L I R N E . N E T

The 6th Annual Caribbean Internet Forum will be held in Trinidad from 29-31 October at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Port of Spain. The Main theme of the event is Mobile Internet for Development.

Dr. Kim Mallalieu (University of the West Indies and DIRSI member), will chair two sessions, Caribbean Innovations for the Mobile Internet, and Next Generation Policy and Regulation. Dr. Hopeton S. Dunn (Director, TPM Programme, Mona School of Business and DIRSI member), during the latter session will present, Next Generation Policy and Regulation: Key Challenges.

LIRNE.NET founder and advisor, Professor W.H. Melody, will present the conference keynote address.

Click here to go to the CIF 2008 website.

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LIRNEasia is organising the pre-conference event, Mobile 2.0: Beyond voice? [20-21 May 2009], for the 2009 Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA) [21-25 May 2009]. A call for papers is being issued for the pre-conference event.

Mobile phones are becoming increasingly important in bringing people into the Information Society. It is widely accepted that the inhabitants of the future household will carry mobile devices that will be capable of voice and data communication, information retrieval and forms of entertainment consumption. Mobiles are now (and will increasingly become) payment devices that can also send, process and receive voice, text as well as images; in the next few years they will also be capable of information-retrieval and publishing functions normally associated with the Internet. Through such services and applications, industry experts predict that many in emerging markets will experience the Internet, or ‘elements’ of the Internet for the first time through a mobile phone, rather than a PC; mobile payments, mobile social networking, SMS voting are just a few examples of some of these services and applications.
Click on ‘read the rest of this entry‘ for further details on the Call for papers…

Deadline for abstracts: 31 October 2008.

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Nielsen Mobile has just released its report: Critical Mass: The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web, which asserts that “mobile internet reached a critical mass this year” with the US, UK and Italy as leaders in mobile internet penetration. Only 3.4% of Philippines subscribers use the mobile internet each month, 3% for Singapore, 2.6% for Brazil, 1.8% for India and 1.1% for Indonesia. The US has 15.6% mobile internet penetration which translates into 40 million active users. However, the study notes that due to bundling and other factors there are “95 million US mobile users who subscribed to the service but do not necessarily use it.” The report notes that there is a consistent male bias in use (averaged across countries surveyed at 56% male users and 44% female). The top web categories and web channels are also identified.

Click here to download the Nielsen report (pdf).

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[29-31 October 2008] The 6th Annual Caribbean Internet Forum will be held in Trinidad at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Port of Spain. The Main theme of the event is Mobile Internet for Development.

Dr. Kim Mallalieu (University of the West Indies and DIRSI member), will chair two sessions, Caribbean Innovations for the Mobile Internet, and Next Generation Policy and Regulation. Dr. Hopeton S. Dunn (Director, TPM Programme, Mona School of Business and DIRSI member), during the latter session will present, Next Generation Policy and Regulation: Key Challenges.

LIRNE.NET founder and advisor, Professor W.H. Melody, will present the conference keynote address.

Click here to go to the CIF 2008 website.

(more…)