Wirelessnorth.ca

Stumbled upon this one the other day. Do a search for Blackberry Ball to find an enormous number of listings for replacement BBerry trackballs. First introduced with the Pearl, the bberry trackballs work pretty well, however they do tend to wear out over time, and turn gradually grimier after thousands of thumbprints. WirelessNorth’s official blackberry curve also had the disconcerting habit of occasionally flinging it’s trackball across the floor (not good). Ebay and a measly $10 later however, all fixed up, gleaming white, stays in place and spins like a champ. Happy thumbs.

Anyway RIM users, mind this tip in case some of the old balls in your life ever get less fresh and playful than they once were. Good way to refub an “old” curve or pearl if you’re having problems. New trackballs don’t come with 3G, but cheaper than a Bold.

iPhone users, we haven’t looked for replacement fingers on eBay. But if there were, wouldn’t recommend buying them.

Ok, so Gmail may actually be one of the most popular applications for the blackberry or iPhone etc. However, we’d just like to say, for the record, that there is something incredibly awesome about being able to easily search years of email archives from anywhere at any time. What a lifesaver. Ideal for scrounging forgotten phone numbers out of email signatures (tip: search for “name 416″ or whichever area code), or for any other vital tidbits of information anyone might ever have emailed you or vice versa. Almost as lifesaving as crackberry gchat stuck when in a useless meeting or long street car ride (viigo comes in handy here too) or that magical psuedo-gps cell-tower mapping trick. Very handy.

Your indispensibe, most life-saving mobile app? discuss. iPhone flashlight FTW?

Breaking news, Canada’s ever popu(list) governing party latest polling data has found few ordinary citizens in favour of “unfair” telecom charges. I don’t know if this poster child would top our list in that category, but inbound SMS fees have recently garnered a lot of press attention, and so.

“We are obviously responding to a specific concern, which is the imposition of charges for unsolicited text messages,” Harper told reporters today in Victoria, British Columbia. “We think this is completely unfair to consumers; completely unwarranted.”

Now there’s insensible about waiving fees on unsolicited txt messages (how about the same for unsolicited telemarketer calls eh?) the catch is that Bell and Telus already claim to credit consumers for “spam” messages. So this new policy may not mean much.

Buried under the headlines though is the story with real far reaching implications:

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission would also be empowered to block “unfair charges” in the future, and the country’s telecommunications act will be amended to create a “code of conduct” for wireless services, Harper said.

To date the wireless industry has not been subject to CRTC regulation. This is huge (depending on your opinion of the CRTC’s efficacy). Sadly though the conservatives have stopped short of another likely remedy, relaxing foreign ownership rules to spur greater competition. This “is not the time to move forward” on loosening ownership restrictions says Harper.

On balance however, this announcement is progress and probably good news for Canadians. For better or worse it does seem likely that Harper will still be in his seat after this election.

At WirelessNorth.ca we’re strongly in favor the conservative (or any other party) spending less effort on quashing arts & creativity in Canada and more on building a globally competitive wired/wireless telcom infrastructure and related industries in this country.

A code of conduct to enforce reasonable consumer protections is a good idea. Starting to relax foreign ownership would have been a good idea too.

Link: Canada to Ban Fees on Some Text Messages, Harper Says

The chart above (courtesy admob) about says it all. When it comes to smart phones, nokia rules the rest of the world while RIM owns North America (ignoring the smaller pink chunk of mostly-american Palm users, who just haven’t upgraded to Blackberry yet).

But there’s a lot that the high-end Nokia’s have that local smartphones lack, like killer photo, video and multimedia capabilities. Going against this trend Rogers launched the n95 this summer. Ironically just months before the n96 was released. The N96 has been out from Nokia for a few weeks now, as well as a selection of other n-series devices the N85 and N79. Of the bunch, the n85 (pictured) and the n79 might be the most interesting (the n96 being most distinguished by it’s sky-high price and mobile TV feature that won’t work over here).

For Rogers who’s new strategy seems to be to sell (almost) everything/anything GSM that Bell and Telus can’t get, how long can it be?

Caught this little gem over on the Wellington Financial blog. Bell to be clawing back native GPS services from their devices unless you pay a new monthly fine fee.

A number of mobile-related blogs and message boards are starting to pick up on a story that based on an internal memo, in the coming weeks, Bell will begin to interfere with the GPS signal that late-model Blackberry units (including the 8830, 8130 Pearl and 8330 Curve) receive.

Users of free GPS mapping applications (such as Google Maps or even the included Blackberry Maps application by RIM) will see the time required to establish a GPS lock increase to 2-10 minutes, up from the typical 15-20 seconds usually experienced. Additionally, there is some speculation that the resolution of GPS data will also be reduced to a 1-2.5km range as opposed to the existing 10-25m accuracy currently provided — not exactly useful when trying to find the location for your next meeting downtown in an unfamiliar city.

Of course, the existing level of service for GPS data can continue to be received, provided subscribers start to pay upwards of $10 a month to gain access to Bell’s own GPS service (”GPS Nav”).

Link: “Pay us or get lost!” (Literally!)

Apparently, this move follows Verizon’s recently clever idea to block all GPS access to third party apps, in order to help the sale of their own mapping application.

Now, we’ve heard of net neutrality. Can we talk about satellite neutrality?

On September 25th, across the country, thousands of interactive digital media professionals will voice their vision for the future of Canada’s creative economy. As a part of the first-ever National Digital Media Day, professionals working in everything from videogames to elearning companies are gathering to share ideas on how to strengthen Canada’s digital media sector amidst growing global competitiveness and the imminent federal election.

