iPhone Can Drive Your Car, and Lock It for You

What more can the iPhone do? It can drive your car.

According to this blog post at Fast Company:

What'll it let you do? Navigation, of course. But also remote door locking, vehicle finding, dealer connect, stolen vehicle location, automatic alarm notification, roadside assistance calling, and automatic collision notification (a potentially worrying one--presumably it'll let you know if your partner has pranged your lovely Merc). If that's not enough, there are premium extras that give you location-based weather and traffic info, and a concierge service that lets you book hotels, find stores, make restaurant reservations and so on.

It may look like a phone, act like a phone, and deliver phone calls, but iPhone is not a phone. It's the beginning of the way people will conduct business, life, commerce, and more.

Video is the Common Denominator of Internet Usage

Over the next few years, internet traffic will increase six times, with 46% of that traffic driven by video

Have Doctors found a Smart Phone They Can Use?

Jeff Brandt sent me a link to this blog posting about the emergence of the Droid phone as a real mobile device tool for doctors.

The comments are interesting. One commenter points out that the rumored Apple tablet device is a game changer and more able to be a doctor's device.

The link is provided by Leonard Kish, who further leads me to this blog post about about the health care internet.

Looks like several blogs are going into the feeder read today.

New: Global Retail Executive Council

I managed to find this blog about the growth in interactivity, engagement and mobility in the retail experience when I got an email in my inbox this morning.

So I called up their executive director to find out more about it. Jim Crawford, Executive Director,Global Retail Executive Council, spoke to me while he was on his way to a meeting. The organization started up in February, right as the great dregs from the economic tsunami were washing up on the beaches of commerce and retail.

"It proved a great time to start up this association," says Crawford.

The organization serves two missions:

1. Nurturing and building on the broad and inclusive concept of what it means to be a sustainable retailer, improving the economic model for retailers, building on being able to have a sustainable relationship with consumers, and helping them grow through life cycle of interaction with the consumer through the interaction and nexus of mobile devices and technology and the shopping experience

2. Collaborating with retailers on next generation customer experiences in retail, building on changes and the evolution in the store experience using mobile

"It’s a radical game changer in the way retailers look at technology at stores," says Crawford. I agree.

We talked about how the carriers are vital to this growth but that at the same time, we are seeing huge customer-driven changes brought on by data-loving retail shoppers and end users of mobile.

More on this later, as it develops.

"Cloud-Bursting," by AT & T

Fast Company has a brief mention of the IBM and AT&T cloud computing systems that they are rolling out in the next few years.

Blue Insight by IBM and the AT&T "cloud-bursting" synaptic system will enable data to be stored elsewhere.

Fast Company talks about the security issues with other systems that might make the AT&T system an attractive offer for small businesses:

AT&T's goal seems to be to leverage its big-name status and existing business relationships to attract potential customers who may be wary of cloud computing from other providers, due to data security issues and cybercrime events like Distributed Denial of Service attacks. AT&T will roll out the service to U.S. networks first, and then onto its global data centers so it can be sold to clients around the world.

It's what is available for small enterprises that excites me, because, deductively, I wonder what it is that small business is focused on doing, as a collective.

To me it seems that the small business mindset is:

1. Stay small, in order to grow quickly, virally, in other people's computers, mobile devices and applications.

2. Be outward facing all the time -- no better way to face outward than through synaptic text, data and a collective applications system.

3. Be all over the place, at scale, but small enough that people are not encumbered by your presence. See number one.

This new age of small business, social entrepreneurship, javascript:void(0)social networking and all just keeps going and going.

Where is The Cloud?

This was a rather interesting, if simple, story about what happens when you store things on the internet.

Looking into The Cloud of cloud computing and storage.

The Intelligence Group Forms

Right now I am in the process of putting together an Intelligence Group for Mobility Industries.

See below:

It’s time for a world-class globally scalable wireless, 3G and 4G forum that deals with content, applications, systems engineering and general business development for all of the important verticals in the mobile world.

SMART, the global forum for convergence and operational excellence across mobility industries, will be launching in June 2010 in the United States.

From implementation, engineering and distribution to content, user-experience, business development, product development and new frontier uses in transport, healthcare, entertainment, utilities, venues, property development, data and mobile broadband.

We are searching for information on the experience of working in mobile communications from some of the brightest minds in those verticals. We would like to talk with you for five minutes about the most important facets of your job and your industry, so that we can invite you to be a speaker to a forum that faces your industry on a global scale.

If you could take the time to talk with Douglas Crets, Director of the SMART Forum, it would really help us to scale the event accordingly and invite the top people to attend.

You can reach me at +1 646 616 7627 or dcrets@iirusa.com

You can also join our blog, Signal Up, as it gets started and revises itself in this space.

