We’re really proud of what we do and we like to show off our work, but at conferences and presentations we only get to reach out to a small audience. Henceforth, we will be putting up videos of projects we have been working on whenever possible so everyone can see what we’ve been up to.

Hope you enjoy this video!

Locatrix has been announced as a finalist in the GSM Association’s Mobile Asia Congress Innovation Grand Prix!

The Mobile Innovation Grand Prix competition was created by the GSMA with the primary goal of showcasing promising entrepreneurs from small and medium-sized companies bringing innovative new products and services to market. During the APAC Tournament, presentations from the five finalists will be reviewed by a judging panel comprised of senior executives from mobile operators and venture capital firms. Two overall winners will be presented at the Mobile Asia Congress Networking Party and Awards Celebration and will win a trip to compete for the Mobile Innovation Grand Prix title, part of the GSMA’s Global Mobile Awards, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2010.

Locatrix has been nominated for Inspired, our mobile education solution that provides location-based delivery of educational content, collaboration and quiz materials to school excursion environments. The winners will be announced at the Mobile Asia Congress in Hong Kong, from 18-19 November 2010.

Click here to learn more about Inspired.

Historically, providing developer-level access to any features of a mobile network has been tricky, to say the least. Even with the relevant service provisioning completed, you’re still stuck with a myriad of interfaces, standards, web protocols and security methods. And that’s just with one operator. As soon as you hit your second there’s usually a whole new set of enabler access methods to implement.

These difficulties have resulted in relatively few applications making use of mobile network APIs. Some operator groups – notably Telenor and Vodafone – have been piloting developer programs which generally formalize broader access to the various enablers (e.g. messaging, location, billing), but are still dependent on underlying platform technologies. (Orange, for example, exposes nearly 30 different APIs via their developer program!)

The GSMA’s OneAPI inititive is an attempt to revert this situation, and it is something we’re proudly supporting. Standing for Open Network Enablers, the OneAPI aims to bring network features to a much broader audience of Web and Web 2.0 developers. Practically speaking, it is a single API – REST and SOAP access methods are supported – through which developers can access services consistently across multiple operators. The project goal is to make it easy, safe, and beneficial for developers to utilise mobile capabilities in a far broader set of applications.

One of the OneAPI objectives is simplicity; it’s not trying to be a massive or overly-complex single platform that must be adopted by all. Instead it is a set of simple functions that will be accessible and friendly to any of the typical web development languages like Perl, PHP, Python and Java. A kind of mobile API for the masses, if you like.

Locatrix has recently deployed our reference implementation of the OneAPI at http://oneapi.locatrix.com and, being the intrepid former software engineer that I am, I set out today to create a mashup between the OneAPI, our favourite network operator, Chime – our social SMS solution, Google Latitude and the Locatrix XLF application service in a little PHP script. Proving that we do “eat our own dog food” (or “drink our own champagne” – with thanks to Kevin Smith), the code was built, tested and deployed in a couple of hours. By a distinctly former software developer!

The OneAPI initiative has the potential to change the way application developers think about mobile networks, and also to create genuine revenue opportunities for monetizing applications. If you’re interested in learning more about the OneAPI there’s some more material here, and I would welcome you to contact us if you’re a web developer interested in trying it out. Those in the Twitterverse can also follow the OneAPI account here, and you could also subscribe to our newsletter Position Update, which provides a wealth of location, mobile and social networking industry information each month.

Thanks for reading, and we now welcome you back to regular Twittering!

Sherwin Huang, Interaction Designer

Sherwin, briefly describe your role as an Interaction Designer.

In brief, I find creative solutions around technological boundaries, guiding and participating in production by balancing aesthetics with functionality to create a visual package that fosters user delight.

What do you think are the key issues in designing for Mobile Devices?

Uandme user experience

Applications – including the ones we create here at Locatrix – are increasingly feature packed and complex.  There is always the temptation to create user interfaces that display information equivalently to what one would find on an application designed for the desktop.  All this is done with the best of intentions thinking that it will allow users to have all the information at their fingertips.  But doing this on the mobile is sometimes akin to trying to squeeze an elephant through a door!

