Investing in the Mobile Revolution
Repost permission from Scott Ford, Partner, OPENAIR Ventures
The infrastructure supporting the mobile phone in your pocket is bracing for a digital communication revolution that will result in an economic boom rivaling any of the past developments of the information age. In fact, the mobile handset is quickly becoming the primary access point to the Internet, and this through just a fraction of nearly 5 billion current active units in the global market (four times the number of active Internet-connected personal computers).(1) In three years, the comparison between PC and mobile Internet access will be completely irrelevant as the handset itself becomes a small subset of many billions of mobile connections to the Internet powered through terrestrial wireless networks.
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Happy St. Nicholas Day from Germany
The tradition of Saint Nicholas Day, usually on 6 December, is a festival for children in many countries in Europe related to surviving legends of the saint, and particularly his reputation as a bringer of gifts. The American Santa Claus, as well as the Anglo-Canadian and British Father Christmas, derive from these legends. “Santa Claus” is itself derived from the Dutch Sinterklaas.
In Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. Sometimes a disguised Nikolaus also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on a per-behavior basis. This has become more lenient in recent decades.
But for some children, Nikolaus also elicited fear, as he was often accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht (Servant Ruprecht), who would threaten to beat the children for misbehavior as using this myth to ‘bring up cheek children’ for a better, good behavior. Any kind of punishment isn’t really following and just an antic legend. Knecht Ruprecht furthermore was equipped with eight deer legs. In Switzerland, where he is called Schmutzli, he would threaten to put bad children in a sack and take them back to the dark forest. In other accounts he would throw the sack into the river, drowning the naughty children. These traditions were implemented more rigidly in Catholic countries and regions such as Austria or Bavaria.
Source: Wikipedia
Holiday Shopping 2010
I guess the deals where just too good this year. I was leaving Best Buy from some Black Friday 2010 shopping and spotted this BMW 3-Series Convertible leaving the parking lot. While not the most ideal car for going to buy a flat-screen TV, but I suppose, it’s faster than having it delivered.
Upon closer inspection, for those who have a BMW 3-Series Convertible, note that the 47″ LCD TV in the box will fit perfectly in your back seat, with the top down. Those who want to get the 50″ or 55″ model are probably out of luck in terms of fitting it in your back seat.
Happy Shopping!
UPDATED: RIM Blackberry – Compression Enhances Mobile Internet Experience
Sorry if the photo is a little blurry, This was a presentation given by Greg Shea, Managing Director of RIM China at Mobile World Congress 2010 during the App Planet event. Got a hold of the presentation and uploaded the slide here.
Graphical Representation – Size of Global Mobile Market
Courtesy of iStrategy - Click to see full size
Mobile Asia Congress – App Planet
Earlier this month, I was fortunate to attend Mobile Asia Congress 2010 in Hong Kong. As part of the conference, the GSMA hosted App Planet, where over 300+ delegates heard from China Mobile, RIM and a number of other folks in the mobile ecosystem. The emcee, Caroline Lewko, from WIP Connector, started the day by stating: “Today is for Building Communities.” Indeed, the majority of the topics were around building mobile application communities. In particular, the conference and audience was focused on Asia.
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