The last time this happened to me was when I dug a bit deeper into a project called node.js or just “node” as the binary is called. In case you have not heard about this don’t worry. However, if you are a developer, especially if you are working with JavaScript, then you should be concerned and maybe check your news sources, because it is a couple of months old already and it is drawing a lot of attention lately! If you’re not a developer this might get a bit techy from here, but maybe you get something out of it after all…

Ok so what is node.js? It’s actually not too easy to explain, but basically node.js is an:

• open-source
• low-level
• evented
• non-blocking
• event loop based
• SSJS runtime environment

It is written in C and JavaScript, it contains the V8 JavaScript engine, a CommonJS module system and it helps you to implement highly concurrent web servers by handling I/O very efficiently, namely in a non-blocking way. Support for TCP, DNS and HTTP is included and many HTTP features are supported that are important for Comet-style web applications - things like hanging requests.

Node.js itself is a program that will have to be compiled and installed on your machine. Then you can use JavaScript to write programs that use the API of node.js and that are executed through the node binary as simple as this: “node yourprogram.js”.
Due to the included V8 you have the complete JavaScript API available, it’s just that you are not running your JavaScript program inside of a browser context, but as a program within the node.js environment. Node extends the JS API by several things like access to the file system and such. All of this is what server-side JavaScript is all about.

There are other implementations for this kind of stuff, but what Ryan Dahl et al do differently with node.js is to use JavaScript as the programming language and the strict paradigm of exclusively working with callbacks and non-blocking I/O. This means that basically any function you are executing in a node.js program does work in the background after calling, executing a callback function once it is done. This enables the program itself to continue and not to block any resources while it is waiting for the function to finish whatever it does.

Ok, this is a bit dry and mind-bending maybe, but it all makes a lot of sense: Think about thousands of internet users entering the URL of your website causing their web browsers to hit your web server at the same time (maybe they fire Ajax requests too). Each of these requests would cause a thread in your regular web server (= Apache) to spawn that executes a script (PHP maybe) which does DB queries and such before finally returning the response to the browser. Here we have 2 things to look at: memory usage and blocking I/O.

Each of these threads uses memory. Many threads use a lot of memory. Thousands of users would cause thousands of threads to use a lot of memory…you see where this is going…you will run out of memory soon and your page or service will not respond anymore.
Blocking I/O is the cause for that problem: each one of these threads does things like DB access which takes some time to finish. This is normal because the DB tables might be huge and queries might take long to find the result you are looking for.
Now the script on your web server would usually execute a DB query, then wait until it gets a result from the DB server and then continue. While the DB server fetches your data your whole script is blocked. It does not continue to run until the result has come back and it is using memory and other resources while waiting. If this happens several thousand times at once this blocks loads of resources and your server goes into a memory dry spell.

If it would be possible to get rid of all these threads and to put them all into a big pool this would solve some memory issues. If it on top of that would be possible to continue doing other tasks while waiting for DB queries this would surely help performance to increase - and that’s what node.js does.

A node-based server will pool all incoming connections and the underlying node framework can do things like hanging these connections to a “waiting” state while allowing the server to continue working on creating the response. The event loop and the callback paradigm in node.js is used to execute a DB query, but not wait for a response blocking a lot of resources. Rather a callback is attached to the DB result and node.js goes on with other tasks (saving CPU cycles). For the browser on the other side this results simply in a “waiting for response” situation, same as for the threaded server.

So, whenever the result from the DB comes back, node.js is executing whatever callback function was attached to the querying function and once the request is ready it will get the related connection from the pool, end its “waiting” state and return it to the browser. This is causing way less memory usage and allows for much faster response times.

This is just a tiny bit of the whole story, so make sure you get into this!

But why is this important? Well, Ajax and Comet-driven web applications are generating heavy load on web servers, especially if you look at chat applications or multiplayer browser games where there are many concurrent connections and small response times are essential. Here lays the strength of node.js.

In the past to me it felt like we had reached a time where the traditional way to implement our web servers would not fit to the demands that we had on the client-side during the last months. Comet and Ajax-Push is a big hack, HTML5 Web Sockets are knocking at our door and we want to do things like real time data streaming.

Node.js can fill this need. Sure, it takes some time of getting used to for developers that have been working with “traditional” Ajax paradigms for the past years. It also seems like we would walk into a time where regular websites and Ajax driven web applications would get their own servers. But it surely feels like we would finally have a toolkit which solves many of our newly developed needs and which brings the web as a whole a big step further. It might well be the best thing since sliced bread.

On top of that it is now possible to write a simple web server and basically all the server side logic in JavaScript, which is great if you are working with JavaScript on the client side as well.

To close this I can just encourage anybody working with Ajax or Comet or even just JavaScript in any way to look into node.js - it helped me to understand web server issues in more detail and I will be working with this and see where it goes. As it seems some others are working with this already too and even Simon Willison was excited after Ryan Dahl gave a good introduction to node.js at last year’s JSConf:

The game is very very simple, so maybe that’s one of the factors for a speedy release…

Why did we build an app like this?

