Skyfire, makers of Webby award-winning, PC-like web-browser for mobile devices, has launched the next generation of its Skyfire browser, version 1.5, for Symbian S60 3rd and 5th edition smartphones. See below their video explaining what is new about it :

Skyfire who is up against browsers like Opera mini or the newly released Firefox mobile is a mobile only browser. This has the advantage that they do only this and so are super focused on a smooth mobile experience. Of course there is the advantages of players like Firefox as they can sync between you PC and your mobile.

Whatever the case it is great to have players like Skyfire focussing directly on making the mobile internet a “turn-on” experience rather than the often “turn-off” browsing on your mobile device often is.

by Mark Jaffe   www.mobilemandala.com

There was a lot of passionate response to the post a few weeks ago “Will Mobile Phones Replace In-Store Retail Salespeople”. Even more reason that these three announcements this week caught my eye:

■  The Aberdeen Group published a report that stated in 2008, the total of digital signage market revenue stood at $766 million and is expected to reach $2.2 billion by 2014, growing at a healthy CAGR of 20%.
■  The London Daily Mirror reported according to unnamed sources that Nokia is planning to begin rolling out embedded NFC (near field communications) kits into its entire line of Symbian phones beginning Q3, 2010. The Finnish giant already has NFC in selected handsets, such as the 6216 Classic.
■  Malaysian manufacturer Fonelabs will produce two million low cost (under $100) NFC enabled phones in 2010
What do these three items have to do with retail? First, just as a refresher, Near Field Communication (NFC) is “a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimeter (around 4 inches) distance.” In other words, if you have an NFC enabled phone and opt-in, your mobile phone will be able to communicate with another proximate electronic device automatically.

Yes there is a new entrant in the app space and even in the OS space. Joining Android, iPhone, Windows, Palm’s WebOS, Blackberry, Maemo and not to forget Symbian… Samsung wades into the battle of the OSs. To get a good share in the mobile market Samsung has launched it’s own Linux based mobile OS named “Bada” which means Ocean in Korean.

Professing to be a totally open platform or OS Samsung says that it enables a richer user experience in applications on Samsung ONLY mobile devices and helps developers to create UI rich applications very easily. Samsung says that the design principles of bada aim to deliver simple, intuitive, and innovative user experiences through innovative visual design. Samsung bada includes a next generation UI framework with feature sets and design elements that facilitate leading-edge user interfaces for every bada application.

5 months ago Android announced that the had 10 000 apps. Now AndroidLib declares that they have reached 20 000 apps on the Android Market.These numbers are of course exciting as it would mean that Android has reached the level of Windows Mobile and passed OSs such as Symbian or BlackBerry. And in a very short space of time.

Of those apps about 60% are free apps.

by Mark Jaffe

Mobile phones have to be one of the best on the spot, at the moment, information retrieval resources of all time.  How many times have you seen disagreements settled immediately, courtesy of a quick iPhone web research query?  Well, it looks like some companies are ready to capitalize upon our penchant for instant research about things that interest us.

Let’s flash back to a recent industry panel where a senior Best Buy executive said “The right information at the point of impulse increases desired consumer’s behavior, sales, profits and customer satisfaction.” That sure sounds like a description of one of Best Buy’s best in-store salespeople helping out customers standing next to the latest electronic gizmo in one of their stores. 

Watch a demonstration of applications from the Apple App Store built using Flash technology:

Flash Professional CS5 will enable you to build applications for iPhone and iPod touch using ActionScript 3. These applications can be delivered to iPhone and iPod touch users through the Apple App Store.*

A public beta of Flash Professional CS5 with prerelease support for building applications for iPhone is planned for later this year. Sign up to be notified when the beta starts.

Learn more in http://www.adobe.com/iphone/

Courtesy of Brian J. Friedman

EpiCollect software

A mobile phone application will help professional and “citizen” scientists collect and analyse data from “in the field”, anywhere in the world. The EpiCollect software collates data from certain mobiles – on topics such as disease spread or the occurrence of rare species – in a web-based database. The data is statistically analysed and plotted on maps that are instantly available to those same phones. The approach is outlined in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

The software has been developed for so-called smartphones that run Google’s Android open-source operating system. Researchers can report back to the EpiCollect database with results from experiments they do in the field, and “citizen scientists” can send back photos or videos of certain species from their own backyards. The phones’ GPS system automatically logs users’ locations, and the data is then plotted by location using Google Maps. Then anyone can access the database online, or from their phone.

