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Today Telefónica revealed its pricing plans for the iPhone 3G, tomorrow available in Spain in over 1.500 Telefónica stores and in 15 other countries. Telefónica is distributing the Apple iPhone in 12 Latin American countries and the Czech Republic. This builds on earlier exclusive, multi-year agreements signed between the two companies in the UK and Ireland, bringing the total number of territories in which Telefónica will sell the iconic device to 16, a combined addressable market of more than 500 million people – making Telefónica one of the leading global distributors of this revolutionary device.

Since the iPhone was launched by O2 in the UK, sales have exceeded all expectations and have greatly fuelled net customer additions, particularly high-end contract customers. Furthermore, the average monthly revenue of an iPhone customer is reported 30% higher than that of a regular contract customer, while the iPhone has generated the highest level of customer satisfaction of any terminal on the market.

Check these latest figures on iPhone consumption in US below by m:metrics (recently acquired by comScore)

Data from comScore M:Metrics confirms that the iPhone (and its associated mandatory data plan) is compelling consumers to consume mobile content by a considerable factor. The table below shows Benchmark Indices between 203 (two times more likely to send photos or videos than the market average) and 1208 (twelve times more likely to listen to music on their device than the market average) for the iPhone versus the market average. Even against smartphones, the rates of mobile content consumption are considerably higher. (please check m:metrics for full details on this survey)

Telefónica is aiming at its more than 23 million mobile customers in Spain, as well as customers of other Spanish mobile operators who switch to Movistar. Basically anyone can get an iPhone (even for FREE in some cases), as long as you are an existing customer or want to become a customer of Telefónica, there are price plans for existing and new customers, individuals and companies. You can consult all current priceplans and offers at iPhone 3G Telefónica Movistar website (http://www.iphone.movistar.es/).

Combined with a voiceplan, the most significant data traffic packages are Tarifa Plana iPhone at 15 euro for 200Mb/month and Tarifa Plana iPhone Plus at 25 euro for 1Gb/month. When a customer exceeds this limit, Telefónica will slow down the user’s connecting speed, which I think is a smarter solution then starting to charge higher without the user’s knowledge. I’m not sure yet about the other options for heavy data consumers like me exceeding this limit, I suppose I’ll have to find it out when my consumption gets there…

But that’s it, I’m sold! I would have bought an iPhone 3G today but I will need to wait untill I’m back in the country next week. With my average monthly bills of around 400 euros (and many times higher) I’m the perfect new client for Telefónica I need to make sure though I get a good data roaming plan with all the travelling ahead the coming months.

What I’m looking forward is to start using the many available iPhone applications, now available through the iPhone App Store; in mobile it’s all about the channeling and the distribution of course!

I can only hope that in the end I will pay less for more data consumption on a better device then Telefónica’s competitors I will keep you posted how that goes!

A couple of days before the event, some 150 companies registered to attend MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE event, including startups, investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, mobile application and service providers, bloggers, press and web technologists. If you want to attend the event to connect to industry leadership and broaden your C-level relationships, you can still buy tickets here.

NOTE there’s also a Mobile 2.0 Europe TechCrunch Party at the Shôko Lounge Club in front of the beach, all details about this after event meetup here.

Here’s the list of the companies attending the MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference in alphabetical order:

