Technology end-games and when it all falls down

Technology’s greatest strength, and arguably its biggest, weakness is that there is rarely an end-game, one perfect final solution.  Everything just keeps developing, for better or worse. In an introductory video for The Guardian’s new iPad application, Editor In Chief Alan Rusbridger explicitly states: “there will be no final incarnation of The Guardian.”  It’s equally [...]

Scrooge: a fan of 2010 tech?

Zooming out “..every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.” Ebenezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol: Charles Dickens Sitting in the audience of a West End theatre for the first time in a long time this [...]

Canned mobile credit

You text a short code on a packet to enter a competition or get some mobile content. And then you get billed, sometimes a bit, sometimes not so much, but always something. Right? That’s the deal. Not any more. How about it being totally free, and you actually GET money? 50p credit, to be exact. [...]

Augmented Reality – killer app or just for show?

An item published last week by eConsultancy about IBM’s new Wimbledon Seer mobile application for Google’s G1 smartphone stoked the excited fires of Augmented Reality as a mobile technology. For the uninitiated, Augmented Reality isn’t a made-up science fiction technology used by Tom Cruise in the film, Minority Report. Applications are being produced right now [...]

82% engage with idle screen trial

A new report out this week supported the potential of a favoured hobby horse of mine, Idle Screen Technology. Celltick’s LiveScreen Media sends news and entertainment, as well as advertising messages directly to the idle screens of mobile phones, generating revenue from content downloads, subscription services and advertising fees. Telefonica tested the service as part [...]

Away from D2C – the mobile foundation in industry

Mobile technology’s growth doesn’t depend solely on mobile consumers. It’s much, much larger and affects us more broadly than we might give it credit for, given the en vogue obsessions

In these days when anyone with a passing interest in the emergence and development of mobile technologies is bombarded with stories about iPhones, app stores, mobile advertising and brand campaigns, it’s easy to forget other sectors which are quietly, yet effectively exploiting mobile technologies for different gains.