Three months in, the iPhone is great, but I don't deny that there isn't appeal in an Android phone. Though young and unpolished, Google's mobile OS has, unsurprisingly, tight integration with Google services. Much like my own brain, tightly integrated with Google's mail, calendar, reader, maps, photos, and, oh yeah, search. Synchronization between Google services and Blackberries or iPhones had been weak in the past, but some official and unofficial solutions have emerged.
Gmail access on any smartphone has been easy and supported ever since they implemented IMAP. Their help provides setup information for major devices.
Today Google announced that Google Sync for Blackberry can now synchronize your Gmail contacts, in addition to Google Calendar events and alerts. Any changes made on the Blackberry will sync back to Gmail/Calendar. This also makes moving to a new device easy.
For iPhone users, its slightly harder because Google can't have it's own app running in the background synchronizing changes. NuevaSync is a solution that I've been running without issue for a couple months now. The iPhone supports Microsoft Exchange for mail, calendar, and contacts. NuevaSync acts like a Microsoft Exchange server and serves as a middleman between your phone and Google for bidirectional syncing of calendar and contacts. The service is currently in beta, and also supports syncing contacts from Plaxo.
I recently came across a cool iPhone app from Urbanspoon - it's the magic 8-ball for meals. Whether you have a group that can't make a decision or your stomach is growling louder than you can think, the app spits out a restaurant suggestion when you give it a shake. Are you one of those people who can never accept the first suggestion? Shake it again, and then suck it up because your friends are hungry.
The iPhone's accelerometers pick up when you're giving your phone a hopeful shake, it figures out where you're located via GPS, and then it picks its suggestions based on the top-rated restaurants in your location on Urbanspoon (because their site also features restaurant reviews in cities across the US and Canada, and is breaking into the UK and Australia as well).
Urbanspoon is the world's leading provider of time-critical dining data, a major division of a very important multi-national corporation, and an... [more]
Google has released a major update to their Google Mobile App for iPhone with a nifty new feature that you'll see geeks demoing at parties for weeks to come. That feature is voice recognition. Launch the app, hold the phone up to your head, speak your search query, and in about six seconds you'll have a list of results. If your query is location-relevant, like, per se, "sushi", you'll be given a list of results that are closest to you. Beyond the voice features, the location-awareness is also unique to the app, as a Google search in Safari has no way of knowing your location. Also, the results page that it returns is better formatted for the mobile screen than searching in the browser.
Is it gimmicky? Somewhat. Is it faster than typing? Generally yes. How well does it work? Acceptably well. Andy Baio of Waxy.org attempts to deconstruct how the voice recognition works. The recognition happens server-side, with the app seemingly sending only 100-300 _bytes_ of pre-processed data.
In my testing, the app worked well with common terms, place names, and names of notable people. Being Google, you can also use it for unit conversions like "100 Canadian dollars in US dollars" or "50 miles in kilometres". Fans of the Simpsons will be amused that it took two tries to get "beat up Martin".
Jason Cohenour, the President and CEO of Sierra Wireless, was on hand at the BCTIA's Techforum luncheon (held at the Sutton Place hotel in downtown Vancouver) to explain why his company is "Hell-Bent on Success". Having weathered many economic storms on the way to the Vancouver-based company's current prosperity.
Cohenour outlined the steps Sierra Wireless took to ensure success even when the economy varied wildly around them. He broke down the Sierra Wireless story begining with the company's first product, the Pocket Plus, which was a do-it-all modem that was a technological marvel but sold precisely zero products. The company retooled the Pocket Plus into a mobile modem for police, which did sell and put the company back on track. The tech bubble, starting in 1998, meant the company could and did go for an IPO, because as Cohenour said "we could, because anybody could."
The stock and valuation of the company fluctuated, and once the tech bubble burst Sierra Wireless lost customers, since some of their corporate customers ceased to exist. But Sierra was operating from a position of strength financially, so they weathered the storm and introduced the Aircard, still one of their biggest successes. They also made key alliances with big carriers in the States like Verizon, as well as selling modules to Palm.
The key lessons learned were to be first to market with key new technologies for big customers, always be in the M and A hunt for targets that improve position, and never forget who the boss is in the value chain. Sierra Wireless charged too much, Cohenour said, and lost Verizon as a customer, which he said would never happen again. When the customer responsible for 40 percent of your business asks for something, he said, there's only one right answer.
Diversification is also important, he said, but it requires over-investment in both the new and the old business. And the most important lesson is to be "laser focused on execution in the core business."
Sierra's new plan is the "invasion of China, Inc", and has opened a new R&D office in China to take advantage of innovation in Asia. Sierra has launched a new line of USB products and is now pursuing vertical market OEM.
