Guy Kewney

David Potter, founder and chairman of Psion, is not a financier. Hes a genuine geek. So when he pulls out of Symbian–and make no mistake, thats what hes done–its for technical reasons. So what has Dr. Potter got in mind? The obvious suspect (Windows) is almost too appalling to consider. Here we have a world […]

You would think that the makers of photo paper would be rending their garments. All those camera phones producing low-quality, tiny pictures that can be viewed instantly and transmitted to remote sites. Its throwaway art: who would want to print it? However, at the PaperWorld exhibition in Frankfurt, Germany, this week, quite the opposite is […]

Question: How many 802.11 wireless transceivers would it take to cover a 50-mile stretch of road? Answer: Only one, if its a railroad. Just put the transceiver in the train. Then fly a plane with broadband microwave on board just above the train. No, I aint kidding. Daunted by the capital cost of trying to […]

It isnt very often that Europeans suspect Americans of being pioneers in anything to do with wireless, but the growth of “contactless” credit cards could mean that the New World will leapfrog the Old World in mobile payments. What isnt clear, is whether society–business society and private society–has calculated the “social control” implications of the […]

A European plan to bring wireless to every inch of every highway could spell the end for an awful lot of wireless Internet service providers (WISPs). Then again, pricing could head north and kill this telemetry plan before it gets into first gear. The plan is being advanced in several European countries, with Japan following […]

So tell me, Intel: when is a de facto standard – say the x86 instruction set – a good thing? and when should it be opposed as a threat to industry unity? And Cisco: should we adopt the de facto LEAP security standard (developed by Cisco, naturally) and the CCX extensions that go with it? […]

LONDON—The CEO calls his MIS team in and says he wants a wireless LAN at work: “Look, I have wireless networking at home. I installed it myself. How hard can it be?” “How hard could it be?”—words that IT admin people hate to hear because normally, its not as easy as it looks. Especially when […]

Its been assumed that Microsofts devotion to “wireless industry standards” makes its White Paper on Mobile Web Services a good thing. Ill bet the Trojans felt the same warm, comfortable glow about the Greeks and their Trojan Standard horse. Its far, far too early to speculate on all the places where Microsoft is going with […]

On Nov. 7, the world will see a new portable PC sold through the IBM brand. Its a computer designed without a display, without a keyboard, without a mouse and even without wireless—all in the interest of building a Windows XP machine that can run for a whole day off a small battery. The sell […]

Just about the only thing there is to know for sure about the new Vodafone-Microsoft partnership is that it is based on XML, and that Bill Gates himself thought it was important enough to justify a personal appearance at Geneva ITU. Microsoft, of course, has a product which is just switching to XML: Office 2003, […]

It really isnt every day you see a brand-new entrant into the GSM phone business; but Sierra Wireless is off to the ITU Telecom World show in Geneva, Switzerland this week with a Microsoft Smartphone. In a year when all the established phone makers are preparing to get to grips with 3G — and beyond […]

Youre required to keep records of all employee transactions over any communication media. Instant Messenger is a problem; but you are probably on the case. Now: did you realise that IM can go out, undetected and unmonitored, over staff cellphones? How many corporates monitor SMS traffic to and from employee cellphones? How many corporates actually […]