Tonight’s Bush/Kerry debate can be seen on your mobile, if you live in the US.

Something of an historic moment, I think you’d agree. And one that will so unimpressive to future generations as it’ll be as normal as sending an SMS is to us.

I’m not sure what the audience will be when you factor it’s only on Sprint and you need to subscribe to MobiTV, which costs $9.99 a month. But for that you get “ABC News Now”, NBC Mobile, MSNBC, CNBC, Discovery Channel, College Sports Television, The Learning Channel, FOX Sports, Comedy Time and more (apparently). So a pretty good deal if you want TV on your mobile.

It’s also interesting that they’ve adopted the “mobile” side of the great language divide, rather than the “cell phone” one.

MTV have announced that they’re the latest media owner to hop on the Java portal bandwagon, according to New Media Zero. This follows similar announcements from Celador, Endamol and The Sun. The portal will be available as a WAP site initially with Java expected to follow.

Stand by to repel a deluge of similar announcements.

I can warn them though. Developing java apps across a meaningful range of handsets is difficult and time consuming = very expensive.

And as I’ve written before, this isn’t the Holy Grail everyone thinks it is.

As far as MTV is concerned though, I think that their brand has pretty good credentials for mobile:

The MTV brand is a perfect fit for developing a direct-to-consumer proposition,’ he [MTV UK head of interactive Matthew Kershaw] said. ‘Our forte is in not letting people get bored, offering entertainment for short attention. For instance, you can watch Jackass in a minute and a half.’

In fact, perhaps more than any other, they pioneered the whole grazing approach to entertainment - a never ending buffet of entertainment bite-size snacks.

TechDirt writes about another kid tracking scheme - or what I call a YAKTI (Yet Another Kid Tracking Idea).

These start-ups certainly seem to be flavour of the month and indeed, it’s rumoured that it’s another bandwagon the VC community is attempting to clamber on board.

I briefly flirted (for about 3 minutes) with a start-up along these lines in the aftermath of the high profile abduction and murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman back in August 2002. As a parent principally, I thought that it would be good to be able to keep a virtual eye on my kids like this.

But a few minutes thought exposes it as absurd.

Firstly, the mobile phone will be the first thing an abductor will get rid of. Actually, this is precisely what Ian Huntley, the murderer of the two girls, did in that case. Most people know about the possibility of tracking phones, in the same way as they know about tracing landlines.

Not wishing to be too gruesome, the same will apply to an embedded RFID tag in a kid’s arm or leg. It (the RFID tag) will be removed somehow and dumped. Remember the scene in The Matrix where Neo has his RFID tag removed when traveling in back of the car?

Could an RFID tag be disguised somehow? This would be pretty difficult as it’s designed to broadcast its location!

The other reason why you might want a kid tracking device is to make sure that they’re where they should be (school, for instance) and they don’t go where they shouldn’t (perhaps a pub or staying over night with their boyf). A kind of parental Big Brother.

I mean Big Brother in the Orwellian 1984 observational sense. Not that they’ll have develop scouse accents, loose 20 IQ points and be filmed faking sex on TV.

The trouble with this Geo-Fencing idea (buzz word du jour) is that it’s pretty easy to fool too. It’s simple - you leave your phone where you’re meant to be or give it to a friend to look after and they stay where you should be.

Having said that, to a kid, having to go out without their phone is a pretty powerful incentive to stay where they say they’ll be. Most simply can’t operate socially without one thse days. But I fully expect that most kids who have something to hide will have a second phone for when they want to get up to naughtiness.

Given that the two main reasons for tracking kids are invalid, I can’t see that these services will succeed.

In any event, call me quaint and old-fashioned, but how is a kid meant to grow a sense of responsibility and independence is she has to behave in a certain way because she’s being watched 24/7?

I’m pleased to say that TechDirt agrees with this point of view and writes that relying on tracking schemes mean “that the kids aren’t taught more important awareness/street smarts skills that would help them to avoid, prevent or escape any potential abduction”.

As with most parenting issues, your best chance of success is good communication. Not that that’s an easy answer either
It seems that in this case, technology isn’t solving any problem on the one hand and just providing another way (to paraphrase Larkin) for mums and dads to fuck up their kids, on the other.

That until last year bringing your mobile to school in Lousiana was punishable by 30 days in gaol.

Fortunately, they’re a little more relaxed these days.

The Taipei Times reports today on a call for dumb phones by Asian Telecoms executives. Dumb phones are low cost basic models, which just offer voice and sms.

These phones would open up new markets of people who can’t afford the fully featured phones that are now basically standard:

“To realize this untapped potential, there is a need for us to put the emphasis on developing low-cost technology for Asian markets, not just networks but also handsets,” Lim [chief executive of SingTel Mobile] said, noting a “general reluctance” to make cheaper phones.

Sachet marketing (see here and here) is the new big thing. By repackaging/rethinking how you sell your products, you can leverage the huge volumes represented by the low income customers in developing countries.

