OK, this suffering a little from the usual simplification inherent to this seemingly favourite pastime of many, namely of creating infographics, but I thought there were a few interesting bits in there nonetheless, so enjoy… 
Created by: BusinessDegree.net
I did a little talk reminiscing on what was hot at this year’s Mobile World Congress, the mobile extravaganza in Barcelona. One of the show’s highlights was BlackBerry’s hyper-connected Porsche (See here for disclaimers) of which you’ll find a video here. Now, that car makes the most of the combination of powerful mobile-connected devices, protocols like NFC or Near-Field Communication and next-generation mobile networks (such as LTE), which deliver data bandwidth by far surpassing our relatively shoddy 3G data through-puts of today.
I also had a meeting with the good folks from Adidas who used their miCoach in-shoe chip to do some nifty stuff with the data so produced (video here). Adidas takes this one step further in that the performance of your chosen player in an accompanying mobile game. For the time being, this has to make do with a clunky accessory to your otherwise oh so smart phone. But, alas, these days are numbered thanks to the next generation of connectivity coming up right now. Apple’s latest (both phone and tablet) support the next Bluetooth standard, which would be version 4.0 (as opposed to “new”), and that is actually a huge step forward (considering how ickle it all is) and has understandably got its fair share of press recently. Here’s why:
Bluetooth 4.0 (full specs here), which comes as a “system in a package” has no noticeable impact on battery life of peripherals, which means you could effectively run your external keyboard or, perhaps more importantly to some, heart-rate monitor, on the same battery charge for the lifetime of the device. Oh, and it always handles NFC on top. The new standard handles up to 26 Mbps data throughput (compared to 2 Mbps for the older standards) although this is lower in the above-hailed low-energy mode.
All this put together creates potential for solutions that may not make for head-turning cool gadgets at tech conferences but they are things my mom might use: Just pair your phone with WiFi by touching in using an NFC chip (she could not find the settings for this if her life depended on it), use it for any type of fitness-related stuff, hook up any type of wireless device with the settings of, say, your car (probably with seamless handover of content, preferences, playlists, etc, too). Last but not least, the full range of healthcare all of sudden becomes a whole lot less geeky and a whole lot more accessible to normal people (which often was the problem with “modern” stuff: they worked well if you had an engineering degree or an unhealthy appetite for anything that smelled remotely geeky but was utterly unusable for anyone else). And for the geeks of you, there will always be the under-counter coffee-making faucet that you could then arguably also power using the hyper-connectedness of the brave new world.
So, interconnectedness is just about to enter the mainstream and that, dear friends, was the news of the week for me in Barcelona.
As per usual, another week, another carnival (if things were only like this in real life, too…). This week’s edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists is being hosted by the formidable Antoine RJ Wright, and it is full of goodies. He is featuring:
- Not one but two posts on BlackBerry (and I have no involvement in either; cf. my About Me page for disclaimers), one looking at its (apparently) impending death and offering advice on how to fix it and one looking at its (apparently) robust health despite recent dips.
- A very interesting post on how handset UX affects testing.
- A book review on HTML5 and the mobile web.
- A report on mobile in the MENA (Middle-East and North Africa) region.
- My own little piece on the mobile component of Facebook’s IPO (hint: there is none).
- An interview with one of GigaOm’s mavens.
- Plus about 10 or so more incredibly worthwhile reads including by singularity rockstar Ray Kurzweil, mobile influencer #1 Tomi Ahonen (not my but Forbes’ words) and, and, and…
Go, get a coffee (or green tea, or whatever you feel inclined towards) and allow yourself half an hour of good reading on all things mobile over here. And, if you would like to participate in the carnival yourself, you can: to submit a post, just e-mail mobilists@gmail.com. If you want to host, check out the Mobilists website for processes etc.
Yes, conference season is firmly upon us and, before I descend into the mayhem that tends to come with it, let me tell you where you can find me over the next couple of weeks.
This week sees London at the centre of a lot of things gaming: the Mobile Games Forum opens its doors on Wednesday in the Hilton Tower Bridge in SW1, which combines with the Social Games Forum. I will be speaking on a panel on “How to engage cross-promotion for social game discovery”.
There is also ICE in town but not the freezing variety but the big gaming (as in proper gaming for money and such) expo over at Earl’s Court, which rolls a variety of gaming-related tracks into this. I will be speaking on a panel on their mobile gaming track with the concise title “Incorporate Social and Mobile to create the Ultimate Modern Gaming Experience”.
Only a little later, on 7/8 February, we will be in Amsterdam for BlackBerry DevCon Europe. It is well worth coming to this to get a glimpse of the “new” BlackBerry and our plans there [disclosure: I work for BlackBerry]. Sign up here and hit me if you are a developer; I have a few discount codes left. I will lead a breakout session on Social Gaming with Scoreloop there.
Onwards to my old stomping grounds in Hamburg from there for the annual European edition of Casual Connect where I will deliver a talk on how BlackBerry will deliver on gaming (yes, you read that right!).
