Mobile Internet generation targeted by Google's smart phone

By Miguel Helft

Google’s unveiling on Tuesday of a rival to the iPhone is part of its plan to try to do what few other technology companies have done — retain its leadership as computing shifts from one generation to the next.

The rapid emergence of the smartphone as a versatile computing device may be as much a challenge as it is an opportunity for Google, which built its multibillion-dollar empire largely on the sale of small text ads linked to search queries typed on PCs.

As people increasingly rely on powerful mobile phones instead of PCs to access the Web, their surfing habits are bound to change. What’s more, online advertising could lose its role as the Web’s primary economic engine, putting Google’s leadership role into question. “The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School. “That has the potential to change the economics of Internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”In recent decades, the power of industry giants like IBM and Microsoft, waned as computing shifted from big mainframes to PCs, and from PCs to the Internet.

Many analysts say it is now Google that is faced with a less certain future in the face of another shift. Still, they say Google saw this coming years ago and has been preparing for it. Google executives now say they are confident that the company will thrive as the mobile Internet grows.

“We are incredibly excited about the opportunities that we see in mobile,” Vic Gundotra, a vice president of engineering at Google who oversees mobile applications, said last week. “We have invested a considerable amount, and we can now really provide a compelling mobile experience.”Top Google executives, including Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive, have long said the mobile Internet was Google’s biggest opportunity for new growth.

They orchestrated a string of acquisitions of companies with mobile-related technology, including Android, maker of a cell phone operating system; Grand Central, a service for making calls that can bypass telephone lines; and AdMob, an advertising network for mobile applications. The AdMob deal is awaiting approval from regulators. Google also invested far more aggressively than its competitors in mapping technologies and services tied to a user’s location, which are likely to become the vital underpinnings of new advertising systems on GPS-equipped mobile phones.

The unveiling of the Nexus One, a thin, touch-screen handset built to Google’s specifications and made by the Taiwanese company HTC, is a challenge to a newly minted industry power: Apple, whose iPhone dominates the high end of the smartphone market.

While the iPhone sends millions of people to Google’s search and other services, some of the company’s applications, like Google Voice, have not been allowed to run on the phone.Analysts say that with the Nexus One, which Google plans to sell to consumers directly, the company is trying to free itself from Apple’s growing influence. It also wants to broaden the appeal of Android’s technology.

The phone is expected to be sold unlocked, allowing consumers to buy service plans separately.Gundotra declined to discuss specifics of the Nexus One. But he said all of Google’s mobile moves were driven by one objective: Pushing the industry to open up in an attempt to replicate on mobile phones the environment that has allowed the PC-driven Web to grow at explosive rates.

Some of Google’s moves, like its bid for spectrum, confounded many in the industry. But analysts say Google’s actions proved shrewd and that the company has, to a large extent, helped open up the mobile Web and ensured that its services, and ads, will be accessible to all.“You could take a view that this is a very geeky company,” said Nicholas Carr, author of The Big Switch, a book about the shift to Internet computing. “That underestimates the strategy that underlies all these moves.”

New York Times

Single Tourist Visa to be issued by East Africa Member States

By Arthur Baguma

The East African Community plans to start a single tourist visa for the region. The member states are discussing a protocol to create and market the region as a single tourist destination. Member states have started to coordinate their policies in the tourism industry and were establishing a frame work that would ensure equitable distribution of resources. In addition the partner states are establishing a common code of conduct for private and public tour and travel operators, standardized hotel classification and professional standards of agents in the industry.

A collective policy for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wildlife and other tourist sites in the region is also in pipeline.

“They include harmonizing policies for the conservation of wildlife within and outside protected areas, exchanging information and adopting common policies on wildlife management and development, coordinating efforts in controlling and monitoring encroachment and poaching activities,” information at the EAC states. The policy encourages joint use of training and research facilities and developing common management plans for trans-border protected areas.

These developments are good news to East Africa tourism potential. From some of the world’s finest beaches to unique wildlife sanctuaries East Africa is a tourism hub. In Uganda the unique wildlife sanctuaries East Africa is a tourism hub. In Uganda the unique Bwindi National Park home to some 340 mountain gorillas, the Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Park are also preferred sites for tourists. In Kenya, the magnificent Maasai Mara reserve, among 48 wildlife parks and reserves, including the amazing Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks attract tourists both local and international. In Tanzania, the world famous Ngorongoro crater, the breath taking spectacular Serengeti plains, wildlife conservation areas and Mt. Kilimanjaro – Africa’s highest mountain are just the tip of the ice berg of what Tanzania can offer tourists.

Apart from the scenic attractions, East Africa has a lot more to offer. Hotel and beach tourism is at its peak. The region offers a large number of historical sites spread through the region. It boasts of interesting traditional culture, the Makonde sculptures and Akamba wood crafts as well as the Uganda Kingdoms, cultures and tradition. The Olduvai Gorge in the Great Rift Valley in Tanzania is the site of discoveries of the traces of early humanity.

There is, however potential for development, expansion and promotion of East African tourism, taking into account on going development of tourism and other potential of the lake Victoria basin. The world’s second largest fresh water body is shared by Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

The number of tourists to the East African region increased significantly between 1995 and 2002.In Tanzania the number increased from 285,000 to 550,000 while in Uganda it increased from 160,000 to 254,000. In Kenya there was a slight decline from 896,000 to 838,000 but the figures rose to one million in 2003.

Currently the three countries attract more than two million tourists. The figures indicate a vibrant trend of the tourist sector in East Africa. With joint promotion of the industry, tourist visits in East Africa are expected to double in the near future. In 2005, the East African Community countries launched the plan for joint tourism and wildlife development including joint marketing and promotion of East Africa as a single tourist destination.

Starting with the Internationale Tourismus Borse (ITB), Berlin 2006, the tourist boards of East African countries participate in international trade fairs under one roof, the East African Village exhibition area. On going activities aim at developing both short and long term measures in the joint promotion and marketing of East Africa as a single tourist destination.

The plan and strategy for joint development and promotion of tourism envisages steady growth due to stable political and peaceful conditions prevailing in the region coupled with modernization of infrastructure, transport and communications facilities and links to all parts of the world by major world air lines and ocean cruises.