If you’re one of the many who have been waiting impatiently for mobile Internet to take off, you’ll be excited by the news that (after much investment and talk) wireless broadband Internet services are finally coming of age.

Combining the Internet with mobile technology can now deliver a high speed - and high quality - wireless Internet service. This technology lets you browse the internet on your mobile, with the same ease and speed at which you’d surf the Web from your PC at home. Check your emails, download songs and ringtones, play online games, read news online…

The question is: Who will make the most of this opportunity in the global market? Which giant (take your pick from Google, Microsoft, Apple and Nokia) will be dominant? And will there soon be fierce competition in the New Zealand market?

The Gphone - a phone built on a Google open software platform - will allow the Internet heavyweight to extend the power of its online advertising into the mobile realm. Mobile phone giant, Nokia, is expected to introduce mobile Internet services for ‘entertainment on the run’ - from music and video sharing to gaming. Yahoo is pushing to refine its mobile search technology and team up with a telco operator.

Mobile Internet technology was top of the agenda at the Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona this week, where Telstra Australia emerged as a downunder forward-thinking telecommunications company. Faced with dropping market share and flat revenue, Telstra’s focus has shifted to mobile broadband capabilities. Download speeds of 21 Mbps (megabits per second) are planned for later this year, with faster 42 Mbps speeds from 2009.

And while there are currently few mobile phone devices on the market that can support the new technology, launching the A$1.1 billion Next G wireless high speed Internet service places them at the cutting edge - this is a gamble that will surely pay off. Look to Telecom and other New Zealand providers to take similar steps forward in the sphere of mobile phone technology this year.

Image from Flickr.

Online and computer security has been a hot topic of late, with online banking security and spyware the major issues.

The latest problem with spyware is not from hackers or malicious website, but from the people you know and possibly live with. Most notably, suspicious spouses who turn to spyware to monitor their partners every online move, such as website visits, emails, chats, online searches, keystrokes and even activity on popular online social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and Bebo.

Cases of domestic abuse and stalking through spyware and surveillance of Internet use have already been documented. In these situations, information gathered was then used to intimidate or control a partner.

There are many forms of Internet security that can protect you from spyware, phishers, trojans, viruses and worms - our computer security section is a great place to start.

Now that you’ve got your new year’s resolutions sorted out, it’s time to make your predictions for Internet trends, developments and happenings in 2008. Surf the Web and you’ll find countless predictions - from top analysts to beginner bloggers, and anyone interested in the online world. Just some of the developments may be in…

Social networking
One of the biggest Internet news stories of 2007 was Facebook, whose social networking and profile site defined the shift towards a global networking community. During the coming year, established social networking sites will consolidate themselves, and new faces may emerge to compete (although any success is unlikely against the big players).

And if you’re one of the many people with profiles on several community sites - Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube - you’ll benefit from the possible emergence of tools that will allow you to update all your online identities from one place. You’ll save time (no more social bookmarking nightmares!) and increase the efficiency of your social networking.

Search
Fundamental to the discovery and gathering of information online, Internet search is here to stay. Watch for major search engines adopting new algorithms, as well as offering solutions for a more personalised search experience through customisation of public search engine tools.

Advertising will also become increasingly integrated into the online search environment, as will search results in a wide range of visual media (note Google’s adoption of search results featuring images and online video clips). While Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) will remain an essential part of marketing online, Google PageRank and link weighting are both expected to decrease in power, as part of a global trend to control spam and improve relevancy of results.

Video sharing and TV online
A key feature of the increasingly interactive online world has been the success of video sharing sites such as YouTube. In the year from late 2006 to late 2007, the number of users watching online videos grew by 45% - a trend which is expected to continue in 2008 with the higher speeds and increased adoption of broadband Internet.

Far from being the realm of amateur entertainment, this field has become a vehicle for music videos, lectures, alternative news sources, television and movie clips, and much, much more. Access to television online through Web based television channels and independent online TV programming will grow in 2008; watch for the first successful 100% online television show.

Online advertising
Advertising on the Internet can be subtle or obvious; whichever the case, it’s there in some form and is part of almost every user’s online experience. The coming year will see a continuation of recent growth in this field; as mentioned in an earlier post on Internet advertising, investment in online advertising space is growing rapidly, while spending in traditional advertising media is expected to showing a corresponding decrease.

We look forward to a year of exciting developments in the Web world!

The new Windows operating system (OS for short), Windows Vista, was launched on the 30th of January 2007 in what Microsoft described as “the most significant product launch in Microsoft history.”

Since then, early adopters have been buying Windows Vista and most new PC’s on the shelves in New Zealand stores are pre-loaded with the operating system.

The NZS.com statistics from October 2007 show that 8.59% of Windows users are accessing NZS.com from PC’s with the Vista OS and a whopping 84.09% are still using Windows XP.

So, what are the differences in the new(ish) Windows Vista OS?