Baby Roulette is a really simple and fun game for kids (mostly) to learn animal sounds. Our main intention for building this game is to get a simple and nice looking game quickly in as many App Stores as possible starting with Apple. Our next targets will be the Ovi Store , Android Market and Vodafone 360, which is still running the “Vodafone 360 App Star Competition“.

We mainly want to gain insights about different application stores regarding users, downloads, major downloading countries, devices and of course we want to practically go through the whole process of building an application/game and releasing and actually selling it on different app stores. This will help us to enlighten our clients and of course we are also blogging about it. So here are some first facts…

What did we want to build?

Our goal was to create a game or something to play with that would employ 2 major components for any game: animation and sound. We have a spinning arrow as an animation and we are playing sounds when the arrow spins and whenever the arrow stops (plays the animal’s voice). The game concept itself has been around for ages of course, there are similar offers on the app store but it was simple enough to implement it quickly (a few days).

Another main goal was to go international - that’s the reason we left out playing the typical, but localized “The pig says…” voice acting before the (international) animal sound. There is also no text except the title - however “Baby” and “Roulette” are both terms recognizable in a lot of languages even if they use a different alphabet.

How did we build it?

Phonegap - make sure you know about this application framework! It enables developers to write their application using web technologies - namely HTML, CSS and JavaScript - and then wrap it into a native application. The cool thing is, phonegap targets not only the iPhone, but all other major platforms, such as Android or BlackBerry and it provides access to device functionalities, such as the accelerometer or GPS location by extending the JavaScript API.

Originally the plan was not to use phonegap. The plan was to build a simple UIwebView application in Objective-C, the iPhone’s native programming language. The main application would then also have been written in HTML/CSS and JavaScript. This is essential to us as we see ourselves as a mobile web development company, not as iPhone or Android developers. We strongly believe that creating native applications is just an interim solution - the web will take over as the main application platform just as it did on the desktop. It’s just a matter of time, HTML5 guys!

Unfortunately the mobile version of Safari does not play sound in the browser, but opens up the fullscreen audio player. The <audio> tag of HTML5 is also not available (yet), so no sound and we went with phonegap. This means carrying a little overhead, but also brings the advantage of simpler portability to other platforms and we are very happy with this decision.

Problems so far

One major problem occurred as we were in the early stages of developing the web app: The spinning arrow used to be a <canvas> element that loads an image and is then rotated. As this rotation was scripted and angles were dynamically calculated, movement of the arrow was very smooth and without any obvious stepping. Also there was only one image - the arrow. Unfortunately this seems to result in heavy CPU load for anything below 3GS devices, so on an iPhone 3G the frame rate dropped notably.

Our solution was to go back to good old sprite animations. So now the arrow is just a <div> with a background sprite containing 60 versions of the arrow in 6 degree steps. The script now still calculates the current angle of the arrow as it spins, but now instead of rotating the image we are sliding the background image through the div so the matching version of the arrow is visible. This works, is fast enough on a 3G and it’s a proven technology. Too bad there’s no real HTML5 in there for now.

Next steps

We’ll release Baby Roulette for as many platforms as possible trying to keep porting efforts as low as possible and we’ll surely gain many insights as we do this. We are also  already working on other games, of course. These will all be web based and cross-platform, but next time interaction and multi-player functionality will be our main topics. Maybe we will target grownups next time too :)

In the meantime we’ll keep you up-to-date on porting to and releasing on different platforms and we hope you have fun playing Baby Roulette with your kids or on your own!

Some people were contacted and this past Tuesday the first HTML5 and CSS3 meetup in Frankfurt took place. We managed to gather a small bunch and met at the Lokalbahnhof, a pretty nice restaurant / bar in Sachsenhausen. It turned out to become a very fun evening with good food and a couple of drinks.

HTML5 action was based around an introductory presentation that I was showing:

I was also showing a canvas demo intended to be used for the iPhone - after all we ended up replacing this part of the application with an old-school CSS sprite background animation for performance reasons, which was a learning on its own. Another Demo shown was a GameQuery-based shooter game that uses CSS3 animations to blow up enemy ships - amazing to look at and play - thanks for that Jesse!

There were various discussions about the two technologies. The concept of just sitting together without a real agenda, talking about a wide topic seems to work - I could learn some new things and I am sure the other attendees did too. Thanks to everyone who was there, it was a great evening!

We are now planning to do this monthly (roughly), so we are looking forward to April! If you want to come make sure you are filling out the Doodle poll so we can pick the best date!

• Google’s new strategy “Mobile First”
  Google’s new strategy: “Mobile First”  The company now focuses more on smartphones than on desktops. That means giving mobile top priority and launching new products first on mobile platforms before creating PC versions.

  (Source: brighthand.com)

• 60,000 Android phone a day
  Google’s Android launched a year ago and is now available on 26 different devices in 48 countries. 60.000 Android devices running this operating systems are now being sold on a daily basis … meaning about 5.4 million handsets per quarter, or 21 million per year. Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones last quarter and 25 million in 2009. Seems like Android is gaining ground, hopefully internal fragmentation will be taken care of (if that’s possible).

