A lot of our discussion was centered around location, especially since he was thinking of the Ft. Hood shootings and the value of location in determining useful information from the Twitter stream during that crisis. This is what we’ve built Ushahidi around of course, the idea that location and even small bits of information give us a better understanding of an unfolding crisis. This is just as true of mundane information, or trending topics in a locale, which is why Twitter is building a new geo infrastructure. It couldn’t be in better hands either, with both Ryan Sarver and Schuyler Erle on the team, what Twitter puts out will be top notch.

What was more interesting than just geographical references for information was the combination of two other big ways to parse this data: Time an Tags. We’ve started to see a lot more apps mixing time and location in the past year or two, and we’ll see more as the visualizations for it improve. Categorizing information, pictures and video by keywords (tags) have been around even longer.

We need to see more combinations of tags, time and location in visualizations and platforms. I can’t think of anyone who does all three really well (if you can, please leave the link), though there are a number who do two of them incredibly well – including Flickr’s geocoding of images (tag + location), TwitterThoughts (tag + time) and TwitterVision (time + location), etc.

We have a widening stream of information. The lowered barriers for entry globally, and the encouragement by social tools, means we’re seeing exponential growth rates. Twitter alone saw an increase from 2.4 to 26 million tweets per day in just the last 8 months. We need some way to make sense of this information. Our ability to create information has far surpassed our ability to understand it in a timely manner.

Chris Blow outlined this best with a visual for Swift River for use in a presentation I did at TED this year:

It’s a serious problem and one that only gets deeper with every month that passes. In most areas, it’s not a big deal, but when a crisis, emergency or disaster hits the misinformation and lack of understanding has very real consequences.

I’d love to see more work being done with all three: Time, Tags and Location.

Original. Yeah, right.

What you see here:

A) original battery that came shipped with my Nokia 6230i

B) fake “original” battery from eBay @ 6,39 EUR

C) most-likely “original” battery from eBay @ 4,99 EUR

Battery B really pissed us off as it was drained within a few hours (!). The hologram is just very simple yet it looks like an original battery (except for the hologram and the deeper golden contacts). There are no hints on Nokia’s website other than the hologram (they used to have a form to double-check that number on the holo but imho even those numbers were faked).

Battery B was bulk-ware, meaning that it came shipped in a plastic bag while battery C was in an original Nokia packaging with a proper invoice. A bit irritating that there are two different mAh readings – a sticker that says 850 mAh on the front and a printed 970 mAh on the back. On Nokia’s website it says 900 mAh for the BL-5C, but hey – Nokia’s website has never been that accurate on phone details. Nokia also published a product advisory on the BL-5C type some time ago – a successful battery type has been produced over 300 million times and is built by five different manufacturers.

There are many, many dealers on eBay that sell BL-5C batteries for Nokia phones and I’d say that most of them are just fake ones. On the other hand, candidate number C was the cheapest, came in an original packaging and seems to perform like candidate A. Simbaya!

eBay as an online marketplace of course isn’t the best platform to purchase such electronics, but it is the one with the most competitive, or let’s say: comparable prices. Any other online-shop or even physical store will be more expensive (due to shipping rates & other general expenses). And it ain’t about the costs alone – I’d be willing to cough up more on a battery (but not too much!) if the dealer can assure that it is indeed original. I know this is a huge issue with product piracy and so on but – other than with cars where a non-original spare part may just as well be performing as required – most fake batteries also don’t last as long.  There may be exeptions to this general rule, but from my experience with this and other phones, most copies aren’t good enough, not even close. Probably also because they are commodities and their Chinese manufacturers just don’t give a damn…

25% are quite a lot, so you can imagine that by the time I had arrived, almost everything was already sold out. Damn. 25% on an Asus eeePC 1000HE or 1000HA? Me likes! Well, maybe next time.

Back to the phone. As recently mentioned, the 1208 comes with an internal flashlight and is one of the cheapest - new - phones you can get for as “little” as 30,- EUR. How much would you pay for such a phone in Kenya? 1800/= Kshs? Sijui, but its obviously much cheaper than in Germany.

LED on the 1208 pcb

What I like about this no-thrills phone is that it just works. It isn’t the flashlight, it isn’t the enhanced battery life due to the small screen and relatively huge battery, it isn’t it’s compact size - no, it’s the dead simple Series30 operating system that never stalls and just delivers.

Nokia 1208, 6230, 6230i (with 6230 keypad), N95

It took Nokia two years to deliver stable firmware for the 6230, 6230i and the N95. The more features a phone has, the worse it is.

I am actually longing to go back to a monoblock phone once the N95 retires (no slider phone, hence no E75 or N97) and thought about going for the upcoming Nokia 6700. It only needs to have WLAN connectivity but it doesn’t seem to have that feature…or does it?

The 1208 is one sweet phone and I would love to keep it as a backup - but then, there’s the 25% discount I still need to cash in :-)

What I want is to set up different Sipgate.de telephone numbers / VoIP profiles to such a device because the Fritz!Box 7141 DSL modem/router down in the basement only provides output to two analoge phones. And while you can set this advanced and very popular Fritz!Box system to accept more than just one internet VoIP number, one can only connect two physical phones via cable to the box (at least something, right?). These two lines are already blocked by the landlord’s phone + his AIO printer/fax machine. And his internal phone system is also analog and dates back to 1993. I could of course also try to hack the Fritz!Box (which is in fact a full computer and based on a “Linux”-system) and add an AsteriX PBX that takes care of the routing process, but I actually don’t want to change the existing system. And adding another Fritz!Box would provide at least two more “lines” to which I could connect normal wireless phones and define these VoIP profiles right on the Fritz!Box (both boxes connected via WDS). This doesn’t make much sense though, as I’d already bought a simple WLAN AP the other day which acts as a repeater to cover the area under the roof of the house (where I live).

The alternative would be to use a mobile phone like my Nokia N95 which already comes with WLAN/Wi-Fi connectivity and allows for different VoIP profiles to be set up. However, I think that most of these Wi-Fi enabled mobile (GSM) phones only have a very weak antenna and rx/tx ratio, resulting in frequent signal losses unless of course you’re standing next to the access point. Plus, the N95 is a mobile and is with me all the time - while a much simpler Wi-Fi-only cordless phone like the above pictured Siemens SL75 WLAN could remain at home and provide telephony to the home office.

What I really like about VoIP is that you can take your number with you - and as long as customers in Germany often still pay much more to call a mobile line than a fixed line, it’s way smarter to also offer a fixed line number (like the one I was provided by sipgate.de for free some years ago) to your customers.

Again, any advice/comment on this issue is highly appreciated. Thx!

Auf Deutsch: ich suche ein reines Schnurlostelefon, das sich über WLAN mit einem Access Point verbindet und verschiedene VoIP Profile akzeptiert. Irgendwie hat es seit 2006 keine wirkliche Entwicklung auf dem Markt gegeben, aber vielleicht irre ich mich da auch. Eine reine USB-Lösung setzt leider immer einen aktiven Rechner voraus - und da kann man dann genausogut via Headset telefonieren und sich zB den (ebenfalls vorhandenen!) USB Hörer von Sipgate sparen.
Über WLAN deswegen, weil die beiden FON 1&2 Leitungen an der Fritz!Box schon belegt sind und eine Erweiterung der Anlage damit nur noch über Funk & VoIP möglich erscheint.

Die Kombination aus WLAN Telefon und 2. access point (der das Signal der Fritz!Box ausm Keller bis unters Dach verstärkt) funktioniert schon mal - nur eben nicht so super, da die Antenne / Funkverbindung im Nokia N95 bauartbedingt schwächer ist als es ein reines WLAN Telefon wie das oben abgebildete Siemens bieten könnte.

