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Hello Kitty May Be Key to 3G Survival
wa4osh writes "It's scary to think that sophisticated 3G mobile systems may depend for their survival on Hello Kitty (a cutesy Japanese pink cat with whiskers but no mouth) according to the recent Commdesign article "Hello Kitty may be key to 3G success". The article suggests that 3G's main market is downloading ringtones and backgrounds. Reading between the lines, it also suggests that 3G did not find a killer application. For example, what happened to 3G Video phones, or using 3G to send video clips to each other? These are all things that can be done with today's 2.5G technologies - GPRS and 1XRTT. So what's 3G really for? Perhaps Wi-Fi / 802.11 is solving the real need for broadband data mobility." The Wall Street Journal has an article which suggests that cellular companies are turning to Wi-Fi to hedge their bets.
Hello Kitty cellphone/vibrator combo. Hey, it's definitely not out of the question when we're talking about all things Hello Kitty.
If you build it...
...nerds will come.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
For example, what happened to 3G Video phones, or using 3G to send video clips to each other? These are all things that can be done with today's 2.5G technologies - GPRS and 1XRTT.
True they *can* be done with other technologies, but I think that the point is that people just don't need to do this stuff, with *any* technology. It's still just gee-whiz stuff without any real purpose outside of, "check out my new toy, Bob!".
I, for one, don't understand how major companies with gigantic R&D and marketing budgets can proceed to spend billions on infrastructure without doing just a bit of market research first. I think that asking a few thousand people, "Would you use a video phone if it cost this much?" would cost a few grand, and would very quickly tell them what they needed to know. Sounds like these companies didn't even do that much.
The article does have valid points, and yes Hello Kitty is (scarily) still quite a big thing in many parts of asia, much more of a thing than here. But the article is slanted in that it makes a much bigger deal about things then they really are.
Of the world's 70 million mobile-data users, 80 percent are in Japan, noted Kurt Hellstrom, president of troubled mobile-phone giant Ericsson.
This may be true, but you have to understand that they have a FAR superior infrastructure and are years ahead of most of the US and Canada, but remember tha once the rest of the world catches up that figure will change drastically - remember these are mobile data users and its a lot more common down there to do mobile data comm... for now until other places catch up. Singapore is also quite impressive. Going on a subway when I was in Singapore was almost like a video arcade with nearly 60-70% of everyone staring at their phones playing games or sending SMS's around to their friends.
Once data sending is more widley available in phones and our networks are built up a bit more things will change drastically. Reliant on Hello Kitty? I don't think so....
Sure it would be cool with video-phones and all that, but I'm not going to pay 10x the price for something I can't use because none of my friends have it, and batteries will die after a few minutes.. :P
I prefer my cheap old Nokia 6150 which I use to make phonecalls (surprise!) and send SMS with. Batteries last for about a week with normal usage.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
If only someone could come up with a way for people to communicate with each other in some intuitive way on these things - I'd buy that for a dollar!
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
Lisa Simpson: "Hey Look, it's the Hello Kitty Factory"
As you hear cats meowing and see smoke suddenly spout huge amounts of smoke and the meowing stops.
MicroSoft(tm) follows suit in the icon trend and replaces mr paperclip with an american ico, martha stewart, a microsoft p.r. was quoted,"People love martha's advice, and we feel this "could be a good thing".
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
G-spot success
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
So what they're saying is, people are only getting these phones for their customizability? That would be analogous to buying a car not for transportation, but just so you can paint it puke green and stick "Type R" stickers and a ridiculous fin on it (although that may be a bad analogy, because I think some losers DO that).
Does anyone have a sub-etha sens-o-matic I can borrow? I think the collective IQ of this planet has dropped to the point where I need to leave it and find another.
~Philly
I want a cell phone that acts as a phone and as a gateway for my other devices. I should be able to connect my computer to it on the road. I should be able to connect my PDA to it. I should be able to connect a camera to it. It should have some of its own features. It should just work.
There are some Bluetooth enabled phones that almost meet these demands. They do not. Even when they come close, the networks are being built slowly.
