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The Cliq may raise the bar for smart-phones

2009-09-15T08:15:00.001+08:00

Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile... ( Paul Sakuma )

Motorola may have provided a glimpse of the next stage in the evolution of the smart-phone.

At a conference in San Francisco on Thursday, the venerable but struggling mobile phone maker debuted the Cliq, a smart-phone based on Google's Android operating system. What was neat about the Cliq was its whole new take on how consumers should use and interact with their phones.

Most smart-phones have a home screen that borrows a lot from the PC world. Typically, it either looks a lot like a desktop or a folder full of program icons — or some combination of the two. Such designs reflect that a smart-phone is at base a computing device on which you can run a bunch of different applications.

The Cliq, to be released later this year, has a completely different slant on the purpose of a smart-phone. It's built around the back-to-the-future idea that smart-phones are at base communications devices. And what makes a smart-phone so powerful is its ability to easily connect users to different communications services at the same time.

Motorola has put modern communications front and center on Cliq with a feature called Motoblur, which is built on top of Android. From the Cliq's home screen, users can update their status on Facebook or Twitter. In a separate window on the same screen, they can see status updates, instant messages, e-mail and other communications sent by friends and contacts from a variety of sources.

And users will find multiple ways of contacting friends from address book entries gleaned from a wide range of different places, including social networks, enterprise e-mail servers and instant messaging services.

Some of this already can be done on other smart-phones. One of the best features of Palm's webOS, which is built into its new Pre smart-phone, is a service called Synergy, which combines address book and calendar data from a limited — but growing — set of online sources. Meanwhile, consumers using the Beejive application for the Apple iPhone can connect to multiple instant messaging services at one time, and those using the ShoZu program can upload pictures to multiple sites at once.

But with Motoblur, the Cliq takes these ideas to the next level, connecting to many more sites and services. It goes the furthest in tying a smart-phone to the fast-growing world of social networking.

I have no idea whether the Cliq will be successful in the marketplace. Because Motorola is launching the device exclusively on T-Mobile, which is dwarfed in size by AT&T and Verizon, the device will have a limited potential audience for now.

I've not yet played with the device, so I can't say how well the Motoblur service will work. Such a service could become overwhelming or annoying, particularly if you can't easily filter out or sift through all the messages coming your way.

Even it fails to catch on, the Cliq is exciting because it's the first Android device I've seen that shows the flexibility and potential of the operating system. It proves that manufacturers and developers can use Android to create devices that are truly innovative.

But I'm betting that the Cliq will be a success. The idea of combining data from different communications services and allowing you to access them all at once in an easy-to-use interface makes a lot of sense — and makes me envious.

Two applications I use frequently on my iPhone are its e-mail client and Facebook. Being able to see pertinent messages from both in one place would be great. And I wish my iPhone had something like Synergy or Motoblur that would show me in one place all the contact information I have access to from my friends.

I'm guessing such features — or even better ones — may not be far off. One of the great things about the smart-phone business these days is the competition. Innovations are happening rapidly and are being copied quickly by competitors.

In the wake of the iPhone's success, rivals quickly moved to offer touch-screen phones and fully capable mobile Web browsers. Apple's success with its application store has made such marketplaces an expected feature of all new smart-phones.

If the Cliq gets any kind of traction, you can bet that others will be quick to copy or try to one-up it, too.

Contact Troy Wolverton at twolverton@mercurynews.com

Singtel launches Asia's first social networking phone

2009-09-15T07:55:00.001+08:00

Photo: Singtel

Mobile phone users who also enjoy social networking on the go now have one more reason to celebrate.

Singtel has launched the INQ Mini 3G, a mobile phone that is fully integrated to Facebook, and offers one-click access to the micro-blogging service Twitter.

The phone will also be customized to offer users easy access to AMPed, Singtel's music service as well as IM on Mobile.

Featuring a 'live address book', users can see the latest Facebook profile pictures of their contacts when they receive a call.

Messages and updates received from Facebook will also be stored in a separate folder in the phone's Inbox.

A Switcher feature on the INQ Mini 3G also enables users to switch easily from one social networking service to another, or between applications, such as instant messaging and email.

Equipped with a 2.0 megapixel camera, the INQ Mini 3G's 'carousel-style' menu enables easy navigation and once-click access to popular social networking sites.

Pricing details will be available on 19 September 2009 when the phone goes on sale exclusively at Sintel stores.

Tracking Friends the Google Way

2009-02-04T23:51:00.000+08:00

For the past week, I’ve been stalking my sister, my boyfriend and my boss. They’ve also been stalking me, and we still like one other.

All four of us have been using an application that, once downloaded onto a mobile device, uses location-based technology to track its users’ movements. The app then displays the user’s location on a map for friends to see, so they can know where the person is at all times.

We used Google Latitude, a new feature in the search giant’s Google Maps mobile application as of today. People can get this if they upgrade their current version of Google Maps or install Maps for the first time. It works on Google’s G1, most color BlackBerrys, most Windows Mobile devices and some other smart phones. Google says it will soon work on the iPhone, iPod touch and Sony Ericsson phones.

Google (GOOG) is arriving late to the party where location-based apps like Loopt (Loopt.com) from Loopt Inc. and Where (where.com) from uLocate Communications are already following people on a variety of mobile devices ranging from basic cellphones to iPhones. These apps rely on GPS satellites, Wi-Fi or cellular towers to locate you and your friends, and then use this data to encourage people to find nearby attractions, local information or social networks.

Latitude is an opt-in-only feature, meaning no one can see your location — or vice versa — without permission. It uses either GPS satellites or cell-tower and Wi-Fi location technology depending on your mobile device’s specifications and what’s most available in certain spots. My trusted testers and I used Google Latitude on three different kinds of BlackBerrys: the Pearl 8130, Curve 8320 and two Curve 8900s. Of these, only the 8900s made use of GPS.

Latitude, a feature in Google Maps, shares someone’s location, status and photo with friends. Location data can update every several minutes when a user is moving.

Along with their locations, friends can share other information on Latitude by updating a status line or changing their picture, which appears as a tiny representative icon on a map. Changes to one’s status or picture will be reflected in Google Talk, Google’s instant-messaging tool, but this doesn’t integrate with other status-related social-networking programs like Facebook or Twitter, and thus may saddle people with another status entry to update.

It’s easy to find fault in Latitude since it often spots people inaccurately, including showing my sister in Boston’s Charles River, rather than in a neighborhood along the river. It’s worth noting that tracking technology in general, including GPS, can be inaccurate. But even with these inaccuracies, my friends and I liked finding one another on our respective maps and used this geographic information to send location-specific messages to each other: I joked with my boyfriend about not leaving his house on time for a dinner and commended my sister on getting up early for church on Sunday.

Usability issues aside, location-based services like Latitude can be just plain creepy, especially when a Big Brother like Google is tracking your whereabouts. So Google incorporated easy-to-change privacy settings so that locations can be automatically detected, manually entered or completely hidden from other people. Or people can sign out of Latitude altogether.

Likewise, users can adjust the level of geographic information they’re willing to share with each person. For example, I might want to share with my boyfriend my best available location information, like a specific spot on a street, and share only city-level location information with my boss.

The city-level information would be helpful for my parents, who often wish they had a better idea of when I’m traveling for work and where I’ll be. But my parents aren’t likely to download Google Latitude onto their mobile devices anytime soon. For them, a special Latitude widget in iGoogle — Google’s personalized home page feature on a PC — might be best. This widget is also useful for people who may have Latitude on a mobile device but are sitting at their desks and want to see where their friends are.

As expected, Latitude worked differently between me and the people who live in the same area, compared with how it worked between me and people who live hundreds of miles away, like my sister in Boston. For example, my boyfriend and I are more likely to use our respective locations to plan where we’ll meet for dinner, while my sister’s current location is just fun to see. Still, my sister and I know one another’s neighborhoods well enough to have an idea of where the other was, and we felt a little more plugged in with each other’s lives when we saw one another on our maps.

People who live in urban settings will likely use Latitude differently than those who live in the suburbs. One of my testers noted that it could be fun using Latitude to see where friends are out in a city on any given night. But because Latitude sometimes pegs people’s locations as a lot farther away than they are — one test spotted a friend 1.5 miles away from his real location — this might be tough data to go on.