The mobile differs from the desktop in that often visits are purposeful. Users to go a site on their mobile because they know what they want (and there is a context to their requirements), whereas on the desktop users follow trails and search results to a site. So in designing for mobile you aim to fulfil this contextual need as quickly and easily as possible.

We often see different mobile applications that aspire to do similar things. How do you evaluate a “good” experience compared to a “great” one?

On the desktop, we can quantify this kind utility by looking at factors like learnability (how long it takes users to reach a given level of experience), clarity of structure (time taken to find a piece of information) and satisfaction from the overall experience. On the mobile this is even more important, because users are on the move. They are distracted, they need information quickly.  The equipment is often uncomfortable (small) and quite unforgiving (a slip of the thumb will take them out of the browser).

The most important questions to ask when designing for the mobile are: How will this be used? What will the users want in order to achieve their goal? How can we take the user to what they want in the shortest possible number of steps?

Answering these questions lets us produce an application with a goal in mind. The goal is to produce an application that a user can get into and use right away. Minimal learning curve. Minimal questions. Maximum results. That’s how we know we’ve got a great mobile experience!

How are you applying these mobile design principles here at Locatrix?

One of the most important aspects of our design work at Locatrix is that we have to deliver applications that work and look terrific on literally hundreds of devices – there’s many different handset vendors, and a variety of mobile browsers. This calls for a sense of simplicity in design and presentation, but simplicity itself is not necessarily a bad thing.

Chime provides a simple mobile user experience

Presenting information on the mobile is like drinking a double espresso coffee in the morning – it has to be smooth, potent and fast acting. We can create all sorts of fancy accompaniments like big headers and fancy graphics, but if they aren’t relevant to the core intention they just become “noise” that distracts the user and wastes precious screen real estate.

The other advantage of simplicity is that it serves as a great base to build up on. Once you have a standard for information architecture in place, it becomes possible to add flourishes for the different handsets that can handle it. The iPhone is a great example of this. It displays simple designs well, but because of its browser’s webkit based heritage, nice things like shadows and rounded corners can be easily added to enhance the aesthetics.

We use a tool called Salamander to great effect at Locatrix. Salamander is a web service that lets me know what style sheets, fonts, and graphics to use on a given handset, the screen dimensions, and whether the device supports assisted-GPS or just CellId location methods. We can then perfectly render maps, images, and specific CSS elements for an optimum user experience.

What advice would you give to mobile product managers who want to maximize the stickiness of their application services?

Wireframing helps visualize the user experience

I’d suggest they remember that sometimes “less is more”. Working with such a creative engineering team like we have at Locatrix is a real buzz; we can literally do anything on a handset. But designing successful mobile applications usually comes from creating a utility that does one or two contextual things really well, and doesn’t try to become a sort of mega-solution. I’d often recommend that product managers look towards launching more “simpler” initiatives that can be measured and refined to maximize subscriber returns, rather than one single product with dozens of options.

An excellent technique we use during this refinement process is wireframing – or sketching out the entire application experience, screen by screen. Wireframes clearly define the structure of information, as well as user flow on a site, and they are an information visualisation tool that allows all involved to contribute to the process of design. In the right hands if can help ensure that the site is on the right track, creating a reference for use during production that can help prevent feature creep which in turn reduces noise and increases product effectiveness. It is also a benchmark that can be used to simplify the experience.  Remember, less is more.

Do you have any final comments for our readers?

Mobile interaction design is really a crucial element in the success – or otherwise – of a great service. It is a crucial process to understand, and to execute well.  And make sure you use a great designer. Like me!

Gavin's feet

The Locatrix team held an “offsite” event this week at the Toowong Bowls Club. Our Barefoot Bowls afternoon was enjoyed by all – thanks to Sherwin for the photographs, and to Gavin for logistics (and cooking!). Here’s a few photographs.

Watching his ball go into the gutter probably.

Saqib discovered a talent in lawn bowling.

Gavin on the barbie.. how Aussie is that!

Great BBQ by Gavin!

Gavin doing a dance for us. We are not amused.

At first glance, this initiative had a tremendously successful outcome for the MNO. Their mobile Internet usage saw double-digit percentage growth overnight. And kept growing.