Whoa, wait a minute here. Hello Kitty? I'm sold!
3G's main market is downloading ringtones and backgrounds
This focus on non-core functionality is rampant throughout the technical industry. Take MP3 players for example; the main feature of MP3 players (winamp, Musicmatch etc.) nowadays in skinning.
Who cares what the music quality is, as long as I can make my player look like Tux it must be good.
There's so much crap out there, I don't understand why designers don't try to make their product stand out by actually working properly instead of looking pretty.
Ask yourself the question.
Would you pay £4 ($6) per half-megabyte for GPRS in the UK?
I wouldn't. I don't.
Normal people just don't want to pay that much.
Get your own free personal location tracker
As soon as it becomes cheap enough for 3G to survive...
People don't like spending their money, and since the economy is in a slump, they are going to be even more uncertain about spending it on a product they don't really need.
3G means faster internet, etc. But, unless the users have the money to pay the price required, 3G won't move far...
But the concept of 3G will survive in some form or another until it becomes cheap enough for the casual user to purchase a 3G device.
Hello Kitty works in Japan, because the market is different there. In the States, Europe and Canada, either something that will get the consumers willing to pay the extra bucks is needed, or just plain old time, so the price of the 3G devices go down.
~ kjrose
http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/09/kitty.html ;)
(Score:-1, Wrong)
Just gimme an IP address.
I'll roll my own content and killer app.
Thanks.
Depends on your definition on mobility.
Try 802.11 while moving (relatively to your partner) and see how it performs.
What about handover between two 802.11 nodes (especially in different sub-networks)?
You'll need at least Mobile-IP.
AFAIK, the current trend seems to be less exclusive.
PAN, WLAN, 3G have their niches.
Of course, public WLAN spots are beginning to occupy a great share of the market, which 3G was targeted for.
Note, that it is also partly stated in the article:
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Yes. Virtual reality on a cell phone. That'll work.
Sex - Find It
Oh no! Do you people have any idea what this will lead to?!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
>> is one application that could take advantage of 3G.. who wouldn't want to turn their phone into a mp3 player with unlimited tunes? Oh um, and I don't know, about a zillion other things
Not for 6$ per half megabyte, they dont. And if they did, they no doubt already could.
Stupid hello kitty backdrops are the only thing most people could do with reasonable cost, and I think thats the point.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Third Generation networks will be adopted, no question, because the large mobile players have the financial ability to push it to their customers and customers have a willingness to try it.
The long-term profitability of 3G technology, however, depends on if it can drive new users to mobile technology and if it will inspire current users to spend more money using wireless service.
Right now, 3G is used for downloading ringtones, sending small pictures and faster mobile web. Great! . . . but I, as a mobile telephone user, could care less about those things. Mobile web . . . the killer app? Gag me. I got on the "mobile web" with Verizon, simply because it was included as a "bonus." After using it, I can definitely say that I'd never pay for it, because it provides no real value.
For 3G technology to be successful in the long run, wireless companies must provide a data service that compliments and adds real value to mobile telephone service.
Well, I prefer business models depending on Hello Kitty to business models depending on Hello Pussy - any day!
.-)
Unfortunately, I think the latter will be the real killer application. Yes - once again - gampling and pornography will save a new technology. It is saddening that the human race can only get viable business models from decadency. But hey - the phones are cool!
Pawlo.com
Last time I checked, Hello Kitty was a white. Not that I know anything about Hello Kitty, mind you!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Voice over IDSN was what was supposed to happen to analog telephony. Voice over ISDN is actually quite nice. You get end-to-end digital quality (but still only 8Khz 8-bit mono), a path for caller ID and charging info, and a feature set comparable to typical office PBX systems.
For some wierd reason, US ISDN voice doesn't provide power to the subscriber, and you need a local power supply. European ISDN does provide power over the phone line, so the phone will still work even if local power goes out. This is another reason that voice ISDN never went anywhere in the US.
