From the ad:tech conference at the Javits Convention Center, Sidebar, a new, free mobile application that allows users to receive personalized recommendations for content, video games, apps, music and more, announced today that it has partnered with Quattro Wireless, mobile’s largest exclusive and premier advertising network, to drive innovation in the mobile space. The relationship will offer advertisers a high-level of targeting and offer consumers a personalized experience on their Android device.
Sidebar, which recently launched in beta for Android, learns users’ interests so that it becomes highly personalized to each individual over time. The application offers instant gratification so users spend time enjoying content rather than searching for it, and it is cached for one click access. Sidebar content categories include entertainment, green planet, humor, steals & deals, health, mind & body, style & culture, guy stuff and news and info.
Orange today announced that its first UK exclusive app, Orange Wednesdays, is now available on the App Store. For those who love films, the free Orange Wednesdays App brings the hugely popular Orange Wednesdays cinema experience to the iPhone. The app combines the latest film reviews and trailers with up to date info on what's on, where films are showing, information on how to get there and the ability to redeem the 2 for 1 Orange Wednesdays cinema voucher on your Orange iPhone.
Google recently introduced expanded mobile reporting features in Google Analytics to help developers monitor how people are using specific parts of their iPhone and Android applications. The same Google Analytics reports that provide insights into website traffic and engagement are now available for mobile apps.
Redfin, an online brokerage for buying and selling homes, recently tested Google Analytics on their mobile application. (See video to the right).
According to Google, "As with websites, there are two basic categories of user interaction you can track: page views and events. Since mobile apps don't contain HTML pages, developers simply determine when their apps should trigger page view requests. Google Analytics then aggregates this data in the Content reports to display the number of visits, session length and bounce rates. The data gives insight into how your users interacted with the app.
Opera Software today unveiled the beta of Opera Mobile 10 for Nokia and other Symbian/S60 handsets. Most notable in the new Opera Mobile 10 beta is a sleek design, which Opera first introduced to the world in the recent release of Opera Mini 5 beta. The crisp, new look introduces the Speed Dial, tabbed browsing and the always convenient password manager to Opera Mobile. Opera Mobile 10 beta is optimized for both touchscreen and keypad-style navigation and is available for free from http://www.opera.com/mobile/next/.
Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. (QuIC) and the Symbian Foundation, today announced that QuIC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, has joined the Symbian Foundation and has been appointed to the Symbian Foundation board of directors. QuIC will support the Symbian Foundation with active participation on the board of directors and each of the four councils that govern the development of the Symbian platform.
QuIC's charter is to focus on optimizing open source software for use with Qualcomm technology. QuIC brings to the Symbian Foundation a wealth of knowledge and expertise in open source and, as a Symbian Foundation board member, QuIC is committed to working with its fellow board members for Symbian's continued commercial success. QuIC joins wireless operators AT&T, Vodafone and NTT DOCOMO; silicon providers ST Microelectronics NV and Texas Instruments; and handset manufacturers Samsung, Sony Ericsson and Nokia on the Symbian Foundation board.
Asurion Mobile Applications, a provider of people-centric mobile applications, has a free app for Android powered devices called AddressBook. The app allows mobile phone contacts smart and social. (See video below).
With the numerous social media services, AddressBook cuts through the chatter to ensure you’re always up to date with social feeds, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, from your most important contacts, placing them directly into your phone’s AddressBook.
Users can get the updates they want and interact easily with their key contacts all from a central location without bringing the social network “clutter” into their mobile phone. AddressBook uses an open framework, allowing developers to continuously add features and functions.
The Symbian Foundation announced today the launch of Symbian Horizon, the publishing program for Symbian developers, at the Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2009 (SEE 2009). Developers can now sign up for the program to have their applications listed in the Symbian Horizon Directory, processed through Symbian Signed, and published to a growing list of application store partners. The goal of Symbian Horizon is to help developers bring their applications to the largest mobile market in the world in a cost effective way. This publishing program is now being scaled up to process thousands of applications in 2010.
Horizon demonstrates Symbian’s commitment to improving the developer experience, including helping developers build applications, place them in a variety of global stores, and provide marketing support. The Symbian Foundation created Horizon in response to developer concerns that there were too many challenges and costs associated with developing and publishing a Symbian application to the global market of potential customers. In addition to reducing these costs, Symbian and its members seek to improve developers’ access to global markets through translation and localization assistance.
