Mobile JSF limitations and Reality and .Mobi Standards

Purpose of this article is to describe the Mobile JSF findings and realities. Its actually a software engineers point of view who used this kit recently.

Ericsson company has come up with the Mobile JSF Kit.

Its freaking the whole mobile web and even DotMobi (mobile web standards are maintained by it).
And this things is also appriciated from dotmobi because its propse what others don’t.

The Ericsson Mobile JSF Kit provides a JSF library, MobileFaces. It abstracts the difficulties in the development of mobile applications, and enables rendering of different page content for different end devices based on one JSF page. Because of this, MobileFaces can highly reduce the amount of time needed for mobile application development, maintenance and extension.

Here are my findings.

This kits renders markup according to client device in a very fast speed and its the real shiny quality of this kit.

Problem of this render kit it that, using this kit you can’t get ready.mobi rating to 5 for a mobile site. Second there is an encoding issue in it and it used “ISO-8859-1″, which is not supported by almost every mobile handset and don’t render pages generated through this kit.

For device detection it used device.xml which contains the User-Agents of the devices for which its rendering will work. E.g weather a device is desktop machine, smart phone or a WML mobile. Its the biggest flaw in this implemenatation, a developer of such a multi-platfrom enviornment don’t remember the User-Agents of every client device out there in market (there are billions of them) and can’t put their information in this device.xml so that this system can identify which render scheme is to used for a particular device.
It also don’t have any way to use the industry standard device-detection sources like WURFL or Device_Atlas.

Now something about mobile faces, well its nothing. I repeat its nothing its just a fake statement to capture the attention of the developers.

The faces which is called mobile faces is actually standard JSF, This faces is not what it is suppoed to do. It only sets your doctype, head and body tags for your markup, remaining it uses the JSF standard components. One other interesting thing as both XHTML-MP and HTML are alike, they are very sensibaly using these tags to alternate the basic out put for both XHTML-MP and HTML. And use render kit when a WML device is detected.

So in short this Mobile JSF can’t be used on large scales but erricson can do one thing, they can produce a render kit which transforms standard XHTML-MP or to WML. So that mobile web developers only focus on dotmobi standards and rest is handeled through device detection ways and this render kit.

Bollywood Goes Mobile

Barcelona launch sees World’s largest film industry opening on the small screen

12^th February 2007 – Barcelona, Spain: The world’s largest film industry joined forces with the global mobile communications world today in spectacular fashion – as Bollywood premiered its first feature films for mobile viewers at the 3GSM World Congress (February 12-15) in Barcelona.

The Congress marks the start of the adaptation of thousands of vibrant Bollywood productions for the mobile screen – a development that could have a huge impact on the global mobile entertainment market, already worth some $US23 billion.

The Bollywood Mobile Initiative is driven by Roamware, the global leader in roaming and mobile connectivity solutions; Hungama Mobile, the world’s largest aggregator, developer and publisher of Indian entertainment and Bollywood content; Sanjay Gupta, a leading Bollywood director; and the GSM Association (GSMA), the global trade association for mobile operators.

Roamware’s Media Call technology is providing the capability to integrate the cinematic content into the everyday mobile experience for film fans.

“Media Call redefines mobile communications from voice to visual media, enabling the sharing and promotion of film clips to accelerate the growth of the mobile movie market,” said Bobby Srinivasan, CEO of Roamware.

Two Bollywood short films “Zahir” & “Matriomony” were premiered in Barcelona today. These films are a part of the feature film ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’ (10 Stories) produced by Sanjay Gupta of White Feather Films, starring more than 20 leading Bollywood stars including Dia Mirza, Suneil Shetty, Sanjay Dutt, Neha Mandira Bedi, Aftab Shivdasani and many others. Sanjay Gupta is one of Bollywood’s leading filmmakers who has produced and directed many hugely popular movies such as Kaante, Musafir and Zinda.

The films demonstrate the viral potential for Bollywood movies on the ‘fourth screen’ -the mobile device. Set pieces with action and dialogue scenes interspersed with song and dance make the vibrant, fast moving movies a compelling entertainment experience for the mobile viewer.

“Bollywood today is the world’s largest movie industry, producing more than a thousand movies a year with an audience of more than two billion viewers across 127 countries. Formatting that content for the mobile audience and ensuring simplicity of delivery and accessibility provides staggering reach and revenue possibilities,” said Bobby Srinivasan, CEO and Chairman, Roamware.

