CIL 2.1: Planning for a Handheld Mobile Future
March 24, 2006
Megan Fox did a nice job with her keynote Wednesday morning in which she discussed handhelds and related gadgetry. Here’s a few notes from the session…
- 133 million mobile subscribers in the US - 7 billion text messages/month (up from 2.5 billion last year).
- technology continues to rapidly be updated with features like: face recognition software; ability to reject a call with a text message automatically sent as a response
- eBook readers continue to get better a d better
- “Ultra Personal Computer” - full featured laptops in a small form factor (essentially a handheld) - Microsoft’s Origami is due out soon (the Ultra Mobile Personal Computer)
- Microsoft is implementing “thumb keys” which is a curved, on-screen keyboard (occupyies the lower area of a screen and splits the keyboard)
- mobile optomized web - content is served up depending on what sort of browser you are using to access the site (Bloglines or TVGuide are good examples of this design)
- Squeezer, IYHY, Google and AOL can automatically resize content for a mobile device - just pop in the URL (a bit flaky though depending on the original sites design) [must look at Mobilicious (del.icio.us to go!)
- Top Mobile Content? - weather, news, email, search… the list grows…
- ILS - Innovative and Sirsi have mobile interfaces
[Bonus! UofA gets mentioned for guides to downloading content onto PDAs]
- Handmark - programs you download to your phone specific to your phone model
- AudibleAir - audiobooks for handhelds
- People are looking to handhelds for “mobile answers,” not “mobile search” - presets with services can save thumb strokes
- MEDIO - returns answers, not links - presets allow for customization, personalization, and localization
- gada.be - metasearch for mobile devices
- Google SMS - text messaging option for those without data plans a good way to get answers (Synfonic would be another example of a text service not requiring WAP)
- Altarama- text messaging reference and circulation service for libraries (such as date due notices) - Australian company [I had contacted them a while back but there were still some hurdles involving the Canadian mobile service providers]
- Wake Forest University - has some cool smart phone projects - they use voice recognition (Southern Illinnois and Montclair U have a few interesting projects too).
- “Can you fear me now?” - Stephen King takes cell phone marketing of his new book “Cell’ to a whole new level.
- iPods and libraries - preloading books on iPods; lots of content options. Thomson Gale offers podcasts. Check out: iPods@GCSU, Duke University Library, Baylor(?) has loaded all audio reserve materials onto 40 iPods so that all materials are available on every device they loan out.
And what of the Future??
- New financial models where the devices become free or cheaper, and you then pay for membership or service. We see this now with phones, but what will be next? Gizmondo gaming device offers lower service fees as long as you agree to having your games interrupted several times with commercials. Visual Search” means less keystrokes and more “device-friendly navigation. Keep watch on the gadget blogs (like Engadget) for more information.
[tags]CIL2006[/tags]
Posted in Conference Reports