Sachet marketing is a reference to Unilever’s pioneering work in India with Sunsil and Lux shampoo, where the product was sold in affordable sachets, rather than bottles.

So can we see a return to the old models of yesteryear?

Actually, I noticed quite a few kids are using clanky old Nokia’s these days. It’s a retro cool thing in their case. The one pcitured is curently on eBay of £10 as I write.

Blister Entertainment have launched North America’s first GPS-based cell phone game - Swordfish.

Players use satellite technology (GPS) to scan for and find virtual schools of swordfish. Once they’ve found a school of fish, they have to go to its physical location and then use their mobile phone like a fishing rod to try to hook and land the big one. They compete with other players to make the national high score leader board.

It’s currently only available on Bell Mobility’s network across Canada.

Location based gaming is still in its infancy, but I predict that it’s going to be big and may well drive the initial take up of LBS. If operators can see real revenues, they may well change a little of their focus and start to make this thing happen.

If that scenario does pan out, we’ll see developers take the market more seriously and drive some real innovation into the sector. Currently, the development community is being hindered rather than helped in their efforts to innovate in LBS.

It is always a source of awe and wonder to me that the operators make life so difficult for the drivers of innovation in the value chain. You’d have thought they’d be falling over themselves to give them practical and financial assistance.

I was going to write a post slagging off the text and IM only Ogo from AT&T which seems to be reported everywhere yesterday and today. Yes, that’s right, it doesn’t have a voice call facility.

Hello ….(I was going to start) don’t you guys realise that texting might be cool, but your killer app is still voice. Like, you know, that’s where the majority of your money comes from?

But then Russell Beattie already wrote it, so go look there. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Clever chaps these Russell people, generally
Russell

PS Didn’t someone try an SMS only device in the UK about 3 years ago, that failed miserably?

Electronics Talk reports that “SiGe Semiconductor has expanded its series of Bluetooth integrated circuits with a miniature power amplifier optimised for portable consumer electronics” and a lot of other techie stuff that I didn’t understand
Bottom line though, it means that Bluetooth can now work in a range of about 100 meters, rather than 10. This suddenly makes Bluetooth a very powerful tool, that can be used as much more than to back up PDA’s and run mobile phone headsets.

[Note to Bluetooth headset manufacturers - why do you make your products so uncomfortable to wear? Hint: Things you wear are meant to be comfortable and preferably stylish. Given the choice, I'd choose comfort in preference to something that pulls out my hair and numbs my ear after 3 minutes, but looks cool].

There’s been much talk, for instance, of social networking meeting mobile devices using location feeds. In other words, you can find people with similar interests at a conference, or a shared love of Italian food and long walks for dating. If iPods came with Bluetooth, you could even pair up with people with similar musical tastes and swap tracks you don’t have.

Actually, I think there’s also an angle in dating and musical tastes. Or how about promiscuity and dating? Your phone alerts you when someone with similar interests and one night stands are near
The problem is that location feeds aren’t accurate enough for this yet. But Bluetooth could be the answer, especially when it has a range this far.

But one of the problems with Bluetooth is that there’s no revenue model inherent in the protocol. Download a file or ringtone and the operator takes a cut of data revenue. With Bluetooth, it’s free, so it could potentially cannibalise a huge amount of data revenues.

Am I exagerating? I don’t think so actually. If I want to send you a photo and I know I’m going to see you in an hour or so, will I pay or wait until then? I think you’d find that most people would wait. Or use Courier File Swapping.

Of course this also raises the horrid spectre of BlueSpam, pioneered by The Economist already.

Pic shows a monument being unveiled to Harald Bluetooth, who united Denmark and Norway.

The Hindustani Times reports that Hutch TV has launched “a multi-channel, TV-on-Mobile service, accessible over its EDGE-enabled network”.

13 different channel are offered “ranging from news and current affairs to business, sports, fashion, travel and entertainment” and can be viewed on Hutchison and Orange networks.

Looks like we’re going to get some answers pretty soon to the question “Do people want TV on their mobile?”

Obviously, the answers won’t be definitive yet, as even if people don’t watch, it doesn’t mean it won’t succeed eventually. Price, quality and content are just some of the variables determining success.

I favour the “don’t want” camp unless the content is reformatted into sushi-TV or originated with mobile viewing in mind.

The Hindustani Times reports that Hutch TV has launched “a multi-channel, TV-on-Mobile service, accessible over its EDGE-enabled network”.

13 different channel are offered “ranging from news and current affairs to business, sports, fashion, travel and entertainment” and can be viewed on Hutchison and Orange networks.

Looks like we’re going to get some answers pretty soon to the question “Do people want TV on their mobile?”

Obviously, the answers won’t be definitive yet, as even if people don’t watch, it doesn’t mean it won’t succeed eventually. Price, quality and content are just some of the variables determining success.

I favour the “don’t want” camp unless the content is reformatted into sushi-TV or originated with mobile viewing in mind.