If you are interested in being a blogger (anonymously or named), please email dcrets [@]iirusa [dot] com . We will talk with you about this.

Best,

Douglas Crets
SMART Director
New York, New York
+1 646 616 7627

Black Dot Wireless Lands Contract

The partnership will create new opportunities for Open Range, a WiMax initiative.

More WiMax, please!

Even in a downturn, wireless broadband grows

It's getting to where a guy can't leave the house without getting some wireless broadband reception.

In Southeast Asia, that is.

Broadband Internet penetration in Malaysia -- 21.1 percent of households at the end of 2008 -- lags other Asian countries, such as Singapore and South Korea. But the Malaysian government wants to see that figure increase to 50 percent by the end of 2010.

Whether WiMax plays an important role in extending the reach of broadband Internet services remains to be seen.

WiMax will have to compete for wireless broadband market share with Malaysian cellular operators, offering Internet access over their 3G networks, market research firm IDC said in a report issued earlier this month. WiMax is hampered by limited coverage in Malaysia and established cellular operators will move aggressively to defend their market position from new entrants, it said.

Legislators Look at their Own Phone Bills, Question Legality

Years after exclusive contracts for wireless service became de rigeur, a few legislators are now wondering if exclusive phone contracts are in fact a bane to competition.

No, consumers like higher prices for phone contracts. It convinces them that they are paying top dollar for top service.

No, really.

"The four largest wireless carriers have hijacked consumer access to handset technology," said John E. Rooney, chief executive of U.S. Cellular, the nation's fifth-largest cellphone service operator with 6.2 million subscribers. "Everyone is going to the big four to get exclusive rights to these phones, so we are stuck with everything other than these. It puts a big dent in our ability to compete and our ability to supply these phones to areas of the country where we serve customers where they don't."

Tethering Works on the iPhone 3.0

Just follow simple tethering instructions for your iPhone device and you can do what many Windows Mobile people could do for a long time.

This blog will increasingly focus on how wireless devices are used and we plan to go big on this for a forum next year in Las Vegas or Chicago on the use of wireless devices for buildings.

Did A BlackBerry Change the New York Senate?

This is a great story from the New York Times on how a politician's fiddling with his mobile device set off a changing of the guard in the New York State Senate.

These BlackBerry devices are powerful tools of change!

The Car is Now a Mobile Device

Your young driver may one day be driving around in a rolling iPod.

Nissan offers The Cube, as a mobile device.

But is it just marketing gimmickery?

What does The Cube have that makes it a "mobile device?"

Interesting accents, and a Garmin navigation device, but nothing suggesting a truly mobile or wireless experience.

Which is probably good. Teen drivers texting and driving or talking on phones and driving..... not good.

Delta Airlines Lets Wi-Fi Into the Cabin

Now you can stream your favorite tunes from an online radio station, and check up on the March Madness while you fly to Tuscon.

Delta Airlines launches wi-fi initiative and its proving a big hit.

IBWS Agenda Additions

Executives at the IBWS in Las Vegas will benefit from these additions on May 13 14, 2009. For more information on registration and a complete event agenda, visit the home page for In-Building Wireless Solutions.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
9.25 AM

User, Economic, Technology and Competitive Change Agents: Driving In-Building Wireless Adoption in the New Millennia

Led by: Martin Cassidy, President, Innova Wireless

• How will new digital devices and high-speed data applications create changes to fundamental drivers in the industry?
• Economic drivers and changes in influence
• Are current In-Building technologies outmoded? Will migration to fourth generation carrier evolve the product solutions deployed today?
• Has LTE performance finally changed the traditional competitive segmentation?

Later in the day, Phil Ziegler from Verizon Wireless will give a presentation on how you can use simplified RFP formats to enhance your business deals.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

3.20 pm
Eliminating Overrun Costs during Site Assessment and Design by Utilizing Best Practice RFP Formats
* Proper needs assessment of the venue to bring understanding between all stakeholders
* Formulate bids with standard RFP formats to get the right implementation at the right cost for substantial ROI
* Learn the right questions to secure the right turnkey solution providers
* Achieve carrier participation and support to lower costs

Philip Ziegler, Director – Technical Staff, Verizon Wireless

Later in the day, Jack Daniel, famous for his lectures and discussions on national In-building public safety codes implementation and integration, will discuss recent rules and regulations changes and what they mean to integrators and property developers.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009
4.00 pm
Briefing on New National Public Safety In-Building Codes

Jack Daniel, President & CEO, Jack Daniel Company

* What are the changes to national Public Safety In-Building codes that affect your business?
* When will the new codes be put in place and when should you be ready to implement solutions in accordance with them?
* What will be required when these regulations are enforced for neutral host systems?
* Examining the technical compatibility with neutral host systems

Jack's presentation will be followed by a short Q & A.

You can register for the event by filling out our online registration page.