A Wireless Alliance Forms

MikeD83 writes "A wireless alliance has formed between the likes of Nokia, Microsoft, Intel, Walt Disney Co., and almost 200 other companies. Their mission is to develop an open standard for how wireless phones can be used on any network." Whoo-hoo! DRM for cell phones! The group's website has some more information.

Comments

With the possible exception of Nokia

[RTFA Man]

Nokia, Microsoft, Intel, Walt Disney Co.

Wow, this is good news. If you love monopolistic, predatory, anti-consumers' rights, pablum spewing consortiums, that is.

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as they all develop and open-standard Microsoft will turn-around and make a non-compliant Microsoft version of the standard. All our phones belong to Microsoft.

_
For Windows Users

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[Anonymous Coward]

"All our phones belong to Microsoft." All our phones ARE belong to Microsoft, of course.

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[morcego]

Well, I, for once, am worried about this.
Microsoft and Disney (don't know about the others) are not well known to be worried about public rights. What could this mean ? Content restrictions ? "IP protection" systems ? Cell phones with BSOD ?
I do own a Nokia cell phone, and I'm very happy with it. It is probably one of the most shock resistant devices I ever owned. But when you band these companies together, the least one can do is to hold on for trouble.

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[boomer_rehfield]

Even as a "Semi"-Anti-Microsoft, I looked at that and was like "Ok, can we troll a little bit more? It's not like....well....errr" Yeah, I guess it has happened before. I think the only way we benefit is if as a group they set down lines that can't be crossed. That is a significant number of companies and that does hold some punching power even against Microsoft if they don't comply.

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[Anonymous Coward]

NEWS RELEASE
CORUSCANT -- Presiding over a memorial service commemorating the victims of the attack on the Death Star, the Emperor declared that while recent victories over the Rebel Alliance were "encouraging, the War on Terror is not over yet."

"We will continue to fight these terrorists, and the rogue governments who harbor them, until the universe is safe, once and for all, and the security of the Neo-New Cosmic Order ensured."

It was one year ago today that the Death Star, perhaps the greatest symbol of the Empire's might, was destroyed in an attack by fanatic Rebels, who used small, single-person crafts to infiltrate seemingly impenetrable defenses. Thousands of mourners were on hand to remember and pay tribute to the victims and their families.
"We lost our innocence that day," reflected one mourner. "I guess we thought we were immune from the kind of violence that happens in other galaxies. We were wrong."

"I lost hundreds of buddies that day," said one teary-eyed Stormtrooper. "Guys whose only crime was trying make the Universe a safer place."

Although the day was colored by sadness, the mourners found some relief in the news of a decisive victory over the Rebels.

In an attack led by Darth Vader, Empire forces were able to rout hundreds of Rebels from a network of caves underneath the surface of the planet Hoth. "We're not sure we got them all," says a Vader spokesman. "There are a lot of places to hide in those caves. But we've delivered powerful blow to the terrorist's infrastructure, that's for sure. Today, the Empire has struck back."

Initial reports are unclear as to the fate of Luke Skywalker, a hero among the Rebels, who is rumored to have delivered the fatal blow to the Death Star. Skywalker, a former desert-dweller from the planet Tattooine, became a part of the Rebellion after family members were killed. Skywalker was trained by a militant wing of the Rebels, known as "Jedi Knights." Fanatical in their religious beliefs, the Jedi Knights claim to derive their power from the mystical "Force."

It's believed that Skywalker was specifically trained by infamous terrorist O bin Wankanobi. Wankanobi, occasionally called "Ben" and easily recognized by his bearded visage and long, flowing robes, achieved near-martyr status among the Rebels after his death last year during a spy mission. His more fervent followers believe that Wankanobi lives on within them today, some even claiming to hear his voice during times of duress.

The attack on the Death Star came shortly after the Empire's destruction of Alderstaan, a planet whose government was known to harbor terrorists. Responding to criticism over the total annihilation of the planet, Vader stated, "There is no middle ground in the War on Terror. Those who harbor terrorists are terrorists themselves. Alderaan was issued ample warning. The fight for continuing Freedom is often burdened by terrible cost."

The cost of this war can still be seen today in the continuing efforts to build a coalition government on Tattooine. Longstanding animosities among the planets various ethnic groups, including the Jawas, Tusken Raiders and scattered human settlers, have been an impediment to the peace process. The Empire continues to maintain a small peace keeping force until a provisional government is finally in place.

Much of the difficulty in fighting the Rebel forces stems from their lack of a central organizing structure. "They don't play by the traditional rules of war," complained one spokesman. "They come in all shapes and sizes, united only by their single-minded desire to destroy the Empire before it destroys them."

The Emperor closed his comments today by stating that "the cowardly attack on the Death Star left a deep scar on the Empire. However, we will not stop fighting until every last evildoer has been brought to justice." He paused for several moments, wiping away a tear and then added with determination, "We will never forget."
"I wish we could all just get along," said one of the mourners. "But it's hard to offer an olive branch to a cult of religious fanatics whose main tool is violence and who insist on calling us the Dark Side."

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[Anonymous Coward]

wait another 4 months, then it will be funny.

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[RAMMS EIN]

``If you love monopolistic, predatory, anti-consumers' rights, pablum spewing consortiums, that is.''

But as long as it's an _open_ standard that shouldn't be a problem. But I'm sure M$ will somehow pervert it... Anyhow, I think it might be time for the next step after Open Source Software...maybe open-standard hardware?

---
standards, n.:
The principles we use to reject other people's code.

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[roe1352]

...and I think that we can gave shed a tear for all of the innocent independent contractors that while building the Death Star.

Re:With the possible exception of Nokia

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit, that's what I meant. Oops, thanks for the correction.

_
Windows Users!

Interoperability with Microsoft?

[ObviousGuy]

NEVER!

Isn't that what you want to say Mikey?

Why the dig about DRM? Jeez, get over yourself.

Re:Interoperability with Microsoft?

[tempest303]

Why the dig? Because crap like DRM is what typically happens when big corps. get together under an "open" standard for a particular technology - they get together to figure out how to "leverage" (read: screw) customers into a particular standard that then becomes impossible to escape. Naturally, this isn't always the case, but doesn't it ever-increasingly feel like it?

It was a cheap shot, but remember, this IS slashdot. ;)

Re:Interoperability with Microsoft?

[piznut]

Read the FAQ on the website. Q: Which key enabling technologies are the priorities in the Open Mobile Alliance? A: The companies involved in the alliance will decide the key enabling technologies jointly. However, it is evident that Multimedia Messaging (MMS), Java and WAP 2.0/XHTML browsing are among the most relevant ones. Some other technologies driving the mobile services market include service enablers such as Digital Rights Management (DRM), authentication, location and presence identification and device management. Either you missed that part, or you think DRM is a good thing?

Re:Interoperability with Microsoft?

[DoctorFrog]

I like the sound of this (from the website):

The architecture framework and service enablers are independent of Operating Systems (OS)

Let's see if it actually happens, though

Re:Interoperability with Microsoft?