A week later, the operator announced increased usage caps for all of its data plans. No great problem here, as subscribers rapidly became new mobile social networking enthusiasts, often in their thousands each day. But certainly less revenue per MB.

In fact everyone was terribly pleased until later in the month they discovered that while overall mobile data was substantially up, their on-portal traffic had actually decreased, by more than 30 percent. And adding to that dilemma, ARPU decreased for nearly every VAS product they offered to their subscribers.

So while the social networking traffic was increasing, the mobile operator had become a dumb pipe – and found themselves dramatically exposed to churn in a competitive market. Because “m-site” social networking on network A is an identical experience on network B. And C. Or even D. Popular social networking sites are attracting millions of unique visitors to their mobile portals every month, and while mobile data usage rises, the ARPU curve – from data usage alone – is trending ever downwards. What should be an opportunity for mobile operators can very quickly become a massive problem.

To help mobile product and VAS managers meet this challenge, we devised the Locatrix (Re)Engage Workshops. Our thesis is this: mobile operators don’t need to “introduce” social networking services – their subscribers are already there. Instead, they need to formulate and execute strategies which provide a re-engagement path, via and through existing social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter and Friendster.

Delivered in either half-day and full-day seminar formats, our (Re)Engage Workshops help mobile product managers and network executives better understand the demographic mix of social networking users, and teaches them how to create a subscriber engagement strategy by working within the social networking paradigm. Creating, for example, a framework for injecting your mobile brand and VAS solutions into social networking portals, and helping your customers promote their favorite services to their friends. And while we of course present engagement examples based on Locatrix solutions and services, there is no ongoing commercial obligation from the (Re)Engage workshop – just an opportunity to learn and refresh your strategies for leveraging mobile social networking within your subscriber base. And (Re)Engaging with your customers!

There’s more information about the Locatrix (Re)Engage Workshops on our website, but for a limited time we are offering a free half-day (Re)Engage Workshop to qualifying operators who are readers of this newsletter: simply mention “Position Update” when you contact us, or use this special e-mail link.

• Develop for the most common devices.
• Develop so that it looks “kinda ok” on most devices.
• Use hacks to get it to work on a couple of other devices.
• Somehow use the WURFL database.

Several of our solutions revolve around displaying maps. We want the maps to fit to the width of each device. We also like to know what an acceptable base font size is. We want to know as much as we can about every device, so that our solutions work perfectly regardless of device. We run Salamander behind every major (and minor!) solution we develop here at Locatrix Communications to solve this.

Salamander lets developers write layout code for all devices at once. By allowing any service to get any attributes about any device. Mobile applications no longer have to look “kinda ok” on some devices. Applications become tailored to each device. For example:

• Display size
• Supported WAP version
• Supported Java version
• Official support by an MNO
• Default font size.

The web-based front end of Salamander also allows us to instantly change and/or rollback changes on any device-specific attributes across all our solutions. Additionally, it automagically pulls community updates from the WURFL database.

To call Salamander, we simply create a new Salamander object and then query the attributes we need.

if (!isset($_SESSION['device'])
{
    require_once('/include/Salamander.class.php');
    $salamander = new Salamander("http://salamander.me");
    $_SESSION['device'] = $salamander->getSalamanderDevice($_SERVER["HTTP_USER_AGENT"]);
}

The Salamander class handles all the communications with the Salamander server. It returns an array of various required attributes for applications to query.

We then query attributes such as:

• $_SESSION['device']['baseFontSize']
• $_SESSION['device']['imageType']
• $_SESSION['device']['imageWidth']
• $_SESSION['device']['imageHeight']
• $_SESSION['device']['is3G']

From there we resize images, set font sizes, enable/disable bandwidth intensive features, etc.

Want to try out Salamander with your applications? Want to send feedback? Send me an email!