“The GSMA is delighted to welcome the stars and directors from the Bollywood world to the world’s largest mobile event,” said Bill Gajda, Chief Marketing Officer of the GSMA. “We are excited by the tremendous potential for Bollywood entertainment on mobile phones, and delighted to support the efforts of Roamware and Hungama Mobile in their commitment to bringing a rich array of Indian film entertainment to the fourth screen for a global audience of millions.”

“India is the fastest growing market in the mobile world, and the world’s fourth largest market. It has the potential to be the largest market globally by 2010. It is the most logical market from which to launch the mobile movie industry and present a brand new avenue of cinematic entertainment for mobile users everywhere. The potential is truly amazing. Hungama Mobile has already launched a Bollywood channel directly on operator decks around the world in nearly 30 countries, with over 70 operators. This channel contains music, imagery, video and games from Bollywood. Showcasing Bollywood movies on mobile is a natural extension both as a tremendous new marketing opportunity as also revenue for all the stakeholders,” said Neeraj Roy, Managing Director & CEO, Hungama Mobile.

Hungama Mobile’s content assets and a two year foray in taking Bollywood to the mobile world, coupled with Roamware’s global reach, holds huge promise for the mobile market. The dramatic evolution of communications technology, from download speeds and battery life to compact form factors, screen sizes and resolution, as well as memory enhancements, means mobile devices are now capable of delivering a compelling, high quality and uniquely personal viewing experience.

Bollywood is one of the fastest growing entertainment industry segments and has an appeal not only for the 150 million mobile phone users in India but for markets across all continents. Indian cinema is now dubbed in over 35 languages and accounts for as much as 16.5% of theatrical business in markets such as UK. Indian films have made it into the top 10 charts in markets such as USA, UK, Germany, Australia, Singapore and South Africa. More than 3.6 billion admission tickets are sold each year, across the world and now Hungama Mobile and Roamware will take this to some 2.5 billion mobile screens.

About Hungama Mobile
Hungama Mobile is the largest aggregator, developer and publisher of Indian Entertainment and Bollywood content globally. It has exclusive worldwide rights to nearly 70% of all Bollywood content for all formats of mobile and digital and IP rights. Hungama Mobile has today over 100 content alliances with leading Bollywood, Hollywood and TV studios. Hungama Mobile is the exclusive worldwide licensee to Sony Pictures International for 21 countries, including titles such as James Bond, Spiderman etc.

Hungama Mobile is the only company in the world that has created a mobile and digital distribution platform for Bollywood content in over 30 countries. Today it runs a dedicated channel with over 70 operators and publishers worldwide. www.hungamamobile.com

About Roamware
Founded in 2001, Roamware is the leading and fastest-growing global roaming & value added solutions provider, servicing more than 250 networks in over 100 countries servicing 700 million + mobile consumers globally. For more information on Roamware, please visit www.roamware.com

 source: http://www.gsmworld.com/news/press_2007/press07_17.shtml

Western Union And GSMA To Create New Global Mobile Money Transfer Service

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18^th October 2007, New York: The GSM Association (GSMA), a global trade association representing over 700 GSM mobile phone operators, and The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU), a global leader in money-transfer services, today announced an agreement to facilitate the development of cross-border mobile money transfer services.

Western Union and the GSMA are developing a commercial and technical framework that mobile operators can use to deploy services that enable consumers to send and receive low-denomination, high frequency money transfers using their mobile phones. The first commercial services that make use of the framework are anticipated to be rolled out beginning in the second quarter of 2008.

The framework forms a key element of both Western Union’s mobile strategy and the GSMA’s Mobile Money Transfer program which aims to use the reach and ease of mobile money transfer services to expand the mobile financial services market and stimulate social and economic development. Mobile money transfer services will make it simple, quick and affordable for more people to send small amounts of money through a conventional and regulated system. Both Western Union and the GSMA believe there is an opportunity to create and grow a large new market for low denomination transfers.

“Mobile networks now cover more than 80 percent of the world’s population and 3 billion people* have a mobile phone, creating an unprecedented opportunity to extend the benefits of financial services to the majority of the world’s families for the first time.” said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSMA. “Mobile money transfers are a key driver in the development of a potentially vast market for financial services delivered via the mobile phone.”

