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Thought I’d share this interesting report from Accenture about mobile phone app utilization that claims higher-end applications remain vastly under-used by U.S. consumers. Funny, I think Apple iPhone users might disagree. The report found that 88 percent of U.S. consumers said they never use their mobile phones or other mobile devices to watch videos. That is high, but expected since most mobile phones can′t even play videos. My main phone, a Windows Mobile 6.1 smart phone doesn′t even natively support Youtube Flash videos using Pocket Internet Explorer. I did install Skyfire though, which adds pretty respectable video performance. I was able to watch Youtube videos on my Windows Mobile with pretty decent video quality, but of course I’m not the ‘typical’ mobile phone user.

The report adds that 84 percent said they never use their mobile phones or mobile devices to send email. Say what? Email is only 4 pts better than video? I would have expected email penetration to be much better, especially with all the Blackberry phones. People want email access on their phone more than any other app, but maybe that’s just my opinion. Further, the report says 79 percent said they never employ them to play games on the go. So more people played games on their phone than sent email? You’ve got to be kidding me. How is that possible? I suppose many phones come with cheezy built-in games, which might skew the results.

Anyway, read the report for yourself…

Continue reading No ♥ for High-end Mobile Apps…

Tags: accenture, Apple, consumers, iphone, mobile applications, mobile apps, mobile phone, skyfire, U.S.

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Original post by nafiz

Thought I’d share this interesting report from Accenture about mobile phone app utilization that claims higher-end applications remain vastly under-used by U.S. consumers. Funny, I think Apple iPhone users might disagree. The report found that 88 percent of U.S. consumers said they never use their mobile phones or other mobile devices to watch videos. That is high, but expected since most mobile phones can’t even play videos. My main phone, a Windows Mobile 6.1 smart phone doesn’t even natively support Youtube Flash videos using Pocket Internet Explorer. I did install Skyfire though, which adds pretty respectable video performance. I was able to watch Youtube videos on my Windows Mobile with pretty decent video quality, but of course I’m not the ‘typical’ mobile phone user.

The report adds that 84 percent said they never use their mobile phones or mobile devices to send email. Say what? Email is only 4 pts better than video? I would have expected email penetration to be much better, especially with all the Blackberry phones. People want email access on their phone more than any other app, but maybe that’s just my opinion. Further, the report says 79 percent said they never employ them to play games on the go. So more people played games on their phone than sent email? You’ve got to be kidding me. How is that possible? I suppose many phones come with cheezy built-in games, which might skew the results.

Anyway, read the report for yourself…

Continue reading No ♥ for High-end Mobile Apps…

Tags: accenture, Apple, consumers, iphone, mobile applications, mobile apps, mobile phone, skyfire, U.S.

Related Entries
• sipgate adds SIP-based VoIP support to iPhone -
  Jun 04, 2008
• Om Interviews Skype CEO -
  Sep 12, 2008
• iPhone Microsoft Exchange Email Problems -
  Jul 15, 2008
• Tom writes ‘iHate My iPhone Because its iDead’ -
  Jul 12, 2008
• Packet8 MobileTalk on iPhone Adds VoIP Calling -
  Jul 11, 2008
• Apple Web service outages during iPhone launch -
  Jul 11, 2008
• Nokia N78 Comes to U.S. -
  Jun 24, 2008
• Apple iPhone 2.0: Twice as Much for Half as Much -
  Jun 09, 2008
• Sony takes on Apple -
  Sep 04, 2007
• Is a Zune Phone Really a Surprise? -
  Mar 02, 2007

TrackBacks
| ♥ for High-end Mobile Apps”>Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadgets Blog Home | Permalink: ♥ for High-end Mobile Apps”>No ♥ for High-end Mobile Apps

Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Laptops

Generally speaking, Americans can count on the US price of any particular piece of kit being a fair bit less than the straight pound-to-dollar conversion. Unfortunately, the exchange rate here is nearly on point, with the £299 NC10 10-inch netbook on sale for $480 (give or take a few nickles) in the US of A. Granted, it looks as if it’ll be a fortnight or so at the very least before any Yanks can wrap their grimy paws around the germ-shunning PC, but we′ve already got the e-tailers lining up to hold your place in line. Who knows — maybe our version will come with built-in WiMAX and 12-hours of battery life to really sweeten the deal.

[Via Liliputing, thanks Michael]

Read - Pre-order NC10, option 1
Read - Pre-order NC10, option 2

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Original post by Darren Murph

Anyone who hates wires or, has a partner who hates wires, will be happy to see the new On Air WEM-1 Wireless Expansion kit from JBL. Apart from all its technical capabilities, it is ‘Missus-Friendly’, in that it will allow you to finally get the surround sound system into the living room without risk of divorce. The WEM-1 in its simplest form adds wireless capability to any loudspeaker, eliminating the need to run speaker wires across a room, through walls, floors or ceilings. This is very handy if you want those extra surround speakers at the back off the room without any wires. It comprises a transmitter module that hooks up to your audio source, a receiver/amplifier unit that connects to a pair of speakers, a remote control and some accessories. It can also be used for distributing audio from a PC around the home. The WEM-1 has an operating range of up to 70 feet and comes with a decent selection of connection options [line- and speaker-level outputs], to fit most audio equipment. It will cost around £180-200 when it launches later this month. [JBL] audio wireless home

