Moneymoneymoney…. maaah-naaay… Stefan and I run down a whole lot of mobile banking news in this week’s podcast. The new startup Square and their 3.5mm-based peripheral take up the bulk of our interest, but we explore SMS, NFC, QR, and straight-up application-based solutions and which works where.
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The Signal 50: Mobile Banking and Super Monkey Ball 2 for iPhone Giveaway
Sygic and MapmyIndia, India’s leading map provider, have announced the launch of ‘MapmyIndia Sygic Mobile Maps’. The application allows GPS-enabled mobile phones to have GPS navigator functionality, allowing guided travel anywhere in India. The application uses the MapmyIndia maps, along with the Sygic Nav software, to offer what is said to be the best GPS navigation solution for mobile phones.
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Sygic and MapmyIndia introduce Mobile Maps India navigation app
The other day I posted on ‘Snowboading TnT’, which has been re-released with some whizzy new motion-sensing (accelerometer) code in it, to make the most out of the game. Well, I’ve had some time to play it now (one of the benefits of being an insomniac – you have loads of time to play-test games!), and I have to say I like it! Now S-TNT isn’t one of those games that you’ll spend hours and hours on – at least I don’t think so – but I do think it will serve brilliantly as a stop-gap when you’ve got say 10-60 mins spare, and want a game that will hook you, and get you playing with a mixture of racing, tricks, and tactics! The downhill element of the snowboarding is much like any other game – start at the top of the hill, then race to the bottom (in this case it’s against the clock). You could even argue the point about doing tricks off jumps is like MANY other games out there – but I say when it ain’t broke, why fix it
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Quick Review – Snowboarding TnT for the iPhone iPod/Touch
Golden Gekko has unveiled its new service ‘Tino’, that will apparently allow anyone to ‘build a mobile application and bring it to market much faster, and more affordably, than has previously been seen in the mobile app marketplace’. To build a mobile app, a customer can visit www.tinomobile.com and follow the five easy steps to build an application of choice.
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Golden Gekko Launches Tino – Make A Mobile App In Five Easy Steps!
Short Version: Gunnar’s “MLG Legend” glasses are a good choice for gamers and workers alike who suffer from eye problems created from staring at a screen for long periods of time. While the thought of wearing specialty glasses with amber lenses in front of a computer or TV screen may seem pretentious to some, the benefits of these glasses outweigh the possibility of any social backlash. The price point of $99.00 is reasonable, and the durability of these glasses is remarkable given their lightweight design.
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Review: Gunnar ‘MLG Legend’ Glasses
Mean Girls: High School Showdown from Paramount Digital Entertainment, is now available for the introductory price of only $0.99 on the iTunes App Store. It’s inspired by Paramount Pictures’ film of a similar name, and so players take on the role of a new student who must decide if naughty or nice will run North Shore High by fighting opposing high school cliques in strategic Match 3 battles
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Mean Girls: High School Showdown Now Available for iPhone/iPod Touch
Another quick fiddle, another device tried out and ready to be reported on… The Sony Ericsson ( NYSE: SNE ) Satio is the recently-released touchscreen beast from Sony Ericsson, packing a 12.1MP camera! Wowzer, that is some serious image-processing power! I recently got my hands on one, and walked away with these impressions (bear in mind the idea here is first impressions from a few mins of playing with the device): Build quality & form-factor – overall it’s nice, very nice. Comes across much more like a camera than a mobile device, even down to a bulge where the optics for the camera are. The device feels about the right sort of weight for it’s size, and definitely feels like quality Screen – it’s a good size, the colours and sharpness are great, and it works well as a touch device.
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The five-minute fiddle: Sony Ericsson Satio
Motorola ( NYSE: MOT ) is making a big push with their Android lineup. Google ( NSDQ: GOOG )’s mobile operating system is Motorola’s last chance to bring itself out of its rut and take its place as one of the mobile industry’s hottest phone makers, and by the looks of the CLIQ and the DROID , Motorola is well on its way back to recovery. But, it’s not just the high-end that Motorola is targeting – Motorola wants to make Android phone as cheap as possible
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Unannounced Motorola ‘LaJolla’ Android phone spotted in Motorola CLIQ source code!
The Motorola ( NYSE: MOT ) Sholes tablet rumors have been coming hard and fast these past few days. We were first tipped off to a slate-based Sholes, which is believed to be a Motorola Droid variant, in a leaked product road-map . Then we were given our first glimpse of the keyboard-less Motorola Sholes tablet in leaked images that showed the upcoming Android phone sporting an HDMI output and 8-megapixel camera
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Another Motorola Sholes sighting, this time from China
In October we discovered that Nokia trademarked “Ovi Prime Place” and ever since then we’ve been wondering, what kind of service could it possibly be? Wonder no more, it’s officially launched ! Ovi Prime Place is a free services that businesses can use to put their contact details and other store information on Ovi Maps
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Ovi Prime Place: A serivce for businesses to put their information on Ovi Maps [Yellow Pages 2.0]
While Verizon might not be shoving the HTC Droid Eris down our throats the same way they are with its Motorola-made sibling, the Droid, the Eris is still one slick little piece of mobile kit. What it lacks in form factor (that is, a physical keyboard), it makes up with its drop-dead-gorgeous Sense UI. The only real shortcoming, as I see it, is that it’s still stuck on Android v1.5 while the Droid is touting around 2.0
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Verizon announces software update for Droid Eris coming in 2010
Just received a note from the folks at Mark/Space to let me know that The Missing Sync for Android is now shipping! Versions for both the PC and Mac are available, and it makes the syncing of your outlook, entourage, address book, iTunes, iPhoto and much, MUCH more all very simple and easy. Install music playlists, ringtones, photos, docs and videos on your Android-powered phone via USB… You can also sync contacts wirelessly via WiFi.
