Portrait de Justin Frankel, inventeur de WinAmp et Gnutella

Justin Frankel est l'illustre fondateur de WinAmp, puis de Gnutella. Racheté par AOL, il s'amuse à inventer les premiers logiciels anti-pop-up d'Internet ! La plaisanterie passe mal. Déjà multimillionnaire, il décide de quitter le FAI en janvier dernier. Récit d’une rencontre avec ce Robin des Bois du Net, que certains considèrent comme « le geek le plus dangereux au monde ».

La barbe est rousse et drue, l’œil bleu est très vif, le cheveu en bataille et le jeans et le tee-shirt ne sont pas de première jeunesse. Difficile de croire que ce grand jeune homme de 26 ans, né à Sedona dans l’Arizona, est un des rares vrais multimillionnaires de l’ancienne « nouvelle économie ». Et que c’est toujours un rebelle, malgré sa fortune….

L’histoire de Justin Frankel est belle comme un livre.

Elevé dans une famille un peu hippie de l’Arizona, né d’un père avocat et d’une mère facteur, les Frankel vivent dans un « mobile home » et Justin bricole tout ce qui lui passe par la main. Notamment l’Atari 8-bit de son petit frère. Au lycée, il s’occupe du réseau des ordinateurs, et écrit une application pour créer les premiers comptes mails des étudiants. Nous sommes aux débuts d’Internet…Il y a un siècle, en 1994. La légende (il ne l’infirme pas) lui prête même un logiciel lui permettant d’accéder aux ordinateurs des enseignants. Il jure ne pas l’avoir utilisé. Juste pour se prouver qu’il peut le faire, et résister un peu à l’autorité toute puissante. Déjà une graine rebelle.

L’université de l’Utah où il rentre en 1996, section Sciences Informatiques, ne lui réussit pas. L’académisme et les cases prédéfinies ne conviennent pas à notre rebelle justicier. Il quitte la fac après deux trimestres, pour lancer Winamp (raccourci pour Windows Amplifier) et sa société éditrice, Nullsoft. Justin voulait un logiciel simple à utiliser pour lire de la musique sur son ordinateur, plus convivial que les lecteurs MP3 à peine naissants sur le marché… Et il le fait partager à ceux qui veulent l'utiliser. Il demande 10$ à qui veut bien payer. Personne n’est obligé. La philosophie de notre créateur est déjà là. Celle du freeware, qui sera aussi celle de l’open source.

En 1998, deux ans après le lancement de Winamp, Justin compte près de 15 millions d’utilisateurs dans le monde ! Et ce n’est qu’un début. Une grande partie des utilisateurs accepte de payer les 10$, faisant de Nullsoft une société rentable aux revenus très confortables. En 1999, au sommet de la bulle, AOL décide d’investir le monde de la musique (Time Warner n’est pas très loin…) et rachète Nullsoft pour 100 millions de dollars… A 21 ans, Justin Frankel est un jeune homme très riche…Sans l’avoir voulu.

Un pourfendeur des grosses structures…AOL en sait quelque chose…

Il faut alors rentrer dans la grosse structure… Ce sera avec chausse pied, mais sans espoir. Il n’a pas réussi à la fac, il ne réussira pas chez AOL. Peut-on imaginer Robin des Bois heureux dans une grande entreprise ? Frankel y a tout même passé quatre ans. Riche des 100 millions de dollars de la vente de Winamp, il aurait pu jeter l’éponge. Mais Winamp est son bébé. Son regret : AOL ne lui a pas permis de concurrencer comme il aurait dû Windows Media Player et Real Player, qui ont progressivement pris les parts de marchés de Winamp. Mais honnête jusqu’au bout, il ne quittera pas l’entreprise sans avoir terminé le travail qui lui a été demandé : le lancement de la version 5.0, en janvier 2004.

Pour autant, Frankel ne c’est pas endormi pendant son passage chez AOL. Il n’est pas un rebelle pour rien. La musique, c’est son truc. Et Napster, le logiciel d’échange de fichiers musicaux lancé par le jeune Shawn Fanning (qui a 19 ans, alors que Frankel en a 22…) l’énerve dès le début. D’abord, parce qu’il trouve que c’est vraiment bien (« pretty cool »..), et qu’il aurait bien aimé l’inventer. Surtout, parce qu’il trouve que c’est vraiment illégal, et donc dangereux. En effet, Napster héberge les titres qui sont téléchargés. Frankel imagine alors que ces titres devraient bien plutôt être réellement partagés et hébergés chez chacun des utilisateurs du logiciel, rendant pratiquement impossible son identification.

Et pourquoi se limiter à du MP3 ? Chanson, vidéo, tout types de fichiers, dans un environnement décentralisé doivent pouvoir être téléchargés. Il invente alors Gnutella, dénommé d’après le fameux chocolat en pot et GNU symbolisant la communauté des développeurs de free-software…Robin des Bois ? Tout cela c’est fait en secret de son employeur. AOL ne découvrira Gnutella que le jour de son lancement….Pour demander à Justin de le retirer immédiatement. D’autant qu’AOL vient d’annoncer le rachat de Times Warner, qui vient elle-même de lancer les premiers procès anti-Napster…Pas bien beau…Robin des Bois jusqu’au bout, il s’exécute et accepte sa défaite. Mais est-ce vraiment une défaite, ou AOL n’a-t-il vraiment rien compris ?

