Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology

Dedicated ebook readers have cautiously been peeking above the horizon for several years, but so far few consumers have noticed or cared. I still use my trusty old Nuvomedia Rocket eBook, purchased 1999, but it's no question there are way better alternatives available today that are easier on the eye, the wallet and the hand, so the likelihood of buying a new device this year is pretty high.

Instead of reading books digitally, most are listening to audio books, as an alternative to using the trusty old method of reading books on paper. Even so, there's also potential in providing literature and fact books as text and pictures for reading on a portable device. There's not an abundance of dedicated ebook readers, consumers probably also are hesitant to buy yet another device, and it's possible to read ebooks on PDAs, mobile phones and PCs, but there certainly are such dedicated devices worth considering that are more optimized for reading than combo devices.

These devices are potentially also useful for browsing and reading magazines, of course downloaded.

Most use eInk, a technology that uses small colored balls that are turned electrically based on whether a light or dark (and something in between) pixel should be shown. After having been set the pixel retains its state after switching power off, making it very power efficient. As eInk doesn't use backlight but instead the surrounding light, and the contrast is very high, it's like reading on paper.

Even though there are clear benefits with eInk, the technology so far also has rather annoying drawbacks:

• updating is very slow; forget animations, videos and snappy page-turning
• many gray and color levels can't so far be achieved

A few available ebook readers:

• Amazon Kindle
• Bookeen Cybook Gen3
• eSlick Reader
• iRex iLiad
• Sony Reader

Unfortunately the term iBook is used for Apple's laptop computers, so the question is what Apple would call an ebook reader, if they ever release one. iRead(er)? iView(er)? All taken though.

Down the road there will be reading devices (if they then even will be considered devices) using flexible plastic displays, that can be rolled out from a scroll-like roll. The movie Red Planet has provided the best depiction of how such reading devices can be used.

Requirements of mine for dedicated ebook readers:

• At least 6" screen (for literature)
• At least 800 by 480 resolution
• At least 8 gray levels for text anti-aliasing and discernable pictures
• Solid state memory; a hard drive is way too heavy
• At least 256 MB of Flash, extendable to multiple GBs
• Support non-DRMed files in text, HTML and PDF formats, uploaded from a PC; remember that the success of the iPod was not due to iTunes, but due to MP3 (and the abundance of "free" music in that format); personal documents could be viewed on such a device beside the PC or outside etc.
• Possible to use as an audio/music player (reading while listening to music, or listening to audio books)
• Integrated English dictionary, but possible to add other languages, that works by touching a word in the book/magazine and having it explained
• Integrated RSS feed and browser applications; e-mail would also be nice etc
• Wi-FI and USB for connectivity; possible to completely turn off both (ideally automatically) for low power consumption
• Possibly Bluetooth, for using a wireless headset and transferring content via a mobile phone

Note that literature doesn't require much memory, so 256 MB is quite a lot (~500 books in text format). Fact books and magazines take way more memory due to the pictures.

I found this useful list of cheat sheets for a number of programming and markup languages:
Cheat Sheet Roundup - Over 30 Cheatsheets for developers

There are some that are in printing format (Letter or A4), but most are free-form and best viewed on the screen.

PC World speculates that ASUS, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba might have Android phones out already during summer.

In my opinion Windows Mobile is doomed, primarily because Microsoft doesn't understand mobile beyond office/business use, Windows Mobile is too expensive to license, and because of much more activity around Mac OS X, Android and Series 60.

Note though that Android is not yet a complete mobile phone platform like Windows Mobile and Series 60, as it still lacks a lot of the bundled applications they sport.

I truly hope Android will not become of a fragmented mess of manufacturer-developed applications and different user experiences. If so, it will be a walk in the park for Apple, even though they've skipped mobile functionality like MMS, MIDlets etc. Not that lack of MIDlet support really matters anymore, and I guess photos and videos are sent via e-mail.