24 Access Solutions
7 Syntax
Acquamedia Technologies
AdMob
Ajuntament de Barcelona
aka-aki networks GmbH
Alcatel-Lucent
AlpinaSearch
Altaide Valley
Alumnus Software
AMF ventures
antrak capital
Atlas Venture
Atos Origin
Avui
AZ Interactive
Balderton Capital
Bango
Barcelona Digital
Barcelona Media
Beabloo
BeepMarketing
Between Brackets
bluenove
Blyk
Bullnet Gestion
CanalPDA
cellity AG
Centro Español de Servicios Telematicos
Channer Medianet
cirici new media
Clicmobile
CommonSensus
Comunicano
Coreobjects Ltd
DD&H
Debaeque Venture Capital
Dial2Do
dotopen
Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures
eBuddy
Economic Promotion - Barcelona City Council
Eden Ventures
El Paìs
Ericsson
Esade
European Commission - Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS)
Facoria de Canales
Five minutes
Fjord
France Telecom
Futurlink
GeoMe Communications
Getjar
GoodmintonPartners
Google
GSM Association
Halmstad University
Hewlett-Packard
Hiwave GmbH
Ideal Interfaces
Interactive McCann
IT University of Copenhagen
Itinerarium
itsmy.com (Gofresh)
Jaeson Associates
Jupidi GmbH
Kalerion Computing
Kimia
kooaba AG
La Vanguardia
Longreach Mobile
Lorem Ipsum
M:Metrics
Materna GmbH
mikamai
Mobiclip SL
Mobifriends
Mobile Distillery
Mobile Economy GmbH
MobileContact Software
MobileMonday PL
MobileMonday Ltd.
MobiLuck
Motorola
Motricity
mSearchGroove
my247.mobi
MyFrame Inc.
MyVocal
Nauta Tech Invest II SCR
NextWell
Nimbuzz
Nokia
Nova Ventus Consulting
Onetomarket
Orange
Oxynade
Ozmota
Palringo
PBS MediaShift
Peperoni Software GmbH
Plugg
Qelp
Qualcomm
Quodis
Refresh Mobile
Route Forward Ltd
Rummble
Safiratec
Samtel Consultores
Service Innovation and Interaction Design
SFR
Simba Technologies
SMS Text News
Some Bazaar
Spinverse Ltd
SPRXmobile
Stanford HCI Group
Stradbroke Advisors
Sun Microsystems
Sydes nv / Arkafund nv
Ta with you
Taptu
TAT AB
TechCrunch
Telecom Italia
Telefonica I+D
Telefonica Moviles
Telgraph Hill Group
Tertius Advisory Services
T-Mobile International AG
Tooio Mobile
Treasuremytext
Trutap
Trutap Ltd
Uniteddogs and Cats OY
Universal McCann
University of Salzburg
University of VIC
Unkasoft
Valoris
ViaMobility
ViiF Mobile Video GmbH
Vodafone
Webwag
Worldwide Rights Management Ltd
Yahoo!
Yiibu
YouLynx
Zipipop
ZYB

The Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee announced the selection of the presenting start-ups at Mobile 2.0 Europe on July 4 in Barcelona. Some 70 mobile start-up companies applied to present at Mobile 2.0 Europe conference. The committee was delightfully surprised with the quality of the ideas and technology of the start-ups coming from many different corners of Europe and the world.

Here are the selected start-up companies.

PRE SERIES A companies

kooaba (Switzerland) - Mobile Image Search
Mobiluck (France) - Mobile Location-based IM, Chat and Social Networking
Secufone (Netherlands) - Mobility and Safety
Unkasoft (Spain) - Mobile Advergaming
ViiF (Germany) - Mobile Entertainment Community

POST SERIES A companies

Futurlink (Spain) - Proximity Marketing
Nimbuzz (Netherlands) - Mobile IM and Text Message Service
Mippin (UK) - Mobilizing the Web
Palringo (UK) - Vocal Instant Messaging
Taptu (UK) - Mobile Social Search

Early-Stage companies

The presenters in this category will be announced the day of the event as to maintain the suspense.

During the event, all panel participants and organizers will vote their best Start-up in each category; the winner in each category receives an invitation to present at the Mobile 2.0 Event in San Francisco on November 3, 2008.

Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Suites Management and Marketing, Services and Software at Nokia will introduce the conference with a keynote.

Participants will enjoy C-Level speaker and panelist participations from other mobile industry players, such as AdMob, AMF Ventures, Atlas Venture, Bango, Blyk, Debaeque Capital, Fjord, Getjar, Google, itsmy.com (Gofresh), Nokia, M:Metrics, Orange, Stradbroke Advisors, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Trutap, Vodafone, Yahoo!, and ZYB. The sessions will be moderated by some of Europe’s finest bloggers including Mike Butcher (TechCrunch UK), Peggy Anne Saltz (MSearchGroove) and Raimo van der Klein (SPRX Mobile).

Check the full speaker list and program agenda here.

There is a lot of interest from the industry to attend this event. Early-Bird tickets at €99 and Standard tickets at €149 are already sold out. Currently, there are some 20 tickets left at €199 (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included), after which tickets will be on sale at €299 (prices all excl. VAT). Attendants can purchase their ticket online at Amiando Mobile 2.0 Europe.

We are also organising a meetup with our media partner TechCrunch, the evening after the event; please contact Mike Butcher or info@dotopen.eu for more information on this event.

Our Partners
Our thanks to our partners Nokia, Palringo, Taptu, Telefónica Movistar, Vodafone, Yahoo!, Bango, eBuddy and Mippin for their invaluable support.