En effet, il est trop tard. Plus de 10 000 utilisateurs ont téléchargé Gnutella en un jour, et le principe décentralisé du système fonctionne à merveille. Pas besoin de son créateur pour le faire tourner. Très vite, la communauté open-source améliorera le système, et il sera repris par les meilleurs logiciels de téléchargement, comme Morpheus, BearShare ou LimeWire (bien connu des utilisateurs de Mac). Dès lors, Justin Frankel n’aura plus les coudées franches chez AOL, et ses blagues consistant à inventer les premiers logiciels anti pop-up pour éviter que les utilisateurs de Winamp ne puissent voir les publicités poussées par les régies d’AOL ne seront pas très bien vues…C’est le moins qu’on puisse dire. Frankel finira par se lasser un beau jour de janvier 2004. Pour conserver ce qui lui tient le plus à cœur : sa liberté.

Mais quand on demande à Justin Frankel ce qu’il pense d’un autre géant de la « net-économie », Google, tout change. Voilà une entreprise selon son cœur. Une entreprise qui innove vraiment, où chacun peut créer à sa guise les outils dont on a tous rêvés. Chercher sur le Net, avoir une messagerie vraiment « friendly » avec une grande capacité de stockage, développer des blog (avec blogger.com notamment), inventer un moteur de recherche pour disque dur. Quant on lui rétorque qu’il y peut-être là une stratégie délibérée d’entreprise, il rigole doucement. Le rire de celui qui a compris ce que doit être une entreprise innovante, qui prend des risques. L’IPO ? « Il fallait bien que les investisseurs de départ reprennent leurs billes. C’est le jeu ici, et il est connu et accepté par tous dès le départ. Le reste, c’est de la mise en scène». Ce n’est pas pour cela que la philosophie de départ n’est plus là. Tiens… Il va peut-être falloir jeter un œil nouveau sur Google.

Un inventeur de génie insatiable.

Après avoir inventé Winamp à 18 ans et Gnutella à 22 ans, qui pourrait croire que notre génie est fatigué ? Le Mozart du code n’a pas fini de créer… Frankel travaille dans un garage de San Francisco. Comme dans la légende. Un vrai garage, avec pont élévateur, fosse de vidange, voitures démontées, outils épars. On l’a visité de fond en comble. Quelques Audi (dont une superbe RS4 au moteur éventré…), un vieux Mini Van VW, souvenir de la période hippie des parents, des Porsche (une flambant neuve, mais les autres plutôt de seconde ou troisième main…), une scène avec batteries, claviers et guitares, des écrans plats, une salle de jeux vidéo, et partout, des ordinateurs. Au centre, un lama en métal grandeur nature, souvenir de Nullsoft et de Winamp dont il est l’emblème. Des photos de filles au mur. Ca sent l’huile. Et ça bosse. Parce que Frankel est d’abord et avant tout un créateur et un bosseur. Christophe Thibault, son acolyte français aujourd’hui chez Yahoo ! parle avec une certaine émotion de « la beauté des codes de Justin ». On veut bien le croire….

Aujourd’hui, Frankel travaille en solo, avec quelques copains (dont Christophe Thibault), à son nouveau projet : Jesusonic (www.jesusonic.com). Il annonce sans naïveté : « j’avais envie d’un clavier programmable pour ma guitare. Je n’en ai pas trouvé dans le commerce. Alors je l’ai construit. J’ai terminé le software, et nous allons bientôt finir le hardware ». Et comme tout ses projets, Justin va les partager. Si cela se vend, comme ce fut le cas avec Winamp, c’est bien. Sinon, comme pour Gnutella, c’est bien aussi. Le but n’est pas de faire du business, mais de créer des trucs cool (« cool stuff »), dont on a besoin pour écouter ou faire de la musique, la passion de Frankel. Et, ce qu’on ne trouve pas, on l’invente et on le fabrique…Et ensuite on le partage. Quant on vous dit que cet homme est un pur…

Et quand on parle du Peer to Peer avec Frankel, des procès en cours, de l’illégalité des échanges de fichiers, que répond l’inventeur de Gnutella ? Qu’il achète énormément de CD, que la qualité des disques en téléchargement est très insuffisante, qu’il est indispensable que les artistes gagnent leur vie. Un légaliste, qui a crée les outils de la discorde…Aurions-nous rencontré Robin des Bois ? Il pense que le modèle de distribution par les majors n’est plus le bon, et qu’il faut trouver des formes alternatives. Les licences Creative Commons par exemple. Et les concerts…Quant à l’échange de fichiers : il lui prédit encore un très bel avenir. Il considère BitTorrent comme un outil formidable, et pense que d’ici peu il sera possible de rendre totalement anonyme le téléchargement. C’est la brique qui manque encore au système pour faire complètement sortir du jeu les majors, qui ne trouvent décidément plus grâce aux yeux de personne ici…

Justin Frankel est atterré par la victoire de George W Bush. Comme beaucoup de ceux qui en ont les moyens sur la côte est et sur la côte ouest (régions ayant massivement votées pour John Kerry), il a pensé une seconde à quitter le pays. « Mais si tous les gens qui peuvent partir s’en vont, alors qui va garder la maison, et tout faire pour modifier le cours des choses, de l’intérieur » ? Oui, décidément, il y a du Robin des Bois chez ce génie du Software. Dans la jungle de la Silicon Valley, cela fait du bien de rencontrer un vrai pur…Vous n’y croyez pas ? Pourtant, je vous assure, je l’ai rencontré autour d’un superbe sandwiche Monte Cristo.