With all the iPhone hype back then, pls allow me to celebrate my Nokia fanboy moment for 2 minutes.

Honestly, I wasn’t counting on any innovation by Nokia these days and really hope that they improved the S60 browser on this upcoming device. I think the success of a phone these days depends to at least 40% on the mobile browser. The one on the iPhone is good. If Nokia understood this message and improves the S60 browser until the N97 is released in ~ 05/2009, it could become a  good phone for bloggers. Else it will just be another SE X1, HTC touch and so on.

The swapable QWERTY keyboard (horizontally, not vertically - very important) is the only reason I would accept moving from a slider phone to another slider phone. Else I am all monoblock. Same reason why I switched from a Nokia 7110 to a 6210 in 2000.

Oh, and did I mention it has microUSB charging? To me, real innovations start with these not so obvious details which are more important to me than awesome multimedia options.

If this new phone is as easy to use as the iPhone, I will want to have it asap!

This new generation of read/write technology using the web and mobile phones creates a situation where ordinary citizen have both awareness and opportunity to take part in an way that wasn’t possible in such great numbers only a few decades ago.

There are really two components; gathering information and then distributing that information in a way that is useful for two types of users. First, the general public. Second, the officials and/or media who can cause something to happen when a bad situation arises.

• MyFairElection - Report your polling station’s
  condition on Election Day. (in partnership with ABC News)
• TwitterVoteReport - Use twitter, SMS, audio call or an iPhone and Android applications to send in reports on Election Day. (in partnership with NPR)
• Video Your Vote - Encourages people to video themselves voting and to upload those to YouTube. (in partnership with PBS)
• VoterSuppression.net - A wiki where users can learn about and enter in reports of voter suppression.
• Our Vote Live - A site documenting the voter assistance work of the Election Protection Coalition that uses a phone call-in system (866-OUR-VOTE).

(if you have more that I haven’t heard of, add the link to the comments below)

Ethan Zuckerman is wondering whether Twitter, or even mobile phones and the web, are the right tools for monitoring an election. He brings up the fact that using old-school technology like radio and TV can be even more useful in places like Ghana, and how that differs with the experience in the USA.

I think there are two things going on here.

First, the cultural use of technology is changing. We’re in that strange twilight zone between mediums where the population is split between overlapping islands of web usage, mobile phones, radio, TV and print.

Second, this cultural usage shift is compounded by having a two-tiered pattern of usage in different parts of the world. Ethan is absolutely right that one of the best tools in Africa is still the radio. However, that doesn’t translate to the US, where the country is too large for any one radio station to really hold sway. Many in the US tune into “national” radio personalities and shows, who have no “local” footprint. Calling in with your voting precinct’s flaws from Kooskia, Idaho wouldn’t make sense.

Thus the use of the internet, and mobile phone. We’re at a point where we’re trying to raise awareness, interactivity and reach. What happens when we get mass public awareness of a tool, married with an efficient and useful way to get aggregate data in local communities?

One item that isn’t up for debate is this. At this time you need to marry up the coverage and awareness power of traditional media (radio, TV and print) with the simple tools and platforms that use the web and mobile phones correctly to gather and disseminate information. What I find most encouraging is that most of the initiatives listed above are using the new tools and they are partnered with major media organizations that can muscle this out to a national audience.

(Side note: We were asked by a number of people if Ushahidi could be used for this. In short, yes - but the new alpha release of the software wasn’t ready until last week. Too late to play with here.)

Also read the PBS Mediashift article covering these services in greater depth.

As money transfers usually take some time, I quickly realized I’d have to do something about this state of being without a working internet connection because I currently really need this access for research & work.

Some weeks ago, the German mobile phone provider Fonic (that resells capacity on the o2 network) introduced a daily flatrate, meaning: you aren’t charged 0,24 EUR /MB, but instead pay 2,50 EUR per day and can surf for as long as you want! The only limitation is that they’ll reduce the speed from HSDPA (!) to GPRS once you’ve downloaded more than a GB of data / day.

Now, paying 2,50 EUR/d for a whole month is too much (30x 2,50 = 75,- EUR), but you’re only charged for the days you’re actually surfing the net. So, obviously, this offer really makes sense for those who want/need to have a location-independent internet connection for a few days only, e.g. if you’re travelling around or if you’re DSL line is offline.

To introduce this offer, they started selling a Huawei E160 UMTS/ 3.5G USB stick, containing a fresh SIM card and with a microSD slot for the proud sum of 99,95 €.

Too much for me, but I do have a 3.5G-capable Nokia N95 which never really lived up this speed until now, as my other SIM card operates on the E+ network which does not provide HSDPA coverage.

Following my aged posts on how-to-use-gprs via Suffericom two years ago, I thought about covering my experience with Fonic as well. Also, I thought it would be interesting to see this direct comparison between Safaricom in Kenya and o2 in Germany - both networks that expanded their own capacity at a similar time. But while operators like Safaricom, Celtel and Zain do not have so much fixed-line competition, DSL via your old-fashioned telephone line is the de-facto standard in most German households. As a result of that, data connections in Germany are not as badly overcrowded as in Kenya.

Getting online via Fonic is quite simple:

1. bought a Fonic SIM card for 9,95 EUR at a local supermarket
2. You have to charge it with a minimum amount of 10,- EUR after purchase
3. called their hotline, activated the SIM and kindly asked them to activate the daily flatrate for me (took less than 2h).
4. back home on my computer, I just installed the Nokia Bluetooth drivers, set up a Dial-Up BT connection to the phone, entered *99# as the telephone number and went online. Simple as that!

I mean, for the first time ever this really just worked out (= out of the box!) the way I had wished for, so now I am happily browsing the net again and currently searching for a portable UMTS modem that I can use on my computer to substitute the phone (which I urgently need for the other line).

Fonic currently also has a special deal where you enter the telephone number of an existing customer and both - in my case: me & fellow blogger Mzeecedric - are rewarded with a 5,- EUR bonus.

I know that Fonic recently provided free (Huawei E160 surf stick) sets to some bloggers here in Germany. I may have missed that - but all I want is that it works - and right now it does that without any hassle. Let’s hope it stays that way over the weekend! :-)

Oh - did I mention that the Huawei E160 has an extra socket for an external antenna? These sticks are still too expensive here, but something like that is what I actually need. Or maybe a PCMCIA card (albeit being real battery drainers…).

The parcel.

The parcel containing a Nokia E71 and BH-903 the kind folks from WOM World/Nokia have given me for a short testing period….

..only to realize after 2 weeks of onychophagy uncertainty that the landlord (who lives downstaires in the basement) already received and opened the parcel a week ago - assuming it’s the phone he ordered some time ago.

Dude!

Oh, and did I mention it’s not the first time he did that? Yes….go figure… (that is, I don’t have any probs with ppl opening my mail - as long as everything stays intact & I am informed).

AOB: TwitterKeys are so ☠ …

Since its initial release in 2005, FrontlineSMS has been adopted by NGOs in over forty countries for a wide range of activities including blood donor recruitment, assisting human rights workers, promoting government accountability, keeping medical students informed about education options, providing security alerts to field workers, election monitoring, the capture and exchange of vegetable (and coffee) price information, the distribution of weather forecasts, the co-ordination of healthcare workers, the organising of political demonstrations, the carrying out of surveys and the reporting and monitoring of disease outbreaks.