Qualcomm Incorporated today announced that it has established a separate wholly-owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. (QuIC), focused on mobile open source platforms. QuIC has brought together a dedicated group of engineers to optimize open source software with Qualcomm technology. The QuIC board of directors has named Rob Chandhok, senior vice president of software strategy for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, as president of QuIC.
“Open source and community-driven software development is becoming increasingly important to the wireless industry,” said Chandhok, “and QuIC is committed to meaningful participation in these development efforts. To fulfill this commitment and to provide focus to this effort, Qualcomm has transferred experienced software engineers to QuIC. These engineers will focus on such important open source initiatives as Linux and Webkit, and on open source operating systems such as Symbian, Android and Chrome.”
Palm has launched a new web page for Palm phones powered by webOS platform to access mobile applications.
Per the page, "Applications designed for the Palm webOS platform make your phone more powerful, more useful, and more fun. And many take advantage of the Palm Synergy feature, allowing you to do more with just a touch. Automatically add an event date to your calendar. Share location information in one step. Both free and paid apps expand what you can do." For more information visit http://www.palm.com/us/products/software/mobile-applications.html.
muvee, a provider of home movie making software and services, today announced they have created and launched an application for Windows Phone called muveeShow that will allow users to make photo-movies on their mobile phones. (See sample home video to the right).
For US$1.99 a download, users can create a music video with their images in three steps. The application is available for use on all Windows Mobile 6.5 Smartphones.
"Windows Phone sports superior camera features, processing power and memory storage and are your personal phone, camera and music player. However, there aren't really a lot of cool things that you can actually do with those photos you've shot." said Terence Swee, CEO, muvee.
Nokia has announced the Qt port for Maemo 5. This means developers can now create applications using Qt and easily deploy them across Symbian, Maemo and if they see fit, Windows Mobile devices, amongst other platforms (including desktops). Linux-based Maemo software delivers a PC-like experience on a handset-sized device.
This is a huge boon for the incoming Nokia N900 as it could see a flurry of apps being ported straight across to Maemo. These will join the already plentiful apps and widgets ready to run on Maemo 5. The video to the right shows off some Qt 4.6 examples running on an N900-based prototype. We’re not sure what it means, or how it works, but it does look pretty impressive!
With the introduction of Linux-based devices such as the N900, and an already strong lineup (and growing) of S60-based devices, the need for a single mobile application development framework is ever increasing.
Europcar, a light utility vehicle and passenger car renter, has announced the launch of a new service which makes reserving vehicles easy via mobile phone.
With over 8 million adults in the UK accessing the internet via their mobile phone, a growth of 42% on 2008, Europcar, Europe's leading vehicle hire company, has launched car hire booking on the go with a new mobile car hire service reservation service for online booking from any web enabled mobile phone.
An integrated search engine makes it easy to find the desired car hire location, and there is a special application for iPhone users which automatically selects the nearest station. Customers can also book additional equipment, such as satellite navigation systems and child seats, through this system. To ensure a reliable and practical service, confirmation of each reservation made by cellphone is sent immediately and free-of-charge by text message and e-mail.
Shazam, a mobile music discovery provider, today announced the availability of its music discovery application for Windows phones via the just-launched Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Shazam will be offering a free version as well as a separate full-featured version which users can access for a one-time fee. This will be the first time Shazam is simultaneously offering two versions of its applications at once, giving Windows phone users the choice as to how they want to experience and use Shazam.
Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Microsoft Corp.’s new mobile store that allows users to browse and download mobile applications to more than 50 million existing Windows Mobile devices, operates on an innovative new operating system that gives users access to quality applications through a seamless shopping experience. Shazam allows users to discover and share music simply by holding a phone up to a song as it is playing.
Bitstream Inc. today announced its first commercial release of the BOLT mobile browser, ending eight months of public beta testing that saw the browser downloaded more than 2 million times, rendering in excess of 200 million Web pages. Building on the user experiences and feedback from beta users in more than 190 countries and territories around the world, the company is today making available version 1.5, its fastest, most capable mobile browser to date.
