Strolling around Mobile World Congress back in February, yes I’m very late posting, I stopped by the Visa booth to see what they had going on in the way of NFC (Near Field Communication).  I was offered a private briefing with with Bill Gajda the head of mobile banking for Visa, I jumped at the chance to say the least.

I asked Bill to talk to me about anything he wanted, not just the normal fluff.  So we started chatting about some of Visa’s current goings on and a little about the future.  Bill envisions a world where our phones work as our credit cards, no surprise there, right.  But he went on to explain the level of security and procedures that they’re planning on using and they currently use.  For example when you plan on paying for a product and you have to activate the application on your phone, not just touch it to the pay terminal.  Once the app is active you still have to press a button to authorize the transaction and then the app goes dark.  Meaning it can’t be used for another transaction until activated again.  This all means that someone can’t just bump into you while you’re walking in the airport and skim your credit card information off your card.  And yes this has happened to me twice now.

I can currently go to Chase Bank and get a credit card from them that has an NFC chip in it.  But according to Bill in the near future you will (hopefully) be able to get a phone that has an NFC radio/chip built in and be able to download the Chase (for example) app.  I imagine we might start off with a white labeled Visa app, we’ll just have to wait and see.

I’m personally very excited about this technology and hope we can start using it soon.  I just don’t know how fast it will catch on because of the lack of support by companies with the point of sale machines.  They will have to get all new machines in many cases and this is quite costly.  On the other hand if Visa wanted to front the money and come out looking like a forward thinking company it might just be able to pull this all off and become the leader in NFC for credit card transactions.

UPDATE: Oddly enough Visa has stopped supporting their mobile app as of September 23rd.

I’ve been writing about Truphone since 2007 and I suspect using it even longer.  I was called the biggest Truphone fan by Ewan MacLeod back in 2007 or 2008.  I wish I could remember when they launched but boy oh boy was it amazing back then. Fast forward 5 years (I’m guessing) and you know what I’m using now?  A Truphone (now called Tru) sim and you know what, they are a legitimate MNO, mobile network operator.  They have their own towers and everything, small as it may be, it’s growing.  Well their sim card has evolved and changed and I think I’ve had every iteration of it.

Just days before I left for MWC ’11 back in mid February I was graced by a new sim card.  At the time, from my understanding it was 1 of only a dozen or so in existence.  Well the beauty of this sim card was not that it could make calls, use data or send/receive SMS but that it could do all of that IN A BLACKBERRY.  Yes that’s colossal news.  It’s the first time that I’ve known any international roaming sim to support BlackBerry use.  I could be wrong though. Anyways, I was in a BlackBerry phase and couldn’t imagine going to Spain without using my BB as usual and this sim made that possible without incurring ANY roaming charges.  This was amazing, I tested the sim before I left the US and it worked great but the real test was going to be on the ground in Barcelona and low and behold it worked just as it was supposed to.

This new sim in my opinion opens up a whole new angle for Truphone, they can now go after the business user who is tied to a BlackBerry.  I had a very nice set up for the week I was gone.  I had my Phone.com (a client) phone number forward to my US Truphone number so I could receive calls like normal.  I got all kinds of business calls while I was there without ever skipping a beat in service.  And to make calls I used a combination of my Truphone sim plus I was running the Phone.com Mobile Office app which allowed me to make calls using just a tiny bit of data via my Truphone sim.  It is a setting in the Mobile Office app that sets the app to call back your phone versus calling through.  It’s not complicated and saves a ton of money.  I had the best of both worlds using Phone.com and Truphone. One of the nicest parts about the Truphone sim is that you get 2 phone numbers, 1 US number and 1 British number.  I used my Phone.com number for business but was able to give my UK number out so friends in Europe and England could call and text me on it for cheaper then to a US number.  Europeans are much happier to call a UK number and Americans feel the same way about calling a US number.  And in my testing I could receive text messages on both Truphone numbers. There are many more benefits to the Truphone BlackBerry sim but I won’t go into all of them.  I will say thank you to Truphone and give their service and sim card 2 very big thumbs up (as usual for them).  It worked for me flawlessly and I can’t imagine traveling without it ever again.  If anyone travels abroad much I would even suggest transferring your regular cell number to Truphone and just use their sim all the time.  Check the rates in your country but it’s definitely something to think about.

Samuel Keret the VP of Biz Dev at Waze (one of my personal favorite companies in the mobile space) gives us a few minutes.  Thank you to Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review for letting me film during his interview.

Waze has been doing some amazing things for a while now and from the inside stuff that I hear about them, it’s only getting better.  My source, not Samuel, was going over some numbers and it’s darn impressive.

As I fly home from a long week of meetings, parties and the over abundance of mobile phones I think I’ve seen the future. I imagine this is the same all over the world and in many industries and that it will trickle down into the general population.

Every year I see a trend and find that I’m noticing 1 phone stands out more then the rest in that it’s more commonly seen during MWC being used by the mass of people there. I will say I’m still shocked at how many feature phones I see at this show from people in the mobile industry, it’s amazing and not in a good way. Last year it was the HTC Nexus One (that could have been because Google gave a ton of them away at the show) and the year before that it was the Nokia E71 and the year before that it was the Nokia N95 and N95 8gig. Every year I see lot’s of iPhones but they’re not everywhere like you might imagine if you live in the US.

Well this year was unique. The device to have was not a phone. The most popular device to have that I saw was the iPad. It seemed like everyone had them. Some people told me they had a laptop in their hotel room to get serious work done and others said that that’s all they brought with for computing. Now here’s the interesting thing. It wasn’t just the iPad I noticed, it was a combination. It seemed like many of the iPad users had a BlackBerry to compliment their iPad’s. With the iPad you get all the greatness of iOS and it’s similar to an iPhone but with the BB you get a great email experience enhanced by the QWERTY keyboard and battery life of the BB. It’s a match made in heaven and I can definitely see why people go for it. Additionally BB’s use much less data then an Android or iPhone which is great when traveling abroad.