Most phone manufacturers have joined Open Handset Alliance, but notably not Nokia.

I would recommend Sony Ericsson to focus entirely on Android for future smartphones. Even though Series 60 is open source, it still has Nokia written all over it, and Windows Mobile is as proposed a bad choice in any case.

GSMA has published the nominees for this year's Global Mobile Awards. The awards will be handed out at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Global Mobile Awards 2009– Shortlists

iPhone is not nonimated for best handset. Interesting. Or maybe it had to be released 2008.

Interesting also that no software solutions are nominated for best technology breakthrough.

10 creative mobile applications that broaden what location can be used for. Even though dedicated navigation devices sell like hot cake, and have much better GPS sensitivity, they clearly are not as flexible as mobile phones. All applications rely on GPS rather than cell positioning as far as I can see.

Inside the GPS Revolution: 10 Applications That Make the Most of Location

If you by any chance program in Python and need a cheat sheet:
Python Refcard

Python is e.g. used in mobile modules from Telit, so that the modules can act on their own without any PC or other computer connected, making the complete solution very small. Such modules can be found in cars, containers, weather stations etc.

Really any expensive and mobile (as in movable) equipment should have one to simplify tracking if stolen.

The use in weather stations and similar is practical to avoid having to pull a long phone line to the middle of nowhere. Especially if the station is powered by solar cells, it becomes completely autonomous this way.

The same technology could also be used to continuously photograph far away places (preferably on the demand, which would be easily done via an MT SMS), like mountain slopes, to see if there's risk for an avalanche, or be put on buoys at sea, to see if the water freezes (unless the module freezes first), etc.

There are even mobile modules with GPS and HSDPA.

The hype's (sorry, sky's...) the limit, or maybe rather the mobile network coverage.

From the winners in an Android application development contest:
Google Android: Favorite Features & What’s Yet to Come

Interesting to find that access to Google Maps via an API was applauded. I had to code it from scratch for my MIDlets, which wasn't extremely hard, but annoying all the same. Anything that cuts development and testing time is good.

I have nothing negative to say about the choice of Java as platform and language, even though it's a special flavor of Java UI being deployed, and even though it's a bit less effective than off-line-compiled C/C++ code.

Lots of interesting stuff at FierceDeveloper today, or am I just lazy?

Can Windows Mobile 6.5 reinvent the user experience?
So far Microsoft's attempts to provide an intuitive mobile user experience has been flawed and the "weight" of the platform has always been at the edge of what the current CPU and memory technology can muster for a reasonable price, but will 6.5 be different? I'm sure they've looked at the iPhone UI, but hexagonally navigated application icons? Doesn't sound like a smart choice.
"Mobile previously appealed to enterprise users, the firm is now more aggressively targeting the consumer demographic dominated by rival Apple's iPhone"
Good decision, albeit reactive.

RIM: Software bugs are the 'new reality' of manufacturing
"The Storm proved particularly demanding because it represents RIM's first-ever touchscreen devices, necessitating the addition of new hardware, including an accelerometer."
The issues are not caused by these new hardware features, that are well-known and easy to make driver for, but adapting all the applications to the touchscreen paradigm and being able to handle auto-turning of display contents (if it now supports that).

App Store tops 15,000 app mark--800 for Android Market
I'm not much for Apple's over-designed and over-priced PCs, but I have to admit they did a magnificent job designing the iPhone. Part of the success was to completely ignore operator and other external requirements and focus completely on how to make the iPhone a good user experience troughout (not saying it's perfect, but remember it's Apple's first ... phone ... ever; impressive feat indeed) and a revenue generator for Apple through the complementing content services.

The G1 is a nice phone, but as phone manufacturers can design Android in different ways, the experience will not be as consistent across phones as the iPhone. Neither will it generate as much revenue to the mother company as the iPhone, as there are more parties sharing the revenue.

