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Nokia has placed some big bets on location-based technologies, including buying a handful of companies and making a $8.1 billion bid for Navteq. The company’s vision of the future revolves around making wireless Internet more context aware. In particular, Nokia is betting on applications that, when married to location-based services, are going to keep demand for its S60-based phones growing, a point that it’s likely to trumpet at the S60 Summit in Barcelona later this month.

That may not be enough if Nokia wants to continue being the No. 1 mobile phone maker on the planet. The company sees the mobile phone as a computer and as a result has crammed many awesome hardware features into its devices. Their usability, however, is less than stellar. I’ve had some frustration with Nokia’s S60-based user experience. For instance, while I love the Nokia N95 8GB, it cries out for a simpler and more elegant music player, as well as for a camera interface that isn’t so confusing. What Nokia really needs to do — in addition to adding context awareness to its devices — is to simplify their usability.

London is one of those few fortunate cities to have a surfeit of telecom competition. From broadband providers to mobile operators, Londoners have a choice. They have decent broadband speeds as well as access to Wi-Fi and 3G networks. And as a result, there has been a big change in their behavior. A new report from Ofcom outlines how Londoners (and the rest of the UK) are using these new wireless and broadband services. It’s a great example of how consumer behavior changes with bandwidth.

In London:

* 40 percent of people watch TV or video content online.
* 20 percent make VoIP calls.
* 32 percent are using their mobile phones to access the Internet.
* 19 percent listen to audio content on their mobiles.

Impressed? I am! I feel London has the user base to qualify as an always-on platform that will soon spur interesting applications, including many that are yet to be invented.

I get very nervous when I ride shotgun with people who decide to read their Blackberry or send text messages when driving. It is an inherently stupid and dumb thing to do, considering that not only it puts their own well being at risk, it raises dangers for everyone on the around. There have be an increase in number of the accidents as a result of the DWT (Driving while TXTing)

Apparently there are many such people out there. A survey by Common Knowledge Research Services on behalf of Vlingo, polled 5,000 people about their text messaging habits. The study found that nearly 28% people send text messages while driving. The drivers in South Carolina (word), Tennessee, Georgia, Maryland and Louisiana are the worst offenders. Arizona has the lowest incidence of DWT, the survey reports.

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Phone makers these days are packing so many new technologies into their wireless handsets, it’s enough to make you nostalgic for a plain ole phone. Take Nokia’s N95, which has networking technologies including 3G and Wi-Fi, a still/video camera and a GPS module. But all of these features are pointless unless they’re easy to use and are stitched together in a such way as to fit into our daily lives. The best way to do this: software.

Nokia seems to be learning this lesson. A perfect example is Nokia Sports Tracker, which allows people to access statistics and other relevant information on their workouts. For instance, those who walk, run, cycle, or ski can track metrics such as average speed, total distance, altitude, and so on. By starting the application at the beginning of your workout, the program, through the use of GPS, tracks your positions and gathers statistics as you go. Sports Tracker’s latest version also includes the ability to include videos and pictures with your workout by attaching the media from your phone.

Nokia has also released a Sports Tracker beta web site that allows you to create a free account and upload your workouts from your handset directly to the web. There you can display a map of your workout route, average speed, elevation, and a host of other statistics.

But Sports Tracker isn’t just for fitness nuts. Travelers can share data about their trips with family and friends by way of a travel map accompanied by images and videos taken along the way. As Symbian-Guru has suggested, Nokia might want to consider a name change for Nokia Sports Tracker, something like Nokia Travels. Perhaps an integration with Dopplr is something the company should consider as well.

Even if, like me, you don’t much care about David Cook, you have to hand it to the hit FOX reality series: It’s putting SMS systems to maximum use, turning them into a giant cash machine. AT&T says the most recent season of “American Idol” show generated 78 million text messages — up from 67 million last season. And an informal poll conducted by the company on its web site reveals that 51 percent of the 416 respondents tended to text more frequently during the “American Idol” season than other times of the year. Another twenty-two percent said they first learned to text message by voting for their favorite “Idol” contestant. Now only if Ma Bell could tell us how much money they are really raking from this tie-up with the talent-based reality show.

If you’re like me, sick of the double-crossing, bandwidth-capping ways of the in-the-red Sprint, it’s time for you to start thinking about other mobile broadband options. Of course, you can sign up for Verizon and pay premium dollars for the same 5 GB-a-month download cap and restrictions over their EVDO network. Or simply switch technologies and go to AT&T’s 3G Network, which is getting speedier and is as widely available as those offered by Sprint and Verizon.

AT&T said today that over the next month it will deploy High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technology in the six remaining markets across its 3G footprint, leaving it able to deliver 1.4 Mbps down and 800 Kbps upstream speeds. This will be an improvement over HSDPA technology (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), which is slower.

HSUPA puts AT&T on near-equal footing with EVDO-based mobile broadband sellers Sprint and Verizon. And it’s not stopping there — the company also plans to graduate to HSPA+ and then to LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology to offer even higher speeds for mobile broadband.