José Ribamar Smolka Ramos
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ComUnidade WirelessBrasil

Março 2009               Índice Geral


12/03/09

• Algumas notícias interessantes...

----- Original Message -----
From: José de Ribamar Smolka Ramos
To: wirelessbr@yahoogrupos.com.br
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 1:31 PM
Subject: [wireless.br] Algumas notícias interessantes...

Boa tarde a todos.

Vou repassar para vocês três notícias que vi hoje, e que transcrevo mais abaixo.

01.
A primeira fala das reclamações sobre o comportamento da Apple com relação a admitir ou não determinadas aplicações de terceiros na sua loja virtual App Store (o critério é: se a aplicação de terceiros compete com aplicações da própria Apple, então nada feito). E também menciona a posição anunciada (mas ainda não provada) pela Nokia e pela Microsoft de não usar critérios deste tipo nas suas próprias lojas virtuais, que prometem lançar ainda esta semana.
Fonte: Rethink Wireless
[12/03/09]   Google and Nokia face the dilemmas of policing app stores

02.
A segunda diz que a Vodafone iniciará a distribuir música sem travas de DRM no seu próprio site. Será que os outros sites seguirão o exemplo? Será que isto marca uma mudança de posição das gravadoras?
Fonte: Rethink Wireless
[12/03/09]   Vodafone goes DRM-free as Nokia beefs up music offering

03.
A terceira trata do Pulsar, plataforma open source para desenvolvimento de aplicações para handsets da Eclipse Foundation.
Fonte: Rethink Wireless
[12/03/09]   Eclipse Pulsar provides cross-handset framework for developers

Boa leitura!

[ ]'s
J. R. Smolka

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Fonte: Rethink Wireless
[12/03/09]   Google and Nokia face the dilemmas of policing app stores

Not only is the growing array of mobile application stores threatening to confuse consumers and developers, but so are the rules for what will be admitted to these stores.

Apple has come under fire for its heavy approach to policing App Store, with some products barred because they compete with the iPhone maker's own offerings. Nokia and Microsoft, both outlining details of how their upcoming stores will work this week, were promising a more open approach, and pledging not to outlaw any apps on the basis of competition.

Nokia also hopes to lure developers with promises of a fast track process for approving apps, which it says will take less than a week. Like Apple and Google, it will give 70% of revenue from paid-for apps to the developers (though Google does not keep any proceeds from Android Market apart from administrative costs, giving the rest to operator partners). However, Nokia will only remit the full 70% to developers if customers pay by credit card, and this rate will be lower if consumers add the cost of the software to their mobile operator bill - an option that will be available, initially in nine countries. Nokia's own data shows that, given the choice, more than 80% of customers would use operator billing but presumably, in this scenario, a bigger cut will go to the carrier.

Another differentiator for Ovi Store against App Store will be a recommendation engine - personalization is seen as the main unique edge for the virtual storefront, which opens in May.

Meanwhile, Microsoft was also fleshing out details of its Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Again, revenue share will echo Apple's policy, with 70% of takings going to developers and 30% to Microsoft. A software developer kit is now available for download online. Microsoft also followed Apple's lead by charging developers a $99 registration fee, which covers up to five application submissions - each additional submission within the annual registration period will cost $99, though this should be waived for student developers enrolled in the Microsoft DreamSpark program.

Like Nokia, Microsoft also promised a faster and more transparent process for approving products, and "very objective" rules, with the key criteria for acceptance being security, legal content and how much bandwidth it uses.

Google has often taken the moral high ground on free competition in mobile software stores, but the search giant is sensitive to possible threats to its business too, and not scared to use heavy tactics. According to developer Innerfence, the future of Infinite SMS, its iPhone application offering free text messaging via Google's Gmail Labs interface, is in doubt after Google notified the software house that it will block access to its service.

Launched a month ago in the App Store for 99 cents, Infinite SMS plugged into Google Talk to enable iPhone users to send text messages for free. "Google has claimed no grievance with Infinite SMS other than its success," says Innerfence on its blog. Google's official statement reads: "Infinite SMS is a third party app that has been using Google technology to provide free SMS for users, while we were paying for the cost of the text messages. While Google is supportive of third party apps, we've decided we can't support this particular usage of our system at this time."

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Fonte: Rethink Wireless
[12/03/09]   Vodafone goes DRM-free as Nokia beefs up music offering

Just as Nokia ramps up its assault on the mobile music market, Vodafone has stolen a march, announcing that it will offer tracks without DRM (digital rights management) protection.