After using Latitude for a while, I grew to recognize familiar location mistakes like home or work, and knew where my friends actually were. But it’s unfortunate that locations aren’t more accurately marked.

Latitude returned the most precise location results when determining where the two GPS-using BlackBerry Curve 8900s were at any given time, though these spots still weren’t perfect. If a mobile device doesn’t have GPS or if GPS simply isn’t available in the area, cellular towers and Wi-Fi will help a determine location. These alternate methods use less battery than GPS, so they will work instead of GPS when Google Maps isn’t running in the foreground of a device.

Latitude users can opt to allow their location to automatically update every several minutes while they’re moving. A Friends List that appears with the map lists people in order of who is moving starting with who moved most recently. Users can send text messages or call friends directly from this list, or find nearby spots like bars or movie theaters by typing into a search box; restaurant information includes ratings and reviews. Directions to and from friends’ locations are also available, and you can plan your route via car, mass transit or walking.

Location-based services like Latitude are great for keeping tabs on friends and could even come in handy in other situations — such as when parents want to know where their kids are or when elderly relatives want to let someone always know their whereabouts. But I wouldn’t want to depend on them in an emergency.

SingTel launches location tracker service for subscribers

2008-12-15T12:14:00.001+08:00

SINGAPORE: SingTel has started a new service which will act as a location tracker.

The new service, Locator, will enable users to know the whereabouts of those whom they wish to keep track of.

SingTel said it will be useful for customers when they are away from their loved ones and need to make sure they are safe.

The service will display up to three SingTel postpaid mobile users' locations on the phone via a map. Accuracy ranges between 50 and 500 metres.

When customers add mobile numbers to their Locator list, a notification will be sent to the mobile owners seeking their consent to be located.

The person being tracked can choose to participate or withdraw his consent anytime.

SingTel said its customers have been requesting for such a service, which costs S$5.35 monthly.

New online payment system protects personal data

2008-10-23T00:15:00.002+08:00

SINGAPORE, 22 OCTOBER 2008 -- Customers can avoid sending personal data over the internet when shopping online, following the launch of a new e-commerce payment system.

Collaboration between MasterCard, Formosa Technology, FarFax and Shin Kong Commercial Bank has resulted in the Credit Card Dynamic Password Authentication and Dynamic Secured Payment System.

According to MasterCard, the system is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific, using the MasterCard OneSmart Chip Authentication Program (CAP) and Credit Card Personal Account Number mapping.

With the solution, customers can make online payments without having to enter personal data such as a credit card number, expiry date, cardholder name and three-digit CVC2 code, MasterCard said. The user only needs to enter the CAP token and complete payment authorisation upon confirmation of identity.

Online shopping popularity

Online shopping has attracted the interest of more Asia-Pacific consumers, reflected by a jump in electronic transactions. According to MasterCard, the Asia-Pacific online shopping market is expected to grow at a rate of 23.3 per cent annually, reaching US$168.7 billion by 2011.

Despite the growing popularity of online shopping in the region, users still cite information security as a top concern, MasterCard said.

Formosa Technology and FarFax will work with participating internet merchants to deploy the Credit Card Dynamic Password Authentication and Dynamic Secured Payment System platform.

According to MasterCard, the system improves information security by offering two-factor authentication on EMV chip technology. This means that the customer would employ something only he or she knows, such as a PIN, in tandem with something he or she has (an EMV chip card in this case).

Security system

Cardholders insert their EMV chip card into a simple handheld card reader, and enter their PIN into the device, creating a unique, one-time password, MasterCard said. The password must be entered to permit the user to conduct online banking or e-commerce transactions.

Based on EMV and CAP technologies, the password only works once and becomes invalid when the transaction is completed.

MasterCard claimed that the system gives internet users peace of mind from Trojans or hackers intercepting personal information such as account numbers and passwords. By eliminating customers' need to provide personal information to merchants, identity theft may be prevented, the company said.

For the near future, Formosa Technology is seeking to extend the system to online shopping, online auction and television shopping merchants.

Singapore firm scores mobile wallet success abroad

2008-10-20T13:14:00.002+08:00

By WINSTON CHAI

WITH Singapore's efforts to promote payments via mobile phones slow to get off the ground, a local firm is dialling overseas to exploit the market potential of this emerging technology.

Following the success of earlier trials, Cassis International is working with a Malaysian operator on the commercial rollout of its mobile wallet initiative, according to company CEO Chua Thian Yee. This comes on the heels of a similar deployment for Korea's SK Telecom in 2007.

The homegrown tech upstart, formed in 2002 by a group of executives from the smartcard industry, plays an integral role in realising the payment promise of near field communication (NFC), the technology that is being used to allow consumers to tap and pay for purchases with their handsets.

This is because Cassis provides the solutions needed to allow financial services players to securely distribute credit-card and other payment applications over the air to NFC-enabled mobile phones. By loading the relevant applications, the phone can be used to pay for everything from train rides to burgers and movie tickets.

Cassis was roped in for all the NFC trials that were sanctioned by Visa International, and is the only Asian firm on the payment provider's international mobile payment platform consortium.

Helped by the two overseas projects, the firm is expected to maintain its revenue growth at 30 per cent in 2008, but its big break could come within the next year with more commercial rollouts around the world.

'2009 will be a big year for us,' Mr Chua told BizIT in an interview on Tuesday, without disclosing details of the deals in the pipeline.

To tackle its overseas projects, the company currently has a team of 70 staff across Malaysia, China, Korea, France, and its headquarters in Singapore.

While inter-operability and fragmentation issues dogged earlier attempts to promote mobile payments, Mr Chua is confident that the outcome will be different this time around with NFC.

Instead of loading credit-card applications into the chip of a plastic card, the data is instead sent over the cellular network to an NFC handset. There is no need to replace existing payment terminals, Mr Chua stressed.

'NFC uses a standard that has already been established. It's not about introducing new equipment but merely using another form factor (the mobile phone instead of a plastic credit card) to pay using the same transaction terminal,' Mr Chua said.

While telcos in countries such as Japan and Korea have introduced mobile payments, local operators here are just starting to dip their toes into the fledgling technology.

Singapore Telecommunications and its partners Nets and United Overseas Bank are assessing the feasibility of a new coupon redemption feature with NFC-enabled handsets.

Rival StarHub, however, has chosen to join hands with Japanese operator NTT Docomo to test out the latter's Osaifu-Ketai mobile wallet platform in Singapore.

StarHub to launch Asia's first integrated IM app on mobiles

2008-06-16T16:46:00.002+08:00

Reuben Lee | Jun 13, 2008

Singapore telco StarHub will soon be launching what it claims is Asia's first IM application for mobile phones that combines both Yahoo and Microsoft Live Messenger services. Called Chat Anywhere, this value-added service is aimed at giving IM addicts (or simply anyone who wants to stay online all the time) peace of mind with its S$5.35 monthly flat rate. Expected to be available in the later part of June, this service is open to all StarHub post-paid mobile subscribers with cellular handsets that support Java. Users need to download the application and install it on the phone. Connectivity is via GPRS, 3G or HSDPA whichever is available. No extra data charges will be incurred when using this service, according to StarHub.

Citysense Uses Mobile Data To Pinpoint Night Life Hot Spots

2008-06-11T20:11:00.002+08:00

The mobile map application takes data from cell phones and uses it to identify locations with high activity at any given moment.

By K.C. Jones, June 9, 2008 URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=208402912

Sense Networks has launched an online tool for discovering and navigating nightlife activities.

The company announced the launch of the application, Citysense, on Monday. It also announced a separate platform that analyzes historical and current location data from cell phones.

Citysense is a mobile map application, released in alpha. It highlights hot nightspots in San Francisco in real time. Users can spot locations on Google and Yelp and identify those with high activity at any given moment or view locations that historically draw the biggest crowds.

"Citysense demonstrates the power of combining anonymous, aggregate location data for social navigation," said Sandy Pentland, chief privacy advocate and co-founder of Sense Networks.

Pentland, who also serves as the director of human dynamics research at MIT, said the system resembles the way GPS in cars share road speed conditions so drivers can avoid congestion. It aggregates anonymous location data and analyzes it on a macro level and an individual level. So the system shows different locations for different users to reflect where they are most likely to find others with similar tastes and interests.