I see this as a combo that might last an entire year we just might see it back at MWC again as the combination to have. Or maybe it will be a BB combined with a Rim PlayBook.

Stay tuned for much more MWC ’11 coverage.

I had a great chat with Di-Ann Eisnor of Waze back at Mobile World Congress over a month ago then we got to hang at CTIA and I’m just now getting around to putting up my content from the trip.  I really like what Waze is doing and if you haven’t checked them out be sure to do so.  It’s an amazing social mapping program that creates the maps from the trips it’s users take.

Thanks for your time Di-Ann and best of luck with Waze.

I recently returned from Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where I interviewed Rafi Ton the CEO NewACT.  I met  Rafi because my good friend Harel Shattenstein of TalkingMobile.com set up the interview.  We decided to sit outside in the absolutely gorgeous weather and discuss NewACTs mobile application called vufone, the most interesting new app I saw at MWC, for the sake of transparency I may be a little prejudice because NewACT is a new client of my companies.

vufone is a back up/restore and sync service with Google or Outlook (at the moment) with a large array of handsets.   The whole app is interesting but I don’t use Outlook anymore so I’m jumping at the chance to sync my Google contacts and calendar to my current Nokia, the N79.  I have already completed a sync and I am thoroughly impressed with vufone.

Right now my only complaint is how often you can sync automatically it’s  weekly, biweekly, monthly or manual.  I would like to see an update to this as soon as possible.  We need to have more options like once a day, hourly, etc.

UPDATE:  I got an email from Rafi over the weekend and he informed me that you are able to sync every hour and in the premium version it’s actually every 30 min. Great news and I still have more to learn about vufone. 

Anyway, as far as I know vufone is the only option for syncing Google Calendar/Contacts at this price range.  For the month of March it’s $10 for a year and you can try it free for 14 days.   Anybody who has ever lost their mobile will tell you they would gladly pay big bucks to have their data back.

I’m only covering one of the many aspects of this application, the aspect that interests me the most.  There’s also a calendar, contacts, file, picture, video, document, and text message back up sharing side to this amazing app.

Watch the short interview I did with their CEO last week in Barcelona.

Go give vufone a try, it won’t hurt and you never know, it may turn into your “can’t live without app”.

My good friend Cian over at GoMo News wrote about NeuStar during Mobile World Congress and I’m just reading about it now.  I’m really excited because of what they are doing.  NeuStar is incorporating presence into the Telecom Italia (TIM) service.  In your handsets phone book they will show you how your contact wants to be contacted.  Anything from a phone call, to sms to IM or beyone.  I think this is genious, why aren’t all the telcos incorporating this service.  Take a read and see what Cian has to say.  He says it better then I do.

What a wild time I had last week.  I spent the week in Barcelona, Spain attending Mobile World Congress.  I met hundreds of people and gave out and received hundreds of business cards.

I also interviewed a handful of really interesting people.  I hope to write up all my interviews but in the mean time I’m going to post a short intro from my guests here so you can don’t have to wait forever.

This is Rafi Ton, the CEO of NewACT.  We’re talking about vufone their very exciting mobile app.

Here is Kerry Ritz of Palringo and one of the winners of TopMobile20. Congratulations Palringo.

This is Andrew Grill talking about Gigafone.

This is Veronica Livshits from DSPV.

This video is of Boaz Zilberman one of the founders of Fring

This is Oliver Starr who is the voice behind ShapeWriter.  Oliver swears this app speeds up his input into his touch handsets.

This is Nilo Garcia Manchado the CEO of econav a really interesting green tool

Here’s the Sonim “indestructible handset” according to my MIR Review buddies.

This is the Q1 from Blue Ant. For the sake of transparency they gave me a BT headset (not a Q1 unfortunately), thanks guys.

Being my second trip to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress I have a bit of advice.  If you or your company needs access to 3G or needs to make phone calls/sms, I suggest Yoigo.  I got my Yoigo sim last year at a store called OpenCor.  It is just a few hundred yards/meters from the entrance to MWC.  If you walk out of the congress and make a right on Gran Via it’s about 2 blocks up.  The address is Gran Via de les Corts 407-409 and it’s on the left side.  You will need ID to purchase the sims, I used my US drivers license.  One thing to note, MAKE SURE TO SET THE PREFERED LANGUAGE ON YOUR PHONE BEFORE YOU PUT IN THE YOIGO SIM.  Otherwise it will switch it to Spanish, I learned the hard way.

Anyways, I got mine last year for 10Euro and it came with 10Euro on it already.  I also added 10 more and was set for the entire week.  The rates as of last year, to the best of my understanding are as follows
1.20Euro/day gives you unlimited 3G
.12Euro to all Spanish numbers
.30Euro for all international calls
.00 for Yoigo to Yoigo calls
.10 SMS to anywhere including Spain
.30 MMS to anywhere including Spain

This seems like a very good deal to me at least.  Last year most of us had some call and 3G quality issues on the first day of MWC but after that it was fine.  It seemed like they had to catch up to the influx of all the new subscribers.

I highly recommend Yoigo.   If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.

UPDATE: OpenCor along with MANY other establishments in Spain are closed on Sundays.  So don’t plan on picking up a sim or top up cards from them on Sunday.

GoMo News is again hosting one of their famous Blenders.  This one will take place Wednesday February 18 at BelChica in Barcelona, during Mobile World Congress. TopMobile20 will be holding the awards ceremony at the beginning of the GoMo party, so please make sure to stop by early and RSVP here.