Financial Times (Germany) writes about the struggle over Symbian between Ericsson and Nokia in Ericsson blockiert Nokia bei Symbian.

Found no english articles so far...

Amy, whom I admire for her book about communities, wrote a post about Social Trends in Mobile Useage:

• Stage 1) Wireless Why? (low awareness / low integration)
• Stage 2) The Gadgeteers (high awareness / low integration)
• Stage 3) The Almost-There’s (high awareness / high integration)
• Stage 4) The MOBILES (low awareness / high integration)

The study is available as a PDF. An introduction can be found here. One question remains: how much do we have to pay for the study.

See also:
Wireless fosters a societal evolution

Worldwide Camera Phone Sales to Reach Nearly 150 Million in 2004, Capturing 29 Billion Digital Images

...which gives us 193 pictures per camera phone per year (?), around 16 pictures per month.

Via Amy

Mobile Social Presence: Who Knows Who's Where Now? by Howard Rheingold

When social networking, mobile telephony and locative media collide on the small screen, something altogether surprising will emerge, the way virtual communities, online markets and self-organized dating services emerged from wired cyberspace.

Not much time at the moment, but I had to blog it, as it shows how "blogging, moblogging" is getting momentum, even if Christian Lindholm says that Lifeblog is not properly a weblog as we understand it. See below.

Lifeblog has seen the daylight

Nokia Lifeblog, our multimedia diary is finally out in open daylight. It feels great.

says Christian Lindholm.

The Guardian writes:

Weblogging aficionados will also note that, despite using the word "blog" in its name, the Lifeblog does not (yet) allow sharing of its contents on the web.

See also:
Dear Diary... (The Guardian)
Log your life via your phone (BBC News)

Der Standard reports about an alliance between Microsoft, Vodafone and Nokia and others.

One aim of this alliance is to create a new top level domain for the mobile internet. (Top level domains are: .com, .org etc.)

After reading on Loïc, Joi's weblogs about debates concerning Wi-fi vs GPRS, I wanted to point to:
SWISS HOTSPOTS and to WeRoam (Zurich)

What do you need to create your own hotspot in Switzerland:
An ADSL or Cablecom connection (starting at CHF 50.– per month)
A WLAN Basestation (starting at CHF 250.–)
and naturally a Mac or PC.

What do you need to surf wireless
A labtop or PDA or your mobile with built-in wireless support.
Or else buy a PCI-Card for about CHF 100.–. When you go to the hotspot you have to know the SSID, the network name. If they give you free access, cool - else you have to buy a password.

If you know any hotspots which are not listed on here, feel free to add them.

Dr. Polychronis Tzerefos, MELLON Technologies:

Mellon Technologies is the coordinating partner of the MobiSmart project (www.mobismart.org) which will propose and demonstrate a novel solution for credit card payments over mobile phones using EMV smartcards. The consortium consists of Mellon, ANKO S.A., Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) and EGNATIA Bank.

The project has launched a questionnaire towards capturing user requirements. We would be grateful if you could contribute to this effort by filling in the electronic questionnaire that should only take 5-10' of your time. Through the questionnaire you can also express your interest in participating in the project pilot. The consortium will furnish you with the required mobile phone, Bluetooth smartcard reader and EMV card for the trial.

Please point your browser at:
http://mellonrd.com/mobis/survey_en.html

Sony Ericsson appears to be growing increasingly concerned about the outcome of Nokia's increased grip on what should be an open operating system provider - Symbian. This morning, Sony Ericsson president Katsumi Ihara said the firm was in discussions with other Symbian shareholders about maintaining the openness of the company.

Via James Middleton from Informa

MLEARN 2004, LEARNING ANYTIME EVERYWHERE

MOBIlearn and mLearning, the two mobile learning projects supported by the European Commission, are collaborating to organise MLEARN 2004 in Rome, Italy. MLEARN is part of a series of internationalconferences on Mobile and Ambient Learning. The conferences build upon the findings and knowledge shared in MLEARN 2002, held at the University of Birmingham, and MLEARN 2003, held at INMARSAT in London. A similar event will be held in 2005.

The conference will bring together people who are interested in developing opportunities, systems and contents for learning with mobile and wireless devices and networks. Speakers and delegates will include practitioners, designers of mobile learning materials and services, hardware and software technology developers and researchers from mobile learning projects around the world, and representatives of the European Commission and the Italian Ministry of Research and Education. This is an opportunity to find out what is going on now in the field of learning with mobile devices and ambient intelligence, and to share ideas and experiences, contributing to the future research agenda of Technology-Enhanced Learning!

See also:
MOBIlearn Newsletter
m-learning