In remembrance of so many good times, I may pull out my N-Gage QD from the Carlo Longino Haul of Mobile Handset History and use it today. Or not. But in either case, I’d like to pay tribute to N-Gage with a reading from the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

So long, N-Gage, and thanks for all the laughs.

I do have to take issue with their statement, though

We have noticed a number of media stories about N-Gage game transfers and wanted to clarify the issue. Due to copy protection, N-Gage games, like most mobile games, are linked to one device. As the value of content increases, a robust copy protection mechanism is essential as it makes it possible for the games industry to invest in N-Gage content.

1 – how is the value of content increasing? or are they confusing value with price?
2 – copy protection doesn’t “make it possible” for game publishers to make games. Not hardly.

(end update, original story below:)

Nokia relaunched its N-Gage brand recently with a lot of fanfare, trying to move past the poisoned image of sidetalking and tacos and recast it as a fully clued-up, super-cool 21st-century online mobile gaming service. The new games are pretty cool (FIFA on my N82 is great IMO), and the online features of the N-Gage Arena are a nice touch as well.

So all’s well, right? Wrong.

All those great N-Gage games people are buying at 10 euros a pop are locked to a single device. Buy a bunch of games, then get a new phone? Get ready to shell out again. As the All About N-Gage crew points out, Nokia’s Music Store will let you move tracks you purchase from them to a new device — but not with N-Gage games. That seems pretty seriously misguided, especially considering heavy N-Gage users (aka Its Best Customers) are probably also the most likely to upgrade their handsets frequently.

The AAN crew also point out a couple of ways Nokia could get around this, which you’d imagine should be a little straightforward since it’s, you know, an online service and all. I’d add another: just don’t bother with the DRM, since it’s really not likely to do anything for the business in the long run. Furthermore, why are we still having to deal with crap like this? Check out this comment from back in 2005 by MH reader Ian Wood, bemoaning the fact that by extending his contract and upgrading his phone, he’d have to re-purchase all the content on his old phone he wanted to keep using.

The net result of that sort of thing, and this N-Gage stupidity? People will be discouraged from buying N-Gage content, and from upgrading their phone once they buy content. How does that help Nokia’s business?

Back in 2005, I met with some people from the Open Mobile Alliance and talked about DRM, and they really tried to push the message that DRM wasn’t about copy protection, it was about “enabling” new business models. The fact remains that the only business model DRM enables is forcing legitimate customers to pay for the same content over and over again.

So, great work, Nokia. I’d been thinking of buying the full version of FIFA on my N82 because the demo was so great — but now, not a chance. So while you’re sitting around justifying stupid copy protection and DRM schemes because of how much money you’ll “lose” to piracy, why not consider how much you’re losing because of your DRM?

A few days earlier, Sprint announced it was launching the “Sprint Arcade” along with EA Mobile, offering users access to a range of games (currently there’s a selection of 6) for $10 a month. A post about it this morning on Engadget Mobile caught my eye, if only because at the Austin Game Conference a few years ago, I listened to Jason Ford, Sprint’s then-GM of games and entertainment, say that the operator didn’t allow games to be billed on a subscription basis unless they offered a distinct and clear service element. This is a great policy, because game subscriptions are pretty lame, and are really set up only to benefit the operator and content provider, to the detriment of the consumer.

I guess Sprint’s given up on that policy, since the arcade doesn’t appear to have any sort of service element. Consumers can buy these six games for $5 or $6 each, so a $10 per month subscription hardly seems like a good deal. But perhaps Sprint’s decided it’s okay to go down this route since the mobile gaming market is shrinking, at least according to analyst firm iSuppli.

But keep your hockey stick at hand, iSuppli says mobile gaming revenue will still “nearly triple by 2011, growing to $6.6 billion”. How, you ask?

One of the main problems is that number of subscribers for mobile games remains quite small. Game publishers’ and developers’ moves to broaden the awareness of mobile games will help build the subscriber base – but only if they target the right demographic. In the coming months, expect to see game innovators focusing on characteristics that separate mobile gaming from other types of gaming, including:

* Mobility
* Connectivity
* Community
* Location awareness

That sounds like the same sort of stuff we’ve been promised since, oh, 2004 or so, that’s pretty much failed to materialize — but it’s going to add $4.3 billion in revenues to the mobile gaming market within three or four years? If you’re trying to grow this market and succeed in mobile gaming, go back and read my notes from Jason’s talk in 2005. They’re still more on point and more useful today than the pipe-dream musings of an analyst firm’s predictions.

I think it’s fair to say that Ricardo¬†sees mobile as an adjunct to the web, as opposed to a completely separate channel and therefore his presentation was about search generally, with a few choice snippets about mobile.

