Paul Golding: Observations

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:55:34 GMT

@ If you're still reading this....

...you shouldn't be. Your browser should have been redirected to my new blog

http://wirelesswonders.blogspot.com/

Sat, 31 Jul 2004 12:33:09 GMT

@ Location privacy...

When teaching or discussing the principles and uses of location-based services, I am often asked about privacy and legal implications. I usually give anecdotal answers based on what I perceive to be operator approaches, which I assume to be best practise and legally valid. However, I did manage to track down the actual legal position in terms of rights to privacy enshrined within European Law.

Article 9 of the EU Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive requires that location data may only be used with the consent of the subscriber. Moreover, it should remain possible for subscribers and users even if they have subscribed to a location based service, to temporarily block the tracing facility.

Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:38:50 GMT

@ Mobile Location Spam...

There is a lot of excitement about the potential of location-based services. All kinds of applications are being dreamt up, but what they have in common is interrupting the user with a message when they enter into a zone of interest. The problem is how to set up rules sufficiently intelligent that the messages received are actually wanted, or useful. Clearly, careful opt-in schemes are one solution, but rather crude. This option denies the genuine possibility of receiving useful information without expressly signing up for it.

Opt-in is really a defence mechanism, not an information filter. In a "whole product" seamless information experience, one might argue that "the system" ought to know what I'm interested in and send me useful stuff without me asking for it. In other words, opt-in is clumsy.

Intelligent push of location-sensitive information requires an agent that understands our interests and habits. This requires a wider scope than just retailing. Someone interested in archaeology might be willing to receive information about important sites as they drive past. If this sounds mundane (“I don’t want that...”), the trick is to ponder on which convergence of information and spatial contexts would interest you. Experience of giving many courses in this area has taught me that everyone eventually comes up with not just one, but many such contexts that suit them.

Nonetheless, spam is still a real problem. In the email world, it is potentially a killer for wireless email without effective defences. Any wireless email solution has to include spam-defence as a must-have, in addition to a variety of other context sensitive filters, adjusting content by the moment, movement, and for “me” (as discussed in my book).

In Europe, the law is clear that mobile push advertisement services must be explicit opt-in. In the US, similar legal trends are emerging, following on the heels of the CAN-SPAM edict against email spamming. Brian McWilliams describes a lawsuit filed last month by Verizon against 50 unidentified “John Does” who are spamming mobiles.

Clearly, a strong legal deterrent is useful, but we need to tread carefully. How do we cater for intelligent location-based advertising? For example, would it be legally justifiable to say, “I knew that Joe Soap was interested in buying a new Mazda (from his web surfing 3rd party cookies - see previous post), which is why I sent the message”? Is it a variation on the “open gate” invitation to the front door in UK case law?

Wed, 19 May 2004 11:08:32 GMT

:: When is an acronym not an acronym? ::

When it's a trademark! A recent blog entry by Jon Udell puzzled over why some acronyms don’t seem to stand for anything any more.

The answer is that US trademark laws prohibit acronyms being used as trademarks. So, what have some organisations done to circumvent this problem? They declare that the acronym in question doesn’t stand for anything at all, to which I reply YYSSW.

When teaching J2EE as part of a wireless architecture course, I frequently quiz the students about acronyms. I shall find it odd saying “What does JDBC stand for?”, knowing now, thanks to Jon, that it doesn’t stand for anything. I can see this issue has entertainment value – “Test! Which acronyms don’t stand for anything at all?”

Acronyms are used abundantly in technology circles. I still recall that one of the first documents handed to me when I joined Motorola, many years ago, was a list of acronyms. I joined Motorola (big US company) to work on GSM, which originally was a French acronym - Groupe Spécial Mobile. It later became Global System for Mobile communications. When awarding contracts for cellular systems in Iraq, some US senators objected to the use of GSM technology, because, in their mistaken view, it was horrible French technology. The perils of acronyms!

