Friday, February 29, 2008

Microsoft Patents Killer Mobile Stalking Application

Does this not reek of stalker heaven?

An interesting patent has surfaced today indicating that Microsoft might be planning to enter the mobile dating industry.
The patent, entitled Image-Based Face Search details how Microsoft could be developing complex facial recognition software. The patent explains how a photo could be uploaded from a mobile phone or PC and compared with millions of other pictures to find similar matching faces.


Take someone's photo, upload and find out who they are...


... via flickr, facebook, etc.


source: Dial-a-Phone

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Rugged Tablet with 3G & GPS built in!

Roper Mobile Technology unveiled a new rugged tablet PC today called the Duros. Duros is a Windows XP based tablet PC sealed to IP-65 levels for dust and water and is manufactured to MILSPEC 810F.

The screen is an 8.4-inch sunlight viewable SVGA with resistive touch capability. The processor in the system is either a Geode LX 800 or an Intel Celeron M 1GHz. The system can have up to 1GB of RAM and 120GB of storage space. A 64Gb SSD is optional and the battery is hot swappable.

Connectivity options for the system include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and optional built-in GPS. Operating temperatures for the system are -20C to 50C and Roper says the machine can withstand a 4-foot drop onto concrete.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Google: iPhone traffic dominates mobile search

Web services giant Google this week said Apple's iPhone is responsible for 50 times the number of mobile searches of any rival handset, with Google's mobile head Vic Gundotra forecasting that mobile search will soon overtake traditional web search if other device makers make mobile web access as user-friendly. Speaking to The Financial Times, Gundotra said he first assumed the iPhone search data was a mistake: "[We] made our engineers check the logs again," he said.

The new Nokia 6210 Navigator now with compass!

Nokia have seemingly increased the pace of mobile phone innovation with the announcement of the Nokia 6210 Navigator at the MWC 2008. The 6210 Navigator comes with HSDPA and aGPS and a built-in compass, which acts to rotate the map according to the direction in which you're pointing. In other words, no more having to work out which way down a street you're walking - the map will always point in your direction no matter where you stand.

This is great news for GeoVector as it brings their IP out beyond Japan. Directional searches and Pointing games here we come :)

uLocate extends Buddy Beacon beyond the mobile

With the release of a new version of Buddy Beacon™, uLocate Communications introduced the world's most advanced location enabled mobile friend finding service. With Buddy Beacon, users can choose when to share their location, and what they are up to, with their friends. Buddy Beacon is the first location enabled friend finding application that is interoperable between multiple carriers.

In addition to cross-carrier interoperability, the Buddy Beacon platform allows users to update their location and status on leading online social networking sites, including Facebook. As a compliment to this feature, uLocate has also unveiled a Buddy Beacon application on Facebook. This functionality extends the Buddy Beacon user experience beyond mobile devices.

O2 Sets Sights on Mobile Advertising Market

O2 signalled its intention to grow the UK mobile advertising market with a new service which will allow brands to take advantage of the significant opportunities presented by mobile advertising, and bring relevant, highly targeted and informative advertising to O2’s mobile customers.

This new service on O2 Active will enable brands to deliver both display advertising and advertising-funded content models to specific audiences. For the first time in the mobile industry, advertisers can be provided with the tools to measure how effective their campaigns are and which audiences react well to their adverts. Advertiser’s microsites will be zero rated so that customers who click through will not incur any data charges while they are browsing on these sites.

The O2 mobile advertising service was successful trialled with 500,000 O2 customers during 2007. Trialists were presented with various forms of adverts from 30 different advertising campaigns on O2 Active, the UK’s largest mobile portal, including banners ads, advertising-funded games and video from brands such as Honda, Nivea and Yell.

Results from the trial revealed that 16 million page impressions were generated on O2 Active throughout the trial, with a 6% click through rate on adverts. This compares to an online advertising average of 0.18%* highlighting the huge potential of mobile advertising to reach audiences in a highly targeted and relevant way. Customer’s also reacted well to the advertising and considered it a good experience with access to quality brands and no data charges.

O2 will be able to provide brands with more targeting possibilities than on any other traditional advertising platform, with its own service boasting opportunities to carry out behavioural, demographic, geographic, and channel-based targeting.

· Behavioural – targeting users who subscribe to football alerts or read the football pages on O2 Active with adverts that are known to be of interest to the football demographic.

· Demographic – targeting men, women, specific age groups, regions or usage (those who have made an overseas call in the last month) etc

· Geographic /locational/temporal – targeting people based on location e.g. allows advertisers to target particular regions with promotions – e.g Motoring brands wanting to generate test drives in affluent areas of London

· Channel-based – Sponsorship of the Sports section or other channels on O2 Active

O2’s advertising service runs on O2 Active, the UK’s most popular mobile portal with 7.8 million customers visiting every 90 days and we see 650 million page views per month. To sustain the impact and keep adverts within acceptable bounds for its customers, O2 will be restricting the supply of adverts on O2 Active, focusing its efforts on effective targeting and precision.

Sally Cowdry, Marketing Director, O2 UK, commented, “Mobile advertising is the advertiser’s holy grail, combining a high resolution screen in every pocket with a customer database which has the power to deliver messages to exactly the people you want. This new service will provide a boost to the market while at the same time ensuring advertising is relevant and non intrusive for our customers.”

Source: Mobile Business