Clark’s argument is that the mobile and mobile Internet players – Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Nokia and particularly Apple – are the ones driving innovation in the industry, so any confidence derived by mobile network operators from their current position is dangerously optimistic.  As an example, Clark cites that any satisfaction operators derive from growth in mobile data use needs to be tempered by the knowledge that this growth largely results from devices like the iPhone, plus the applications and content they consume.   From which, ultimately, the operator receives nothing other than ever-commoditised data revenues. Ultimately, Clark sees this as a cultural problem:

“Carrier leaders need to recognize that the industry culture has evolved to deliver scale and reliability. Even among young and small cellcos, it isn’t geared to innovation.”

One of the challenges generally faced by “innovation units” within mobile operators – those teams chartered with driving application and services growth – is getting beyond corporate risk aversion. In the Internet world, companies can try, test, and measure new services and features easily, quickly and cheaply – Google’s “Lab” products are great examples of this.  In the mobile world, service offerings and VAS business cases face reviews by multiple committees, take months to deploy and often get launched as overly-sanitised versions of a once-original idea.  In a way, any service “innovation” gets watered down by internal processes.  Which is fine, if you are launching or upgrading multi-billion dollar network infrastructure.  But not if you just want to see if an idea works.

This month we’ve launched a new section on our web site: Locatrix Labs.  In it, we’re profiling in real-time projects and works-in-progress from the Locatrix engineering team, ably led by Andrew Eross and Johnson Page.  Of course the innovations featured all leverage or extend Locatrix/XLF, our VAS applications framework, which is exactly the point: we can provide mobile solution product managers a “safe” – in terms of both cost/capital expenditure and deployment risk- means to define, test-launch and measure new service ideas, and indeed mashups between services: perhaps Uandme supported by mobile advertising (we know one operator already is already considering this), or our entertainment/engagement application Nine with branded Facebook marketing.

By showcasing the Labs solutions we hope to provide our customers and partners a view of what cellco service innovation could look like, in an environment which allows them to (as Clark suggests):

“…marshall their strengths in network reach and enabling systems, and be the best channel partner for the broadband mobile internet.”

Which is precisely where they need to innovate!

Please check out Locatrix Labs and let us know what you think.

Locatrix Communications CEO Mark White said they were delighted to win the Telecommunications Award for the Whereis® Everyone web and mobile phone application that allows friends to locate each other and find places to meet using their Telstra mobile phones.

“The system really is fantastic and allows people to find friends and convenient locations where they can catch up,” Mr White said.

Locatrix, which operates from Queensland Government owned i.lab incubator at Toowong, first developed the mobile Whereis® Everyone application in 2006 and last year helped Telstra launch the web-based version of the application. 

i.lab Chief Executive Officer Anne-Marie Birkill congratulated Locatrix on receiving the award.  ”i.lab works closely with all our client companies to grow their innovative ideas into strong and sustainable businesses and Locatrix is a perfect ambassador for our program,” Ms Birkill said.

“In their three years at i.lab, Locatrix has developed and commercialised their product and established a fantastic partnership with one of Australia’s premier telecommunications companies,” she said.

Ms Birkill said by providing flexible office space, mentoring by industry experienced professionals and entrepreneurs, skills development and networking opportunities and business development support, i.lab was encouraging investment in new technology-based companies and creating knowledge-based jobs for Queenslanders. 

Mr White commented that the success of Whereis® Everyone was down to the exciting range of uses for consumers including being able to share locations with friends and family, help them connect and share experiences as well as find nearby places to meet, like at a coffee shop, restaurant or bar. 

“Whereis® Everyone can send you alerts when your friends or family members are near, and allows you to see any or all of their locations on a map, either on a single mobile screen or from the website,” Mr White said. 

He said the application works on any Telstra Next G^TMmobile.

Mr White said winning the award was fantastic recognition for the Locatrix team and was also evidence of the rapidly growing interest in mobile social networking applications beyond sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Mr White said that unlike tracking applications, Whereis® Everyone gives subscribers full control over whom they share their location with.

“Locatrix and Telstra take the privacy of users very seriously,” he said, adding that safeguards were used to make sure no mobile user is located without their consent.

For more information about Locatrix visit www.locatrix.com and for more information about Whereis® Everyone visit http://everyone.whereis.com.

ENDS

For more information contact i.lab CEO Anne-Marie Birkill on (07) 33279802 or 0419 789 401 or Locatrix CEO Mark White on 0438 900 880 or email mark@locatrix.com.