Mon, 17 May 2004 11:00:37 GMT

:: Language and filters ::

David Crystal's book "Language and the Internet" is fairly interesting. I am using it to research aspects of my new book about wireless. David is a formidable linguist and his book reflects the expected analytical professionalism. I wonder what he would make of Google's current apology for offensive search engine results, wherein they explain:

"Sometimes subtleties of language cause anomalies to appear that cannot be predicted"

This is an interesting turn of phrase with all kinds of implications and ironies. That aside, quite why Google has to apologise for search engine results is an interesting question (pre-IPO jitters notwithstanding). But, it reminds us that what we innocently perceive to be in some way unbiased listings are anything but. Ultimately, there is an "algorithm" behind the search and it is "deciding" ranking, not the Internet itself, or its users. Therefore, one could equally say:

"Sometime subtleties in the algorithm cause anomalies to appear that cannot be predicted"

In the wireless world, information filters will become even more selective - necessarily so. Who is going to do the filtering and how?

Mon, 08 Mar 2004 01:12:12 GMT

:: Enmesh, Volume 1, Issue 2 ::

..Sorry for the long delays between postings. I have been busy writing a book and writing new training materials. I have also been doing a lot of reading. The process has been a journey that has enabled me to think of new directions for where I think mobility might be headed. Some initial thoughts spewed out recently, enough of them to make issue 2 of Enmesh. Read on....

Summary

If you still think that a mobile phone is just a desk phone without wires, you are wildly wrong. Perhaps to you and me, a tin of red paint is a tin of red paint, but to a trained artist, it is the fiery hue of an awesome sunset. Similarly, a mobile phone has implications beyond its role as a phone. To the informed mind, it is something quite different. In this brief article, we allude to its powerful potential and conclude that to benefit fully from its emergent potential; we have to learn how to "think mobile". Business leaders, project managers and practioners of all kinds need to start thinking mobile because, like it or not, mobile interaction with the world is going to dominate our daily lives in a matter of years, not decades. Soon we shall be hooked in for good. Savvy people will make a lot of capital from this inevitable cultural transformation.

Read the full article (5 pages) in PDF

Fri, 03 Oct 2003 12:55:20 GMT

:: "3G" is "dead" ::

I typed the above keywords into Google and found a lot of entries. That didn't surprise me. But, after reading a few of them I found that they essentially said the same thing. The problem is that nowhere was I able find a definition of “3G”, nor “dead” for that matter. In fact, I don’t ever recall reading a discussion of the perennial “WiFi” versus “3G” debate that talked of what solution was being sought by the use of either of these “things”, which is the best word I have for them in the absence of any definition. No purpose. No definition, but plenty of opinion.

Aristotle reportedly said,

“How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.”

I dare some of the pundits to define their terms having first talked of what problem they are trying to solve.

Wed, 24 Sep 2003 16:14:16 GMT

[ENMESH Volume 1, Issue 1]

Location-finding, P2P technology and social networking – what do they have in common? I’m not sure that I have the answer(s), but I instinctively feel there are some connections and possible emergent themes for mobile services. I am going to attempt to identify some here.

Leaving messages in space containing pictures and video clips that are searchable according to who’s in them might be a powerful concept worth enacting. To do this, we need a few current technologies and ideas to converge, as is probably going to be the case for most of the exciting apps that will emerge in the coming 3G era.

Read the entire issue (PDF).

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 22:55:27 GMT

:: Jakob Nielsen on the usability of mobile devices ::

Jakob Nielsen is a recognised expert on usability. I have referenced his works in my forthcoming book "Next Generation Mobile Services". He has recently posted an observation about the improvements in usability in mobile devices, having used a T-Mobile Sidekick for the last 6 months (an integrated PDA/phone device).

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030818.html

"New mobile devices show a huge improvement over previous generations, but they're still not good enough to score a real win. To get there, we need both PC-integrated applications and specialised mobile services rather than repurposed website content."

