Topic: Mobile and Wireless
TerraNet hopes to bring cell phones to villages in developing nations. CEO Anders Carlius describes TerraNet's ad hoc GSM mesh networking technology and business model. He envisions local entrepreneurs rolling the technology out one village at a time.
Open the telephony network and create a platform accessible to a community of developers. Crick Waters, co-founder, SVP Strategy and Business Development for Ribbit, believes this vision will lead to a new generation of hybrid communication tools and high value applications, and deliver on the premise that voice has value.
Wouldn't it be amazing if you could hold a "book" in your hands which had hyperlinks? Why would that be amazing, you ask? Well, what if the hyperlink triggered a process that makes a nearby computer, for example, play an MP3 of animal sounds that match the story? In this keynote presentation from the 2007 O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference, Manolis Kelaidis introduces blueBook, his prototype that merges the analog and digital worlds of books.
People learning to read will soon be able to use a handheld device to practice their reading skills when trained teachers and the Internet are not available. Using inexpensive hardware, Literacy Bridge plans to provide Talking Book audio players/recorders in developing nations starting this fall, with a goal of selling them for $10 per device or less. Listen to Cliff Schmidt describe the Talking Book and the benefits it will bring to people in far-flung locations.
David Recordon, Open Platforms Tech Lead for Six Apart, pitches the telephony community on grassroots efforts as a means for the development of open standards. Grassroots community groups can serve as the catalyst for addressing challenges that corporate groups have chosen to ignore, and begin to bridge gaps between existing web technologies and mobile service providers.
A year ago, Apple released the iPhone to both critical and consumer acclaim. On July 11, 2008, the company came out with an upgraded version that promised faster speeds as well as third party applications. Tech geek and blogger Robert Scoble joins Phil and Scott to discuss both the device itself, as well as the social phenomenon that has people lining up for a second year in a row.
At the Emerging Communications Conference 2008, Jonathan Christensen, General Manager of audio and video at Skype, speaks about the development of IP communications over the past 10 years, giving a brief history of VoIP. He talks about its evolution from being a technology for geeks only, to a mainstream application, and concludes the talk by discussing the threats and opportunities for the IP communications industry.
Cell phone handset manufacturers don't know what features future applications will use, and developers can't build those applications without having hardware support. In this talk from the Emerging Communications Conference, Michael Shiloh of OpenMoko tells how their open hardware platform solves this "chicken and egg" problem.
In a recent Business Week article, writer Olga Kharif discussed the changes to the mobile phone industry that will take place because of the iPhone. Brian Fling of Fling Media clearly agrees with Kharif's premise. In a discussion with Phil and Scott, he talks about his recent Web 2.0 Expo presentation and how he believes the everyday mobile phone user will be impacted by the iPhone.
In this talk at the Emerging Communications Conference, Rich Miner, manager of the Wireless Platforms group at Google discusses the ways that increasing openness will bring an explosion of innovation in the mobile industry. Carriers, manufacturers, and software companies are beginning to open up the networks, technology, and business models, all of which is opening up new opportunities for entrepreneurship and services for consumers.