Users can choose not to maintain a personalized profile and delete their data at any time.

"You created your data: you own it," Sense Networks explains on the Citysense Web site. "But showing up in Chicago for the first time and seeing the top places you're likely to find people with similar tastes as yourself at midnight -- that's pretty useful."

The company says it maintains anonymity when collecting and sharing data, does not collect e-mail addresses or phone numbers, and never uses passwords.

"In fact, we have a revolutionary new data ownership policy wherein people actually own any information they create," the Citysense privacy policy states. "Citysense is opt-in, all the time. Anything Citysense collects, users can delete. You'll find the delete button easily accessible whenever you open the program."

Users can download Citysense for BlackBerry phones at Citysense.com. A version for Apple's iPhone will be available when the iPhone App Store launches.

Sense Networks also announced Macrosense, software that analyzes historical and real-time location data from mobile devices and cars. "Location data is monetized by companies and investors who receive value from understanding emerging trends in real time, while consumers receive compelling applications free of intrusive mobile advertising, remaining completely anonymous," Greg Skibiski, CEO and co-founder of Sense Networks, said in the announcement.

The software platform analyzes new data points in the context of billions of historic location data points, giving companies and investors insight into consumer behavior and macro trends, according to Sense Networks.

"Just as Google indexed pages on the Internet to optimize Web discovery, Sense Networks has indexed the real places in a city and characterized them by activity, versus proximity or demographics, to better understand the context of consumers' offline behavior," said Tony Jebara, chief scientist and co-founder of Sense Networks.

Everyone Is Talking About Mobile Social Networking

2008-05-10T12:34:00.002+08:00

Everyone Is Talking About Mobile Social Networking

MAY 8, 2008

Big opportunities. Big challenges.

eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networking will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012.

"This population will comprise current online social networkers who are extending their digital lives to mobile as well as a growing number of mobile-only social networkers," said John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the new report, Mobile Social Networks. "Early reports suggest strong user demand for mobile social networks."

For example, MySpace recorded over 7 million unique visitors to MySpace Mobile in the US in the six months since launch. "It wasn't until we rolled out m.myspace.com that we got a sense of how powerful demand was for MySpace on cell phones," Brandon Lucas, senior director of mobile business development for MySpace, told eMarketer.

Facebook claimed 4 million unique registrations. Mobile-only social networking players such as airG, Mocospace, myGamma and itsmy.com all reported several million users soon after launch.

"Along with the rapidly growing audience, marketers are drawn to mobile social networking because it creates a unique context in which to promote their goods and services," said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the report. "It goes beyond simply linking people with digital content by adding the immediacy of sharing with friends—a very powerful marketing proposition."

"Even if only a tiny percentage of the 3 billion worldwide mobile phone users take up mobile social networking," said Ms. Williamson, "the potential advertising inventory reaches mind-boggling levels."

"Marketers, online social network sites, mobile carriers and mobile content providers all face enormous challenges to reach that potential," cautioned Mr. Gauntt. "Marketers are trying to determine which digital marketing techniques and ad units are relevant for the mobile social networking environment."

The six secrets to mobile computing success

2008-04-28T17:24:00.002+08:00

The six secrets to mobile computing success

By Tom Krazit, CNET News.com Apr 27, 2008

There are six things that developers need to keep in mind when developing for mobile computers, six things that don't necessarily come into play when thinking about PCs. That's how Ben Bederson and John SanGiovanni, co-founders of Zumobi, described their philosophies of mobile computing: Immediacy, adaptability, one-handed use, visual elegance, put the user in control, and thinking differently. The two engineers hosted a session during the waning days of the Web 2.0 Expo for Web developers interested in making products for smart phones, mobile Internet devices, or whatever convention we settle on to describe the next generation of mobile computing. Bederson is a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and spends much of his time researching human-computer interaction, which is getting a fresh look after 20 years of desktop computing. The surge in interest in mobile devices gives researchers a clean slate to figure out how people want to use computers, and Bederson and SanGiovanni have their theories. Let's take those one by one:

Immediacy. People have no tolerance for an hourglass on their smart phone, Bederson said. Developers should aim for a 15-second interaction: Take the phone out of the pocket, access the information, put the phone back in the pocket. It should only be out of that pocket for 15 seconds, otherwise, you're going to frustrate the user.

Adaptability. The iPhone may have made D-pads and QWERTY keyboards passé for now, but those types of input methods aren't going to disappear overnight, SanGiovanni said. Software for early smart phones was all about capitalizing on the "up-down-left-right" action of the D-pad, which resulted in a "lowest-common denominator" experience, he said. Instead, developers have to free themselves from the D-pad and design applications that aren't tied to one method of input or another, if they want to spread their work far and wide.

One-handed use. Bederson pulled out some data for this one. People tend to use two hands when they are producing content, and one hand when they are consuming content. But mobile device users consume far more data than they produce. "The basic principle of HCI (human-computer interaction) is support the most common activities excellently, and the other activities adequately," Bederson said. This directly relates to the size of the icons or buttons that you use on your application, he said. If you ask users to try and hit buttons that are 1 centimeter wide, error rates average about 5 percent, but they grow exponentially as the buttons get smaller. The iPhone gets close to that target, with buttons that are around 7 millimeters to 8 millimeters wide, but other devices use buttons that are far, far smaller and almost necessitate the use of a stylus, and two hands.

Visual elegance. SanGiovanni pointed to four popular mobile devices, including the iPhone and Nintendo's DS gaming system. The common thread across all four is that they use hardware acceleration to produce rich graphics, and you have to take advantage of that if you're making an application for those products. Think about transitions, moving through screens in your applications or into and out of applications: This has to be visually pleasing to the user.

Put the user in control. In the past, computers haven't always been designed for the user, Bederson said. They've been designed for the developer, or the IT manager. There were good reasons why that evolution took place, but it can be frustrating to the end user. And with mobile phones, carriers have historically controlled just about all the applications on a home screen, which doesn't sit well with many people.

Different patterns of use. This is sort of the core idea behind mobile development; it's a whole new world. For example, SanGiovanni points out that when you design a Web application with desktop users in mind, you want it to be "sticky," where people spend a lot of time using your particular application. A mobile application, on the other hand, has to be "bouncy," allowing people to "fly in and fly back out" of your application. They'll reward you by coming back if you make the product easy to use on the go. As with anything in life, the factors above all involve trade-offs. Immediacy can be a function of the network speed. Designing larger buttons to make one-handed use easier means you can fit less information on the screen. Rich graphics can sap performance. The iPhone is a prime example. Bederson and SanGiovanni referred multiple times to the iPhone during their presentation, praising it as a breakthrough in human-computer interaction in the mobile world. "It was a pebble dropped in the pond of a static phone industry," SanGiovanni said of Apple's first smart phone. But while Apple's iPhone designers made users feel like they were in control with gesture-based control, they maintained a hammerlock on the applications you can run (officially, anyway) on the iPhone. They designed an intelligent touch-screen keyboard that can predict what letter might come next in a given word, and expand the surface area of that key to improve accuracy. But they didn't give users direct feedback on which application key they hit off the home screen, zooming in on that application from the center of the screen each time it's activated rather than the key itself. That last one seemed a bit nitpicky to me, but I'm not a design geek. However, it's very early in the historical development of these devices. Apple didn't invent any of the major selling points of the iPhone, such as multitouch, use of accelerometers and sensors, or zooming into the screen. But what they accomplished might even be more impressive, according to SanGiovanni: The successful amalgamation and commercialization of design tidbits that had been circulating for years. "The synthesis of these things is the more impressive achievement than somebody who has spent their whole life working on virtual keyboards. Innovation doesn't just mean spending ten years of your life diving deep on just one concept," he said. (Originally posted in "One More Thing" blog at CNET News.com)

Welcome to the bar, would you like webcam or non?

2008-02-20T08:08:00.002+08:00

Whether you love or hate crowded bars - or just like blurry people-watching - a growing phenomenon now appearing in cities like Boston, Minneapolis, and San Diego could help you find what you're looking for: the bar cam.

Using the live video stream (Hog's Breath in Key West, Fla. for instance)

potential customers can call up the live video stream online or by mobile phone so they can survey the crowd before venturing out.