[0x0d0a]

I figured DRM was a typo for GSM.

Re:Interoperability with Microsoft?

[peddrenth]

The "dig" is: what the hell does disney have to do with mobile communications (apart from painting cartoon characters on mobile-phone front panels) and are they trying to get "a seat on the board" to screw any future WiFi they don't like?

Remember, it doesn't have to involve DRM, it could be as simple as "tracable, logged calls" which would make access to warez sites from your phone a whole lot less convenient.

It could be as simple as pushing a centralised model when direct inter-node communications are possible, squashing possibility of an unmoniterable comminications medium.

Well worth keeping an eye on them in the long term, but probably not worthy of a quick flurry of disapproval and subsequently forgetting it.

-- sig: "This post brought to you by AolDisneyTimeWarnerMicrosoft, a wholly owned subsiduary of UkUsGovernment inc., a wholly owned subsiduary of The Corporation (TM)"

alliances

[SonicTooth]

more and more componies are banding together nowadays, is this good or bad? maybe they can enact positive change

Re:alliances

[HiThere]

more and more componies are banding together nowadays, is this good or bad? maybe they can enact positive change

IANAL, however:
I know of no physical law prohibiting this. However, observation of past results does not encourage one to be hopeful. And there are legal arguments that can be used to indicate that a corporation is required to do anything, however heinous, that would increase the probability of it's stockholders receiving even as much as a penny more. This is argument, not definitive, but it has been used as the basis of successful stockholder suits before now. This is one reason that Red Hat was so careful with their stock market prospectus. (And I sure hope that they were careful enough! Corporate law is biased against customers, and increasingly biased not in favor of stockholders so much as corporate executives, so there is a good chance that Red Hat is safe. Probably whether they follow their prospectus or not.)

Re:alliances

[ChimChim]

There's a more technical term for this: synergy. Or some people like ogliarchy, ogliopoly, or joint monopoly.

Whatever you call it, to get it you either need to create a standard that is kind of like a treaty not to compete in one particular area, or you buy the other company and reduce the costs associated with competing. Whenever a merger like AOL/TW or HP/Compaq claims to "reduce costs" they really mean "we won't have to spend money competing with these people since we own them".

This isn't to say that good alliances aren't made, and that standards aren't also a way of providing better interoperable products but that the dramatic rise in number of such groups is a much larger phenomenon.

Re:alliances

[nyssa]

This is just a standards group, and its primarily a merger of two existing standards groups, the WAP Forum and the Open Mobile Architecture group. This is really good news because WAP includes a bunch of protocols and data formats especially designed for wireless, such as Wireless Markup Language, but Open Mobile Architecture is built around the new customizable web protocols like XHTML/CSS. There is no need for the industry to be going in two different directions.

Cell phone companies need to be involved so that their phones will all use the same protocols and data formats. This is just like operating system vendors and web browser venders being involved in the IETF and W3C. Content producers like Disney want to be involved so that the standards can support the content and services they are wanting to provide.

Will Microsoft try to force things to their advantage? Of course. They do this all the time in IETF and other standards bodies. Fortunately, they don't always get their way.

The Internet and the Web developed rather organically. A handful of computers could be connected together to begin with, and then people just kept adding to the net until it became something that could make money. But cellular infrastructure costs a lot more to build out, and most people won't pay for a particular service until they can get it just about everywhere. Since cellular has limited range, this means building or upgrading lots of cell sites.

On the application side, the web standards evolved organically as servers and browsers added more features. To try out a new feature you just had to download a Netscape upgrade and you had it. In the cell phone world, though, it is much more difficult to upgrade a phone.

Because of these differences, it will be harder for cellular based services to evolve organically. The players involved will have to agree to more stuff up front before they start building things if they want to be able to interoperate.

By the way, all of this only affects the 2.5G, 3G and beyond cellular world. Wi-Fi is a whole different ball game, and it has more Internet like dynamics. Since access points are cheap, and the terminals are highly programmable computers, experimentation is much easier.

Um...

[Ribo99]

Their mission is to develop an open standard for how wireless phones can be used on any network.

I somehow think the Phone paradigm has been pretty well defined...

...press numbers...hit send...talk to person or answering machine...hit end.

(psss...this is a joke)

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Their mission is to develop an open standard for how wireless phones can be used on any network."

I thought GSM was a standard for wireless phones?

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was.

Then American companies had to invent their own 'standards' to satisfy their need to do things differently than Europe.
CDMA isn't bad, but TDMA sucks balls.

end user friendliness

[rhombic]

Hopefully Nokia and friends will keep Disney in check. If the standard's aren't end-user friendly the techies know they'll lose money, just like all the other systems being driven by the entertainment industry.

Jini

[jeffphil]

I thought that's what Sun's Jini network technology was for.

Jini[tm] network technology is an open architecture that enables developers to create network-centric services -- whether implemented in hardware or software -- that are highly adaptive to change. Jini technology can be used to build adaptive networks that are scalable, evolvable and flexible as typically required in dynamic computing environments.

Re:Jini

[Anonymous Coward]

Jini[tm] network technology is an open architecture that enables developers to create network-centric services -- whether implemented in hardware or software -- that are highly adaptive to change. Jini technology can be used to build adaptive networks that are scalable, evolvable and flexible as typically required in dynamic computing environments.

You can write in any language, as long as it's Java.

Re:Jini

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? Sun is pathetic. They are about 10 years behind Microsoft's idea of how software development works.

Re:Jini

[Anonymous Coward]

And what he means folks, is that Sun is far too close to Microsoft's idea of software development. Anything within 15 years of Microsoft is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.

WAP Is Still Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

From the faq:

When the supporters of the Open Mobile Architecture initiative and the WAP Forum consolidated their efforts, a foundation for the new organization was formed - the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA).

HAHAHAHAHA. 802.11 baby!

Re:WAP Is Still Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

What does 802.11 have to do with it? Your 802.11 capabale device is either a lot bigger than a mobile (laptop or even desktop) or, it is the same size, so using a normal html browser would probably look crap anyway because of the size of the screen.

Re:Interoperability with...

[MrLint]

The DRM helmet! Just think this would be a grat way to send back to the mother ship about any kinda copyrighted information you might stumble across and then it would filter it out in real time!

Counteraction to Michael's Paranoia

[EchoMirage]

The article in question says absolutely nothing about Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. True enough that Disney's involvement may "poison the well" (anybody notice the fallacy in Michael's thinking?) but it's not explicitly stated from the outset. Nor, for that matter, are each company's involvements in said conglomerate.

At any rate, I'd still like to see more "open" cooperation such as these two efforts by major bicycle manufacturers, but the fact that the standard is open is hopeful, at the very least.

See, things really can work well when everybody tries to get along.

Re:Counteraction to Michael's Paranoia

[melatonin]

The article in question says absolutely nothing about Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology

The article says,

The common standard also will solve such business issues as digital rights management and payment, officials said.

