In 1991, Mark Weiser, in his seminal article, “The Computer for the 21st Century,” described ubiquitous computing as a “world in which humans and computers were seamlessly united”. The article opened with “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it”. IBM evangelized the concept as pervasive computing in the nineties. Later in 1997, Mark Anderson, one of the best forecasters in our business, coined the term AORTA or “Always On-Real Time Access” to announce the age of “always on, always connected to any information at anytime, anywhere”. Then, in 2003, my good friend Dr. Yasuhisa Nakamura at NTT DoCoMo wrote in the Introduction of our book about broadband connectivity that will become an “air-like” infrastructure, omnipresent, without us (devices) being conscious of it. That’s the essence of this blog, discussing the ideas put forth by Mark Weiser and subsequent visionaries – tracking the AORTA evolution.
Welcome.
I am glad you could join us for the 68th edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists – a weekly showcase of best writing by Mobilists from around the world on topics that are near and dear to us. I am delighted to present you with the best posts from last week that will help carry the discussion of AORTA forward.
Ajit Jaokar of OpenGardens fame muses – why carriers are not proactive about increasing touch points with the customers?. Indeed, carriers could do a much better job by the communicating with their customers via what else – the device. Shouldn’t mobile advertising start at home?
Raddedas at TechType takes the South Korean mobile players like Samsung and LG to task for not opening up their platforms to external developers. Welcome to the Carnival and thanks for your post.
Ed at The Pisstakers writes about formatting website with graphics to fit cell phones.
James Pearce at Tripleodeon opines about “The Mobile Web is Generation Y’s”.
David Beers at Software Everywhere in his post “Is the network the (mobile) computer?” talks about designing applications and services with user experience in mind.
Barbara Ballard at Little Springs Design writes about Smart Phone Evolution. Also, if you want to dig deeper into mobile user experience, be sure to check out her recently released book on “Designing the Mobile User Experience” by John Wiley.
Shawn at Shackdiesel takes FCC to task for banning the user cell phone on flights. There is no technical evidence that there is any interference with avionics equipment, but the myth persists.
Tomas Zeman writes for Wirenode mobile blog about the need for feedback from mobile users.
My favorite post of the week comes from Andreas Constantinou who does an analysis of the slow demise of browser companies like Openwave who helped pioneer the space but failed to keep up with the times.
Apple and EMI’s journey into the bold new DRM-free world is captured well by Rudy De Waele in his post “DRM Free at Last”. EMI’s Nicoli had hinted of this in his keynote in Orlando.
CTIA saw the arrival of Zenzui and Deepfish, both from Microsoft. Carlo Longino at MobHappy ponders – “Mobile UI Trends: Is More Better?”
Some of us are still recovering from CTIA. In case you missed it, Greg Clayman of Twofones provides an excellent summary of CTIA with commentary on Mobile TV, Advertising, Search, Standards and much more. My CTIA roundup is here. Review of the best party by Shawn Conahan is here.
Views and Reviews
Ricky Cadden at SymbianGuru provides an update on N95.
Dennis at Wapreview, our host for #67 reviews AOL’s mobile portal
Zach Epstein reviews GSync by Psiloc.
Justin Oberman at Mopocket points to an interesting application for house hunting folks out there – Housefront SMS
Farooq Anjum at Anjum’s web provides an introduction to BREW.
Next Carnival is at Mobile Marketing & Spam hosted by Troy Norcross. Be sure to check it out. Until next time, Sayonara!