applications in the apps store it was relatively simple to get to the top Getting to the top of a list was easier when you only competed with a few others and the relative number of downloads was “small” Few leading app stores enabled concentration of resources on those Innovation (doing something different) was mass market and not niche Number of mobile platforms and version was limited and launching on one was sufficient Stand alone works but is not enough to compete for the top slot Mobile innovation is growing up and it has become all about experience and experience has a cost, but will the economics be good enough to make it viable and will the start-up guys be left behind as it becomes a game to be played with those with deep pockets?

Image from http://www.cocatalyst.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/24/did-you-know-how-many-different-types-of-innovation-there-are/ I propose that the cost of Mobile innovation is about change….. When there was a limited number of applications in the apps store it was relatively simple to get to the top Getting to the top of a list was easier when you only competed with a few others and the relative number of downloads was “small” Few leading app stores enabled concentration of resources on those Innovation (doing something different) was mass market and not niche Number of mobile platforms and version was limited and launching on one was sufficient Stand alone works but is not enough to compete for the top slot Mobile innovation is growing up and it has become all about experience and experience has a cost, but will the economics be good enough to make it viable and will the start-up guys be left behind as it becomes a game to be played with those with deep pockets?

Convergence_executive_summary.pdf This is the exec summary - I will post the link to the full report when I get it. The Convergence Survey, is the sixth published by Olswang Titled this year 'Does It Add Up?' and identifies digital trends and predictions for the future. The findings are based upon a combination of interviews conducted with over 30 senior executives across the technology, media and telecoms sectors and an online YouGov survey with more than 2,000 participating adult consumers. 

Much has already been written about the Nokia Microsoft strategic alliance for use of the Windows Phone OS for Nokia handsets and what great timing ahead of Mobile World Congress this week and as a follow-up to the Burning Platform memo. Opinions range across mud slinging from fan boys, heretics and doom mongers; few outspoken and a some considerate, thoughtful and strategic. Therefore, this piece is about what the announcement did not say as my instinct says there is a wider strategic issue that is worth considering.  There is a third way to view the alliance announcement beyond defence against Google and Apple and I highlight an alternative scenario in this Viewpoint. 140 character Summary Nokia/ MSFT don't need to have the best OS, UI or UX as there is value in being the provider of Payment, Identity, Location & Reputation. Help The alliance has also forced me to think about what market research to focus on in March/ April.  Please can you take 2 minutes to answer 10 que