15000 applications at AppStore in such a short time is amazing. A lot is garbage of course, but even so ... It's taken a very long time for there to be a sizeable amount of MIDlets for "normal" mobile phones. GetJar says they have 33k+ applications, but remember that GetJar primarly provides free applications. They don't even have a way to pay for the applications! A huge blunder in my opinion. ClickApps hasn't made that mistake though.

Five things all iPhone and Android developers need to know
More on iPhone / Android. A mistake most such helper articles make is that they look from the bottom up, comparing features of the platforms, while the only thing that really counts is how big market can be reached and how willing users are (and how simple it is) to download and purchase applications. I'm sure it's possible to be successful on either platform. We are clearly moving into a new paradigm, where people start to understand mobile applications...

Study: Setup complexities limit mobile app takeup
...and MIDlets admittedly and sadly come up short in this regard, due to reduced access to phone features compared to all other types of downloaded phone applications, as well as lack of easy to use application stores and paranoid and ineffective permission warnings from the phone.

Sun expands mobile Java efforts
JavaFX Mobile sounds nice, decreasing application development complexity, but where are the phones?

It's hard to be non-political in this time of change, but I promise, this will be the only such statement in this blog, and I'm aware a lot of people won't agree with me.

Barack Obama as President and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State sounds like a winning team indeed for U.S. going forward. Also, closing Guantanamo in a year is a very concrete and symbolic action and indicator of possible positive changes ahead, although it could have been done faster.

What I also hope will happen in/by the USA (the sooner the better):

• In general: Move money from funding wars, to efforts to reconstruct the country and get independent of foreign control and money.
• Stop financing the so called war on terror. Fighting Al Qaida just strengthens their initially irrational, but now very concrete, USA hatred. Supposedly Usama bin Ladin still lives, so give it up. By the way: Who sells weapons to these people?
• Drop all funding of Israel, that mainly goes to weapons.
• Spend the recouped money on restoring USA.
• Get independent of oil as much as possible.
• Start repaying the huge debt that's now over 10 trillion, and that makes other countries own big chunks of USA (not the least China and the Middle East). E.g. supposedly poor Mexico is loaning a lot of money to supposedly rich USA. Isn't that weird?
• Strictly control the medical industry to avoid outrageous prices on medicine, and that way lowering government spending.
• Disconnect UN from USA control. USA is now like a blanket over UN, that doesn't dare to do anything without USA's consent, and especially not against countries that USA favor for whatever reason (e.g. Israel).
• Make weapons sales and war-mongering illegal. Well, I guess I "blew a fuse" there, but it's the only way to get some control over the "conflict escalation through easy weapons access and funding via foreign aid" issue that is especially prevalent in Africa.
• Help North Korea see the light and neutralize/diplomatize the paranoid government that thinks (or at least makes its own people think, 1984-style) USA will blow the country up any day.
• Educate your people of the world outside the USA borders. The ignorance is almost total, which makes religion, manipulation, misconceptions and fear have more power than facts and rational thinking.
• Prosecute the previous government for starting and maintaining the war on Iraq under false pretences.

It's tough times when even Microsoft has to sack people (5000 in this round).

It's neither going well for Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and others, according to today's news.

A wild guess, but I expect Sony Ericsson and Motorola (the phone division that is) to be acquired during 2009. Sony Ericsson is likely to become Sony mobile phone division.

Not that Sony has ever been successful with mobile phones outside of Japan, if even there.

I doubt though that Nokia would buy a competitor. It wouldn't make much sense, except in terms of Motorola: to get back into the CDMA game and get rid of the main ULC competitor.

Update 1:

And not that Sony has any money to pay Ericsson for their share of Sony Ericsson.

Update 2:

And not that operators go unaffected either:
Sprint Nextel to Cut 8,000 Jobs

We all know about...