As of today (9am GMT), the new and improved version of FrontlineSMS will be unveiled. The software will continue to be made available for free to non-profits, available in Windows, Mac and Linux formats in six languages; Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Swahili.

Knowing Ken personally has a few perks, like the chance to see the new version early and know the amount of work he’s been putting into making this come into being. On top of that, Ushahidi will be utilizing FrontlineSMS as an extension to the new version of the tool we’re creating - and I know that InSTEDD plans to do the same. You know you’ve created something remarkable when you’re starting to make an impact on the NGO and the technology sides of the world.

Keeping up with Ken is difficult, as he’s a road warrior constantly speaking at conferences or in the field with his software. My suggestion is that you join the his Social Mobile Facebook group, catch him on Twitter, or read along on the Kiwanja.net blog.

Ken, congrats on this, I know it’s been a long time coming. Next drink is on me!

E-Governance is a term that has been loosely floating around, slightly misunderstood and highly underestimated. It refers to the use of internet technology as a platform for exchanging information, providing services and transacting with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government (Wikipedia). Basically, we would be facilitating 2-way communication between a government and its citizens using technology, a new philosophy that threatens to reinstitute a government by the people for the people (Like it was supposed to be).

E-Governance cannot exist without internet access - or can it? The same government forces that inadvertently choked land-lines, also cast their noose around internet access bottle-necking it into a snarled jam. For most Africans, getting online is just not worth all the trouble.

All hope was almost lost, when Mobile devices caught on like a wild-fire. These devices will enable new growth markets to leap-frog obstacles developed countries have had to overcome. While multi-media has always perceived to be the future, the real power lies in Text Messaging… 160 characters that will change everything and have major ramifications on public policy.

Here are just a few things for you to think about:

• Disaster & Crisis Alerts (Ushahidi)
• Health camps/vaccination Alerts
• E-Learning in Rural Areas
• E-Transactions (M-Pesa)
• Public Service Complaints about Service
• Employment Alerts
• Communication between health workers to help diagnose and prescribe
• … the list goes on

If you’re an African on Twitter, consider following the generic user “AfriTwit” to help us create an index of African Twitter users. Started by JKE of Kikuyumoja, see original post on AfriTwit here.

Mobile News
Ken Banks has informed me that FrontlineSMS has been selected as a finalist in the Stockholm Challenge, along with NMEM who used it to monitor the Nigerian elections. The Awards website should be announcing the finalists sometime soon. In a related story, Ken tells of how the UN is using FrontlineSMS to help with transparency in coffee markets in Africa.

The pan-African Blogosphere
Long-time activist African blogger Sokari of Black Looks has written a piece for the PBS MediaShift blog titled, “How Bloggers Covered Kenya Violence, Deal with Racism, Sexism“. It’s an interesting read and covers a lot of historical happenings within the pan-African blogosphere over the last couple years.

Finding the next Einstein in Africa
South African Neil Turok’s TED Prize wish to put 15 new African Institute of Mathematical Sciences opened around Africa. I’d suggest you watch the video of his talk, it’s an inspiring story and one that is happening right now and will soon spread throughout the continent.

Personal Stuff
I’ll be traveling to speak at the Global Philanthropy Forum, Web 2.0 Expo and Where 2.0 in the next couple weeks - all in the San Francisco area. If you’re there and want to talk African tech stuff, let’s get together!

Chris Schultz, a fellow white African, did an impromptu video spot with me a couple weeks ago where I talk about Ushahidi. Interestingly enough, I found out then that Vinny Lingham of Synthasite also used Chris’ Flatsourcing company to do some of their development work.

Life’s little pleasures….an upgrade from a 2GB microSD card to an 8GB micro SDHC - Secure Digital High Capacity memory card.

Please note the tiny card reader (about 1″ long) which will be attached to my keychain. This way, exchange of data will be much easier and faster and I can still use the “old” 2GB card as a portable memory stick. New 2GB cards currently sell for around 8,- EUR, so it doesnt really make sense to sell it again on eBay & Co.

The upgrade is just very sweet. It enables me to carry around LOTS of music (right in my phone = mp3 player) and to still keep enough free space for videos, images or even navi maps.

And since these card are hot-swapable, you can just flip them out and put in another one if you need more memory space.

A scathing commentary of the US State Dept document that showcases their lack of understanding regarding mobile payments and remittances.

“What Microloans Miss” interesting article in the New Yorker on microfinance.

“The RateMyCop Saga” - Hold on, if you’re doing nothing wrong you shouldn’t be worried right? Ahh, it’s fun to watch others eat their own dogfood sometimes… On another note, Godaddy really sucked on their decision to act on this - scary really.

My SAP Global Survey, and another interview on technology in Africa with ScribbleSheet.

Random Thoughts
If you’re organizing a grassroots event, AirBed and Breakfast is a brilliant tool to use for the out-of-towners.

I read a post recently where the author was relating a conversation between him and an “old school” journalist at a newspaper. This journalist thought it was important that newspapers tell more stories than those that a particular person was interested in, to give them a broader perspective of the world. However, it seems to me that blogs are a lot more like radio stations than newspapers. People “tune in” to the things they want to read.

Nathan Eagle - EPROM and MIT (Lives in Kenya)
Matt Jones - Dopplr (used to work for Nokia)
Jennifer Bove - Huge Inc
John Poisson - Radar.net
Michael Sharon - Socialight (South African)

A last minute addition is John Poisson, of Radar. I’m really glad to see him though, as I’ve been following Radar for a while now and think it’s a great application. This makes sense, as he just said they started with mobile as being the primary experience, then the normal PC web. He also strongly believes that mobile apps should work across all carriers and platforms, and that that’s hard to do.

What are the most interesting and unexpected things you’ve seen?
Nathan Eagle - using mobile phone credits for money. Transferring airtime in Kenya (Mpesa). He tells the story of using Mobile phone credits to pay for matatu rides and paying for groceries at the local duka.

Jennifer Bove - Got a message from the Italian government saying not to visit Rome as the Pope was dying.

Matt Jones - the designers for mobile phone manufacturers should live/work in their same environments as their users, not in their “Volvo estates.”

What are the most common phones you see?
Nathan Eagle - Cell phone alley in Nairobi, where you can see the hackers their put together a GSM phone for a grand total of $!2.95. Most of the phones are pre-2003 in a lot of places in Africa. You have to think about the phones that were used in the West in the ’90s.

Matt Jones - You need to look for the “universals”, the things that everyone has. High-end phones and their projected uses really only reside in the minds of the product managers at the manufacturers.

The “road to free”
It varies between countries and regions. It can cost around 20 cents in Kenya to send SMS between competing carriers. Also, think about the flat-rate data plans in the US vs other parts of the world. The path to free in developing regions tend to go different ways, like Mxit in South Africa using Java and the data layer.

Nathan brings up the use of “beeping and flashing”, also known as a “Scottish Call”. Ring once = yes. Ring twice = no. User groups decide on the way they will communicate without paying anything. Quasi-conversations for free. This happens all over the world, not just in Africa.

Question Time:
Someone asked whether there is a future for creating a mobile social application for Africa. Nathan thinks that would be a good idea, but that his students just want to create Facebook apps. The biggest problem is if it’s based around SMS, then you have to really provide strong incentives to get people to use this relatively expensive medium. (note, again there is a real opportunity around the future use of Java apps on phones in Africa, like Mxit is doing in South Africa.)

How do you see video usage in Europe and Asia? Matt Jones answers that they’re seeing more peer-to-peer MMS sharing of video between friends, and they can be very viral. How that moves from this p2p darknet to the internet (ie: YouTube) is still not all there, but it’s starting to percolate up.