2009 ACS Qld Telecommunications Award

This month we are profiling Locatrix/XLF, our hosted enabler-access and application framework solution. Mobile “enablers” – network elements that provide location, subscriber identity and profile, SMS/MMS messaging and charging – are powerful network assets that can create tremendous value for an operator and their subscribers, through facilitating personalized, interactive and monetizable consumer experiences.

While these enablers of course exist in mobile networks, the cost of opening them up for access by mobile application developers, either directly or via middleware or some sort of service delivery platform (SDP) can be an expensive proposition. We’ve seen VAS business cases shot down because of extensive capital expense requirements, or through provisioning and management costs that make consumer services commercially unviable.

That’s why we’re offering Locatrix/XLF to mobile operators as a hosted, capex-free solution; as the foundation for our consumer applications (friend finder, family minder, location-enhanced marketing and social networking) we’ve already proven the value in enabling multiple applications utilising the same enabler access framework. And by encapsulating the business logic – per-event charging, subscriptions, trial periods and usage caps – within the framework, operators can also launch more “revenue-safe” initiatives, targeted at specifically focused subscriber demographics. We’re also participating in the GSMA’s OneAPI initiative to ensure compliance with the relevant industry standards.

The Locatrix/XLF hosted solution reduces both costs and time-to-market, meaning our customer can design and launch VAS solutions faster, and realise ARPU growth sooner. In one case we’re reducing a six-month initiative cycle (from concept to launch) to just six weeks.

In the current mobile market environment, we believe that operators will be under increasing pressure to both launch new services and reduce capital spending.  Locatrix/XLF is our argument that the two objectives need not be mutually exclusive.  Send me a note if you are interested in exploring Locatrix/XLF further.

Rather than re-hash the news items from the conference itself, I thought we’d devote this month’s newsletter to a rundown on what for us were the top four mobile location topics to emerge last month.

In no specific order, we have:

Enabler Access, or more specifically, how mobile operators can become “smarter” data service providers, was a recurring theme throughout the MWC. Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao spoke of a need to “add value to what we do” in his keynote address, citing that opening enablers (messaging, location, charging, and privacy) through cooperation with content providers was key to providing more relevant experiences for more subscribers. And as a technical starting point, the GSMA’s OneAPI initiative has gained momentum in its first phase. Locatrix – joining vendors like Oracle, Aepona, and Ericsson looks forward to contributing to this effort going forward.

Google Latitude was announced the week before the MWC, proving that demand for location extends beyond corporate LBS applications. There are however limitations to Latitude, and some of these are noted in Telstra’s own blog post and podcast. (You can also read my blog posting on Latitude). There is of course a lesson here: if mobile operators don’t allow access to the enablers, their competitors will simply bypass them.

The OSLO Alliance was announced during the MWC, and while at first glance it seems to be a loose collection of social networking application developers, I’m personally quite thrilled by what they’re seeking: Open Social Location Objects (OSLO’s) that can share a subscriber’s and their friend’s locations/proximity seamlessly across mobile networks, as well as certain profile information.

Collectively, the prominence of these three topics provided a watershed of sorts for Locatrix, demonstrating operator need, market potential, and demonstrable value for social location. And we’re ready to respond. I spent a few weeks in Europe successfully showcasing our eXtensible Locatrix Framework (XLF) to mobile operators; XLF provides a single interface to a subscriber’s social network of “approved” (i.e. locatable) friends that can be used by any number of social networking experiences.

XLF will be the highlight topic of next month’s Position Update, but if you want a preview, drop me a line.

Kudos to Mobile Monday-ers in Barcelona

In a multitude of thanks, I need to congratulate Rudy de Waele and Carles Fereiro (and their team) for a third outstanding Mobile Peer Awards and also Mobile Sunday (the latter so well attended that the bar overflowed into other bars!). Thanks also to Helen Keegan of Mobile Monday London fame for the excellent Swedish Beers event at Dostrece, and the excellent UKTI lunch.

And Finally…

To close on a lighter note –and in response to the barrage of e-mails my Blackberry received on February 18th, I need to state once and for all that – despite the brilliance of Whereis® Everyone for this exact purpose – we sadly have no idea where that particular mobile phone is!