• subscription-based mobile content services for children and teens
• click ads that cost money for the user (unless you have a flatrate sub) even without clicking on them, and that look like the site's own links
• Blue-casting/spamming etc that requires shutting off Bluetooth visibility to avoid, and most users are unaware

...ethically arguable, especially the first (it seems to be the only way to get a profit on content sales, unless you combine such sales with a social network service or other user-retaining service), but increasingly prevalent.

We in the industry, that obviously want to promote all means of mobile marketing/advertising and build revenue on that, are also end-users, so it's important to ask ourselves what we would accept as users/consumers.

Case in point: AT&T, in a drive to promote American Idol, made the blunder of sending out "heads up" SMSs to people they had (somehow) received mobile numbers from, yet in many cases without the recipients having watched American Idol, or felt they had any other reason to get any message.

I've seen this in my own work as well, so be very careful when sending out SMSs to consumers. There HAS to be a connection to something the user has participated in and ideally they should have specifically opted in to get such information, and even then (and this is VERY important) it needs to be very clear who sent the SMS (the consumer brand, not the technology provider) and why the user got it, and what the user might gain. In this context, being able to win something always helps. Everybody wants to win something. Even rich people get excited and proud about winning an iPod, cinema ticket or similar inexpensive item, as they feel selected, and free stuff is always appreciated.

In a corporate setting this is easier to handle if it's clearly stated beforehand that newsletters will be provided via SMS to all employees (and again that the SMS states the source, and hopefully the message contains something of value to the employees, and not just what golf courses upper management played the week before). Also, corporate messages will be more continuous. When addressing consumers it's less constrained, but then also easier to make a major goof-up due to the spread and risk of detachment.

Even though companies claim they have the right to send out SMSs this way, it can fall back on the technology provider, so a certain level of sanity check is needed by the provider of the technology as well.

There are companies that sell mobile numbers for such use, and that claim they have numbers for a large part of the population, that supposedly all have opted in. How? I've personally never been asked to opt in to any generic "I want any kind of information via SMS" service.

Raw SMS providers like Ericsson IPX, mBlox etc (that are completely invisible to the end-users) don't do any such checking, but for companies focused on mobile marketing it can actually put a dent in the credibility to allow seemingly "random" bulk SMS.

Regarding Bluetooth marketing: The note suggests that MMA can be trusted for policing the industry, but there's still work to be done in terms of understanding the average user:
"when consumers enable their [Bluetooth] visibility they are already seeking something, at that point they are expecting engagement"
That's simply not true. Users keep their phones visible anyway, if at all they have Bluetooth enabled. Over time users will learn to shut off Bluetooth visibility when such interaction is not interesting, but in the mean time there will be AT&T-like bloopers, yet at a smaller scale.

I see Bluetooth marketing as a very good fit for stores, where rebates can be received when entering. That's a positive message, so I believe consumers would accept that. This is also a lower risk area for SMS messages (also e.g. with rebate coupons etc), as the consumer could have opted in to such messages on the consumer club site, as part of the club member user profile. Also an opt-out SMS like "This is a message from CheapMart. Reply if you want to get information about rebates etc from CheapMart via SMS. It doesn't cost you anything." would be rather non-intrusive, provided the consumer at all buys at CheapMart.

Mobile marketing is still somewhat of a mine-field and the market is immature, but over time the industry will find good ways to market via mobile phones. Before that happens it will be a bit bumpy. I believe MMA can do a good job at determining guidelines that are acceptable for both providers and consumers.

Sony Ericsson's less than stellar result hasn't gone unnoticed, so here are a few pointers to what Sony Ericsson could do. Similar advice could be given to Motorola:

Focus on one "smartphone" platform only. It's amazingly expensive to make platform enhancements and applications for more than one. And note that this would in any case be on top of existing support for MIDlets.

