I missed it when it was first published on April 3rd, but was pleased to see the excellent Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) documentary on cell phones posted on the web (thanks, Tami). Having lived in Canada for 10 years and seeing the quality of the CBC documentaries, I was excited to see this full documentary. It is nearly 42 minutes, but covers the history, today and tomorrow, mostly life style changes.

At about 27 minutes there is an interesting segment from India were students are learning English on the mobile phone. This in an area where they do not have electricity and very little drinking water.

I loved seeing (around the 21 minute point) the story of Philippe Kahn inventing the camera phone. I had read and heard about it before, but had not seen him talking about it and showing how he did it

In the future section, the coming biometrics capabilities were from Philippe's new company FullPower. See Mobile Devices in Research Lab.

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The Consumer Electronics Show has just concluded in Las Vegas. As a MASIE Learning Fellow, I covered the show for Learning TRENDS. I was interviewed by Elliott Masie via a PodCast and prepared three reports which you can access at: http://www.masieweb.com/CES2008-coverage. (The second covers more learning related topics.)

The CES show was all about hardware with lots of mobile devices, but for the mlearnopedia readers some of the things that stood out for me included:

• The progress and status of NFC (Near Field Communications) using the Nokia 6131 NFC, about which I will blog soon
• Bug Labs "build-it yourself" mobile devices showcased and shipping in March
• MyRapidMD's ESP which provides critical medical information on your cell phone when you need it most
• Ease of use of new devices, such as a wearable video camera or a camera with automatic wireless uploads of photos
• The new Nokia N95 with the preloading of a QR reader

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Especially at this time of the year, we tend to review--and hopefully learn from--the past and to look ahead to the future. I have always been intrigued by what the future holds for us in the mobile area for our lifestyle, but mainly for learning. I have been excited about what sensors can and will bring us for our safety and health, but have added several videos this week to get you thinking about what if my mobile device were able to...?

Check out these additions:

• Nokia 4th Screen Official Video
• NTT DoCoMo Mobile Future
• DoKoMo R&D Future Society
• DoKoMo Mobile Life Story

Not in the future, but happening today, check out the video at Droga5.com under Case Studies and then Million. (Sorry the site is created in Flash prohibiting us from linking to the specific video.)

We have been hard at work redesigning mLearnopedia.com and although it is still in process, we'd love your feedback!!

Half of Japan's top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year were composed the same way - on the tiny handset of a mobile phone. They sold an average of 400,000 copiesThus far most of the mobile initiatives we have been following have been access to and delivery of content, however user generated content is of strong interest. Other than photos to blogs and Flickr and short blog entries, there has not been much concentration on content creation on mobile devices.

This is not the case in Japan. In an article today in the Sydney Morning Herald "half of Japan's top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year were composed the same way - on the tiny handset of a mobile phone. They sold an average of 400,000 copies."

Mobile phone novels are initially written in small segments and sent out to readers in installments through a novel website.

Interesting...

We are beginning to see the future of mobile devices with information coming out of research labs. With location awareness, accelerometers and orientation sensors, plus increased storage and processing power, the devices we carry have powerful capabilities to improve our lives. Much of this research can also be applied to learning at the point of need.

An article in MIT's Technology Review showcases Palo Alto Research Center's (PARC) mobile software, Magitti, which suggests things to do based upon the location and behavior of the user. The software "uses a combination of cues--including the time of day, a person's location, her past behaviors, and even her text messages--to infer her interests."  Screen shots and further details are available here.

Researchers at Intel Labs Seattle have developed mobile device software to detect and record conversations to learn about the person's situation, mood, and social network -- not the

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Watching Europe and Asia mobile markets can give the U.S. an indication of what we might see in the future.

Recently Symbian posted a list of the top 20 smartphone features requested in Japan:
1. mobile wallet
2. MANGA on mobile
3. mobile check-in at airports
4. mobile keys for door
5. mobile employee badges
6. mobile cinema tickets
7. mobile transport passes
8. fingerprint authentication
9. face recognition/authentication
10. mobile discount/promotion coupons
11. scented phones
12. mobile fashion consultant
13. mobile live TV
14. wii-like mobile phones (motion-sensor)
15. physical bookmarks for mobiles (shops)
16. privacy screens
17. 1D and 2D codes for marketing and even on fruit and veg labels
18. mobile GPS navigation for pedestrians
19. electric wave posters (uses RFiD)
20. waterproof phones

Now this week the News & Observer claims that PCs [are] losing their relevance in Japan. Is this a future indicator for the U.S.? We'd love to hear your comments.

It has been a very busy Fall for mobile learning. We are making plans to upgrade this site and add some new features, but want to wait until the new Joomla is released (hopefully very soon now). We'd love to hear what else would make this a valuable site for those interested in mobile learning.

Some recent happenings of interest include:
T-Mobile is offering one year of complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot service to those who participate in the Give One Get One campaign to put laptops into the hands of children in the developing world. This service is normally $29.99 per month with a 12-month commitment. From Nov. 12 to Nov. 26, 2007 – people can donate $399 for two laptops. One laptop will be given to a child in the developing world. The other laptop will be sent to the donor along with information on how to activate the one year of complimentary T-Mobile HotSpot service. More information is available at http://www.laptopgiving.org/ and http://hotspot.t-mobile.com .

Philippe Kahn's new company Fullpower began to come out of stealth mode with some very exciting technology. (Philippe is the mathematician who originally started Borland, invented the camera phone and several other accomplishments.) Philippe and his wife, Sonya, have been working on this for the past 5 years and have over 50 partners in the life sciences area. They appear to have to complete solution for the future. From their web site "The Fullpower inference engine is the breakthrough technology that makes it all happen. Fullpower’s all-in-one complete solution allows multiple applications to concurrently take advantage of motion, imaging, and other sensors such as proximity, ambient light, pressure, compass, GPS, heart rate, and blood glucose. The Fullpower solution is designed to minimize integration efforts for the device manufacturer and maximize benefits to the end-user." Definitely a site

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