How do you monetize in the mobile space? Poisson states that it’s still being figured out, but buying apps probably won’t work. Sharon mentions the “Call Me” service in South Africa, and how they monetize by putting ads in the short SMS message (of which there are about 20 million being sent out per day). It sounds like advertising is the main model right now.

How about mobile payment?
“With things like Mpesa minutes/credits are acting as a surrogate to money, so carriers can just print money. After all, they just create more airtime.” - Nathan Eagle

Twitter in Africa Sidenote:
I just chatted with Blaine Cook of Twitter. I had heard that that some South Africans were having their SMS messages throttled for Twitter. It’s true, they are. The limit outside of the US is 250 SMS messages outgoing from Twitter per week. It makes sense I guess, since they’re eating the cost on those messages and not at the same cheap rates they get in the US.

Finally, we’re left with the simple, low-tech, appropriate technology solutions with great opportunities for rapid, hassle-free replicability among grassroots NGOs, represented in green. These projects generally get the lowest level of publicity, if any, since few have an international profile of any kind. Notoriously hard to communicate with, and with little or no money, it’s perhaps no surprise that most of the attention on the long tail is elsewhere.

What Ken is getting at is an important concept, one that too many of us forget as we generally have access to the more powerful phones. Whether it’s dealing with NGO-related initiatives, or traditional business projects, we need to be reminded that creating platforms for the lowest common denominator will have the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time.

Interestingly enough, we see this with an application that is “big” in the West: Twitter. It’s a simple concept based on 140-character SMS messaging and a simple way to share and follow communications by others. Of course, they’ve added additional web and email functionality to it, but the base concept is so simple it’s almost painful.

When we apply these same thoughts to Africa, what do we get? Unfortunately, not that much (yet). The top three that come to mind are Ken Banks with his FrontlineSMS tool for non-profits utilizing basic SMS services, Wizzit a South African mobile banking solution that uses USSD, and Manobi that offers market and trading information for Senegalese farmers.

The good news is that we’re only scratching the surface. I hope that more tech savvy developers will create applications that work at the end of the long-tail, there’s a lot of people just in Africa waiting for better mobile services.

Further resources:

• A longer, downloadable version of the Social Mobile’s Long-tail (PDF) here.
• Nathan Eagle’s (and MIT’s) EPROM initiative
• Shared Ideas - a great non-profit focused mobile website
• MobileActive - A resource for activists using mobile technology
• The Commission for Africa’s “Impact of Mobile Phones in Africa” report (2004, but still good).
• Tactical Tech’s review of mobile tools

Now! :-)

@D: what about the E61i? (someone pls combine a 5mpx cam with a qwerty(z) keyboard & I’ll go for it…)

YouTube directvideo link

Seriously, what I miss about the new range of Nokia & SE phones is a decent keyboard. Sure, you may also go for a touchscreen interface + keyboard as on the iPhone, but I am not yet convinced of these technologies (~ what about dust? tactile feedback? + the downsides of the iPhone e.g. non-removable battery, iTunes, etc.).
Nokia’s & SE’s new phones are said to be made for the internet and/or provide multimedia comfort (DVB-H receiver, short range FM-transmitter, audio & video playback, video recording), but when it comes to actually using them you’re really punished with an old fashioned T9 keypad. Entering longer text is a pain and makes only sense while using a foldable keyboard (video) (like Nokia’s SU-8W).

Don’t get me wrong: for consuming multimedia/inet content, these phones are just great. But interacting with others from phone to phone (except for direct bluetoothing or sms/mms) still requires another approach, I’d say. Best example: Fring! Fring is an awesome messenger service that now also offers direct file transfer. Now imagine you’re chatting with someone over Skype or ICQ and have to enter text by using a T9 keyboard only…

Well, I keep coming back to my N95 albeit its horrible design (slider, case, keypad layout) because it has a decent camera and enables me to record anything while on the go + even editing it on the phone. Now that’s something really sweet considered it’s just a phone.

Back in 1998 when I first started fixing my mobile phone, things were a bit simpler. Fast forward in 2008, mobile phones have become a commodity and there are at least two or three guys in most rural towns (in Kenya and elsewhere) that will know how to fix such a phone.

So why blog on it? - Because it’s the way ppl are looking for alternative solutions on how to fix an advanced mobile phone based on SMD technology that makes the story interesting.

mobile phone repair booth in downtown Nairobi, picture taken in May 2006

In a world that has become more and more modular, where spare parts are exchangable or product life cycles reduced to a lifetime of about 2-3 years (best example: printers), not all is waste or wasted, and many things may often be repaired with simple and sometimes even very rough methods. Ask any mobile phone repair shop @ Moi Avenue Nairobi and they will tell you how they managed to save this or that phone. This, to me, is especially interesting, as they are using similar tools like other jua kali fundis in Europe - in a different environment. Whereas phones in Europe are often owned and used by one person only, phones in dev. countries are often shared between family members or friends. No wonder Nokia came up with two new phone models for emerging markets the other day, offering more than one phonebook / user profile on a single phone. Hence the need for a different approach to service repairs…or not?

What you see above in the pic - and I desp. tried to get a decent pic of such a booth back in May 2006 when I last tried to cover this subject - are normal flasher cables. Serial & parallel cables, like datacables, ppl use to connect a phone to a computer to unlock a handset, flash the firmware or run some tests. Your handset is blocked by the network? Don’t worry, just reprogramme it (illegally) with a new serial number (~ IMEI). These are things done everywhere in the world - in the Middle East, in Asia, in Europe, Africa, etc. - only: they are all based on reverse engineering.

Modern phones come with some more sophisticated algorithms and require a slightly different equipment - but that’s just a question of money and consequently there are, again, a few guys who will own a Twister Flasher or a BB5 unlock box in town (I really dig this microscope, sigh :-)

Coming back to the initial question - why is it so interesting? Well, because manufacturers like Nokia or SonyEricsson create service manuals for their phones (which are then circulated over the internet), giving the schematics and parameters of each and every part. But they usually don’t train those jua kali fundis. And a licenced Nokia Service Center? Apparently, they often do apply the same techniques and may or may not be equipped with special and better service gadgets. And they are expensive.

In other words: it’s cheaper and much more interesting for manufacturers to produce new phones than to train service staff on how to fix a mobile phone. Simple, new or refurbished phones are sold for something like 20,- EUR. And yet there’s this huge demand for quick & cheap repairs all over the world. This also applies to other electronics, cars or even lighters.

Anyone out there remembers how we used to refill one-way lighters with Butane gas (using a chopped nail and balancing the firestone on the forefinger while reassembling everything)? Back then lighters were sold for something like 25/= Kshs. and a refill was available for 10/= Kshs…

Now, while reverse engineered / alternative / jua kali (phone) repairs are interesting and will most def. make a good story on Afrigadget, I am constantly asking myself how manufacturers like Nokia will profit from this niche and use such knowledge for further engineering? Yeah, well, maybe Jan Chipchase’s research may be part of that, but then: who will fill this gap between new products and broken gadgets (leave this market to jua kali fundis and private individuals only?) and will a break-even point be the only criterion to define this approach on when it makes sense to invest in new equipment? What about environmental damage (during production) and how is this accounted for?

The fast growing mobile phone sector is an interesting example to see how the world has changed, and I am currious to see when the majority of customers in places like Nairobi will prefer buying another phone instead of having the old one repaired.

