Pogo is a new hand-held wireless device that delivers 3G-like services on existing GSM and GPRS networks. According to their Web site, Pogo Technology Ltd was founded by Razorfish in Q4 1999 “to explore and define the opportunities within the European mobile data services market. It was fully incorporated as a separate company in July 2000 as part of its seed funding arrangements.”
Pogo is a new hand-held wireless device that delivers 3G-like services on existing GSM and GPRS networks. According to their Web site, Pogo Technology Ltd was founded by Razorfish in Q4 1999 “to explore and define the opportunities within the European mobile data services market. It was fully incorporated as a separate company in July 2000 as part of its seed funding arrangements.”
It is a thin-client device which uses an extremely light-weight operating system and incorporates Pogo’s patent-pending compression technology to give users access to the Internet in full-color.
Using Pogo’s proprietary compression technology incorporated into a new type of GSM device, Pogo will deliver rich-media mobile Internet services in the second half of 2001. Pogo is a GSM (and GPRS-ready) device which provides its users with an integrated personal communication channel that includes:
- A mobile phone
- E-mail and messaging on-the-move
- A ‘real’ Internet experience on a full-color screen
- Customizable access to news and entertainment information
- Networked contacts list and diary
The device will be offered in December 2001 for a price of around 200 pounds. According to an article from The Mirror:
It’s a combined personal digital assistant, phone, MP3 player and web browser, but the real secret is in Pogo’s data compression technology. It squeezes a web page into a data file a fifth of the size of the original, so it reaches the device five times faster. That means its 9.6 Kbps GSM connection delivers web pages as fast as your 56 Kpbs connection at home.
And it’s full web browsing – the version you see on the pogo’s 8.3-inch color screen is identical to the page you call up on your PC. It uses Flash too. Email and texting are combined in one messaging function – input the text and choose whether to send it as email, SMS or both. And the Flash games, which can be downloaded to the 32-meg memory card and played offline are as good as the time-wasters you play when the boss is away.
So is this yet another flash-in-the-pan Internet appliance, or has Pogo come up with a new approach at making information truly mobile? I guess we’ll have to wait until December to decide.