Introduction

A week ago I was asked to give a presentation to a local meet-up mobile group called Mobile Portland about my 12 years in mobile and how that relates to the iPhone App Store. I decided to focus this on some conclusions I came to regarding building an iPhone business instead of being specific to Infinity Softworks.

I then gave the same presentation earlier this week at OTBC, a local tech incubator that I’ve been involved with the past few years, for a Lunch-and-Learn. In total over 100 saw my presentation in person or streamed across the web.

I’ve included both the slides and video here for your review. I think I’m taking a very realistic look at the challenges. Most of the popular press and blogs have been so overwhelmingly positive about the App Store and its impact for developers. But the make-up of the App Store is far more complicated than that for the vast majority of us, and the opportunities have morphed substantially over the last nine months.

I hope this helps you with your business decisions, giving you a little more insight into the opportunities and challenges with Apple’s App Store itself. My goal was to analyze this from a business perspective. Obviously my own experiences influence the slides but feel that the presentation is broader than any one company’s experience.

Video

This video was shot with the second presentation at OTBC. The first half, 27 minutes, is my presentation. The second half is Q&A.

Slides

If you’d prefer to peruse the slides instead, please keep in mind that the video tells a much fuller story than the slides do:

Visit Elia Freedman’s blog

A growing chorus claims that Apple’s questionable approval policy for its iPhone app store raises issues with net neutrality. The latest is Free Press, which “alleges that Apple crippled SlingPlayer, a TV-streaming application for iPhone, so that it would only work on a Wi-Fi connection,” according to Wired. However, Apple has approved live streaming for a Major League Baseball app.

According to AT&T, the problem is that it doesn’t have enough network capacity. Wired reports:
“We’re certainly not crippling any apps,” an AT&T spokesman said. “This is an issue of fairness…. While we would like to support all video services across our network, the reality is that wireless networks simply lack the capacity to support customers streaming hours of cable, satellite or IPTV video programming to individual users.”

However, Ken Biba, founder of wireless consulting firm Novarum, says “SlingPlayer is clear evidence that AT&T’s network is overloaded” and he interprets that the new iPhone 3GS video recording and uploading option will clog the network even more and he added that even when carriers roll out the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution cellular network, AT&T’s network capacity will still be insufficient because by then, smartphones will be even more sophisticated and affordable, creating even more congestion. He suggests,
“An even better solution would be if more cities deployed free Wi-Fi coverage to offload the stress from carrier networks.”

At this juncture it is a mandatory to oversee the statement of Aneesh Chopra the US CTO, said at a consumer electronics show held in June 2009 at New York :

“If you were to ask investors how satisfied were you with your data wireless network investments pre-iPhone, my gut instinct tells me, they were not delivering the revenues that one would’ve expected to justify the investments they were making,”

Chopra noted that faster Internet speeds create business opportunities and that the government aims to create incentives for such investment. “We can lead with public policy in this area the way that the consumer has led in the device world”. Already $7.3 billion has been allocated to hand out for broadband build-out in the President Obama’s economic stimulus package.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plans to draw up a strategy to bring high-speed Internet to nearly half of the U.S. population that does not get it, many in low-income and rural areas.

Skype is embracing the Android platform with the expected launch of the Skype Lite app for devices running on Google’s mobile OS. The application will enable T-Mobile G1 users to make cheap calls without the need of a mobile Internet connection and also chat via instant messages with people in their Skype friends list.

The company’s first native VoIP client for Java, Skype Lite will also be available on many other Java-enabled phones, such as models from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG and Samsung. Depending on your mobile price plan, you can use your inclusive minutes or call your Skype friends for the cost of a local call with the new Skype Lite. The instant messaging feature though, will use your data plan.

Skype has been expanding its reach to a variety of mobile devices, from Windows Mobile smartphones to Internet tablets like the Nokia N810. Now it’s coming to the hottest new platform the Android OS, a platform that is set to expand exponentially this year, on forthcoming devices from Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.

Skype Lite was already available to many handset models from Nokia, SE, Samsung and Motorola, but in a beta stage. The coming release, for both Android and other devices, is expected make it prime time and move the app out of beta status. As for availability, it will take a few days for Skype Lite to appear on Android Marketplace, while the version for the other devices should be available later on today from the Skype website.