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I’ve just stumbled across a really interesting article on the BBC News Technology site, which looks at how mobile technology is touching almost every aspect of the non-profit world in developing countries. Mobile phones and mobile services are facilitating human health care, nature and wildlife conservation, research and education.

The article really shows how developments in mobile technology are making a real difference to a lot of people’s lives in developing countries. And it’s really impressive to discover that the mobile phones which are being used to facilitate all of these new improvements are in fact around 7 years old - with text messaging being the only real way that people can communicate with each other - there are no data services of any kind.

Although many of us would have not considered it before, people in developing countries (even those living off just a couple of dollars or so a day) now have access to a mobile phone. Today, in Sub-Saharan Africa for example, 30% of the population own a mobile, equating to in excess of 300 million people and many more have access via the phones of their family and friends, shared phones or village phones.

This huge growth has mainly been a result of the successful recycling market and the development of cheap ‘$20′ phones. It is also part due to the efforts of forward-thinking mobile manufacturers, who have spent an increasing amount of time to understand what people living in these areas might want from a phone. The example given in the article to have emerged from this user-centric design focus are mobiles with flashlights, which assist people whose electricity supplies may not be very reliable.

Local entrepreneurs who have learnt how to fix mobile phones have set up their own services doing so, and have created a mini industry devoted to prolonging the lives of mobile phones.

All of these factors together have resulted in more phones being owned by more and more people, and working for longer. Which has meant that certain mobile services have been able to be put into place, making people’s lives easier and transforming development work.

Mobile phones are today providing a direct line of communication to farmers, doctors, patients, nurses, teachers and youth, and anyone else the non-profit community might seek to engage. Patients are being sent reminders to take their medicine, market prices are being sent to farmers, citizens are helped to help monitor elections, and activists are enabled to report human rights abuses.

A lesson to be learned for all of us lot then - when you inevitably upgrade your phone for the new iPhone GPS (or another latest smart phone) - don’t throw your old one away, recycle it. For the full article, visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7502474.stm

It’s only been available for one weekend but already 1 million new iPhone’s have been sold. And, although the queues were not as long as those of the original release, figures show that despite this, the sales of iPhones were much quicker this time round (it took 74 days to sell the first 1 million original iPhones).

So, what a great start for the iPhone 3G. Especially considering that the new iPhone owners have already downloaded 10 million iPhone applications - which is even more impressive when you consider that there were only around 500 applications available at launch. These figures once again reinforce the belief that users don’t see the iPhone as just another phone - it is another whole platform.

What do you think of the iPhone 3G and the available apps? Let us know…

Nokia has bought Plazes for an undisclosed amount. Plazes is a German location-aware social network site,  which basically lets users know where their friends are.

As discussed at mashup*’s Being Digital last week, location is a really hot topic right now, with everyone in the industry having a go at creating a location/mobile/social network mashup (although most do seem to be getting it all wrong!) and this will no doubt increase even further with the iPhone 3G. Predictions can easily be made that whoever is able to master this and create a useful service with an easy to use interface - and most importantly, of course, monetises this - is going to reap in the rewards. Nokia’s acquisition shows that they too are on the path to creating a location-aware service.

While many users are looking forward to use location based services, it appears that many aren’t keen to expose their location and trade in their privacy, and this will inevitably raise concerns for the success of these services. Apparently, Plazes’ CEO Felix Petersen was caught somewhere else than he was supposed to be - and I’m sure many of us wouldn’t like to be put in the situation where our partner/friends/family/colleagues can see where we are all the time. Think about that sneaky ’sick’ day at work when you have tickets to an event that you can’t just can’t miss! Or when you want a quiet, relaxing night in at home, so you tell your friend that you can’t babysit because you are going out. Or when you tell your partner you have to work late, but you go out with your friends instead. (By the way, I don’t do any of these things…they are just examples…)

Whatever users think about location-aware services, they are definitely something that we are going to be hearing a lot more about over the rest of 08.

According to the BBC, sales of smart phones are predicted to overtake those of laptops within the next 18 months, “as the mobile phone completes its transition from voice communications device to multimedia computer”.

And I can’t see any reason why not, as companies like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola have finally began to convince us that the idea of having a multimedia computer in your pocket, is possible.

“Converged devices are always with you and always connected,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia chief executive at last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  Nokia predict that they will sell 35 million GPS-enabled phones this year, as personal navigation becomes the latest feature to be assimilated into the mobile phone.

Nigel Clifford, chief executive of Symbian, said: “All of those single use devices - MP3 players, digital camera, GPS - are collapsing onto the phone. We are going past the point where this was a phone with a few other things”.

For the full BBC article, visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7250465.stm

A new press release from Gartner has advised retailers not to ignore the increased consumer traffic that social networks are generating.

“Until recently, retailers considered social networks relevant only for the youth market, meaning that many have largely ignored them,” said Hung LeHong, research vice president at Gartner. “However, as social networks expand to embrace ever-wider demographic groups, retailers need to ensure that they have a position on them.”