  (Source: mobilegamesblog.com)

• Windows Marketplace for Mobile has been updated
  Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Microsoft’s application store, has been updated. The biggest change is there will no longer be regional limitations on where apps are sold. This is great news for non-US customers because they could only see localized apps and the selection was very limited. Now thanks to the “geo selector” users can browse and purchase applications from different geographic catalogs / countries. The price of each app will show up in the user’s local currency. Besides users can install downloaded apps onto their storage cards.

  Developers also do not have to pay a US$10 fee for submitting their apps to additional markets anymore - only the US$ 99 submission fee has to be paid. VOIP apps will now be allowed unless a carrier specifically prohibits it. Microsoft now also opens its marketplace to Russia.

  BTW Mobilegamesblog.com published some first screenshots of Windows Marketplace for the Windows Phone 7 Series devices. There is no real source named for these images, so they should be considered as a rumor: mobilegamesblog.com

  (Sources: informationweek.com, theunwired.net)

• Alcatel unveils first Android phone
  Handset maker Alcatel unveiled a number of new handsets at Mobile World Congress and interestingly its first Android-based phone OT-980. The phone will be available around June for less than 200 EUR in the UK, France, Spain and Italy. But they are still considering using other platforms, such as Windows Mobile, if prices come down.

  (Sources: ciol.com, totaltele.com)

• China Unicom and Huawei for low-cost smartphones
  China Unicom plans to launch low-cost 3G smartphones - maybe in collaboration with Huawei which has also recognized that smartphones remain too expensive. “Key to unlocking the potential usage of 3G is the need for a $150 smartphone with iPhone-like capabilities ,” said Guo Ping, CSO, Huawei Technologies and chairman of Huawei devices.

  (Source: mobilebusinessbriefing.com)

• Deutsche Telekom: Open Apps Approach
  Deutsche Telekom plans to further integrate with mobile apps and content stores. By partnering with leading applications stores Deutsche Telekom wants to offer its customers a T-Mobile dedicated channel with specific recommendations and the opportunity for mobile phone billing (instead of credit card payment).
  “Deutsche Telekom’s open mobile internet strategy implies that customers ultimately get access to a wide choice of all available applications, regardless of their mobile phone brand. As a basis we provide easy log-in, registration, and payment processes, as well as Deutsche Telekom channels in existing stores and customer oriented recommendations,” states Rainer Deutschmann, Senior Vice President Mobile Products.

  (Source: finchannel.com)

They are aiming to build an open platform for mobile apps to all mobile phone users and want to solve the massive fragmentation problem.

They try to develop a common standard for applications within the next 12 months. The WAC is supposed to be a platform NOT an app store.

Of course, the app market is still a lucrative business and growing. Analysts at Gardner predict that the number of app downloads will rise to 4.5 billion (from 2.5 billion last year), yielding almost $30bn.

So far so good. But what does that mean, especially for us developers? Is this the right approach in the “write once, run anywhere” direction?

The good thing is that the group intends to use existing open standards (JIL, BONDI, W3C) and that will make it a lot easier for developers creating apps across multiple platforms. Besides developers then have only one single gateway to access a vast potential and international customer base. It also saves a lot of time and resources. And the new alliance has access to more than three billion customers.

Well, does this sound too perfect to you? There are still a lot of questions and even doubts, right? Did they form this alliance just to beat Apple or do they really care about the developers? I mean in the end they are all competitors and every one wants a big - if not the biggest - part of the “app market cake”, right?

I also think it will be really hard to manage an organization of so many well-known and big companies. There will be many time-consuming processes to make even small decisions everybody is pleased with. We can see similar things going on at the W3C already.

Another important fact is that some platforms are already “hopelessly fragmented” as giagom points out: Windows has struggled with the splintering of Windows Mobile and Google is suffering from the emergence of multiple versions of Android.

Will the WAC succeed? I guess it is too early to answer this question, but for sure it will be very very difficult to reach their ambitious goals - if not impossible. The idea is good and the app market needs standardization, but there are a lot of obstacles to overcome. Probably too many for the big companies that are involved in this organization.

Maybe this kind of organization should be built by developers, not telcos who are mainly interested in selling not building apps. Even the Chamber of Industry and Commerce consists of handicraft businesses not of retailers. What do you think?

• Symbian joins Open Screen Project
  The Symbian Foundation is joining the Open Screen Project, an industry-wide initiative led by Adobe to enable the Adobe Flash Platform across a broad range of devices. This means that Symbian will be integrating Flash 10.1 in future releases of the platform.

  (Sources: allaboutsymbian.com, eon.businesswire.com)

• Ericsson launches eStore
  Today, Ericsson unveiled an application store product for mobile operators allowing them to set up their own application store. The eStore is available in 25 markets worldwide, reaching more than 1 billion subscribers throughout more than 100 operator networks. It already has 30,000 free and paid apps and games. The eStore is backed by Opera who provides the client framework for widgets and applications across multiple channels and devices.

