[LINK] Standard makes mobiles moving target for consumers

[Tom Worthington]

At 7/22/2004 04:59 PM, jeff.evans at iird.vic.gov.au wrote (was: "Mobiles + 
RFID = Near field communication"):

>Quoting from a posting on <http://www.rfid-weblog.com/>
>RFID Coming to Your Cell Phone ...

By an amazing coincidence, just out:

                             LINK INSTITUTE
                                LINKGRAM


 From the office of the director.      Telegraphic code: CANB-RIAN

NEW STANDARD TO MAKE MOBILE PHONES A MOVING TARGET FOR CONSUMERS

The Link institute today announced an new era in mobile commutations with 
the release of the PNAUMD standard. "This is not just a new technology but 
a whole new way of looking at mobile communications" said Link Institute 
director Professor Klerhpel.

PNAUMD is designed to reduce the radius of the development cycle to be 
within the diameter of the customer's decision cycle (see note 1 below). 
New short range communications standards will be developed on-line by a 
24/7 team of researchers and product designers. New wireless protocols will 
then be downloaded directly to the programmable wireless chips in mobile 
phone while they are still in the stores. Electronic store signs and in-ear 
radio receivers will inform customers and store staff of the new "must 
have" phone features in real time.

Touch sensitive phase change plastic cases on the phones will allow the 
colour and placement of buttons to be reprogrammed in-store moments before 
the phone is sold. A 3D printer is also in development to allow different 
size and shape phone casings to be "printed" in the store from digital 
designs which have been created automatically by AI software scanning the 
latest fashion trends.

Link research identified short range communications as a major area for 
innovations. "We have had WiFi, Bluetooth and other communications 
technologies added to mobile phones to boost profitability" said Klerphel. 
"But these quickly become standard features and customers soon realised 
that they all do basically the same thing: communicate".

"Some customers have been engaging in unwelcome activity by comparison 
shopping between stores" said Klerphell. "With PNAUMD this will be a thing 
of the past. By the time the customer has gone from one phone shop in the 
mall to the next, a whole new "must have" feature set will be added to the 
phones. The model numbers and pricing plans will be changed every few 
minutes using a pseudo random algorithm, before the customer has time to 
stop for a skim-decaf-soy-chino."

PNAUMD (Programmable New and Useless Mobile Devices) is a strategy for a 
continuous evolution of mobile device technologies. Klerphel commented: 
"Basic digital cell phone technology stabilised about five years ago: the 
function of a phone is to make phone calls. All new phones have identical 
phone features and manufactures have to compete on price for basic 
handsets. This is disastrous for profitability and so we need to come up 
with new innovations to continually refresh the product range".

In an unrelated development, Professor Klerphell denied that RFID phones 
were a security risk: "Reports of human chains of criminals between an 
unsuspecting phone user and a cash machine to defeat supposedly secure 
'touch me' systems are nonsense. These systems are as secure as the launch 
codes used by US ICBMS in the 1960s"

* NOTE 1: A team of researchers are working on the meaning of this phrase.

;-)


Tom Worthington FACS tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617