The main principle about how Yahoo! approaches search is the “Wisdom of Crowds”, which means search results are honed based on tags, links and previous results to search queries. This means that they’re doing an awful lot of work into how items get tagged. In other words, if they have a picture of a banana and I’m looking for “fruit”, I’m not going to find it.

One really interesting game that explores this issue is their ESP Game. You play with an anonymous and uncontactable collaborator, by simultaneously being shown an image. You both type in tags until you have a match and then move to another. You have 2 1/2 minutes to get through and agree as many images as you can. It’s not very easy actually and demonstrates some of the complexities of accurate or intuitive tagging, as well as being quite fun.

When Ricardo moved on to talk about the difference between search on a mobile and search on a PC, there were a few surprising differences. Search on mobile uses more words, despite the comparative difficulty of inputting. I’d guess that this is down to the user wanting to be as accurate as possible, first time, rather than subsequently wanting to refine things.

The other idiosyncrasy of mobile search is that there’s more variety in the queries submitted. I can’t remember the exact figure (does anyone know?) but it was something like for PC search, the top 20 queries account for about 50% of searches, whereas in mobile,¬†the top 20 are¬†only 2%.

All the big online guns (Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft) are focusing their sights on search as the key to to unlock mobile revenues and it may well be important. I have a feeling that it won’t be quite as important as everyone assumes.

My theory is that what people want on a phone is discovery, rather than search, at least at this stage in the game. So a¬†mash-up of “Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web for Your Mobile” (ironically),¬†an element of serendipity, a dose of peer ratings and smidgeon of your friends’ recommendations. This isn’t a million miles away from the Wisdom of Crowds that Ricardo spoke about in terms of how results are delivered, but maybe it calls for a different user experience.

[tags] ricardo baeza-yates, barcelona, mobile monday, yahoo!, search, discovery, mobile [/tags]

Prosecutors in LA have indicted Stefan Eriksson on felony counts of embezzlement, grand theft and possession of a gun by a felon, along with two misdemeanor counts of possession of a gun by a felon. His bail has been set at $5 million, and the INS still has an immigration hold on him. If convicted on all charges, he faces 14 years in prison.

Unsurprisingly, the mysterious “Dietrich”, who Eriksson said was at the wheel of his million-dollar Ferrari Enzo when it crashed, doesn’t actually appear to exist.

[tags]mobile, gizmondo, stefan eriksson[/tags]

The reverse merger is basically a back-door way to become a public company, and while it’s certainly not always a shady move, it can often be a red flag. For a company with all the baggage of Xero, it is odd that (assuming they’re legit), they’d go down this path, rather than take more precautions to assure people they’re less shady than Gizmondo. It’s probably also worth pointing out that the company that became Tiger Telematics went public in a reverse merger with an OTC BB company in 2001. That company? Floor Decor LLC, which sold flooring products, and was purchased by Eriksson, Freer and others.

Lilley calls the move “the first step in implementing our ground-breaking business plan”, and, like Engadget Mobile, I’m left wondering what Gizmondo-esque business plan that is: delivering a product that nobody wants, tearing through a half-billion dollars of investment, spending money on hot cars, then skipping the country and the payments, or what?

What’s also unclear is the status of the intellectual property behind Smart Adds (again assuming it’s relevant to Xero and actually worth anything), which Tiger Telematics used to secure debt back in January. That was dependent on Tiger being able to raise $75 million by the end of March, and an SEC filing from mid-March says the company “has been unable to consummate such necessary equity arrangements”.

It goes on to say that Tiger Telematics essentially traded the Smart Adds IPR in exchange for being released from $24 million in debts to a couple of UK-based investors, Simon Davies and David Warnock. So a few questions:

- What is the Smart Adds IP? As far as I can tell, it’s a couple of US patent applications (see here and here) filed by Carl Freer regarding the delivery of content and ads to mobile devices.

- Is the IP relevant to Xero? Not clear. One thing is obvious — these are just applications, and haven’t been approved yet. I don’t want to comment on the chances they’ll be approved, as I’m no expert in reading patent applications, but I can see how they could be construed as being relevant to Xero, though it would appear that if that’s the case, they’d be relevant to all sorts of mobile advertising and content.

- How do Davies and Warnock enter into things? They’ve basically been stiffed for tens of millions, and are left with two patent applications that may or may not be worth anything. It’s hard to imagine they’d look too kindly on a bunch of ex-Gizmondo bigwigs trying to profit from a similar idea.

- Has Xero actually raised $300 million? And if so, who gave it to them? The $300 million figure came from a single blog post based on an unnamed source. I want to make it clear I’m not pointing fingers at Andy Abramson, who wrote the post, but rather just pointing out that it’s not been verified, least of which by Xero itself. The company’s press release regarding its reverse merger is the extent of its investor-relations efforts, and I’ve been unable to find any information at all on this Desi TV Inc. with which it reverse-merged. So we’re left with a public company that’s “pre-revenue” and appears to have made no financial disclosures at all — which, by now, seems like par for the course in this whole sordid tale.

