Americans are cool to mobile data services
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(InfoWorld) - U.S. cell-phone users are staying away from mobile data services in droves, according to research company IDC. Almost three-quarters of respondents (72.5 percent) in an IDC online survey didn't use any data service other than text-messaging in the third quarter of this year, said analyst Lewis Ward. The company asked 2,506 teen-age and adult users about their attitudes toward data services. Data services are too expensive, respondents said. Mean consumer data spending on data services was about $3.70 per month, with the average young consumer spending more, according to IDC. But even among 18-to-24-year-olds, 47 percent complained about price. In general, U.S. consumers have been slower than those in other countries at adopting mobile data services. The first significant data service, SMS (Short Message Service), was a big hit in Europe and Asia before it was widely adopted in the U.S. Higher per-minute voice costs and lower data prices in those regions have helped drive adoption, Ward said. Today, SMS is a relatively bright spot for U.S. mobile data use. According to the survey, 47 percent of users sent or received an SMS in the third quarter. But Ward said he was surprised to learn how many of those messages come from subscription news and information services. About one-quarter of the messages in that period came from such services, which mobile users sign up for to receive news, sports, financial and other information, according to the survey. About one-fifth of consumers bought a ringtone during the quarter and one tenth bought a wallpaper or a game. But in a written-response portion of the survey, a small percentage of respondents not only didn't use mobile data services but were vehemently opposed to them, Ward said. Some were worried that they degraded voice calls by taking up network capacity, which is not possible on most types of cellular networks. One wrote, "I don't use any of these" followed by seventeen exclamation points, Lewis said. However, Ward sees the U.S. catching up to other parts of the world over the next several years as a more open market lowers prices. At the moment, carriers mostly control what content and services their customers can get, using a "walled-garden" approach. "As the mobile Internet matures, I think it'll become very difficult for carriers to control all aspects of the business model, as they more or less can in the current environment," Ward said. Third-party offerings, some of them free and supported by advertising, will force down prices and help increase adoption, he said. The U.S. is likely to even lead the charge on some mobile services. For example, instant-messaging services that U.S. consumers have widely embraced on their PCs are starting to catch on with the country's mobile users as well, communicating both among themselves and with PC users, Ward said. (IDC is a division of International Data Group, the parent company of IDG News Service.)
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(InfoWorld) - iPhone users across the U.S. were complaining Monday that AT&T's wireless data network was down. The network was down primarily in the West and Midwest, but by 7 p.m. on the East Coast, service was restored, according to Warner May, an AT&T spokesman. He said he didn't know when the problems started. AT&T had isolated the problem and was still working on it, he said. Voice and text messaging services remained fully functional but EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) and 3G services were down, he said. While BlackBerry users had full service, users of other phones in addition to the iPhone were also affected, he said. "The iPhone was not the cause," he said. Several different online forums are full of iPhone users complaining of having trouble using the EDGE network. Posters claiming to be from Dallas, Cincinnati, Tuscon, Oahu, Hawaii, Seattle, and Portland were among the West coast users who say they couldn't connect to the network. Users in Pittsburgh and Indiana also said they couldn't use the EDGE network. A thread on Macrumors also describes users across the country having trouble.
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An online survey has determined the demographics of the first wave of iPhone purchasers and where they are most likely to live.
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While young people embrace the Web with real or virtual friends and their mobile phone is never far away, relatively few like technology and those that do tend to be in Brazil, India and China, according to a survey.
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The year ending looks like it will go into the books as the first year in which Americans spent more money on cellphone services than traditional landlines, the industry reports.
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U.S. mobile phone users might not have to stop and ask for directions as often thanks to a new service from MapQuest.com that sends color maps and directions to their phones.
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Customers should be able to keep their phones--not just their numbers--when switching carriers, some suggest.
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People who use the wireless new "show deeper engagement with cyberspace," says a study.
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Look who's talking! People in Miami  and Los Angeles chat on their cell phones more than any other  Americans, according to a survey of cell phone use in major  cities.
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Students design mobile data-access system for health-care workers.
