July 29, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
Samsung sells 5 million Galaxy S II phones in 85 days
Just three months after its official debut, Samsung’s GS II smartphone has seen record sales at more than 5 million units across parts of Europe and the Asia Pacific region.
Originally posted at Android Atlas
July 29, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
BBC iPlayer goes global via an iPad app, will cost €7 per month or €50 per year
Similar to how Americans have Hulu, British people have iPlayer, but unlike the garbage on American television, British people enjoy some of the best programming that has ever hit a television screen. Cultural judgements aside, the one bad thing about iPlayer is that it doesn’t work outside the land of fish, chips, and pub culture. Today that changes thanks to an iPad application that will be made available in 11 Western European counties*. To get iPlayer working, you’re going to have to cough up €7 per month or €50 per year, which frankly isn’t that bad considering that you’ll get access to a wealth of documentaries, the best news programs currently being broadcasted, and of course Top Gear. Now if you’re on the other side of the pond you probably haven’t read this far down the article, but if you have then bravo, you’ll be pleased to know that later this year iPayer will launch in the United States.
This is clearly the future, and frankly you should consider yourself ridiculously lucky if you’re an American because you’ve now got Netflix, Hulu Plus, Spotify, and soon the BBC iPlayer. There’s literally no more need for you to ever purchase another plastic disc to enjoy quality content. Mark Smith, Launch Director of the Global iPlayer at BBC Worldwide, says: “There is at least 1,500 hours of content there from day one, and it will be growing by at least 100 hours a month going forward. Most audiences know the big shows like Top Gear or Doctor Who, but maybe not so much about other shows, so we have been working hard on how we surface that content.”
May we recommend “Russell Brand’s Ponderland”, the original version of “The Office”, “The Thick of It”, which features the most innovative use of swearing the English language has ever been heard, and of course “Skins”, for those who want to remember their drug fueled sex binging teenage years.
* = Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Republic of Ireland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland.
BBC iPlayer goes global via an iPad app, will cost €7 per month or €50 per year originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-07-28T13:27:00Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j
July 29, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
Global Smartphones Sales Will Top 420 Million Devices in 2011
IMSresearch reports smartphone sales will account for nearly 28 percent of the entire global handset market this year.
July 28, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
How-To: Use a smartphone to save some cash on your next trip
A smartphone is a powerful tool you should use on every trip, if nothing to save some cash along the way. In addition to the must-have navigation apps and local guides from the likes of Lonely Planet, there are other applications that could help you save money while travelling. Here are the apps we suggest you to try out on your next trip:
Groupon
You’ve probably heard about Groupon and may have also used it. The daily deals service is getting more and more users every day, despite facing a tough competition from the likes of Facebook and Google, with Nokia and Microsoft planning to join the race, too.
Their mobile application is available for multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and they also have a mobile website for users of other mobile devices. To take advantage of Groupon, simply sign-up for the local version of the service (your travel destination) and wait for the great offers to come in. Then when you hit the ground, you can access your deals from your smartphone.
If you happen to travel to some place where Groupon still doesn’t existing, simply google “groupon alternative in [name of the city/country]” to access local daily deals sites.
Finally, if you’re not sure where you want to go, you can check out Groupon Getaways — which is a service developed in partnership with Expedia — that offers great deals on travel arrangements.
Public transportation apps
If you’re travelling to a big city in Europe or Asia it’s safe to bet it has a solid public transportation which is both cheap and can also be pretty effective (especially if we’re talking about subway/metro). For those places, it’s good to have some app that helps you get around the city. My personal favorite is MetrO, which is available for multiple platforms and supports hundreds of cities all around the world. If it can’t work on your smartphone, there could be other city-specific apps in the mobile app store you use. For instance, you could search for “Vienna metro” or “Paris metro” and see if that returns any good apps.
Get that flight for less
You can search for the flight either from your computer or from a smartphone. If you opt for the latter way, we suggest you trying out Orbitz and Kayak‘s mobile apps, using which you can search for and book flights while on the go. As far as I know there are no special deals for mobile users, but you can save some time using your phone when there’s nothing better to do.
Find a hotel
Two of the major hotel booking sites, Hotels.com and Expedia, both have their iPhone apps that enable users to find accommodation all around the world. You can easily browse through results until you find the perfect room for your needs.