Four weeks to go for the MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference and the program gets more and more exciting. Last week, Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Suites Management and Marketing, Services and Software at Nokia was added as a keynote and Charlie Schick, Editor-in-Chief for Nokia Conversations will talk about Social Media as the fusion of mobile and internet, exploring the ties into the Mobile Semantic Web.

More than 70 startups registered to participate to the event. The Mobile 2.0 Europe selected start-ups in 3 Categories (Seed Capital Stage, Pre Series A and Post Series A) will be announced next week.

The Open Platforms and New Application Areas Panel is also confirmed and will be moderated by Peggy Anne Salz, chief analyst and founder of MSearchGroove

Panelists include:

• Ray Anderson, CEO and founder, Bango
• Javier Pérez Dolset,CEO, Zed
• Alex Romero, Director Partnerships, Yahoo! Connected Life Europe
• Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist at Vodafone Group
• Peter Vesterbacka, Founder Some Bazaar

You can view complete speaker profiles here.

The Early-Bird tickets at € 99 and Standard tickets at € 149 are already Sold out. The next 50 tickets (Standard 2) are available at € 199 (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included). Late tickets will go at € 299 (prices all excl. VAT). So, don’t wait any longer to reserve your ticket if you’d like to attend. You can purchase tickets online here at Amiando Mobile 2.0 Europe.

Some free tickets will still be distributed on the Mobile 2.0 on Twitter channel, also handy to stay updated on latest news and updates on the event

Together with media partner TechCrunch, we’re organising a meetup the evening after the event; if your company would like to sponsor this meetup, please contact Mike Butcher or myself for more details. I can’t tell much more as of now, I’ll leave that for Mike to announce, but it’s going to be outside and near the beach

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference is heating up! More than 50 startups have already registered to participate to the event. The Mobile 2.0 Europe presenting start-ups will be selected in 3 Categories (Seed Capital Stage, Pre Series A and Post Series A) - any start-up with a mobile application can apply. If you haven’t done so yet, you can still apply by filling in the online application form, deadline for submission is June 6, 2008 at midnight CET.

Taptu, Telefónica Movistar, Vodafone, Yahoo!, Bango, and Mippin joined us as sponsors to support the event and we’re going to announce some more high-level speakers the coming days.

Please take note that the Early Bird registration closes on May 31 (tickets at € 99,- only!), after that date tickets will cost €149,- (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included).

If you’re a blogger or press and you’d like to attend, please contact me directly.

Follow Mobile 2.0 on Twitter for news and updates on the event.

After lengthy review by the panel of independent judges (including myself - see below), Marek just announced the short-lists for 2008 MEX Mobile User Experience Awards. The winners will be officially announced at a special evening reception in London on 27th May, the opening night of the 4th annual MEX conference.

Commercial category

- Taptu

- Zeemote

- Mobyko

- Vuzix

Freelance category

- Flat Music Player

- Cloudaware

- BSR Blind Phone

Professional category

- My Link Wireless Accessory

- Couple IT

- MoDist

Student category

- Context aware

- Pixie TV

- MyView

MEX Mobile User Experience Innovator of the Year

- Taptu

- BSR Blind Phone

- MyView

The judges:

Ken Blakeslee, Chairman, WebMobility Ventures

Steven Dotsch, Managing Director, WirelessMatch

Mike Grenville, Director, 160characters.org

Stuart O’Brien, Editor, Mobile Entertainment

Marek Pawlowski , Editorial Director, PMN

and myself.

The next Mobile Monday Barcelona on May 5, 2008 in collaboration with Forum Nokia covers Mobile Development and will explore the mobile developer’s ecosystem. The session will include speakers from Forum Nokia, the Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform, and will include presentations from Mobile Distillery (France) and IDEAN from Finland. If you’re interested in the next tips & tricks in mobile development, don’t miss this one!

Nokia’s global developer program, Forum Nokia connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels they can use to build and market applications around the globe. From offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, and Singapore, Forum Nokia provides technical and business development support to developers and operators to assist them in achieving their goal of successfully launching applications and services to consumers and enterprises. More information is available at www.forum.nokia.com.