It's down at the bottom. You know, so no one will notice it.

</paranoia>

Re:Counteraction to Michael's Paranoia

[tempest303]

things really can work well when everybody tries to get along.

But companies HATE "getting along". I mean, wouldn't that resemble.... COMMUNISM?!? All this hippie friendly getting along and working together crap is for pansy bleeding heart liberals! If we, the corporations of America, aren't constantly at each others throats, while the consumers get screwed in the process, then we haven't done our jobs as Good Upstanding Capitalists(TM)!

ok, troll mode off. (no offense to you, i just had to get that out)

seriously, the "business" point of view on "getting along" means having to share the wealth, and if there's one thing that's considered as unilaterally, unabashedly evil in the USA, it's stating that you don't have to take an attitude of "fight to horde everything you possibly can for yourself, community and humanity be damned!" in order to be successful.

Re:Counteraction to Michael's Paranoia

[Anonymous Coward]

unfortunatly, what it means is 'we don't have to try anymore, so we can just flat out screw the customers, out of principle, instead of having to screw the customers to drive the bottom line down'

Re:Counteraction to Michael's Paranoia

[Quirk]

Thnx muchly for the links. I'm pretty much rebuildng my Raeligh mntbk from the frame up and had thought to stay with a Shimano matchup with the derailleur setup but it's not to late to give the stuff you linked to some thought. )

Re:Counteraction to Michael's Paranoia

[Anonymous Coward]

Good Upstanding Capitalists(TM)!

Hahahaha, stupid american!

Re:Counteraction to Michael's Paranoia

[Raphael]

The article did say something about DRM, although this was only a brief mention. Quote: "The common standard also will solve such business issues as digital rights management and payment, officials said."

You can also have a look at the FAQ on the OMA web site:

Q: Which key enabling technologies are the priorities in the Open Mobile Alliance?

A: The companies involved in the alliance will decide the key enabling technologies jointly. However, it is evident that Multimedia Messaging (MMS), Java and WAP 2.0/XHTML browsing are among the most relevant ones. Some other technologies driving the mobile services market include service enablers such as Digital Rights Management (DRM), authentication, location and presence identification and device management.

It is not a secret that one of the (many) goals of the OMA is to allow some content providers such as Disney to sell their content to mobile users. That's why DRM is listed as one of the key enablers that will be standardized by the OMA.

i heard of this one

[r00tarded]

isn't it called the WAP forum?
why with all these players how can it fail?

Re:i heard of this one

[Sabalon]

I was under the impression that they just hammer out how WAP works. The problem is while my standard WAP page may work on any WAP phone, if I'm outside of Verizons digital network, perhaps roaming on someone elses, I'm out of luck - I can't use that service until I'm back in there network.

Same thing with SMS messages - if I'm not in their network , I don't get them.

GSM?

[LinuxOnHal]

Hmm...doesn't sound like they're doing anything that the rest of the world has already done. Doesn't GSM do instant messaging, etc? The one thing I don't think is in it as a standard is probably video/picture transfer.

yay new remote DoS in Mozilla 1.0

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a new mozilla remote DoS exploit found already. Yippity dee dah for 1.0 hohoho...

Really it's X's shitty font handlings fault but mozilla makes this doozy of a bug turn into a nice remote DoS requiring cold boot. oh ya! that's good stuff...

Go mozilla and go X, can't get enough of that buggy bloatware...

one networking company not there ...

[Anonymous Coward]

cisco

how long before we see cisco open up openportablealliance.org ?

--m

Page Whitening Post

[Anonymous Coward]

1. 
   

Standards, eh?

[Throatwarbler Mangro]

While, as a general rule, "Standards be good," you have to bear in mind at least two points:

1) As has been previously stated (and will be again ad nauseum) some of the major players in this consortium have a horrible track record of user's rights. You can be sure the ulterior motive of this group has to do with profits than with end-user convenience. Technically, sure, that is the purpose of business (big or otherwise) but I don't remember anyhing in the rules the says they can't do things for the greater good...

2) Certain parties who shall remain nameless (*cough* Microsoft *cough*) have long had a problem with "maintaining standards." Maybe being part of the defining committee will go some ways towards alleviating the Not-Invented-Here Syndrome, but ultimately I think that any mythical "standards" produced from this will invariably produce a dozen variants of the original. Anyone who's used IE's interpretation of HTML knows this...

Essentially, I suppose I'm saying that when this many 800lb. gorillas get into a room together, the only thing that came come out of it is a more worries for us bananas^H^H^H^H^H^H^H customers.

Re:Standards, eh?

[jvanderneut]

Anyone who's used IE's interpretation of HTML knows this...

Unfortunately this is not the case: anyone not using IE's interpretation of HTML knows this...

Re:Standards, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just worries for us _consumers_, it's worries for us _citizens_.

How many of those companies were behind the DMCA? How many have shown that they're willing to do whatever it takes it bundle, oligopolize, monopolize, and legislate their way to higher profits at the expense of consumer choice and citizen rights?

Now, I'm not one to believe in a dark future, but it's things like this that make such a future a possibility.

You mean like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

This wireless possibility } miked { 83 " cube, this alliance illustration for writes and the connection inside EL Feng Nokia Wednesday this ability you is not on June 12th, îÊ grida and the spot is big @09:22PM, Microsoft, is the Intel China to inside the side alliance wireless illustration, closes it and the person, 200, these companies, specially external and _ Disney, in method estimate. You, that management appears to inside, is friendly one Netto " Whoo the hoo master, is opened for whom must it be possible and she to become, is the transformation, is not the cable,! DRM is almost new microtelephone,! The EL website groups one is its here and regarding the information.

Weather Channel

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the Weather Channel on that list?

Really ANY device????

[bromba]

"The most important value to consumers is that no matter what device I have, no matter what service I'm going to get, no matter what carrier I'm using, I can get access to the information. The consumer will see no issues of access to content,"

So does that mean they will support video streaming to my 'ol pogo stick, too?

Re:Really ANY device????

[morgajel]

as long as it has a modem/ethernet/wireless.

How about an RFC or two?

[wirefarm]

This stuff is ancient history really, if you look at things like internet protocols and RFCs, the documents that suggest exactly how to solve this sort of problem.

The problems happen when a vendor or group of vendors try to cram standards down the throats of the users.

Anyone else here remember when your typical office email package didn't speak RFC822 and you couldn't mail anyone outside your network?

Eventually, real standards always develop. Doing it early just saves everyone a lot of money and bother.

Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo

Re:How about an RFC or two?

[infiniti99]

Doing it early just saves everyone a lot of money and bother.

And doing it later is almost near impossible.

Even though this article is actually about high-level wireless data layers, consider that even base celluar networks in the USA have yet to fully standardize. While it is true that the GSM standard is here to stay, especially considering that AT&T has embraced it, I still don't see Sprint or Verizon going anywhere. The USA market is going to be fragmented for a long time, I'm afraid..