After that, there is a two week (conference) break before heading to Barcelona for the monster that is Mobile World Congress. I’ll be there all week!
Barely a weekend’s rest and the Game Developers Conference (or GDC) opens its doors at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Again, it’ll be a full week for me there.
I hope I will meet you at one of those. Sorry that Asia isn’t featuring in this tour de force this time but, hey, it’s still early in the year, huh? 
Image credit: http://gapingvoid.com
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This week, I will have the great pleasure to attend (and speak) at the NY Games Conference. If you are on the East Coast and into games, this is where you need to be. Join us! It’s worth it. There are speakers from:
- Ubisoft
- Samsung
- Majesco Entertainment
- Yesware
- Sony Computer Entertainment
- TAG Strategic (yes, Ted, the man himself!)
- Freeverse
- Greystripe
- Badgeville
- OnLive
- Atari
- EA Sports
- OpenFeint
- GameHouse/Real
- Sulake (of Habbo Hotel fame)
- Ogmento
- CBS Interactive
- Fremantle
- Wedbush (Michael Pachter himself!)
- Tapjoy
- RockYou
- Hi5 (yes, Alex St John will be there to delight)
- NVidia
- Wild Tangent
- GameStop
- MTV Networks
- and… me…
Add to this the formidable events for which Digital Media Wire are renowned, cool downtown NYC and nothing else going on that week (well, perhaps except F8), and you’re on for one hell of a gaming conference.
See you? See you!
Only two weeks or so, and we’ll be off. One of the most exciting (well, correct that: the most exciting) mobile events of the year will kick off, namely MLOVE. Hosted in a proper medieval German castle, it boasts an incredible line-up of holistic mobile thinkers and tinkerers and all the ingredients to “change your life” (quote some of the participants of previous iterations!).
So here’s the speaker line-up:
- Grammy-winning musician and multi-platform entrepreneur Chamillionaire;
- Yuri van Geest, the man behind Trend8;
- Thomas Goetz, Executive Editor of Wired (!);
- Russell Buckley, employee #1 at AdMob (and a ton of other things!);
- Kei Shimada, one of Japan’s premier wireless ambassadors;
- Jason Collins, Alcatel-Lucent’s VP of Emerging Technology and Innovation (and one of those awesome uber-smart people);
- Daniel Graf of Google’s Mobile Apps Labs fame;
- Jean Schmitt, one of France’s smartest investors (and with JolTech and powerhouse Sofinnova);
- Rovio’s Mighty Eagle, Peter Vesterbacka (how angry can your bird get?);
- Thorsten Dirks, CEO of E-Plus
- Beverly Jackson, the Director Marketing & Social Media of the Grammy Awards;
- plus leaders from Volkswagen, OgilvyOne, leaders in education, philosphers, bloggers, the CEO of Butterfly Corp, Dentsu (Japan’s #1 ad agency), Contagious and the indomitable Corvida Raven (of SheGeeks) and Jonathan MacDonald (of This Fluid World), composers, DJs, and, last but not least Adele Waugaman, the UN Foundation’s Sr. Director for their Technology Partnership.
We will also run a Teen Camp for the generation that really matters, which is run in conjunction with the Hasso Plattner (he of SAP fame) Institute, which I have the great honour to co-curate together with 16-year-old Tony Neidhardt (who – despite her tender age – is already a veteran in the scene!) and Jane Mason.
In one (well, few) word(s): it will be absolutely awesome!
If you feel inclined to join (and you really, really, really should!!!), check in here.
The ever industrious Rudy de Waele and his team are staging the next version of Mobile 2.0 Europe in beautiful Barclona on 16/17 June 2011. Last year’s version was awesome but this year they seem to have upped the ante significantly again. Staged in Telefonica’s mindblowing R&D centre Diagonal 00 (just look at the picture, for heaven’s sake!) and boasting a speaker line-up that should everybody get going!
It’s a developer conference, so none (or little) of the usual preaching but you will get more hands-on workshops on everything from app store marketing to HTML5 development. And all this in summery Barcelona! Go on, sign up here!
And if all that is not enough, here’s a selection of the people that will speak with you, work with you, talk to you (a full speaker list is here):
- Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio (yes, he, the Mighty Eagle of the “Angry Birds” guys)
- Daniel Gurrola, Orange
- Sanyu Kirulata, Blackberry
- Reimund Schmaid, Nuance
- Carlos Domingo, Telefonica I+D
- Jose Valles, BlueVia (Telefonica)
- Lucas Allen Buick, Synthetic (they of “Hipstamatic” fame)
- Matthias Sala, Gbanga
- Andy Goodman, Fjord
- Caroline Drucker, Soundcloud
- Vincent Hoogsteder, Distimo
- Andreas Constantinou, Vision Mobile
- Tom Hume, Future Platforms
- John Roberts, Quostodian
- Yes, and yours truly will also be there
See you in the sun very soon!