Cohenour emphasized the importance of observing the ecosystem around you and responding properly, as well as timing cash raising in capital markets. Sierra was able to go to the capital markets "when they stll existed," Cohenour joked, in October 2007 right before the economy took a sour turn.
Cohenour said the next step for wireless is machine to machine, as well as "unmanned" applications, such as teller machines, parking meters, all the way to machines monitoring oilhead drills. "You have to spend to get to these markets," but once you're there you can become the dominant player, he said.
Sierra Wireless modems and software connect people all over the world with mobile broadband networks that keep them in touch, informed, and... [more]
As the largest and most influential association representing BC's technology industry, BC TIA is dedicated to fostering growth and development in... [more]
Previously, we covered the Canadian wireless spectrum auction, which promised to increase wireless competition with seven new companies awarded licenses. One of these new entrants was Shaw Communications, acquiring $190M worth of spectrum in BC, Alberta, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, and Northern Ontario. Unfortunately, the Globe and Mail reports that everyone's favorite elephant-in-the-room, Global Economic Uncertainty, has led Shaw to put off plans to launch a wireless service for "at least a year".
During the time Mr. Shaw and his team weighed options, economic conditions deteriorated, giving the executives even more confidence in their ultimate decision. In a bad economy, families stay home and watch more television, so the company has decided to invest in its cable offerings for now, such as adding more high-definition programming.
"We felt it more prudent to develop our core business right now, and not divert any of our attention away from our mainstream products. It's like you don't want to buy the neighbour's house when your house isn't fixed up," Mr. Shaw says. "It's really about where do you put your money and at what time. And we think this is the best spot to put it in right now, and that the time will come for cellular."
People prefer TV in a recession? Bothersome, but valid. I'd say people will also prefer the Internet, but I suppose that still falls under Shaw's core business. A new wireless service would have to compete aggressively on price and service, and the ROI on building out wireless infrastructure is likely not strong enough at this time.
This move in contrast to other spectrum buyers Quebecor and Globalive. Quebecor recently announced plans to go ahead and make use of their spectrum space with an $800M 3G network in Quebec. Ontario and Western Canada should still see some wireless competition courtesy of Globalive, which has pledged to launch wireless service in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa, starting in the 2nd half of 2009.
Shaw has experienced rapid and successful growth within the cable, satellite and telecommunications industries over the last several decades. With... [more]
People are being bombarded wiith information on a daily basis, to the point where we've become quite good at ignoring everything that the media can throw at us. The one exception to this rule is the phone, which no-one can resist answering. Wireless Image, which pitched at the 24th Angel Forum at the SFU Harbour Centre on Monday, aims to target jaded users by embedding branding information into ringtones. The company has also built in analytics which let companies know in detail what ringtone is being played, how loudly it was played and a time and date stamp to track when the ringto. The ringtones themselves are free, becaue users opt-in to the reporting being sent from the phone.
Coming soon to a mobile phone near you. The future of mobile advertising. [more]
Today a TransLink iPhone app was launched on the iTunes App Store, which was created by Vancouver's Handi Mobility. The app is near identical to the m.translink.ca web app launched last month, providing schedule information for any route or stop in the system, but it uses PhoneGap (a made in Vancouver, open source solution) to run locally on the device. This allows it to load faster than the web version, and also use phone hardware features like geolocation. Whereas the user previously had to enter a stop or route number, the app now suggests a list of stops closest to your current location.
On Translink's Buzzer Blog Handi's Igor Faletski talks about how reasonably priced data plans have enabled applications like this, and shares some stats.
Our company is focused on mobile internet and its applications. We were just waiting for the day that Vancouver could get affordable data rates so more people could access our services. Then the iPhone launched, had affordable rates, and provided a rich visual experience. Put together, we needed to make sure TransLink could get to that audience.
...
In terms of actual statistics, NextBus SMS serves up to 16,000 text messages a day. When we launched the iPhone portal, traffic to that application grew 300 percent in one month. There are more than 1000 users on it every day and the number keeps growing.
Translink is the first transit system in Canada to have produced it's own iPhone app, but other systems do have third party options. Over east in Toronto, riders of the TTC have the very attractive and functional Red Rocket. At only $1.99, it's the #2 paid app in the "navigation" category. For Montreal, there is the $0.99 STM Mobile with full schedule features but no geolocation.
McKesson, a Vancouver-based medical imaging company, took time at IMPACT, a BCTIA event held Thursday evening at the Vancouver Hyatt, to explain how they used innovation to redefine how medical professionals interact with imagery.
McKesson Engineering VP Warren Edwards explained how MRIs and other vital medical images can be compared to a shoebox full of snapshots, and to further the analogy, he said that what McKesson does with medical images is akin to what Google’s Picasa does to organize and manipulate the theoretical shoebox full of snapshots.