Now, to be clear, I’m a fan of Google’s mobile initiatives.  Google Maps works great on a GPS-equipped device (I’ve used it on both Nokia N95’s and now the 9000 Bold), and in December 2007 when they launched their cellID capability I personally believed it signified a “sunrise” moment in our industry, as folks began to realise that well, approximate locations were useful things.

(A quick note of historical value: Locatrix piloted handset-based cellID applications using active cell transfers on the onboard GSM radio to signal movement in 2004, in a pilot with Vodafone Australia, hence the “catch-up” title).

However, as a friend finder, Latitude has some limitations: the other side has to have Google Maps, you can’t get real-time locations from friends unless they are also using Google Maps, and the implemented privacy restrictions are, well, minor.  Not to mention that (and yes, I get the “Do no evil” mantra) all this data about location is ending up somewhere, somehow for an advertising play….

As a company, Locatrix focuses on solutions that let our operator partners safely expose location to their subscribers, and we were pleased that Telstra took the initiative to make some public comments around Latitude, and the importance of consumer education and control – features we provide in Whereis® Everyone (our solution, Telstra’s brand).

You can listen to Telstra’s Mario Davoli on Google Latitude and Whereis Everyone on the Nowwearetalking.com.au blog site.

I have to confess, I was holding out a little longer, thinking that perhaps the Storm was the device to make all the Locatrix office iPhone huggers go “wow”.  Despite the fact that Telstra aren’t (yet?) releasing a Storm, an impending month of travel made me finally make the decision, and in doing so consolidate two SIM cards into one (my other handset of choice is/was a Nokia E51, which I still kind of like).

But the Bold arrived, neatly packaged and very shiny, so I couldn’t wait to try it out.  So I charged it, threw a SIM card in, spent a bunch of time on the phone to Telstra’s mobile data support folks (there was a problem in the transfer of my service from one MSISDN to another), pointed it at our hosted e-mail server, and….wow.   There’s so many features to play with that….. well lets just say I spent a warm Brisbane weekend cloistered in air-conditioned comfort playing with my new toy, and now have no idea how I lived without it.

The GPS works fine, and the Google Maps application for the Bold is a dream; I love the “Show Address in Google Maps” capability from the address book (amazingly helpful when doing sales calls in foreign cities).

Calendar & Syncing is OK; I wasn’t the biggest fan of the BlackBerry desktop application, and while it’s improved I felt it should have maybe moved on a bit more in the past year.  The e-mail application (admittedly with a QWERTY keyboard layout, which my 7100 lacked) works fine – I’ve found myself answering e-mails at my desk with the BlackBberry instead of the PC, although I will save my ranting about Outlook 2007 for another post.

The application support for social networking is good – MSN, Facebook and the TwitterBerry applications are my standards – and the WiFi support is brilliant.  Unlike the Nokia, where you get to set default networks/access points, the BlackBerry makes the very “bold” assumption that of course you want to use Wifi when you can.  Very cool.

I’m thrilled, and will probably write more in coming days.

Our panel was chartered to specifically discuss monetisation strategies for mobile – including location, charging, and demographics.  I was joined by KTF’s Dr Terry Ahn, Jagdish Mitra from Canvas Technologies, and Kul Wadhwa from the Wikimedia Foundation.  Besides being an interesting discussion, the panel gave me much food for thought about contextual browsing on the mobile, and whether it would soon become as commonplace as the “regular” Internet.

Case in point: I usually open a PC browser with some sort of intent. It might be to check my Gmail while travelling, see what my friends are up to on Facebook, maybe to check the weather or to research a company or topic I’m interested in.  (Yes, I may use the word “research”, what I really mean is “Google”!).

There’s a sense of service “discovery” that doesn’t apply too much to my PC browsing habits: I have maybe a dozen sites bookmarked that I use frequently, and its amazing how irregularly I stray from these. On the mobile, however, I’m positively hungry for new things, and usually am slightly disappointed when I find something is just a poor facsimile of a service or content supply that is much better on the PC browser.

