- Week summary
- Carriers news
- Wireless data related middleware vendors news
- Terminal development for mobile data
- Vendors of software for client wireless devices news
- Mobile application related news
- Application outsourcing and hosting news
- News about financing for wireless data businesses
| * - Star sign marks especially important (from the editor's point of view) news items and is also a link to the next important news item. |
Week summary |
- Blackberry finally arrives to Japan.
- City of Bologna launches city-wide Wi-Fi.
- 3 Italia offers flat-rate 3G data plan.
- Samsung introduces VGA LCD with 400 dpi.
- Sony Ericsson's advanced multitasking J2ME platform is approved by developers.
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This section lists news about innovative and competitive usage of wireless data by network carriers.
| * NTT DoCoMo and RIM Agree to Sell BlackBerry in Japan Original news source |
NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (DoCoMo) and Research In Motion (RIM) announced that DoCoMo will start marketing RIM’s BlackBerry handheld devices to its corporate customers in autumn 2006. DoCoMo will provide the devices to further meet corporate users’ needs for mobile business solutions. BlackBerry Enterprise Server software tightly integrates with Microsoft Exchange, IBM LotusDomino and Novell GroupWise, and enables secure, push-based wireless access to e-mail and other corporate data. The BlackBerry handheld devices to be sold in Japan will operate on both W-CDMA (UMTS) and GSM/GPRS networks and will be useable around the world for voice and packet (data) communications. The devices will have QWERTY keyboards, similar to those of PCs, for fast and easy thumb typing.
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| * City of Bologna Launches Metro Wi-Fi Network Original news source |
| RoamAD,supplier of carrier-grade, converged wireless networks, announced that the Municipality of Bologna has launched a RoamAD-based municipal Wi-Fi network that is providing free Internet access to citizens of Bologna as well as to students and faculty of the University of Bologna.
The Iperbole Wireless network was deployed by HI-TEL Italia, a RoamAD VAR/SI partner, in conjunction with a local ISP, Acantho, with the support of Laboratori G. Marconi, the City of Bologna, and the University of Bologna. |
| * 3G WWW Surfers Paradise for 3 Italy Original news source |
| 3 Italia, Mobile Media Company of the Hutchison Wampoa Group, launches WWW, mobile browser service designed for surfing the Internet with no limits from the subscriber’s video mobile phone.
Consumer and business customers will be able to use their own video mobile phone to read and send email messages, surf the Web, buy tickets online, book flight tickets, check the stock exchange or get up to date on the latest news.
The new service WWW is the first of its kind in Italy to guarantee a flat access fee and to allow 3 subscribers to access any Internet site with a simple click from any video mobile phone.With the Try & Buy option, subscribers can download the WWW application on their video mobile phone to try the service. Users can surf the Internet for free for one week, from any place, with no limitation on data usage. At the end of the trial period, users can subscribe to the WWW service for a special price until 30th September 2006. Subscribers can choose from a special daily rate of 1 Euro per day (regularly priced at 2 Euro per day) or a monthly subscription of 9 Euro per month (regularly 15 Euro per month). These plans include unlimited data traffic.
For those users who prefer a pay-as-you-go plan, the rate applied will be that already defined in their tariff plan for data usage. |
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This section lists breaking news from companies which provide middleware used by carriers and software developers to offer access to diversified corporate data.
| Novarra Releases Version 5.0 of nWeb Internet Platform for Mobile Original news source |
| Novarra, the provider of next-generation high performance Internet platforms for mobile, announced commercial availability of nWeb platform Version 5.0. New features include two-click access to popular Web transactions, OTA upgradeable user personalization and view options, core capacity and acceleration enhancements, and up to forty percent improvement in speed for popular mobile use cases. nWeb v5.0 is meeting the needs of operators evaluating and deploying new 3G services this summer and fall. Iusacell has selected nWeb v5.0 for BREW and 3 Italy, of the Hutchison Whampoa Group, has selected nWeb v5.0 for Java for summer deployments. |
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This section lists breaking news from companies which manufacture actual end user wireless devices (phones, pagers, PDAs etc.), as well as other information relevant to such companies.
| * SAMSUNG Electronics Introduces First 1.98” LCD to Achieve VGA Resolution Original news source |
| Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world's largest provider of thin-film transistor, liquid crystal display ( TFT -LCD) panels, announced that it has developed the industry's first 1.98” LCD panel to achieve VGA resolution, using the company's amorphous silicon (a-Si) technology. Mobile phones equipped with this new, display will be able to show Windows screens and documents with the same VGA quality that is provided by most desktop or notebook PCs.