Original post by nafiz

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

When we waltzed over to have a gander at LG’s recently priced BD300, one of the reps on hand wasn’t so keen on letting us take close-ups. Not one to just roll over and accept a command, we casually walked over to the other BD300 kiosk, flashed the Engadget gang sign to the much kinder rep, and continued on to snap a few shots of the new box. The unit set up was fully functional and able to stream Netflix movies, and it even detected the network connection before playing in order to deliver the best quality without introducing skips and stutters. Feel free to get all up in your monitor when checking out the gallery over at Engadet HD, we won’t hassle ya. One love.

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Original post by Darren Murph

USB Flash drives are so common these days that it can be hard to differentiate one from the other. After all, just how many 2GB Flash drives from different vendors are out there? And, in the end, they are just used for storing stuff so there’s not a whole lot of marketing potential to play with. So, one day, someone at PNY had a brain wave: “I know, we’ll put a movie on the stick to make it stand out from the crowd. Hmm, now which one? Deep Throat? Er, maybe not Kramer Vs Kramer? Too sad, possibility of customers killing themselves. Madonna’s Swept Away? Hahahahahahahahahahaha I know: Ghostbusters!”And that’s what they did. With the 25-year anniversary of the classic ghouls and ghosts comedy coming next year, PNY have teamed up with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment to deliver the first full-length movie on a USB stick, ready to play on a PC or laptop. The 2GB USB stick can handle 12 hours of video, 33 hours of music and over 1,000 photos - all without deleting Bill Murray & Co, who are busy keeping New York safe from the Underworld. Available from Argos for £30.-Martin Lynch USB movies gadget

Original post by nafiz

arcticstoat writes “Are you the USB keymaster? You could be soon if you pick up PNY’s new 2GB USB flashdrive, which comes pre-loaded with Ghostbusters. A spokesperson for PNY explained that it comes with a form of DRM that prevents you from copying the movie. ‘They have DRM protection,’ explained the spokesperson, ’so customers can download the movie onto their laptop or PC if they wish, but they have to have the USB drive plugged in to watch the movie, as the DRM is locked in the USB drive.’ The music industry has been playing around with USB flash drives for a few years now, but it hasn′t been a massive success yet; will USB movies fare any better?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by timothy

It’s been a long time since DVD players were considered cool and even longer since they gave off even a whiff of sex appeal, but LG has certainly injected a little heat into the now bland DVD arena with its DVS450H DVD. Aside from the crappy name, the player is a real design treat, standing thin and tall with a glossy black finish and minimalist controls. It can stand horizontally or vertically and is suitable for wall mounting, just so everyone can ‘ooh’ over your gadget sense of style.It sports a HDMI port and claims upscaling of regular DVDs to near HD. It also supports DivX, WMA, DivX HD, Xvid-H, MP3 and JPEG playback and comes with a USB port for connecting to your external hard disk drive, filled with all the video content you nicked off the Net. Due out in October it will be priced at around £130.-Martin Lynch dvd movies gadgets

Original post by nafiz

Blu-ray players are generally fatties but Samsung has thrown its latest 5th-gen player, the BD-P2500 on a treadmill while cramming in everything but the kitchen sink. The new player was unveiled today at the IFA 2008 show in Berlin and the minimalist styling looks tasty indeed. It’s compatible ‘out-of-the-box’ with the latest Blu-ray interactive features like BD Live (Profile 2.0), Bonus View (Profile 1.1) and uses the award-winning Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) chip for processing video, while supporting 7.1-channel sound systems. It comes with a built-in, wired Ethernet connection, 1GB of internal Flash memory and a USB port for memory expansion. On the audio front, the BD-P2500 can output Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS as an uncompressed PCM signal, as a bitstream, or via the 7.1 analog outputs. Also, support for DTS-HD HR (High Resolution) decoding will arrive with a firmware update. When you think that Yamaha had the audacity to launch its first Blu-ray player this week with no Ethernet and inferior features for a whopping $1,200 (£600), it’s amazing that Samsung will be shipping the BD-P2500 for $500 - around £250. Obviously that price will rise a bit here but we are finally starting to see highly specified players with less galling price tags. I still won′t be happy though until they start costing under £200 here.-Martin Lynch blu-ray movies samsung

Original post by nafiz

I never really got the appeal of projectors with in-built DVD players but I can see why some people might like a portable unit that provides the big screen thrills without any cabling fuss. Epson has launched another DVD/projector/speaker combo with the MovieMate 55 for the home. Yes, it is pretty ugly but it only costs around £350 [possibly £400 by the time it gets here]. It houses a progressive scan DVD spinner, 8Watt speakers and weighs in at just over 8lbs. It’s a standard-def projector - not HD - but it’s still capable of throwing up a 60in image from just 6-feet, and 120ins from 12-feet. It’s based on the 3-chip 3LCD technology and comes with a new, brighter 1200 Lumens bulb with a respectable life expectancy of around 3,000 hours. There’s a fold-away handle for easy carrying and a host of connections guaranteed to make it easy to hook up to your Nintendo Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360. At £400 for something that will really bring those games and movies to life, you could do a lot worse.-Martin Lynch home cinema movies projector

