26 June 2002

AT&T Wireless launches location service in US AT&TW will let subscribers see the geographic location of friends and family - but only those who've opted-in. Neat at Glastonbury (if you can get a signal) or in town, but what resolution will it offer? Glue in an automated directions service. And whilst it's quite neat that it's about connecting people together (rather than connecting them to content), an interesting step further would be to provide IM-style "presence" rather than geographic proximity. 7:08:46 PM     comments

Udell on Convergence: I'll take computer/phone over screen/paper Synching Outlook contacts and mail to a phone that has real telephony woven into it: that's my idea of a killer app. Back in 1996 [correction, it was 1994!] I wrote a BYTE cover story on computer-telephone integration (CTI). It was right around the corner then, and, unfortunately, it still is. Nobody in the corporate world can make a conference call on the first try, and our computers stand uselessly by offering no assistance. It's a scandal, really. [...] With cellphones replacing wired handsets, it's a whole new game. Software call control that works with your contact database, and wraps context around voice calls and email, is something nobody has yet and everybody needs yesterday Jon is right that many people want their communications glued together. But why? So they have more choice and control over how and when they communicate. However it's got to be user-friendly and convenient, and there need to be no or few barriers to use. Here's something that achieves some of these requirements: Eckoh, a voice portal by Eckoh Technologies (disclosure). Amongst other things, it wraps some universal contacts into a soft telephone - you can use it from any phone. But even cooler, you can hear your email read out to you, and reply by "dictating" a reply which arrives in the recipient's inbox as an mp3, or by calling the sender back on the phone (because ET doesn't have a billing relationship with the user, you need a pay-as-you-go style account on Eckoh if you want to make calls - and, yes, this is a barrier to use). It also offers all sorts of other news, weather, sports and business content, and shopping, and its speech interface is user-friendly. Eckoh is on +44 (0)8701 10 10 10 (national rate in the UK). Later: nb, though, that simply being able to get your email on the phone seems to be more popular than more complicated eg syncing applications. People like simple, fast. Or, if you have a Virgin Mobile (UK) handset, dial "4321", a version without the phone calling capability. Two related things: the question of where the smart stuff is going to live? On the network (your cellphone provider hopes so), or in your device (Nokia and Handspring hope so). Or do we get a hybrid model (actually a bit like the application, Radio, I use to write this), where there's smart stuff centrally and in the devices? Smart stuff = your data, the user interface, the glue connecting it all together... the notion that the communications device you carry (or the wireless pipe it's on the end of) increasingly holds (is?) your digital identity. If you've got the handset, you've got the key. The counter to this is that there's value for service providers in allowing choice: allow me to log in to my services from Jon's handset. However, this can bring new barriers: a caller needs an identity that is separate from their handset number. More to remember. 3:02:33 PM     comments