The user will be able to enjoy the best quality mobile TV images, with delineation of visual details as small as 63 microns — half the average width of a human hair (120 microns). A typical 40” HD LCD TV has 40 pixels per square inch, while the new 1.98” LCD panel has10 times as many, or 400 ppi. |
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This section lists breaking news from companies which provide client software that runs in end user wireless devices (phones, pagers, PDAs etc.).
| * Sony Ericsson introduces multitasking and achieves performance with new Java Platform 7 mobile phones Original news source |
| Sony Ericsson's Java Platform 7 (JP-7) supports a range of Java Specification Requests (JSRs), including Advanced Multimedia Supplements (JSR 234) for enhanced camera and image handling. It is now possible to control the camera exposure (i.e. the amount of light on the image sensor), the focus, zoom functionality and the camera's flash from a Java ME-based application as well as rotating the camera image. The ability to record video and very precisely control frame-by-frame location, allowing the end-user to ‘move around’ in the video, is also offered by JP-7 based phones. All these capabilities can now be controlled from a Java ME-based application, opening up possibilities for new creative imaging applications from the global third party developer community, benefiting the consumer.
Through new generation hardware with faster CPU, better optimized software supporting floating-point operations and improved critical graphics primitives for 2D and 3D graphics, Sony Ericsson has also managed to take a huge leap in performance and speed, significantly improving game-playing experience and leaving current competition far behind. Developer feedback claims the six new Sony Ericsson phones – the K610, K790, K800, W710, W850 and Z710 – based on JP-7 have the best gaming performance on the market, a position the company will likely keep throughout 2006 and 2007 with its products. |
| QUALCOMM’s Graphics Solution Elevates the Mobile Experience for Richer 3D Games and More Original news source |
| QUALCOMM Incorporated announced that network operators in leading 3G markets worldwide are offering an increasing number of mobile handsets featuring the rich hardware-accelerated 3D graphics capabilities enabled by the Company's Q3Dimension solution. True 3D capabilities for applications such as games, user interfaces, navigation services and animated avatars, are now available on devices offered by six leading manufacturers. The Company also is working with more than 30 publishers and developers, facilitating the creation of compelling content with its standardized graphics platform. |
| Arch Rock Demonstrates ZigBee and TinyOS 2.0 Integration Original news source |
| Arch Rock Corporation, a provider of software, systems and services for wireless sensor
networks, announced that it has integrated the ZigBee networking
protocol stack with its open, hardware-independent software and systems
suite. The integration of ZigBee into Arch Rock technology gives customers
unprecedented flexibility and choice when developing solutions for wireless
sensor networks.
Using the Arch Rock technology suite, the company is demonstrating the
ZigBee protocol stack, integrated for the first time as a new networking
option over the IEEE 802.15.4 low-power radio standard, with a TinyOS
2.0-based embedded operating system. |
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This section lists news that describe innovative and competitive implementation of wireless data applications.
