I was invited to speak at Hospitality Exchange this week in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The session called, 'Social Media goes Mobile' included speakers Guy Levine (pictured above) of Return on Digital and Brian Harte of Tourism Ireland.

I was asked to look at how mobiles will impact hotels and hospitality in general. Here's my presentation on The Future of Mobile & the Hospitality Industry:

Do you agree that all hotels should have free WiFi? Have you ever downloaded and used a hotel app? Would love to hear your thoughts.

PS - I just realised I'm on the cover of the conference programme along with Celebrity Chef Atul Kocjar & Food Critic Jay Rayner. Sweet!

Whatever floats your boat!

The Tradesman is the world's first floating mobile phone. "The fact that it floats means you can't lose it," said a company spokesperson. Good point!  It's not the toughest in the JCB Toughphone collection, but it is 100% waterproof and dust-proof. The phone features a 1.44" colour screen display and comes equipped with Bluetooth, FM radio and a torch. It has up to 180 minutes talk-time and 130 hours standby.

The Tradesman is being positioned by JCB as a second phone because "you wouldn't want to drop your iPhone or your new Nokia N8." It will retail for £69.99 SIM-free. 

Sorry for the grainy pics (damn, iPhone).

Here is a first look at Fuse, a concept mobile phone designed by Synaptics, Texas Instruments (TI), Immersion, TheAlloy, and The Astonishing Tribe.

The Fuse design team created a different user interface with new modes of sensing input, and visual and haptic feedback.

This is what each team contributed:

• TheAlloy led the user experience and overall product design efforts.
• TAT enabled the 3-D environment and lent their UI software design skills.
• Immersion made the tactile feedback.
• TI’s OMAP 3630 processor provided the framework and platform to leverage the multimedia, graphics and imaging features.

The model we played with is still in early development and does not yet have an operating system. The touchscreen phone has squeezable side grips, a built-in accelerometer and a touch pad on the back that lets you navigate the screen  (similar to Motorola's BackFlip). It will run on Linux and will most likely be available on Chinese vendors like Huawei and ZTE.

Official launch of the Fuse will be at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

TelecomTV's video will be up on Monday, 25th January 2010.  Watch this space.