“Western Union has a long-tradition of innovation,” said Western Union President and CEO Christina Gold. “Our focus on the mobile money transfer space is an important step in expanding the range of Western Union’s global services to a new category of consumers. Our brand, extensive network, and compliance capabilities, combined with the GSMA members’ market reach, uniquely positions Western Union in the mobile money transfer marketplace.”

The Western Union mobile service will connect operators to Western Union’s existing global money transfer system, which processed approximately 17 percent of the world’s remittance volume in 2006. Once connected to the Western Union service, operators will be able to use their own ‘mobile wallet’ software to enable person-to-person mobile money transfers over Western Union’s cross-border remittance network. The Mobile Money Transfer service will enable consumers to transfer money to or from mobile wallets and will offer a global network of Western Union Agent locations for cash-to-mobile and mobile-to-cash transactions.

Thirty-five GSMA operators with more than 800 million customers in more than 100 countries are participating in the GSMA Mobile Money Transfer program. Led by Sunil Mittal, the Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Airtel, the Mobile Money Transfer program is overseen by a steering committee made up of representatives from Bharti, MTN, Orange, Orascom, Smart, Telenor and VimpelCom.

“Remittances are playing a vital role in the social and economic development of India and many other developing countries,” said Mr. Mittal. “This initiative will bring down the cost of lower-value and high-frequency mobile remittances considerably and also enable smaller amounts to be transferred in a fast and secure fashion, thereby benefiting millions of people in the developing world.”

Western Union and its affiliates provide money transfer services across 200 countries through a network of more than 312,000 Agent locations.

Notes to editors:
*Source: GSMA

The GSMA and Western Union will provide more details at the forthcoming Mobile Asia Congress, which takes place in Macau between 12th and 15th November.

Media Contacts:
The Western Union Company
Daniel Díaz
+1 720 332 5564
daniel.diaz@WesternUnion.com

GSM Association
David Pringle
+44 795 755 6069
press@gsm.org

About the GSMA The GSM Association (GSMA) is the global trade association representing more than 700 GSM mobile phone operators across 218 countries and territories of the world. In addition, more than 200 manufacturers and suppliers support the Association’s initiatives as key partners.

The primary goals of the GSMA are to ensure mobile phones and wireless services work globally and are easily accessible, enhancing their value to individual customers and national economies, whiles creating news business opportunities for operators and their suppliers. The Association’s members serve more than two billion customers – 82% of the world’s mobile phone users.

For more information about the GSM Association see:
www.gsmworld.com

For more information about the GSM Association MMT Programme see:
www.gsmworld.com/mmt

About The Western Union Company

Western Union, together with its affiliates Orlandi Valuta and Vigo, is a leading provider of global money-transfer services, providing people with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send money around the world, pay bills and purchase money orders through a network of more than 312,000 Agent locations in over 200 countries and territories. For more information, visit www.WesternUnion.com.

Nokia plans cellphone of future

Nokia is marking a new direction in cell phone technologies, testing wireless mobile phone headsets powered by tiny fuel cells – a hydrogen-based energy source, which can increase the life of portable devices. The cells are recharged by squirting methanol from a small container into a tiny internal tank on the headset, and each charge provides about 10 hours of talk-time. Motorola, Fujitsu and Toshiba are also investing heavily in the research, mostly for batteries for laptop computers.The company is also working to incorporate RFID, which stands for radio frequency identification, into cellphones. “RFID could be a real convenience booster,” Yrjo Neuvo, Nokia’s chief technology officer said. “It’s two-way communication that can do much more than a bar code can do.”

Another part of the phone getting Nokia research attention is the screen. According to Tero Ojanpera, head of the Nokia Research Center, the screens “don’t have to be rigid, either. They could be wearable, bendable, why not stretchable,” depending on the materials.

Ojanpera also mentioned much more distant technologies that could evolve out of mobile phones: a phone that uses infrared vision, or a phone that records and enhances the sounds or speech around you automatically. “So no more missed introductions at cocktail parties,” he said.

refrence: http://www.gsmarena.com/

Gameloft brings games to BlackBerry

Following last week’s article on marketing mobile games to the BlackBerry-toting crowd (Business suits, BlackBerrys and “BrickBreaker”) comes news mobile game company Gameloft is bringing its line of games to the BlackBerry by joining the BlackBerry ISV Alliance program. While mobile game companies had traditionally ignored this segment of the market, the business class is potentially a very lucrative one. “It’s becoming quite common to see people playing games on their BlackBerry,” said Research In Motion vice president for corporate marketing Mark Guibert. “The reality is that the market isn’t split into two binary segments of gamers and nongamers.”