Here are a couple that I find interesting so far:

Skyfire
Both a well done demonstration, and a really impressive looking product. Skyfire allows you to see the full PC web on your mobile phone. It handles all types of complicated things, ranging from ajax to Flash to DHTML. They showed us live head-to-head results versus the top phones and other mobile web browsers including the iPhone and Opera Mini. Honestly, the had me when they pulled up a complicated site like ESPN.com so quickly on it. It’s launching in public beta today, so give it a try.

SpeakLike
This is a real-time automated translation service. It allows you to chat with people and translates back and forth in real-time. This is a very intriguing product, you type text in your language, and others see it in theirs. I don’t know about you, but I can think of a number of ways that this could be highly useful in Africa. I’m going to talk to them at their booth to find out a little more about available languages, and the ability for users to adjust the settings to take into account local language differences.

Kids and Education
Leapfrog just announced a new product called “Tag”. It’s a small pen-like device that reads their specialized books and has allows children to interact with books in ways that I’ve never seen before.

Education.com launched a new “school finder” feature that looks good too. They’re starting to call themselves the “WebMD of education”. They seem to have the right type of content and connections, so I can see how that could be true.

Favorite moment so far: demonstrator for Taktumi curses as his presentation doesn’t work…

Other bloggers and resources at DEMO ‘08
Marshall Kirkpatrick of RWW
Frank Gruber of Somewhat Frank
Shel Israel of Global Neighborhoods

DEMO 2008 Toolkit by RWW
Live video from DEMO 2008
Twitter updates (seem broken at the moment) but most people are sending comments to @Demo08

Saw some live coverage from the MacWorld earlier this week where ppl used this service to directly stream video from their phone to qik.com. Something like YouTube, but with the difference that everything is streamed live from the phone (Nokia N95) onto their servers. Meaning: you’ll need a decent broadband network connectivity for this to work fine.

(browser screenshot via browsershots.org)

Signed up for this service (which is still alpha) on tuesday evening and just received an invitation. Don’t know about 3G speed outside, but here @home with DSL 2048 kbit/s down & 192 kbit/s up maximum speed it’s just very charming. Haaiaa. Will need to test it again outside tomorrow in daylight and see how it is performing.

And yes, I am bit shy on camera. That’s why I haven’t really made use of seesmic so far (the “video twitter”). You may have seen it in action earlier last month when Robert Scoble blogged about it.

Why is it interesting? After all, I wouldnt want to put myself online. It’s interesting because a) it enables true LIVE coverage and b) memory space is limited on some phones, so with a service like this, ppl can just report until the battery is drained. As for the “live” part: I pressed the F5 key to refresh the user page right after I had stopped recording and there it was, my video. Dead simple.

Which phones are supported?
The latest Nokia range, imho those who are based on the S60v3 platform.

Citizen Media, here we come… muahahahaha!

(video isnt included at this time as i just can’t stand the way the “embed object” code is implemented in WP + my video plugin doesnt support qik so far..)

EDIT: Loic just twittered that Seesmic is now compatible with mobile phones via Shozu.com. Shozu! Has anyone tried it so far? Had it running on my mobile some month ago but it quickly drained the battery, also due to some autostart scripts that load when the phone boots (!) up. - I guess all these tools only make sense when your phone is within a 3G or better network and when everything is interconnected, i.e. feeds that pull content from your various multimedia resources online and aggregate them on your blog. Should be an interesting task for a WP plugin (hint, hint :-)….something that pulls content from your video & microblogging platforms and creates a blog post out of it. In short: what I would like to have is a smooth way to blog-on-the-go and have it appear on my own blog (and not somewhere on flickr, vox, seesmic, qik, YouTube, etc.). Possible? Maybe one day (soon).

EDIT 2: QIK works fine even via a normal (= slow) GPRS connection! Awesome. I will use it more often now.

What we need from you, more than anything, is to get the word out to your family, friends and acquaintances in Kenya. Call, email or SMS them today!

There is continued refinement and improved functionality being added all the time. Here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve done and are doing.

• You can now SMS your report to +447624802635 with your mobile phone.
• You can email your reports and images to tips@ushahidi.com
• We have added a “Peace Efforts” button to highlight the good things that are happening.
• The “How you can help” page has started. The first is a way to send money via MamaMikes.com that will be distributed by the Kenyan Red Cross.
• There are new buttons (with copy/paste code) for you to add to your websites on the about page.

Image by usumdelphini89 via Flickr

Other happenings:
Daudi Were and Ory Okolloh continue to foster relationships with NGOs in Kenya through the NGO Council. If you can help them, or would like to offer your assistance, please let us know.

Joshua Wanyama of AfricanPath has offered to help grow and manage images on Flickr of the post-election crisis in Kenya. You can find the Kenya Post-Election Pictures 2008 Flickr group here. Consider sending yours in and tagging your images with “KenyaElection2007″.

A big thanks to all the bloggers who have covered the launch of Ushahidi:

Digital Activists Find Ways to Help Kenya
Ushahidi: What Social Media Can Be
Ushahidi.com on KenyanPundit
Free Speech (and business) Made Easy
More ways to Help - Kenya’s Post Election Aftermath

Digital Documentation of Post-election Violence in Kenya
Technologies Role In Reporting Violence In Kenya
Ushahidi by Mweshi
Ushahidi: report acts of violence in Kenya
“Bear Witness”

Nigerian Digerati Need to Create Web Tools Like Ushahidi
Technology for Advocacy in Kenya Crisis
Ushahidi by Alfajiri
Can I Get A Witness!
Ushahidi by Ntwiga

Concern over under-reporting of dead prompts digital project in Kenya
Kenia: Zeitzeugen gesucht
Kenya: A tool for reporting acts of violence
Working to track the violent crimes in Kenya

Swahili bloggers:
Una ushahidi wa yanayojiri Kenya?
Ushahidi + Ukurasa Maalum Wa Kenya + Action Alerts Blog

Let’s put our minds and capabilities towards solving real problems for people beyond the technologically elite.

Take the current state of affairs in Kenya as an example. With every problem comes an opportunity. In this case, we’re talking about finding a way to open up better communications to not just the African digerati and blogosphere, but the everyday Kenyan as well.

The primary means of communication during an emergency in Kenya is via SMS - on their mobile phones. Some of the problems with the current structure of mobile communications in any African region during a crisis:

• Many disbursed one-to-one communications (SMS)
• Lack of reports from people on the ground - traditional media can only cover so much. If there was ever a need for citizen journalism, then this is it. (this goes beyond what Ken talked about in just citizen monitoring of the polls)

With the just the two problems outlined above, it’s possible to see what kind of technology solution might be useful. That’s the type of service and/or platform that we should be building towards. Beyond the usefulness of such a service in a crisis, it would likely be a profitable business venture in less trying times.

[Check out two good posts on Kenya from a technology angle by Joshua Goldstein at Harvard’s I&D blog and Mark at Mashable]

Another good tech idea from Ory at Kenyan Pundit:

“Google Earth supposedly shows in great detail where the damage is being done on the ground. It occurs to me that it will be useful to keep a record of this, if one is thinking long-term. For the reconciliation process to occur at the local level the truth of what happened will first have to come out. Guys looking to do something - any techies out there willing to do a mashup of where the violence and destruction is occurring using Google Maps?”

Send your SMS to +44 762 480 2635

This is exactly what I was talking about it my last post on why the internet matters in Africa. Technologists finding ways to keep communicating. Even better, this is something that anyone in Kenya can use, not just those with access to the internet.

(image via WIR Media - downloadable below)

As of yesterday there was a media blackout. The only way to get any up-to-date news for the past 24-48 hours has been through the blogosphere (like Kenyan Pundit, Thinker’s Room, Mentalacrobatics), Skype and Kenyan populated forums (like Mashada). The traditional media has been shut out and shut down for all intents and purposes.