I was paying nearly $75 a month for a ISDN line just last year. A standard 128k line. That, of course, doesn't include the outrageous price I had to pay for internet over it, or the fact that there is only one place in my area that has ISDN internet, so it was a local monopoly. When I was finally able to switch to cable, things got MUCH faster, MUCH cheaper, and MUCH more reliable (which isn't saying alot). THAT's what's wrong with ISDN, above all else.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Hello Kitty (a cutesy Japanese pink cat with whiskers but no mouth)
It's a good thing you described it. Because, yoy know, we're geeks and none of us would know what you were talking about...
Seriously, even though we're not its target demographic, anyone here doesn't know Hello Kitty?
And, is that funny, or scary?
A friend of mine in Tokyo recently bought one of those cell phones that can take movies and snapshots and email them to someone (over the G2(?) 144kbps link). So I had the idea to set her up with a blog and use procmail and xmlrpc to autopost her cell phone media captures to her blog.
Next thing I know, this concept is a big deal and I find similar systems popping up all over the place.
It seems to be an up and coming meme, and I imagine that this nascent meme combined with 3G speeds could really turn into something exciting.
I would like to send MMS audio and video clips, sure, but whose email client can play audio/amr yet?
... there is only war.
'nuff said.
http://www.talknerdy.org
I think many many people dream of just using a laptop of PDA for true wireless internet access -- if the costs are reasonable.
Right now the wireless telcos are pricing themselves out of the market.
It's scary to think that sophisticated 3G mobile systems may depend for their survival on Hello Kitty
What is your motivation for reading slashdot? Fun?Leisure? What is your motivation in 90% of your day? Fun? Leisure? Nothing scary in it other than the fact that people do not realize it.
Children in Japan might find Hello, Kitty to be the driving force behind 3G, but here in Amerika I've got a 750k population metro just busting with possible mobile data applications, and the cellular carriers collective heads are so far up their poop chutes we'll have an 802.11b mesh with a node on every block before they figure it out.
The problem in a nutshell is this - they believe they'll make more (like 10x) more for mobile data and they think they can charge per bit. Users are staying away in droves and they'll continue to do so until mobile behaves like DSL/cable modem, or low speed frame relay. I'd happily shell out $99/mo for something that got me ISDN speed at home and everywhere else in town, but that rate for an account with a 20 meg/month cap is utterly useless.
So much that could be done and its a darned shame we have to stay in business whilst doing our artwork, isn't it?
Full Disclosure: I own an evil, rate shaping ISP, that persecutes P2P users in such a zealous fashion as to inspire the admiration for various third world dictatorships.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
If you did a market survey in say 1870; "Would you install a phone if it cost $xx?", what would the answer be?
Or in 1992: "Would you be on the internet if it cost $xx?"
The point is, you need to create demand for such services. A market survey is worth nothing if you ask for something the participants do not know what is.
Talk about putting all your Kitties in one basket!
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
I have Verizon cellular. I'll go for it when I can get decent (100kb+) data for ~ $50/month (or less) with enough time/data to make it truly worthwhile.
My "killer application" would be the ability to plug my laptop into my cell phone and get a decent connection speed, EG: 56k, 128k would be nice, 512k would be sweet.
14.4 with high latency just doesn't cut it. Paying rediculous prices per MB won't cut it, either.
Currently, 14.4 connection rate, 1000 minutes, $45/mo (fairly standard prices) means you are really paying, (if you get sustained 14.4 connection) about $3.25 per MB.
Make that $0.50 per MB and I'll be an evangelist.
Best would be "always on" (with digital networks this shouldn't be a problem) and pay for quantities of data transferred.
This whole minutes thing is kinda stupid since about 1/3 of the time I get charged for is spent with me saying: "hello? hello!? Are you there?" and that just sucks.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
... that make me realize how much I'm failing to learn about technology by NOT having a cell phone... I mean, I understood about 1/4 of that: 3G? 2.5G? GPRS? 1XRTT? WTF?
Freedom: "I won't!"
Audio-on-demand. From anywhere you want. THAT will kick ass. MP3s have been one of the killer apps for the web. Being able to build a little MP3 player that can play MP3s, record them from the radio, AND stream any song you want over a 3G network - that will rock. Again, it's not a fucking cellphone. I want a small cellphone that I can talk into. Maybe a bluetooth headset would be nice. And an ultra-high density fuel cell to power the handset. But other than that, I am pretty satisfied with my cellphone as a thing I use to call people, not a thing I use for video, picture-taking or music-listening.
