Protos

The Register reports that Orange is making 50(!) TV channels available for 3G users there is also the mention of 11 radio channels.

Still it seems that they are only porting existing content. I just wonder if taking a whole television in your pocket is the right way to go, since that really has been an option for a long time. Just think of the Sony Watchman:

I wonder if that will really work – don’t we rather need custom made content for the mobile? I would prefer short kill time content, unless trapped in an airplane, where a whole episode of Simpson’s is nice (but viewed from Flash memory not 3G…).

Otherwise its just the same old story of doing it because we can… that will not create value.

Also some claim that there won’t really be enough bandwidth (@ rcrnews.com)

“Our modeling reveals that the capacity of a typical W-CDMA network could be exceeded as soon as 2007, for example, if 40 percent of 3G users take up mobile TV and video services and consume eight minutes of video per day,” said Alastair Brydon, co-author of the report.

We will see.

The BBC yet again reports on the use of shorthand forms is being used in exam papers by students.

Slang creeps into English exams
English examiners have complained about the use of slang expressions such as ‘gonna’, ‘ain’t’ and ‘shouda’ in GCSEs this year.

Markers for the exam board Edexcel said “almost unforgivable” basic errors were made by apparently bright pupils.

In its annual report on its English GCSE papers, Edexcel said there were “many concerns about elementary errors in the work of apparently able pupils”. Another complaint was the failure to use a capital letter for ‘I’.

The verb forms “shouda”, “gonna”, “ain’t” and “wanna”, appeared with surprising regularity, the examiners said.

Candidates should not use street language or the style used in text messages, they said.

Examiners had more praise for the standard of A-level English Literature.

But they were concerned at the inability of some candidates to spell Shakespeare, in a paper called “Shakespeare in context”.

The thing is that language is plastic and follows the standard “what is most eazy for me”-paradigm – that tends to lean towards short forms: “Got t m8?” This -most likely- cannot be stopped. Sorry old timers…

The mobile phone as a RFID reader is a clever idea. The potential for RFID capable phones are great with mainstream consumers (once RFID is more widely adopted that is).

This feature can be used to get discount coupons, store information, ads, etc. that are sent from reader devices. The received information is then stored in a special “folder” on a mobile phone (read more@ ubiks.net they got it from: itmedia.co.jp)

NTT already has consumer applications like felica being able to read RFID would just make the mobile wallet an even more potent add on.

Thers is a nice site that has a large gallery of vintage rayguns like:

or this helmet:

@ MIT they have made a system that can display the use (activity) of mobile in a urban environment.

This enables the tracking of “hot spots”; which is a rather interesting way to view a city.

Image: Street map of Graz, Austria, overlaid with an electronic visualization of cellphone activity.

This is really a great yet simple example of using the mobile phone as a remote control.

@ blinkenlights they give a description of the different games adapted to use the mobile phone as a wireless gamepad.

E.g

&