Good news! Boost for mobile apps and widgets as manufacturers sign on to JIL

I’ve long been a fan of the Joint Innovation Lab and what it stands for (see below), so I was delighted to see the news today. Four major mobile handset makers have signed on to the organisation, providing a solid base to what was previously a group comprised only of operators. Perhaps most importantly, one of those manufacturers is RIM - meaning that the JIL has also gotten the support of a mobile operating system with a decent and popular app store.

Orange adds to its idle screen innovation with new Widget Player

Two new services have flown out of Orange this morning. The first is a social networking aggregator called Social Life that will allow accessibility to Bebo, MySpace and Facebook with one log in. Users will also be able to publish updates, pictures etc – on all social networks at once.

Mobile applications round-up: updates for Bytemobile widgets and Gomez app platform

Two independent mobile application stories caught our eye today. Bytemobile has announced a “widget bar” for mobile operators, which could be displayed at the top of any mobile Internet page. And Gomez has announced an upgrade for it’s entire mobile and web application development platform.

Verizon launches social networking apps for digital TV

Verizon has interesting news releases for it’s digital TV service, FiOS TV, today. The operator has launched services that provide mobile application and social networking service on your television. It is even launching an Open Development Platform that will allow third party developers to provide widgets on the FiOS service, just like a mobile app store.

Opera Mobile 9.7 update hits Windows Mobile devices

The latest update for Opera Mobile was released this morning for Windows phones. With a big speed increase, and better widget management, the new version of the OS is meeting with huge approval.

What are the main updates?
Turbo - Opera Turbo is the compressor behind the new speed boost for the mobile browser. You can see [...]

Middle East gets first dibs on new mobile device Samsung Star

The Samsung Star, a new device from Samsung Electronics, has hit shelves in the Middle East before any other market. The touch-screen phone, also called the S5230, was announced less than a month ago.

The Star is the latest is in a series of “is it a smartphone or not?” devices that have been released this [...]

Qualcomm tackles mobile Internet retail with new Plaza service

Qualcomm Incorporated has announced an addition to it’s Plaza suite - The Plaza Retail solution. This has been designed to ensure that anyone selling applications can guarantee an easy-to-understand process that works exactly the same across a multitude of devices.

Wait, wait, wait - go back a step. What’s Plaza?

Plaza was launched last year, and was [...]

Telstra and Surf Kitchen place mobile applications on the idle screen

Australian telecoms operator Telstra has chosen SurfKitchen to provide it’s new TelstraOne Experience service. The new service will place a selection of on-phone services and mobile applications on the idle screen of Telstra customers - giving them one-click access to these services.

Surfkitchen is pretty much providing this entire service for Telstra, using the Surfkit Mobile [...]

Nokia launches new mobile application development tools with Aptana

Nokia and Aptana have announced a new set of development tools to help developers create mobile apps for Nokia devices. Nokia WRT (Web Runtime) and the Nokia WRT Plug-in for Aptana Studio will help third-party developers to create and deploy apps for Nokia. The latest version of Nokia WRT will also allow Nokia users to [...]

New Bytemobile service allows Operators to target mobile apps as well as mobile advertising

Bytemobile today announced a new operator-level application called MobileMatch. The service is basically a real-time analysis engine which allows the operator to push more specifically targeted advertising at mobile browsers. Importantly, it also syncs up with the scrolling widget bar service that Bytemobile provides, which allows operator to target widgets, apps and services at consumers.
MobileMatch [...]

CTIA Barry Downes CEO FeedHenry on mobile codes

Short interview with the CEO of FeedHenry just before the GoMo News Billboard un-conference at CTIA.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/v/O382M9v8wXg&hl=en&fs=1

Verizon Wireless joins Joint Innovation Lab - the operators body for mobile application

­Verizon Wireless has announced it’s become a member of the Joint Innovation Lab. Originally created by China Mobile, Japan’s Softbank and Vodafone, the Innovation Lab exists to push mass-acceptance of mobile tech.
The Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) is mostly focused on creating a standardised widget platform at this point. Early work has been towards a global [...]

Make way for more apps as Vodafone launches widget distribution tool

Q: What is a widget?
A: Widgets are simple applications that give users easy access to the web
At least, that’s what it says on the Betavine website, and they should know. Betavine is Vodafones research community for mobile apps, and it has just launched a new widget distribution tool. By uploading apps to the Betavine Widget [...]

Widgets: Feed Henry the widget wonder of the universe!

Everyone has spoken about widgets. I might have been a bit slow on this area but my slowness has evaporated! I am the new widget loving fan of the universe.
 

Why?
Well by chance during mobile world congress I popped into the Oracle innovation lab and listened to a demo on widgets and endless possibilities of mobile [...]

Mobile Widgets make a noise at Mobile World Congress

Widgets are everywhere. The articles below are from Nokia and T-Mobile and also Orange. But I just had the most excellent demo of the all new Eircom Widget store at the Oracle stand. I was delighted to realise that the widget supplier for Oracle was Feed Henry a Waterford based business like GoMo News!

I wasn´t [...]

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