  (Sources: mobilegamesblog.com, finchannel.com)

• Intel and Nokia release new Linux OS “MeeGo”
  Intel and Nokia have merged Moblin and Maemo into MeeGo, a Linux based software platform designed to run on any device from cars and home phones to computers and mobile phones. So MeeGo is a primary competitor to Google’s Linux-based Android as well as to Apple’s iPhone software and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile.
  MeeGo will ensure that third-party developers will be available to reach the wide range of product types mentioned above. Developers can create applications for MeeGo using the Qt framework and can market their apps through Nokia’s Ovi Store and Intel AppUpSM Center.
  The first version of MeeGo will be available in the second half of 2010. Nokia also said that it will continue to sell and develop its Symbian smartphone operating system alongside MeeGo.

  (Sources: eweek.com, infosyncworld.com, mobilegamesblog.com, nytimes.com)

• Samsung unveils first bada phone “Wave”
  Samsung has unveiled “Wave” (Model S8500), the first smartphone which is based on Samsung’s own mobile operating system bada and features Social Hub, a social networking/messaging platform. Samsung’s bada platform allows mobile users to download applications from Samsung Apps, an integrated application store accessible from the device and online. Already launched in the UK, France, Italy, Singapore, Germany, Brazil and China, the store will be expanded to more than 50 countries all over the world in 2010. The bada SDK will be launched in March.
  “bada will be one of our platforms,” said Dr Hosoo Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of the Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics. “We are still working on Android, preparing for new Windows Mobile features coming this year, and also LiMo.”

  (Sources: SamsungMWC Twitter, Samsung MWC site, Wave Press Release, eweek.com, mobilebusinessbriefing.com)

• Vodafone 300,000 360 devices & 7,000 apps
  Only a few months after the launch of the Vodafone 360 devices the operator has already sold over 300,000 handsets (H1 and M1) and has more than 7,000 apps and games for those devices available for download from the Vodafone 360 Apps Shop.

  (Source: mobile-ent.biz)

• Windows Phone 7 Series
  Finally Microsoft has unveiled its newest version of Windows Mobile known as Windows Phone 7 Series and it is connected with the Xbox Live environment. The home screen consists mainly of Widgets (named Live Tiles) and the phones will also have all the functionality of the Zune HD:

At the moment you can build desktop web applications with AIR that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems, but soon it will be possible to create Android and Blackberry apps as well. These mobile apps will be able to store data locally on the phone, access other data on the phone such as photos, and be distributed as regular apps in the Android and Blackberry app stores. Not only that, but the same apps created with Flash developer tools will be exportable as iPhone apps (”Packager for iPhones“). The big picture is that developer can create applications once with Adobe’s developer tools and then output them as AIR apps for Android and Blackberry phones, native iPhone apps, or Flash apps on the Web.

“Adobe AIR 2.0 is a great technology for developing engaging mobile applications,” said Christy Wyatt, vice president, Software Applications and Ecosystem at Motorola. “We look forward to seeing AIR come to the Android platform and developers creating applications that will delight our end-users.”

Furthermore, Adobe has joined the mobile-Linux-on-phones group (LiMo Foundation) and will work with LiMo members (LG Electronics, NEC, NTT Docomo, Orange, Samsung, SK Telecom, Vodafone etc.) to add a Flash Player API to LiMo. Adobe wants to see Flash Player on nearly all mobile platforms. Only Apple is constantly rejecting Flash, preferring to use HTML5 rather than incorporate with Adobe’s proprietary runtimes into the iPhone and iPad.

Looking at the desktop space Adobe Air surely has many advantages to offer developers, so we feel like this might be a good tool to develop apps for mobile phones too. We have added Adobe Air as a possible engine for application development to our mobile widget wiki. The crowd of mobile widget engines is still a growing one and various competitors are entering the space. Aside from more developers being attracted to mobile development, this also means increased fragmentation - unfortunately. On the other hand any tool enabling us to reach new devices and markets is always welcome.

Sources:
blog.mobilegamesblog.com
h-online.com
marketwatch.com
sfgate.com
washingtonpost.com

Worldwide sales of smart phones grew 30 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 53 million phones, according to researcher Strategy Analytics.

Nokia led market volumes, ahead of Research in Motion (RIM) and Apple, and shipped 20.8 million smart phones during the fourth quarter – up 38% from one year ago.

I also found  an interesting chart from ComScore about U.S. smartphone platform share, or installed base — representing both existing devices and new sales during each period, not just new sales. (Source: businessinsider.com - please check out the comments there - really interesting discussion is going on there)

Sources:
c114.net
areamobile.de

They plan to put apps into all vehicles via an Android-based on-board computer. The prototype called AutoLinQ will be demonstrated at this year’s Cebit show. Inspired by the iPhone drivers can search for apps, download music, pick up news, check emails and answer them by using voice recording technology. The promise is: all without taking hands off the wheel or eyes off the road!