Vodafone has taken a two-pronged approach to mobile music, offering its own store mainly on midrange phones; and also supporting Nokia MusicStore on high end devices. Now it could be upping the ante in favor of its own-branded service, signing a deal with three major music labels to sell content DRM-free, so that customers can play it on any device.

Universal, Sony and EMI are all supporting over-the-air DRM-free downloads straight to the phone - though Warner Music is missing - and Vodafone says that any customer who has already purchased music from these labels via its store, can upgrade the tunes to DRM-free MP3 files for free (unlike iTunes, which will make a charge for customers to access its newly DRM-free tracks). Vodafone says it is the first mobile operator to enable dual delivery of DRM-free music to phones and PCs with no need to sideload or synchronize.

From the summer there will be over one million DRM-free tracks available from Vodafone, with pricing similar to current levels, averaging 99p for single tracks and from £5.99 for albums, with reduced rates for bulk buying. DRM-free services will be available in Germany, Italy, the UK, Spain and New Zealand by this summer, and then in Australia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, South Africa and Turkey later in the year.

Nokia would not be drawn on the DRM issue beyond stating that DRM was a requirement of the music industry, as it announced its own new moves in this important mobile content area. It will launch its unlimited download service, Comes With Music, in six additional markets in the coming months, and has announced three new handsets in the XpressMusic range, which come with the music service integrated. Having gone live in the UK, Singapore and imminently in Australia, CWM is now available in Italy, Sweden and Mexico, while Portugal, Norway and South Africa will be added in the months ahead.

The new devices are the 5730 XpressMusic, which boasts a full Qwerty keyboard, and homescreen access to music, people, games, email and calendar as well as a contacts bar, and expected to retail at €280 ($358); the 5330, with touch keys for instant access to music and social networking sites, with a price tag of €160; and the 5030, Nokia's first phone with an internal FM radio antenna, complete with one-touch radio and channel selection keys on the side of the device, making it strong for emerging markets. This will cost under €40, reinforcing Nokia's strategy of pushing web services as aggressively in emerging markets as developed ones. Nokia says it has, to date, sold more than 425m devices with a digital music player and 700m with an FM radio.

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Fonte: Rethink Wireless
[12/03/09]   Eclipse Pulsar provides cross-handset framework for developers

As the internet giants fight to control the mobile web software platform, the open source Eclipse Foundation has been one of the most important initiatives that sits largely outside the politics, but offers significant cross-platform capabilities through its integrated development environment (IDE), which is heavily backed by Nokia and IBM, among others.

The Foundation, which emerged from the enterprise Java world and has been active in the mobile world for several years now, has announced Pulsar, a new program to define and create a standard mobile development tools platform. This is led by Motorola, Nokia and Genuitec and also counts support from IBM, RIM and Sony Ericsson.

"Today, each of the OEMs provides their own set of tools. It's quite difficult. Quite a challenge for developers," said Dino Brusco, director of developer platforms and services at Motorola. He told Information Week: "The whole notion here is that an application developer can go to eclipse.org, download the Pulsar platform, and it's complete and ready to go." Pulsar is based on the Eclipse IDE and Java Mobile Edition, and includes plug-ins for vendor specific SDKs and mobile development environments. It will be released in June.

While Pulsar will cut down on the effort required to create programs for different handsets, it would need to get Microsoft, Apple and other software giants on board to make a difference to the wider mobile web community. Cross-platform developer platforms are becoming a critical issue as the industry fragments and programmers are faced with a bewildering choice of tools, vendor initiatives and app stores. Google Android, Nokia and Symbian, Adobe, Microsoft and even Ericsson are all trying to push platforms that they aim to make the leading de facto standards, but the software giants are not, so far at least, joining Pulsar or any other efforts that would seek to combine their efforts or integrate their frameworks (though Microsoft recently announced a link to Eclipse for its Silverlight rich media system).

This leaves Java, and Java-based technologies like Eclipse, as the only credible system that spans most of the platforms, though Java itself is fragmented and unevenly supported in the mobile world.

Nokia chose to use the Eclipse Foundation process for open sourcing Symbian, and has taken an active role since 2004 in creating mobile versions of the Eclipse Java-based tools. The core Eclipse software is a framework for plugging in third party components so that different tools, including modellers and code editors, can be combined in a single user interface.


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