Regarding privacy, promoters say the video isn't clear and isn't recorded, so it's not archived.

"If your wife or husband has enough suspicions to watch us, then they're going to drive down there and walk in on you," Jesse Newsome, founder of Barmigo in Phoenix, Ariz. told CNet.

Canadian man has been shocked to receive a mobile phone bill for nearly $85,000

2007-12-14T01:53:00.002+08:00

Piotr Staniaszek thought he could use his new phone as a modem for his computer under his $10 unlimited mobile browser plan from Bell Mobility.

He downloaded high-definition movies and other large files unaware that this incurred massive extra charges.

Bell Mobility has since lowered the bill to $3,243, but Mr Staniaszek says he intends to fight the charges anyway.

'Nobody told me'

The 22-year-old oil-field worker from Calgary said he thought a first bill for $65,000 in November was a mistake.

When he spoke to Bell Mobility he was informed the bill had climbed to nearly $85,000 after more downloading.

I'm going to try and fight it, because I didn't know about the extra charges Piotr Staniaszek

He said he normally paid about $150 a month for his phone and used to be notified of high charges.

"The thing is, they've cut my phone off for being like $100 over," he told CBC News.

"Here, I'm $85,000 over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on."

Bell Mobility said they would lower the bill to $3,243 in a "goodwill gesture" to match the best data plan available for using mobile phones as a modem, the Globe and Mail reported.

The trouble stems from the new phone he received when he renewed his mobile phone contract.

The new model allows him to connect with his computer and download data.

"I told them I wasn't aware I would be charged for hooking up my phone to the computer. I'm going to try and fight it, because I didn't know about the extra charges."

Canadians complain that their mobile phone charges are much higher for comparable service in the United States.

SingTel starts trial for location-based advertising

2007-11-16T19:37:00.001+08:00

Telecommunications provider SingTel will launch a location-based advertising service that will send subscribers an SMS with marketing content when they come near a participating business. The service works by tracking customers via the base station which their phones connect to.

A one-month trial involving 20,000 users has started, with shopping malls Shaw House and Heeren as test sites. The service is expected to be launched commercially as early as March 2008.

Why Cellular Operators Need A Better Way to Charge for Sending Data

2007-11-08T09:22:00.000+08:00

The Price Is Wrong

SINGAPORE -- I'm often surprised that people use their cellphones so little.

Not in terms of SMS and talking -- indeed, people don't seem to walk down streets anymore; they meander, phone pressed to an ear and their gazes far, far away. And I'm not talking about the BlackBerry addicts who can't keep both eyeballs off their screens even if they're in a freefall. I'm talking about ordinary people, choosing not to send emails or photos from a device that now boasts as much firepower as a laptop and has inside it at least one camera, not to mention GPS and WiFi chips.

This is always a puzzle to me, right until I get my monthly cellphone bill. I'm no heavy user -- I check email and occasionally lob the odd photo onto photo-sharing Web site Flickr -- but the data part of my bill is rarely less than $25. That's when I realize: It's not users who are holding back our cellphones. It's operators. Cellular operators, it seems, still want to sting us for each piece of data we send over their networks. And everyone except me seems to know this and stays well away.

Somehow ordinary users have got to start feeling that the data they move in and out of their cellphone is the same as the data they move in and out of their Internet connection -- on a public WiFi network, say, or at home. The days are over for most of us when we'd be charged per byte for our Internet connections there, but many operators are clinging to the idea that somehow that model will still wash with cellphone browsing, email and photo-sharing. What needs to change is for mobile operators to shift to what they call a flat data rate package -- a fixed cost each month, meaning we won't have to agonize over every download or upload.

For some, this is already true. Some U.S. networks offer an "all you can eat" package, but in most cases these are designed for corporate or heavy users (i.e. BlackBerry fans) and are pricey for ordinary people. Operators need to put together packages that are cheap enough to appeal to us and get us to change our habits. Hutchison Whampoa-owned 3, which runs networks in Asia, Australia and Europe, offers some of its subscribers free Skype calls (phone calls made over the Internet), instant messaging and almost unlimited browsing for as little as $10 a month. That's pretty generous.

That's one way of doing it. Here's another. ShoZu, a British company I've mentioned before, which makes software that offers an easy way to send photos and videos from your phone to many popular Web services such as Flickr, has recently cut a deal with Singapore's StarHub, a combined Internet, telephone and cable TV provider, to let users upload and download all the video and photos they want for less than $3.50 a month. To put this in perspective, says StarHub's product manager for ShoZu access Lee Jin Hian, it would cost you about the same to upload just one 500-kilobyte photo at its pay-as-you-use rates.

What's neat about this is that ShoZu itself is an example of software that actually (a) makes sense and (b) makes it easier to do stuff. Indeed, Mr. Lee pushed StarHub to adopt it because he was already a fan of ShoZu. Why should we want to store photos taken with a camera phone on that phone, when we could send them to all our friends seconds after we take them? And ShoZu is particularly good in doing all this in the background, so you don't have to worry about progress meters, or resending something that only made it halfway before your connection cut out. Mr. Lee was as impressed with ShoZu as I am, but he realized that unless it was offered at a flat rate, and at a price that appealed to ordinary users, it would never take off. "If you worry about the bits and bytes," he says, "you're never going to use it."

That's the other part of this process. It isn't just cost that is holding people back from using their phones to do this kind of thing: It's ease of use. It isn't fun to try to attach a photo or video to a multimedia message and send it to someone else, let alone try to post it to Flickr or to some other Web site. ShoZu makes it easy.

Dean Wood, ShoZu's senior vice-president, says he is happy with the deal because he sees StarHub as a sort of unpaid distributor and marketer for his company. On top of that, ShoZu will take a cut from the Web sites that users upload their photos and videos to -- the advertising revenue that YouTube, say, would get from ads alongside the video uploaded by a ShoZu user. Further down the track, he says, the company will make money by delivering targeted ads to users through the ShoZu software on users' phones. (This raises some privacy issues that I'll go into in another column.)

The important thing, Mr. Wood believes, is that the user doesn't have to pay. This is definitely not the way things are done presently, where operators try to wring what they can out of users for every little extra they tag on. "A lot of operators are in transition between those models," he says. "The dominant model is essentially the consumer pays, whether it's a subscription fee or a download charge for a piece of content or an application."

So why aren't more operators doing this? Well, it's partly about cost. Many operators don't have the tools in place to ensure that all this extra data doesn't slow down their networks for premium customers. If you don't have a lot of business customers, like 3, then this isn't a worry, and StarHub's Mr. Lee says his company's network can handle it.

For StarHub, then, it's a lure: If the company is able to persuade users that ShoZu is cool, it will attract more subscribers because of the cost, and the fun of it may encourage those new users to do other things with their cellphones. But that isn't a given: Mr. Lee knows there's much still to do. "There's a lot of awareness [raising] that needs to be done over the next year or two," he says.

So: Instead of dodging people who are yakking on their cellphones in the street, now we'll have to dodge people who are snapping and uploading photos on their cellphones. That's progress of a sort, I suppose.

Jeremy Wagstaff

Connecting people with Velvet Puffin

2007-08-14T08:15:00.001+08:00

The developers are looking beyond social-networking functions, writes GRACE CHUA

IN the beginning, there was Myspace. Then Friendster and Facebook were created. Now social-networking application Velvet Puffin is going global, and parent company Radixs' CEO R Chandrasekar claims it will revolutionise the networking-service landscape.

Instead of a webpage, the Velvet Puffin service is cleverly disguised as a sleek instant-messaging application similar to Trillian or Gaim.

Besides messaging friends on the Velvet Puffin and other networks like MSN or AIM, users can blog, upload photos and video, and poll their friends, all through the instant-messaging interface.

The application is based on Java, Flash and C++, and does not need to be downloaded to a desktop. Instead, users sign on to the website, and the application window pops up entirely independent of the browser.

Velvet Puffin also comes in a mobile version which offers phone users the same functions as computer users.

Mr Chandrasekar said, 'You have YouTube for videos or Flickr for photos, but we bring all of this into a unified single environment. . . And no one has used an instant messaging interface to do social networking like we do.'

The idea for Velvet Puffin was conceived in January 2006, and work started on it in April 2006.