There are a ton of great events happening coast to coast, so there’s no excuse. Get out there! (And while you’re at it raise a wistful glass for fast pipes and open access).

Vancouver: New Media BC AGM and mixer, National photo walk with Kris Krug (and a barcamp 2 days later)

Calgary: DemoCampCalgary10, Sept 25

BarCampSaskatoon08 at the cellar

Winnipeg: New Media Manitoba keynote with Robert L. Peters

Toronto: Kensington Market block party, featuring demos of a 3D digital graffiti tagging system and a Skype megaphone, as well as a writing for digital media event at 1028 Queen Street West

Anyone, at specific times across the country will also be taking part in the mobile mass mob KISS event, where folks from across the country will pucker up in busy intersections, take mobile pictures of themselves and post to a montage site that will later be screened on a big screen in Vancouver that night.

facebook group

More info and Official Ning site for National Digital Media Day

If you have more events (the official events list is a bit of a mess), email us and we’ll update this listing.

Shocking yes, but but so we understand to be the main current of some juicier PR to cross our desks this morning. There’s a recall on for iPhone 3G chargers. Sez apple: “Apple has determined that under certain conditions the new ultracompact Apple USB power adapter’s metal prongs can break off and remain in a power outlet, creating a risk of electric shock.”

The really important part, the flacks tell us, is not that your beloved iPhone could be deadlier than an electric eel at a toaster party. No, the important angle is that you should NOT take your killer wall wart back to a Rogers or Fido store. What would they do with them? Trust us, they don’t want to be zapped by your shoddy knob either. Only an apple retailer will do or somehow through the apple website.

In any case, safety first we say, you may as well get yours exchanged. Don’t let this recall spark any ideas, we don’t recommend your own untimely demise as a loophole out of your 3 year contract. It’s probably enforceable straight through to the next world anyway.

link/exchange instructions for iPhone 3G USB plug

Yes, it’s public service announcement day on WirelessNorth.ca

Well this is fun, Globalive has launched a “wireless soapbox” site like a dell ideastorm or suggestion box for how to build a better wireless carrier in Canada. You can submit ideas or gripes and vote up better suggestions with a digg-like interface. You get the idea.

Clever of Globalive to be the first out there positioning themselves as the white knight, against the familiar evils and frustrations of the current providers. (While it lasts) this whole new competition idea looks like it’s going to be fun. You know what to do, head over to wireless soap box here.

Hat tip to electrokinetica for the link.

That’s what I want to know. Maybe the general populace is not so bad off as your hapless editor who manages to break, lose, drop, step on, have the dog eat, leave in a taxi cab or under an airplane seat a mobile device on a seemingly by-weekly basis. Nonetheless, three years for the average cell phone? You’ve got to be kidding. Cell phones break, batteries wear out, and especially now, technology is evolving at a whiplash pace.

In the coming years, mobile technology will play an increasingly important role in Canada’s knowledge economy. Yet Canada’s wireless market is awash in old crappy handsets and outdated data-free or outrageously expensive old data plans. Just recently in Canada there has been a great breakthrough in the availability of top-end phones and much improved data plans in Canada. Unfortunately, our installed base is still lagging far behind many other parts of the world, and not likely to catch up on a three year upgrade cycle. This gap is a problem for any Canadian businesses or entrepreneurs trying to be innovative or competitive on a global scale when it comes to developing any kind of industry around mobile-driven content, services or applications.

From a consumer public policy perspective, number portability and new entrants are all good things for spurring competition in Canada’s mobile industry. However, both measures are significantly hampered by the high switching costs of the great number of consumers locked in to extended contracts.

Don’t get me wrong, we here at WirelessNorth.ca are quite in favour of the idea of contracts. Particularly because handset subsidies are a great way of making the technology more accessible to a much larger market. And because carriers should have a free hand to make money and compete as creatively as they can withing reasonable bounds.

Nonetheless, it’s time we caught up with many countries in the rest of the world and mandated a limit on contracts, or a limit on cancellation penalties to not more than 18 months. We think a year and half is a good compromise.

If you look around, you’ll notice that carriers that offer 18month contracts in many countries (such as France, the UK or South Africa) still manage to offer subsidies as great or greater than those offered by the big three here in Canada on identical devices.

As first we wrote about back in April, there’s a mini revolution going on in mobile computing. Cheap and cheerful netbooks are outstripping even Intel’s expectations who can barely make enough of the Atom chips most commonly used to power the things.

This is a shot of the just announced Dell unit released to compete with the Asus Eeepc, MSI Wind, Acer whatever it’s called and many others. At an entry price of $399 for a featherweight mobile pc with (just) enough power to run firefox and any web app, a proper keyboard, and substantially more screen resolution of the best mobile phone, what’s not to like?

Here’s the thing though, all of these are coming out in Canada as wifi-only machines… where’s the 3G? This is a pc that cries out for mobile broadband, the perfect knee-top mobile computer for the streetcar or passenger seat etc.

With netbooks starting at $399, throw in a $200 carrier subsidy on a reasonable 3G contract and you would have had a hell-of-a back to school offer…

maybe in time for Christmas?

Link: Vodafone to market Dell Inspiron Mini 9 with built-in 3G on September

UPDATE / FOR EXTRA CREDIT: $399 – $200 subsidy= $199. Thanks to moore’s law the shiny new $399 pc will be $199 anyway in just a year or two. Here’s the point: Imagine a world where laptop computers cost less a pair of shoes. How many computers will you have? How many computers will everyone else have? What’s your mobile broadband strategy in such a world?