Deutsche Telekom said in a statement that the core functions of AutoLinQ include an online address book linked to the navigation system. Drivers can type in journey destinations on the computer at home or work before getting in the car, or via their mobile phone when out and about. As the vehicle is connected to Deutsche Telekom’s mobile network, drivers can call up information that tells them where the car is parked, or check whether the sunroof is open and close it remotely using their phone.

According to the website of AutoLinQ, Continental plans to work with Android developers and automakers to certify a core set of applications. An AutoLinQ SDK is scheduled to be released already by the end of the first quarter this year - probably due to its closeness to the regular Android SDK.

In the second half of 2010 Continental plans to demonstrate first applications and of course the new app store to automotive customers (yes another app store…).

Sources:
AutoLinQ
AutoLinQ (Continental Website)
computerweekly.com

At CES 2010 in Las Vegas Samsung announced the upcoming availability of of free and paid apps in Samsung’s Apps store, including apps for Televisions, Blu-Ray Players, Home Theater and Mobile Phones. The download service for TVs will be available in July 2010.

I found two interesting videos from Samsung’s press conferences:

I guess other manufacturer will enter the market pretty soon, too. It seems the web is getting more and more ubiquitous…again.

Sources:
tv.samsungapps.com
www.mirror.co.uk

BOLT already supports Ajax, Javascript and other web-based languages. But the widgets will be installed directly into the BOLT browser and thus will load and execute faster. The BOLT widgets are written in standard W3C code. Users can access their widgets from within the browser via a new widget menu.

“As many of the recent mobile and wireless trade shows have demonstrated, mobile applications are part of the mainstream mobile experience,” said Sampo Kaasila, vice president of research and development at Bitstream. “However, the vast majority of phones in use today are ‘feature phones’ not smartphones. Unfortunately for the users of these billions of feature phones, it isn’t easy to find, install and run mobile applications. By adding Web apps to BOLT, Bitstream is not only improving the usability of our mobile browser, we are also making it possible for literally billions of people to partake in the mobile apps revolution.”

According to Bitstream, more than 3.4 million BOLT accounts have been created since last year, and the browser delivers over 2.8 million pages each day.

The new version of Bolt will be launched at the Mobile World Congress on February 15, 2010, and there will be a small set of beta widgets available at launch.

Sources:
news.softpedia.com
tech2.in.com

We are in the process of changing our website design and content. The new page will contain more information about what we have been doing lately and what we will be doing soon - all in the area of games, mobile widgets and app stores.

Because of this there was not much happening here during the last few weeks, except maybe useless filler posts like this one. But it’s gonna be better soon, so please stay tuned!

The book is written by Gail Rahn Frederick and from what I have seen so far the book is going to become a great introduction to mobile web development. All the necessary fundamentals are well covered and explained with practical examples and there are some more advanced sections on using Ajax and device capability databases.

Anybody interested in the challenges and details of mobile web development can take away something from the book. Publication is due in December 2009, so make sure you put it on your Amazon wishlist now!

Recently, we have been developing two mobile browser based games for UK clients (news about those soon here) and this conference was perfect for us to see what is going on in this market, what are the upcoming trends and how to make money in this area.

There were several talks, with topics ranging from programing, monetizing, financing to marketing and legal topics and they answered most of our questions above. Unlike typical web startups it seemed to me that browser game companies do not struggle with finding their business model and earning money. They make (in many cases loads of) money, especially by selling items to users.

And options for these item sales are virtually unlimited. Patrick Streppel (CEO Gamigo Games AG) talked about the possibilities. His company had replaced fantasy cars for real and licensed cars (such as BMW, Audi, …) in a game, because the users wanted that and it felt more natural to them and accordingly sales increased vastly. Another interesting story was that in the game you can buy golf clubs which can be used 100,000 times and then have to be replaced by a new one. In another game the users can buy an insurance for their sword in order to be protected against damage. “Buy one, get one free” campaigns or bundle sales are very popular too. There were also some companies offering monetisation models for free-to-play games, such as SponsorPay or fatfoogoo. With these players can basically get premium services or virtual goods/money in games by doing surveys or signing up for other services etc.

Most of the game companies act international due to their international user base. For example the well-known Pennergame (Farbflut Entertainment GmbH) is available in five languages, has 3.5 mio registered users and 3 bn page impressions worldwide. Most of their revenue still comes from advertising and merchandising, but they also started selling items in the game now.

Other big trends in the browser game market are Facebook-based games and 3D-Graphics.

I really enjoyed the conference. The browser game market is really huge. Interestingly, no one was talking about the upcoming opportunities in the mobile web space, especially the app store topic wasn’t considered at all. I am pretty sure that we will also see a lot of growth in this area soon. And who knows, maybe we will be presenting something about the mobile browser game market at the next Browsergame Forum in 2010.

Have a look at the following currently ongoing competitions:

1. NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge
   PRIZE: global prize pool currently at $8.2 million USD in cash and licenses
   DEADLINE: November 6, 2009 (EMEA region)

   The NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge is focused on driving the development and visibility of innovative location-based solutions (LBS) for wireless devices. From business applications to sports, travel and security, integrating the accuracy and richness of NAVTEQ digital map data facilitates the discovery of the next wave of LBS using dynamic positioning technology. Winners are chosen by a panel of distinguished judges in each of five regions (EMEA, India, South America, North America, APAC).

