State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

Google now support driving directions both on their mobile as well as desktop version of maps. Though it is very interesting to have the feature on your desktop, its more useful when used on your mobile device. The software is free to use and you can download it from their website. Google-maps for mobile is a serious competitor for several other still novice paid navigation solutions in Pakistan. For a detailed walk-through of the new feature, please see my post here.

By now you must have heard about Nexus One from Google. This calculated move from Google shows its ambition and aggressiveness. The web and social networks are full of buzz about the phone, its features and how the other services – such as Google Voice – and apps will create an attractive solution which could be come a new standard.

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Windows Mobile’s share of the global smart-phone operating-system market fell to 7.9% in the third quarter from 11.1% a year earlier, research firm Gartner estimates. Also losing ground was Nokia’s Symbian. In contrast, both Apple and BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion boosted their shares, while Android grabbed 3.5% from zero a year earlier. That will likely increase given the popularity of Motorola’s new Droid phone.

Here’s an interesting illustration of how Apple and Google are competing.

Illustration via WSJ.

Google officially released the next version of Android this week, bringing what appears to be some solid evolution to the mobile platform.

New features for Android 2.0 include useful-looking improvements to the way contacts can be accessed. Developers can play with the platform now, but the first device expected to have it is the Motorola Droid, which is slated for release in November.

Via Technology Review

All this competition between giant software makers is good for consumers, common wisdom says. It will certainly help Google to drive more traffic to its search engine.  What is the side impact of this emphasis on web activity? Will users in developing countries be better off? What will the new Google Chrome do to the Open source software? To push usage in Pakistan we need a few basics:

• cheaper hardware (subsidized netbooks)
• light OS which gets the job done without much overhead and admin costs (should make piracy irrelevant)
• software which works both online and offline; does not need broadband all the time
• mobile versions available
• local networks, local content, local schools

I think if Google Chrome OS does what it promise, then it will see huge uptake.  The world is definitely ready to try another OS. Too bad Linux did not make it on its own (poor usability and a big attitude) but hopefully Chrome has learned from that failure. However this will be one tough thing for Google to do and it will have to show real focus – something which has been missing from its other products which remained in beta for eternity.

Google apps has been one of the popular online suite and now there has been news about Office live in 2010. The OS battle will eventually spill over to the whole personal computing. The article below has some background of the battle.

Chrome OS is also trying to redefine the idea of what a computer operating system should be. In a blog post Tuesday night, Google said the operating system would have the ability to boot up and let users get online in just seconds and new security features, addressing sore points for some users of PCs that run Microsoft Windows. Google is also betting customers will gravitate toward online software that requires an Internet connection, as opposed to conventional PC programs that are downloaded and installed.

Chrome OS is initially aimed at inexpensive laptops known as netbooks; it is expected to be available in the second half of next year. But Google also said it expects the software to eventually be used on other computers, too.

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There are various indicators that location based services (LBS) are gaining ground in emerging telecom markets. In Pakistan, for example, we see new services, increased activity with user generated location content and overall more devices with either GPS built in or using Google’s location approximation service. Related to all this is the proliferation of search services which give information about points of interest (POI) and ratings and reviews information. All this is happening when broadband (including wireless) choices are growing and prices are falling. Another trend is that social networking is more popular and sharing location based info is in demand.

Of course, for Pakistan this is just the start of services built around location and so the services are quite basic. The challenge for developing countries is the data availability, accuracy and the maintenance of information. GPS navigation in Pakistan is in its early stages as well.

Google map maker is making this better in this respect, allowing user generated content. As TechLahore puts it:Ever since Google opened up Map Maker allowing users to post location information and map data, individuals from Pakistan have outdone all others in volume and quality. This underlines the interest if the opportunity is there and huge potential of such collaborative work. See CIO Pakistan for report on the map convention 2008.

Local map sites with reviews and POI search
A few companies are active in the area of map development and providing map data in Pakistan, for personal navigation devices. We have covered a few of them before such as naqsha.net. Naqsha.net has teamed up with Tracking world to provide Garmin SatNav units preloaded with maps. These units are portable and can be placed in the car and taken out.

As noted before, Naqsha website could use improvements in user interface but its a decent start and provides search and contact info. The hard question for these companies is how to make money when maps are still not common and not affordable for the public in general.

Mobile Companies and LBS
When it comes to value-added services and making money, our mobile companies are eager to try all kinds of services. Location services are no exception. We saw some really basic ones come out and then the driving directions and detailed maps were introduced.

Ufone’s service is one example, Warid has a friend finder and place finder service and MobiTrack is another service by Mobilink World. MobiTrack provides turn-by-turn instructions and it only works on compatible handsets. It seems to be built on an existing third party product which has been customized for Mobilink. At least they have a full manual explaining how the app works. However the Mobilink World site is not very user friendly and it could use some improvements.

I’d be interested in knowing the total number of users who have tried these map/location services on their phone.

Before ending this roundup, I leave you with these interesting views about the state of companies providing location services.

The recent report on trends in location-aware apps from Apple’s App Store, Google’s Android Marketplace, and Blackberry’s App World released by Skyhook Wireless, itself a provider of a patented hybrid system of location awareness, reveals a buoyant market for LBS apps. Indeed, the Apple App Store was found to have the greatest number of location-based applications, at over 2,300, and the highest percentage of paid for location app, at over 75 percent. Sixty seven percent of Blackberry apps are paid and eighty percent of Android Marketplace apps are free.
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Google recently announced the release of Google Mobile App for S60 (3rd Edition), which allows quick access to Google search and offers shortcuts to a number of Google’s other services. Features include a homescreen shortcut and automatic location context, via GPS or cell positioning, for searches. Incidentally Google’s S60 YouTube application was also silently updated to version 2.0.17. Read on for more details.

