Ubiquisys and Intrinsyc - femto-aware Android phones

I first wrote about the desirability of "femto-awareness" in handsets almost a year ago. Since then, there have been various applications on devices (such as ip.access and others' demos) which have harnessed femtozone capabilities.

The announcement yesterday by Ubiquisys and handset integrator Intrinsyc is an interesting one. It changes the "theme" on Android phones when in femto range, based on what the partners call presence.

The exact mechanism for the trigger is a little unclear from the press release - in particular whether the femto is somehow "pushing" notification to the phone app, or if the connection manager is somehow detecting a changing cell ID or similar.

Either way, it fits in well with the general thesis that optimising handsets for use with femtos confers a range of benefits on both vendors and operators.

Reconnecting again!

Hello all

I've been away for the past 3 weeks in India, participating in a cross-country charity drive in a 3-wheel autorickshaw. 

It's been an absolutely fantastic experience & adventure, made even better by the fact that I didn't make or receive a single phone call during that time. My "mobile" experience was a few SMS's exchanged with other the teams participating, plus a couple to my family. I went online at Internet cafes every 3 days or so to do "triage" on the most critical emails, and more importantly update the Rickshaw Run blogs & Facebook pages.

For anyone who never goes "off grid" for more than 15 minutes unless they're on a plane, I'd heartily recommend it. Next time you go on holiday, leave the phone at home.

Anyway - I'm now trying to get back to normal existence again, so one of the first things is to kickstart this blog back to life. There's been quite a lot going on while I've been away - Sun/Oracle, continued economic fallout in the mobile industry, debates about spectrum policy and so on. I'll try and catch up on the key themes.

Also, I'll be in Nice this week at the Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorm, at which I'm moderating a panel session on devices. 

I'll thank all the sponsors & other supporters of my India trip in a separate post, as well as giving a flavour of stuff I saw while I was away. But one question to leave you with - how much would you charge to have an entire wall of your house painted with a mobile operator's colours and logo?