Whenever I hear about "standardizing later", I think of instant messaging. How long has it been since ICQ started? 6 or 7 years? You'd think we'd have an IM standard by now, but instead we've gained 3 other HUGE proprietary networks (and then some). True, there is Jabber, but how long has it been available now? 2-3 years? AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo, still have yet to embrace any sort of standard. I believe the IETF will be accepting Jabber as an RFC soon, but does anyone really think AOL will start using it?

Re:How about an RFC or two?

[Ben Hutchings]

Your typical office email package (Outlook & Exchange) now just about manages to speak RFC 822 or RFC 2822, though with a funny accent and a lot of grammatical errors.

Re:hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't you post the lyrics to 1-800-suicide by the gravediggaz or something?

Mozilla sux0rs!

[Anonymous Coward]

Die Moz, Die!

Whats DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFS (read the fucking subject)

Re:Whats DRM?

[Anonymous Cowrad]

Digital Rights Management

Re:Whats DRM?

[ObviousGuy]

It's a system that prevents criminals from illegally copying digital media that they have no right to copy.

It has its flaws and there are many ways to circumvent the systems, but it's still the early stages of the technology so there will likely be better systems thought up as time goes on. It's a shame that so many criminals have ruined it for the rest of us.

Re:Whats DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

troll or not, that's exactly what DRM is designed to do.

Re:hello

[Anonymous Coward]

No one gets to decide wether or not they are born.

However this can be remedied.

Grasping at straws

[tfb]

These people have no idea what they're doing. Eight years ago they didn't see SMS coming. Four years ago, awash with cash, they saw the web, and got together in a big committee and decided that the future was a cut-down version of that, so they formed another big committee and invented WAP, which was a dismal failure. Two years ago they spent all their money on 3G licenses and infrastructure, thus making the problem of finding a killer app somewhat urgent. But they still have no idea. The best thing they can think of is video on demand, but who is going to pay for porn on a tiny phone screen? So here they are again, with another big committee trying to invent the next big thing.

I don't know what the next big thing for mobiles is, but I do know that it's not going to be invented by this, or any other, big committee. It is safe to ignore anything these people do.

Re:Grasping at straws

[Sabalon]

Add bluetooth to the phone. Add bluetooth to a PDA. Then you can have the PDA link up with the phone, using it as a modem, without having to use a wire to interconnect.

There's your killer app. PDA in hand doing whatever (watching streaming porn) while the phone is in your pocket (at least I'm assuming that's your phone!)

Re:Grasping at straws

[tfb]

while the phone is in your pocket

...on vibrate, presumably.

Seriously, while no one (well, not me) is going to want to watch porn on some poxy PDA screen, I've thought about something like this. I actually think that phones and PDAs will become the same thing - take a phone, get rid of the keyboard and replace the whole front of it with a LCD touch screen with a *picture* of a keyboard, and it looks pretty much like a palmpilot. I thought of this in 1999, so loads of people must have thought of it before me. So why hasn't it happened? Well, one reason is that PDAs aren't that useful compared to mobiles. Here in the UK, nerdy people and flashy management types have PDAs, but *everyone* has a mobile. I mean, I have *three*, and I'm a late-adopter. I just moved house, and the only reason I got a landline was because I wanted ISDN (it's really remote, no ADSL). I don't have a PDA though.

I think the killer-app is micro-billing. Telcos have billing systems which can bill down to a few cents, and make money doing it. They should become proxies for other people who want to do that. A phone is (fairly) secure, and with bluetooth you can have a nice transaction with the phone (and hence the telco) to charge tiny amounts.

Re:Grasping at straws

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I guess I'm an anonymous coward, according to Slashdot.

Anyway, tfb, cell phone/PDA combinations do now exist. They cost around $200-$600, and have existed at least for two months. Maybe what's available in the UK is different than in the US. Then again you said you have 3 cell phones; that's not something most people have here. But anyway again, PDAs meant to be cell phones do indeed exist.

Francis

Re:Grasping at straws

[austinp]

Damn straight. Phone and PDA will merge. Bluetooth detachable headset with touch-screen, full colour, skinnable LCD display. Now, if someone can work out how to merge that with a barcode scanner, retina scanner and credit card, I'd have one secure paying and communications device instead of phone+PDA+wallet.

Oh yeh. And make it a thin client too, so when I lose it all my data's on the network and I don't lose that too.

Now, that's a killer device. tfb beat me by a year with the LCD bit :) but I reckon with those bells and whistles, it'd sell like hot-cakes.

Well I'd buy one.

As for WAP - that was always meant to be interim. Companies invested so much in hyping the 3G potential, they had to get something out to a crazed public. Yet another case of giving the marketeers way too much credence.

Come on. I want this stuff now. Something the size of an 8210 or smaller please. Oh and if it can use SyncML over IR or a decent industry-standard cable connection, that would be great.

init.

OMA

[EyesWideOpen]

Open Mobile Alliance

I'm surprised that Microsoft has agreed to form a company with 'open' in it's title.

DRM, specifically, may be an issue

[sam_handelman]

Actually, this isn't just a standard for wireless phones - at least, that isn't my reading of the wireless aliance's mission statement, which isn't terribly substance heavy.

My reading is that this is a standards-development-drive for wireless devices in general. The CNN article acts like this would only impact "web enabled" cell phones; but I don't see why that would be. Considering that Walt Disney is involved in the group - a mysterious choice since Walt Disney is not, according to my recollection or the simple research I just did, involved in the cell phone industry in even the most peripheral way - I strongly suspect that the group is going to develop standards related to one of the areas in which Disney does business.

This might be TV or Radio - ABC owns 10 and 55 stations, respectively. Something about spectrum? More likely, Disney is involved because of some percieved impact on wireless "content distribution," and this alliance may very well come up with some standard for DRM they want all portable IP-employing devices to adhere to.

Re:DRM, specifically, may be an issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Disney makes considerable bank in Japan in mobile services -- ringtones, Disney-branded 3G services, graphics and so on. They'd like to repeat their success in other places. Nothing so complicated.

They had better get ahead of this!

[Dr_Marvin_Monroe]

Could you imagine what would happen if some young hacker with no respect for "disruptive technologies" could do if he/she loosed upon the world something free....kinda like 802.11 for phones and handhelds? It seems like that ability (ad-hoc network assembly) has been kept away from us. I know that there a few exceptions, but nothing like I'm imagining....every Palm with 802.11 inside, and all set for ad-hoc / p2p.

Seems like the big players have been sitting on their hands. I guess no one wants to be the "first to move" in this arena.....but if they all move together, we the consumer get the same status-quo....nothing scary for Disney/MS/Nokia/et.al........

I'm less concerned about DRM as I am about the identification aspect. I mean, you can't buy a cell phone now without giving all your personal information.....right down to your jock size. I imagine that this "new" network will be exactly the same.

