ABILE

Smartphone with memristors

2009-01-06T21:46:00.003+02:00

One month ago there was a memristor symposium in Berkeley. Go to YouTube, watch the videos and ask yourself: how does this change the smart phone software architecture?
Can you see what I see?

NOKIA MOBILE WEBSERVER on N70 / story # 2

2006-05-25T20:18:00.000+03:00

We have been testing the NOKIA mobile webserver with N70 a few months now. From the network topology and software architecture point of view this is disruptive. But the battery consumption is a serious problem. Seems that a lot of re-engineering is needed.

NOKIA OPEN SOURCED RACCOON TOO!

2006-05-25T19:54:00.000+03:00

I just got this message:

Dear Raccoon (Mobile Web Server) User,

We are happy to announce that the software has now been open sourced
under the Apache 2.0 license.

You can now build Apache for Symbian and create native Apache modules,
as well as setup a gateway of your own. However, the latter is not
essential as we will continue running our gateway for the foreseeable
future.

For more information, please refer to the following web-pages:

http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/mobile-web-server/
http://research.nokia.com/research/projects/mobile-web-server/

We hope that the open sourcing of this software will inspire people
to explore the possibilities enabled by general HTTP access to a
mobile phone, and to share what they create.

Happy coding & have a lot fun!

Best regards,
Johan Wikman & Ferenc Dosa Racz

Does NOKIA's keystone strategy - open sourcing the S60 browser colonialize the mobile software innovation market?

2006-05-25T08:51:00.000+03:00

This is SymbianOne quoting Lee Epting here
"This initiative will attract a critical mass of open source software developers to build a consistent, web browser engine as the clearest path to minimize fragmentation in the mobile browser market,"

Nokia announced they are turning over the source code from the popular S60 (series 60) web browser to the open source movement. The code will fall under the BSD license. Is this good or bad? Qui bono?

With this move, as Epting implicitly says, NOKIA continues with their master strategy: attempting to reach a paradoxical combination of niche-customization (and the inevitable market fragmentation) and a keystone position in the system of global niche-customized markets.

I have tried to describe this strategy with this picture that I prepared for my presentation XML Finland 2005. It is called the keystone strategy system. Many of my friends and colleagues are working with open source software startups. I originally drawed this picture for them. Especially the word "COLONY" there in the upper right corner tries to say something for these innovative, hard working young OS-idealists.

So. What does this S60 Open Sourcing Announcement mean for the european software startups? An opportunity? Perhaps yes. But there is an other option too. Unfortunately more true, I am afraid. It takes one further step in making Europe the biggest innovation colony to the world's high-tech firms. And yes, the colony here refers to the word colonialization as this vision has been described in an article Stuffed at Both Ends by Bundeep Singh Rangar.

This is an early comment made by a representative of the Norwegian mobile browser company Opera:
" If Nokia succeeds with their own web browser, our revenue from the Nokia market will decrease" admits marketing manager of Opera, Rolf Assev in a comment to digi.no. "The upside will be that Nokia provides a web browser in all their Symbian-devices, thus making a web browser mandatory on other mobiles, something that will help us." Assev adds.

The concept "keystone" comes from Marco Iansiti and Roy Levien:
The Keystone Advantage: What the New Dynamics of Business Ecosystems Mean for Strategy, Innovation, and Sustainability (Hardcover) Marco Iansiti; Roy Levien

NOKIA S60 - a Full Member of Internet?

2006-05-21T09:54:00.000+03:00

I am working with a team who is using that slogan as a kind of motto: making the mobile phone a full member of internet. It's a long road.
I spent the weekend studying The Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library and Yahoo UI CSS grids. This could be a start. Recently we got news that Christian Lindholm, the father of Nokia Series 60 and Navi-key UI, is joining Yahoo as the VP of Global Mobile Product. Here is the first job appointment: Yahoo is using the "graded browser support" concept. Christian, your job is to make this table change. Add one line there which says: "A-grade support for S60 OSS Browser".

The original table is here:
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/articles/gbs/gbs_browser-chart.html

NOKIA MOBILE WEBSERVER on my N70

2006-05-03T19:35:00.000+03:00

We have been testing the NOKIA mobile webserver with my N70 a few days now.
Disruptive!
Stay tuned!

MOBILE WEBSERVER

2006-04-30T16:05:00.000+03:00

There are ~650 diggs now.
Look who is diggin the idea and contribute your voice as well!

http://digg.com/software/Run_a_web_server_from_your_phone

Why would I want to have a webserver in a cellphone?

2006-04-30T12:43:00.000+03:00

Here is a comment I have been thinking a lot during the past few months.
November 2005 some mobile technology specialists discussed Axalto's USIM webserver.
Here are some examples:

"What th’?
A French company called Axalto has released a “sim card on a server”. The idea is that people will (for example) be able to store the text, images and video of their moblogs on their sim cards rather than uploading it to a remote server.
I’m with Carlo who said: “even if you could put a Web server on your SIM card and publish a site from there, via your phone, why would you want to?”
... Am I missing something?"

If you want, read the whole comment here

So. What is this person missing?

Let us here an other point of view. It comes from C. Enrique Ortiz:

"The concept of web server on a smartcard is not new -- I first encoutered it on 1999 applied to eWallets (see http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/9900/Dec13_99/9.htm).