Speakers:

Jarkko Tolvi, Business Development Manager, Forum Nokia EMEA (Finland)

Ricardo Varela, Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform (UK)

Vincent Berge, Co-Founder and General Manager, Mobile Distillery (France)
A specialist in mobile technologies, especially Java™ Micro Edition and BREW, Mobile Distillery was founded in 2005 to solve the platform and handset fragmentation issue that developers face when developing Mobile content & services. Its software solutions reduce porting cycles by up to 80%, generate cost savings, and accelerate time-to-market of Java mobile applications while ensuring their easy updates to new devices in European, North-American and Asian markets.

Mikko-Pekka Hanski, Director, Business Development, IDEAN (Finland)
Mikko-Pekka will talk about Mobile Platforms and User Interfaces. Each platform from S60 to Android has its own philosophy regarding user experience and how user interface is built. Mikko-Pekka Hanski from Idean will present how platforms help developers to create beautiful and ease-to-use user interfaces.

(NOTE: Faraz Syed from Device Anywhere had to cancel his participation this time)

Networking:
As usual, a networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/subscribe/ to reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out!

All details at Mobile Monday Barcelona website.

One of my favorite conferences last year, the MEX Mobile User Experience Conference, has published its agenda for this years’ conference on May 27-28 in London. Check the agenda and speaker list for full details.

A special discount is offered to mTrends readers (check details at the bottom of this post).

The conference helps executives to gain a deeper understand of customer behaviour and translate that knowledge into better mobile products. The key objective is raising awareness of user experience issues as a strategic priority for everyone in the value chain, encouraging the mobile business to put consumer needs at the heart of the industry.

It is a very different style of conference. Each event is researched and developed by a team with a passion for mobile and unique insight drawn from years of industry experience. Corporate pitches are outlawed, everyone plays a role in setting the agenda and we go to extraordinary lengths to provide the highest standards of service.

This years’ conference programme is based around a 10 point Manifesto (download pdf here) for enhancing the mobile user experience. Each of the 10 Manifesto statements is addressed through a diverse range of presentations, panel discussions and collaborative breakout groups.

Topics include…

1. Content itself will be the interface of the future
2. Handsets are no longer just for the hand
3. Fragmentation is the enemy of innovation
4. Fashion is a stronger motivator than functionality
5. The developing world is the new frontier for mobile user experience
6. Search requires a radically different approach in the mobile environment
7. Intelligent contact lists are the future centres of the user interface
8. Mobile payments herald the next generational shift
9. Users as individuals: uniquely complex and contradictory
10. The potential of smart voice

Some of the speakers include:

On the opening night there is also a reception to announce the Winners of the 2008 MEX Design Competition. Check it out, some really great stuff out there! If you design interfaces and have a compelling idea or product to delight customers and enhance the mobile user experience, you can still participate, the deadline for entries is 23:00 GMT, Friday, 2nd May 2008.

MEX is now less than 5 weeks away and, as with all previous MEX events, the organizers target to sell out well in advance on the conference date. If you’ve not yet reserved your place at the event, now is the time to do so - passes are selling out fast.

mTrends readers can get a 10% discount on a conference attendance pass (priced at GBP 1499). Go to the registration form and enter ‘MM24′ in the ‘partner code’ box on the registration form.

Hope to see you there!

This is one of a series of guest articles by Marek Pawlowski, Editorial Director at PMN and founder of the MEX conference, examining the key mobile user experience issues facing the telecoms industry in 2008. These themes are highlighted in PMN’s 2008 MEX Manifesto and will be at the heart of the agenda for the 4th annual MEX conference in London on 27th - 28th May 2008.

Mobile phones were traditionally designed with the comfort of the ear in mind. The original Motorola flips, the Nokia ‘banana phone’ and the numerous chunky ‘bricks’ of the 1990s were all built primarily around the need for a device which could be held to the face for extended periods of time. If we look at how the market has evolved today, the design requirements are very different because phones are as much about visual activites like texting, email, photos and web pages as they are about the traditional function of voice.

Consider the ratio of screen size verus the overall ‘face’ area of the device. Over time, displays have come to dominate the main interaction surface of the mobile phone. If you could track this ratio over the lifetime of the mobile industry, it would show a steadily increasing trend, starting with the single line ‘dot matrix’ displays of the 1980s and rising through to the massive screens of the iPhone, Prada phone, Viewty and HTC Touch.

The iPhone and its touchscreen have ushered in a boom for the UI design industry. Faced with Apple as a new competitor, rival handset manufacturers are recruiting UI experts as never before. Spurred in to action by the fear of being left behind, management teams throughout the device business are now mandating a selection of touchscreen products in their portfolio. iPhone sales volumes may still be less than a single digit percentage of the market, but there is no doubting the device has established a new design benchmark.

