Dr Batty says he's coming out of the woodwork soon to unleash his spatial networking invention onto the facebook masses.  In other developments, team FOKUS is equally boiling-up some pioneering broth to not only include geospatial contexts but others like presentity, unified calling & conferencing, and instant messaging coupled with geospatial. 

It's not enough these days to talk about what you purportedly walk; the doers must do, walk the walk - as it were.  So in the spirit of learning what we're all about at Sonim for building & selling to other tough-guys who genuinely earn their tag-right everyday, our European Sales Leader (Albert Costilo) suggested we venture into the extreme outdoor challenging environments we tout as mantra to better understand those who live it everyday.  Our destination?  The European Arctic Circle, deep into the Swedish northern wilderness by way of snowmobile. 

Joakim Wiklund (our fearless CTO, mathlete genius, and expat Ericsson inventor - who left them to help Sonim build our phone) helped organize the trip, and he snapped these photos.   Strap on your helmet meat men if you're in for and up to the ride.  Or take the challenge yourself and contact the best of the best team-leaders and builders Swedish toughmen offer from outside the Ice Hotel.  Per and Jesper are awaiting your call.  Hooah!

Hyperlocal content of the citizen-generated variety isn't hard to come by these days, it's harder to filter its abundance for relevancy.  Paul Lamb in the Idea Lab at PBS suggests using mobile GPS/Location to not only filter and automate proxemic distribution, but also to simplify contribution and reporting in the case of hyperlocal news.  These types of location-based symbiotic content management systems can (and should) be used with any community-of-interest information service - here's a couple maritime examples off the cuff - I've been thinking about boats today. 

• A fishing service that uses contributed geotagged multimedia hot spots for anglers.  Today they use radios and backcountry tips usually found in local retail stores
  
• A sailing/boating service that offers regional mariners up-to-date audio media on ports, harbors, anchorages, and prices, plus descriptions of places frequented.  Today most sailors use out-of-date printed sources of information which lack much needed subjectivity and bias based on user experiences
  

With speculations of the good ole days of dedicated GPS device glory coming to an end, and soon, TheStreet.com is reporting that Garmin has joined Apple, and the duo are working on a project code-named Bobcat.  The best at music + the best at GPS Nav.  Hmmm.  What could the next in-vehicle infotainment system look like?  

By now, hopefully you've heard others voice rant against a tyrannical US wireless subscription lockdown and consumer imprisonment over device freedom and choice.  It's indeed the underlying argument for the 700Mhz movement for open access conditions.  There are other carrier-device subtleties overlooked though in the debate and movement - like device price drops - or subscription price lock-in benefits like discounted device upgrades - and other subsidies that further limit your choice and game you to sheepishly succumb and sign your freedom away for a 2 year go-to-jail sentence.  Case in point for these overlooked sentences might well be a phone manufactured by my employer, Sonim.  The device is indestructible, and for US Carriers building consumer loyalty at the expense of devices suppliers reduced to subsidies, it sucks.  Here's why.  Chances are it will last for years [3 years is in fact our warrantee] which means it's not on the same list of other plastics with a 12 month refresh rate common for most wireless users today, which in turn means it's less likely a carrier won't get upgrade subscription dollars.  That's not good - for them. They need to lock you into more contractual obligations for connectivity, and that means more newer device lure more often, which in turn diminishes value for ODMs in the process, which in turn is forcing some to move laterally through the value chain and into content, applications & services businesses, which subsequently screws up the ecosystem for content and app providers vying for a small part of the wireless wallet - all of this is a deadly disease slowly nipping away at all involved.   

So, until the promise of 700Mhz policy offers more wireless freedom-of-choice, Sonim will continue business operations overseas in more open markets because... 

...we don't expect to see it from mobile operators (in the US) - if the phone doesn't eventually break, how would they persuade people to upgrade? - but the XP1 rugged phone should be useful for mobile staff and (let's face it) pretty much anyone.

-TechWorld 

• Magellan Says "Me To" to TomTom with Google
• Garmin Says "Ditto" With Microsoft, but through FM Radio
• Here's 5 reason's Why Both are Wrong
• Garmin Dumps D2C Carrier-Sponsored Distribution Overheads
  
• High Sensitivity in Colorado
• NiM Does WiMax Because There's Nothing Left To Do
• Yahoo! Has Life!, Open's Mobile With Widgets, and Inks Global Data Deal with NT
• TA Still Trying Tired Contests, Launches 3D
• Goodyear Rubber Hits The Road
• SonyEricsson Leaves the Puck Behind
• Mio Is Two-Faced
  
• Sony Bakes in Skype and GPS to PSP
• Intel Wants to Put the Internet in Your Pocket, Qualcomm Knows That Card

With all the hubbub around openness - open networks, open business models, open sources of software, open platforms, and lots of open mouths about them all, I've come to the conclusion this is all more about a struggle over power and establishments than technology, with the decentralized under empowered gaining the strategic advantage and setting the tempo for conflict. There are thousands of coders out there always looking for the next opensource offering that holds the promise of disintermediating the established licensor's of royalty based bliss despised by those on the opposite side of the receiving end.   And the opposite side is good, really good at what they do because it's a shared mission, with a singular objective that can't be defeated.  Google knows this, and Android is the weapon.  Dash does to, and Openmoko is theirs... uh I mean ours. 

So I agree, and because I do, here's a quick survey...  How many of you would prefer to code with MicroEmulator over Java ME tools from Sun?  Answers will be taken quite seriously, and I will include the chosen in the next version of product.