After Japan, Korea is next in Google's enhanced mobile search plans:
Google, SK Telecom Tie Up in Alliance

Google, the world’s leading Internet company, will develop a next-generation search engine specifically for cell phones together with SK Telecom, Korea’s top wireless operator.

SK Telecom yesterday said the Seoul-based company had signed a contract late last week with Google for the development of the mobile search solution.

Via Smartmobs "The Google" on the phone

The Cell Atlantic CellBooth

Talking on the phone is no longer a private exchange. What if you could carry a phone booth with you and set it up when you needed to converse in private?

Japanese people text. Young people text, but for the rest of us...

A QR Code on a Oshibori and obviously it's not an ad for a restaurant, but a site which asks everybody to use linen (布) oshibori which are environmental friendly, and cosier too. If you want to see the site, scan the QR Code.



Choose AU if you don't have an i-mode phone. Japanese character set has naturally to be installed to read it.


More on Oshibori.

Newsweek about Mobile Mangas

For Japan's publishing industry, which has endured a decade of declining sales, the boom is "a savior," says Satoshi Iwamoto, the general manager of Net Media Center at Shogakukan Inc. The market for digital publishing grew nearly fourfold compared with the year before, to $38.5 million in March 2006, according to Impress R&D, a Tokyo-based research firm. Comic books account for $19.6 million, compared with $9.4 million for comics on PCs.

Mobile comics, for which viewers pay 30 or 40 cents an episode, are also a boon to Japanese carriers, whose customers are shifting to fixed-rate plans.

Heike Scholz about Mobile Mangas (in german)

More about Mobile Manga here

Just some links for me, sorry. Expect my personal definition for Mobile 2.0 a bit later.

Mobile 2.0 is not Web 2.0
Experts: Web 2.0 doesn't copy directly to phones

"Beware of naive copying of PC services," said David Wood, executive vice president of research for Symbian. "Some don't translate." [...] Wood and others said that the inherent constraints of mobile phones and networks mean that many Web 2.0 services won't work well without some changes to accommodate those limitations.

[...] Wood expects to see growing interest from Web 2.0 companies in the mobile space, in part due to "intense competition" for users on the Web. But he warned application developers not to regard the smartphone as "an impoverished version of the PC."

Mobile 2.0
Mobile Web 2.0 by Ajit

See also:
Mobileajax

I can't access https://barcode.ideas.live.com/ properly, it's just loading... Ok now I tried with IE and it worked.

There is a tour and it seems that the QR Code application can be downloaded on smartphones. But the application cannot to be found! Try this one instead, hehe.

From the site:

What is Windows Live Barcode
Windows Live Barcode is a set of services that transfer information between various media (PCs, billboards, magazines etc.) and handsets via Quick Response Code (QR Code), a two-dimensional barcode. It provides a new method for people to exchange information and enjoy various online services on handsets. Windows Live Barcode aims to enhance handset utility and provide you with more convenience and flexibility.

Via M-Learning and Live-tr News

Scan the QR Code with the Kaywa Reader or
send SMS to 202 with QR 20218299 or any other which you see beneath a QR Code.
PS: SMS only works in Switzerland

QR 20218299	QR 20218138	QR 2021877
QR 2021852	QR 20218140	QR 20218322
QR 20218329	QR 20218328	QR 20218331

Just after having read the very detailed article about the new 903i Series from NTT DoCoMo with its "Kisekae-Tool (dress-up tool)," a new function to change the menu screen, ring tone and other settings in a lump " (see the Tetsuwan Atom menu screen here), I found other interesting articles like the Google interview (see below) and now this one: NEC, Panasonic Name Joint Mobile Phone Development Company 'ESTEEMO'

The new company will develop a common hardware and software platform in an effort to reduce cost of mobile phone handset development. As for the common hardware platform, the company plans to explore application CPUs and SoCs, select core devices, choose component suppliers, and design, manufacture and assess test substrates in collaboration. NEC and Panasonic Mobile will each manufacture and market their mobile phones, after adding their own original design, software and other values to base handsets developed by the new joint company.

This makes a lot of sense to me and I only hope other handset manufacturers would follow this example.

Dipchand Nishar, Google: "We've made a significant investment in mobile search technology"

Until very recently, mobile browsers did not support Ajax, but we have started seeing some new Ajax browsers coming out. I think some of the high-end phones will start supporting Ajax in the next six months and then, anywhere between the next six to twenty-four months, a lot of phones will start having it. We are very excited by that opportunity because now, all of a sudden, you can provide many more value-added services for the users and the experience becomes a lot richer.

Image: nikkeibp.co.jp

Still under positive shock from yesterday's Informa figures*, Toni Ahonen writes a long article relating the mobile revolution from it's infancy with SMS to end by presenting 3G's killer app: mobile communities. We write very clearly in defining the consumer of tomorrow - Generation-C (for Community Generation) - that it is an inherently multitasking generation, it will always be multiplatform (and multimedia, while I am at it). Gen-C is digitally astute, much more than you and me. And they optimize. Do not for one moment think, that mobile will be "enough". NO. You HAVE to be multiplatform.

* Dean about market statistics:

Treat data included in market research press releases with extreme skepticism, even if at first sight it appears to confirm your beliefs or hopes.

***

And here a bit of selfpromo:

For those interested in Switzerland to know more about the SMS revolution, SMI, MNC, Kaywa will present and discuss the SMS phenomena in the new Keitai Marketing series, starting November 24 - exactly in a month.