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What might your mobile future look like? Sitting at the airport, you pull out a laptop or personal digital assistant and watch TV, delivered through Wi-Fi. Perhaps you'll grab an MP3 player instead, but rather than listen to downloaded tunes, you check out Internet radio. Or maybe you'll just make a call but thanks to the headset into which you are speaking, the person at the other end can make out your voice and not the blur of jet engines taking off at the same time.Each scenario is already possible, as evidenced last week in La Jolla, Calif., during the sixth annual DemoMobile conference. The gathering is a showcase for promising wireless technologies targeted at people on the go. Three dozen companies participated, many start-ups, representing more than &#36;142 million in cumulative venture funding.Consider the scope: Luxembourg's Skype Technologies demonstrated free software that lets consumers make voice calls over a Wi-Fi-capable Pocket PC.Handmark of Kansas City, Mo., showed off Pocket Express, a wireless information service for smart phones. If a phone has "location-based" capabilities, Handmark can provide listings of nearby restaurants or theaters, and map the fastest route to that spot.Xora in Mountain View, Calif., lets companies track the whereabouts of mobile employees via its GPS TimeTrack offering. And EverNote in Sunnyvale, Calif., has software that lets someone organize notes on a PC, then synchronize them with portable devices.OurPictures unveiled the OurPictures Mobile service. With a single click, consumers can send photos taken with a camera phone to designated PCs, TVs, printers or a local photo processor. And games publisher Sorrent showed off a new way to punch in your vote: its Bush vs. Kerry Boxing cell phone game. The results of every Bush/Kerry rumble on every portable phone are scored on a pugilist poll posted at Sorrent's site; as of Wednesday, Kerry was out-pointing Bush by about 2,350 votes. Other would-be knockouts:&#8226;Couch computing. The &#36;800, 2.3-pound wireless Pepper Pad 2 from Pepper Computer in Lexington, Mass., lets you browse the Web, do e-mail, play videos and games and more. Due in January, it has an 8.4-inch display, Bluetooth, an SD card slot and 20 GB hard drive. It also has a directional game pad and small lighted qwerty keypad that is split so that half flanks the left side of the screen and half, the right.&#8226;Making a motion. Synaptics is behind the track-wheel on Apple's iPods and the touchpads on several notebook PCs. The new MobileTouch platform is Synaptics' foray into cell phones. You'll be able to scribble on the screen or scroll by using your fingers to lightly make small gestures across a keypad (or other interface), just as you do with a touchpad. I was wowed even more by technology out of Oulu, Finland, where F-Origin originated a "motion control solution" called Iris. Consumers using a phone or computer with F-Origin's software will be able to control the orientation of the screen by merely tilting and moving the device. What you see on the display corresponds to the angle in which you rotate the gizmo. F-Origin takes advantage of gravity sensors.&#8226;That's (mobile) entertainment. ViewSonic's new Wireless Media Gateway and Wireless Media Adapter (&#36;799 packaged together, and coming later in the year) represent the company's move into wireless networking. The product line is designed to deliver digital videos, music and pictures to any monitor or TV in the house, at better-than-DVD quality. The company says it can stream video to a single TV at up to 10 megabits per second or two different streams at 5 megabits. You can also print from the gateway devices and take advantage of 80 or 120 GB storage capacities.Watching TV on a handheld is the idea behind WiFi-TV from OnAir Entertainment in Sunnyvale, Calif. OnAir is working with hot-spot providers to deliver TV or video-on-demand at public places. Consumers can access an interactive programming guide and pause live TV. OnAir is conducting a free trial at the Austin airport, though the company expects people to eventually pay about &#36;5 for a day pass.Meanwhile, another Silicon Valley start-up, AudioFeast, is focusing on Internet radio for portable music players. Its virtual broadcasting network delivers refreshed content from A &amp; E, BBC Radio, NPR and Sporting News Radio, among others. You download software onto your computer, then choose the channels you want to sync with a compatible MP3 player. A one-year AudioFeast subscription costs &#36;50. Contact my phone. Is there anything more tedious than entering hundreds of phone numbers into a phone? Palo Alto, Calif.-based Vazu has come up with a suite of services that lets you automatically transmit selected contacts, as well as such Web data as driving directions or movie schedules, to a phone. Vazu's Internet Explorer plug-in places a small "V" icon next to a phone number on a Web page. When you click on the icon, the contact name and number are sent to your phone. What's more, users of Outlook, Outlook Express, Apple Mail and Linux Evolution can dispatch contacts via Vazu to their phone's address book. Lose a phone? Vazu can serve as a backup to your data. &#8226;Now hear this. Logitech, Plantronics and Aliph submitted headsets for a Sound Off challenge voted on by conference attendees. The winner was Aliph's Jawbone, based on military-grade technology. To prove that this funky-looking &#36;150 "adaptive" headset can suppress background noises while keeping a caller's voice audible, Aliph conducted a crowd-pleasing experiment. First a caller had a noisy blender behind him. When Jawbone's technology was applied, the person could be heard clearly, not the blender. Aliph successfully repeated the exercise with a boombox. The coup de gr&#226;ce: The caller could be heard over a weed whacker. It is made possible by a sensor that feels vibrations on your cheek. Jawbone works with phones from Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson.&#8226;Mobile marketing. Intrigued by the Armani, Gap or Toyota ads in the September issue of Jane? Snap a picture and e-mail images to the magazine. You'll get back text messages with tailored promotional offers. It's part of a promotion based on technology from conference demonstrator Mobot.The Waltham, Mass., company was but one demonstrator to give a hint where mobile marketing is heading. MediaTile of Scotts Valley, Calif., delivers point-of-sale digital signs. Digimarc in Tualatin, Ore., places invisible digital watermarks into banner ads. When a consumer takes a picture of, say, a movie ad, they might see a trailer on the phone or directions to the nearest theater. Another demonstrator, DRM Labs of Dallas, uses text messages to send digital coupons called Voupons. For these schemes to pan out, consumers must "opt-in; privacy must be respected."This is just the tip of the iceberg for many of the companies exhibiting at DemoMobile. Indeed, I expect to explore some of these technologies in future coverage. After all, what could be more mobile than the pace of change?E-mail ebaig@usatoday.com
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AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel, look out! European companies with unfamiliar names to many Americans, now offer much cheaper and more convenient GSM cellular services to US residents traveling abroad.
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Web 2.0 is moving into your neighborhood, as more companies vie to deliver local content to your cellphone
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Cell phones may be the next battleground for companies offering internet phone services that don't depend on your desktop and router. By Randy Dotinga.
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Music, ringtones, cameras, browsers and other 'extras' have become the norm among mobile devices.
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Although mobile phones have long been a part of the business community, they are quietly becoming entrenched in personal lives.
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Users in the United States continue to think of a cellphone as a device for talking, not text messaging. Marketers, however, hope to change that as soon as possible.