Merci Monsieur Frankel de cette belle leçon de simplicité, de créativité et d’optimisme. Oui, le software et l’open source ont encore de très beaux moments à vivre. C’est peut-être même le début d’une nouvelle ère qui s’annonce. Enfin… En ce sens, vous êtes bien toujours le « geek » le plus dangereux au monde, et de loin. D’autant qu’aujourd’hui, plus personne ne peut vous acheter.

Motorola fait l’acquisition de MeshNetworks

Motorola va procéder à l'acquisition de MeshNetworks pour un montant non communiqué. MeshNetworks développe des solutions permettant de renforcer rapidement et à moindre coût la densité de réseaux de communication sans fil. La technologie de MeshNetworks permet notamment l'établissement de liaisons pair-à-pair entre utilisateurs pour que l'un d'entre eux, en zone de couverture d'un réseau, fasse office de point d'accès pour les autres.
Motorola achète des licences à MeshNetworks et distribue ses produits. L'équipementier investit en outre dans MeshNetworks par le biais de sa filiale d'investissement Motorola Ventures.
L'opération devrait être finalisée d'ici la fin de l'année.

P2P File Sharing on Mobile

Newbay Software have launched FoneShare, "the world's first mobile content sharing application".

Hey!! Napster for phones - about time, you think. Or rather, are meant to think.

But actually, it appears to be an online portal where you can buy content and then see what ringtones, logo's, wallpaper etc that your mates have purchased and then buy them yourself. A kind of iTunes for mobiles, with the added feature of being able to copy your friend's taste - or avoid having the same taste, I suppose.

It's targeted at the mobile operators and guess what? It enables them to:

increase mobile content sales, reduce marketing costs, increase ARPU and decrease subscriber churn.

I wonder how many times operators heard that line before?

True free file sharing (as in Kazaa, eDonkey etc) for mobiles is just round the corner. It's as inevitable the Pope being Catholic. The interesting thing will be whether the leading music file sharing sites will jump in, or if we'll have new dedicated players.

Which unfortunately will leave FoneShare with a rather doomed business model.

Sony Ericsson position paper - Mobile Web Initiative Workshop

Our experience of the mobile Web is that few actually use it. Despite operator portals easily available from dedicated hard-keys (the 'operator key'), most users are reluctant to go online and browse the Web.

One problem is the lack of high-quality mobile Web sites. Although mobile phones is no longer a small minority on the Internet, the mobile version of most Web sites today is often just a dumbed down version of the 'real site'. Automatic content adaption (eg, use of UAPROF) is rarely implemented. As a result, there is little useful content on the mobile Web.

The lack of useful mobile Web sites is the primary reason why technologies that fit large Web pages onto small screens (with some clever layout strategy) are popular - something is better than nothing. New mobile Web browsers are 'bug-compatible' with de facto standards ('street HTML') and let users view the same Web pages they can on their PC. So far this has been possible mostly in the high-end segments (ie, Smartphones and PDAs), but the trend is coming to mid and low segments as well. Soon it will be possible from all phones.

In 2006 we expect most phones to have a mobile Web browser that is able to render almost any Web page on the Internet. WAP is history and, from a technology point of view, the mobile Web has converged with the de facto Internet standards.

But although the technologies converge, the mobile Web remains different because of different user experience (screen sizes, interaction models, etc.), different use cases.

Web 'browsing' is not the key use case
More fundamental than the lack of mobile Web sites is that Web browsing - the act of navigating HTML pages and following links - simply is not a successful use case on mobile phones.

In most regions, messaging (text and picture) and gaming are the key services that drive mobile data. The fraction of 'portal users' is typically much less than 10% of all users. The lack of high-quality mobile Web pages cannot alone explain why browsing has failed to become successful. Probably many other factors such that users are in different context and have different goals compared with when using a PC from home or from the office. Also, constraints such as screen size and interaction methods, also explain why Web browsing is so inconvenient that most users avoid it completely.

New mobile Web browsers render Web sites designed for PCs in 'smart way' on a mobile phone. This will make mobile browsing more popular. But we do not think this is the final solution to the mobile Web.

There is a concern that users will be as disappointed with a 176x220 version of their favourite Web site, rendered in a 'smart way' with all frames stacked on top of each other (some stuff removed), that takes several minutes to download over a 3G network and offers poor usability, as they were with with WAP in 1998. Of course, some users like this, especially those that have tried WAP, and now finally can do what they thought they would be able to do in 1998. The majority of users will be confused when they try to view a 1024x768 page on a 176x220 screen, regardless of how smart the smart rendering is. The Web usability that the PC-user experience, does not make itself available to the mobile user. And usability is critical for mobile services.

High-quality mobile Web sites are rare. Smart rendering of 'real' Web sites will make mobile browsing more popular but the smart rendering is unable to reproduce the usability that the PC-user experience. Despite significant progress in this field, 'browsing' from a mobile phone still remains an uncertain case.

Mobile Web use cases #1: applications
Getting users online is critical to operators and content providers. Otherwise users will not download content or use online services - online users spend more money than others. If browsing is not the key use case for getting users online - what is?

There are many ways of using the Web, in addition to browsing. Here are some examples of use cases, within two major trends.

