Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz

on Nokia phones

Back at 3GSM in Barcelona this year, I lost my Nokia 7710 phone My mobile phone line in France has been serviced for almost 10 years now by Coriolis Telecom on the Orange network. Their website is cryptic (to say the least) on how to call international. It took me several hours to get a friend in France to call their service line from France (while I was in Spain) using the only number I could find. In the meantime someone in Spain spent the day calling, adding great roaming charges. My bill was over 1200 euros for the day!!!! And of course Coriolis charged me. I should probably enter some kind of litigation with them. When I get some time, but then, who’s in a jurry to collect evidence when on business trips ?

On my recent trip to San Francisco, I lost my Nokia N70. Too bad, it’s really a great phone. Fantastic reception quality, great interface, relatively fast, very handy. A great recommendation. But I also lost my data connection SIM card in there. Now I called last week Orange (no one had used my card as I had not activated – I think – international roaming). I got a new SIM a couple of days ago, but my wifi connection doesn’t work anymore. I called the Wifi hotline, I do not exist as a customer there. I called the 3G hotline, and yes there seems to be a problem. Already 2 days… Do all operators make it a purpose in life to make customer life difficult ?

In the meantime, I got a Nokia N91 phone (and I still use on a daily basis my Nokia N90 phone – a biut bulky, and a rather low sound level). I have to say that after a couple of weeks, I do not like it. It’s too big. the Menu button is placed in a weird way. Although it has a big 4 Gb hard drive, my mailbox won’t sync anymore, because of memory full issues (and yes I’m pointing to the hard drive). Maybe I need to get another mail client for the phone. Then the music player tends to play all the time. I haven’t figured out how to get rid of that. It also comes with integrated wifi: really a great feature, but the UI is cumbersome, and at times it enters infinite loops trying to connect to a WLAN. Finally, the keyboard is ugly. The only really good thing aside the harddrive + wifi is the optical zoom of the camera. Really nice.

Now, what I’m really looking forward to now, is the Nokia E61. I tested it briefly with a friend in the US. It’s like a blackberry device but better: huge color screen for surfing the web, great keyboard, EDGE (not yet 3G) and Wifi (not present on blackberries), very light. I think it should become a killer for consumers instead of the pro market for mobile email and IM.

I’ll update you again soon on my mobile phone real life testing. Nokia phones are getting better. Mobile operators not really…

Update: by the way, the N91 doesn't work with Shozu (no client yet), nor with iSync on the Apple (:(, but does work with Opera Mini. So who's getting back to bringing us these essential tools ?

FON is fun :)

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Fon is planning to announce on Monday, that they will hand out ONE cool million FON wi-fi routers at a cost of $5 / 5 €, to help democratize the wireless generation.

Indeed as I was travelling in the US last week, I felt the need for such a service at last! I have an Orange flat data rate account, that theoretically allows me to connect everywhere in France, and I discovered last week, also has a numebr of romaing agreements in the US when I tried to connect to hotspots (shame on me, I left my password back home...).
Nevertheless, whenever I poped open my laptop, I would at least half a dozen wifi networks available for connection, but all protected by WEP/WPA keys.

Wouldn't it have been great if I could have connected to at least one of them with my FON account ? Benefit from true Wi-Fi roaming ? In NYC the other day, I was trying to download my email on my new Nokia N91 phone (it does Wifi !!!). Most networks were closed, and every now and then in town, I could connect and download the stuff.

Although the economics are somewhat complicated between who gets what (the carriers, the wifi providers, the users), it is a public service to have a service such as FON around. Now anyone of the big operators would launch a similar service; well do it. FON is at the moment the only service out there aiming at making wifi connectivity easy. Let's help him, and grab routers at $5 !

For more information, check Martin's blog.

(disclosure: FON's founder & CEO is an investor in my company).

Nokia Nseries

Nokia Nseries, originally uploaded by rsepulveda.

A while ago I reviewed the Nokia N90 (center phone). It's a great phone that doubles as a picture camera and a video camera that I use all the time.

