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Betting on Android

Rich Miner speaking at eComm2008. Credit: James Duncan Davidson

There's a lot of talk at Mobile Internet World 2008, in Boston, about how great applications for mobile devices die all the time because it's so hard to get through all the negotiation that stands in the way of real people using the software. A startup often has to work deals with carriers, device manufacturers, and the company that controls a device's operating system before having any hope that people might one day be able to buy or use any software that the company intends to build.

But while insider woes may not matter to the average person, the goals described by Rich Miner, group manager of mobile platforms for Google and one of the visionaries behind the company's open Android platform, could vastly change how large numbers of people access the Internet--if Android succeeds. Google is supporting Android for a long-term reason, Miner said. The company's products are all Web services, and, after having successfully won the hearts and minds of many people using laptops and desktops, one way the company hopes to grow is by convincing more users to access its services through mobile phones. That requires making it possible for them to do so.

Miner described Google's frustrations building a Maps application for mobile phones. Miner said that after having established itself by building on open-source software in most cases--using the Linux operating system, for example--the company was shocked at the closed, serpentine processes typical of building mobile applications. The company wants to change what is now often an expensive, 18-month process into a matter of days and a $25 application fee. The company has successfully pushed industry giants to talk the same talk. Yesterday at the conference, Verizon Wireless director of open development Anthony Lewis spoke about his company's efforts to reduce the application approval process to only four weeks.

If these types of efforts succeed, people will see many more applications available through mobile phones. It will be easier to access Web pages and services familiar from the larger Internet, and devices will stop existing as separate animals. And presumably, Google will continue to rake in money through advertisements as more people access the Internet more often.

The vision that Miner described is in line with other things that I've heard from Google, particularly in relation to App Engine, its quick-start service designed to help Web application developers get going quickly and easily. The idea is that the easier it is for people to build software for the Web, the more reasons people will have to access the Web. The Web will become an ever-larger part of people's lives. In the end, this will be good for Google. In service to this strategy, the company has poured money and effort into shaking up the mobile industry.

Since the first phone running Android software came out this Tuesday, with many more to follow, it's time for users to put Google's strategy to the test. I'm hoping that Android and other open efforts succeed. Google's profit motives aside, the mobile industry is clearly choked and stifled by the wrangling and politics associated with getting new software and hardware on the market. Breaking that block will bring better services to people using mobile devices.

Helio's Hard Times

Credit: Toby Pederson

I had the chance to visit the Helio headquarters in Westwood, CA, last year to write this feature story on the company's ambitions. Now comes news that Virgin Mobile USA is buying Helio for $39 million, making for an impressive burn rate on the $710 million invested in Helio by Earthlink and the Korean phone giant SK Telecom over three years. (The companies' initial joint investment of $440 million, which I reported in the feature, was followed by a $270 million infusion from SK Telecom.) Both Virgin Mobile and Helio had been small players in the mobile markets, buying capacity on the Sprint Nextel networks to run their businesses. Helio's offerings will remain available from Virgin Mobile.

Helio was ahead of conventional American tastes, offering high-end, do-it-all services and devices for the mobile Web. It broke ground with all-inclusive data plans, integration with sites like MySpace and YouTube, and unified e-mail interfaces. Of the many statistics the company loved to toss around, one stood out: 95 percent of Helio users actually accessed the Web from their Helio gadgets. (The rest of us mainly use our cell phones for voice calls or text messages; only 13 percent pay for Web features on mobile phones.)

But while Helio's most ambitious device, the Ocean, was mechanically interesting, it may have been too much so. It had dual sliders and a full Qwerty keyboard, and its beefy size recalled that of an eyeglass case. But the Ocean was in development at the same time that Apple was secretly developing its own do-everything gadget. The sleek, touch-screen iPhone launched around the same time as the Ocean, and the rest is history.

Google Announces Mobile Plans

Amid buzz about a possible Google Phone, today the Internet search giant revealed its plans for a move into the mobile world. (See "Why Did Google Buy Jaiku?") The bad news is that there is no Google Phone, according to Andy Rubin, the company's director of mobile platforms. The company's good news is that Google does have a plan for mobile--and a far-reaching one at that. The company announced that it is launching Android, a platform for mobile devices that includes an operating system, a user interface, and applications. The system is designed to combat the problems that developers face with mobile phones: that every phone is radically different in terms of its specifications, and applications usually have to be redesigned for each individual model of phone. (See "Making Your Phone Smarter.") If phone carriers and manufacturers adopt the Android platform--and Google seems to have already lined up some who say they will, in the form of the Open Handset Alliance--phones could get much more powerful as developers become able to concentrate their resources on building applications rather than on rebuilding them. Google's strategy also seems to involve improving Web services to mobile phones. Rubin's entry on the Google blog gives the impression that Android is only a small part of the company's strategy in that arena.

Wearable Security Risks

Implantable medical devices could become a major focus of security research in the near future, according to Tadayoshi Kohno, a University of Washington assistant professor and TR35 honoree who appeared today at the Emerging Technologies Conference. Kohno says that security measures need to be an integral part of wireless medical computational devices implanted in the body, such as devices that would monitor the blood of diabetics and administer insulin when needed. Although much work is currently going into building such devices, Kohno says that he isn't seeing sufficient discussion of related security and privacy issues at this point.

Ivan Krstic, director of security architecture at One Laptop per Child and also a TR35 honoree, says that lack of incentive to make systems secure is part of the problem.

Your Phone as a Personal Coach

Researchers at Accenture Technology Labs, in Palo Alto, CA, have developed a device to help let people know when they need to change their behavior. The gadget, called the Personal Performance Coach, collects data about a person's actions through various sensors, including GPS, a microphone, and a heart monitor. This information is transmitted from a wireless headset (which will eventually be condensed into an ear bud) to the phone; the data is then offloaded to a server, where it is analyzed. The phone receives the report and displays the results in a pie chart, for example.

There are a number of research groups that are working on using sensors and mobile devices to collect more-accurate information about people's behaviors. (See "Making Phones Polite" and "Gadgets That Know Your Next Move.") Researchers at Intel are making sensing devices for elder-care applications in order to monitor elderly people who live alone.

Accenture is betting that one of the first applications of such sensing platforms will be in the corporate space, to help businesspeople be more effective when, for instance, making a sale or conducting a meeting.

From the press release:

The first application developed for the Personal Performance Coach prototype focuses on making individuals more effective in professional conversations, including sales calls, team meetings and negotiation sessions.

"The system matches observed behavior against performance goals in virtual real time and then makes suggestions about how to better achieve behaviors," said [Alex Kass, a researcher at Accenture Technology Labs and the project leader]. "The neat thing is that, unlike in a training session, this monitors exactly what is happening in the field. If you set the goal, for example, to listen to your client for the first 20 minutes and not talk very much until you have the chance to hear what he has to say, and suddenly you're interrupting him and talking 80 percent of the time, it will tell you."

The verbose salesman can even determine his preferred method of feedback. He can have a voice--or a series of beeps--whisper in his ear that he's talking too much, he can glance down and look at a device that will reveal a pie chart on who's dominating the conversation, or he can choose to view it later on a desktop while going over the day's sales notes.

There's no mention of privacy measures in the release, and I'm sure that some people would balk at the idea of having a gadget collect all sorts of personal data and send it to a remote server. But perhaps some businesspeople don't think the information is too sensitive, and they wouldn't mind being monitored if it means improved job performance. Do you think this is a useful application of sensor technology?