Mon, 07 Jul 2003 12:18:27 GMT

:: More usability issues ::

I apologise that I am currently only blogging about 1 post per week. This is because I am distracted by book-writing. However, the process gives me plenty to think and blog about. Just to let my regular readers know that I am planning to launch an email letter soon via the email list on this blog. This will contain links to lengthy articles that are better produced as a PDF, so they can be printed if necessary. I am nearly finished on the inaugural letter, which is going to be about leaving messages pinned on virtual notice boards.

For today's posting I wanted to return to usability issues, as I am now convinced that handset manufacturers do not conduct formal usability tests. Either that or they are just completely fixated with certain interface ideas (trends), which in my opinion don't work that well and significantly impede wireless service enjoyment.

I should state that formal usability testing, by my understanding, involves getting uninitiated and independent users to try tasks on the device and getting some kind of scores and also observations of their usage. It is subjecting the product to unabashed usage and abuse, in order to elicit opinion. It is not going through a designer's UI checklist in clinical lab conditions. Our usability friend Jakob Nielsen's website is a good starting point.

Today I was writing in my book about the problems of entering site addresses into mobile-device browsers with limited data entry modes. The worse case is a device that insists on the user entering the entire URL, including the "http://" bit. I don't see why some of the desktop shortcuts haven't made it onto mobile devices yet, like typing just "trains" to infer http://www.trains.com or http://wap.trains.com. There are so many other usability enhancements to this problem, like selective text-prediction so that "www" and ".com" are auto-completed in any case, but not the actual domain name.

By the way, the use of a "wap" sub-domain is a pointless distraction. All sites should stick to conventions as much as possible and use "www", so shortcuts can be understood. A simple redirect to the WAP pages can easily be accommodated at the main homepage on a site, so no need for typing special sub-domains.

The other bind is the amazing complexity that many browsers impose on managing favourites, or bookmarks. On many phones it takes many key presses just to get to the favourites, the very idea that these are supposed to be shortcuts seems lost on the browser designers. The worse case is the Accompli A008 from Motorola, which insists that you have to exit the browser altogether and go to a sub-menu from “Settings” and then enter the favourite by hand (not by “add to favourites” or even the possibility of cut-and-paste).

But for my money, it should be possible to view the favourites as a start-up page in the browser itself, that’s where the phone permits setting the homepage, it having been factory set to point to the operator portal.

It seems such a pity that with the ever-increasing pace of development with new browser technologies, content types and other advances, the basics of usability get glossed over. This is perhaps one of the problems of having so many devices to contend with – there is no focused effort on a consistent and acceptable user experience.

Sat, 07 Jun 2003 14:28:45 GMT

Observation #4

:: Spatial Messaging - 3G, Ubiquity and Social Interaction ::

People have commented that they can’t see a need for ubiquitous access to multimedia content, therefore the case for 3G further withers. I’m not so sure.

I have previously blogged about the topic of air-graffiti. This is the ability to dangle a virtual note in the air at some location for someone else to read upon entering into its neighbourhood. Of course, there is no reason why the virtual “tag” should be restricted just to text. Why not leave a picture, photo, sound recording or even a video clip. Indeed, anything linkable is ripe for hanging, such as a web page or even a CV (resume).

It strikes me that this capability could bring about a large number of applications and interest. It is also an application that is very much 3G, especially if teenagers are going to start leaving video clips for each other suspended on street corners and favourite meeting places. Perhaps this is an example of where rich multimedia content is not in the hands of the usual content providers, but in the hands of the network users. It won’t be long before phones are widely available with video-shoot capability.

The idea of leaving audio messages (in preference to making a call) will become commonplace before long anyway. The use of voice messaging in place of text messaging will become popular, as will push-to-talk when it finally arrives. Again, this really requires a 3G network, or at least that the core network should be 3G-like, even if the bearer is GPRS, and this is do-able by the way, such as with Nokia’s PoC solution.

