Visa Announces New Mobile Payment Services

Visa Europe today announced the launch of "Visa Mobile Person-to-Person" payments and "Visa Alerts."

Visa Mobile Person-to-Person payments allow registered users to transfer funds to any Visa cardholder in Europe from their mobile phone. The app makes it possible to send money to an address book contact, to a mobile phone number, or to a specific Visa card number.

Visa Alerts notify registered Visa cardholders on a real-time basis whenever their card has been used to make a purchase or to withdraw cash through Visa Europe's payment network.

The services are commercially available to Visa Europe's member banks from October 2011. Visa Announces Mobile Payment Services

Amazon to launch Kindle tablet today

Amazon will unveil its new "Kindle Fire" tablet computer today, Sept. 28, 2011, reports TechCrunch. The Fire will not replace the Kindle e-reader, which remains available. Retail sales are expected to begin in November 2011, and some speculate the device will resemble the Research in Motion "Playbook." Amazon to launch Kindle tablet

Samsung bets on Tizen?

Tizen, a new open source project, is a mobile and device operating system based on Linux and intended to support multiple device categories, such as smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks, and in-vehicle infotainment devices.

The Linux Foundation will host the project, where Tizen development will be completely open and led by a technical steering team composed of Intel and Samsung. The Tizen application programming interfaces are based on HTML5 and other web standards.

Samsung appears to believe it will have to feature its own operating system in the future to compete with the other ecosystems which integrate hardware and operating system. Apple was the original model, but Research in Motion, Palm and Symbian were examples. In a new twist, whether a platform is "open" or "closed" is not the key issue.

What matters is whether a significant ecosystem can be built around the platform, which might be anchored by a single supplier. Both Android and Windows now are trending in a direction that could be described as freely licensed, whether open or more closed. Tizen might expect to develop as an open, freely licensed, but still "captive" operating system in some key respects.

"Open or closed" used to be a key dividing line in the mobile operating system area. These days, such distinctions appear less important. What is starting to emerge is a view that user experience cannot be optimized unless the OS and the hardware are tightly integrated.

Apple's model seems to be winning, in other words, not the older Microsoft Windows model.

Welcome to Tizen

New Google+ Features Coming? Google Experts, the Facebook Wall, Google Voice Integration?

Matt Mastracci, a programmer by trade and CTO of the tech startup Gripe says he was snooping around in Google+ and uncovered evidence of five new Google+ features not yet announced. New Google+ features. 

The first feature is pretty small and looks akin to Facebook’s wall, letting users write on each other’s profile without showing the post in the timelines of other users. Google upcoming features


The second one is far more interesting, says  Mastracci.  It looks like there’s a new product brewing inside Google named “Google Experts”. The product looks sounds like a version of Quora, letting you post questions and gather answers. Questions work like posts do today: you can mention other users, comment on them and share them.


Mastracci found clues of potential Google Voice integration, such as a setting labeled “Allow people to phone me from my profile.” This could open the door for free and easy phone calls with friends and family through the site, and take it head-to-head with Facebook's recent partnership with Skype.

Mobile Revenue in Europe Now is Flat, Where Will Growth Come From?

Not so long ago, mobile was what was driving telecom service provider revenue. In the U.S. market, for example, where in 1997 about half of U.S. telecom revenue was generated by long distance revenue,by 2007 mobile revenues represented about half of total revenues. Mobile service revenue was important because it replaced long distance as the industry revenue mainstay.

In 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, mobile services alone in 2007 accounted for 61 percent of all subscriptions while standard phone lines have dropped to 26 percent. And the change has come swiftly: in just seven years, from 2000.

Mobile revenues now account for nearly half of all telecommunication revenues—41 percent in 2007—up from 22 percent 10 years earlier. Revenue sources have changed

The immediate problem now is that mobile revenue growth has flattened in the developed markets, and cannot provide adequate revenue support as voice services, on both fixed and mobile networks, continue to decline. True, mobile data revenues will grow. But many believe mobile data revenues will grow only enough to offset voice losses, the Yankee Group estimates.




Increasing adoption of mobile broadband services for former "voice and text only" accounts will help. But the wild card is the effect of subscriptions to connected devices such as tablets. In developed markets, nearly everyone who wants a mobile device already has one. In Europe, for example, mobile subscriptions are essentially flat, says the Yankee Group.




Also, up to this point, added data revenues are not compensating for declining voice revenue per user. To boost mobile data by significant amounts, service providers will likely have to hope for significantly higher mobile connections for tablet and other devices. European average revenue per user is declining, the Yankee Group says.

"There's Plenty of Spectrum," Analysts Claim

Squatting is the main problem with spectrum, not a looming shortage, say a pair of analysts at Citigroup. One can disagree with the analysis, as the researchers also make some claims that are a bit silly. 


“Too much spectrum is controlled by companies that are not planning on rolling out services or face business and financial challenges,” wrote Jason Bazinet and Michael Rollins. “We do not believe the U.S. faces a spectrum shortage.”


Of course, by that assertion, they mean that spectrum now being used by 2G and 3G networks that would be more efficient if converted to 4G networks. That's true, and also silly. Users on existing networks are paying for service. That spectrum cannot be converted to other uses until those customers stop using 2G and 3G and migrate to 4G. But that process is just beginning.


Also, much of the fallow currently licensed spectrum the analysts cite is held by Clearwire, which is having trouble getting customers for the spectrum it has activated, and which is still building its network. The so-called unused spectrum is unused for reason: customers cannot be found, yet. 

The Federal Communications Commission is using the specter of a looming shortage to push through the redesignation of 120 MHz of broadcast spectrum for wireless broadband, the analysts say.  Even so, plenty of spectrum remains undeveloped, Bazinet and Rollins said. Spectrum Control is Constraining Supply

“Today, U.S. carriers have 538 MHz of spectrum, and an additional 300 MHz of additional spectrum waiting in the wings. But only 192 MHz is in use today,” they said.

A majority of that spectrum is devoted to legacy service not likely to deliver more than 1 Mbps during usage peaks, compared to 5 Mbps for 4G, the latest data network technology. Bazinet and Rollins said if the full 538 MHz was converted to 4G, it could support 5 Mbps at 10 percent simultaneous usage. They noted, however, that the larger carriers couldn’t just sweep in with 4G because their networks are so occupied by legacy users. Study says plenty of spectrum

So why bother making the claims? 

Google+ Hits 50 Million Users?

Yesterday (give or take a few days) Google+ likely crossed the 50 million user mark. And since being opened to the general public (over age 18) last week, Google+ has been growing by at least four percent per day, meaning that around two million new users have been signing up each day.

the methodology