   Registration for the LBS Challenge, EMEA Region has been extended to November 6, 2009.  A completed solution is not required at the time of  registration. The winners of the EMEA Region will be announced on February 14, 2010 prior to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The global prize pool for this year’s competition is currently at $8.2 million USD in cash and licenses.

   Read more: NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge

2. Calling All Innovators Africa 2009 competition:
   PRIZE: worth more than $125,000
   DEADLINE: November 15, 2009

   Forum Nokia invites developers to publish their mobile applications to Ovi Store that will enhance the use of mobile devices in Africa in real-world scenarios. Developers can submit applications, widgets, or content of local African interest. This includes any content within Ovi Store content categories (Applications & Widgets, Video, Personalization, Games, Audio, Flash & Active idle widgets, Location based applications, Podcasts).

   Submissions for the contest will be accepted until 15 November 2009, and the winners will be announced in 10 December 2009. Grand Prize winner will receive $85,000 USD in cash; premium placement in Ovi Store; and paid travel to demo the winning application at a Nokia-specified event. 2nd – 5th Place get $10,000 USD each in cash; premium placement in Ovi Store.

   Read more: Forum Nokia Africa

3. Ovi Store Calling All Innovators France:
   DEADLINE: November 22, 2009

   Forum Nokia invites developers to publish their mobile applications and services to Ovi Store which is relevant to the 15 million users of Nokia devices in France. Developers can submit their applications in the following categories: social location; business and productivity; communications; games; just for fun.

   Applications will be accepted until November 22, 2009. The winners will be invited to the conference LeWeb 2009 held in Paris on 9 and December 10, 2009 and will demonstrate their winning applications at the event. The first prize winner of all categories will receive 15 000 EUR in cash, opportunity to see the application preloaded on future Nokia mobile sold in France, paid travel to attend the Nokia Developer event, a Nokia N900 and one-year membership in Forum Nokia Launchpad.

   Read more: Forum Nokia France

4. Calling All Innovators UK Contest:
   DEADLINE: November 30, 2009

   Forum Nokia invites developers to publish their mobile applications to Ovi Store that will enhance the use of Nokia mobile devices by consumers in the UK. Developers can submit their applications in the following categories: social location; business and productivity; communications and social networking; games; just for fun.

   Submissions for the contest will be accepted until 30 November 2009. Winners will be announced by 31 December 2009 and will receive cash and other valuable prizes. One grand prize winner will be selected among the submissions in all contest categories and will receive 20,000 GBP in cash, a trip paid to attend the Nokia Developer event in spring 2010, a promotional package for Ovi Store and one-year membership in Forum Nokia Launchpad.

   Read more: Forum Nokia UK

5. Forum Nokia Calling All Innovators - Publish to Ovi: (Latin America)
   PRIZE: worth $50,000 (USD)
   DEADLINE: January 15, 2010

   Forum Nokia invites developers to publish their mobile application to Ovi Store in the following categories: Entertainment, News and Information; Games; Free Application for any category of Ovi Store. There will be a winner in each of the three categories and two second places in each category.

   The two second places in each category will receive a new smartphone from Nokia and a free membership in Forum Nokia Launchpad for 1 year. The winner in each category will receive $ 5,000 (local currency), a new smartphone from Nokia and a free membership in Forum Nokia Launchpad for 1 year. From the winners of the three categories, also will choose a regional winner. The regional winner will earn an additional $ 15,000, a trip paid to attend the Nokia Developer Summit in California and a promotional package from 5,000 in value (determined by Nokia) of your mobile application in Ovi Store. All submissions to the contest must be translated into Spanish. Deadline is January 15, 2010. Winning applications will be determined based on the quality and consumer appeal of the applications determined by the judges of Nokia.
   
   Extra opportunity: If your application has been published in Ovi Store for the Nokia 5130 in one of three categories, you are eligible for an additional prize of $ 5,000!

   Read more: Forum Nokia LTA

6. Vodafone 360 App Star Competition:
   TOP PRIZE: € 100,000
   DEADLINE: March 31, 2010

   Vodafone has launched the Vodafone 360 App Star Competition to find the most innovative and useful mobile widgets with a 1 million EU prize fund awarded and evaluated on the user experience, value to the customer and innovation.

   The 1st phase of the competition runs until March 31st 2010, so you have until then to submit your entry. Three judges from each of the local Vodafone countries will judge the submitted entries and pick three winners. The three winners will receive (in reverse order), €10,000, €15,000 and €25,000. There will be 24 winners, which will be announced on April 15th 2010.

   In the 2nd phase the winner of each country (8 in total) will then be opened up to public voting, where anyone can vote for the widget of their choice until May 14th 2010. The widget with the second highest number of votes wins an additional €25,000, but the widget with most votes will then win another €75,000. The winners will be announced during May 2010.