To leave content at a particular location requires location-finding technology. It also requires ubiquity. That doesn’t preclude a WiFi solution. I fully expect that leaving tags in WiFi hotspots will become popular before long, if it isn’t already. Ubiquity, like with many mobile applications, provides the necessary degree of freedom for an application, such as air-graffiti, to flourish. With no restriction on where information hangs, new and interesting uses will emerge. Of that, I am certain.

The main challenge to location is accuracy. It is my view that ultimately only something with the accuracy of GPS will prevail in the market. The problem with this is indoor operation. I believe that this issue will be solved sooner or later, and I already blogged about attempts to provide indoor solutions for super stores.

Leaving messages in space or basing interaction on location is not as frolicsome as it might seem. As a general phenomenon, business networking is becoming increasingly popular, even more so in these difficult times where there is a constant hunger for even the tiniest scrap of an opportunity. According to some, the theory of “The Strength of Weak Ties” (Google-it) applies. Its protagonist, Mark Granovetter, research the way people found jobs and noticed a high proportion of referrals from people who were both not that well known to the seeker, nor in any way directly connected with the opportunity, hence the weak ties.

If we could somehow bump into more people more often and find out things from them, then it seems we stand a higher chance of finding opportunities. This seems obvious, and it probably is obvious. But, the point is how does one increase the number of weak ties? Perhaps by our use of pervasive technology we can assist in the process of bumping into other people more often, but in cyberspace.

Taking the idea a step further, then we can envisage using air-graffiti to bump into people in cyberspace who occupy the same physical space, either occasionally or often. The use of air-graffiti in common business-meeting places, like the Institute of Directors “club” in London, may add significant value to the networking that already goes on in such places. IOD already has WiFi access, so the technology is already in place. Location finding comes by default with a WiFi hotspot.

Think of all those times when people gather idly, like on train stations, airport concourses, refreshment places, hotel lobbies…the list is endless. A quick search for who’s who may yield some interesting weak ties. This will work in real-time and can be used offline by hanging “I woz here” tags. On one of my courses, I discuss how peer-2-peer networking architectures might facilitate this process in real-time.Think of all those address books in mobile phones are potential sources of weak ties! Everyday you are walking past thousands of weak ties!

I think that a multimedia spatial messaging service will launch soon. It will work with GPRS, and this will be sufficient for text and picture hanging, like sending an MMS into space. For lengthier voice messages and video clips, then this will emerge with 3G alongside push-to-talk offerings. I think the two services will be closely related.

We have not even talked about the interplay between mobile games and spatial messaging. Imagine the melding of gaming scenarios with video, sound and text from real people in real places. The mind boggles at the possibilities. Crazy innovators will come up with all kinds of ideas, no doubt about it.

I think that spatial messaging along with other convergence or substitution technologies, like the ability to interact with advertising boards, will cause a drive towards lower cost and more usable wearable computing solutions. The future’s bright, the future’s ubiquity.

Sat, 24 May 2003 11:26:59 GMT

Observation #3

:: Is VoIP the "killer app" for WiFi hotspots ? ::

In the evangelising of WiFi hotspots, guys like David Huges (BT Openzone) are making noises about Voice over IP (VoIP). In general, in the WiFi v 3G "debate", it is more useful to compare WiFi + Internet to 3G + Internet, so that we are talking about similar things, but there are still some practical differences to bear in mind. I think that in comparing the two, we should be really talking about public access, or ubiquity. Much of the WiFi punditry is to do with publicly accessible hotspots, which is using a LAN technology to implement a wide area network. No one argues about the capabilities of WiFi as a LAN technology; it’s fantastic. The economics and efficacy of using this for a pseudo-WAN are what count. For hotspots to be a major contender to 3G, as gets argued, then there have to be compelling reasons to use them. Telephony is not one of them. I simply don’t buy it, even if we call it something else like Voice Over IP (VoIP).