Gartner has created a list of the top 10 things retailers should know about social networks and what action to take. Key points that I think are particularly important for retailers are:

• Social networks can be a huge source of consumer data - as with store loyalty cards, consumers are often willing to give up a little privacy in exchange for a valued service or discount.
• Retailers should focus their social network activity on content produced by members - if a social network provides corporations too many capabilities in interacting with members, there is a risk that members will leave the network. The aim should be to create a forum or application that will create value for other members while promoting the organisation’s brand.
• Social networks are coming to mobile - the ability to access social networks from mobile phones is being promoted by the wireless carriers. This could be used in really innovative ways, and the article gives the example of  offering a limited time, in-store-only promotion that could be broadcast to friends to drive more traffic to the physical store.

The article, ‘Gartner Says Social Networks Are Attracting Too Much Traffic for Retailers to Ignore: Analysts Highlight 10 Things Retailers Should Know About Social Networks, and What to Do’ can be viewed at http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=660409

A great article over at Venture Beat talking about Adobe’s plans to develop an Open Standards Flash Player for use across all digital media channels. This is a great development as by dropping certain license fees it ensures greater take up, which makes it easier to deliver brand experiences coherently across media channels. Shame there is still no news of a decent Flash player on the iPhone but I guess we can live in hope.

“Just in case you think Adobe’s Flash Player (which powers YouTube and an enormous number of other sites) isn’t ubiquitous enough, Adobe is pushing for even greater adoption from developers and designers. Through an initiative the company is calling the Open Screen Project, Adobe will lift a number of restrictions on Flash in the hopes creating even greater usage, especially on web-enabled devices.”

Read the full article here.

Yesterday, we found out that Flickr now adds video! So, it’s a multimedia sharing site, that involves both photos and videos.

You’ll need to have a Pro account for video sharing, and clips up to 150MB can be uploaded. And, as with photos, there are a number of privacy settings to take advantage of, licensing, as well as tagging and geotagging capabilities.

We think that space limitations are going to be a major problem for many users, along with the alternative of free YouTube. But, given that Flickr’s brand is a sharing site for serious amateurs, perhaps YouTube won’t hinder Flickr’s entrance into the video space too much?

Webware has reported that Flickr will be scaling up uploaded content - an appealing necessity for its existing user base. With the growing interest in quality videos from an individual user standpoint, especially on the mobile front, this could be the perfect time for Flickr to finally make its move into video.

TwitPic is a really cool service that lets you easily add photos to your Twitter stream. In its latest release it has added mobile support, a new interface design, a real-time Google map mashup, plus a couple of features that bring additional utility to Twitter and the TwitPic service, including tagging, geotagging, and RSS feeds. These help with the self-broadcasting end of the life streaming spectrum, and they also help to better organize the huge amount of content on Twitter. If only pulling an RSS feed directly from Twitter was so easy.

Tagging and geotagging are not currently available on TwitPic yet, but they will soon become an integral part of the TwitPic service. These new features, along with the TwitPic API, show the ways in which TwitPic is aiding the Twitter economy.

One thought is how will this integrate with the Facebook Twitter API?

Since Motorola announced that they were seriously reconsidering the future of their mobile division, it was obvious that they were either going to sell it, or split it from the rest of the company.

They have in fact decided to split it in two, and the two new companies will be:

• Motorola Mobile Devices - which will handle manufacturing, design and sales of mobile handsets

• Broadband & Mobility Solutions - which will take care of wireless broadband, IP video, as well as voice and data communication solutions.

Greg Brown, Motorola’s CEO says: “Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus–as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders.” Which basically means that their shareholders have pressured them into splitting because Motorola’s mobile division hasn’t really been doing well in the last couple of years.

 Following a consultation exercise that began last October, UK regulator Ofcom has given approval to the use of mobile phones on planes flying in the European airspace, and they have issued plans that will allow airlines to offer mobile services on UK-registered aircraft.

Individual airlines can now decide whether to offer the services. But, there will be other regulatory issues that they must overcome before the technology can be fully approved. For example, the European Aviation Safety Agency will need to approve any hardware that would be installed in aircrafts to ensure that it does not interfere with other flight systems.

However, if all goes to plan, passengers will be able to use their mobiles once their plane has reached an altitude of 3,000m or more.  Small mobile phone base stations, called pico cells, will be installed in aircraft, and will be switched on after take-off. These base stations will generate a bubble of coverage in and around the aircraft, and calls made via the pico cell will be routed to terrestrial networks via a satellite link. Across Europe, radio spectrum has already been set aside for the technology, but the services will stop working once aircraft leave European airspace.

To start with, only second generation networks will be offered but a growing interest would mean that third generation services would follow later.  The cost of making a mobile phone call from a plane will be higher than normal, but Ofcom said it will investigate and address any evidence of “excessive charges and abuses of competition” if prices were set unfairly by airlines and mobile networks.