I mean, this stuff doesn't take much creativity to come up with. Sending phone-quality pictures to my friends from my cellphone? Eh. Not that impressive. Videophones? They've failed utterly though the technology has been there for years (and the bandwidth is actually there in many households for it to work quite well). No reason to think that video-cellphones will do better. People like cellphones because they can do other shit while they talk on them - I drive and use my cell all the time because I'm a BUSY fucking person (before I get flamed, I always use my handsfree set so I can devote most of my attention to the road).
So, in short, think of all the cool apps that could be built with 3G wireless bandwidth that ARE NOT cellphones. My car should have a GPS console, with integrated 3G wireless, that lets me search the web, auto-updates the map data (I don't know how the current car-GPS units do this). And audio-on-demand in the car - that would be great. Anyway, there are still things *I* can't do with *my* cell phone - real SMTP email access, real web browsing (not the current shitty excuse for this), download email attachments and view them - I suppose these examples are mostly 2.5G compatible apps, but the ones above seem to require 3G.
He's back!
He's mad!
And he's looking for a little pussy!
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
For those of you who have no idea of what 'Hello Kitty' is, you may want to check the web site.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Okay that sentence was retarded, forgive me, I typed that post hastily as I had to run out and grab some dinner. It should read "MP3s have been one of the killer apps for broadband internet". Don't ask me what the fuck the web has to do with it, since these days most MP3s are leeched from Kazaa et. al. Though if you remember the old skewl days, we used to have scour.net and other great web-based MP3 leeching systems. Back in 98 and 99 when I was in college we used to download MP3s off the web all the time.
If you largely market 2.5G and 3G phones because they are able to download new ringtones and background images more quickly, you are not going to sell to the bleeding edge.
I want a 2.5G or 3G phone because I want other mobile devices, like a laptop or my Sony Clie to be able to use that bandwidth. Currently I can hook my Sony Clie up to my Samsung SCH-3500 through SprintPCS and get a 14.4 connection. The Wireless Web option adds a whole $5/month onto my bill. Not too bad..
I keep looking to upgrade to a Vision-capable phone, but I run into a problem of cords. Sprint sometimes offers a Wireless Web connection kit that has a Vision phone - USB cable, but these seem to be there mainly to transfer ringtones and pictures to the phone.
And you can forget about ever hooking up my Clie to the phone. Most of the third-party cord manufacturers seem to be saying "It will be difficult, if not impossible, to make custom built PDA - Vision phone cords."
In addition, most of the Vision plans only include 2MB data a month. That is plenty for ringtones, games, and pictures. If I want to check my mail, though, that starts to use that bandwidth very quickly.
So I am stuck with 14.4, it would seem, and stuck with an old phone so that I might actually have a cable. I am stuck with an old plan so that I can have decent bandwidth every month.
What is pushing 3G? Ringtones and pictures.
Why? This seems to be largely the only thing you can do with the 2.5G/3G phones in the U.S.
If I am wrong, someone please correct me on all of this. This seems to be the case using the information I have found (Google, etc.)
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
This is the whole problem with 3G, why I don't own any stock for companies having anything to DO with 3G, and I why I think 3G is a big sick joke. Here in Canada, I have a digital phone, filled with lame ass options that cost a fortune to use (so I never use them). I don't really need to check a stock quote from my phone, and certainly not at $0.50/minute (or worse). They might as well not be there - this is an important observation.
The phone companies want to bend you over for the service, then bend you over AGAIN for the content. It makes too much sense just to give you an IP - then they can't profit at every turn. I really don't understand why they don't get this. In Japan, i-Mode services MADE the digital network there. People can add their own little stupid things, and whatever is trendy, gets used. This is "revolutionary" and "radical" thinking. I hope the telcos get burnt even worse than they are now - they've effectively STOPPED (wireless) infrastructure development here. I can't complain too much about broadband, but it will never exist where I live in the woods.