Music - In the next few years, music-phones will be as common as camera-phones are today. Music distribution services targeted at mobile phones will increase. The mobile Web can become an important platform for building over-the-air music download services, as well as various services for spreading information about new music.
Over-the-air download
Personal radio (streaming)
Imaging - In 2005 virtually all phones have a camera, including cheap low-end phones which do not have so much memory. We also see a rise in the number of photo services on the Internet, where users can upload pictures to share with friends or order prints. These two things taken together - low-end phones with camera but small memory and the rise of online photo services - suggests there will be a need for mobile photo services.
Photo services
Photo album
The above cases have in common that the Web is viewed as an application-oriented platform instead of a document-oriented information network. The Sony Ericsson PlayNow(tm) music download service, for example, is a Web-based application, the user is unaware of the fact that the user interface is Web pages. We expect the Web to be used as a platform for similar, but more advanced, applications in the future.

To think in terms of 'applications' instead of 'documents' is nothing new. Already WML was heading in this direction. But the problem with WML, and XHTML/WCSS that came after, is that they are text-based formats. Today mobile phone user interfaces have evolved far beyond text towards advanced graphics. Users expect Web applications to have a similar look and feel. This is why Sony Ericsson supports SVG Tiny 1.1 in most phones since the K700i and supports the new W3C working group on Compound Document Formats (CDF) that we believe will enable a new kind of mobile Web applications. We expect more animations and multimedia being integrated into mobile Web portals, and the combination of all Web technologies (SVG, SMIL, XHTML, CSS, and ECMAScript) is the key to a standard solution for Web applications.

Mobile Web use cases #2: information updates
To further address the issue of how to get users online, and their reluctance to browse the Web in the traditional meaning, we look at another major trend.

Push services are on the rise on the Internet, based on the de facto standard RSS. We believe that RSS has a great potential in mobile phones, as a technology to automatically provide updated content to users - accessing the Web without browsing.

Standardization activities
Between 1996 and 1999 the mobile Web was based on its own standards (eg, WML and cHTML). Since 2000 it has moved towards W3C standards such as XHTML, CSS, and SVG. Today, XHTML is widely adopted on the mobile Web; In 2005 we expect most mobile phones to support SVG Tiny. Today we have reached a point where the mobile Web is based on the same technologies as the Web, and even goes beyond the Web with wider support for XHTML and SVG.

Standardization has mainly worked so that the core technology has been developed by the W3C (XHTML, SMIL, SVG, CSS), then 'mobile profiles' have been developed in the OMA (XHTML Mobile Profile, Wireless CSS) and 3GPP (SMIL/MMS), and sometimes by subgroups in the W3C (SVG Tiny). In some cases it is a problem that the profiles are too many and developed by separate groups in different organizations.

Sony Ericsson welcomes a mobile Web initiative in the W3C and hopes that it will take of the following things:

Manage the development of 'mobile profiles' of W3C Recommendations.
From W3C's side, manage the coordination with OMA and other mobile standardization organizations.
Help the new CDF working group to develop something that can be used as the basis for mobile multimedia applications.
The relation to Device Independance must be clarified.

And finally we believe that a mobile Web initiaive in the W3C will establish mobile phones as first class citizens of the Web, which is what they are.

The Selling of Cell Phone TV

Qualcomm and Texas Instruments have unveiled two competing schemes for delivering video to cell phones that bypass 3G. Is the market big enough to get them off the ground?

Recent signs of trouble in the large-screen TV business suggest that there might be market-driven limits to how big a television set can be. Yet might there also be minimum size limits? Judging from two recent announcements on mobile video delivery, we’re likely to find out soon. First, Texas Instruments said that it plans to introduce a chip called Hollywood that will decode and display digital TV receptions using new mobile versions of digital television broadcast standards. TI claims that Hollywood-equipped cell phones, which should arrive in 2007, will be capable of displaying video at digital TV resolutions.

Then Qualcomm disclosed that it was spending $800 million to create a nationwide network called MediaFLO that should go online by 2006. MediaFLO will use new wireless frequencies bought last year by Qualcomm to deliver video and other multimedia content to mobile devices.

Both the Qualcomm and Texas Instruments technologies make it possible to offload video delivery from new third generation cellular networks and place it on dedicated video delivery networks. Considering that a big part of the 3G hype was the technology’s ability to deliver video, this development is a bit ironic, to say to least. It’s true that video of a sort has recently arrived on 3G. For the last few months, Sprint PCS Vision Multimedia Services has been offering as many as 600 video clips a day to PCS subscribers who own a special Samsung phone. In October, AT&T Wireless (now part of Cingular) formally launched its own multimedia service, which is based on the same wireless broadcast network used by Sprint: Idetic’s MobiTV. The drawback is that at best, the frame rate is six to 10 frames per second; users with older phones see one-frame-per-second video, which is more like a slide show. Generally, 10 to 15 frames-per-second rates are considered to be the lower limits necessary to create an acceptable illusion of motion, and the Qualcomm and TI technologies promise to offer 24 to 30 frames per second--the latter being the standard used by TV broadcasts.

A number of technological trends should get streaming cellular video up into double-digit frame rates within a few years. First, new video chips from Qualcomm and others have arrived this year that support the H.264 video format, which is designed to get the most out of lower bandwidth networks. Also, 3G speeds should gradually rise in the coming years to boost frame rates and overall quality. Yet the next-generation 4G technology and handsets that could deliver 30 frames-per-second video at digital TV-quality resolutions may be 10 to 20 years away. This is why Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and other companies decided to create parallel broadcast networks.