On the other hand, imagine if better wireless tools/networking gear existed for the equipment that's out now. I could walk into CompUSA with CASH and purchase any Palm/pocket-pc device, radio gear and whatever else I might want....I can be "on the air" right out in the parking lot in less than 30 minutes! No strings attached, no forms to fill out. Imagine all handhelds doing their own routing, passing messages for their neighbors, without the need for a big/centralized hub where the FBI can put their Carnivore.

Perhaps the Tin-foil beanie is fitting a little tight today, but the gubment and big business seem especially intent these last months on stamping out our privacy and anonimity for good. I don't like it one bit.

I'm not a criminal, but I'm being treated like one whenever I get "voluntarily" searched before boarding the ferry or having my picture illegally used for comparison to some "criminal" database.

I sure hope that this new "alliance" is not what I'm imagining...but from Disney and MS?....who knows....If this new alliance between Disney/MS/Nokia/et.al. makes it impossible for me to be anonyous whey I want, they're part of the problem, not part of the solution. I'll never be buying such a service.

Re:They had better get ahead of this!

[Chris Burke]

While the notion of an ad-hoc public network created by people running wireless networking devices in their homes and on their mobiles I'll admit is quite compelling, it does have some major problems. They are, essentially, distance and density. The cross large distances would require a huge amount of power, such that it's no longer reasonable for a guy living in the suburbs to be providing the connectivity for free, paying his own electricity bill. And because none of these links are going to be extremely high bandwidth (compared to fiber), to get current internet-like performance you're going to need a massive amount of independent connections especially across the large gaps. The biggest obstacle to this People's Internet are the Oceans. After that comes places like Wyoming, where anything as developed as a -gas station- is 60 miles apart.

Which is a shame, because I'd love for it to happen.

Re:They had better get ahead of this!

[Trinn]

Well, the problems do seem important but there are a few solutions. There are legal ways to create and repeat a signal over fairly long distances, without paying too much in electricity, or you could tunnel out through an ISP of some kind and the "public internet". The biggest plus though is interconnection within an area...maybe the notion of community would come back? And there are ways other than RF 2.4GHz or 5GHz transmission to connect from one point to the next that can be used. Tunneling through the public internet, using any kind of cabling available, lasers (cool but relatively useless), and even laying your own fibre. As for providing connectivity to the public internet, people could do it in exchange for advertising, could provide a part of their own connection for free (if so available in their TOS), or could just keep content mostly on the ad-hoc grids (which should be using IPv6 or something similar that can handle the address requirements) Anyway, just the ramblings of someone with nothing better to say, and a desire to see these networks. Someone let me know if you have the ability to put together the proper hardware/software, or would wish to discuss it. I know that routing on this kind of network is not trivial but I can think of a few options, some of which involve obtaining rout trees based on physical direction, and creating a new packet protocol that can quickly weed out bad nodes by lack of an ACK backwards on the route from one, two, or more nodes ahead.

Re:They had better get ahead of this!

[peddrenth]

Fair enough, you're a hacker, most of the people here are hackers, lets do the proper thing and build it!

"Ad-hoc network assembly" as you say sounds a lot like a group of geeks with laptops and WiFi cards, rewriting the bluetooth protocol but simpler.

Then it sounds like being able to make repeater/router kits available for next to no cost (remember the 802.11 repeaters built-into cars discussion) so as to make the network spread.

It's all wery well moaning about being "denied the technology" but given that it doesn't exist yet, someone needs to build it. And who better than a quarter-million electronic engineers, linux programmers, free-speech advocates, and WiFi experts, all linked together by the borg of slashdot?

Well worth trying...

(p.s. here in the UK we don't have the right to meet in public anymore, go figure! )

Optimisim???

[boomer_rehfield]

Maybe we could get the best technical support team from all the 200 companies to answer the phone!!

Not JUST DRM, either...

[JanusFury]

We can expect to see kernel panics, blue screens of death, and VBScript viruses on cell phones, too. Oh, and 'minesweeper'! :)

Re:EMPTY POST!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

unfortunately, at the present time the lameness filter is limiting the length of the post in addition to it's width. feel free to view the source of the post in your browser and work from there.

Re:hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a fucking loser java programmer??

It should be:

SetAgreeWithPost(1);

Function names start with a CAPITAL letter. Member variables start with lowercase. You will be assimilated.

History about to repeat?

[VernonNemitz]

OK, so we start off with a nice open standard, that everybody embraces. How long after that will Microsoft introduce some proprietary enhancements that only work with Windows, and announces various copyrights, patents and EULAs that forbid cloning those enhancements for any other OS?

Re:hello

[Anonymous Coward]

You are also lame for using getter/setter methods, C# has accessors:

post.agree=1;

Looks like a public member but actually a function call... get it?

public agree { get { return this.agee; } }

evil alliances

[frovingslosh]

is this good or bad? maybe they can enact positive change

Microsoft, Disney ....... Judging from past experience it seems very clear this can't be a good thing. Get ready for the "alliance" to decide what you can and cannot have, and what you can and cannot do even with materials you have clearly paid for. And they will know what you have and what you do with it. Of course, some people call learning from the past "prejudice". But then what else should we learn from?

Re:evil alliances

[stubear]

I'm assuming that by "...materials you have clearly paid for..." you are referring to DVDs, CDs and the like. I'd only point out that you in no way own the content, you merely own the physical disc. You may do with the disc as you please but you have very few rights in regards to the content. If you want to do with the content as you please, you're going to have to pony up some major cash to do so.

Re:evil alliances

[Dyolf Knip]

Except the content is irrevocably burned onto the CD. The structure of the media is altered so as to represent the content. How can I own the media but not the pits or even lack thereof on it? That's like saying I own only the paper and binding of a book, not the ink. Or better yet, I own a hard drive but not the magnetic fields on it.

Re:evil alliances

[frovingslosh]

I'm assuming ..... you are referring to DVDs, CDs and the like.

I was thinking of DVD's as I wrote it, although it applies to e-books and even to CD's when they muck them up so that you can't even transfer the song on a Sony CD to a Sony MP3 player, or compile your own CD onto an audio CD that the recording industry has already received a cut on because you might put one of their albums on the CD. Sure, you don't own the content in the sense of broadcast rights and the like, but you certainly should own the right to play it on the system of your choice, including a Linux based system.

Im scared

[sheepab]

A wireless alliance has formed between the likes of Nokia, Microsoft, Intel, Walt Disney Co.

Do we really want companies like Microsoft, Intel, and Disney in an alliance over wireless?

Re:Im scared

[wadetemp]

Sheep Abs,

I saw your post on Slashdot and realized something... you know, sometimes corporate conglomerations can be a little scary. And then I laughed to myself and though, hey, sometimes I myself can be a little scary. I'm really sorry about that. I've contacted my friends at Microsoft and Intel and told them, you know, let's try not to be so scary. Like Tigger here. You wouldn't scary anyone, would you Tigger? Alright, well sit back and enjoy our show, "Winnie The Pooh And The Hundred Thousand Dollar Fine For Downloading MP3s" on the "Wonderful World Of Disney."