I've also been using the N70 for a few months now, and I really owe you a review. It's a great phone, a lot of software had been written to it, it's small, and the battery is OK. Thumbs up.

This morning I've started rewieving the N91: wow. Although bulky, this phone carries a lot of new features, including a full WIFI connection, that I'll beusing now to blog my videos live on this blog. Just did the whole setup (configured my account on vpod.tv, configured the phone). Super easy. Expect a thorough review real soon as well.

More on the phones here.

Miyowa at VC summit

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Fon is selling wi-fi routers at 4 euros !

Quick there is a time limited offer on Fon that allows you to buy a $50–value router for only 4 euros (+ VAT + shipping => 11 euros in total). Totally worth the money !

I checked, there’s not even a limitation on the numbers of routers you can get… Just got an email from Ivan who just bought one. There is a limitation it seems (makes business sense! Anyways a rgeat deal nevertheless).

The only catch (and totally fair I’d say): “Offer valid until June 5, 2006 at 14:30 CET or until all products have been sold. IVA and shipment costs are not included. A surcharge of €46 shall be applied to all routers that are not registered with FON within one month of their purchase). We will notify you 15 days in advance of said charge.”

I’ve already bought 4 of them in the past for my house, the office, and one for travelling (but at 25 euros each…).

Playing with Shozu

Place des Vosges, originally uploaded by rsepulveda.

I've been playing for a weeks now with Shozu, a mobile application for your phone.

What it basically does it is that it enables you to upload multimedia content (pictures, videos) from your phone to a number of different sites in an optimized manner (upload resume, compression, etc.). You can also very easily send content to any email address.

Installing it is almost straighforward, although I had to to try a couple of times. Afterwards, the program is so well embedded in your phone that whenever you take a picture for instance, a popup windows shows up, and asks if you want to post it to a site (I chose Flickr by default).
Hence: open the camera on your phone, shoot with a click, pres OK to upload, and you're done. It has never been so easy to publish content.

So I guess you might have not noticed, but I've started taking pictures (moblogging) of moments of my life very quickly. In addition, as I haev an unlimited 3G data plan, I just shoot and upload to Flickr (pro account).

Here are for instance some of my pictures, taken in Paris. I just wish Shozu would allow me to select some default categories / tags when I post.

Rafi Haladjian

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Gilles Babinet announces a $5m series A round for Eyeka, his new company

This blog is always cuttingedge. We had the scoop of the sale of Musiwave to Openwave. Then that Gilles was starting a new company. Then the sector. And now that he has raised some serious cash with 2 VCs: Ventech & DN Capital. Congrats to Eric & Nenad for partnering with 2 great folks, Gilles & Franck.

More in this official press release :
Download communique_de_presse_ventech_dn_capital_eyeka.doc (French)

Download english_dnc_eyeka_final.doc (English)

Looking for applications to use with my GPS device

I recently got the Nokia LD-1W Wireless (Bluetooth) GPS device. It looks nice, is recognized by all my laptops on the bluetooth stack, but… I have no software to use it

I know that wayfinder is maybe the appropriate map / GPS application for my Series 60 phones, but I find the $99 price tag a bit harsh for something I don’t really need. And I have no application for the PC.

So anyone has some good advice on what I could use this GPS device with (please make sure it works too !). Aside from maps (yes I’d like an app), from wi-dfi war-driving (somehow Netstumbler doesn’t recognize it), I’d like other uses such as time / place stamping pictures / videos, a Plazes-like app, etc.

Thanks.

3GSM: a chat with Patrick Parodi, chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum

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And surprise, in this video, Patrick tells us he is no longer with PacketVideo Network Solutions, an Alcatel company, but that he has joined a new startup, backed by Accel & Sequioa Capital, aiming to bring to the mobile medium what has been mising so far: advertising.

And you will even get a preview demo here… Isn’t this camera always in the right place ?

And of course, since you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that Patrick is the chairman of the industry association, the Mobile Entertainment Forum.