Two thoughts were racing through my head last night as I was trying to sleep.

Internet Penetration
First, though the internet is good for us in the diaspora and a few in Kenya, it just doesn’t have the reach to the wananchi (average citizen) in Kenya. The government knows that shutting down radio, TV and print is still the most effective way to squash news.

However there is still the mobile phone, specifically SMS messaging. The problem with mobile phones is that they’re so disbursed - there’s no central core for users to all tune in to. Of course, that’s the strength in mobiles too. The trick is to leverage the strength without destroying the medium.

What Can be Done?
I went to bed trying to think of what I could do. Situations like this are where technology can really shine. The government can squash traditional media, but not technology that it barely knows exists.

Anyone can see that the problems in Kenya right now (both news blackout and general communication) also represent a real opportunity. There is a great need for a service that can’t be easily controlled by the government. How about a platform that serves as a centralized repository for on the ground reports from any Kenyan via SMS? The ability for people to upload videos and images with some text to a web-based and mobile phone accessible site.

Technology Being Used
I’ve been touching base with all of my contacts and these are the tech stories that I’m hearing:

• Phone cards are in short supply, so people are using Sambaza to top up their mobile phone minutes. (Kenyan Pundit)
• No one was able to get to the cyber cafes in Kenya to get on the chat, so David at the Mashada forums is working to create a way to post to them via mobile phones.

Further reading:
Downloadable news and pictures from WIR Media - read and pass it on (1.2 Mb PDF)

Ndesanjo has done an excellent job of hitting the major points of the Kenyan blogosphere over on Global Voices.

I’ve been particularly impressed with the AfricaNews.com media group. They use technology in innovative ways, creating real usable systems to report and connect with Africans on multiple platforms. In the case of the Kenyan 2007 Elections, in partnership with the Arid Lands Information Network, they have created a site where mobile reporters from around the country bring news about the elections.

SMS Polling
Media Focus on Development have created a full multimedia campaign, anchored by TV and radio shows, that use SMS messaging and the website as key touch points. I found the SMS surveys to be quite interesting. The questions were posed by the TV and radio personalities and people were asked to text in their simple “yes” or “no” response.

TV and radio have a much greater reach in Kenya than the web. Using these traditional media conduits as the anchor for their campaign is smart. I would be really interested to hear the numbers on how many responded to the questions. Did the campaign reach enough people to be significant?

Keeping an Eye on Kenyan Parliament
Of course, any mention of technology being used to monitor and report on the Kenyan political scene would be incomplete without mentioning Mzalendo. Created by Ory and M, two well-known Kenyan bloggers, Mzalendo is a usable database of information about politicians and their constituencies that any Kenyan can report into.

I’m still trying to find out if there are any organizations doing any type of mobile election monitoring, akin to what we saw in Nigeria using FrontlineSMS. If you know of any, leave a comment or email me.

I was challenged by Riyaz and Sokari to come up with a list of “Web 2.0″ sites for Africa and make a collage. I chose to define that term rather loosely, so if the line is blurred it’s entirely my fault.

I’m sure I missed some, so leave a comment with the link if I did. I’ll add it in the next iteration.

You can see the larger sizes of this image on Flickr, where each logo has the link to the webite.

The “To Be Added” list:

MyVideo
TWAC
iJol
MyGenius
Helule
Blog247
YesNoMayB
employmint
ZoopedUp
Digspot
Vrinne
Student Village
LitNet
MobiMii
Wibble
Startpage
Share Surf
Blogs 24
Bongo5
Blog TZ

If you’re a developer in Africa, this is a GREAT opportunity for you. Submissions for the first phase of the challenge will be accepted from Jan. 2 through March 3, 2008.

FrontlineSMS
Ken Banks, creator of text messaging service FrontlineSMS, continues to try and raise awareness of his application for NGO’s in Africa. He has created a Facebook Cause that you can join to show your support and help spread the word about this free tool that allows non-profits to make a big impact using mobile phones.

Internet Penetration in Africa
The BBC has an article covering broadband penetration and internet usage in Africa.

“One of the biggest problems facing internet development in Africa is a lack of interconnectivity. More than 70% of internet traffic within Africa is routed outside the continent, driving up costs for business and consumers.”

How it works
First, take a look at the website. Next, you submit a short project description. The top 4 will be awarded everything you need to set up and manage your very own text-messaging project:

• A brand new HP Pavilion laptop computer - To help you run your messaging campaign from anywhere you choose
• A GSM modem - Send messages through the mobile network without the need for the Internet
• Office software - Word processing, spreadsheets, email - everything to help you run your project more efficiently
• A top-of-the-range Nokia mobile phone (or two) - A couple of cool Nokia phones to help you take photos and videos (and talk!)
• FrontlineSMS -FrontlineSMS is a great piece of software allowing you to run your very own text-messaging campaign from a laptop or desktop computer.
• $1,000 in cash

My Thoughts
NGO’s serve a specific role in Africa, generally a space that would be filled by governments in developed nations. Many of them are small teams of people with limited budgets, and this type of competition will provide a few of them the chance to get the equipment that they need to be more effective.

I’d like to know what nGOmobile will be doing to train the winners in order for them to have the most chance of success.

This is a neat project coming from someone who carries a lot of credibility in this space in Africa. Ken’s FrontlineSMS has been used by a number of organizations, most notably when it was used for monitoring the recent elections in Nigeria. I’ve interviewed Ken before, you can read it here or listen here.

You have from now until December 14th to submit your project ideas, so get started!

Well, dear Apple fans, rest assured: Nokia did the same with us last week by introducing another N95 with 8GB fixed memory (instead of a microSD slot), a bigger display, a much better battery and a slightly improved keypad on the front (which I personally think is the best improvement on this machine). Now what’s worse: a price drop, or knowing that your machine isn’t just *that* great and that it has been improved?
As for the iPhone: seems like the 599$ price tag is reserved for the upcoming 3G version. Eh?

I wonder what kind of effect this new version will have on the firmware of the previous N95. NOKIA! Aah…could you please remove the useless multimedia menu and reasign the button to something else? Thx..

Someone noticed that there was a patent by Google for a mobile component to GPay, their online payment system. It’s not a new concept, but it will be interesting if they do pull it off in conjunction with the rumor circulating about the new Google GPhone.

You see, there is a void in the market for a payment system that is accepted globally, but not necessarily tied to a bank or phone carrier. Any thoughts I have on what will eventually happen once they roll out any new device and/or payment system are pure speculation. I would like to believe that Google has a bigger picture in mind than just the US market when developing it though.

I’m sure the services work best together, but they would never tie a payment system to just one device. I’ll be happy to see either of them work in Africa. The GPay model branching out would make me the most excited though.

[I also find it interesting that PayPal is having some serious problems at the same time as rumors of this are coming out. PayPal needs some serious competition, and I hope this is it.]

Going by their vendor list, the bank that will be handling the services will be First City Monument Bank Plc.

If you’re in Nigeria and are going to be using the service, take the time to look at the different types of accounts. You can choose from Individual, Family or Corporate.

My Thoughts
So, this is an interesting development, and a much needed step in the right direction. However, I don’t think this is the final answer for mobile payments in Africa. I stand by my earlier posts; African needs a mobile payment platform that is both banking AND carrier agnostic. I hope that someone like Herman Chinery-Hesse can actually develop his visionary platform.