TI’s Hollywood chip combines three TV chips into one and promises 24 to 30 frames per second playback of live video. It supports two emerging digital TV standards for mobile devices: DVB-H (a European-based standard now under trial that was developed by a consortium called the Digital Video Broadcasting Project) and a rival Japanese format called ISDB-T (Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting–Terrestrial). Expected to be available by 2007, both formats use various techniques to reduce battery consumption compared to standard digital broadcasting technologies. For example, DVB-H (the H is for “handheld”), which was finalized earlier this year, temporarily shuts off tuner chips between broadcast bursts—a technique known as “time slicing.”

Of the two formats, DVB-H seems to have more momentum in the United States. In October, Nokia and cell-tower operator Crown Castle announced they had begun trials of the technology in Pittsburgh. The DVB-H broadcasting equipment could operate either in conjunction with TV broadcasters’ standard digital broadcasting equipment or be run by cellular providers as a separate service from their 3G networks.

The Qualcomm MediaFLO network is based on its FLO (forward link only) multicasting technology rather than digital broadcasting, and it will also accommodate the delivery of streaming content over 3G networks. FLO transmits in the 700-megahertz spectrum (UHF channel 55) and requires 30 to 50 times fewer towers than a cellular network. On the handset side, Qualcomm will announce a client chip for FLO in the coming year, promising playback at up to 30 frames per second.

The MediaFLO network, which will be developed and operated by a Qualcomm subsidiary called MediaFLO USA, is based on a “push” multicasting paradigm in which battery consumption is reduced by downloading video only during certain periods when the phone is not in use. With enough storage on the phone, users could interactively access an accumulation of content. The technology would also be able to integrate live broadcasting along with canned “clipcasting” content.

According to Rob Chandhok, vice president of engineering at Qualcomm, storage costs would not add significantly to handsets. “The thing that is dropping in price the fastest on handsets is memory,” he says. More important, says Chandhok, is the issue of battery life, a key reason why Qualcomm decided not to embrace the more ambitious DVB-H. “We’re going to be significantly better than DVB-H in terms of power savings,” he says.

Both the Qualcomm and Texas Instruments technologies would permit synchronization with 3G data services running simultaneously on the cell phone to enable a miniature version of interactive TV. For example, cellular providers might pop up an interactive data window over a TV advertisement, letting users instantly purchase the product over the Web. Cellular providers may well support at least one of these new mobile digital video delivery technologies because they solve the bandwidth (and therefore, quality) limitations of cellular 3G services by simply bypassing them.

Yet, TI’s projection that 70 percent of new phones will have digital TV capability within three years seems optimistic. First, having several competing standards is rarely promising for a fast take-off, and other contenders may emerge as well. Then there’s the phone itself to consider: even if the cost of the TV chips is comparable to the expense of adding a camera, an MP3 player or Wi-Fi, all these capabilities add weight, cost, heat, and complexity while reducing battery life. There are still limits to the amount of circuitry that can be shared among these functions, and while memory prices are dropping, video is very demanding of storage. All of this adds up to a high-priced, short-battery life phone. Then, of course, users have to pay for the monthly TV charge (Sprint charges $10 for MobiTV).

While cellular providers are keen on adding services to boost their bottom lines, there are only so many directions that they and their customers can afford to move at once. All the competing applications—photography, music, games, data access—seem to be a better fit than TV is for the mobile realm. Cell phone users may occasionally find short periods of time to watch the tubelet, but the mobile experience—still being primarily a professional one—seems more oriented toward on-demand clips than TV channel surfing. Few people have time to watch TV while on the move, and TVs have become so ubiquitous in public spaces that one of the hottest selling gadgets of late is a rogue device that turns off nearby TVs. By 2006, the rare moments that cell phone users will be inclined to watch video will also be the times that their Wi-Fi-enabled phones will be in range of a high-bandwidth Wi-Fi access point. And they may also be able to download the videos for later viewing when they’re back in 3G territory.

In short, don’t be fooled by the mobile hype—cell phone users may move around a lot, but at the end of the day they still veg out at home or in a hotel room watching a nice big TV (or big laptop monitor). Which brings us back to the size question. Two-inch handheld TVs have gotten dramatically better in recent years, and the digital technology from Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and others is likely to be even better. Yet, even if the resolution and frame rate improve, size matters in the TV illusion. At two inches, details are still difficult to make out, and it’s a hassle to have to sit and hold your TV in your hand. Even with a 3-inch screen (about the biggest that’s feasible on a phone), people will watch it when the need arises, but it’s less likely they’ll be hypnotized. That may be good for our souls, but not so good for the TV business.

SFR Music Store en décembre

Premier opérateur à investir l'UMTS grand public, SFR présentait mercredi en détail ses offres et services de téléphonie de troisième génération (3G). Dès le mois de décembre, le deuxième opérateur ouvrira ainsi à ses abonnés SFR Music, une boutique de musique en ligne mobile. Concrètement, 50 000 titres seront disponibles au téléchargement, issus de deux majors du disque - dont, évidemment, Universal Music, qui appartient au même groupe que SFR. Les chansons seront téléchargeables directement depuis le combiné, à environ 2€ l'unité (ou 1,5€ dans un pack de 10). À l'utilisateur de choisir, pour le même prix, s'il veut disposer d'une version mobile uniquement, ou pouvant être transférée sur ordinateur. Encodés en AACplus, mais protégés par un système de gestion de droit propre à SFR, les titres seront gravables cinq fois au maximum. Impossible, en revanche, de les lire sur un iPod ou tout autre baladeur.


