Is the Open source the main alternative?

Users now want to access their address books, calendars, emails, or their images whether on their mobile and PC. Its seems that the Open source is now the only alternative to keep pace with the rapid development of services and mobile terminals...
This is not advertisement! :-)

With its mobile open source community, Funambol could be the only solution to the synchronization of the scope of several billion mobile phones around the world, including smartphones such as iPhone, Blackberry Storm, Google Android G1.
Funambol annouces V8 MobileWe Funambol, the new generation of its flagship software allowing a synchronization of billions of mobile phones. Among other features, V8 Funambol offers a new AJAX web portal that facilitates the synchronization of personal information, email and multimedia contents between mobile phones, online services and computers, Funambole software also supports widely used desktop applications such as Outlook, but also host email services like Gmail, AOL Mail, Yahoo! mail and hotmail.

Screenshot there: http://www.funambol.com/v8/Funambolv8_homepage.html

MWC 09

60 000 visitors are expected for the opening of the MWC in Barcelona. Given the waves of innovation and the centrality of mobile services that will continue to take in our daily lives, there is little chances that the crisis affects the show.
Here's what we can expect a few days before the inauguration:

Attack on the manufacturers stands for the collection fall/ winter 2009:
As every year, the challenge is to discover the roadmap of the major manufacturers. Some have just been announced, as the Nokia ( 6700, 2700, 6303), Samsung ( Ultra touch S8300), LG ( Arena KM900), While others are under heavy rumors ( Nokia E75, Samsung i9810 Acme, C6625 or Blackberry Gemini curve 9300). There sill be surely a media interest for the new entrants, or old "ghosts" ( Acer, Toshiba, dell, Hundai...).
Apple won't have a booth, but will be in all conversations.

Great expectations aroung Google Android & Windows Mobile:
Many visitors will see demonstrations of the G2 and other terminals for Android announced for 2009. The presss conference of Microsoft is strongly expected with many rumors about windows mobile ( phone?) 6.5, or Skybox. Microsoft must respond to the acquisition of Symbian by Nokia, and the arrival of linux.

Anticipation of new technologies:
Like every year, vendors will not fail to highlight the 4G ( Wimax will still be outrun by LTE), the Femtocell, NFC and mobile payments, as well as geolocalisation.

Even more pronounced for mobile social networks, and geo-localisation services:
And the convergence of both ( the concept of social location recently developed by Nokia or the launch of Google Latitude are there to prove it). These services should be more media followed, and located in the mobile Entertainment Hall 7, always a little appart.
And there will inevitably be many debates on the role of advertising on mobile, in these times of crisis.

The real highlight of the show will probably be around widget / applications and stores/ user interface:
Many actors will make announcements in this area: Nokia can not respond to the AppStore, Skymarket ( Microsoft) and Android Market ( Google), Application center RIM must specify his environment while many operators and traditional market ( On-device-portal) will take new ads.

The good news is that the show will focus more on user experience and less on technology; and a myriad of start-ups and innovative services are going to make talk about them!
Cheers, there are only 6 days left before the event!

Image recognition in Japan

A Japanese leading service provider of image recognition, J-Magic, has launched its new platform for image recognition on mobile. "Dubbed SAYL2", The new platform will not only perform images recognition, but also facial recognition, so that the mobile becomes a tool that can distinguish the sex and age of a person.

SAYL2 adds these features facial recognition, which can detects faces in an image, and compare the face with facial features previously stored on the server. The technology was developed by Omron. Thus, it will be possible to analyze the difference in these 2 images to bring the percentage of similarity between the 2 faces. This type of function can be used for entertaining content, for example to compare the face of a user and that of a celebrity, as "Kao-shek", but on an ad hoc basis for companies.

In addition to the comparison of faces, it will be possible to decorate the faces automatically, for example, add a beard or glasses save. The system detects the gender and age of the person on the photo, which can be used for interactive posters, to project content appropriate to each generation, and measure the effectiveness of hearing by counting the number of people who stops in front of a poster. The Smile of the user is also a recognizable objects on this platform, which can measure the degrees of smiles. It will therefore be possible to display an advertisement specific to women in their twenties, with a decoration of glasses on their faces.

I definitly love Japanese mobile services concepts :-) .