Meanwhile, trouble continues to mount for Eriksson. Sheriff’s officials found a gun and a substance they believe to be cocaine in his house, and now US immigration and customs authorities are also investigating him. Prosecutors, however, have delayed a decision on whether to file grand theft charges against Eriksson. They say they need more time to look through complex paperwork regarding his fancy cars, and after spending the morning trying to dig up more info on Xero and Gizmondo, I don’t find it hard to believe.

[tags]mobile, gizmondo, stefan eriksson, carl freer, xero[/tags]

A British newspaper says that the cars were leased by Gizmondo, and that the company spent a total of £2 million on auto leasing in 2005. It also adds that Gizmondo’s former CEO, Carl Freer, is being sued by a London law firm for £517,000 in unpaid bills. Freer apparently has also set up shop in the Los Angeles area.

And finally, the San Francisco Chronicle’s got a nice recap of the whole story, adding in another mysterious character, an Irishman named Trevor Karney, who showed up at the scene of the original accident and allegedly left behind a fully loaded Glock handgun magazine jammed under the seat of another car. According to police, Karney fled for Ireland — on a luxury yacht.

Stay tuned for more…

[tags]gizmondo, eriksson, enzo, mobile[/tags]

Stefan Eriksson just can’t catch a break. The beleaguered Ex-Gizmondo boss has run into another spot of bother, as Beverly Hills police Sunday confiscated his Mercedes SLR. Officers pulled the car, driven by Eriksson’s wife, over Sunday after its European license plates caught their eye. They then found that Eriksson’s wife didn’t have a drivers’ license, nor was the car actually registered in the US.

This, of course, is the SLR that Scotland Yard had said earlier was stolen — at the same time it was reported that the ill-fated Enzo may have been exported to the US in an attempt to keep it from being repossessed. I’m no criminal genius, but I’d think that after all the attention this case has gotten, it would probably be best not to be driving around an unregistered $400,000 car without a driver’s license. But hey, that’s just me.

Spong reports that Eriksson is expected to face deportation proceedings should he be hit with charges of DWI and filing a false police report.

(Photo from 13-year-old car buff Spyder Dobrofsky, who happened to be at the scene)

[tags]gizmondo, eriksson, enzo, slr[/tags]

Here’s what authorities know now: the mysterious “Dietrich”, who Eriksson said was driving the car and fled the scene after the crash — surprise, surprise — doesn’t seem to exist. There was another guy in the car, identified as one Trevor Karney, and he or Eriksson were apparently videotaping their exploits as they raced at over 160 mph down the Pacific Coast Highway.

I guess it wouldn’t be the first time somebody from LA’s gotten in trouble after videotaping themselves doing something. In any case, we’re still awaiting the results of the DNA test on the blood found on the driver’s airbag in the Enzo to see if it matches a sample taken from Eriksson.

It’s been about a week, so it’s time for more twists in the story of former Gizmondo CEO Stefan Eriksson. Eriksson, you’ll remember, was involved in the 160+ mph crash of a million-dollar Ferrari Enzo, which may or may not have really been his, and which he may or may not have been driving. The fact that the actual crash occurred is pretty much the only thing that’s clear. The rest of the story’s been filled with bizarre developments — and it doesn’t look like they’re going to stop anytime soon.

Let’s get the mundane details out of the way first. Police now say that there was no Mercedes SLR, which was up to this point believed to be racing the Enzo at the time of the crash. They also now say there were two people in the Enzo when it was obliterated, but still believe Eriksson — who’s not yet been charged with anything — was driving. There was blood on the driver’s side airbag, and he’s submitted a sample of his DNA for comparison.

Now the fun stuff: Eriksson told sheriff’s deputies at the scene of the crash that he is the “deputy commissioner of the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority’s police anti-terrorism unit”. Uh. Okay.

The San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority is a private non-profit group that provides free bus rides to the disabled, elderly and poor in a small part of the LA area. It’s unclear exactly why it needs a police department (its site is dead, link to Google cache), if it’s operating legally, or indeed, if it even actually exists. The Transit Authority itself is run out of an auto repair shop, while Eriksson’s civil attorney is its chairman.

Just like the rest of the story, none of this is straightforward, particularly Eriksson’s anti-terrorism connections. Apparently just after the crash, two men identifying themselves as “homeland security” showed up at the scene and talked to Eriksson. Police now believe they were from the mysterious transit-authority police.

The water just gets murkier and murkier, but it’s nearly impossible to take anything Eriksson says at face value. But a note to any terrorists thinking of using the San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority as a target: it’s probably best just to move on and find something else. Everything connected to this guy is trouble.

(Thanks Gustaf, photo from the LA Times)

[tags]gizmondo, stefan eriksson, enzo[/tags]