Pour l'heure, seul le Nokia 6630, l'un des huit combinés 3G de l'offre SFR, est compatible avec ce service. Il autorise par défaut le stockage de 64Mo de musique (soit plus de quatre heures de lecture), extensible par carte flash. Assez agréable à l'usage, l'interface permet de procéder à des classements par liste de lecture. Au final, en dépit d'une prix élevé et d'un catalogue restreint, bien que centré sur les plus grosses nouveautés, SFR espère que sa boutique musicale connaîtra le même succès que son service de téléchargement de sonnerie. Aux États-Unis, sur le même modèle, Apple a signé un accord avec Motorola pour porter iTunes Music Store sur les téléphones portables du numéro deux mondial.

Skype ready for both telephone worlds

An adapter made by Siemens to extend Internet access to cordless phones is now loaded with Skype Net phone software, allowing the same phone to make calls using the Internet or the traditional phone network.
The coupling of Internet and traditional telephony in a single phone is hard to find now, but it could become more common in years to come if, as expected, more calls flow over the unregulated Internet rather than heavily taxed traditional phone networks.
For decades, the only way to sell local phone services was over the local phone network, which is privately owned. But Skype is among a wave of new companies offering voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, which uses the Internet to make calls. By using VoIP technology, any broadband connection, whether cable, satellite, cell phone, Wi-Fi or WiMax, can become a home phone line.
While there are several jury-rigged methods out there that could achieve the same results, the Siemens-Skype adapter stands out nonetheless because of the pedigree of those involved in its creation. Siemens is among the largest phone manufacturers in the world, and Skype is the most popular VoIP service provider in the world, with more than 1 million users.
'Siemens is delivering a giant step forward for Internet telephony for the residential market,' Niklas Zennstrom, Skype's chief executive, said in a statement.
As with most other Internet phone service providers, Skype is also trying to be compatible with as many Internet-enabled devices as possible. VoIP started on PCs, which aren't always well-suited for phone calling. Personal digital assistants and cell phones are a new favorite target of many VoIP providers. Zennstrom said he believes Sk"

All combined

Crunkie that will combine social networking, blogging and tracking friends on wireless phones. Think Friendster meets Blogger meets AOL buddy lists meets mapping--all baked into mobile phones--and you get the idea.

Calling All Web Search - Mobile phone search

If the Internet is ever going to be a truly global resource, then we should be able to search for whatever we want, whenever we want, from wherever we want.

Getting The Price Right
Search Engines Go Local
The Invisible Web - David Whelan
Mass Intelligence
Google Me Not

Sure, you can pull up a Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) or Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) search on a BlackBerry or some other wireless PDA, but not everyone carries one. Most people now carry some kind of cell phone, however, and many of them are ready for Internet access and text messaging.

So a great deal of attention is now being paid to search technologies for mobile phones. Yahoo! is pushing search features to phones, including the ability to search for images via a Web-like interface. Google recently launched a version of its local search service that lets users send queries via phone. Send a message like "pizza 10028" to Google's text messaging address, and you get responses containing the names, addresses and phone numbers of pizza restaurants in upper Manhattan.

Tony Philipp is unimpressed with Google's text message search and thinks he can do it better. He's co-founder and chief executive of UpSnap, a San Francisco-based startup that has built a search engine from the ground up with so-called short message service (SMS) searches in mind.

For starters, UpSnap isn't just limited to ZIP codes. If you are waiting at an airport for a ride, you can send a text message to UpSnap with "taxi" and the three-letter code for your airport, and you'll get a response in less than a minute. UpSnap also lets users search from its Web site and then send the results to a phone so they will have access to the information later. As with the traditional Web search business, advertisers will pay for prominent placement within those results, Philipp says.

On Nov. 4, UpSnap announced a deal with LookSmart (nasdaq: LOOK - news - people ), the Web site that specializes in paid search results. Under the deal, LookSmart's customers -- advertisers that pay to have their information included in search results -- will get their information included in UpSnap's results. Terms for the deal with LookSmart, which had 2003 sales of $156 million, were not disclosed.

Along with the search results, UpSnap can also deliver an advertisement or coupon, or an offer for the merchant to call users if they want to be called right away. UpSnap charges advertisers on a "per action" basis that depends on what the wireless user actually does.

Philipp sees it as one way for consumers to get around the fees the telephone companies charge for dialing 411. "You can either shell out $1.50 for a voice call or send a free message," he says.

Well, not entirely free. Short message services are one of the many things that wireless carriers want to push to boost usage of their wireless data networks -- and their revenue. Users pay nothing for the search itself, but a small charge for the connection. Some carriers bill by the message, which can be as low as 5 or 10 cents to send a message, 2 cents to receive one. Most offer all-you-can-eat flat rates, such as Verizon Wireless, which offers a plan that includes 1,000 text messages for $10 a month.

UpSnap is just one of many companies seeking to build a business around short message service search. Other names cropping up in the nascent space include Synfonic, a Berkeley, Calif.-based startup, and Smarter.com, a comparison-shopping site with a feature that lets consumers send the part number of a product and get prices from online vendors sent to their phone, giving them a leg up while shopping in retail stores.

Then there's searching based on a mobile phone's location. Many phones, particularly those using the technology behind networks such as Sprint PCS (nyse: FON - news - people ) and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon Communications (nyse: VZ - news - people ) and Vodafone (nyse: VOD - news - people ), are increasingly likely to support the Global Positioning System and so can communicate their location precisely.