However, you will save the most in the last minute deals provided by Hotel Tonight. It is worth mentioning that the app/service doesn’t work all around the world, but where it does — major U.S. metro areas — travelers can save a ton by booking their hotel on the spot.
Where to eat?
Two services instantly come to mind – Yelp and TripAdvisor, with the latter also being used for rating of hotels. With these two apps running on your smartphone, you’ll know whether you’re getting a good deal and what other folks think about some restaurant and the food it serves. Highly recommended!
Low-cost phone calls
Finally if you need to keep up with your spouse, parents or friends at home, it is suggested that you either grab a local SIM card and/or use a VoIP software like Skype, Nimbuzz, Truphone, Fring, etc. You can save a substantial amount of money if you just schedule calls and make them when in a hotspot. And if a person on the other end of the line can also be on Skype (or some other VoIP client) at the same time, you don’t have to call them on their landline or mobile number – it will be a free call.
Now, I’m eager to hear whether there are some other apps you use when travelling to other city or country. Comments form is all yours…
How-To: Use a smartphone to save some cash on your next trip originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-07-27T11:25:53Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j
July 28, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
Nokia launches NFC Hub to sell you NFC enabled marketing materials; business cards cost $18 each!
Finnish handset maker Nokia recently launched a new online store dubbed the “NFC Hub” where companies can purchase NFC enabled marketing materials ranging from posters, to business cards, and even stickers, in an aim to get people to interact with their brand or business in a new, most would say innovative, way. For those of you who aren’t familiar with NFC, it stands for Near Field Communication, and it’s basically a system that allows you to tap on an object that has an NFC tag embedded inside and then said tag transmits a small amount of data which your mobile phone can then parse. It’s bleeding edge stuff, and it’s definitely not a gimmick since it’s going to be the basis of the mobile payment revolution due to take place over the next few years, but at this moment in time the market is extremely limited and NFC is seen as a luxury technology. Just look at some of the prices in the NFC Hub: posters will cost you up to $40, business cards run $18 a pop, and NFC tags cost as much as $5. Now we know typing in contact details from the pile of business cards you collected during a conference is a pain, but we doubt companies are going to start printing $18 business cards for their employees just to save them 60 seconds.
All this being said, prices will inevitably come down, and we actually think Nokia is wise to enter the wider NFC ecosystem by selling things other than mobile phones. It’s kind of like rapper Dr. Dre, who is a musician, but also sells a range of equipment (speakers, headphones) to listen to music. That complete approach isn’t going to get him a monopoly, but it promotes his brand in more ways than one. We see Nokia’s NFC Hub as striving to accomplish a similar goal.
[Via: All About Symbian]
Nokia launches NFC Hub to sell you NFC enabled marketing materials; business cards cost $18 each! originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-07-27T11:56:46Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j
July 27, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
Facebook using HTML5 to get around Apple, Google for mobile apps?
Facebook is reportedly in talks with developers about selling apps and games directly through its mobile browser in an effort to allow it to bypass app stores and the 30 percent revenue cut it gets, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard of this plan, as TechCrunch broke the story about Project Spartan: an HTML5-approach to the mobile site which will enable Facebook to sell its own apps using Facebook Credits (which is gets a 30 percent cut from) but this Bloomberg report pretty much confirms that this is going down. It’s not much of a surprise, as the world’s largest social network has said on many occasions that it really sees mobile as the future.
The move makes a lot of sense, as Facebook sees itself as the social graph for the web and mobile and now it’s time to focus on what developers can build on top like Skype on the desktop version. Zynga is about to go public with a massive valuation and most of its revenues come from Facebook users, so the social network wants to be just as fertile ground for mobile app developers.
That’s why we still hear some rumors of a “Facebook phone” and I don’t mean the HTC Status. While this move would likely impact Android too, Google monetizes in different ways than Apple, so apps through the mobile browser likely won’t be as big of a deal for it.
Facebook is in a unique position because it may have some actual leverage over Apple. If this is actually done through full HTML5 through the browser, Apple can’t stop it and removing the Facebook app from the App Store would be self-defeating because accessing Facebook on the go is one of the reasons people buy an iPhone. I’m sure Apple will try and find a way to discourage this, though.
[Via Bloomberg]
Facebook using HTML5 to get around Apple, Google for mobile apps? originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-07-26T20:14:49Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j
July 22, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
Multiple APK support coming to the Android Market and why it matters
If you didn’t notice that Google is very serious at making the Android OS as seamless as possible, you should look into what Ice Cream Sandwich promises to bring. In its latest attempt to ease the fragmentation of its mobile OS, today the Android Developers Blog announced a new feature for developers: Multiple APK support.