Michael Eisner

If it is Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't be open standard. That would open up it to the competition so how will Microsoft force people to but their version. Ther can be only one !

hahaha

[Edmund Blackadder]

whenever i hear the words microsoft and open standard in the same sentence i have to laugh. yea sure just like java was an open standard.

DRM

[jsse]

Whoo-hoo! DRM for cell phones

You might be joking, but the horror is that DRM actually work well with mobile phone.

I've been working with people bidding projects for mobile computing. Mobile business is an area where you find eveyrthing proprietary.

First you must sign NDA to be allowed to program a GSM sim, then when you've done with the sim you must sign a partnership(aka pay them big bucks of money) agreement with telcos and mobile makers so that they'd ever consider recognize the sim cards you made. Otherwise they can always deny your sim from accessing their network. The problem is that when you asked one Telco/mobile maker to sign an agreement with you, they'll probably include in the agreement forbid you from signing a similar agreement with their competitors. There goes the market penetration.

That's why you don't see much special purpose sim card around. Unlike PC market, the business of mobile markets are controlled by the telcos and mobile makers.

DRM would probably not work in PC market, but it would succeed in such a business environment where the business are controlled by several big corps.

Re:DRM

[peddrenth]

Reprogramming mobile phones to become illegal in the UK, currently under discussion in parliament

sesame street memories

[zenintrude]

Nokia, Microsoft, Intel, Walt Disney Co.

"one of these four is not like the others... one of these four just doesn't belong..."

Jumping to conclusions?

[xms194]

Products and services are based on open, global standards, protocols and interfaces and are not locked to proprietary technologies

How is this a bad thing? And where did DRM ever come up on either of these pages?

Re:Jumping to conclusions?

[wadetemp]

OK, so maybe you don't understand. It's a hidden message from people who want to take over your rights. The letters D, R, and M *all* appeared in the story. Put that together, and you get DRM. Digital Rights Management! They also encode these letters in the lyrics to most of N'Sync's music, which is why we hate them so much. Counter to this theory, is John Katz, who has none of these letters in his name, but we still don't like him. In short, everything's evil.

Re:EMPTY POST!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

YHL.

seems the words 'pork' and 'lameness filters suck' appear in that post, invaliidating the concept of that post being an empty post

Re:fourth first post in a week?

[Anonymous Coward]

s/s\/rule\/gobble cock daily\//Hi I'm an ass.

Senator Disney

[dlur]

My question is this...How much money is Senator Fritz "Disney" Hollings going to make off of introducing legislation requiring whatever "Open Standard" this group comes up with?

My guess is quite a lot of pork!

Re:Senator Disney

[IIOIOOIOO]

Or if you want a non-sissy mud, telnet://durismud.org:6666. It's like Sojourn, but you're allowed to kill eachother. Also, we just went live with the Undead races!

I was always good at those Mensa practice tests

[wadetemp]

Microsoft, because it's the only one with a non-prime number of characters! (excluding spaces.) Bring on the geometry questions, sucka.

Re:I was always good at those Mensa practice tests

[Anonymous Coward]

There are actually several ways to go about this:

1. Walt Disney - Because they are not a technology company.

2. Microsoft - The one you can steal from without touching their product :) (unless you like to download winney the pooh from Kazaa)

3. Intel - because they are the only one there that is in Microsoft's pocket and could possible go out of business if they make MS mad.

4. Nokia - The general "nice guy" of the 4

I don't get it

[wadetemp]

Microsoft didn't invent Java dude... so it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that it's not open. Nokia invented Java (during the period in which Al Gore was an honorary CEO.)

Re:I don't get it

[Edmund Blackadder]

microsoft embraced and changed the java standardon their compilers.

I like rights management on my phones...

[wadetemp]

The thing that sucks though is that people can still use analog equipment like microphones and tape recorders to record my voice while I'm talking, so basically the fact that my voice's bits are encoded and encrypted and digital-rightsfully-managed as they fly though the air doesn't do me any good. What I really need is a voice rights management helmet so no one can hear me while I'm talking.

Re:I like rights management on my phones...

[WebMasterJoe]

What I really need is a voice rights management helmet so no one can hear me while I'm talking.

Yeah, we all wish you had one of those.


Sorry, you set yourself up for that one.

FAGOT = YUO

[Anonymous Coward]

BWAHAHAHA!!1!!! YUO AER FUNEY!@!!1!

(of course it's like yelling, asshats. I'm yelling.)

"Hi Timmy"

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm Tommy"
"Oh, well eat your breakfast, your mother said you should eat healthy before 8"
TOMMY DRINKS JUICE
"I wonder where that brother of yours is"
TOMMY ARCHES EYEBROWS
"I'll go get him"
TOMMY CHANGES SHIRT. WE SEE TIMMY'S DOOR LOCKED WITH A CHAIR IN FRONT OF IT. HE CANNOT GET OUT.
"Hey Tommy! Let me out!"
TOMMY THEN GOES AND DRINKS TROPICANA BLENDS FRUIT JUICES. IT IS REVEALED THAT THEY ARE DELICIOUS AND NUTRIOUS AND TASTE GOOD BECAUSE THEY ARE FRUIT BLENDS. TOMMY THEN DECIEVES HIS GRANDMOTHER IN ORDER TO GET MORE JUICE.
"I wonder if your brother Tommy would like some juice"
TOMMY ARCHES EYEBROWS THEN EJACULATES INTO HIS EGGS.
"Oops."
"Timmy! YOu are sucks!"
TOMMY IS THEN DISOWNED AND COMMITS SUICIDE. WE THEN SEE THE TROPICANA BLENDS JUICE BOXES BEFORE WE FADE TO BLACK.

Drink TRopicana!

Troll for a day...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Fool for a lifetime.

:-(

WAP: the next generation

[ukryule]

The Open Mobile Alliance has been formed by merging two existing initiatives:

• The WAP Forum: Every knows and loves WAP. Nowadays, the WAP Forum has (thankfully) moved away from the invent everything here mentality, and are trying to see how they can adopt all the existing Web/IM/Java stuff that's out there.
• The Open Mobile Architecture initiative was announced in November as an attempt to standardise what sort of standards your 2.5G/3G phone should support.

Although all mobile phone companies love standards bodies, they eventually realised that these two bodies were made up of exactly the same companies, and trying to do pretty much the same thing. So they've merged the two efforts into one, and unsurprisingly dropped the 'WAP' name.

The objectives are sort of what you'd expect ... taken from their FAQ:

The principles of the Open Mobile Alliance are:

• Products and services are based on open, global standards, protocols and interfaces and are not locked to proprietary technologies
• The applications layer is bearer agnostic (examples: GSM, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, UMTS)
• The architecture framework and service enablers are independent of Operating Systems (OS)
• Applications and platforms are interoperable, providing seamless geographic and inter-generational roaming

Note the explicit 'independent of OS' bit in there ... in the original open mobile archictecture, they didn't mention this (and even explicitly stated that SymbianOS would be an important component), but now MS has joined the happy family, the emphasis has changed.