I don't think we can treat VoIP as just another use of the Internet and one that is otherwise agnostic of the access technology. A customer is not going to buy a WiFi phone because it's WiFi, nor are they going to switch to VoIP because it's VoIP. They need a reason to do so. Perhaps we should be talking in terms of "killer needs", not "killer applications".

Unless we are just talking about WiFi as a cordless technology (which has more merit in the US for various reasons to do with the evolution of cordless), then the application is still telephony, no matter what we call it. To deliver useful telephony services to the user, such as access to the public phone network, billing, call handling and so forth, someone has to pay for it somewhere. That's the first problem. But the implication that VoIP could be a driver for public hotspots seems odd. This is the bit I don't get and needs explaining to me. We already have a perfectly good public access telephony network called cellular. What will motivate the average user to go and find a hotspot to make phone calls?

Due to the large cellular install base, the argument does not hold in reverse. That is, there will be compelling reasons for users to adopt VoIP as and when their mobile service provider offers it, most likely transparently as a means to an end, like powerful call handling options, interworking with instant messaging and so on. The convergence capabilities of VoIP are its best asset.

Combined with the more powerful networking options that the underlying cellular network can offer like presence technology and location sensing, there are myriad service opportunities, most of which, I contend, will be driven by their truly ubiquitous availability. For example, if I am at lunch then I want my calls handled in a certain way – perhaps only my top clients can call me. This only makes sense with ubiquitous access as ubiquity means I don’t have to worry about where I will be when a call comes in – I will always be able to handle it. Using location, perhaps I only want to receive certain calls when I’m at home, regardless of what time.

One thing that gets overlooked is that there are two variants of 3G – time duplexed (TDD) and frequency duplexed (FDD). It is possible to operate TDD in unlicensed bands and it is much better than WiFi as it is easier to irradiate a whole area, like an entire shopping plaza, not just the Starbucks bit. TDD pundits, like IPWireless, talk about hot zones and not hot spots (see earlier blog posting). If TDD becomes widespread (big IF at the moment) then dual mode 3G phones can potentially disrupt matters. I can sit in a Starbucks and jump my laptop or PDA onto a TDD carrier by hopping via the phone using Bluetooth, ignoring the Starbucks WiFi altogether. Or, I can go out into the mall and still remain connected.

WiFi will be useful for hotspots in limited cases, but I don’t see a long term viable business model and certainly not one based on telephony. Calling it something else – VoIP – is just sophistry on the part of its advocates. They are trying to evangelise hotspots, but doing it rather badly in my opinion. On the other hand, it is easier to evangelise 3G, but it hardly ever gets done for some reason.

Sat, 24 May 2003 03:16:33 GMT

Observation #2 (a short one)

:: Isn't DECT free too ? ::

Seybold is right that WiFi phones will not dent the wide-area ("always on") voice services market and Marty Cooper ("inventor" of cellular) has already done the maths to show that a sufficiently dense network of WiFi to compete with cellular is impractical. OK, no one is saying that this is what hotspot vendors are intending, but then we quickly seem to forget that wide-area access to voice is an essential part of life now and so the operators have to be involved somewhere. This leads to all kinds of complications if a hotspot vendor, or anyone else, including the enterprise, is planning to offer network services themselves, like voicemail, call forwarding etc.

These problems are currently being overlooked in the visible discussions on this topic. Don't forget that right now we already have a free wireless telephony standard called DECT, but the attempts to interwork DECT with GSM never came off.

The problem is that we tend to think of wireless too literally, i.e. as doing something without wires, as if all we have is a replacement for a featureless piece of wire. Telephony needs a network that includes switching, routing, signalling and so on. Modern telephony needs intelligent networks that also include voicemail, call handling (e.g. diversion), call conferencing and so on. Deploying WiFi phones enables only a tiny part of the shebang to be done for free. Who's going to build and pay for the rest of the network? How is it going to interwork with the wide area one, as it must?

These are the thorny questions that are seldom discussed. The DECT pundits ran away from them and the cellular guys built cheaper base stations called picocells.

