Gallery

The Codie Awards

Posted on 20 Mar 2006 at 15:00

Mark Needham tests out some nominated mobile technology and services

But the snag with all such systems can be over how easy they are to use. As the system only works in the US at the moment, I wasn't able to test it myself, but here's one blogger's description of how it works:

'When you're ready to buy something, you pull out the cell phone and call MobileLime. An automated voice greets you by name. You key in your four-digit PIN followed by the location code, a short number posted in the store. Then you give the cashier the last four digits of your cell phone number.'

Do you really need yet another four-digit PIN to remember? Anything that's more complicated than paying by your existing credit card is unlikely to succeed. And it sounds as if this system will place a greater burden on the store staff too. The same US blogger went on to report that the shop assistant behind the counter in the florist he first tried turned him down flat, saying the mobile phone could only store loyalty points and that she wanted some real money as well.

One last try

The last entry to the Codie Awards I looked at was much simpler to comprehend and very appealing in theory. If you read your email on a PDA, phone or BlackBerry, you'll probably get Word, Excel or PDF attachments, which can be frustratingly difficult to read on such a small screen. On the other hand, even though fewer people now use fax machines, most offices and all hotels still have them installed, and if you ask your hosts politely when you're visiting a customer or supplier, or offer to pay a fee if you're at an hotel or business centre, you can get a fax sent to you in most business situations.

If you subscribe to www.printanywhere.com, it will allow you to forward emails with attachments to the nearest fax machine to you. You don't even need to open the email on your handheld device; just forward it to the relevant fax number and your email attachments will appear as an automated fax on that machine. In practice, I suspect that even the most mobile of road warriors wouldn't use this service very often - after all, most people who are away from the office for more than a day usually take a laptop with them - but it's ingenious and could help one day.