But why the odd monicker? Velvet Puffin's creators wanted to 'ensure that the name invoked a sense of curiosity and wonder. . . we got the mind-share that we were looking to achieve with the name', Mr Chandrasekar explained.

Velvet Puffin runs on the mobile operating system Motion eXperience Interface (MXI), which is licensed and built on open standards by Radixs.

Vice-president of product development Guy Belanger noted that Velvet Puffin is only the first of many potential MXI applications.

'We are only using 20 per cent of MXI's capability right now,' Mr Belanger said.

When Mr Chandrasekar and former schoolmate Sam Hon, now both 26, founded Radixs in 2002, the company had just seven people and $500,000 in funding from seed money and angel investors.

One challenge the young entrepreneurs faced was attracting venture capital for their start-up.

'Culturally, we are not a very technology-oriented environment compared with the US. Here, there's a need to follow existing patterns rather than think out of the box (when it comes to investment),' Mr Chandrasekar said.

Today, Radixs employs 63 people, about 45 of whom are developers, and has received $16 million in funding from institutional and private investors in Asia.

Within the next three months, it plans to set up a small office in Silicon Valley to handle design, competitive analysis, marketing and architectural technology.

And now that the technological foundation of Velvet Puffin has been laid, the company's main focus is building a subscriber base.

Since Velvet Puffin's soft launch in March this year, 7,500 unique users have signed up for the service, while 30 per cent of the 150,000 instant messages sent so far have been from mobile devices.

This proportion, Velvet Puffin believes, is set to grow to 50 per cent within nine months, as mobile data-and-Internet packages become more affordable.

While most Velvet Puffin users are from Singapore, some are from the US, China and India.

And after Mr Chandrasekar attended San Francisco's Mashup conference on youth, technology and marketing last month, new users have signed up at the rate of over 120 a day, up from 20 a day before the conference.

Several influential technology blogs, including TechCrunch and WebWare, have reviewed the Velvet Puffin application, and WebWare mentions that the application hogs computer resources and memory. However, Mr Chandrasekar says the resource-hog issue will be fixed in upcoming releases within the next few weeks.

At present, Velvet Puffin has partnered SingTel to offer the mobile service exclusively to the latter's subscribers, but plans to engage in tie-ups with other regional and global telcos within the next three months.

Mr Chandrasekar said that Radixs and Velvet Puffin are expected to be revenue-generating by the end of this year.

Velvet Puffin's business model, said Mr Chandrasekar, will depend on three revenue streams: contextual ads, where advertising is specific to individual users' usage patterns; licensing the service to mobile operators; and royalties from device manufacturers who pre-load the Velvet Puffin client on mobile phones.

In future, the developers of Velvet Puffin are looking beyond basic social-networking functions like blogging, video- and photo-sharing and polling.

'Imagine running a Powerpoint application over the network and sharing and collaborating in real-time with your friends,' Mr Chandrasekar said.

'We truly believe that we have the technology and innovation to be the next YouTube or the next Google,' he added.

SingTel to offer free LBS service in Singapore

2007-08-06T10:41:00.001+08:00

By Damian Koh 2007/08/03 20:34:02

Singapore telco Singtel is rolling out a location-based search service in the island-state and this will be available to all its postpaid mobile customers with a GPRS or 3G/3.5G-enabled device.

Dubbed *MAPS, the new location-based service (LBS) allows users to view their current location on a map from their handheld device. They can also search for services, events and promotions happening in their vicinity. This includes "a directory of shops, restaurants and essential amenities".

The telco plans to develop the LBS service to an all-encompassing view of things that are happening in the user's area in the near future. Customers can look forward to booking movie tickets or even find out about discounts at nearby restaurants.

The search service is free and available to all postpaid SingTel mobile users with a GPRS or 3G/3.5G handset. According to the press release, after users dial *MAPS (*6277), they will receive a WAP push message with a link to a map of their current location. From there, they can access the various location-based services. Prevailing traffic data charges, however, will apply.

*MAPS will also be available on the telco's Wireless@SG network by mid-August.

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) and Singapore Tourism Board (STB) launched a similar pilot project called Digital Concierge earlier this year at CommunicAsia 2007. The trial will run from June 2007 for a period of 9 months before going fully commercial in mid-2008.

Services Like Semapedia Could Make Everything Clickable

2007-08-03T11:44:00.001+08:00

All the World's a Page

August 3, 2007

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- If you should ever pass a tree, wall or pillar with what looks like a badly thought-out company logo stuck to it, take a picture with your cellphone. You may learn something.

What you'd be looking at is a Semapedia tag, a printout containing something called a QR bar code. Software on your camera phone will read the bar code just as one of those scanners in a supermarket would, but instead of a price it would decode a link to a Web page on the peer-produced online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Your phone would take you to that Web page, which would contain information about the surroundings -- the street, the building, the town -- you were standing in. There are thousands of these tags around the world: A particularly popular one seems to be at the Buddhist temple of Borobudur in the middle of Indonesia's Java island, although no one seems to know who put it there (both the tag and the temple).

It's tied to what I wrote about a couple of weeks ago: ambient findability1, or the idea that anyone can find anything at any time. In that column I was talking about finding my car keys; here we're talking about finding information. More specifically, hooking up information -- what we want to know -- with connectivity: getting that information to us where we need it. As American Alexis Rondeau, 28, one of the duo who dreamed up the nonprofit Semapedia project in 2005, puts it: "The idea behind this is that we believe bringing information to the place or thing makes virtual information relevant beyond what we have experienced so far."

In fact, things like this aren't particularly new. Marketing companies have been trying to get us to click on billboards with Bluetooth phones for some years. We've been told that soon we'll be able to scan products in shops and figure out whether we could get them cheaper down the road, although no service like this is yet in place. And, at least in Japan, using phones to access additional information is already pretty commonplace, with cellphone-readable bar codes used to provide links to bus timetables, product and allergy information and details in magazine and billboard advertisements.

The idea is spreading. Keith Russell, Hong Kong-based business development manager for Scottish mobile ticketing company Mobiqa, says his company has seen the bar code take off in the U.S. as a device to deliver event tickets to cellphones. Singapore Press Holdings has launched a service in the city-state called ZapCode that allows people to access information via a colorful bar code -- whether it's on billboard five meters away or the address on a missing dog's collar. Mr. Russell describes the concept as "convenient, cool and very cheap."

But what I like about Semapedia (the "sema" is from the Greek for "sign," and the "pedia" is from encyclopedia, via Wikipedia) is that it isn't about advertising, or selling or buying stuff; it's about bringing knowledge to the place you're at. It's something any of us can contribute to and use. And, unlike its commercial brethren, it's an open standard, meaning anyone can peer inside it and use it. It's also pretty simple.

It works like this. Say you want to spread the word about a neighborhood landmark: You find the appropriate page on Wikipedia, copy the Web address, the line beginning "http:" at the top of the browser, into the special box on the Semapedia site (www.semapedia.org2). That will convert the link into a QR bar code and then into a document, split into eight identical miniposters containing the bar code and a message for people who see them, explaining what they are. Print out the document and you're ready to go.

To read one of these bar codes you need to have a camera phone and the right software. Semapedia offers links to the software for your model of handset; you may already find the software installed on your phone. Launch the software, and point your camera at the bar code. The software will take a moment or two to focus on the code and read it, but should soon throw up the message in the code -- in Semapedia's case, a link to a Wikipedia page containing the information about the place you're standing on/in/under/beside.

Of course, you need to be the kind of person who has a camera phone with an Internet connection, and who thinks "Ooh! I'm going out, I should download bar code-reading software in case I bump into a bar code on a lamppost." And, if you are that kind of person, you may just as well enter the name of the place or thing you're looking at in your mobile phone's search engine. But that's slower, more awkward (all those //s and .s) and, frankly, less fun (not to mention the fact that you may be looking at something you don't know the name of, either because you're not as bright as you thought you were or because you don't speak or read the local language).

Besides, a mobile encyclopedia is just the start of things. These bar codes make it possible for anything to be readable by your cellphone -- short encoded messages, telephone numbers, email addresses, links to your blog -- and for them to be put more or less anywhere (a cellphone camera can read them as easily on a screen as on paper). It's one small step toward what people are calling an Internet of Things. Or, as Mr. Rondeau puts it, it's "kind of like turning the world into a clickable Web page."