(via Montreal Tech Watch, hat tip Heri)

BECAUSE:

iGoogle looks like this on my laptop screen:

and like this on my Nokia N95:

==> opening items takes some time and is a bit old-fashioned. While it’s good to obtain an overview on what’s new on each feed, it actually only lists items in a static order and you’d have to continue loading another page in order to see all feeds. Hence the need to switch from iGoogle (which I’ll continue using on my laptop) to Google Reader…

…which looks like this on my laptop:

and like this on my N95 (==> [www.google.com] !):

Obviously, accessing my feeds using the dedicated Google Reader - also because of it’s better navigation - makes sense. Hey guys, this thing is fast and it works!

All it requires is this awesome little export to opml utility that generates an *.xml file which may then be imported onto your GoogleReader settings page. In case you’re having different tabs installed on iGoogle, just merge all xml files into a big one. Kudos to Mihai, author of the OPML utility.

It’s fast, it’s simple, it works, it wins!

AOB: Soapstone Simpsons. Kenya believe it? :-)

AfricaNews, part of Africa Interactive, has actually been around a little while longer than many of the ones mentioned in that post. However, they’ve been in the middle of sourcing stories via bloggers well before this relaunch. The new site, redesigned to better showcase bloggers and user-generated media just went live today.

Mobile Reporters
Probably the most innovative part of the whole site, the mobile reporters are Africans reporting via their mobile phones. Using GPRS-enabled phones, anyone can send images, articles and video to someone else. This is a huge, primarily because it means that the on-ground reporters don’t need an internet connection at all - only access to a cell phone tower.

The Voices of Africa project is being piloted by 3 reporters right now - one from Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. They are using Nokia E61i phones to send in their stories, working through the technical issues to ensure that it can be rolled out to a much larger group of reporters around the continent.

The ultimate goal is to select, in each African country, a number of skilful (young) men and women (with the help of a local coordinator) and to equip these people with high-technology mobile phones (with a small foldable keyboard) where a special piece of software is installed to permit direct uploads of photos, texts and videos to the Skoeps server, from where they are transferred to the Africa Interactive website for publication.

This is exactly the type of example that I talk about when saying the African digerati can change Africa by using technology to over come natural inefficiencies. I’m really interested in seeing how AfricaNews develops this particular area of their website. I hope it doesn’t get lost and overlooked by the busyness of the site itself.

I hope that other news sites and “new” news sites take notice as well. Let’s see more coming from not just African mobile reporters, but from all African using their mobile phone as the platform to connect with the rest of the world and each other.

An example of a mobile report on an African businesswoman in Ghana.

My dear friend Nicky managed to secure this MagicalKenya package from the Kenya booth on the International Tourism Fair in Berlin (ITB Berlin) earlier this year.

After resurrecting her iPod Mini with a new battery, she rewarded me with these goodies: some posters, a tourist map, a cd with a promo video on tourism and why Kenya is THE perfect holiday destination and something like a scarf that reminds us of a Kikoi, or maybe also of that drapery one often finds underneath the TV & VCR setup at a typical middle-class home. Neat!

Another Kenyanesque moment that brought a smile to my face was when I discovered the pre-configured video podcasts inside my new Nokia N95:

As mentioned earlier, the ability to instruct this phone to go online over a wireless broadband connection such as UMTS (3G), HSDPA (3.5G) or even my local Wi-Fi (at home & at work) and downloading all this content by itself - without any other computer in between - is just very very sweet.
These days, I hardly ever get to watch TV, so being able to pull the desired content from the net “on the go” is just a great help.

Ken Banks is the 6th in the African Digerati series of interviews. Ken has become a recognized leader in the mobile space in Africa, primarily through his open source text messaging hub called FrontlineSMS. He speaks regularly around the world on the use of mobile technologies to meet the demands of the real world in places like Africa.

Blog and/or website:
You can find more information on Ken Banks at www.kiwanja.net. Including information on his projects, his mobile database, pictures and blog. It’s one of the best resources for information on mobile technology for Africa on the web.

What do you do?
I use a mix of 22 years in IT, 14 years working on and off in various parts of Africa, and a degree in Social Anthropology with Development Studies to help local, national and international non-profit organisations make better use of information and communications technology – particularly mobile – in their work. I’m usually based out of the UK (where I have a small flat in a lovely Cambridgeshire village), but am currently a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University on the Reuters Digital Vision Program. To pay the bills I do a mixture of paid consultancy and pro-bono work for a range of NGOs, working mostly at grassroots level, a place where I strongly believe the greatest change will come

(more…)

I had to do the same today, as - just in a time span of 4 months - WP-ShortStat again bloated my db to an extent I just didn’t like. Mzeecedric already suggested the other day to use external statistic tools only - which is a very smart idea to keep your WP-database clean.

While visiting Christian at his desk on friday afternoon, we talked about using Google Analytics, and I really have to admit that I am a bit slow when it comes to implementing new stuff on my site. ‘Nways, I consequently switched all my statistics to Google Analytics and currently looking for a plugin that implements some important stats (= whatever you like to appear on your GoogleAnalytics dashboard) to the WP dashboard - just what WP-ShortStat did, but much better.

Oh, and in case you’re using WP on your site + are tired of implementing the code into you site, pls try this awesome GoogleAnalytics plugin that does a bit more than simply adding the GA code.

Also, I took this opportunity to activate the WordPress Mobile Plugin by Andy Moore, who is an active member of the dotMobi group.
Considering that mobile phones are rapidly becoming the IT platform / interface for those who don’t use a desktop pc / notebook, it does make sense to prepare websites so that they run on the tiny screens of most mobile phones. Oh, and Andy also blogged on the upcoming Mobile Web 2.0 conference… :-)

You know these ppl want you to register another domain ending on the top level .mobi - which I think is a bit absurd, as subdomains actually do the job:

m.uhuru.de ==> blog.uhuru.de, optimized* for mobile phones

Using the “m” subdomain makes much more sense to me (and others), unless of course you’re Mzeecedric who is already using the m. subdomain to extend his zung.us domain into m.zung.us :-)

*[at the moment, m.uhuru.de is just a redirector to my blog, which has the above mentioned WP Mobile Plugin installed - so the optimized content is only visible through mobile phones or emulators…]

in case I happen to be out of office during the next few weeks - here’s why:

Seriously, after 1hour of playing with this awesome gadget, figuring out all important shortcuts & testing various applications like surfing & phoning via WLAN (VoIP…sweet!) or the internal GPS, I realized that this new phone really is a kick-ass gadgetimoja. In fact, it is the best Nokia I’ve ever used.
Especially since I am migrating from a Nokia 6230i which runs on the S40/2nd edition operating system, whereas the Nokia N95 comes with a cool S60/3rd edition OS.

For my non-techie readers:

• S40/2nd = driving to Mombasa in a Toyota Corolla
• S60/3rd = being driven to Mombasa in a luxurious Mercedes Viano mini bus, with nice music, a great video system, a playstation on board as well as a broadband internet connection all the way from downtown Nbo to Likoni ferry.
• (this phone with an external wireless keyboard, available as an optional extension = flying to Mombasa)

N.B.:
1. The Ministry of Finance has not been informed on this purchase.
2. Financing for this device has been secured through external fundings, with lots of donors support and a fair interest rate.
3. WTx is an iPhone? :-)

Die Vorgeschichte
Bisher bin ich natürlich ein Handyvertragsmensch gewesen, d.h., alle zwei Jahre ergab sich die Möglichkeit, ein Handy zu Vertragsverlängerung finanziert zu bekommen. So entschied ich mich letztes Jahr für das eher schon ältere Nokia 6230i, welches im Gegensatz zum erst kurz getesteten 6233 über eine entscheidende Unterfunktion im Kurzmitteilungsmenü verfügte: die Auswahl einer Kurzmitteilungszentrale (SMC) direkt vorm Versenden einer SMS - was für die Fortführung meines alten Vertrages mit DM-Preisen bzw den Versand vergünstigter netzinterner SMS von elementarer Bedeutung war. Nach dem Anbieterwechsel fiel dieses Kriterium jedoch komplett vom Tisch, so dass ich endlich ganz unabhängig vom Vertrag & anderen Einschränkungen in Zukunft jedes beliebige Handy verwenden kann.