Don't let operators control the feature set. Rather focus on what users need:

• Support for all social network, chat, photo and video services.
• Support for Skype etc via Wi-Fi (if such exists).
• Support established multimedia formats: MP3, AAC (with Apple DRM), MP4 (DivX, XviD), Full Flash (in the browser), etc.
• Regarding video: Scale the format in real time in the phone. Don't force users to scale beforehand on a PC, as it's a usage show-stopper.

Develop/license/steal/borrow value-added applications to provide via Sony Ericsson's own content/application store.

Don't just talk emerging markets. Do something! And balance phone features with the consumer price. Very few need more than voice and SMS. Voice and SMS require very little in terms of hardware and software real estate, hence making the phones profitable despite the low price. Just look at Nokia with phones from $40 without sub.

Get off the desperate "if we can't sell low-priced phones, maybe we can sell expensive ones with a gazillion mega-pixels"-trap that Samsung fell into a couple of years ago.

Make a straight (but hopefully better) iPhone copy focused on multimedia (both music and video) and expand the content/app store.

Stick out by making low-cost multimedia phones optimized for the younger demographics, and hence chip a few grains off of Nokia's market share. Focus on this instead of office users.

I recently needed a support number in the UK to fulfil requirements on Premium SMS there, and found that Skype's online number feature fit the bill perfectly.

3 months is 15 Euro, 12 months is 50 Euro, and no extra costs. I could choose my own number, yet from a very limited set of numbers.

After having set this up I let all incoming calls re-direct to my mobile phone, meaning I didn't have to use Skype for receiving calls at all.

Neat for temporary/transient situations where you need to have a local number, and clearly much faster and less expensive than setting up the number via an operator, or for that matter, a local office. Works for other countries too of course.

Mobile Labs Sweden AB is one of the companies I'm involved in (see also my previous note about mm3). In Mobile Labs I'm CEO and co-founder.

We will exhibit in TAT's booth at Mobile World Congress. TAT's Cascades and Kastor are code libaries providing advanced graphics and user interaction for mobile phones (and I guess other mobile devices as well), and they've been very successful with their offerings.

We've integrated the v-rocs product suite into Cascades, and that way provided advanced text support for Cascades.

TAT stands for The Astonishing Tribe, if you wondered.

As my NetBeans page got featured at netbeans.org I of course had to update the Java ME and NetBeans information in an attempt to avoid emberrassment, sleepless nights and receiving angry e-mails from my relatives. It was some time since 5.5 was the top of the line.

The only page not yet in sync is the NetBeans tutorial, even though it's probably still somewhat useful.

Java ME - NetBeans

There's a thin line between social network services that you participate in for wasting time and finding friends and the like, versus services you can safely use for managing your business contacts and presenting your company.

What follows is my opinion about a few of the most popular ones. If you know of others please let me know. All the listed services are useful without paying anything.

LinkedIn - The most professional and established service, initially only for one-on-one contact exchanging, but that now also provides groups and applications like Facebook. It really serves as an on-line resume, so it's recommended if you are at all dealing with contacts outside daily physical reach. My LinkedIn page.

Plaxo - A LinkedIn copy-cat that has similar functionality, but being a late-comer, way less of my contacts and colleagues are there, which is a generic problem for any Web service that is second or worse, unless the functionality is clearly better or different. Preferably be here as well. My Plaxo page.

Facebook - Only arguably useful for business contacts. It's probably better (from a professional standpoint) to announce your company here than yourself, at least if you do B2C. You can set up a group for your company, or a topic your company covers, and others can sign up to the group. Avoid mixing signing up to both professional and personal/private groups (based on my own experience). Don't forget that Facebook owns what you publish. My Facebook page.

MySpace - Stay away! Being there in your business persona (or at all) is a direct reputation risk, unless you're a musician. Use an alias otherwise. Officially I'm not there.

I spotted by chance that Abiro is (today's?) featured partner at netbeans.org. The link goes directly to my NetBeans info.

It will hopefully generate some traffic.





It's time to update the info as well, considering 6.5 is now released.