For more details:
- read The New York Times report

Gameloft Q1 sales up 54 percent

Mobile game publisher and developer Gameloft reported a 54 percent increase in this year’s Q1 sales over the same period last year, bringing in $30.9 million in sales. Europe and North America led sales territories with 44 percent and 39 percent of sales, respectively. Upon the results, Gameloft slightly revised yearly sales goals upward from €95 to 100 million from €90 to 100 million.

“The company’s strong performance in the first quarter of 2007 shows that it is perfectly positioned to take advantage of the rapid growth in the mobile games market,” said the release, which also attributed a strong line-up of games as the reason for solid growth. ”With its catalog of 130 mobile games distributed by more than 170 operators around the world, Gameloft is now beginning to reap the benefits of the massive investments made in previous years.”

For more details:
- check out the release

FEATURE: The Rise of the Woman Gamer

This article concerning the female gamer demographic, written by Sande Chen of Women in Games International. Enjoy!

Recent studies from Telephia and Park Associates underscore anecdotal evidence that women play mobile games, and pay for them, too!  In fact, the Telephia report states women dominated revenue generation for all mobile game categories except Action/Adventure. Females particularly enjoy puzzle and arcade games, as indicated by the current Top 10 mobile game sales by revenue share. That’s similar to the downloadable casual game market, where it is already noted that female players outnumber male players. While the large casual game portals have recognized and catered to female players, their sports titles regularly go unnoticed by female players more interested in the card, word or puzzle games.

For years, popular wisdom claimed females were not interested in video games or if they were, they weren’t willing to pay for games. Therefore, publishers were not interested in seeking out the female market. Perhaps it had to do with the distinction between “casual” and “hardcore” players. In the past, hardcore gamers routinely dismissed little games that lacked state-of-the-art technology. But with Geometry Wars, the minigame included in Xbox’s Project Gotham Racing 2, evolving into the most downloaded game at Xbox Live Arcade, even traditional hardcore gamers are turning to casual games. The explosion in casual game development has shown there is certainly money to be made in this area.

Women are loyal customers. Those infatuated with The Sims were willing to buy every expansion pack connected to the series. Girl titles have a longer shelf time and sell for longer periods of time. Word-of-mouth advertising is very important in reaching female customers. Build a brand that appeals to women and you may have them hooked. The hit casual game Luxor has had over 40 million downloads since its debut in 2005 and the newest tie-in, Luxor Mahjong, is already among the top downloads in casual games.

While girls’ preferences in games have been studied, the actual elements in a game that attracts women are still unquantifiable. There is no magic formula. Women differ greatly and have very different tastes. Some like Halo for its cooperative play. Others have no interest in first-person shooters. In general, to attract a certain market, understanding the customers’ needs and wants is paramount. In addition to understanding the fun factor, think about what the customer’s purpose is in playing the game. Is she using it to relax, to socialize, to compete?

One strategy is to design games that appeal to everyone, which would make the game gender-inclusive. This means the content is gender-neutral and there is recognition that the player may be female. This does not mean to “dumb it down” but to erase assumptions about what the player may or may not know. Focus groups or play-testing may help in this regard, at least to get a different perspective.

Traditionally, within the industry, game designers designed games they wanted to play. Since computer programmers/game designers of that period (and still are) predominately male, the market has been geared toward males. It should be noted that Centipede, the first arcade game designed by a woman, was the first game popular with female players. There may have even been more female players than male players for Centipede. This does not mean male designers cannot design games that appeal to females, only that it has been seen that a woman’s input in design can be very useful in reaching the female market.

According to the October 2005 IGDA report, “Game Developer Demographics: An Exploration of Workforce Diversity,” 10% of game designers are female and overall, females comprise 11.5% of surveyed game developers. The majority of females in the industry are not in production jobs, but fall under the category of operations, information technology, or human resources. There are, of course, other industries with unequal gender parity, but it should not be given to status quo. Research on diversity in companies does indicate diversity in the workforce leads to greater productivity and profitability.

If revenue share is a goal, then courting the female customer in the mobile sector is an absolute. A woman will be the typical mobile game player. Women already actively download other forms of mobile content and if mobile games appeal to them, they have the disposable income to buy them. Design of the games will need consideration in terms of gender-inclusiveness and accessibility. Furthermore, increasing workforce diversity will help enormously in understanding and reaching the targeted audience.