Was will ich?
Gewohnt durch den Komfort des Abrufens meiner e-mails via GPRS bzw. direkt vom Handy aus in Kenia (!), zahle ich bei Blau jetzt fast genauso wenig wie bei Safaricom für das Megabyte an Daten via GPRS. Durch die Möglichkeit, jetzt auch noch UMTS als prepaid Kunde nutzen zu können, erscheint diese Technologie bei den relativ geringen Kosten natürlich in einem viel besseren Licht.
GPRS, EDGE und UMTS, sowie - natürlich - WLAN und Bluetooth möchte ich auf jeden Fall in einem neuen Gerät haben. WLAN alleine schon deswegen weil ich dadurch eine Menge Kohle sparen und zB zu Hause via FritzBox telefonieren kann.
Dazu eine vernünftige Kamera mit Autofokus und mind 3,2 MPx, einem Blitz/guter LED zur Beleuchtung bei Dunkelheit und einen vernünftigen MP3 Player. Mit vernünftig bezeichne ich jene Player, die nicht bei jedem Neustart des Handys die MP3 Sammlung komplett einlesen und daraus einen Index erstellen wollen und dann auch noch irgendwann im Betrieb abstürzen - so wie es leider bei meinem 6230i in Verbindung mit der 2GB Speicherkarte der Fall ist.
Einzig die fehlende QWERTY/Z Tastatur macht mich ein bißchen stutzig, denn einer der Gründe wieso ich unbedingt so ein besonderes Telefon haben möchte wenn man doch meist eigentlich nur telefoniert und Kurzmitteilungen verschickt, ist natürlich die Möglichkeit, unterwegs Texte ausformulieren zu können. Das mache ich nämlich am liebsten unterwegs - texten :-)
Das Nokia E61, so nen BlackberryClone mit Tastatur, wäre so ne Alternative zum Nokia N95, allerdings ohne Blitz/LED, dafür für ca. die Hälfte des Preises zu bekommen. Hmm.

Was zahle ich?
Bestandskunden werden in Dland irgendwie schlechter behandelt als Neukunden - insofern erscheinen die meisten Neuverträge günstiger zu sein, als wenn man jetzt seinen Vertrag verlängert. Da ich ja jetzt eh prepaid Kunde bin, muss ich mir das Handy vollkommen selber beschaffen. Nur wie?

Wie finanzieren diese Typen es, ständig ein neues Handy mit sich rumzuschleppen? Neukauf, 2monatige Benutzung und dann wieder verkaufen? Bisher fallen mir nur folgende Optionen ein:

A) Im Versandhandel neu bestellen, lt. Preisvergleichsdienst schon für ca. 590,- EUR zu bekommen. => zu teuer!

B) Gebraucht kaufen, zB bei Ebay. Kostet aber im Grunde meist fast genauso viel wie wenn man es neu kauft. => zu teuer!

C) Einen Neuvertrag abschließen bei einem der vier Anbieter und mindestens ca. 250,- EUR dazu zahlen, sowie mindestens 9,95 EUR monatlich. => zu teuer!

D) Zwei Neuverträge abschließen und monatlich ca. 20,- EUR an Grundgebühr bzw. Mindestumsatz bezahlen. Für Studenten sogar schon ab 7,96 EUR/Monat/Vertrag.
Hmm. Macht das Sinn? 24 Monate x 20,- EUR = 480,- EUR. Wäre immerhin günstiger als Lösung a) & b).

E) …. ?

Fazit
Momentan erscheint mir nur der Abschluss von zwei Verträgen à je 9,95 als kostengünstige Lösung attraktiv. Hmm…

AOB:

> Hallo liebes Blau Team,
>
> wieviele Rufnummern kann ich auf den neuen UMTSfähigen SIM Karten
> speichern? Handelt es sich dabei auch wieder nur um 16k Karten, auf
> denen man nur 100 Rufnummern speichern kann?
>
> Vielen Dank!

…

Auf der SIM Karte können Sie bis zu 10 Rufnummern speichern.
Weitere Daten können auf dem Handy gespeichert werden.

Viel Spaß beim Sparen

Wer spart hier?

Above is a map of social networking sites and their reach across the globe. It’s interesting on a number of levels, but the one that stood out to me was the vast amount of opportunity staring at me from Africa.

Outside of a handful of countries, no one has made much of an inroad on social networking in Africa. My claim is that this is due to two things. First, that no one with real capital is focusing on Africa. Second, that most of the efforts in the social networking space revolve primarily around the web accessed by PC, not the web accessed by mobile phones.

My simple formula for African technology:

All of the issues that people point to as problems for web connectivity in Africa - be it low bandwith, poverty, the technology learning curve, access to software and hardware - are solved with this one device.

Further thoughts on mobile applications for Africa were spurred on by some meetings with different individuals while in South Africa and Kenya. Angus Robinson, a South African mobile consultant, and I had a good discussion on some of the older hash-based services available through the carriers. Earlier that day I had discussed some services (J2ME) that about 4 million South African youth were using called MXit.

In Kenya I was a part of the Mobile Toolkit Workgroup meetings where the group was trying to come up with a package of educational material, software and services for NGOs. While there I met up with Geoffrey Muthondu, a young man who is working with Nathan Eagle’s EPROM project to create a mobile stock trading platform.

I talked late into the night with young techies in Nairobi about how we can change East Africa with the right mobile applications. In Uganda I spoke with the principals of Simba Telcom, MTN and a small web/mobile shop that is trying to revolutionize the way people communicate. The talks with this group left me charged up - these are exciting times to be in the tech space in Africa indeed!

The resounding story is this; Africans, and those creating things in Africa, are doing it with the mobile phone. It’s not that they are ignoring the web, it’s that they realize first-hand that the mobile phone is the platform of the masses. Any serious penetration of web-like structures, information and connections will have to take place there.

So, what to keep your eyes open for? Look at the following spaces to see who is developing in them:

• Mobile payment systems
• Social networks
• Content platforms

Don’t think that these will be just SMS, or just data. The future is a mixture of voice, java apps, SMS and web connectivity. It’s where the web and mobile worlds meet. In fact, anyone who is serious about Africa will not just develop for the web, or just for the mobile phone, they have to address both.

In other news, Zimbabwe is projected to have a 6000 percent inflation by the end of 2008. It looks like Mugabe cannot and will not stop the tide of capitalism. Econet, founded by Strive Masiyiwa is also planning a launch in Auckland, New Zealand.

Buy that phone, take it to Kenya and remove the simlock.

EUR 99,- is how many Kshs.? ~ 9100 Kshs? And afaik those refurbished ones for sale in Nbo sell for at least 12.500 Kshs or even more.

Why can’t they have Nokia phones with Series60 OS on such deals? Damn…

(The Nokia 6230i has become a very popular phone on the european market since it’s release two years ago and currently retails at around EUR 159,-, without branding or any other software restrictions.)

On the other hand, though, since I already dropped my Vodafone contract (= no subsidized phone every 24 month), I shall get my next phone @ Moi Avenue in beloved Nairobi.