By David Sims
The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music
is the Jim White trifecta on the changer: 1997’s The Mysterious Tale Of How I Shouted “Wrong-Eyed Jesus!”, 2000’s No Such Place and 2004’s Drill A Hole In That Substrate And Tell Me
What You See. Yes, First CoffeeSM’s Lovely And Talented Wife is
gone for the day, how did you guess:
Yahoo! is set to introduce today a test version of instant messaging software
that promotes VoIP communication and the internet media company’s new
social network, according to an early review on silicon.com.
Yahoo! will offer their estimated 65 million users a free
update to Yahoo! Messenger during its test phase. The new feature, in addition to
letting people send standard instant text messages, should make it “easy to
call friends free via computer, send a short text message to a mobile device,
share photos or post content to a personal web log,” according to the review.
There will also be increased spam protection, file and photo
sharing.
Yahoo! said it focused particularly on VoIP enhancements by
placing a click to call button “front and center,” adding voicemail features
and optimizing voice connections to and from those with broadband and those
with dial-up.
Frazier Miller, director of Yahoo! Messenger, told
silicon.com that while e-mail and instant chat have been the “killer app” of
their day, today it’s VoIP.
As USAToday
notes, “instant messaging has become a hotly contested battleground. In the
USA, AOL
boasts 22 million users for its free AIM service, on top of 23.2 million AOL
subscribers who have the AIM service, according to ComScore Media Metrix. Yahoo
has 18.7 million IM users, MSN 13.7 million.”
…
Nokia is unveiling its plans for its evolution of connected mobile gaming,
which they’re hoping will “make it easy to search for, purchase and play
high-quality mobile games using a range of Nokia smart phones,” according to
company officials.
The aim of this next generation of mobile gaming is to
expand the N-Gage platform’s rich connected multiplayer experience across a
wide range of Nokia’s multimedia devices. The games will work with a number of
different Nokia smart phones.
The N-Gage game deck is a mobile and connected game deck
with online 3D multiplayer game play over Bluetooth wireless technology and
GPRS.
The technology in smart phones these days is such that Nokia
can – and will – offer enhanced 3D game graphics capability, user-friendly
search, purchase and installation of high-quality rich games, as well as “connected
gaming with instant access to a global mobile gaming community,” which loosely
translated means “a bunch of other guys who also have nothing better to be
doing except maybe paying attention to the ROADLOOKOUTFTHKID!”
Gerard Wiener, Director and General Manager, Games, Nokia
says in 2005 they expect to sell 25 million smart phones. “We see the global smart
phone market exceeding 250 million devices in 2008,” he added.
The first Nokia smart phones to support the new Nokia mobile
gaming solution are expected to be in the market during the first half of 2006.
A “robust development environment” for developers with the first set of tools is
expected to be available in Q4 2005.
In a related announcement of which First CoffeeSM
understood about nine words, Nokia and Red Lynx are announcing the “exclusive
follow up to the hugely successful and critically acclaimed Pathway to Glory,”
called “Pathway to Glory Ikusa Islands,” which was, they claim, “carefully
enhanced” to provide a “faster and more approachable game play experience” based
on feedback gathered from the “whole gaming community,” including gamers and the
games press.
Evidently this means there’s more “black humor” and “great
characters.” It’s been tweaked to be more “hectic and intense,” there’s a “more
comprehensive tutorial,” the “missions” have been made more “full-on and fast
paced,” and for gamers’ pleasure there are “improved maps” and an expanded “selection
of weaponry” as well as an “in-game chat system” for an “even richer experience.”
But don’t fret, purists, there’s the same attention to
detail and “gritty realism” you evidently loved so much in the original game.
…
In a nicely dovetailing announcement Royal Philips Electronics is unveiling a high-performance transflective liquid crystal display module for
increased picture quality in high-end mobile phones, the Nemesis P8894-I, which features the industry’s first implementation
of Philips’ LifePix patented algorithms designed, they claim, “around how the
human eye perceives color.”
It’s compliant with the Series 60 Platform built on the
Symbian operating system. It’s said to have a 41.2 mm x 53.8 mm screen size,
built-in low-power features, “excellent” color quality with backlighting for “increased
readability in all external conditions, even direct sunlight.”
…
The Swedish telecommunications operator Tele2 AB
is providing further detail on the company’s guidance in their Q1 2005 report
today, regarding the marketing investments related to Tele2’s ADSL operations in France and the launch of
mobile services there, as well as on the launches in Croatia and Turkey.
The investments related to these areas will, in total,
amount to approximately $1.26 million for the current year.
Tele2 sees a great opportunity for its ADSL operations in
France following their agreement with Neuf Telecom, and intends to step up its
marketing there. They’re betting pretty heavily on France, as there’s also an upcoming
launch of mobile services there.
Tele2’s CEO Lars-Johan Jarnheimer said churn reduction
continues to be a priority across the business, and hopes the expanded ADSL
activities, “in combination with the launch of mobile services to our large
customer base in France, we will increase cross selling which reduces churn.”
Billing itself as “Europe’s leading alternative telecom
operator,” Tele2 offers fixed and mobile telephony, Internet access, data networks,
cable TV and content services, and with 28.7 million customers in 25 countries,
$900 million EBITDA profit on operating revenue of $5.8 billion in 2004 First CoffeeSM
isn’t of a mind to argue the point.
…
In a couple other quick VoIP announcements, PMC-Sierra
is announcing the availability of a VoIP
Analog Telephone Adapter platform, the first in what they say is “a family
of turnkey designs for residential Customer Premises Equipment.”
The product is said to deliver “carrier-validated high
quality voice service, secure voice channel support, and robust software
design, to ensure service revenue maximization for VoIP service providers.” It’s
an open source-based customizable platform designed on Linux for original
equipment manufacturers who wish to “meet the growing VoIP service provider
requirements.”
Also, Reignmaker Communications and Communications
Xchange, a VoIP service provider are announcing a partnership to “create a complete portfolio of VoIP
phone system services for business customers across the United States.”
Reignmaker will provide a capital investment to
Communications Xchange in return for access to Communications Exchange’s
Softswitch and PSTN interconnection arrangements. The two companies will also
combine their purchasing of customer equipment, local access and interconnection
services to improve network scale economies.
…
On a bit more serious note than the usual dregs of the
column, Norwegian telecommunications operator Telenor and the Swedish
National Criminal Investigation Department have
introduced a child pornography filter for the Internet which blocks access
to Internet sites containing material that involves sexual abuse of children.
The Swedish National Criminal Investigation Department’s Sexual
Assaults against Children and Child Pornography Unit will update the filter,
and Telenor will provide the technical work. The filter’s based on a successful
child porn filter developed by Telenor in Norway last September.
Moniqa Lofstedt, head of information at Telenor AB said “We
are aware that a number of Internet providers are developing similar solutions,
and we would welcome a cooperative effort in the industry.”
The filter works by Swedish police providing current and updated
information to Telenor, including lists of Internet sites that violate Swedish
law. Using the filter Telenor can then block all further traffic to such sites.
Users attempting to access sites blocked by the filter will be directed to a
site containing general information about the filter.
First CoffeeSM would like to reassure readers
that neither Michael Isikoff nor Newsweek
magazine were used as sources for this column.