Medical imaging used to be dominated by large companies, but changes in technology have put new demands on the industry, For one, Edwards said, there’s an information overload produced by increasingly detailed images created by much more precise instruments, along with a dearth in specialists able to parse this information. It’s also a challenge for the health care sector to keep up with the pace of innovation in the workplace. Edwards compared today’s always-on teenagers to doctors and other medical professionals who have a very difficult time keeping in contact with their colleagues. The solution, Edwards said, is an IT approach, and McKesson is more of an IT company than just an imaging firm. Content management is the best way to approach the ever-increasing information flow of today’s health care sector, Edwards said.
But perhaps the biggest innovation McKesson has introduced is a multi-touch interface Edwards referred to as a “giant iPhone” called the Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS). In fact, PACS, which is a giant high-resolution touch sensitive screen, is also integrated into the iPhone itself, giving doctors and others the ability to share and access data anywhere. The large screen enables zooming, panning and scrolling through stacks of medical images, and lets medical workers add annotations. Intiuitvie hand motions allow the images and other data to be passed to mobile devices and promises more efficient case reviews, medical meetings and physician consultations.
Edwards pointed to 3D imaging as a technology that took time to gain traction in medicine, but is now expected. CAD imaging isn’t there yet, he said, but he expects institutional adoption to improve given time.
McKesson Corporation is the leading provider of supply, information and care management products and services designed to reduce costs and improve... [more]
As the largest and most influential association representing BC's technology industry, BC TIA is dedicated to fostering growth and development in... [more]
Last fall, six computers were stolen from Workspace Cafe in Gastown, a popular Vancouver coworking space that hosts numerous community events. With nothing to go on except a low-res security cam video, it looked like the computers were lost, until an unexpected picture was uploaded to Workspace Flickr account. One of the iMacs was set up as a kiosk where folks could take pictures and upload them directly to Flickr. This picture quickly made the rounds on the web, hitting the top of Digg and getting covered by mainstream media. The man in the photo turns himself in (he was supposedly the second hand buyer, not the original thief) and the iMac is recovered.
If this sounds like a fun way to foil theft, you might be interested in MacTrak, from Portland-based GadgetTrak. MacTrak uses any Mac's iSight to take a picture every 30 minutes and upload it to Flickr (you can set these photos to private by default). It also uses WiFi-based location finding to attach the location to that photo. If a thief connects to the Internet at all, their picture and location will be revealed immediately. GadgetTrak also makes theft recovery and remote data wipe software for Windows PCs and mobile devices.
Based in Portland, Oregon, GadgetTrak provides theft recovery and loss prevention solutions for mobile devices. Through our unique and... [more]
Via mobile maven Roland Tanglao, Alec Saunders of Ottawa blogs about Rogers recently reduced roaming rates. I recall at one point the rate was something insane like 5¢ per KB. So what is this new rate? Let's play "ask a CSR and hope for a meaningful answer":
The friendly CSR who answered Howard’s call provided the answer:
“How much data are you likely to consume on your trip, Sir?”, she asked.
“I don’t know”, said Howard. “How much would a gigabyte cost?”
“Umm….”, came the reply “$6,000. Let me just double check that for you. (pause) yes sir, it actually is $6,000″.
For what? So that AT&T and Rogers can exchange billing records?
$6,000 per gigabyte. Jeez frak, that's "reduced"? By comparison, my data plan works out to $5 per gigabyte, of which I've never come close to the monthly allotment.
Alec goes on to describe how he worked around these insane rates by using an old Cingular SIM card he had with a Rebelsim, which tricks locked phones into accepting SIMs that it ordinarily wouldn't. The phone is able to run in the US, with a second US account paying standard rates.
After reading this, it occured to me to check my bill to see what I was charged during a recent trip to Seattle. Of course, I kept data roaming off except for a few instances where we needed directions. Just loading the map, getting directions, and turning data roaming back off. The iPhone's map capabilities are useless without an Internet connection as they depend on being able to connect to Google. For 1.4 MB of data roaming: $43.38. Grrreat, interesting. Really curious about that since that works out to ~$30,720/GB. A phone call is in order, just as soon as I have the time to wait around on hold. Sorry little Timmy, it looks like it'll have to be a Kraft Dinner Christmas this year.
In other news, Ted Rogers was recently hospitalized for cardiac problems. Did it happen after he learned of these rates?
I've learned my man lesson for the day: when lost in a foreign city, forget your iPhone and it's many magical, data-dependent capabilities. Just man up and ask a local for directions.
We are a diversified Canadian communications and media company. We are engaged in wireless voice and data communications services through Wireless,... [more]
