Monitise stock soars on Visa deal and fund manager’s endorsement
7 Indian mobile OEMs sign with Opera for Android
HotSpot 2.0 support found inside Samsung Galaxy S4
Channel sales of Samsung’s news flagship smartphone the Galaxy S4 have already hit the 10 million mark, just a month after its debut.
It means the S4 is now the South Korean manufacturer’s most successful handset yet, selling faster than any of its predecessors.
The landmark number of units shipped to mobile operators was revealed by Samsung today (23rd May 2013), though just over a week ago it also revealed that it had shipped 6 million handsets – demonstrating the staggering pace at which the phones are selling. Continue reading
British social networking startup Urturn has raised £8.9 million ($13.4 million) in funding as it switches its focus to mobile apps.
The company, which describes its service as a “social platform for self expression”, was launched only in January by CEO Stelio Tzonis and has just 25 employees, but it already boasts a celebrity following including Will.i.am and Snoop Dog. Continue reading
GoMo unearths move evidence against infographics
CompareMyMobile jumps to untenable conclusions
Here at GoMo News Towers we are great believers in the old adage that there are lies, damned lies and then there are infographics. This time it is the turn of a mobile phone recycling price comparison site CompareMyMobile.com to try to convince us that infographics aren’t completely pointless. They failed completely. The conclusions they have jumped to dpn’t strike us as merely tenuous but verge more on the seriously flawed. The objective is to try to convince us from the numbers of handsets being traded in can indicate that Samsung is doing well against Apple. Well, it just hasn’t worked. Continue reading
BMW’s connected car offers streamed music thru rara
Powered by Vodafone across five European countries
It appears that the connected car (or smart vehicle) has suddenly become all of the rage. At the forefront, it seems is BMW which has just launched Europe’s first in-car music streaming service in association with rara.com. Crucially, no smartphone; (user supplied) SIM card, or dongle is needed. Instead rara.com streams its music catalogue of 14 million plus music tracks direct to a new BMW 5 Series fitted with a ConnectedDrive online entertainment system. The service is powered by Vodafone – an interesting use of M2M (Machine-to-Machine) communications. Crucially this means that you can drive across UK, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands and still be connected thanks to Vodafone. Continue reading
rara.com launches first in-car music streaming service with BMW in UK, Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands
No smartphone; SIM card, or dongle needed: rara.com streams direct to new BMW 5 Series with ConnectedDrive Online Entertainment
14 million music tracks + over 200 curated music channels to stream from all major and leading independent labels
rara.com BMW music subscription includes access to rara.com apps for web, iOS, Android, Windows 8 PCs and tablets
Press release
21st May 2013. London based music streaming service rara.com today announces an international partnership with BMW to introduce the first direct-to-car music streaming service across the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands. Continue reading
BBM Money’s adoption rate in Indonesia beats expectations
Mobile money married to BlackBerry’s industry-leading messaging service
It seems that a mobile money service offered in Indonesia by Monitise – BBM Money, is beating expectations. It has already attracted 60,000 registered users in its headlong charge towards a target of 200,000 users by Q1 2014. The service is a result of close cooperation between Monetise’ joint venture with Astra International (AGIT Monitise Indonesia) in association with Indonesia’s Bank Permata (PermataBank) and BlackBerry, of course. Indonesia is one market where BlackBerry reigns supreme. BlackBerry is the Number One selling mobile smartphone, constituting over 50 per cent of all smartphones sold in the market. Continue reading
BBM Money service exceeds 60,000 registrations within 90 days of launch
Service launched with BlackBerry creates low-cost customer acquisition opportunities for PermataBank
Press release
22nd May 2013. Mobile Money leader Monitise (LSE: MONI.L) has announced the early success of BBM Money, the P2P mobile payments service launched through its Joint Venture with Astra International (AGIT Monitise Indonesia) in partnership with Indonesian financial institution PT Bank Permata (PermataBank) and BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY; TSX: BB). Since going live at the end of February 2013, the service has attracted more than 60,000 registered users towards its end of 2013 target of 200,000. Continue reading
In-car app market will be worth $1.2 billion + within 5 years says Juniper
Revenues from smart vehicle apps to rise ten-fold by 2017
Apparently, the new frontier for app developers over the next five years will be the’smart vehicle’ also known as the ‘connected car’. That’s the latest finding from a new Juniper Research report which predicts that the market for in-vehicle apps will be worth over $1.2 billion by 2017. It also found that there will be a downward pressure on the price of vehicle manufacturers’ own embedded telematics infotainment services – as the in-vehicle app ecosystem matures. Continue reading
Fourth screen accounts for 1 in 4 table bookings
A new app for Windows Phone 8 from toptable is designed to help diners discover the perfect restaurant table and make an instantly confirmed booking. Apparently, mobile bookings now account for 25 per cent of seated diners in the UK. Not a lot of people know that. Continue reading
