MWC 2013
Category
My first Mobile World Congress
When the flight attendant requested that all electronic equipment be switched off, it was like that scene from Mad Max where Mel Gibson is asked to leave all his weapons at the door. Five minutes later, when the last OLED screen dimmed to black, w…
Bringing customisation closer to the customer
There was a time when handset manufacturers and network operators talked of delivering personalisation right down to the level of individual customers. For manufacturers, it meant ever more diverse products targeting smaller segments. The economic…
Translating the language of mobility
‘My tomorrow began today’, and through my ‘digital sixth sense’, I have ‘experienced success’. Thankfully, that ‘tomorrow is sponsored by Intel’ and now, well, now I can ‘explore more’. Time, however, is running short, as I am scheduled for a ‘pla…
Watching a brand move
Alcatel TCL is a brand on the move at Mobile World Congress. Dwarfed by competitors such as Nokia and Samsung on most metrics – unit sales and revenues – it is taking a refreshingly creative approach to finding a niche where it can be meaningful t…
Spotify for 3D designs
Everyone’s favourite futuristic technology, 3D printing, finally looks like it could become a mainstream reality. Fabulonia, an Estonian start-up exhibiting at MWC this year, thinks so and has created a service to help designers and brands sell th…
Sensor overload
I’ve just been speaking to the guys at InvenSense about some of the sensors that they’re working on. This prototype watch makes Nike’s fuelband look like a bangle. It monitors a finer level of motion and orientation along with ambient conditio…
Pinch: a lovely little multi-device interaction
Sony’s MWC booth features a number of prize winners from their recent multi screen competition. One of my favourites was a simple gestural method of connecting multiple screens called Pinch. You just pinch the screens together, which draws a s…
A real time approach to problem solving
Much of the daily work of user experience practitioners is spent trying to understand, pre-empt and design around usability problems. Failure, however, is inevitable. No system is infallible and no user research process can hope to understand ever…