This sudden willingness to embrace the touchscreen is providing UI designers with more scope than ever before to create flexible interaction layers which adapt to provide the best interface method for individual applications.

What we are seeing is the digitisation of the man machine interaction (MMI) layer and the consequences will be profound.

The iPhone was the first device brave enough to implement the MMI entirely in software. In doing so, Apple prompted the industry to consider what could be achieved once it was freed from having to interact with every application through the same three or four hardware buttons.

The manufacturers with an established and consistent DNA for hardware-based MMI are now pondering how they can maintain the value of their existing investment in MMI consistency and still introduce new innovations with the same ‘wow’ factor as the Apple UI. It’s a very tough question and one that is currently keeping a huge number of UI designers and consultants in well paid work!

However, while UI teams around the world are getting to grips with this major strategic issue, I would like to sound two notes of warning.

Firstly, a funky new UI is never the answer to all your user experience problems - there’s no silver bullet. Any new UI or MMI innovations must be part of an overall commitment to user experience. This is the most fundamental principle of everything we do with our MEX research and consultancy work - it is also the main theme of our 2008 MEX conference and the MEX Design Competition.

User experience is not a set of technologies or a layer within the product design process: it is about having a customer-centred approach at the heart of everything you do, from marketing strategy to after-sales support.

You need only spend a couple of hours with the a device like the HTC Touch to recognise that, however attractive the top layer of the UI, the overall user experience will be fatally flawed if you don’t invest in the deep level of integration required to make a new interaction methodology really work.

Secondly, the priorities of interaction design are about to change again. Handsets will no longer just be for the hand (this is one of 10 key Manifesto statements for the 2008 MEX conference).

The mobile phone started as a device for the ear and has since become a device that is also for the eye. In both of these scenarios, the consistent factor is that the phone remains cradled in the palm of the hand - in 30 years of mobile handset design, this has been one of the few constants.

Finally, that is starting to change. Driven by applications like mapping, music, video and tele-conferencing, the handset is increasingly migrating from our palms and finding a new place in the environment around us.

We are starting to see phones attached to the car dashboard or pumping out music from the bookshelf of a teenager’s bedroom. They are being propped up on tables so kids can watch videos on holiday and plugged in to TVs to drive photo slideshows.

Over time, the average interaction distance between the users and their phones will increase significantly from the few centimetres we see today. Interaction designers can no longer take it for granted that the user will be holding the device in the their hand, with their face close to the screen.

This has big implications for the design of software, the choice of input method, the use of haptics and the role of accessories to extend the experience.

As an example, I have my Nokia N95 mounted on the dashboard of the car. It can provide GPS-enabled mapping, speakerphone and even play my music tracks through the car audio system. However, many of these features are simply too difficult to use unless I’m actually holding the device in my hand.

The keys are too small to press accurately while driving, so searching for an address in the mapping application is impossible unless you are parked. Similarly, I am unable to find the song I want in my music library or build a new playlist. The font size on-screen is also difficult to read at that distance. At night, when the dashboard of the car dims to make it easier to see the road, the handset continues to blaze at full brightness.

This is not meant to be a criticism of the N95 in particular, but rather an illustration of how the new capabilities of mobile phones are enabling out-of-hand applications while the user interaction model is still centred on in-hand scenarios.

There are all sorts of technologies emerging which could improve this experience. Voice recognition is getting better all the time (e.g. Nuance’s ’speak-to-search’ application). Nokia is implementing touchscreen support in Series 60, allowing for more flexible, adaptive UI design. Start-ups like Zeemote have even developed Bluetooth remote controls, allowing you to interact with your mobile phone at a distance (its initial focus is on handheld gaming).

Microvision, with a long-history in new display technologies, is one of several companies which has created a ‘pico’ projector using laser technology to beam videos and photos on to remote surfaces. Along with others, Microvision has also developed wearable glasses which display the screen as a tiny image in front of the eye which, because of its proximity, appears equivalent to a large home cinema screen.

For music, more and more handset manufacturers and third parties are offering speaker systems which turn mobile phones into compelling audio systems. One of the most attractive I’ve seen is the Bowers and Wilkins iPhone speaker dock designed by Native (Thomas Kleist, Director of UI Design at Native, is one of our speakers at the 2008 MEX Conference on 27th - 28th May in London). It transforms the iPhone from a personal media player into a room-filling audio experience that puts the mobile phone at the heart of the environment.

