Neoco’s blog - keep up to date with the best digital marketing agency in the world!

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

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

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Phone.com

Company Website: http://www.phone.com

20 word description: Phone.com offers cool new communications services, with a special focus on the infrastructure and budget needs of small businesses and households.

CEO’s 100 word description: Phone.com offers innovative and affordable communications services. Winner of the 2007 Internet Telephony Product of the Year award, Phone.com Virtual Office offers a local, toll-free or vanity toll-free number with the ability for you to manage it from our popular web interface. In addition, Virtual Office includes more features than you would expect from an expensive business phone system – auto attendant, call forwarding, menus, voicemail notification, schedules, and so much more!

Mashable’s Take: Phone.com has a fairly lengthy history when it comes to its domain name (at least in terms of web history), but the recently relaunched website is focusing on some newer efforts this time around. Obviously the focus is still phone-related, but there’s nothing that says “phone trend” like VoIP services.

Most of the recent talk about VoIP is in regards to its ongoing integration into social media; just look at Jangl. But there’s the other side to VoIP, and that’s business integration. There’s a growing interest for SMBs to find more economic ways in which to have phone systems for their companies, and VoIP services haven’t always been in the picture for viable consideration. Phone.com is hoping to turn this around, with a slew of options and plans for SMBs to utilize in the office.

As the world’s workforce gets smaller (globalization), and the US economy puts a strain on business owners, streamlined virtual services are among those tools that can help an office environment run more smoothly. Similar to the trend we’re seeing in socially integrated and individually-directed VoIP and phone-related services, Phone.com is also offering a virtual office suite to go along with its VoIP service. This is to offer a more complete package for a phone system, giving you custom recordings, scheduling tools, and more.

I’ve noted this trend a few times now, but several specialized phone services have made some major advances in moving towards the actual execution of this concept, and the trend will only gain speed in the coming year, especially for businesses and individuals with business needs.

 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.

The Office of Fair Trading are sending out fake scam SMS messages to help raise awareness of text scams. The messages aer being sent to young people aged between 18 and 24, as it is estimated that six per cent of all victims of mass-marketed scams each year are aged between 15 and 24.

First of all, a text was sent reading “Urgent! U may have won £1k cash with ‘2 Good 2 B True’.” Another text then followed, explaining that the first message was a fake and that the OFT sent it to warn about mobile phone text scams. Mike Haley, director of consumer protection at the OFT, said the organisation hopes the fake scam texts will remind young people to be on their guard if they encounter dubious offers similar to this.

Our thought is: who do you contact to stop receiving these spam messages?