So for the mobile Internet to get really interesting, the services themselves have to become more contextual and personalised, but also the means by which we discover services (and can make a decision as to their applicable relevance to us in the mobile context) needs to improve.  The experience really needs to be something more than a vanilla menu-based operator portal, and it needs to point me to things that I’ll like. And, importantly, benefit from through use of my mobile rather than a PC.

Is this too much to ask? We’ll see how mobile Internet services evolve over the next few years.  Thanks to all at the GSMA for making the Macau event engaging and relevant.

Similar to the MWC in Barcelona each year, the venue threatens to overshadow the conference.  We’re at the Venetian Hotel & Casino, on Macau’s Cotai Strip, and the sheer enormity of this structure is an experience to behold. There’s indoor canals (full size) and an indoor facsimile of St Mark’s Square, built around several levels of high-end shopping and, oh, there’s also a casino that’s larger than several football fields.

This morning’s keynotes were a mixture of concern for the industry with the current financial crisis – literally billions of dollars worth of telecoms debt falls due in 2009, which will bring operating challenges for many operators – while on the other hand, the sheer ubiquity of the mobile experience (like keys and a wallet/purse, nobody leaves home without a mobile) suggests that while not immune from a forecasted decrease in consumer spending, it is unlikely to be a utility people will readily forgo.

Of course, the rise in mobile broadband around the world is giving extra cause for optimism.  I heard anecdotes suggesting 20% growth in subscribers in 6 months as customers add a mobile USB modem to their existing handset service.  While these subscribers provide good ARPU, several speakers mentioned the challenges presented by the infrastructure – base stations and backhaul bandwidth – needed to service this demanding customer segment.  Its no great surprise that most of the OEM vendors here are touting mobile broadband solutions.

I will post more later in the week, but I have to give kudos to the GSMA and also local MNO CTM – each delegate pack contained a prepaid CTM SIM card.  Really handy, so cheap to do, and a wonderfully useful thing to have at such an event.  Well done!

Entitled “Mobile Internet – Missing Link or Misnomer”, the panel is charged with discussing moneitization of mobile assets for a new Internet – location, charging and demographics, and will be held from 4pm on Wednesday, November 19th in Conference Auditorium 2.

Joining Mr White on the panel will be Mike Singh, CEO Telekom Caribe, terry Ahn, EVP of Global Business for KTF, Kul Wadhwa, Head of Business Development Wikimedia Foundation, and Aggarawal Dheeraj, CEO Altruist Technologies. The penal moderator is Martin Gutberlet, VP of Gartner.

“We’re excited by the opportunity to present at such a distinguished event”, says White. “Through helping network operators to leverage location as a mobile asset, the mobile Internet engages subscribers and makes content experiences more relevant and contextual.”

Mark White will be in Macau for the entire Mobile Asia Congress event.  For more information about Locatrix Communications, or to arrange a meeting with Locatrix in Macau, please contact Locatrix.

Much more than a friend finder, Whereis Everyone provides subscribers with the ability to define and view personalized location areas, receive alerts on friend locations on specific days at pre-defined times, interact with a variety of different types of points-of-interest (POIs), upload their own photographs, and manage who can view and use their location details within a safe, secure privacy framework.

Whereis Everyone is based on the 3^rd generation release of Uandme, Locatrix Communications’ internationally recognized mobile location and social networking solution. Locatrix uses mobile location to create engaging subscriber experiences, and generate ARPU for its international customers. For more information on Uandme, please contact Locatrix.

Media Coverge Links:

Sunrise (Channel 7 video, Nationally broadcast morning show)
ZDNet.com.au (”Telstra Mobile Users Get Police Powers”)
Computerworld Australia
Google News Search 
The Age (Melbourne)

About NICTA

National ICT Australia Limited (NICTA) is a national research institute with a charter to build Australia’s pre-eminent Centre of Excellence for information and communications technology (ICT). NICTA is building capabilities in ICT research, research training and commercialisation in the ICT sector for the generation of national benefit.

NICTA is funded by the Australian Government as represented by the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and the Australian Research Council through the ICT Centre of Excellence program.