Linux has had a stigma of being hard to install and use, so I was a bit concerned that I would have to spend a day or so fixing problems, but not so with Ubuntu.

I installed the latest version on a Dell laptop with an existing Vista installation. The installation wizard created a dual boot partition for Ubuntu, and I only had to reboot twice (once after the installation and once after downloading the latest updates) for the installation to be fully completed.

Included in the kit is OpenOffice, but no development tools. Tools like Eclipse or NetBeans (my favorite) are obvious choices to get started with that.

First watches became obsolete because of the clock in mobile phones. Now there are watches that are also mobile phones. I doubt though that I would like to be caught wearing one of these less than right-sized, more than nerdy, watches. I didn't find any with GPS though. Would be nice, but it would probably require constant charging of the battery.

ComputerWorld: The wristwatch strikes back!

Gizmodo: Phenom SpecialOps Cellphone Watch: A Tacit Booyah

$300 without sub. Not too bad, considering a watch is $10 and a phone with these features is $80-100. Or maybe not...
Phenom: SpecialOPS Black

Not weight as in becoming bloatware (or vaporware for that matter), but as in becoming more important. In other words more proof that things are moving the right way in terms of using mobile phones as channels for communicating commercial messages to consumers.

Recession may move mobile ad market away from branding

Mobile marketing will be even more interactive and measurable than Internet ditto and infinitely more so than TV, radio and magazine ditto.

At mm3 we've noted that most campaigns are interactive (contests, voting etc) even if the purpose is still to build brand.

See also the previous post (if you missed it).

Mobile phones are already well suited for coupons and tickets as a replacement for paper ditto. Many talk about NFC as a requirement for this to work, which is bullocks. SMS, MMS or SMS combined with a mobile page are quite sufficient as long as the code shown in the coupon/ticket can be read manually or as a barcode via a camera.

This article indicates mobile coupons will grow steadily in USA and Europe, which is promising.

RCR Wireless News: Economic downturn bodes well for mobile coupon companies

mm3 entered this market last summer, and has so far done a few smaller coupon campaigns. We are still to see larger and more consistent campaigns.

NPD Group asked mobile phone users if they knew about multimedia features of their phones, as usual more looking at the specific technologies than the use cases. The answers still don't show how the phones are used.

As the features will not disappear in the future, rather more will be added, it would be more relevant to ask how users use the features that exist, if at all (assume all questions end with "on/via your mobile" etc):
"Do you play music?"
"Have you accessed a social network service?"
"Have you taken a photo or recorded a video?"
"Have you sent such photos or videos to someone else?"
"What method did you use?"
"Have you sent such photos or videos to a social network service?"
"Which one(s)?"
"Have you watched any videos from YouTube or similar?"
"Do you have your own own mobile site (via WinkSite or other)?"
"Do you use any navigation application?"
etc etc

Maybe NPD can use this list as a start.

The percentage would though be even lower if so, but the responses would be more interesting, especially if split up on age groups.

Quite interesting stuff here. Recent examples:

This is a must read for anyone into mobile marketing. Might be a bit US-biased.
SWOT analysis of mobile marketing for 2009

Mobile Web grows eight times faster than wired Web: British study
Mobile is music’s future
Mobile Marketer's Classic Guide to Mobile Advertising
2008: A year in review

Just a heads-up to show what's going on with one of my business endeavours:

I and 2 companions started the company mm3 Mobile Channel AB during 2007, a company focused on providing multi-channel (SMS, MMS, mobile sites, PC sites, e-mail etc) and ready-to-go solutions for mobile marketing.