There's a gotcha that the telcos don't know about though. It has to do with those "Features" my phone has I never use, and don't even consider because they cost so much to use. It's about to bite them in the ass, hard. What's that? It's the social use and acceptance of technology. In North America, most people associate the cellular phone with voice calls. Period. Different in europe and asia, but not here. Cell == Voice. No association with data.
If 802.11 takes off in a big way - all indicators are it will, it's great stuff - then the social acceptance of that technology will happen. People will associate "mobile wireless" with a 802.11 enabled PDA or notebook. They won't think about using mobile wireless services the way they use a cell phone - they'll just expect it as a feature of where they happen to be, offered by a mall, coffee place, school, office. It won't be the cell phone providing that connectivity.
Once that gets entrenched, it's all over for 3G wireless. I think it's already stillborn.
I hope the WiFi people take these people to the cleaners. Bend THEM over. Own your own infrastructure. WiFi gives people what they want, and you know what, $300 for an access point - or even $1000 for a few - isn't really that much compared to what equivilant service would cost me, if it ever happens. When infrastructure is cheaper than service, ya gotta start asking questions.
Maybe I'm wrong. 3G is a non-issue in my life, though.
My $0.02 (cdn)
..don't panic
The people who download Hello Kitty stuff for their cell phone are the same people who have Hello Kitty key fobs, knapsacks, hair clips, T-shirts, etc. It's a cultural phenomenon where a vast number of people are influenced by cute.
Cute isn't relegated to phones, screensavers and the like, either. When I worked at Fujitsu writing supercomputer and mainframe manuals, there was always the requisite cute section that told the system administrator how to insert floppy disks and take care of floppy media in general. These sections always included drawings of cute floppy disk guys suffering the abuse of magetism, incorrect insertion into drives or -- oh, the memories -- the dreaded high-temps! And, no, this was not just a matter of Fujitsu corporate culture. In freelancing, I did stuff for NEC supercomputer manuals that was basically the same. If it's a Japanese manual, it's got cute inside.
Cute manuals don't wash in North American tech manuals. Cute is taken to be an insult, I think, for a North American ubergeek. The point, therefore, is that our G3 providers have to always be sure to translate popular services based on cultural acceptance. Transliteration is doomed to be an expensive failure.
BZZZT! Wrong!
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/08/16/cell.phone.drivin g/index.html
Probably nobody else will see this because the parent article is days old by now, and the mod wave has passed by, but maybe you'll come back and see if anyone replied to your comment, and then at least you'll be ONE person who's had their vision adjusted.
When you talk on the phone, your driving skills are compromised; using a hands-free kit doesn't help much. I'm also a busy fucking person, I carry a cell phone, and I don't talk on it while the car is moving (even stop-and-go traffic). You need to stop kidding yourself. Sorry.
One simple rule for its versus it's
Hey, it's definitely not out of the question when we're talking about all things Hello Kitty.
You know what terrifies me about Hello Kitty?
Apparently, it's a *big thing* in Japan. No, I've never been to Japan, nor am I a Nipponophile ("Nippophile" sounds racist somehow...). Hell, I don't even like anime. But I hear the stories from friends who've been there.
I wake up in the middle of the night with a scream caught in my throat, with visions of Japanese engineers designing brakes and steering systems for Honda and Toyota cars, doing their back-of-the-envelope sketches and calculations on Hello Kitty stationary. The senior engineers in my nightmares have Hello Kitty sliderules.
Not coincidentally, people often wonder why I drive a 1976 Dodge Ram. I figure, if I'm going to share the road with cars whose balljoints were designed using Hello Kitty pocket calculators, I may as well keep myself wrapped up in some good thick steel.
How about the bow tied on one of the cat's ears? I tried that on my cat, and she had it off in nanoseconds. Hot melt glue was only slightly more effective, but not enough to build a franchise on the concept. A staple gun is the only alternative that I can think of - I'm simply amazed that PETA isn't up in arms about the tacit advocacy of using staple guns to affix bows to fluffy little pussycats.
BTW, Linux is not ready for the desktop.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.