The devil (i.e. true costs) is in the detail.

Sat, 24 May 2003 01:45:16 GMT

Observation #1

:: Mobile data for the smaller guys (SME not LSE)::

Here’s an interesting report from Pyramid Research that suggests operators should be focusing on providing an aggregated portfolio of shrink-wrapped, easily deployable wireless apps. They should forget about the large-scale enterprise, where the integration efforts and expertise are beyond the operator core competences.

Of course, some of us already thought this and were beginning to think that the operators would never take SMEs seriously and we would have to languish in the hinterlands of the nascent wireless data revolution. One hears that unless you have at least 100 mobiles, then the corporate concierge at your not-so-friendly operator won’t open the door.

Nevermind 3G or WiFi, although WiFi is already penetrating the SMEs thanks to its simplicity, but the obviously useful wireless email and text messaging applications are still woefully absent from the scene. Interestingly enough, for those who think Europe leads all in wireless, the US have for some time had decent low-cost and easy-to-deploy wireless email solutions. One of these, the desktop Outlook solution from Seven has finally made its way to the UK market, as previously discussed on my blog.

I found my trial of it via O2’s offering (xmail) to be useful enough, but I stopped short of the 9.99GBP per month simply because O2 are not promising to support roaming access in the future, so my coming in from Vodafone might get chopped. Who wants to sign up for a service with that kind of customer promise? Silly really, as O2 should surely see the benefits of keeping my 9.99 per month and tempting me onto other useful services, and eventually, who knows? Maybe I’d switch to their network. Why not? If they can demonstrate consistent interest in my business needs, then that’s novel enough to stick with them.

Having said this, I have to take a step back and put on my usability hat, i.e. become an average user for a moment, those unfortunate bunch who we forget are the end users of our wares. As reported in my review earlier, when I accessed xmail using my T68i, it didn’t get past the login screen. Therefore, I resorted to using my Palm Vx with a TDK Bluetooth cradle, which as also previously reported on my blog, required Voodoo to configure. Somewhere in the bowels of the net I found the key to my woes was in the form of an obvious string - *99***3# - which is the number I have to dial to access the GPRS modem on my phone. Of course it is!

This is the point the report is making. Shrink-wrapped means it comes out of the box and ready to go. Even hardened product buffs who attended one of my courses, from a particularly well known operator, confessed to the frustrations of configuring mobile devices. Admittedly, O2 have packaged a neater edition of the xmail service with their XDA, but frankly how many people are going to go out and buy an XDA just for this? Not many I suspect, but then if a basket of aggregated services were available, then perhaps a lot more would be tempted.

Plugging my own wares for a minute, at Magic E we have come up with a no-brainer way of accessing databases using SMS. The idea is that all companies these days are keeping some business data in a database, even if it’s a simple Access database, and you’ll usually find someone who knows how to configure and use Access. The ability to interact with a database using text messaging has many possibilities, such as customer management, supply management, time management and so on.

The problem is that programming a two-way text messaging application for database manipulation is an expert task. That’s why we introduced Xsonic DataNow, which literally allows the database administrator to draw the process flow against the database and within minutes they can deploy an interactive text messaging application, in effect a low-cost and easy-to-deploy wireless application. We are working to simplify the whole process even further and, when the customers are ready for it, upgrade the application to support Java micro applications on the phone, not for the sake of it, but because we can improve usability quite significantly (a limitation of text messaging, not our application).

The reason that applications like this aren’t pounced upon by the operators is because, as the report mentions, they are too busy chasing consumer applications, where the likes of Big Brother (a naff TV program) can attract millions of messages. A team of field engineers or sales guys are hardly going to be sending millions, not even thousands, of messages to and from a database. Nevertheless, the operators are missing an important opportunity, and one that will go a long way towards opening the doors of our minds towards the potential of mobile services, and, ultimately, yes, even the dreaded “white elephant”.........3G.