Hot Mobile Stats: An Update

Number of people on earth: 6,634,294,193
Number of GSM cellphone connections: 2,571,563,279
Number of CDMA cellphone connections: 421,400,000

(reported by Reuters)

Let’s do the math… based on the above figures, 

Total cellphone subscribers: 2,992,963,279
% of world population: 45.11

Of course, this doesn’t mean that 45.11% of the world’s people have cellphones, since some people have multiple subscriptions.

Still, the numbers are staggering!

Technorati Tags: cell phones, cell phone stats, cell phone penetration

Mobile Web News, Week of November 26, 2007

Duuuha! … New Format from Now On
I’ve realized rather late in the day that these news clips will be more visible to search engines if each were a separate post.

So that’s how it’s going to be from  now on!  

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1,000,000 Downloads!
The Opera Mini 4 browser, designed for your cellphone, has chalked that statistic up since its release in November 2007.

It’s a good browser, no doubt. However, I find the native browser in my Nokia N73 smartphone provides the same features PLUS it does not reduce the fidelity of images like Opera does.

But if you don’t have a Nokia, you might want to try out Opera, it might well be worth it…

Source: http://www.phonemag.com/

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Killed by His Cellphone?
He was found dead with a melted cellphone in his pocket.  The suspicion was that the Korean quarry worker’s cellphone battery had exploded and killed him.

But he also had broken ribs, a broken spine, lung injuries and heart damage, and the final verdict was that a cellphone could not have caused all this.

The autopsy will take 15 days, after which we’ll know more. In the meantime, you can tell the bomb squad to postpone checking out your cellphone

Source: MobileCrunch.com

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Firefox on Windows Mobile 6 Devices
Firefox,  of the world’s most popular web browsers (100 million downloads including mine) now has a mobile version. It’s not been publicly launched, but it’s somewhere out there, installed or waiting to be.

Source: cellular-news.com

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University Courses on the Mobile Net… in Japan, of Course
As mentioned before, Japan is the frontrunner in mobile web usage: it is light years ahead of most other countries (the US is so underdeveloped in this area that it is not even allowed on the racetrack).

Japan’s Cyber University opened in April 2007, has 1,850 students and is empowered to confer Bachelor’s degrees. It is Japan’s  only university to offer all its classes over the internet and has now started offering them over the mobile internet. Cyber University is 71 percent owned by SoftBank, a mobile carrier company.

Source: Mobilecrunch.com
 

Mobile Web News, Week of November 19, 2007

Mobile Phones: America Slowly Emerging from Stone Age
The US is primitive when it comes to mobile phone usage. Most people just talk and email, whereas in the frontrunning company, Japan, subscribers read books and watch TV on their phones.

The heartening news is that in the third quarter of 2007, 165% more smartphones were sold than in the corresponding 2006 period.

One of these days the US will acquire modern mobile telecom, might take a while, but it’ll happen…

Source: intomobile.com
 
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AOL Subscribers Allowed Out of Walled Garden (A Little)
Are you an AOL mobile subscriber? 
Hot-diggety, there’s a new web bowser you can download from the AOL
website. The browser makes it easy for you to place various AOL website
features on the browser’s page, and even will serve you banner ads from
people advertising with AOL! Aren’t you fortunate, now!

But in all fairness, the browser also allows you to type in any
web address and view that page. The web page being viewed will be
resized by AOL to fit neatly into your phone window. There are even
tabs to have several pages ready for viewing simultaneously.

The good thing here is that you are no longer limited to viewing
only the pages that AOL permits you to view. There’s nothing like
freedom… kudos to AOL for the move!

Source: bigmouthmedia.com
 
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 Google and 700MHz: An Update
Google is gearing up to bid by itself on the 700 MHz wireless spectrum being auctioned in January 2008 by the FCC.

Only trouble is, Google isn’t a wireless carrier, and wireless is a separate kettle of fish altogether. Without pouring in an immense amount of money and attention, and consequently diverting its purpose significantly, Google will not be able to operate a mobile network.

The mobile carrier space is also domicile to several deadly inhabitants: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile, to name a few. They will not, by any stretch of the imagination, allow their billions of dollars in investment be poached by a non-industry player.

Which is why the grapevine says that Google is trying o partner up with certain mobile carriers. Hope this is true, else the giant whom we know so well will be in for a hard time!

Source: newsfactor.com
 

Mobile Web News, Week of November 12, 2007

Comcast Screwed Because it Blocks Websites
Comcast is one of the insecure or arrogant service providers that presumes it canblock websites it doesn’t like, for example Bit Torrent. This is a kind of censorship.

Well, it is now the recipient of a kingly slap from the free world, in the form of a class-action lawsuit.

Serves it right for trying to meddle with the neutrality of the net.

Source: arstechnica.com
 
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Google’s Android Set to Rearrange Mobile Telephony’s face
Google sees the mobile web as the next new Internet frontier, and is wasting no time panning for gold there.

The Internet behemoth has now released a system design kit (SDK) to enable developers to write applications for Android, which is a sort  of operating system for mobile phones.

They have set aside $10 million in prizes for developers who write the best apps.

Gotta figure out how to get a hold of some of that money!

Take a look at an excellent video on the subject by Sergey Brin himself…

Source: GigaOm.com