We are well underway and have already done a few brand-heavy deals during 2008, as can be seen on the news pages (the English and Swedish news pages are not fully in sync, so I mention both):
http://www.mm3.se/news/
http://www.mm3.se/news_se/

The latest, and the first effort for a non-Swedish customer, was Race of Champions, a car racing event at Wembley Stadium during December, where we also participated at the event, handling the nitty-gritties of the mobile services: contests, voting, information etc. For more information:
http://www.mm3.se/news/2008/11/mm3-adds-mobile-buzz-to-this-years-race.html
http://www.mm3.se/news/2008/12/mm3-and-lewis-hamilton-at-wembley-dec.html

So far no MIDlets have been used in campaigns, in part to simplify the usage of the services, as anyone should be able to use them. Most have been request-based (MO/MT) SMS services, but also quite a few have been MMS-based for posting in photos. The most noticeable example of the latter is this (for Zoégas, a popular coffee brand in Sweden):
http://varjekoppgorskillnad.se/

With great certainty I'll be at MWC in Barcelona this year, so let me know if you want to meet there.

There are simply no smartphones that inexpensive. Rather they are $500 and up. People seem to forget that the cost of the phone is buried in the subscription. It's one thing that consumers don't do the math, but Engadget should be aware of this by now.

Ask Engadget: Best current smartphone for under $200?

This is nothing new, but few seem to realize how much the Chinese industry has taken over the production of also the most complex consumer devices. I'm aware that the listed devices are designed in respective country of origin, but that's temporary. The mobile phone ODM industry is already very strong in China, and has been for several years in Korea and Taiwan.

It's interesting how Asian countries also own the car industry (concerning the overall crisis in the US and European car industries). Will the Western world become a "banana republic" offering only metal ore, peanuts, hamburgers and soft drinks to the new super powers China, Russia and India, where all the high value products will be made? Maybe not, but these are times when certain nations can't be too cocky.

People tend to get surprised (and a bit worried, as in "Is he nuts?") when I say I don't subscribe to any paper magazine, at all. Neither news or any other magazine.

To me there's no reason what-so-ever to read such information on paper anymore:

• All magazines have Web sites where most news and articles are published for free reading, and immediately after being written and approved.
• It's way more convenient to read news directly on the screen. Some think not, but I disagree.
• To follow up on an article I can comment and ask questions as well as search for articles on the same or similar topics.
• It's more up-to-date. Especially compared to weekly/monthly paper magazines of course.
• It's less biased, as I choose what to read, and I can read from multiple sources, not only the one (or few) paper magazine I otherwise would afford.
• Articles can contain videos, which is now extensively used (for competitive reasons) on most bigger magazine Web sites.
• I get much less paper for recycling every week. I get enough of paper waste anyway.

Sure, I would have liked those sites were not filled to the brim with irrelevant/non-targeted ads, but I guess that's the price for not paying anything.

You can even read news on your mobile. It's not as practical as via a PC of course, but it's getting closer with phones that have large and high resolution screens.

Mobile access works best for shorter news stories where you can quickly sift through news via to-the-point headlines.

As almost all magazines provide feeds, you can simply aggregate the latest news/articles in any combination. The only problem is to enter URLs to such feeds on a phone, so that's best done on a PC before accessing them via a phone. Using feeds is also a good way to get rid of ads. A big drawback is that feeds then to contain only the latest information and RSS and similar formats are generally surprisingly limited and rigid, considering we are talking relatively new "inventions".

I don't have a fixed-line phone (nor a fax) either, but that seems to be less controversial than not having any paper magazine. I don't know why, as paper is a way older technology than fixed-line phones.

Don't get me started on paper vs digital encyclopedias. Even though Wikipedia is not 100% accurate, neither is Encarta etc. Also, even when using the DVD or Internet versions of Encarta you are locked to an out-of-date and very limited knowledge base. Case in point (info about triops, as in "sea monkeys", just to give an example):
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triops
Encarta: http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/search.aspx?q=triops
Try my favorite specimen tardigrade too, etc, and try to read about Internet technologies in Encarta. Some argue that only certain topics should be covered in an encyclopedia. Rhetorical question: Who can be a judge of that? Shouldn't this medium evolve?