Bell Canada's (nyse: BCE - news - people ) Bell Mobility offers a popular service called MapMe that allows its customers to search for businesses near their location. Need a Chinese restaurant within four blocks? Call up a map on the phone's screen and see your options highlighted. Pointing the cursor to choices on the map turns up directions (from the caller's current location), a phone number and an address.

The service was developed by WaveMarket, an Emeryville, Calif.-based company backed by the venture capital arms of Nokia (nyse: NOK - news - people ), Intel (nyse: INTC - news - people ) and British Telecom (nyse: BT - news - people ), among others. WaveMarket CEO Tasso Roumeliotis says MapMe is one of the most popular software downloads for Bell Mobility customers. "The idea of searching by SMS to me is horrific," he says.

For its next trick, WaveMarket is introducing a service called Crunkie that will combine social networking, blogging and tracking friends on wireless phones. Think Friendster meets Blogger meets AOL buddy lists meets mapping--all baked into mobile phones--and you get the idea. Roumeliotis says a major North American wireless carrier is expected to announce a deal to deploy Crunkie on its network before the end of November.

These so-called location-based services have been hyped before, but the ideas behind them were pretty tame. One classically bad idea was essentially wireless spam: Walk by a store and get coupon for a special e-mailed to your phone. Bad enough, but the service providers couldn't even figure out how to charge for it.

Now they can. "Now we see micro-billing on a per-incident [basis] for a relatively low cost," says Lance Wilson, director of wireless research at ABI Research, based in Oyster Bay, N.Y. "And the amounts charged for these services are small enough that people can make an instant decision whether they want to use them or not."

It may still be hard envisioning how much money these services can generate, but there are precedents for seemingly innocuous ideas turning into cash cows, Wilson says. "If I had told you a few years back that ring tones would be a $1 billion business by now, you'd have thought I was certifiable."

The Shape of Camera-Phones to Come

With forecasters predicting sales of 280 million units in 2005, the camera-phone has rocketed to the top echelon of personal electronics, earning the fastest acceptance of any consumer device in history.

However, this meteoric growth tends to obscure the fact that camera-phones are a very recent development, having first appeared in 2000 in Japan only, and emerged on the global scene a scant two years ago. "These devices are still in their infancy," says Future Image President Alexis Gerard. "It's a state of development comparable to where personal computers were in 1984 -- before the Macintosh or Windows."

Last month at the sold-out Mobile Imaging Summit executive conference, 140 invited senior executives from more than 10 countries in North America, Europe and Asia peered into their crystal ball to discuss and define the future of the camera-phone. The Summit -- whose third edition was held in Monterey, CA, on October 28-29 -- presents a unique venue for this exercise, as the only conference to gather senior executives from the three key industries -- Imaging, Telecommunications, and Information Technology -- whose convergence defines the mobile imaging space.

Executives in attendance were asked to evaluate five distinct and complementary evolutionary paths for the imaging functionality of wireless phones and other personal data devices. In each case, they were asked to opine whether that functionality is essentially here today, will be delivered in one year, delivered in three years, or never make it to market for either technical or customer-acceptance reasons. In some cases the attendees expressed remarkably similar views, while in others the different industries had notably dissimilar outlooks.

The first evolutionary path was defined as "The Ubiquitous Camera." When a camera is embedded in most people's cell phone, they will in effect have it with them at all times, unlike traditional cameras (film or digital), which are only taken off the shelf in preparation for a picture-taking occasion (a vacation, a child's birthday, or some other special event). Having evaluated the performance of the one-megapixel camera-phones provided at the event by Nokia, and considering the recent introduction in Asia of three- and five-megapixel units, the majority of Summit attendees -- 65% -- declared the Ubiquitous Camera to be real today, an opinion shared broadly across all three industries represented. However, considering the weaknesses of today's camera-phones compared to "pure" cameras (including the absence of lens cover, the limitations of current optical zoom lenses and flash components on phones, and the difficulty in many cases of transferring images to a personal computer) significant minorities -- 16 and 19 percent, respectively -- opted for the more conservative one-year and three-year timeframes.

Overall sentiment was somewhat less bullish with respect to "The Wireless Camera," a device that offloads the photos it takes directly to a storage location or recipient, effectively eliminating (or at least reducing) the need for storage cards or other portable media. While only a very small minority -- two percent -- deemed this unlikely to ever materialize, most attendees somewhat cautiously forecast the capability for either one year (33%) or three years (39%) down the road. However, a significant minority of 26% declared it "here today," reflecting a difference of perception between the telecomm attendees, among which 56% of respondents expressed that opinion, and the photo-imaging attendees, 75% of whom were in the one- and three-year camp.

The third evolutionary path was defined as "The Media Phone," a device that receives and displays high-quality still and video images (news, sports clips, maps and directions, and more). Here too, respondents from the telecommunications industry were most optimistic, with the majority of them declaring the capability "here today," while photo imaging respondents were evenly split between today, one year, and three years. Computer industry respondents were primarily in the one-year and three-year camp. Overall, 37% of attendees voted for "here today," 33% voted for "one year," and 30% voted for "three years."

