LagrangePoint - Brad Howarth

Quiz time - mobile phone technology

Am in the final stages of writing a feature on mobile phone technology for Next, and am trying to lock down some key dates in the history of mobile handsets.If anyone knows the answer to the following, please let me know (and preferably by the end of Wednesday, April 30).

- What was the first mobile phone to feature a colour screen, and when was it released?
- What was the first mobile phone to feature a built-in camera, and when was it released?
- Which was the first phone to feature an MP3 (or equivalent player), and when was it released?
- And what was the first mobile phone with integrated WiFi, and when was it released?

BusinessWeek: Sinosteel Presses Takeover in Australia

While it's Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton that are getting the headlines when it comes to China's insatiable appetite for Australian mineral products, there is a huge amount of activity happening right throughout Australia's mining sector. China is keen to secure access to resources, and is increasingly showing an appetite for direct investment, as demonstrated in my latest article for the BusinessWeek website.

Dynamic Business: Automating your business

Some concepts in information technology are so fundamental that we almost lose sight of them in the desire to make systems ever more complex. Such as the fact that IT was meant to automate business processes and free up time for more meaningful pursuits ... rather than absorbing said time managing the IT. Anyway, it was automation that was the topic for my most recent feature for Dynamic Business magazine, and you can read about it here.

The Diplomat: Format C[CCP] drive

Further to my investigations of the Russian software industry in Australian Anthill (see this post below) I also had the chance to explore the topic in more depth for this story for The Diplomat. It's a magazine that is new to my roster, but is hopefully one that I'll be contributing to regularly this year. The story is locked behind the paywall, but I'd urge you to pick it up from your newsstand now - it's an interesting magazine.

Australian Anthill: Not just for kids - social networks just grew up

Another topic that caught my interest in 2007 was online social networks. While there is no doubt that the hype has exceeded the short-term reality, it would be unwise to underestimate the long-term possibilities that tools such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and their successors will hold from a marketing perspective. After all, just about anything that attracts an audience can become a platform for advertising ... and few platforms provide such an effective means of interacting with that audience. It's a topic that I explored for this feature in Australian Anthill, and you can check out my article here (well, part of it at least - you'll need to be a subscriber to see the whole thing).

Australian Anthill: The Russians aren't coming - yet

For a market that is as big as it is, it's long fascinated me as to why Russia hasn't taken a leadership position in in the IT industry in the same way that countries such as Israel and India have. Last year I had a chance to visit one of the few shining lights of the Russian software industry, Moscow-based software security company Kaspersky Lab, and discuss this issue with some of its senior staff. You can read my findings in this editorial from Australian Anthill here. The comparisons to Australia are at times startling - and not just through a mutual liking for alcohol ....

SmartCompany: 10 Aussie digital entrepreneurs with stars and stripes in their eyes

I've created a couple of lists now for SmartCompany of successful Australian tech entrepreneurs, and each one is generally made difficult by the question of who needs to be left off. The latest was a list is of successful Aussie tech and digital media entrepreneurs in the US. With the US market remaining the beacon for many of the best and brightest the industry produces, finding candidates wasn't hard. The bigger issue was in not upsetting those I failed to include ... Thanks in this instance to David Cannington, Mike Zimmerman, Peter Lewis, Lily Steiner and others for their suggestions. Anyway, you can check out my final selection by clicking here.

Next - 3-D worlds virtually going global

I've done quite a bit of writing in the last year about the rise and possible future for virtual world technology, so it was great to have the chance again to track the development of two local start-ups in their space, SIMmersion and VastPark, as they took off to show their wares in the US. You can read about them in this article in Next. I actually met SIMmersion at an ANZA event in Palo Alto several years back, and it has been interesting to watch its evolution from a provider of aerial photography services into a full-blown creator of virtual world technology.

Next - Evado casts .Net for help

Its nice occasionally to hear stories about large tech multinationals helping smaller Australian companies. Such is the case with the Melbourne-based company Evado, which makes software to automate the collection of results in clinical testing programs. For some time now Microsoft Australia has operated a .NET cluster in Melbourne to help support developers, and in 2007 formed a partnership with La Trobe University to create an Innovation Centre. It was of that partnership that Evado availed itself, and hence was able to quickly overcome a significant blockage in its product's development. You can read more about that in this story in Next.

Seeking our best digital entrepreneurs in the US

I'm halfway through compiling a feature on Australia's best digital entrepreneurs who have made it big in the US. Think about guys like Larry Marshall, Ben Keighran and Steven Goh. I'm throwing it open to anyone in the software, internet, or hardware technology sector ... if you have any suggestions, please let me know ASAP.

This request for information expires on Thursday, April 17.