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Clarification and Disclosures: The author of this post has no business relationship with HTC and has based this on personal time spent in researching the different set of functionality

It is the smallest Windows Mobile® PDA phone, it comes with a multi-touch sensitive screen interface, it is yet the only phone with a 3-D rotate-able multi-menu access design.

TouchFLO™ is the X-Factor that is earning this phone the hype and the need-appeal. The GUI is actually a 5 dimensional (5 menu views as a rotate-able block) rotate-able menu/options block that responds to finger movements. The user simply uses one thumb to select, open, activate and thoroughly utilize the various features in this gizmo.

The phone portrays a sleek 2.8” LCD screen with backlight with a resolution of 240×320 dots sprinkled with 65,536 colors. The 2.0 megapixel CMOS color camera enables you to treasure lively moments of your time.

Your entertainment needs are equally served with the friendly and familiar Windows Media Player with supported popular formats as AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, MP3, WMA, WAV, QCELP, MPEG4, AMR-NB, AMR-WB. The built-in microphone and 3-in-1 speaker do their job well.

Share & transfer your pictures, songs and movies through Bluetooth® 2.0, Wi-Fi or the HTC ExtUSB™. If you are a podcaster then simply upload through the GPRS or EDGE service.

Processing a 201MHz the TI’s OMAP™ 850 does an impressive performance most of the times. Memory specs for this gizmo have questionably been kept modest at ROM: 128MB and SDRAM: 64MB DDR. Good news is that the phone comes with a 1GB microSD card in the box. An expansion slot provides room for a microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible). Operating System is pretty stable and tried Windows Mobile® 6 Professional.

Engineering design excellence is that all the above package has been stylized in a 99.9mm (L) X 58mm (W) X 13.9mm (T) casing at a comfortable 112grams with battery. Its loyal companionship stands at 200 hours of standby and 5 hours of talk time.

All the reason that this innovative and value driven phone (selling at approx. 305GBP) is flying off the shelves in the
UK recent launch and has already been a hit in
Taiwan; its homeland. The
USA launch is around end 2007. The release of htc TOUCH™ is planned for the UAE and Asia but yet not dated.

htc TOUCH™ is sure to give tough time to the competing phones in its category such as the LG Prada (Black Label Series). imate PDAs, iPhone (branding wise I think still a different league), Nokia, Sony-Ericsson and Samsung competing series.

htc TOUCH™ has definitely changed and raised the user experience level at an industrial scale. We will, for sure, see the touch screen feature fast become a regular just like cameras and multimedia features have already become for any phone to sell big with a profitable tag.

Yes be shocked, be awed and hurray! Now you can make free calls (negligible rates apply for some landline and overseas calls) to any number in the world, anytime from you sweet little handy cell phone.

How does it work?

Most of us have been using PC 2 PC VOIP (voice communication) services like , Skype®, MSN® Messenger, Google Talk™ , Twitter etc. These applications convert the voice input through our PC mike into data packets, transfers these packets over, say Google Talk, VOIP server to the receiver PC which then converts these data packets back to voice that is audible through headphone or regular speakers.

Fring and Truphone do just the same; they have simply developed software application for mobile devices/cell phones called “Thin Clients” (yes coz they are thin, no need to open a tech-dictionary here).

For Details check How does Fring Work and How does Truphone Work.

What do you need to Fring/Truphone your phone?

1. Your cell phone must be a 3G device, with most updated firmware; easily downloadable from the manufacturers website. Example; www.nokia.com). List of Nokia 3G Devices. All company cell phone list.
2. Your phone must have internet access (through Wi-Fi, GPRS, EDGE, 3G Internet Data Plan)
3. You need to download Truphone or download Fring client on the cell.
4. Start talking without a stop

What does it cost?

- Mobile phone software clients are freely downloadable from Fring and Truphone.

- 100% Free:
Mobile 2 Mobile/Mobile 2 PC – Since data packets are exchanged over the internet through Fring/Truphone servers between the talking devices.

- Negligible Cost (From 95-98% lesser than what you pay now): Mobile 2 Landline/Mobile 2 International Numbers – Since the route in such cases includes some travel over charged networks (depends from country to country; may be free where local calls are free)

Check the tariffs for Fring and tariff for Truphone.

How does this change the way we live?

Truly Diminishes Boundaries: Talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime for any length of time.

Gives a Human Touch: Text can not deliver the same warmth and trigger feelings that a human voice does.

Boosts Commercial/Social Possibilities: Network teams will have a whole new meaning for keeping in touch. Global travelers will call as in the same city. Call centre agents shall service their customers from their homes. Trading and stock markets will become ever more faster. Son will call his parents daily from his dorm. Daughters shall cook while their mothers guide them on the recipe over the phone.

Pushes Telcos to a more Value added Competition: So much for the stupefying and user disturbing price wars and consistent phone calls by sales people. Telcos shall have a run for some real products both in terms of design friendliness and value for the user.

The Challenges for Telcos: Best interest of the subscribers or profits!

Internationally truphone is already bering the brunt with T-Mobile not permitting its subscribers to call any truphone number. This means that you can make a call from a truphone number to a T-Mobile number but not vice versa. See a demo here.

The conventional Telcos are already fretting over this technological advance. Lets take the Pakistani scenario. Telcos are already targeting customers (new/switches) on the basis of consistently lowering price plans. Especially the new comers like Telenor, Warid and now ChinaMobile shall have serious reservations over permitting such VOIP transfers over their network. So do not be surprised if your calls are restricted already or in near future as the subscriber awareness increases.