Next was "The Visual Analyzer," a camera-phone that interprets patterns within an image -- either in the device itself or by calling on a remote server. Examples include taking a picture of a bar code on a product and initiating a transaction to purchase it, or reading an iris or thumbprint and passing on the results to request a security clearance. The majority of attendees -- 65%, spread fairly evenly across all three industry sectors -- were clearly in the three-year camp. Twenty-five percent of respondents believed one year will be sufficient to attain this level of performance, while small minorities -- seven percent and three percent, respectively -- believed that it is here today, or that it will never happen.

The most varied range of opinions was expressed with respect to "The Visual Phone," a device which sends and receives both voice and images -- videoconference, real-time transmission of images, or both -- such that language and visuals are both fully utilized to deliver the most effective person-to-person communication. The majority of respondents -- 56 percent -- believe this capability will be available within three years. Significant minorities of 13 percent and 17 percent, respectively, believe it is here today or will be within a year, and another significant minority of 14 percent believe the Visual Phone to be an unrealistic vision.

Other sessions at the Mobile Imaging Summit covered the evolution of hardware and software components and enabling technologies, the outlook for network infrastructures, opportunities in service printing and self printing of camera-phone images, a venture capital roundtable, opportunities in delivery of commercial content to camera-phones, and a showcase of emerging technologies

Le cheval de Troie Delf-HA spamme les téléphones portables par SMS

Les experts de la société Sophos, spécialiste de la sécurité sur Internet notamment, ont signalé l’apparition d’un nouveau cheval de Troie qui tente d’émettre des messages de spam à destination des utilisateurs de téléphones mobiles.

Le Troyen Delf-HA (Troj/Delf-HA) infecte l’ordinateur, puis contacte automatiquement un site Web russe pour y télécharger des instructions sur la campagne de spam à lancer. Il peut alors submerger les propriétaires de téléphones mobiles de messages SMS non sollicités. Ces messages sont envoyés par Delf-HA en utilisant la fonction "Envoyer un message texte" proposée sur les sites Web de certains opérateurs de réseaux de téléphonie mobile russes.

Le phénomène est particulièrement inquiétant. Non seulement les utilisateurs risquent de se voir submergés de messages indésirables - qu'ils perdront du temps à lire et supprimer - mais en plus ils risquent d'y perdre de l'argent : rappelons que les utilisateurs paient les communications et les messages qu'ils reçoivent de l'étranger.

"On a déjà vu dans le passé des campagnes de spam par SMS destinées à convaincre le destinataire d’appeler un numéro fortement surtaxé ou de s’abonner à un service de 'chat'. Les spammeurs par SMS imitent désormais leurs confrères agissant via e-mail en exploitant des ordinateurs non protégés pour transmettre leurs messages indésirables", a précisé Annie Gay, Directeur Général de Sophos France.

Jusqu'à présent, il n'a été observé que quelques occurrences de ce cheval de Troie. Mais il semblerait que les utilisateurs de téléphones portables ne soient pas au bout de leurs peines. En février dernier, nous citions dans la Lettre de l'Atelier une étude de la société britannique Empower Interactive : selon celle-ci, 65 % des propriétaires de téléphones portables en Europe déclarent recevoir jusqu’à cinq SMS non sollicités par semaine.

Avec le temps, les choses iront de mal en pis : selon la même société, le phénomène devrait nettement s’accélérer ces prochaines années. Sauf que dans le cas du spam par SMS, les usagers sont beaucoup moins tolérants que pour le spam par e-mail. Déjà, au Royaume-Uni, plus de 10.000 plaintes pour spam avaient été recueillies, en février, par l’autorité britannique compétente dans le domaine de la communication, l’Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services.

Smart Mobs: Technologies of Cooperation: Simple, General Principles?

Can y'all help me come up with a list of simple, general principles that enable technologies of cooperation to work? The Web, distributed computing, mesh networks, open source production, blogs, wikis, the lazy web, all enable individuals to act in their own self-interest in ways that add up to a public good that benefits all. I've been attempting to inductively develop a list of simple, general principles. Here's what I have so far. Suggestions? Critiques? Digressions? Comments welcome!

A powerful cooperation tool is:

Simple: HTML, blogs, wikis are all simple enough to be used right away, by a large population – this stimulates frequent use and makes it easier to achieve a critical mass of users quickly.

Linkable: It connects individual efforts to an aggregate whole available to everybody. Putting up a web page with links to others, multiplied by millions of users, adds up to the web.

Open: Tim Berners-Lee did not have to ask for permission or rewire the Internet to disseminate the Web. Open source production is powerful because the source code is available to anyone, and anyone who has a contribution to make can tinker.

Is a lever for self interest: No individual thinks "I am helping Google engineer better searches," rather, each is simply trying to choose the best and most appropriate link for a web page. Google's PageRank algorithm is based on the emergent collective intelligence of many people's links.

Self-teaching through imitation: Most of the early web was built quickly by people who used "view source" built into the structure of the web to inspect and copy other people's work. Wiki syntax becomes visible when editing a wiki page.

Searching for Moblog Images

Here's something we haven't seen before. Moblog image searching.

What's a moblog? Take the word "mobile" and "weblog" and you have moblog. They're defined by a moblog hosting service as a place on the web where you, "can post pictures, video & text from your camera phone direct to web instantly."

Search Engine Journal tells us the IceRocket, a new web engine we've blogged about a couple of times, now allows you to search for images posted on these "mobile" weblogs. The service is also available on Blog Search Engine (another site from Loren at SEJ). The images themselves come from people and groups (community moblogs) who use the Textamerica service.