DRM

[ukryule]

Whoo-hoo! DRM for cell phones!

I initially thought this was a bit of flamebait from Michael, but check this out from their FAQ:

Q: Which key enabling technologies are the priorities in the Open Mobile Alliance?

A: The companies involved in the alliance will decide the key enabling technologies jointly. However, it is evident that Multimedia Messaging (MMS), Java and WAP 2.0/XHTML browsing are among the most relevant ones. Some other technologies driving the mobile services market include service enablers such as Digital Rights Management (DRM), authentication, location and presence identification and device management.

Re:What is your mission?

[Anonymous Coward]

I give j00 -500000 retarded

Disney's Position...

[mad-seumas]

As long as you, perpetually, continue to pay for us to beam you a freaking mouse, you are allowed to use it...

When will those vendors wake up?

[Joseph Lam]

From the FAQ:
---
Q: Which key enabling technologies are the priorities in the Open Mobile Alliance?
A: The companies involved in the alliance will decide the key enabling technologies jointly. However, it is evident that Multimedia Messaging (MMS), Java and WAP 2.0/XHTML browsing are among the most relevant ones. Some other technologies driving the mobile services market include service enablers such as Digital Rights Management (DRM), authentication, location and presence identification and device management.
---

Being a mobile application developer for several years I do feel that WAP has been a complete failure due to that it is just re-inventing the 'web' wheel and however it lacks of functionality, flexibility and extensibility (which are indeed some of the success factors of the web). Yes may be it is god damn hard to squeeze any more stuff into the phone without compromise. But take a look at the evolution of PDA and the latest Japanese phones in action. What the hell's going on in those mobile phone vendors' R&D? All the stuff that they claim to be available on the 3G phone 'in future' (e.g. music/movie/video-conf) are in fact old stuff and should be available NOW. We already have:
lower power XXXMHz CPU(strongArm/Crusoe/whatever) + XXMB of RAM + wireless LAN/GPRS/Bluetooth connectivity + C/Java/etc = unlimited imagination for applications

A wireless data enabled PDA can now and will continue to surpass a phone with handicapped PDA functions 'squeezed' in. On the PDA we have common, standardized, (sort of) open platform that seamlessly inherit all the existing internet technology and its even ready for steering the technology ahead, as opposed to the mobile phone industry where it is full of proprietary hardware/interfaces and they just try to keep following the internet trend but can never catch up. (You might argue that I'm comparing apple to orange, but it is the vendor of orange who's trying to make it more apple-like.)

J2ME may have some hope but it depends on how much phone capability can actually be exploited through the JVM. I want more than the just ability to print some "Hello World" or draw several types of GUI widgets. I want the ability to program the phone functions(such as the voice codec, the built-in modem, the phone's firmware, the external interface, etc...). These may be in conflict with the philosophy of Java. But we developers do need this kind of extensibility/programmability do more.

MMS is just too little too late. And is being exploited by mobile service providers say in Hong Kong as gimmick to make money. There might be some kids willing to pay for downloading some fancy cartoon character animations but this is far from my expectation for what can be done with 'multimedia'.

The big vendors in the mobile industry keep creating this kind of alliances trying to take/stay in control of the industry advancement but so far hadn't created anything worthwhile. They decided that they don't need to release too much capability/control to the developer/consumer and that's why we can't do much with WAP other than just browsing some down-scaled text content. Now they see and feel the failure and are crazy coming up solutions to save the industry. I hope that they can actually work out a nice standard with full implementation everywhere.

I'm supposed to be studying for a final.

[rice_burners_suck]

Microsoft is involved in this one too, eh? Maybe the government should jump in and say, "Whoa there, cowboy... You're gonna use your monopoly power in the computer malfunctions market to gain one in the cell phone market too. That ain't right, D, that just ain't right."

Warning, Pornographic Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

D0 N0T CL1CK 0N TH3 L1NK AB0VE! 1T 1S A P0RN0GRAPH1C P1CTURE!!!

question....

[Procrasturbator]

How will this affect the "hot new handheld" from Taco Bell I keep hearing about? I've been looking for a handheld, and it appears to be the least expensive of the lot.

Re:question....

[Anonymous Coward]

It means that there will be more competition from Nokia against the handheld.

I'm confused.

[Procrasturbator]

Will this affect the "hot new handheld" from Taco bell? I've been shopping around for a handheld, and they appear to be the least expensive of the lot.

Please try again.

[Anonymous Coward]

Attempt to shape your thoughts into a coherent, parsable body of logic. Humans are more forgiving of bad diction than machines, but we have our limits as well.

Re:hello

[Chris Burke]

You are also lame for using getter/setter methods, C# has accessors:

post.agree=1;

Looks like a public member but actually a function call... get it?

public agree { get { return this.agee; } }


Are you serious? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in a language this side of Intercal.

So, they heard that Get/Set functions are bad, so instead they changed the syntax so that you can use Get/Set without having to type Get/Set. Wow.

I'm not just saying this because I'm predisposed to disliking C# (though I am). Do they really not understand -why- Get/Set are bad? In case this is actually a secret, the reason is because you are supposed to provide an interface to the function that gives useful features, not direct access to the implementation. Get/Set are basically accessing the implementation and provide nothing useful, they are indicative of poor design.

In other words, your class shouldn't require reading/writing the member variables in order to make use of it, and Get/Set are actually doing just that. It's not the -syntax- (function call or assignment operator) that makes it bad, it is the -function-.

But instead of encouraging you to avoid the direct-assignment-to-members interface, they just changed the -appearance- of that class interface and in doing so codified it into the language!

As an instructor once taught me that if you aren't going to bother to get the interfaces right, you might as well not use OOP.

Bad mojo

[Chris Burke]

authentication, location and presence identification and device management.

That's some scary stuff. What this is saying is that they're trying to develop devices that lets them identify who you are, where you are, and to take control of the device. And they brazenly call this "the mobile services market". Oh yeah, I love these guys already.

Re:Bad mojo

[peddrenth]

And the Department of Trade and Industry will be able to ask your cellphone where you were on friday night

Re:Bad mojo

[peatbakke]

With the exception of "taking control" they can already tell where you are and who you are (otherwise these sorts of things wouldn't work). And when it comes to "taking control" .. well, you are technically renting the privilege to use the service in the first place. The idea that you have any sort of control or privacy in the first place is already out of the question.

Re:Bad mojo

[Chris Burke]

I hope you meant to say "in the opinion of these corporations", because I'd really hate to think you'd swallowed that.

I may be renting the -service-, but I own the device. They have the right to cancel my service, but they don't have the right to spy on me or take over my device. I rent my apartment, but my landlord still can't spy on me, or redecorate my apartment whenever they want. In fact, in most of the states I've lived it is a requirement of law that the tennent has at least one lock which the apartment's owner cannot open, thus assuring you of privacy.