| QUALCOMM Successfully Demonstrates Fully Mobile VoIP Calls Across a Number of Field Test Environments Original news source |
| QUALCOMM Incorporated announced it has successfully demonstrated the full mobility of high-quality, high-capacity voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls across multiple test environments, including mobile, pedestrian and fixed, enabling operators to migrate voice services to Internet protocol (IP)-based platforms for a common service platform. The field tests, which involved 62 simultaneous calls, were conducted over CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. A in one sector within a single 1.25 MHz channel - in a fully mobile configuration. The test network demonstrated capacity gains approximately 30 times greater than mobile analog voice and results from a fully loaded commercial network could be somewhat lower. QUALCOMM used commercial-ready application specific integrated circuits in both handset and prototype networks. These field tests validate the quality and capacity of full mobility VoIP over EV-DO Rev. A and pave the way to large scale commercial trials by network operators. |
| Embrace Mobile Introduces MSurvey Original news source |
| Embrace Mobile announced the successful debut of MSurvey, a new mobile survey application, at the Online Marketing Show in London. MSurvey provides market researchers with a method for collecting data instantaneously to more accurately capture how a respondent feels at the time of the experience.
The technology is being used by Centaur Media, organisers of the Online Marketing Show, to carry out live research during the event. MSurvey is ideally suited for short surveys such as mystery shopping, event feedback, customer satisfaction as well as panel cleaning and diarised reminders. Trials of MSurvey with several companies have delivered good response rates; typically 80% - 90% received within two hours.
A hosted or integrated service, MSurvey can be delivered in SMS, mobile internet, and application versions, giving in-house market research teams, media agencies, market research companies, and software providers a range of options for reverse billing and branding. The application has been developed using open standards; XML, and the market research industry's Triple-S (Survey Interchange Standard). |
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This section lists news about outsourcing/hosting of mobile corporate/enterprise applications by e.g. software developers, network carriers, and consulting companies. News about mobile access to portals are also included here.
| Aliant offers Full Track Music Downloads powered by Groove Mobile Original news source |
| Aliant, Atlantic Canada's leading information and communications technology
provider, launched Full Track Music Downloads, powered by Groove Mobile and available
on the first in a new generation of multimedia phones, the Samsung A920, providing customers
with the ability to download and listen to music anytime, anywhere. |
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This section lists news about new financing opportunities for and in the wireless data industry.
| Telcogames acquires Fathammer Original news source |
| Telcogames, a global publisher, developer and distributor of mobile games, today announced that it has acquired Fathammer, the Helsinki based developer of advanced mobile games. The acquisition establishes Telcogames as the global market leader in mobile smartphone games, and expands the reach of Fathammer’s games portfolio further globally. |
| Jumbuck acquires wap3 Community Business Original news source |
| In a rare case
of an Australian Technology company increasing its reach internationally
through the acquisition of a successful European competitor, Jumbuck
Entertainment Ltd announced that it has successfully completed
the acquisition of German company wap3 Technologies community business,
propelling it to the forefront of the global market to become the world's
largest mobile community messaging provider.
Jumbuck, with a customer base of over 40 carriers in the USA, UK and
South East Asia and approximately 8.5 million users across its services,
combined with wap3's client base of 29 carriers, including some of Europe's
largest, and with a customer base of 6 million users will create a company
with a far reaching global distribution network of 70 carriers with a
community in excess of 14.5 million users. |
| Juice Wireless Secures 4 Million Dollars in Funding Original news source |
| Juice Wireless Inc., the award winning, specialist in interactive mobile data applications, services and products announced that it has secured $4 million in funding led by 21Ventures LLC, an independent VC firm headquartered in New York.
The Company will tap this new financing to accelerate sales and marketing efforts for its latest critically acclaimed product, the JuiceCaster. Monies will also be used to support further development and sales of Juice Wireless' existing line of mobile data applications and services. |
| Industry Veterans Launch Mobility Public Relations Original news source |
| With industry analysts predicting tremendous growth in mobility-related technologies, products and services, three industry veterans have launched a public relations agency to serve this explosive high-tech category. By focusing solely on mobile technologies, Mobility Public Relations is better positioned to share expertise and build compelling campaigns across a broad array of clients within the mobile technology space. Mobility Public Relations' principals offer clients more than forty years of combined public relations experience having served large public companies and pre-IPO start-ups in Internet, network and telecommunications industries. |
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A recommended introductory reading that may be helpful in understanding the scope of this publication is the Wireless Data Forum's Wireless Data Primer.
A glossary of wireless industry terms and acronyms can be found at the Wireless Week site.
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