• Easy on the eye - the new Aero interface is visually enticing, with a clean, modern look.
• Desktop search functionality - this helps users find information on their PC’s and organize them using handy virtual folders. It’s easier to identify documents using their icons, which now display the first page of the document.
• Advanced document framework - XPS makes it easier to use and share documents between a variety of devices.
• Enhancements for portable computers - including better power management, support for external displays and improved wireless networking capability.
• Better security - Vista incorporates defence tools to protect your PC from spyware, adware, phishing attacks and other electronic threats. It also includes better backup facilities for your files and defaults to a User Account Protection mode, meaning password authorisation is required for any changes that will affect your OS.
• Entertainment and multimedia tools - there are excellent new versions of Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker, as well as new applications like Windows Photo Gallery and Windows DVD Maker.

And what’s with the name? Well, according to Microsoft, the Vista branding comes from a desire to bring users an OS that lets your PC “adapt to you and help you cut through the clutter to focus on what’s important to you. That’s what Windows Vista is all about: bringing clarity to your world, so you can focus on what matters to you.” So, you can look through your own personal, customised Window.

Browse the directory for New Zealand computer stores.

New Zealand Internet Service Providers are doing all they can to convince us that broadband is better, but when it comes to the crunch, we’re not happy.

Fewer than 50% of Xtra customers are satisfied with the service they receive from Telecom, according to a Consumers’ Institute survey of 10,000 Internet users. For the third year in a row, Xtra was placed last in the battle of the Internet providers, with just 42% of customers rating its performance as ‘good’ or ‘very good.’ Satisfaction has dropped from 55% in 2006 and 78% in 2005. Xtra has faced a number of crises over the last year - earlier in the year Xtra’s merger with Yahoo caused massive glitches with email service, and on Sunday, outages meant emergency service staff were forced to use pen and paper…

The news wasn’t good for New Zealand ISPs in general either: dissatisfaction is rife amongst Internet customers. As ISP’s promise more, expectations are raised and so too, it seems, is disappointment. Broadband speed and the cost of Internet plans were the main areas of dissatisfaction. Consumers’ Institute chief executive Sue Chetwin says:

“Broadband users have been promised so much in terms of faster speeds, larger data caps, and cheaper pricing, but our survey shows that most customers think they’re getting a rough deal. And compared with overseas, there’s no doubt they are.”

Telecom has said it is disappointed with the survey results (well, they were hardly going to be over the moon, were they?) and believe a recently announced $1.4 billion investment plan will result in a faster broadband technology platform for New Zealand customers.

On the upside, Inspire found favour with its customers for the fourth year in a row, inspiring 94% of customers to report they were happy with the ISP’s performance. Actrix and Maxnet also rated very well.

Later today the New Zealand Open Source Awards are being held in Wellington. The Awards, sponsored by Google, Red Hat, Catalyst IT and a number of other local organisations, attracted over 130 entries in the following categories:

• Open Source Ambassador
• Open Source Contributor
• Open Source Software Project
• Open Source Use in Government
• Open Source Use in Business
• Open Source Use in Education
• Open Source Use for Community Organisations
• Open Source for Creativity

Thirty-two finalists have been picked in the above categories. Congratulations to all those who have succeeded in being nominated as finalists.

The extension of daylight savings this year is being welcomed by most New Zealanders, but it’s already causing lost sleep at night for some software providers, as computers are set to automatically change the time based on the standard time changes to date.

So, what to do about it? The New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs has written to key software providers about the change, although we can all imagine how slow that update is going to be!

On the DIA website you can find a link to Microsoft Resources for updating Daylight Savings changes.

This weekend a worldwide event called Software Freedom Day will be held to publicise open source and free software. Here in New Zealand, we have a handful of events being organised by local enthusiasts. So, if you want to find out more about open source and free software, then go along to one of the events.

Software Freedom Day is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the importance of software freedom and the virtues and availability of free and open source software. Local teams from all over the world organise events on the third Saturday in September.

Courtesy of the well known New Zealand blogger Rod Drury an Auckland based group, Kordia, is planning on launching Wi-Fi hotspots which will cover the entire CBD in cities around New Zealand.

Set to roll out at first across Auckland and Taupo, the company is describing the system as “a nationwide network of smart radio nodes that will deliver wireless access ‘hot-zones’ across target areas like university campuses, city CBD’s, shopping precincts, transportation hubs and more.”

It was at least three years ago that I first came across free Wi-Fi while travelling through the US (staying in Beverley Hills) which was supported by adverts surrounding the web-browsing experience. Hopefully this type of advert sponsored wireless Internet access could take off in New Zealand one day.

Recently, there has been a move made by Microsoft to get their digital document format OpenXML accepted as a standard by the International Standards Organisation (ISO). There have been many descriptions of how this format contains components that are proprietary and can’t be implemented by anybody other than Microsoft. Acceptance as a standard means that a government may, more easily, accept and prescribe it as mandatory for any communications. This, in turn, will mean that anybody who communicates with that government must use Microsoft’s software.

So, this can mean only that: the user’s choice is more limited, innovation is stifled, and the government is left vulnerable to the vagaries of the vendors’ business decisions in the future.

Yesterday Standards NZ decided to vote ‘no’ to the OpenXML standard proposed by Microsoft in competition with the present ODF standard. Congrats for making the right decision in the face of a tirade of PR noise. Let’s hope we avoid the Swedish situation and keep some sanity.

Who knows Microsoft might actually be forced to implement the present standard!