6 posts tagged “mobile”
As many of you may have heard of VoIP (Voice over IP). There are some very popular service like: Skype and Gizmo Project.
Last year EQO Communications launched the EQO service, which extends these VoIP service back to the mobile phone, and in addition to offering free IM (instant messaging) service to popular services like: ICQ, MSN Messenger, Google Talk and Jabber.
You may ask, why do you want to have VoIP on a mobile phone? Why does one just use the mobile phone itself to make the call required. The answer is cost. In most cases, there is a discount of about 95%. Like other VoIP providers, EQO offer free calls to other registered EQO users.
Although it offers this service to 29 countries it does not yet offer its service to Asia and more specifically Hong Kong. I am calling everyone in Asia to help convince EQO to begin offering their service in Hong Kong and rest of Asia. Please go to EQO's country suggestion page to add your respective countries to their list of desired countries.
Usability is very wide spread concept that not enough designer pay attention to.
I am not only referring to software design, industrial design, or architect. Of course the concept is much more prominent in these profession now a days, but there are still life threatening design professions that still do not put enough emphasis on usability.
Case in point are the designers for the Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Yesterday an Airbus 320 ran off the runway killing all 189 people on board.
This airport is the busiest airport in Brazil with international flights on jumbo jets landing every few minutes.
Now they reports there had always been complaints fro airline pilots, claiming the runway to be too short for landing. These complaints suppose to have existed for years.
What I don't understand is how an international airport can operate for so long with such alledged defect.
The most surprising part of the accident, was the fact that everyone died. As many knows there had been many incidents where airliners ran off runways for various reasons. Including the incident in Hong Kong where the Chinese airline pilot ran off the runway of the old Kai Tak International Airport and crashed into the Victoria Harbour.
so why did these passengers die? That is because the plane ran into the airport's fuel tanks when it ran off the runway and burst into flames; with temperatures of over 1000C. Who in their right minds would put suchdangerous harzards at the end of a runway? Of course we do not expect planes will run off runways, but accidents will happen, and placing dangerous flamable fuel tanks at the end of a runway definitely did not take into account of usability.
Every time I'm in Starbucks I see many people using their notebook computer.
For some reasons almost all the people using Windows notebooks would have their AC adapter plugged into the wall outlets, where as the Mac users are usually on battery power.
For years Windows users had made fun of Macintosh computers not having enough battery life, and the 3 - 4 hours claimed by Apple are not enough.
REPOST from my main personal blog
I still hear people say, "It's about time I learn how to use xxxx". You can replace the "xxxx" with almost any technologies now a days. From SMS (text messaging) to Instant Messaging (IM), doing word processing on a computer to downloading HD (High Definition) movies from the Internet, video chatting to voice over IP (V0IP).
In many cases these people would clarify their statements with something like, "I really don't know how xxxx works". That is usually their reasons for not using the technology in question.
I believe a technology is ready for "prime time"; general consumption, when it is easy enough to use, such that people do not need to know how it works, but understand what it can do for them.
The latter is what I believe technologist or versatilist like myself is specialized in. Especially in terms of aspiring technologies that has yet to reach the pervasiveness I described above.
Technology should always be thought of as serving a business objective or solution. In very rare cases does technology dictates the business model or objectives.
Apple Inc. for one has captured this essence of technology perfectly through its products; may it be hardware or software. Their computer operating system (Mac OS) and personal computer ("Apple" and then "Macintosh") are my computing tools of choice for the past 25+ years.
Technology companies out there should stop pushing technologies, which are not ready for prime time, down consumers' throats.
In recent years, many such technologies existed:
- 3G (third generation) mobile telephone. This technology and mobile phones were at least 3 years ahead of its time when mobile phone carriers were pushing the 3G phones onto consumers. Of course, now 3 years later much of European Union (EU) countries and Asia are 3G capable.
