From: Rohit Khare (rohit@uci.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 02 2000 - 13:25:57 PST
The first of the two notices is very intriguing, if fishy. If you
take the tack of "emulating" WAP at the head end, rendering text
"screens" to SMS pages and its "buttons" to 2-Way paging
reply-choices, there's a fair chance of doing much of what WAP
provides (as an information publishing and forms service), but no
hope of providing its telephony features (alerts, conf calls, etc).
Now it may be I completely don't understand the power of SIM cards to
reprogram phone BIOSes, because there's a similar fishy claim at the
heart of the AOL-Tegic deal that claims AOL Instant Messenger can be
delivered to SIM-upgraded GSM phones with Tegic's technology.
Rohit
__________________________
Virgin Mobile To Provide WAP Access Without WAP Phones
February 2, 2000 -- Virgin Mobile says it will provide all its wireless
phone customers access to the Web without the need for Wireless Application
Protocol (WAP)-enabled phones.
The company says it is introducing a SIM-based Web browser that allows all
its subscribers to access WAP-enabled Web sites. The company says the
initiative will eliminate the need for WAP-enabled phones.
"This is silicon socialism at its finest," said Richard Williams, head of
advanced wireless technology at Virgin Mobile. "By introducing SIM-based
browsing we will enable all customers to get onto the internet, when they
want to, wherever they want to. And they won't need to buy an expensive,
top-of-the-range phone first."
Virgin Mobile is demonstrating the capability at this week's GSM Congress in
Cannes and plans to introduce the service this Spring.
_________________________
Phone.com Updates Browser With Encryption
February 2, 2000 -- Phone.com (Nasdaq: PHCM) has announced version 4.1 of
its UP.Browser Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) microbrowser.
The update supports the WAP 1.1 standard and adds 128-bit encryption,
according to the company. The company says the browser has been licensed by
more than 25 smart phone vendors.
Besides licensing the microbrowser to vendors, Phone.com will include it in
an upcoming release of its UP.SDK WAP Software Developer Kit.
WAP has been a rapidly-growing de facto standard for sending Internet
information to smart phones. Recently, however, a company claimed it holds
patents and expects royalties for all WAP-related products.
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