Original post by nafiz

With IFA 2008 almost upon us, expect to find some really cool gadgets and consumer technology on show. This weekend we saw some rumoured reports about the new iPod nano and a photo [possibly fake] of its new, longer shape and tapered edges. Sure, it’s alright looking but nothing near as sweet as the new Cowon S9 Curve, which will be making its debut at consumer tech heaven, the IFA Show 2008 in Berlin, from Friday.This baby just eats up the style points like Pac Man. Like its name, it’s a beautifully curved, metal-backed PMP (portable media player) with a 3.3in, 480 x 272-pixel AMOLED screen with touchscreen capabilities. It’s powered by 500MHz dual-core processor, has Bluetooth, T-DMB, G-Sensor (a gesture control) and a ‘dynamic dictionary’, FM radio and voice recorder. Battery life for music is rated at 40 hours. There’s no price but it certainly looks expensive. Let’s hope it isn’t.-Martin Lynch [PMPtoday] music pmp gadget

Original post by nafiz

An anonymous reader writes “Michael J. Nelson started up Rifftrax as a 2nd act to his stint as host of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and now they’re making their website open to anyone and everyone who thinks they’re funny with iRiffs — allowing people to upload their own comedy commentary tracks and charge whatever they want. They’ve already got a few would-be groups online, including one who takes the open source a step further — soliciting jokes from listeners and combining submissions into a final product.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by CmdrTaco

I’m not sure what kind of James Bond fantasies our Gizmodo readers/spies harbour but if it’s combined with an obsession for expensive clothing, then the last thing you’ll want are evil secret agent bullets blowing your luggage and, those Gucci loafers inside, all to hell. That’s why you need the bulletproof case from Globe-Trotter, designed by well-known UK industrial designer Ross Lovegrove (iMac and those sexy KEF Muon speakers). The Air Cabin certainly looks the business, and weighs just 3lbs thanks to its use of lightweight ‘triaxial carbon/Kevlar composites’.You really can picture Daniel Craig legging it through some airport, shielding some ridiculously-named totty from a hail of gunfire with this bag. The luggage company designed the special case to commemorate 110 years of making luggage for travellers. Things must have changed if bulletproof materials are now de rigueur. The case will hit the catwalk next month at the New York Fashion Week and, while designed to withstand gunfire, it will still blow a hole in your own wallet to the tune of £1,750. Ouch! I’ll just take my chances with my three year old rucksack. It might not stop a shell from Desert Eagle .50, but it’s good in the rain which, at least this summer, is posing a bigger threat than gun-toting secret agents in Heathrow. But only just.-Martin Lynch [Bornrich] travel spy guns design

Original post by nafiz

whisper_jeff writes “Due to some potential copyright issues, The Watchmen might be delayed, or worse. It seems that Fox claims it still owns copyrights which would prevent Warner Bros from releasing the movie. US District Court Judge Gary Feess decided that Fox had enough of a case that he’s willing to hear things out. The geek in me hopes that it will be resolved quickly and the movie will hit theaters on time.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by CmdrTaco

Having been sent packing with its tail between its legs in the high-def format war by Blu-ray, Toshiba has stubbornly maintained that it will not build a Blu-ray player. Instead, it announced that the best way to beat Blu-ray would be to build an uber-DVD player that upscales really well. It might sound bizarre but since a huge number of regular Joe consumers don’t know what Blu-ray is, or think it’s something to do with the porn industry, it might make some sense. And, it doesn’t hurt that the new XD-E500 only costs £75 [in the US for now]. The XD-E500 uses XDE, “eXtended Detail Enhancement,” technology, which Toshiba says offers more than just normal upscaling. Alongside upscaling images to near-1080p, XDE throws in 3 picture processing mode settings. They are: Sharp Mode offers improved detail enhancement that is one step closer to high definition. Edges are sharper and details in movies are more visible. Unlike traditional sharpness control, XDE technology analyzes the entire picture and adds edge enhancement precisely where it’s needed. Colour Mode makes the colours of nature stand out with improved richness. Blues and greens are more vivid and lifelike. Colour Mode combines the improvement in colour with the detail enhancement of Sharp Mode and is ideal for outdoor scenes. Contrast Mode is designed to make darker scenes or foregrounds more clearly visible without the typical “washing out” that can occur with traditional contrast adjustment. Recommended for dark scenes where detail may be difficult to notice, Contrast Mode is also combined with Sharp Mode to provide a clearer viewing experience. Other features include HDMI-CEC, DivX certification, JPEG capability, Ṃ and WMA playback. Considering just how many DVDs people already have, and if the cheap XD-E500 is any good, Toshiba could be onto a winner. It’s still a shame it won’t swallow its pride though and make a Blu-ray player that doesn’t cost the earth.-Martin Lynch dvd blu-ray HD DVD movies

Original post by nafiz