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The Missing Sync for Android Now Shipping
BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has just signed up with the Wireless Power Consortium, which is an organization trying to establish open standards for (you guessed it) wireless charging called Qi. Although the Palm ( NSDQ: PALM ) Pre gets all the love for wireless charging through its inductive battery door, RIM has been including charging contacts on its devices for a long time to use with charging pods – it’s not quite the same, but the sentiment’s there
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RIM Joins Wireless Power Consortium
MySpacers, RIM has recently launched version 2.0 of the MySpace app, in case you missed it! To get your mitts on it pop open App World on your device or on your desktop . A changelog has been made available, and below are some of the more key enhancements you’ll find within: Lookup friends while composing messages Add more than one recipient when sending a message Select multiple messages when managing messages (for deletion, mark as read, etc.) Create, view, edit and comment on blogs View and access MySpace messages from the BlackBerry ( NSDQ: RIMM ) message list BIS-B Push Transport for new messages, friend requests and profile comments Your mood and status can now be selected and customized MySpace 2.0 has been updated for support of OS 4.5 and higher as well
Here’s the right thing for all audio freaks out there who happen to be ready to shell out a lot of cash for a very unique product: Japan-based tech company BifrösTec (what a name) is selling egg-shaped speakers [JP] that are priced at $3,580 for a pair. The so-called D’Egg TGA-2R1 is sized at 140×140×235mm and weighs 2.6kg (including the stand that’s included in the price). The 30W speakers feature 70Hz〜20kHz frequency response, 4Ω impedance and 80 dB/W/M sensitivity.
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D’Egg: Egg-shaped speakers for $3,580
Paul Pinnock left Psion , the once famous British company who pioneered the mobile computer space, in 1995 to start POS Limited . His new company offered service and support to Psion owners, a group of people whose dedication to their machines is equal to that of Apple ( NSDQ: AAPL ) fanbois from the 80s and 90s
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Former Psion employee and Editor at All About Symbian launch the PsiXpda [3G, QWERTY, Windows XP]
Gadget Lab reader Michael Lowdermilk writes: Hi Charlie, Since you’re a power junkie I wanted to get your feedback on what you think about adding USB ports to power outlets. By “power junkie”, Michael isn’t referring to my constant attempts to wrest control of the Gadget Lab from its esteemed editor (damn your physical fitness and level-headed approach, Tweney — I’ll get you one day). Instead, Michael is talking about my weakness for cleverly designed wall-warts, of which his is one
Call me dorky, but for me the perfect game is one where you also learn something. It may have something to do with the Great British Pub Quiz, which long ago replaced the formal academic examination in UK schools and universities because a) attendance runs to almost 100% and b) you get to drink beer. So if you, too, prefer to read a how-to article on the web than kill five minutes on yet another tower-defense game, try out Stuff to Rattle Your Brain , a trivia quiz game from the good folks at How Stuff Works .
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Brain Drain: ‘How Stuff Works’ Trivia Game for iPhone
After being open for barely 2 years, Nokia ( NYSE: NOK ) is going to shut down their Flagship Store in London because it has “not been as efficient or as profitable as we’d have liked it to” said a Nokia spokeswoman. The decision was a tough one and has “not been taken lightly” she added, saying that the store didn’t allow to bring the company’s services services “to life”. Word of Advice: Don’t blame the terrible state of Ovi for the terrible state of your store
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Brief: Nokia to close London Flagship Store on Regent Street
Google and Microsoft have joined the I3A ( International Imaging Industry Association ) and more importantly the CPIQ ( Camera Phone Image Quality ) Initiative. What does this mean to you? A 3rd party organization is going to give star ratings to camera phones and then slap them on retail boxes in the hopes that consumers actually pay attention to their newly developed metric instead of going “OMFG 12 MEGAPIXELS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN 8 MEGAPIXELS!!!”
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Google and Microsoft join an organization made for finding out which camera phones suck
“Multimedia retailer” (whatever that means) QVC is “ going iPhone.” The dedicated application is designed to enable iPhone and iPod Touch users to shop QVC anywhere. You can view the “Today’s Special Value” and “One Time Only Value” offers, as well as shop for QVC’s live show through the “Current Item On-Air” and “Items Recently On-Air” features. All this (content purchases) is conducted in a fast, seamless manner, using “Speed Buy” feature
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QVC launches iPhone app; Enables shopping on the go
Motorola ( NYSE: MOT ) announced that its VC arm, Motorola Ventures, made an investment in Sensitive Object, a leader in multi-touch anywhere platforms and natural user interface (NUI). Here’s what we know about Sensitive Object (from the press release ): The company was created in October 2003 with an innovative and patent-protected technology capable of “tactilizing” any surface. This unique software technology leverages acoustics to analyze sound waves departing from the point of a touch to precisely and cost-effectively transform any product into a touch device
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Motorola invests in multi-touch platform and UI maker – Sensitive Object