And, once you get the hang of it, it's pretty appealing. Semapedia co-founder Stan Wiechers discovered this recently when he was affixing a Semapedia tag to a public toilets sign in Beijing and an irate security guard tore it up. So Mr. Wiechers took out his cellphone and showed him what he was doing. By clicking on the bar code, he showed the guard, anyone could see the Wikipedia entry on the history of public toilets (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet#Public_toilets3 -- a compelling read, I assure you). The guard was impressed enough to call over some colleagues. The tag went back up. "Once he understood, he accepted the tag," Mr. Wiechers recalled. "It's a natural desire of people to want to know more about places." Even if they're toilets.

--Email me at jeremy@loose-wire.com4 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118607066711486214.html

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New mobile phone service targets cyber-savvy singles

2007-06-16T10:20:00.001+08:00

By Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE: A local company has come up with a new service that targets cyber-savvy singles.

In what could change the dating scene here in Singapore, Global Roam has launched a mobile service that allows users to give away their phone number, anonymously.

The new technology allows users to create a new phone number using an existing line, in just a few seconds.

The person on the other line will only be able to see this new phone number, via caller ID.

Developers of the new service recognise that many prefer not to reveal their real phone number.

"Most people prefer to keep these identities anonymous, so they don't wish to reveal their true address, their real phone numbers. So our service comes into play in the fact that it can protect them from potential harassment or potential unwanted calls or SMSes for that matter," said Rick Ho, Product Development Manager, Global Roam.

Undergrad Joyce Woon, an intern at Global Roam, is one of the first to try the service.

She said, "Some people do SMS me strange messages and I do not like that. And if this goes on I'd have to terminate my telco (number) which brings a lot of inconvenience. So with this service I can just block them."

The company is not just targeting youth like Joyce.

"Online property agents, for example, who have their own web presence... actually use our service to get in touch with customers. Instead of normal private numbers, which people don't like to pick up, you see actual numbers that people want to pick up," said Mr Ho.

And if criminals like loan sharks want to use this service to remain anonymous, it is too bad for them as the company will be able to trace their original phone numbers.

The company has a revenue projection of US$15 million over the next three years and is already working with telcos in China.

It will be launching the service here at next week's CommunicAsia 2007. - CNA/yy

Mobile Emailing Without a Smart Phone

2007-06-13T20:01:00.001+08:00

Mobile Emailing Without a Smart Phone

New Services Make It Easier To Access User's Accounts On Standard Cellphones

By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO June 12, 2007; Page D1

Consumers' obsession with sending and receiving email -- easily one of the most popular activities on the Internet -- is migrating onto mobile phones.

Numerous companies are making it easier for anyone to send and receive email on their cellphones without splurging on a high-end device or a premium data plan. While the services are generally less sophisticated than the wireless email services offered by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and other wireless email providers, they are starting to appeal to those who use email more for fun than business.

Consilient Push, a mobile email service, is one of many new offerings.

Consilient Technologies Corp. has begun selling mobile software that allows users to send and receive mail from multiple personal email accounts on some 400 different cellphones. The software communicates with the Consilient server, which is checking a user's email account for them. When it receives notice that users have received mail at their personal account, it pulls the messages and delivers them to the user's phone.

Emoze Ltd., owned by Emblaze Ltd., launched an email service that will configure a user's phone to receive mail it routes from personal and work email accounts. The software, which can be downloaded to most cellphones, is currently free and will deliver emails to the in-box built in on the device, eliminating the need for users to open a separate application every time they want to check email.

Teleflip Inc. is taking a different approach with its flipMail service, which allows cellphone users to read and reply to emails they receive from users they have in their address book. The service reformats users' emails so they can be sent over the operator's text-messaging channel but show up on the device resembling regular mail. FlipMail is now free but will soon begin to include advertisements in addition to offering a premium version for a few dollars a month.

The services are starting to catch on among a new group of users interested in staying on top of their email on the go. While checking his email via Teleflip on his phone, Paul Brown, a 34-year-old software engineer, received a message from a friend telling him that NBA playoff tickets had just gone on sale. He called to purchase some instantly. "It's nice to get your emails right when they come up," says Mr. Brown, a software engineer from Austin, Texas, who says he doesn't want to pay for an additional data plan since he is usually near his computer.

Others have begun using them in lieu of higher-priced services geared toward professionals. Paul Adams, a 35-year-old manager for a rock band who lives in New York City, recently bought a BlackJack smart phone from AT&T but chose not to pay for the fancy wireless email service that would have cost him an additional $60 a month. Instead he uses Consilient for $60 a year along with a data plan that's around $30 a month. He says the service stalls every few months or so and forces him to reboot, but he doesn't mind the glitch. "That probably doesn't happen with a BlackBerry," says Mr. Adams who says he's never liked the look -- or the cost -- of the BlackBerry device. "But I don't care."

Leading Web mail companies are also improving the mobile mail experience. Yahoo Inc. has been expanding the availability of its Yahoo Go mobile service that allows users to receive Yahoo mail in real time on their phones instead of logging into a mobile Web site. Late last year, Google Inc. launched a mobile Gmail application that is faster and easier to use than logging into its mobile Web site, and says it might develop technology that would tell users they have received mail without having to refresh their in-box.

The new services are aiming for a piece of the mobile email market that is dominated by corporate users. But that is forecast to change as handsets improve, the price of data plans drops and younger consumers rely on their phones as multipurpose communications hubs. The number of U.S. consumers who access personal email accounts on a mobile device is forecast to rise 55% to 17.4 million in 2007, up from 11.2 million in 2006, according to Strategy Analytics Inc., a market-research firm.

"There is some latent demand on the part of consumers to get email on their phones," says Charles Golvin, principal analyst at Forrester Research, whose surveys show that only 11% of adults with cellphones use mobile email. "There is room for more players."

To compete, new services are trying to mimic the experience companies have offered for professionals but with prices targeted at consumers. For instance, they deliver mail from users' existing accounts almost as soon as the email is received and often offer features like integration with the address book on the phone, calendar updating and the ability to view photos and attachments.

And the services, most of which still require some sort of basic data plan, are creating new business models. Emoze, for instance, is free and the company plans to support itself by selling a corporate edition to large companies. Consilient's service, which costs $5 a month, also offers a free version that includes some scrolling text ads at the bottom of the screen and banner ads that surface between every few emails read.

Still, most services aren't designed for corporate users, lacking features like some of those emphasizing speed and security. Some truncate emails or require users to preselect email address they can receive mail from, a measure they say is designed to cut down on spam.

Like any mobile software users must download to their devices themselves, such services can be difficult to set up. While the new companies are trying to partner with handset makers and operators to make their services work across devices and carriers, there are no guarantees. And features, like whether you can view attachments, vary widely depending on the service and handset used.

These services also face competition from other players trying to offer new wireless email services -- and extend existing ones -- toward consumers.

Device makers like RIM, Palm Inc. and Motorola Inc. are starting to sell lower-price wireless email devices that are less clunky than traditional PDAs. These devices, and their accompanying email services, have advantages like a full keyboard, few set-up requirements and integration with other features on the phone, like the address book and camera.

New approaches are in the works. Txtbl, a start-up, will begin selling a consumer device focused on wireless email early next year. "[Email] applications are hard to set up and people don't know how to type on their phones," says Amol Sarva, chief executive of Txtbl. The company's device, which will have a full keyboard and is currently known as "Mailster," will be sold commercially in two large electronics retailing chains for less than $100.

Write to Jessica E. Vascellaro at jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com¹

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Finding a Date -- on the Spot

2007-06-07T00:15:00.001+08:00

Internet Matchmakers Migrate To Cellphones, Promising More-Immediate Results By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO June 6, 2007; Page D1

Earlier this week, Jeff Blum was out buying a sandwich when his mind wandered toward his social life. So he got out his cellphone and sent a text message with his work ZIP Code to MeetMoi, a new mobile dating service. Within minutes, his phone received the profile of a woman who worked nearby, and the two began exchanging messages about where they worked, their professions -- and meeting up for a drink.

"I liked the fact that we were talking right then and not waiting for emails to go back and forth," says Mr. Blum, who is 24 years old. "It all happened right away."