The corps might desperately hope you'll believe otherwise, but just because you are renting something you do not give up all your rights.

Re:Bad mojo

[peatbakke]

When I said "The idea that you have any sort of control or privacy in the first place is already out of the question," I meant it to be in context with a service contract. I really didn't make that clear at all ... my bad.

If you sign a contract with a service provider that has the questionable technologies we're discussing, chances are you are giving them the right to take over your device to some extent.

Yes, the bottom line is the law, but generally speaking, if you sign away your rights to privacy, you no longer have those rights.

My beef is with the contracts. They keep getting longer, and longer ... eventually it will get to the point (if it hasn't already) that the average person will not be able to legally enter into contracts, because they won't be able to understand what the contract actually means. To make matters worse, contracts only become longer if they are specifying new regulations -- you can look at it in the sense that the longer the contract, the fewer rights you'll have when you sign it.

I think I'll end this post before I lapse into a crazed rant about business ethics. ;)

Re:Bad mojo

[Chris Burke]

When I said "The idea that you have any sort of control or privacy in the first place is already out of the question," I meant it to be in context with a service contract. I really didn't make that clear at all ... my bad.

Ah, I see now. I ranted to no purpose. :) But yes, I agree, contracts are getting ridiculous.

I think I'll end this post before I lapse into a crazed rant about business ethics. ;)

There's no such thing as business ethics, remember? The only unethical thing is not trying to make as much money as possible. Ergh... Must... not... rant...

There's more than Symbian or CE.

[ahfoo]

I think it's more appropriate to use language like independent OS than to refer specifically to Symbian. If they specified Symbian today, what's to stop them from specifying CE tomorrow? Symbian is rather obscure and unstandard when you compare it to something like a Debian distro which according to the Intimate distro featured at handlhelds.org is simply a matter of having big enough CF modules or a microdrive.
I think the chances of 512Meg CFs coming below the hundred dollar mark is a lot more likely than microdrives doing the same and being as rugged, but either way you could just boot Debian once you've got a 512MegCF. That's available today, just a pit pricey. But hardware prices can still only go one direction. You could argue Debian isn't for the masses, but no reason RedHat or this United Linux group could come up with their own handheld distros as well when it really looks like the market is getting juicy.
And for the Linux haters all covered in FUD and strung out on commercial dope, MS can make up a straight XP instead of CE. For nex gen handheld devices like the OQO that's already the plan according to Redmond. 320X240s screens are already doable with standard OSs which makes Symbian and all this Java stuff as well as CE irrelevant, check out KDE on the Intimate distro. It looks rad and you've got room for four desktops. That's pretty decent for a handheld.

What makes you think they'd allow that?

[Chris Burke]

What makes you think MS wants to interoperate with us? They don't. They do it because they have no choice, and if they could ever find a way to get rid of TCP/IP, SMTP, and all the other open protocols so much uses that they -have- to interoperate with them, they would.

I'll tell you something: Microsoft has come out against the CBDTPA because they are against it -- they would rightly fear that consumers would stop buying new software and hardware entirely to protect themselves from the non-retroactive Act. But they are going to be prepared for it if it passes.

On the legal front, they patented essential portions of a DRM operating system, which would lock out those operating systems that wouldn't be made outright illegal. On the market front, they ensured that even if they can't lock out competition by law they can do it by defining an "open" standard between the major content and device suppliers. On the technology front, they "encouraged" chip makers (both large and not as large) to implement those features in hardware that would be necessary to ensure that only DRM-based software (meaning MS Windows) could possibly run, and no inexpensive device could be used to get at anything you weren't supposed to.

So you see, you should be looking at this announcement as just another piece of their plan.

Heh. Scary, eh?

DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course DRM will be there. It will be used with eg. when you download a ringtone from Nokia. It's (C) Nokia, so you can't send it forward. Copyrighted content cannot be sent from phone to phone.

The people who make the standards want to set the rules for business. DRM just happens to be business-oriented thinking. If you don't like DRM, never ever get protected content to your phone. It's really that simple. Or better yet, don't buy a phone at all. Get a PDA with a GSM module.

Cell Phones?

[veeoh]

God I wish you Merkins wouldnt call them "Cell Phones"
Why not catch up with the rest of the world and just call them mobiles?

Re:Cell Phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, limey, we don't all talk like stuck-up English pricks, ya know? You don't own the language.

It's a mobile phone. It's a cell phone. Both statements are true and descriptive.

Axis of Evil

[Moakek]

Sounds like an Axis of Evil to me. Well Walt Disney is definitely evil.

2002-05-30 10:40:00 OMA - Open Mobile Architecture

[jukal]

...rejected :) Now, as this is not off-topic in this case , could some Slashdot "official" explain why there is no feedback system on the rejected submitted stories. I myself have have only used relatively little time, to submit 21 stories (all rejected), probably using around 210 minutes of my time for nothing.

It would not feel like waste, if there was even a quick one-line note why the story was rejected. With the no-feedback-at-all system currently in use, you have atleast succesfully made the statement to me, that I have no reason to try and submit anything anymore, as it is total "Lotto" and I have no idea how I should enhance the submissions to not just waste my time. In my case it is not a big loss for you :) but I quess some others have made this decision as well.

Finally, the end of Wap?

[jmerelo]

Nobody has noticed that this new alliance does not mention WAP anywhere, even as it supersedes the WAP forum? Does that finally mean the death of WAP? Or it was dead before that, and this only certifies its demise?

So what about GSM?

[Pascal Sartoretti]

Their mission is to develop an open standard for how wireless phones can be used on any network

My Ericson GSM phone works perfectly on any network (including the US ones), thank you. I just have to manually switch from 900-1800 to 1900 MHz.

Pascal

why??

[Anonymous Coward]

why is microsoft there? don't they know that they will just cannibilize every other affiliate and monopolize the group? really now, by now EVERYONE should stop supporting their buggy product.

ack

[ins0m]

Does this mean I'm going to have to install about 5 SP's just to keep Nokia in service?

Re:ack

[Salsaman]

Probably. Undoubtedly people will also be able to hack in to your phone, and use it route their own calls.

After all, we all know how secure MS software is.

Re:ack

[ins0m]

Heh, time to redefine OOB. ;( Might actually be useful though, if I can just winnuke the phone of the person who drives too slow in the fast lane on the way to work, I might actually get in on time.

Re:hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said that accessors necessarily do direct-assignment-to-members? It's one of the things you can do, admitted; but not necessarily the only one.

"you are supposed to provide an interface to the function that gives useful features"

How do you suggest creating a function that sets/gets the name-field in a customer record?

What is there that is not useful in providing accessors for that?

Movin' High-Tech to India!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Despite decades of social change, the general perception remains that technical workers, scientists, and engineers are unusually intelligent white men who are socially inept, absent-minded nerds."

WTF

[rocket97]

Can you install Linux on it?

But every time...

[Noel]

...we use the cone of silence something terrible happens. Can't you just write it out to me on a piece of paper?