Continuing with Semacodes and QR Codes...

What Jérôme did for his mobile blog with Semacode and myself with a QR Code is common sense in Japan.

Alex wrote on September 15 about the now Oxford Mobile Forum (based on Moodle):

Now you can join the new mobile community, exchange thoughts
and discuss trends with experts, hacks, pundits, gurus and
other interested and interesting folk, including Tomi Ahonen, Ajit Jaokar, Paul Golding, Walter Adamson, at the newly created University of Oxford Next Generation Mobile Applications Panel at www.forumoxford.com.

Text and Images from Denso

The breakthrough consists in the development of a special standing scanner (QK-11). This scanner operates with a two-dimensional matrix-ccd-camera system which enables it to read QR-codes of LC-displays regardless of resolution, colours, or reflection. This is the basis to turn mobile phones into information carriers for encoded signals. The range of applicability is wide.
E-Ticketing, the electronic sale of tickets, is an important target area. Potential fields of application are plane and train tickets, tickets for the theatre, concerts, sports events or skiing permits.


There are numerous examples: Trade companies such as Lawson or AM/PM employ this innovative method of paying for E-payment as does Coca-Cola in cooperation with vending machine manufacturer C-Mode.
The Japanese airline JAL relies on two-dimensional barcodes for the sale of flight tickets.
These processes can be technically realized because of the support of the Japanese telephone company NTT.

The visitors of ID World in Barcelona from November 17-19, 2004 could experience how easily QR-codes operate during big events.






Related:
QR Code
QR Code Report (Sample Pages)
i-mode Newsletter
Scanlife
and for Fun, see Design Barcode, the world's smallest company.

and
QR Code is open in the sense that the specification of QR Code is disclosed and that the patent right owned by Denso Wave is not exercised."—from the Denso-Wave website (via Wikipedia)

Fewer clicks, more answers...

A good example of the classical "a picture tells more than a thousand words":

Mobiles becoming 'media channels'

"What you will see is more use of buying a download that you can use as a ringtone, or video streaming with it rather than just the ringtone," Simon Dyson, senior analyst at Informa told the BBC News website.

With increasing connectedness on mobiles - the ability to get straight onto the net - big media companies, such as Disney, will be able to offer content directly to people too.

"The mobile industry seems to think that people will always pay for mobility," added Jessica Sandin, principle analyst at Informa.

"I think we will see more bundled services, at lower rates and so on. It is about user experience at the end of the day."

According to BBC's Long life mobile battery 'vital'

" there is an appetite among consumers for powerful new applications, particularly those around entertainment media and imaging," said Hanis Harun, from TNS.

"However, the research also indicates that consumers now fully realise that such applications require enhanced battery life and increased memory and they are demanding these improvements as a priority."

More Survey Results
46% send MMS (multimedia messaging)
23% send MMS audio/video
59% camera phone owners snap once a week
46% said MMS 'too expensive' to use
22% said quality put them off MMS
15% cite interoperability problems

This (in case you missed it) is the year of music -- the cell phone as a sort of iPod, capable of downloading, saving and playing thousands of songs. 2006 will be the year of television on your mobile telephone. 2007 will be the year for games on the phone and the capability to play them against other phone users. 2008 will be the year of "my connected life," when the years-old dream of cell phones that are Internet terminals will finally become a widespread reality.

Well, that's what Thomas Jonsson, director of communications for Nokia Networks, said in a recent interview in Nokia's glass, wood and steel headquarters building here.

Via Hoping to Dial Into Cell Phones' Future

FLOSSE Posse

With partners from SA, Indian, Brazil, US and Finland we are planning a new project called MobiLed – Mobile phones in informal and formal learning in developing countries. The project itself is still under construction, but in the workshop next week we will already generate some scenarios and produce video mock-ups out of them.

I like these projects between coutries as different as the above ones. And in case they search a mobile blog solution, let me know.

PS: This bit is probably the most interesting:

By the way: I do not believe on the MIT Media Lab’s $ 100US PC project. PC is not the way to go in developing countries. PCs are clumsy. I have wrote about this before and so did Douwe before me.

Via Smartmobs

Apparently writing a comment to Brian's Post doesn't work for me, so I divulge my sample thougths - attention: shameless promo - here.
I cannot repeat over and over again (sorry TBL) that a CSS stylesheet won't do. A mobile is not the same as a webpage and just changing the CSS won't be enough. 1) You need content which is adequate, 2) the navigation has to be rethought (rather think RSS-Reader than 3rd level navigation; and use the accesskeys if possible), 3) think about a mobile portal, so that typing addresses is not needed anymore.

It won't suprise you, if I say that we have already a solution. First take a blog -- "the" personal publishig medium. Then think about how to make it mobile. Then use some WURFL magic and some key persons like Jérôme and Raffael and then... you get something which really rocks.
Then convince the telcos that only by going "flat" they will survive in the long term, which is definitely not untrue and then ... the future looks bright for all of us.

A study done for Nokia of employees in the United States, Germany and China concluded that 60 percent already use a mobile phone for work purposes. But 78 percent of the employees are choosing their own device.

"That number will go down as companies take more control," Brace said.

Via IHT