   Read more: Vodafone 360 App Star Competition, siliconrepublic.com

Please let us know if you know of other mobile application or widget competitions and make sure you check out our Wiki for the latest updates! … Oh and please let us know if you are one of the lucky winners and we will happily blog about this :)

“The decision of LG, RIM, Samsung and Sharp to incorporate the JIL widget specifications in their future product roadmap is proof of the tremendous potential that JIL offers both to developers and customers,” said Peters Suh, JIL CEO. “All four companies are innovation leaders and this is another strong affirmation of both JIL strategy and its robust technical specifications.” (Verizon Wireless)

Other members of the JIL include Verizon Wireless, Vodafone, China Mobile and Softbank (Japan) who are claiming to be able to reach a combined user base of more than 1 billion around the world (North America, Europe, Asia and Africa).

The Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) is mostly focused on creating a standardized global platform for developers to encourage the creation of a wide range of mobile widgets. The Platform is supposed to enable developers to access handset and network functionalities such as the address book, camera, location information and billing in a secure environment. JIL widgets will run on a variety of smartphones as well as mid- and low-cost handsets across several operating systems and are distributed through JIL operators’ applications stores. It also appears that a unified application store will come, but this could also be a move by JIL towards providing a brandable app store platform for participating members.

For us as developers and promoters of mobile widgets this is good news for several reasons: fragmentation will be less of an issue (it will still be a major concern), we have the outlook for a global billing and distribution system and what’s not mentioned above but still important: JIL widgets are based in large parts on the W3C and BONDI specs.

An interesting fact is that companies such as Samsung now have to dip their toes in several different widget waters, their own widget platform called TouchWiz, are bringing out Android handsets and produce the H1 and M1 for Vodafone 360 (which represents their JIL engangement), not to mention their Windows Mobile devices. Well, Samsung is a hardware manufacturer and they have to support all these different platforms I guess.

Hopefully the goals of JIL will be implemented as announced and we can start distributing JIL widget-based applications globally soon.

“For software developers, this opens a whole new domain to sell their apps. For car makers, apps provide new ways to deliver infotainment and telematics services to customers. For motorists, apps allow them to enjoy their infotainment systems to the fullest, while paying only for the applications they want, thus saving them money. With apps so critical to the automotive market, companies are pushing approaches that benefit their specific goals. While the solutions shown at IAA were only concepts, they clearly reflect what will soon be on the market.” said Kevin Hamlin, analyst for automotive electronics at iSuppli Corp.

Sounds good? Yes. Where’s the catch? Doing it right!

BMW and its Concept BMW Application Store:

BMW is the first car maker who is opening its own app store: the Concept BMW Application Store. The store offers several different apps and users can download them to their iDrive either directly in their car or via home PC (and then transfer the apps to the car system). The selection of apps ranges from the obvious Facebook, Xing and Twitter to podcasts, web radio, Geowiki, multimedia travel guides as well as various games. I am not sure how big the applications offering is in it’s entirety, but it is a nice step in customizing your car to your needs. Another feature - maybe more useful than the rest and especially for business customers - is the ability to transfer contact data (addresses or phone numbers) to the navigation system or mobile phone connected to the car system.

Locations is also an important part: the apps are able to pull vehicle-related information. BMW has shown apps that draw on information from the vehicle navigation system and even plans to link to other data such as acceleration or braking data. The car’s position is also taken from the navigation system and, if the system is actively guiding the car to a destination, information about the destination time and location can be used.

Nokia, Navteq and Magneti Marelli developing smart car technology:

Nokia, who bought map provider NAVTEQ back in 2007 for around 8 billion (yes, USD), is more looking into mobile device integration with the vehicle rather than introducing apps. During IAA in Frankfurt, Nokia, NAVTEQ, and Magneti Marelli (automotive systems and components specialist) demonstrated a technology which seamlessly integrates smart phones into an in-vehicle infotainment system. Once connected, smart phone features, services and applications can be unlocked and driven through the in-car screens and audio systems embedded in the car. Users would be familiar with the user interface as it would be the same one they see on their smart phones. Through this connectivity, key data such as fuel levels (where is the next gas station), engine status, eco-friendly driving as well as location-based services (coupon for a coffee at a nearby gas station) can be extracted. ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) -based safety features could also be included. For example to warn drivers to slow down for a sharp bend ahead.

“We are happy to be part of this new innovation and looking forward to the new opportunities this technology can bring,” said Vesa Luiro, head of navigation development, Nokia. “The infotainment system of a modern car is a natural extension for the capabilities of smartphones. Not only will it simplify the use of turn-by-turn voice guidance from Ovi Maps, but also provide a new and easy way of accessing other content on the smartphone, such as music and delivering automotive specific widgets from the OVI Store.”

Connection from the mobile device to the infotainment system is made either via Bluetooth or USB cable. This technology known as “Virtual Networking Computer layer” is in alpha phase and was developed in collaboration with Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto.

Parrot goes open source:

Parrot, a wireless equipment supplier, unveiled an Android-based device (a head unit) that offers “automotive implementation of all smartphone features.” Great news for Android developers, who do not have to develop on a separate platform for cars. And this also means hundreds of apps are already available.