- HD (High Definition) TV was another technology waiting for content when it was shown at CES 10 years ago, and then made widely available 3 - 4 years ago. In this case the United States, source of majority of the English TV content, took the lead in generating HD content for the massive adoption in the past 2 years. Now there are almost just as many HD channels as SD (Standard Definition) channels in the United States. Unfortunately, the rest of the world are still playing catch up with China only recently finalized their national HD standards.
- Windows OS (operating system), until Windows Vista, was really a technical tool designed more for geeks and technophiles. Especially when we speak of the software Microsoft produced for these operating systems and the Mac OS. Microsoft Office is a very power suite of software, but for the untrained user, they are only able to use the tip of the iceberg of these tools' capabilities.
- Another Microsoft OS, the Microsoft "Windows Mobile", is a bloated operating system that majority of the devices and software manufacture would not be able to take advantage of, hence, the consumers who purchase these devices are under utilizing. Majority of the consumers who purchase a Windows Mobile device; PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), has three simple requirements:
Doing the above in many cases will cause the technology in question to have a very slow up take and in some cases risk of being discontinued before their time.
- Make telephone calls.
- Keep their business and personal contact details organized.
- Keep track of their business and personal appointments.
From this set of consumers a small percentage also have the following requirements:
From this smaller set of consumers a small percentage may find the following requirements necessary:
- Take photos for sending to friends via email (307,200 pixels or less). Because of the size of the average photo size requirements, a camera with less than 1M pixel resolution is sufficient.
- Read emails from their personal account (normally POP type), and if the device is subsidized by their employer also read corporate emails (either Microsoft Exchange, POP, IMAP or Blackberry type).
Finally a very very few people wants to edit MS Office documents and/or presentations on these devices.
- They want to listen to music in MP3 format (with an average quality of 128kbps sampling rate). This quality means that the average 3 minutes song is about 2.8MB (Mega Bytes) in size.
- They may want to keep track of where they are via GPS and GPS software.
As most of my readers can agree, they fall into the first set of consumers, and may be less than half of that falls into the 2nd set.
Therefore, I believe using the Microsoft Windows Mobile OS for a PDA is like using an aircraft carrier to cross a river when a simple row boat is sufficient.
Over the past decades many great and arguably superior technologies had seen such demise:
- Sony's Betamax
- Nikola Tesla's wireless power technology
For those who do not know, "Netvigator" is the ISP (Internet Service Provider) owned and operated by PCCW of Hong Kong. Like many ISP now a days, Netvigator offers a series of different broadband packages.
I subscribe to their "8M Single User" plan, which means a "8Mbps service". Like all ISP, that 8Mbps (8 Mega bits per second) throughput is a theoretical maxium download speed, which no one would ever achieve due to the various variables that would effect the actual throughput.
According to the technician at Netvigator Technical Support and the one that came to check my setup. With a 8M service plan the realistic throughput is about 80% - 90% of what's listed. This equates to about 6554Kbps down stream(download speed) and approximately 819Kbps up stream (upload speed).
For the past 4 years of subscribing to this service (8M plan) I had never enjoyed a speed of more than 2000Kbps down stream. Plus, I had reported this and they had checked my set up numerous times through out the past 4 years.
Recently I joined Netvigator's NetOne loyalty service, which finally able me to contact their Technical Service hotline 24 hours a day when I encountered connection slow downs. As a result they monitored my Internet connection for a week, and then today came to replace my modem.
As soon as the technician replaced the modem my connection speed improved 3 times. Reaching a down stream speed of 6438Kbps and a up stream speed of 628Kbps.
So the lesson from this is to never believe the ISP when you feel your Internet connection is not up to par. Use analytical results to confirm your suspicions. If possible use the ISP's own test page; in the case of Netvigator you should use their "Network Test" page, to test your connection speed. Failing that use a site like SpeedTest.Net to test your connection.
So go confirm you are receiving the service level you paid for and stop getting ripped off.
This is only a test from my Nokia E61
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