Millions of consumers have begun prowling for a date on their cellphones, thanks to new mobile dating services that enable "real-time" dating -- that is, letting users connect on the spot with the people they pick out. Designed to be instant versions of Internet dating, many of the new services have capabilities that online-dating services haven't offered -- such as letting you search for a date in a location you can update as you move around, and letting you chat with other people seeking a date while you're out and about.

Match.com, owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp of New York, will soon launch a new mobile dating service that will allow its 15 million members to access their profiles and send messages to potential matches from their phones. Match.com is also planning to launch some dating features on IAC's new Ask Mobile GPS, a software application that lets users of phones with built-in Global Positioning System chips search for local businesses near their location. While the service is still being designed, it could allow users to search for other daters nearby. "We want to take mobile dating to the next step," says Match's chief executive, Thomas Enraght-Moony.

New York-based MeetMoi LLC recently launched a new dating service that helps users identify people who are nearby and looking for dates. Registered users can indicate that they are available by text-messaging a ZIP Code or street address to the service. MeetMoi then searches for other members who have indicated they're looking for a date in the area and sends back the profiles of people who match the user's criteria. The service is free to register and costs 99 cents for 10 anonymous text messages.

Zogo, owned by Wireless Introduction Network Inc., of Englewood, N.J., was launched late last year and connects users who want to talk by phone. Users who log in through the browser in their mobile phone will see a list of matches based on information they have provided about their preferences. If one of the matches sparks a member's interest, he can request a phone conversation, prompting Zogo to send a text message to the match's phone. If the recipient consents, Zogo calls both phones simultaneously, without disclosing either member's phone number. Zogo is now free but may soon start charging a monthly subscription fee for some features.

Jumbuck Entertainment Ltd.'s Fast Flirting service is a mobile version of speed dating. For around $3 a month, it allows users to sign into a virtual "lobby" where they can select a flirting partner based on factors such as age and location. They can then have private text conversations of up to 10 minutes -- a twist on real-world speed dating in which users try to meet a lot of new people in a short period of time. [Date]

While consumers who would rather flirt from afar are skittish, the new features are starting to gain steam among a new generation of mobile daters who want to do everything on the go. The services are already driving strong growth for the mobile dating market -- and helping to entice consumers to sign up for the mobile data plans that are necessary to browse the Web from their phones. An average of 3.6 million U.S. cellphone users accessed a dating service from their mobile phone in March, according to Seattle-based M:Metrics, a mobile research firm, up from 2.8 million in March 2006.

Dating is in many ways made for mobile phones, says Mark Donovan, an analyst with M:Metrics, because people are often most eager for a date when they are "out and about." But the services, particularly those based on location, are likely to appeal most to users in dense urban areas, where the dating pool is likely to be larger and more concentrated.

Mobile dating services also face pressure to prove that they are safe for users and can't be exploited by stalkers posing as daters. To address such concerns, MeetMoi makes its matches without divulging members' locations to each other, and it automatically logs users out of the location they put in after two hours. "You tell us when you want to become available," says MeetMoi's founder and CEO, Andrew Weinreich. He adds that the service is safer than other dating services because a user can have only one account pegged to his or her phone number (unlike Internet dating sites where users can register under multiple aliases).

Still, some worry that location-based features might be misused. "Right now the application would become a stalking application if you added GPS," says Ted Verani, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Trilibis Mobile, creator of mobile dating service Webdate Mobile. He adds that GPS may be appropriate when technology improves to enable users to better regulate who sees what.

Other hurdles for potential miscreants include an often complicated sign-up process. While many services will work across most phones, they often require the users to sign up for a mobile Internet data plan. Some carriers may block some services -- or features of services -- like sending profile pictures, because they consume too much traffic. And pricing plans still vary widely, with some services like charging per text message and others charging monthly subscription fees.

Rebecca Harrington, a 20-year-old student at Pennsylvania State University, says she has found mobile dating significantly more streamlined than repeatedly logging into a computer. She has had some luck with Zogo, and she recently decided to meet up with a guy she chatted with over the service. "The best part is the anonymity and that it is discreet," she says. [date]

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Cell phone software start-up set up by ex-NUS students making waves

2007-04-07T09:37:00.000+08:00

SINGAPORE: A local start-up by two former National University of Singapore (NUS) students has scored a major coup.

The software invented by the company is now the main component of a 3G trial service by StarHub.

The mobile phone software company, called Mozat, has remained low-key despite making waves in the industry.

One of the two men behind the start-up is 32-year-old Michael Yin.

Born in China, the former NUS student has a simple mantra - mobile phones are the future.

In 2003, he and another student, Jet Tan, got $100,000 each from the NUS and the Economic Development Board to fund Mozat.

And it only took two years for the start-up to break even.

"I was always dreaming of starting a business, even back in Shanghai. But the problem with Shanghai is that we can't find good enough people. Singapore is ideal for start-up location because it's a hub of all the talents in the region. I cannot meet my partner, Jet, in China because it's too big. But it (the meeting) happened a few days after I arrived in Singapore," said Michael, who is now the CEO of Mozat.

Mozat's Morange software is a major part of Singapore telco StarHub's recently announced 'PhingoActive' service.

The software brings together various applications, like E-mail, blogging and chatting, under one platform.

More interestingly, it allows mobile phone users to link up to their PC's hard-drive or even get access to external shared folders.

So, users do not have to carry all their MP3s in their mobile phone.

The company may be a modest one, with only 35 staff members.

But it already has two offices in Guangzhou and Shanghai.

William Klippgen, Director of Mozat, said: "Mobile phones are extremely powerful these days and network connections are very fast. So you have a very powerful tool in your hand but it's not being utilised. There's a huge gap in terms of making use of that power."

And to fill those gaps, plans are already underway for the company to go big in China, India and Europe.

Eighty percent of Mozat's staff in Singapore are former NUS students, more than half of them from overseas.

For Michael, he has just applied for his Singapore Permanent Residency.

He is fully aware of the recent heated debate on foreign talent in Singapore but remains unfazed.

"No matter I'm in a taxi or anywhere......my pronunciation, can tell (I'm) from China. They (taxi drivers) always give me a big smile, never get any bad experience," he said. - CNA/ir

Final hammer drops on M1's mobile auctions

2007-03-08T10:32:00.001+08:00

By WINSTON CHAI

DESPITE receiving an overwhelming response from consumers, the final hammer has quietly dropped on M1's popular mobile auction service.

Introduced in June last year, the offering allowed customers to bid a range of snazzy handsets like the Nokia N80 and the O2 XDA Atom at the operator's mobile portal - MiWorld Mobile - for as low as $1. Customers will have to incur data charges when they log on using their phones to place incremental bids ranging from one cent to a dollar.

Industry sources told BizIT the company had pulled the plug on the offering and an M1 spokesman confirmed the move.

'We offered m-Auction for six months, and it ended in November last year,' he said.

This curtain call came despite the immense popularity of the service. According to M1, five to eight handsets were put up for auction every week and during the six-month period, it received more than 150,000 bids from customers. The results are hardly surprising given the auction platform is a sure hit with bargain-hungry Singaporeans as evidenced by the growing popularity of sites like eBay and Yahoo.

Moreover, each placed bid also served to boost the M1's mobile data revenue, a feat which all three local telcos are trying to achieve with the availability of higher speed networks and the proliferation of third-generation (3G) multimedia handsets.

As sales of 3G phones in Singapore continue to soar, operators have been pulling out all the stops to get consumers to do more with their new-fangled handsets. These include promises of video calling, faster Web surfing, and even the ability to watch TV on-the-go.

According to statistics from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, the number of 3G subscriptions stood at 953,400 in January this year, representing nearly one-fifth of Singapore's total mobile subscriber base.

When queried, M1 said it took down m-Auction as it is 'evaluating the service' and 'exploring' enhancements. However, the company did not confirm plans to re-introduce the offering.

S'pore firm develops social networking tool

2007-03-05T09:10:00.001+08:00

S'pore firm develops social networking tool

It connects mobile phone and desktops to same service, writes AMIT ROY CHOUDHURY

A SINGAPOREAN IT company, Velvet Puffin, will today release a unique new social networking service here and in the United States that allows users to instantly communicate, create and share various multimedia content with others, either through a mobile phone or desktop computer.