NICTA was established and is supported by its members: The Australian Capital Territory Government; The Australian National University; NSW Department of State and Regional Development; and The University of New South Wales. NICTA is also supported by its partners: the University of Sydney; University of Melbourne; the Victorian Government; the Queensland Government; Griffith University; Queensland University of Technology; and The University of Queensland.

For further information:

Kelly Mills, Communications Specialist, NICTA

Ph: 02 8374 5489 or 0448 434 858

NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence has teamed with the Queensland Department of Emergency Services and a Brisbane ICT company to develop tools which will help emergency services agencies obtain timely information about unfolding situations.

NICTA’s Smart Applications for Emergencies (SAFE) project, based at NICTA’s Queensland Research Laboratory, is developing applications and tools to enable the capture and presentation of vital information about emergency situations, ranging from events such as devastating floods and cyclones to incidents like car accidents and fires.

NICTA has teamed with Brisbane company Locatrix Communications in its quest to provide real-time situational awareness information for emergency rescue operations.

“Getting information about unfolding emergency situations to the right people at the right time is of critical importance for emergency services agencies,” Queensland Department of Emergency Services, Executive Manager, Business Strategy Projects Nick Moss said.

“It is important that personnel in local, regional and state operations and coordination centres can quickly form a picture of what is happening in the field. Such information provides situational awareness and can improve response time and effectiveness in emergency rescue operations and can also improve safety of the crew members.”

Locatrix Communications is an innovator in location-based services. Its location services can be used by mobile and distributed enterprises to manage and locate their assets and personnel. The services are also used for mobile social networking.

“We value our cooperation with NICTA as it provides us with an opportunity to contribute to the development of applications supporting emergency services and also gives us insight into the research that can have an impact on our future direction,” Locatrix Communications founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark White said.

One of NICTA’s strategic aims is to collaborate with local technology companies to nurture the Australian ICT industry. The relationship with Locatrix Communications will help build the mobile services industry in Brisbane and elsewhere in Australia.

“Right now we’re seeing that the market is ready for other location-based services, such as mobile social networking and location-sensitive advertising,” NICTA SAFE Networks Project Leader, University of Queensland ITEE Professor Jadwiga Indulska said.

“But in the not too distant future we’ll begin to see mobile computing applications that draw on a much wider range of information than location alone, and that will herald the age of ubiquitous, or pervasive, computing.

“Researchers in the field of ubiquitous computing generally refer to this wider range of data as ‘context information’, and it can include anything from location, to temperature readings to the level of pollution in the air.”

Prof Indulska said the development of this sort of technology will help revolutionise how emergency services organisations can respond to events as they are unfolding.

Locatrix Communications CEO Mark White will join a stellar industry panel at this month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona to debate “Which Way to Go – The Right Technology for the Right Application”.

Moderated by Frost & Sullivan’s Gerry Purdy, the panel will address a variety of questions including: will location finally become pervasive in cell phones, what kind of accuracy can we expect, and what will be the most popular location-base services (and why).

Joining Mark White on the panel will be:

* Oren Nissim, Chief Executive Officer, Telmap
* Stephen Stuut, Chief Executive Officer, TruPosition
* Tom Babin, Knowledge Management & Discovery, Motolabs (Motorola)
* Kanwar Chadha, Co-founder and VP of Marketing, SiRF Technologies

“Participating in this prestigious event is a real honour”, according to Mr. White, but he also sees the panel as a watershed in the evolution of location-based services. “LBS, and specifically mobile LBS is an ecosystem that requires all the participants – operators, infrastructure providers, and application developers – to work collectively to create a great consumer experience. Bringing together a leadership group like this at the world’s premiere mobile event provides an opportunity to talk about what will be done, not just what could be done, when technology, network operators and application developers work in sync to deliver next-generation location experiences.”

The Mobile World Congress will be held at the Fira de Barcelona from 11-14 February 2008. The “Location, Location, Location” session and panel will be held on Wednesday February 13 at 4:15pm in Hall 5, Level 3, Office 8.

Mr White will also represent Locatrix Communications at a number of other industry and media events during the Mobile World Congress. Please contact us if you would like to arrange a meeting, interview, or product demonstration in Barcelona.