Or the Telco service Cos. shall realize and explore the potential towards offering the “hi-end handset customers” the real experience. This shall be a true test of the product design and profit plan capabilities of the Pakistani telco companies. Djuice for one, should benefit from this new technology

Even better times for Handset Manufacturers

We should see some interesting campaigns from popular hand set manufacturers capitalising their products compatability with the Mobile VOIP service. Nokia for one is already collaborating with truphone through cross promotion and offering Nokia Pro Members free truphone benefits.

Atlast Value for the User (or a call for Consumer Awakening)

The customers in Pakistan by pattern mostly benefit more from competitive or compulsive (regulatory or technological) reasons for the commercial businesses, in this case the telcos. Its high time that the mobile users show their resolve to benefit from these amazing possibilities and lodge personal and collective protests to the telco service providers in case any hidrances are created in benefiting from this facility.

First of all, It was really hard to find a “Anti-Technology” cartoon on the internet!

Small experiences make up majority of our lives and sharing of such moments with the youth creates ties that make us bond as a family and a society, generation to generation. However if majority of such experiences are limited to stories and are no more doable by the new generation it creates a regressive void popularly known as the “Generation Gap”.

This great void directly and severely damages the societal framework that flourishes on the human interactions that the introduction of “techno-social” medium can not emulate. I’ll give you a couple of examples:

How many times do you cherish the warmth that was treasured when friends and family visited each other over the weekends. How clearly do you remember the last time you went to meet your school teacher or a old time friend while visiting your hometown. Have you recently received a letter by your loved one only holding which is a full experience in itself!

The point to ponder here is that should technology be at all permitted to replace the “human experiences” in life. Where using technology would mean facilitation and how can it simply take away a part of our “humanity” and lead the way to cloned disposable workers and cybernetic reproduction plants.

This brings to view the regulation of IT services; from the technologies that are developed and permitted for penetration to the content they carry to the masses. Who is to decide it, how could it be implemented, when to upgrade and how to penalize defaulters.

I say that the decisive role will be played by the consumer; hasty acceptances or careful adoptions!

This Post was made Jointly by Asif and Osama.

UBL Orion: Mobile Wallet

UBL has a few days back launched its new product “Orion”, a payment solution via your gsm service cellular phone. The concept of this new service product is enabling your cell phone to make payments against selected/authorized products and services that you avail. You can see the demo here.

How does Orion function?

The user level functional description is that a GSM subcriber needs to open an Orion Account with UBL. Just deposit amount (refundable/withdrawable) in the Orion virtual account and start spending by way of paying bills, purchasing/loading cellular service prepaid balance, share/gift money to other Orion account holders etc. Regular call charges/tarriffs apply on Orion transactions. The Orion service charges are separately payable to UBL.

Examples of usage are payment of utility bills via a SMS command from your cell phone, recharging your cellular connection via an SMS purchase request or gifting Rs.1,000/- to your younger brother on his birthday.

Or payment of your restaurant dinner bill through your cell to a virtual merchant account, purchase of an air-ticket, ordering Starbucks latte and paying while on way to office with the latte ready at the takeaway counter, buying and sending movie tickets to kids via cell phone, dialing a bail for your son…

Thoughts (added by Osama)

This solution was developed by Techlogix, and from what I know it is carrier independent — you use this solution over any cellphone capable of SMSes, and the messages are routed directly to the Orion hosted data-centers (Cybernet is an unconfirmed host for this data)

There is some concern over the protection of privately protected data, but otherwise this can turn out to be the first huge step on the path to enabling E-Commerce in Pakistan.

Kudos to everyone involved in making it happen.

Unfortunately, this may not be great news for the other people trying to make moves in this market, such as Amaana, Inov8 and others.

What are they and how do they sell

Impulse Products category is focused at stimulating the human sense/need of self-indulgence and thus generating a desired action as a result of matching the product with the hedonist need. Such purchase “convulsions” have very little to do with any mental or rationalized decision making process.

Such impulse products are designed to satisfy and over-whelm the “bodily senses” of taste, smell, sound, sight & feel.

Examples:

1. Taste: Chocolate, all confectionary items, beverages (Placed on cash counter)2. Smell: Perfumes (Displayed right behind the cash counter)3. Sound: Music, seductive human voices (Club music)4. Sight: Decorative items, seductive images (An inviting female on the cover of a magazine)5. Feel: Super luxury clothing, experiences like hotel suites, massage etc.

Effects of Impulse Marketing on the consumer

The impulse products thus thrive on “defeating” the mental process of “need rationalization”. The hedonistic senses over-whelm the thought process and take over the bodily actions; the results.

Impulse products thus must have a strict “Code of Ethics” regulated by a state run agency. Consumer Protection bodies as well as the civil society itself must demand controlled communication to safeguard the youth against turning into helpless, pathetic, mentally weak, marketing controlled zombies.

Where such products wreak havoc on an individual’s self-control and rational decision making it has monetary and social impacts aswell. Consumers are pushed into spending everytime they enter a store ranging anywhere between PKR. 5-50. The social impacts range from class sensitivity to open expressions of hate/racism/demeaning others.

Trend in Impulse Marketing

The trends are alarming. Atleast 20% of the advertising today is impulse products. Most horrifyingly targeted at the kids and youth segment. The success in selling numbers has encouraged import of the “Impulse Factor” (read the popularly quoted “X Factor”) into not-by-product-design discreet product range. This is visible in the communication in the shape of inviting females, unrealistic lifestyle impacts etc.

Solution

A lot of it has to do with activism in Consumer Protection by the brand, the regulators, the civil society reps and the consumer him/herself. Parents have a huge responsibility in training and restraining their kids, controlling their budgets, permitting pocket money at a learned stage, educational campuses regulating such products at the on-campus outlets etc.

Felt uncomfortable with realizing that our responsibilities have been taken up by younger kids. Atleast there is hope for the future! Click on the image for details