The head unit itself includes hands-free Bluetooth, A2DP audio streaming, speaker-independent voice recognition, multimedia connectivity, smart track browsing and playlist management, 3G+ Web browsing and 3.0 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Also check out Parrot’s Facebook page and Twitter Feed.

App store battle has started - who will win?

As you can see in our Widget and App Store Wiki, a lot of phone manufacturers and operators have already joined the mobile applications battle or are planning their move in this direction. It becomes clear that many other industries such as the book publishers or car manufacturers are trying to get a piece of this cake. I totally agree with gigaom that the key to success in this app store battle will be interoperability. That’s why I think Nokia and Parrot have a the better approach here and BMW’s is a bit short-sighted with their proprietary and apparently closed system.

Users want a wide and ubiquitous selection of apps, preferably not bound to a special platform or device. There is more than enough fragmentation developers have to cope with in this area - screen sizes, device capabilities and on goes the list. If platform vendors want to attract developers to develop applications for their systems and devices they are best off supporting standards, preferably open ones and they need to take care of them by offering development tools and support in selling the applications in their app stores.

We will soon see which car manufacturers do this right and which model will prevail.

Sources:
cellular-news.com
bmwBlog.com
mobile-ent.biz
eetasia.com
reuters.com
gigaom.com

The panel discussion was quite interesting and some publishers are already playing around with mobile applications. Patrik Jaros mentioned that he released a couple of cooking applications for different mobile platforms (iPhone, Blackberry, Android). Reader’s Digest has also an iPhone app available for download called “allrecipes.com DinnerSpinner” and it is related to RD’s online community of hobby cooks (German version). The discussion was not about mobile exclusively, but digital in general. Questions ranged from “Should the content in an application be released for free or not?”, “Is the classic cookbook dead?” to “What kind of strategy should publishers and retailers follow in the digital/mobile space?”.

In the panel we agreed that the classic (cook)book won’t die off anytime soon and digital publishing will be an opportunity as well as a challenge, especially when it comes to rights management for content and images. Publishers have to work on a strategy that combines both areas. My opinion is that convergence amongst the classic and digital world has a lot of momentum and will be very important in any digital and especially mobile strategy for publishers. For example when someone buys a classic cookbook there must be at least a hint or link to the digital version of it. QR- or Barcodes containing recipes on ingredients you buy are another example.

A big challenge is that expectations of customers are different in the digital/mobile space. When customers buy a printed book, it is a final version and publishers mostly have no more connection to the product and the user. But when users download an application or buy a digital book, they expect updates and new content after a certain time and they might also want to be able to give feedback directly and tie content into their favorite social network.

Our recommended mobile strategy for publishers at the moment is to play around with the possibilities in the digital and mobile space and get involved with what is out there as soon as possible to gain insights and feedback and to define goals. This does not only mean developing applications for the iPhone, but all application stores and devices (widgets to the rescue!). At the end of the day the outcome must be one strategy which integrates classic books, eBooks and mobile applications. And of course it is important not to see customers as one-time buyers anymore, but as a community which publishers have to maintain and take care of.

It was a nice panel discussion. Mobile cookery publishing is still in its infancy and there are lots of possibilities in this space. It is well worth looking at this area for publishers as well as for media and mobile agencies and now is a good time to at least tipping your toes into digital and especially mobile waters.

1.5 hours later the networking part started. Nice people, nice talks. Here are some photos from yesterday @ flickr.com.

The next Webmontag Frankfurt is scheduled for 04. December. One talk will be about Google Wave. Btw many thanks to Darren & the rest of the orga team for organizing this! See you there!

PS: There are some more interesting events coming up:

1. droidcon 3./4. Nov. (Berlin, Germany)
2. BarCamp Mainz 28./29. Nov. (Mainz, Germany)
3. GTUGFRA Google Technology UserGroup Frankfurt 17. Dec. (Frankfurt/Main, Germany)

For the first time, the Frankfurt Book Fair is offering over 400 qm exclusively to the world of food, wine and all things epicurean. The Gourmet Gallery (in Hall 5.0), one of the highlights at the book fair, features a show kitchen for live demonstrations by prominent chefs as well as talks, discussions, interviews etc. about everything cooking- and gourmet-related.

The topic of the panel discussion that I am participating in is “Cooking digital, digital Cooking: digital innovations and initiatives“. It is a B2B talk where we want to discuss examples for new ways for cookery books, trends, innovations and business models for chefs or publishing representatives. We will also talk about electronic culinary schools and getting recipes on your mobile.

Insights from the huge amount of mobile application stores and the emerging mobile widgets market will be things I can contribute, and findings from our research on these topics will come in handy, so I hope. In case you haven’t seen our wiki yet, it’s the place where we collect all available information about app stores and widget engines - our main area of business meanwhile.

It’s my first time at the Frankfurt Book Fair and I am really looking forward to this interesting panel. Many thanks to Heike Scholz @MobileZeitgeist for getting me in touch!