Speaking to BizIT, R Chandrasekar, president and CEO of Radixs Pte Ltd, the parent company of Velvet Puffin, said the service, also called Velvet Puffin, is the first of its kind in the world.

It provides connectivity and cross communication between existing instant messaging solutions like MSN and Yahoo! and repositories of content like YouTube, Google Video and Metacafe.

Mr Chandrasekar said the service also allows the sharing of user-generated content. He noted that till now, other sites have attempted to capture individual features of desktop-based social networking sites on the mobile phone, 'but this effort has been fractured'.

'By aggregating all features associated with social networking, Velvet Puffin creates a holistic mobile social networking experience . . . Whether users are at their desktop computer or on the go with their mobile phone, no functionality is lost.'

Velvet Puffin's operating system - MXI - allows all user-generated content, including videos, photos, blogs and more to be delivered on mobile phones or computers in real time. The Velvet Puffin official added that the service is completely carrier independent and software is offered at no cost to the consumer as a free download.

On the PC, Velvet Puffin provides a 'socially active desktop' environment allowing users to be always connected to friends. Users can also access shared content without the need for a Web browser, Mr Chandrasekar said.

'Instantaneous alerts are generated to notify 'buddies' on both the desktop and the mobile device whenever new content is posted,' he added.

Radixs was founded in 2002 by Mr Chandrasekar and his childhood friend Sam Hon. Radixs owns and licenses the flagship Motion eXperience Interface (MXI), a mobile data operating system built on open standards, which serves as the backbone of Velvet Puffin.

Explaining the inspiration behind the idea, Mr Chandrasekar observed: 'As users, we had poor mobile experience in relation to services and functionalities when compared with the desktop . . . We could not understand why we should put up with a stripped down experience on mobiles.'

This drove the two to find a solution, he said. 'We believe that the user experience through any access devices should be consistent and rich and that is reflected with Velvet Puffin. Communication and the need to network is an inherent human trait and we have merged both of that with our approach in Velvet Puffin.'

Explaining the business model of Velvet Puffin, Mr Chandrasekar said users will enjoy the service for free and the company's revenue streams will be generated through contextual advertisements (much like ads on Google), licensing of service to mobile operators and royalties.

'Contextual Ads will be served on both the desktop and mobile phones. Ads delivered to users are specific and relevant to their usage patterns. For example, a user who searches for Liverpool videos will be served relevant ads such as Liverpool merchandise. This ensures that users will find ads that are being delivered useful,' he added.

Through contextual ads, advertisers will get a greater return on investment as they are targeting their ads to relevant target groups, he added.

'Google serves contextual ads to desktop users. Our model is similar in that regard. However, we have the benefit of an integrated desktop and mobile service.'

The second revenue stream will come from licensing of the service to mobile operators as they represent another distribution channel, Mr Chandrasekar said.

'Operator licensees of the service will co-brand Velvet Puffin and distribute it to their captive user base. Velvet Puffin will generate additional data revenue for operators and we plan to do a revenue split with the operators on incremental data revenue generated through Velvet Puffin,' Mr Chandrasekar said, adding that the company is in talks with a major regional telco in this regard.

The company's third revenue model involves generation of royalties from device manufacturers who pre-load Velvet Puffin client in their mobile phones.

Mr Chandrasekar and Mr Hon, both 26 years old, were classmates and, before setting up Radixs, took up several freelancing projects since they were 17 years old. They are born and raised in Singapore.

Both hold an advanced diploma in computer science. They deferred their degree programmes in computer science from Monash (for Mr Chandrasekar) and Portsmouth University (for Mr Hon) to focus on Radixs full time.

Velvet Puffin has received US$10 million in funding from both institutional and private investors in Asia.

'We are in our second round of funding and major investors include Purple Ray and Artisan Encipta while the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) was a Seeds investor,' Mr Chandrasekar said.

Headquartered in Singapore, there are currently 60 Radixs employees worldwide.

'We have a diverse team comprising Singaporeans, Indians, Chinese, Britishers, Australians and even a French Canadian . . . (software) developers make up 80 per cent of Radixs workforce,' Mr Chandrasekar said.

SMS will remain the dominant force in the region

2007-03-03T08:07:00.000+08:00

SMS still No.1 in Asia, study finds

By Farihan Bahrin, ZDNet Asia 26/2/2007 URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/communications/0,39044192,61992389,00.htm

The outlook for text messaging in the Asia-Pacific region remains bright, according to a new study from Portio Research released Tuesday.

Despite strong challenges from other mobile messaging services--such as mobile e-mail and mobile instant messaging (mobile IM)--short messaging service (SMS) will remain the dominant force in the region, the study outlined.

Portio analyst John White told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail that there will be estimated 1.4 billion additional mobile phone users in Asia by 2012, and SMS revenue in the region will mushroom from US$16 billion in 2006, up to US$22.7 billion in 2012.

White added that regional SMS traffic within the same period will explode, fuelled by a flood of new subscribers and handset purchases in the Asia-Pacific. The number of SMS messages will spike sharply from 967.7 billion in 2006 to a staggering 2071 billion messages by 2012, he predicted.

In contrast, Portio's outlook is different for the North American market. Mobile instant messaging (MIM) is forecast to supplant SMS as the mainstream messaging service within the next four years due to the proliferation of smartphones and wireless Internet, its study showed.

White said that although there will still be more SMS users than mobile IM users, "our study forecasts the number of IM messages to grow more than SMS messages in the United States sometime after 2011".

In Asia, doubt remains over IM's ability to ever topple SMS as the mainstream messaging service. "SMS will remain the dominant peer-to-peer messaging service in Asia-Pacific, as IM will require the user to have 'always-on' services like GPRS or 3G," said Alex Chau, senior research manager at analyst house IDC, in an e-mail.

Chau noted that in developing countries like India, China and Thailand, users are still using just the basic services, such as voice and SMS.

Portio's White agreed with this assessment. "We do not see this trend in Asia…mobile IM will be popular in Asia, but not as popular across the whole region as SMS," he said.

The Portio analyst added that, while mobile e-mail--another messaging competitor--will become popular, it is unlikely to pose a major threat to SMS revenues within the next few years.

"Mobile e-mail will continue to grow very healthily in the enterprise sector," White observed. "But outside Japan, mobile e-mail will have little impact on mass consumer markets, only with the elite, high-end smartphone users."

Singapore - Wi-Fi Prosecutions Misguided

2007-01-18T19:40:00.000+08:00

I have been watching with growing concern the prosecution of individuals in Singapore for Wi-Fi theft. The whole premise for such a prosecution is misguided, and shows a lack of understanding of the underlying technology and the regulatory framework under which it was launched. Wi-Fi is a standard for data transmission over unlicensed radio spectrum. The rules governing this usage were set in the U.S. by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). As the protocol and equipment gained popularity, demand forced other governments to allow the same usage. The key here is that the radio spectrum being used is unlicensed. Like CB radios in the 70' and 80's, anyone is allowed to transmit and receive on this spectrum. There are no offers of privacy or private property, this is public spectrum. Once Wi-Fi became widely available, people quickly realised that their data was at risk if they transmitted without some sort of encryption. Equipment manufacturers, not governments, responded by offering first WEP (Wireless Equivalency Privacy), then stronger forms of encryption when WEP was shown to be hackable. Wi-Fi transmitters are designed to broadcast their availability, and for Wi-Fi receivers to search for all available networks. Any modern laptop will automatically list all available networks that can be "seen". In my own flat, I can see at least 12 networks, at least half of which are not encrypted. There has been an analogy proposed that tries to equate Wi-Fi mooching with physical entry to someone's house. "Just because I leave my door unlocked, does not mean you are free to enter". This analogy is completely wrong. Wi-Fi is designed to send a welcome message to anyone operating with Wi-Fi compliant hardware. The proper analogy is "You are welcome to come into my house unless the door is locked" In this case, silence, or inaction, on the part of the network owner is consent. The real culprit in this sad state of affairs is the person who attaches a Wi-Fi transmitter to his home wired network, and knowingly fails to turn on basic encryption. Such individuals are breaking the terms of their ISP agreements which prevent further distribution or access by individuals other than the subscriber. Stop ruining the lives of children by giving them inappropriate criminal records, and start going after the real problem, those who are too lazy to use equipment properly.