BOLT displays full Web pages just as they appear on desktop computers. In comprehensive speed testing of a variety of Web pages from different websites, BOLT was routinely 25 to 50 percent faster than the next fastest mobile browser. With advanced features like the ability to stream video from the most popular video websites, copy and paste, upload files such as photos and videos to websites, and order and arrange favorites into custom folders, BOLT is also the most fully-featured mobile browser. Built in J2ME and able to operate on phones of all types, BOLT can work on an estimated 3 billion phones already in the market. A version of BOLT created specifically for BlackBerry smartphones includes all the features of BOLT but also includes default BlackBerry shortcuts and optimizations.
At Adobe MAX, Adobe's worldwide developer conference, Nokia and Adobe today announced more than 35 funded multi-screen applications as part of the joint Open Screen Project Fund. Both companies also introduced new Nokia Web Runtime (WRT) extensions for Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 software making the creation of mobile WRT widgets for supported Nokia devices easier than ever. Together with the Ovi Store by Nokia, developers and designers have an easy way to engage, build and publish their content to Nokia mobile device customers around the world.
One application is the CNN International Video app, created for CNN by U.S.-based Flash Widgets LLC. See video to the right.
Engage The Open Screen Project Fund, Newly Funded Companies Announced in February 2009, the Open Screen Project Fund is a USD 10 million joint market development fund designed to accelerate the creation of multi-screen applications, content and services that leverage existing Adobe Flash Platform technologies and the announced Adobe Flash Player 10.1 runtime for smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks and PCs.
Today Vonage launched Vonage Mobile, its first mobile calling application for smartphones. Vonage Mobile is a free downloadable application (app) that provides seamless, low-cost international calling while on Wi-Fi or cellular networks*. Once downloaded, the service saves customers more than 50% on calls to dozens of countries versus the rates charged by wireless carriers while providing far more convenience than calling cards. Vonage Mobile will be available for download on the iPhone, BlackBerry and iPod touch at www.vonagemobile.com and the iTunes App Store later today.
With Vonage Mobile you can call around the world from home, a Wi-Fi hotspot, or while traveling around the country. Vonage Mobile is easy to use. There are no access numbers or new phone numbers to give to friends and family. Simply enter an international number or select a contact from the existing contacts on your iPhone or Blackberry and hit send. Vonage does the rest.
This app will give customers exceptional per-minute rates to any country they want to dial. In the fourth quarter 2009, we will enhance the app to include the popular Vonage World plan that was introduced for home service in August.
At Adobe MAX, the company's worldwide developer conference, Adobe MAX Adobe Systems Incorporated and Research In Motion today announced they are working together to bring Adobe Flash Player support to the BlackBerry platform. RIM is joining the Open Screen Project, a broad initiative dedicated to enabling standalone applications and richer Web browsing across mobile phones, televisions, desktops and other consumer electronic devices through the Adobe Flash Platform. The collaboration is expected to bring the full Flash Player browser runtime to BlackBerry smartphones.
Led by Adobe, the Open Screen Project includes close to 50 industry leaders working together to provide a consistent runtime environment and user experience across mobile phones, desktops, and other consumer electronics devices. The initiative addresses the challenges of Web browsing on a broad range of devices, and removes the barriers to publishing content and applications seamlessly across screens. For more information, visit www.openscreenproject.org.
At Adobe MAX, the company's worldwide developer conference, Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced that Adobe Flash Professional CS5 will enable developers to create rich, interactive applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. A public beta of Flash Professional CS5 is expected to be available later this year. In a sneak peek, during the MAX keynote presentation, Adobe demonstrated how developers can utilize Flash Professional CS5 to export applications for the iPhone, leveraging the same source code used to deliver applications across desktops and devices for Flash Platform runtimes – Adobe AIR™ and Flash Player 10. The new functionality opens iPhone development to millions of designers and developers who currently use Adobe’s popular Flash authoring tools.
Adobe also showcased a series of new iPhone applications built using a beta version of Flash Professional CS5. Developers that created iPhone applications with the beta include BlueSkyNorth, Bowler Hat Games, Breakdesign, FlashGameLicense, Muchosmedia, PushButton Labs, South Park Digital Studios and others.
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