You can see a running web server on a smart card at http://smarty.citi.umich.edu/

In any case, the concept is actually neat and interesting -- don't look at this just for blogs, but as a way to exchange information using HTTP and RSS/Atom. Addint RSS protocol to the equation is huge because it enables for simplified communications/interoperability for things such as micropayments, synchronizing your PIM/contact information, etc, using open/standard protocols. I have given thought to this exact thing before, and I think it is worth researching further."

I agree with Enrique, but I think that there is still something important missing here. Can you see what?
Any opinion?

SIM CARD WEBSERVER

2006-04-30T12:39:00.000+03:00

French SIM card-maker Axalto has come up with an interesting solution for mobloggers: a SIM-based web server. According to the company, its new U2 SIM provides TCP/IP connectivity, allowing users to save blog entries and other info directly to the card, making it accessible via the net whenever the phone is on.
This sure is an interesting idea, and the idea of having a web server you can carry in your pocket certainly has its appeal.
This breakthrough was made possible by an innovative implementation of the web server onto the SIM card which supports large memory as well as the USB (Universal Serial Bus) protocol. The card capacity allows to store large amounts of multimedia content while the TCP-IP protocol enables connectivity between the SIM card and the Internet world.
My company XFETCH has something similar on the R&D pipeline. Stay tuned, I hope we will be able to introduce something soon!

NOKIA+AJAX+USIM + ?

2006-04-21T06:13:00.000+03:00

Have you read the mobile ajax news?
The head of Forum Nokia said that NOKIA is actively exploring the role that "Mobile AJAX might possibly play in the future." Well, there is no news here, it is part of her job, of course, to explore the role of new technologies. According to the REGISTER story she was unwilling to provide further details of what Nokia has planned with AJAX, but said: "We are in discussions around strategy and what we support." No kidding! ^_~

So what is here so interesting?
A first interesting comment comes here:
Bill Ray, Industry Analyst with ARC Chart comments:
"AJAX could also provide the ideal platform for content hosted on next generation SIM chips, which operators are already deploying with proprietary platforms."

Here are industry news related to that comment:
"the advantages of using a large capacity SIM card with USB interface, from secure file storage of multimedia content, Internet Protocol backed handset-to-SIM browsing, SIM-based application running, through a high speed USB interface..."

PL-Axalto_press_release_13-2-06.pdf

Now, connect all this with the ideas the NOKIA OS-team is working with and you can clearly see what isLee Epting, Nokia's Vice President for Developer Operations really looking at when exploring the "role of mobile AJAX in NOKIA's strategy".

MOBILE AJAX CASE

2006-03-12T06:27:00.000+02:00

Two months ago Enrique Ortiz wrote about java me / mobile browser applications in his blog here

Inspite of the facts listed by Enrique, I still think that in the end it is the business value which forces the evolution of It-systems to find more cost-effective or competitive alternatives. The pure browser-based approach will be the winner.

Therefore: Here is a 1000 dollar question for you, if you are a mobile-ajax-browser specialist.

Imagine I have opened a Form in my mobile browser. I need to retrieve location information from the GPS module/device as a prefill into the form. Can I do it using a pure AJAX browser application? Or do I need an extra 3rd party java-application sittin between the browser and GPS?

There is a real-life business case we are now working with, where the customer wants to use NOKIA S60 device for this, so here is the architecture picture provided by NOKIA here. This is supposed to be the NOKIA S 60 OSS - "open source" browser. However, "Code in the blue items is not currently contributed to open source".

In this case a pure browser-application would offer significant business advantage because the mobile-"client" side users are occasional truck- work-machine users and,thus, a need to install anything on the mobile device can be difficult.

If you would like to provide the mobile browser part of the project, please contact me, you may have a case here! (Update: 17.3.2006 the provider of the mobile-browser side is still open!)

Some specifications below:

Trucks or work machines carry load from place A to place B
- GPS in the car
- GPS is connected to mobile phone
- When phone button is pressed, the phone / browser / FORM gets the GPS code from GPS device.
- We have to collect following data
- What was the place A (load was taken)
- What was the place B (load was unloaded)
- What are the places where additional load where taken
- Kilometers driven while carrying load
- POSSIBLY: Smart phone gives note when the truck has driven to the place where the work has to be started (A) and vice versa when the point B is reached.
- The work-order / work-completed Forms are XHTML forms with some AJAX features. We are specialists in this but we are looking for someone who knows the mobile device / GPS part of this. The server side Form-workflow engine is XFORMS, JBOSS JBPM and Tomcat based java application.
- This is a mobile work-order / e-Form workflow application.
- There will be a open source server side java / XFORMS (with xhtml rendering + some AJAX) Form workflow management solution for the backoffice - PC/desktop parts of the workflow.
- However, in this case an important part of the work-order form workflow is mobile because the work-orders are used to create a communication channel which would link the truck-drivers and work machine subcontractors with the back-office workflows (work-order issuing, work-completed, invoicing, invoice validation etc.)
- Important part of the solutions is a GPS-link, which would be used for getting location related prefill-data for the e-Form which is opened by the truck driver with the browser on his mobile phone.

Web-form test

2006-02-02T10:45:00.000+02:00

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