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Tag: applications

  • 7 Start-ups To Watch From Mobile World Congress 2009


    The big names of the mobile world occupied vast stands at MWC in Barcelona – but some of the most interesting and innovative products, applications and technologies came from start-ups.
    Smartphone.biz-news has pulled together some of the enterprising newbies that are likely to make a big impact in the future, including video interviews and photos.

    Irish start-up Dial2Do created quite a stir at this year’s Mobile World Congress.
    The Dublin-based company lets you do various tasks on your mobile simply by calling a number and speaking.
    So you can send email or text messages, record reminders, post updates to Twitter or Jaiku stream or even listen to internet content – all while driving your car.

    The Lisbon, Portugal-based start-up wizi has developed an instant location sharing application, with the focus firmly on on individual networks.
    The free mobile app allows you to share your location instantly by e-mail or SMS.

    TuneWiki is a the music playback app that shows Karaoke-like lyrics and album art on almost all  the music on a phone. It has features like searching YouTube for videos of tracks, plus searching its database for certain song lyrics if users only remember part of a song.
    Watch below a short video demo.

    ART has developed interference cancellation technology with the potential to dramatically improve 3G call connectivity and mobile broadband download rates. Crucially, the Texas-based company says the solution doesn’t require additional network investment but will allow twice as many users to connect in the same 3G coverage area.

    MEEPASS has a developed cutting edge mobile identification solution with a secure ID tag. It works on any mobile phone and uses a 2D barcode that verifies a user’s identity without the need for the handset to be network connected. Watch below a short video demonstration

    French start-up Kapsys has developed a voice-activated GPS for city dwellers that can be used to walk, bike, roller blade, scoot or take public transport. It is also a an MP3 player, a radio and a mobile phone receiver via Bluetooth.
    See below a short video demonstration of the Kapsys device.

    Modu has designed a potentially-groundbreaking sleek and light mobile device that slips into a variety of so-called "jackets" – music players, other cellphones, car stereos, digital cameras, etc.
    See below a short video demonstration.

  • Paid Apps Imminent For Android Market


    Google’s Android Market is expected to begin accepting paid applications this week for the first time.

    The move could provide a much-needed boost to the platform, which currently has around 800 applications.

    This is far below what Apple’s App Store had achieved in its early months. Incidentally, the App Store has just passed the 20,000 mark for apps, with over 500 million downloads.

    While Android Market’s position can partly be attributed to the G1 not being as popular as the iPhone, that’s not the whole story.

    Another key element could be the fact developers haven’t been getting paid to come up with shiny new apps for Android.

    With the incentive of remuneration thrown in, the desite to create software for the G1 and soon-to-be launched handset additions to the Android platform is likely to be much stronger.

    Interestingly, Google is deviating from Apple’s revenue model in that it receives nothing from the downloading of paid apps.

    Both app stores will give developers 70 per cent of the revenue, but whereas Apple pockets the other 30 per cent Google is passing it on to the carriers and to pay settlement fees.

    Anything that gets the Andoid Market rolling has to be welcome, expecially as others – including RIM, Microsoft and Palm – are expected to launch their own app stores very soon.

  • Android App Developers Get AdMob Option


    AdMob has announced that it has launched its first advertising unit for Android applications.

    The move by the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace will give developers an option for monetizing their applications on the open source device platform.

    The first developers to leverage AdMob’s new Android ad unit in their applications include AccuWeather, Jirbo, and TapJoy.

    AdMob’s presence will add another dimension to Google’s Android Market.

    While it now has more than 800 applications, that figure is dwarfed by Apple’s App Store, which has more than 15,000 apps.

    One reason for the gulf – aside from the fact Android only launched three months ago – is that Apple has the ability to offer paid apps.

    So the flood of developers rushing to the platform following the launch of T-Mobile’s G1 last October never happened.

    This is despite Google being seen as far less restrictive with regard to what apps could be created for Android.

    Android Market’s lack of a payment system is one reason.

    AdMob’s new Android ad unit will also allow brand and performance advertisers to reach consumers engaging with applications on their Android device.

    Advertisers will be able to use these ad units to drive customer actions such as going to the Android Market to download an application.

    AdMob already serves ads on mobile Web sites on the Android platform and received more than 27 million requests in December 2008.

    Building on the initial success of the G1 device, several new devices expected to come to market in 2009.

    More than 6,000 mobile sites and 450 iPhone applications are a part of AdMob’s publisher network worldwide.

  • ParaScale CEO Says 2009 To Be Year Cloud Storage Breaks Out


    Cloud computing – including cloud storage – will transform the industry and become the predominant way in which IT is consumed.

