Posts Tagged ‘platform’

Visa is heading on to Google’s Android platform. Watch out!

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

It’s all getting very, very interesting in the mobile industry of late.

I’m looking at every single handset that’s released and thinking ‘oh, that’d be good with Android’. Now that you can configure your own mobile experience — albeit in limited form with the T-Mobile G1 — the other handsets are shortly going to look hugely, hugely tame from the viewpoint of an increasingly mobile savvy buying public.

I did a second take the other day when I was watching live television (a rare thing nowadays) and found an advert from Apple, showing off the iPhone — but focusing on the fact you can augment your iPhone experience buy purchasing applications. Fantastic.

But the fact you can now get Visa on your Android handset… that’s going to get a lot of alarm bells ringing across the planet. Visa’s moving. You want to get your arse in gear.

There’s a heck of a lot of interested parties who’ve all been doing the business equivalent of sticking their heads in the sand and waiting for ’something’ to happen with mobile and transactions.

Kudos to Visa for taking a leap.

So reports the American Banker. (Thanks to the industry heavyweight who forwarded me the article)

The Visa for Android application is, at the moment, simply just a view into your Visa account:

Visa Mobile for Android provides three services to the handset, she said: alerts and notifications sent by Visa, marketing offers from its merchant partners, and an integrated locator function that links a phone’s GPS system with the Google Maps service.

Right now the service is exclusive to those banking with US institution, JP Morgan Chase. So if you’ve got an Android device AND you bank with JPMorgan, check it out and tell me what you think?

A tiny step, perhaps. But:

Visa expects consumers to eventually use their phones to store information about multiple card accounts and to initiate transactions at the point of sale or online.

Definitely. Most definitely. It’s fooking annoying having to phone up to check your balance. Entirely 100% inefficient. It’s even worse having to wait to get a sodding paper statement.

I really like the idea of buying a television and .. woosh.. during the transaction, getting a little pop-up on my phone thus:

The alerts are sent to users’ phones after a transaction almost immediately, Ms. Zuercher said. “Because this runs off our authorization system, these notifications can appear on your handset in near real time, practically before you walk away from the point of sale.”

What’s next? Swiping your handset at the point of sale perhaps?

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Posted in Mobile Commerce | Comments

QIK launches on the Blackberry platform

Monday, October 27th, 2008

QIK, probably the best mobile video streaming platform has hit the Blackberry platform this morning. The system is alpha and they’ve got it working on almost every modern Blackberry — including the Pearl, the Bold, the Curve and the new Pearl Flip (which is a piece of goodness in itself).

Founder Bhaskar is radiating sheer excitement on the QIK blog about this news. It’s understandable. A lot of folk simply can’t operate without their Blackberry and it’s often the primary device choice for many, so this should help grow the QIK user base even faster.

If you’re already a Qikker, get the Blackberry alpha here. Otherwise you can download and install QIK by signing-up as normal.

If you’d like to see how it works on a Bold, Bhaskar’s made this vid for your viewing pleasure:

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Posted in Applications | Comments

Trutap launches Hornet content platform

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

I got a note in this morning from Carl Uminski, CTO of Trutap. I caught up with Carl very briefly at CTIA in San Francisco last month and he showed me a demo of the next version of Trutap — it’s going to be quite stunning. IM, Content, Social Networking — all aimed at the emerging markets (and India in particular). I think that kind of audience will eat up Trutap.

Part of the new roll-out — including this whizzy new client I saw — includes offering Trutap users the ability to subscribe to and receive content.

Carl’s got some news about this:

- - - - -

Hi Ewan,

How’s things?

Neil told me about a little trial you were doing regarding PR and press releases, so i thought i’d drop you a quick email to tell you about our new content subscription system, HORNET!

Firstly, what do you think of the name?

We built Hornet because it was a great way for us to supply our users across the world with the kind of content they’ve been asking us for. We’ve been working away behind the scenes to sign deals with a load of major content publishers around the globe. Hornet will let those partners plug in text, images and advertising into their content for free and off-deck - cool eh!

The first publisher we’re rolling out on Hornet is Goal.com. Users who subscribe to the Goal.com free alerts will get breaking news stories and scores from the English Premiership at least three times a day. Goal.com is live across the service right now and it won’t cost the user a penny to subscribe - remember the world loves the english footie!

I don’t want to give too much away but along with rolling out additional content providers, we’re going to be announcing some more fantastic stuff in the near future, I will be sure to let you know when we’re ready… also, when you get time, we should catch up on our new version, the UI has come a long way since we met in SF, not long till launch.

Stay tuned :-)

Carl.

- - - - -

Carl, thanks for writing — and thank you to Neil and yourself for giving this new format a try. I think it’s a lot more useful and relevant for our readers.

To answer your point, Carl, I reckon HORNET is a wicked name. Good choice. I like the energetic connotations!

If you’ve got content (RSSable) that you think might be relevant to the Trutap audience, I definitely recommend you talk to Carl. Mail me and I can connect you.

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Posted in Applications | Comments

Orange Austria deploys ChangingWorld’s ClixSmart Platform

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

If you’re an Orange Austria user, you’ll shortly be noticing that the Orange portal will start to adapt to things you like.

That’s because they’ve deployed ChangingWorld’s ClixSmart Intelligent Portal Platform. As well as offering a quicker time to market for publishing mobile internet services, the thing that interests me about this is the fact the system adapts to what you’re doing.

So for example, it remembers what you’ve been looking at. Continually looking at sport? Good news. We’ll stick the sport link somewhere easy for you.

There’s nothing worse than scrolling down to the bottom of a page and knowing in your mind that you’ve another 30 seconds of arsing about until you get to the section you’re looking for. ClixSmart helps by presenting you with the content that you regularly use and adapting dynamically to what you like.

The platform also makes sure that it serves the correct page styling to the correct mobile browser so you’re always getting the best experience. I’d like to see this kind of service offered by more operators.

Günter Lischka, Head of Marketing from Orange Austria, is rather happy. He’s quoted as saying:

“The Orange ethos is to make mobile communications more simple, human and compelling and ChangingWorlds portal and personalization solutions are an integral element of this strategy. We are very impressed with how quickly and smoothly we have been able to switch from the old ONE portal to the new Orange World portal and we are excited about the benefits that it will bring to our customers.”

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Posted in Mobile, Orange | Comments

Ericsson, STMicro combine chips and platforms

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

Ericson and STMicroelectronics have announced a deal to combine Ericsson Mobile Platforms and ST-NXP Wireless into a joint venture into a single, 50-50 joint venture, with ST planning to buy the 20 percent of ST-NXP Wireless it doesn’t already own from fellow chipmaker NXP.

The companies already have the likes of Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and Sharp among their customers and hopes the union will give their new spawn the size and scale it needs to take on the giants of mobile platforms and semiconductors.

With the economic gloom that’s doing the rounds at the moment, this isn’t likely to be the first major consolidation move that we’re going to see . It’s a sensible move for the two, filling out the holes in each other’s portfolios, but I can’t see Qualcomm trembling in fear at news of the union.

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Posted in Mobile | Comments

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