While this won’t mean much to the average consumer, this move will allow developers to upload multiple APKs of the same app and have the Android Market choose which is right for the handset that is downloading the app itself.
For the most part, the current way of having just one app uploaded to the market has worked rather well for the majority of Android phones. That said, if the application isn’t fully supported by the handset you’re downloading it from, the application itself may not even appear in the Market when you’re looking for it. Now a developer can upload more than one version of the application and the user will have the most compatible version for their hardware, OS version, screen size, etc. downloaded to their device automatically.
While this is great news for the user, this will also help the developer immensely. For handsets that are stuck on older versions of the OS (2.1 and below), you may sometimes search for an application and have two results appear. One for devices with a new version number of the OS and one for lower versions. This isn’t always the case but I’ve seen this before and it dilutes statistics, ratings, and reviews between the two (or more) applications. With multiple APK support, a developer will no longer need to keep track of multiple versions floating around the Android Market, because all versions will appear as one application from now on.
This feature benefits the developer more than the user, because if done right, the user won’t notice anything different.
If you can’t taste the Ice Cream Sandwich coming, try the new Android Market and then maybe you will.
[Via: AndroidDevelopersBlog]
Multiple APK support coming to the Android Market and why it matters originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-07-21T23:38:14Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j
July 22, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
Study: 19 percent of people drop phones down toilet
A study by online address-book site Plaxo suggests that nearly 1 in 5 people accidentally drop their phones into the loo, thus losing all their contacts. (And their pride.)
Originally posted at Technically Incorrect
July 20, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
Isis NFC payment push gets big four payment support
It looks like we may really have NFC mobile payments pretty soon, as the Isis joint venture has just announced a relationship with American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa.
When Isis first started, it represented an ambitious move to reshape how we pay for things by placing a strong emphasis on NFC. The joint venture included Discover, AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon and many thought it would go after an alternative to the existing payment giants. You knew that wasn’t going to sit well with the likes of American Express, MasterCard and Visa and it wasn’t surprising to see Isis change its strategy.
Now that Isis has secured the four major payment processors, its chances of actually succeed have skyrocketed because this also comes with the existing relationships with banks and retailers that these payment companies have. Once the Isis system is widely rolled out in the first half of 2012, users will potentially be able to go into a store and swipe their NFC-enabled phone to pay for things. The funds can be tied to one of your American Express, Discover, MasterCard or Visa cards.
“Visa has long championed an open approach to mobile commerce that allows consumers to choose which account they want to enable for mobile payments,” said Joe Saunders, chief executive officer, Visa Inc, in a prepared statement. “We are committed to working closely with Isis, handset manufacturers, platform providers and financial institutions to offer consumers a suite of mobile services – mobile payments, coupons tailored to location and lifestyle, real time account information and more.”
The one major carrier missing from Sprint is Isis and it appears to be taking a different path to bringing NFC payments to its users. The third-largest carrier has teamed up with Google on Google Wallet and it will be bringing this payment platform to multiple phones.
Isis NFC payment push gets big four payment support originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-07-19T16:33:49Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j
July 17, 2011 in At Work, Recommended Reading by wapwallis
Twilio SMS Short Codes allows developers to make apps with SMS capabilities
Twilio, the company that provides a web-service API for building scalable communication apps, unveiled its new offering. Dubbed Twilio SMS Short Codes, it enables software developers to build applications that send and receive text messages using dedicated 5 and 6-digit numbers. The solution is touted to be the “easiest way to get a short code and send SMS at volume,” requiring no carrier approvals at all.
Using Twilio’s new offering, developers can send up to 30 text messages per second. This speed is great for time-sensitive information such as coupons, alerts and political messages. The service costs a single cent per outbound SMS, and half a cent per inbound SMS. Custom short codes can be leased for $1500/month, while random ones cost $1000/month. There are no setup fees, hidden costs, long-term contracts and the price includes licensing fees to the Common Short Code Administration, required of all short codes.
You can get additional details from Twilio’s website. We can only nicely ask you not to spam people. 
Twilio SMS Short Codes allows developers to make apps with SMS capabilities originally appeared on IntoMobile.com on 2011-07-16T13:14:20Z. FV1gMYsz9b5j