    That’s the prediction of Sajai Krishnan, CEO of Silicon Valley start-up ParaScale.

    He said there has been a rapid heightening of interest recently in all things cloud – applications, computing and storage.

    As a result enterprises are increasingly turning to cloud storage as a way to enable flexible computing power over the Internet, according to Krishnan.

    "We believe the impact of cloud technologies will be transformational and cloud will be a major way by which IT is consumed as we move forward," he said.

    Sajai Krishnan, CEO ParaScale

    Krishnan said a company could buy cloud storage – where the company builds a private or internal cloud – or rent it – where the company rents by the GB per month from a public cloud storage service provider.

    Regardless of whichever method was chosen, he said the advantages of cloud storage would soon be as mainstream as the architectures that came before it, including 3-tier web applications, client/server and mainframe.

    But like most emerging technology there had been some initial hesitancy towards adopting it.

    Krishnan said that in 2008, many companies were wary of the risks and vulnerabilities of participating in the cloud computing model.

    So despite the buzz around the technology being high, adoption was feathered.

    “This all changes in 2009 – the economic downturn and the addition of private cloud solutions to complement public offerings are creating an environment that enables incremental adoption of cloud storage on a very broad scale," he said.

    Krishnan said discussions with end users had shown that the overwhelming majority indicate they are considering both public and private cloud storage.

    He identifies several considerations driving the adoption of storage clouds. These include:

    • Building storage clouds is becoming as simple as installing a new application on your laptop. This is enabling service providers and the enterprise to embrace this technology with minimal effort.
    • Cloud storage can start small and scale-up as needed. Organizations are no longer over-building to address the potential for rapid growth. Instead the drive is to put in place an architecture that is extremely flexible and that can scale on demand using commodity hardware and standard client access.
    • Clouds are designed to be self-managing and don’t require heavy IT manpower. Storage tiering, provisioning, and data movement are
    • time consuming tasks that are automated in cloud storage.
    • Storage clouds can be tuned for specific uses or applications. For example, clouds can be tuned for archival very cost-effectively, or
    • for streaming media performance.

  • VUDU Brings The Web To TV


    VUDU has launched a new platform that brings Web-hosted applications and services to consumer appliances, including its own Internet movie player.

    The VUDU RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform will deliver TV shows as well as Web apps which enable users to share their photos and watch the tens of millions of YouTube videos on their HDTVs.

    The company plans to open VUDU RIA up to third party developers in the first half of 2009.

    Prasanna Ganesan, VUDU’s Chief Technical Officer, said the goal in creating the new platform was to allow anyone with Web development skills to easily author Internet-driven applications for the TV.

    "We are very pleased with the results and look forward to opening up VUDU RIA to the developer community," he said.

    VUDU says it plans to add more applications and services throughout 2009.

    Edward Lichty, executive Vice President of Strategy and Content, said VUDU RIA enabled customers to quickly open up huge libraries of web based content to TVs in living rooms around America.

    The company has created an initial set of applications and services in a new area of the VUDU home page, called VUDU Labs. It is available to all VUDU owners in the US amd has applications that include casual games, implementations of Flickr, Picasa and the entire YouTube library, as well as a new "On Demand TV" area with more than 120 channels.

    These include free on-demand shows provided by major network television and on-line specialty sites spanning news, food, music and sports.

  • Sagem Embeds GPS Receiver into SIM Cards


    Smartcard vendor, Sagem Orga has formed a partnership with BlueSky Positioning to integrate its A-GPS positioning technology onto conventional SIM cards.

    A GPS receiver and proprietary antenna are integrated into the SIM card, which the companies say then enables mobile operators to deploy applications without the need for software or hardware changes.

    The A-GPS provides accurate positioning information for the phone to emergency services in case of an emergency call as required by E112 and E911 legislation in the EU and the US respectively.

    It can also support generic location-based services such as navigation, "find a place or person" services, location-aware games, and many more.

    Navigations solutions are increasingly availabile on smartphones and mobile phones.

    Sagem Orga and BlueSky Positioning say the two broad technical approaches that can deliver the accuracy required for these services demand either significant investment in networks by the mobile operator or the purchase of new handsets by the end user.

    In a statement, they said the A-GPS SIM would allow mobile operators to significantly increase the cost effectiveness of their services and size of their marketing target when launching new LBS.

    François Blanchard, global account marketing manager at Sagem Orga, said the technology would help the mobile industry overcome the "key stumbling block" to the success of location-based services – affordable, accurate positioning technology.

    "The SIM is entering a new era where it can now be considered as a real service platform and a valuable device; the A-GPS enabled SIM card will reshape the way SIM card are perceived by MNOs and end-users," he said.