Note: Thanks to Saleem Khan for sharing this useful link.

Google Mobile App for S60

Google Mobile App for S60 is, effectively, an update from and an extension to the Google S60 Search application announced last year.

The homescreen shortcut uses either ‘c’ key or the ‘pencil’ key depending on which device you are using. There’s an optional prompt that pops up a reminder of the shortcut (see first screenshot – it used just be the pencil key on supported devices), but this can be turned off if you wish.

Above is an example of a basic Google search for ‘pub’. With ‘My Location’ enabled an appropriate set of local results is offered automatically. The My Location feature ties in with and uses ‘My Location’ from Google Maps (Latitude). Either the device’s GPS or cell-positioning can be used to obtain current location information.

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Google has been working with books for a while. I like the trend of bringing books to the mobiles. Right now the collection is very small but I think it has immense potential for learning and spreading knowledge in a scalable way. There are already some people in Pakistan who are working on cool Urdu applications – may be they can adapt the new trends and combine them with their research?

Google launched mobile versions of more than 1.5 million public-domain books, available on iPhones and Android phones. Google Book Search already supports a huge library of scanned books, which can be searched and read online if they’re in the public domain, or previewed if they’re still subject to copyright. But the company says that the existing versions of these books (images of scanned pages) didn’t work well on mobile devices.

The (new) technology allows Google to automatically understand the structure of the book–headers, paragraphs, and in-line illustrations–so that it can be reformatted for mobile devices.

But what particularly sets the system apart is its scale. The mobile versions of these books are full of small, clever touches. For example, the system loads up the next few pages of a book in advance, reducing lag time when the user turns the page.

Cross post from Basit Ali’s blog

Two more simple but useful add-ons to google maps + latitude are available now. Google latitude allows its users to share their current location from their mobile devices with his/her friends. So far, it was only possible to share your location with other latitude users. Latitude has gone beyond that point now.

Recently, Google has launched two add-ons to latitude service that allow users to:

1. Share their current location on their google talk (Google Talk Location Status (beta))
2. Share their current location with the whole world in form of an embeddable tag that users can use on blogs, discussion groups or put on their websites etc.(Google Public Location Badge)

Google Talk Location Status (Beta)

The simple tool changes your Google talk status to your current location. For that you have to:

1. Install and run Google Maps and Latitude on your mobile.
2. Login using your google account on latitude on your mobile
3. Go to the add-in’s site.
4. Enable sharing

That’s it, you are done.
Following video shows you exactly how to do that…

Google Public Location Badge

Inauguration speeches range from interesting to boring to inspirational. Here’s one that’s worth sharing – read the transcript here. Note the “healthy disregard for the impossible”, the optimism and the strong impact his father had on him. We rarely appreciate the extent of sacrifice our parents make for us and how valuable that is in our lives.

You know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know how, if you don’t have a pencil and pad by the bed to write it down, it will be completely gone the next morning?

Well, I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up, I was thinking: what if we could download the whole web, and just keep the links and… I grabbed a pen and started writing! Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. I spent the middle of that night scribbling out the details and convincing myself it would work. Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks to download the web — he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough to not tell me. The optimism of youth is often underrated! Amazingly, I had no thought of building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later we happened upon a better way of ranking webpages to make a really great search engine, and Google was born. When a really great dream shows up, grab it!

On how to stay on track when starting out:

We almost didn’t start Google because my co-founder Sergey and I were too worried about dropping out of our Ph.D. program. You are probably on the right track if you feel like a sidewalk worm during a rainstorm! That is about how we felt after we maxed out three credit cards buying hard disks off the back of a truck. That was the first hardware for Google. Parents and friends: more credit cards always help. What is the one sentence summary of how you change the world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!

Here’s the video – with partial audio.

Product search is one of the most popular category of search. There are various flavors of product search services but few have done a good job at it. The difficulty arises because of large data sets and because information about product inventory is hard to aggregate. Watch this new video from Google as they attempt to provide a better mobile product search.

As of today, when you type a product query on Google.com in your iPhone or Android browser, you’ll get Google Product Search results nicely formatted for your phone. You can see online ratings, reviews, prices, and product details if you’re out and about, or just do some mobile web surfing from your couch. Whether you’re trying to decide between two digital cameras while you’re in a store or checking out prices for a new product that you’ve just seen on TV, we hope Google Product Search for mobile helps you to make better-informed shopping choices.

What makes a phone application cool and useful? If it helps you find stuff that you like, cheaper.ShopSavvy is a shopping assistant developed for Google’s Android mobile phone platform. Users can scan the bar code of any product using their phone’s built-in camera. ShopSavvy will then search for the best prices online and through the inventories of nearby, local stores using the phone’s built-in GPS.

ShopSavvy won Google’s Android Developer Challenge and it was T-Mobile’s featured application for their US launch of the G1 in October of 2008. It is in use by over a million users.

The ShopSavvy team is based in Dallas and I had a chance to meet with the founder and see their operations – very inspiring!

It would be interesting to extend this idea to products which have no barcodes on them, which is true for most products in emerging markets.