The industry faces a real and complex challenge over the next few years. On the one hand, device manufacturers must grapple with the immediate competitive implications of the iPhone and the growth in touchscreen devices. On the other, companies throughout the industry are seeking to expand the role of the phone into every area of our daily lives, including many scenarios where the handset will actually no longer be held in our hands.

We’ll be tackling these issues from several angles at MEX, the 4th annual PMN Mobile User Experience conference, in London on 27th - 28th May 2008. ‘Handsets are no longer just for the hand‘ is one of the 10 key statements on our MEX Manifesto and will be addressed by Steve Chambers, President of Mobile and Consumer Services at Nuance. He will give a presentation to provoke and inspire a series of breakout discussions, where 100 leading thinkers from across the mobile business will work together to explore a number of questions relating to this topic.

Thomas Kleist, Director of UI Design at Native, will speak on ‘Content itself is the new interface‘. Also addressing this topic will be Ocean Observations, before we open the session to a conference-wide debate.

Join the debate on our blog before the MEX conference opens

Can we further refine the standard twelve key monobloc design to give us greater flexibility to support these functions? How much flexibility do we have in software platforms to support these different usage methods? At what stage in the design process do we focus on particular user requirements and build them in to the hardware specification? Post your comments using the link below…

http://www.mobileuserexperience.com/ 

The LIFT Conference is a 3-day gathering in Swiss Geneva with a clear focus on the impact of technology on society (and vice versa), and much like last year, the 700-headed audience witnessed an impressive set of speakers on this third editon of LIFT, all with the ambition of leaving an inspired impression on everyone present.

Internet & Society

The first day of the actual conference - after the Workshops and Venture Night the day before - was kicked off by Bruce Sterling, cyberpunk and science fiction author, who tried to convince everyone within 30 minutes that the most spectacular event of 2008 had already happened: the marriage of French President Nicolas Sarkozy with singer / model Carla Bruni.

Pierre Bellanger, founding CEO of the popular French social media platform Skyrock, shared his vision on trends in social networking, followed by academic Jonathan Cabiria, who explained how virtual worlds like Second Life can help marginalized people to regain self-esteem and hope.

Design & User Experience

Anthropologists Younghee Jung and Genevieve Bell, respectively from Nokia and Intel, explained how the internet can influence mocking up desin & user experience concepts for the future. Jung talked about Nokia Open Studio, a product launch event that incorporates stimulating people from developing countries to contribute their ideas and vision on the mobile phone for the next generation. Bell, from chip maker Intel, gave a compelling speech about secrets and lies on the internet. A must-see:

Entrepreneur stories

After lunch, the audience listened to some inspiring stories from the following entrepreneurs:

Rafi Haladjian - the French internet pioneer who wants to change the world with a connected rabbit, the Nabaztag, one of the creations from his last company Violet.

Eric Favre - the Swiss visionary who brought espresso to the masses as inventor of Nespresso and its patented coffee caps, gave a very inspirational talk about innovation and ‘intrapreneurship’.

Jasmina Tesanovic - the Serbian political activist, feminist, author, translator and film producer shared her visions on blogging in times of war.

The Far East

EPFL-researcher Marc Laperrouza guided us into Asia with an expose on the recent trends in the Asian telecommunication landscape, followed by academic Heewon Kim delivering more insight into every day life in the Far East thanks to her research on the use of social software in South-Korea.

Gen Kanai, top executive with Mozilla Japan, discussed open source in Asia, and why the general perception of Asians not contributing much to the open source community is false. Here’s the video of Kanai’s keynote:

Technology for the good and the bad of our climate

After the coffee break, there was one more special session about global warming and the innovative technologies countering the phenomenon. Tom Taylor from the British agency Headshift explained how social networks and ‘peer pressure’ can raise the general awareness about global warming as well as actual deeds for the benefit of our environment. One example he gave was DoTheGreenThing.com.

The online community focused on raising awareness on efficient usage of energy resources WattWatt was introduced by its makers, followed by Nobel prize winner Andy Reisinger, who gave a fascinating expose about the worldwide social challenges global warming entails.

Last but not least, watch this video from Guy Pignolet (Sunsat Energy Council), who invented in innovative way of amassing more solar energy from outer space and beam it back to earth for our benefit:

More videos are available at Nouvo.ch, pictures here.

Robin Wauters for mTrends.