Wireless Mobile Applications

Scott Kubie, creative strategist, BitMethod, Des Moines | Des Moines Register Staff Blogs

Job description: BitMethod builds products that leverage all of the cool Web 2.0 and mobile application stuff that people keep hearing about. Were not a Web design company; we do overhauls, not face-lifts. We build new products using some heavy engineering and a deep understanding of how the new Web really works.

Background: I grew up near Omaha and graduated from Drake in 2006 with a journalism degree. I served on the board of the Des Moines Music Coalition while still in school and upon graduation took over as their executive director. I left the nonprofit world to stir up some stuff and started a few projects such as Market Day, a monthly indie craft fair downtown, and make\break, an arts-organizing, envelope-pushing, thing-making creative organization.

Notable achievements: I had a fan letter published in the LEGO catalog when I was 10 years old. I once grew a super huge beard and bore a striking resemblance to comedian Zach Galifianakis. On the serious side, I helped secure the first $50,000 for the 80/35 Music Festival downtown and launched some fun stuff like Little BIG Fest.

What I do to get away from work: Im a nerd for life and love movies, video games, comics, you name it. I used my YMCA membership once the other day, so that was something.

How I give back to my community: I try to make an impact on the creative and technology scenes in Des Moines through my involvement with Impromptu Studio and make\break. I would say I do more pushing forward than giving back. Im always trying to raise the bar by executing well on cool programs.

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Penton Media Teams Up with Handmark to Create Mobile Apps for B2B Publications

B2B media leader Penton Media Inc. and Handmark, a leading developer and distributor of mobile applications and services, today announced they've signed an agreement under which Handmark will develop and support mobile applications for Penton's Public Infrastructure Group and Supermarket News online media properties. This includes a variety of B2B publications spanning industries like food retailing, business technology and IT, engineering, electronics, government, compliance and more.

The mobile applications will support a personalized branded experience for Penton's media properties, delivering timely news content directly to a reader's mobile device in an easy to read format. The applications will be available across all major smartphone platforms, including iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile and Nokia (S60 5^th Edition) devices.

"With more and more people accessing news from their mobile devices, it is important for us to provide an advanced level of convenience for our readers," said Jerry Rymont, VP and Publisher of the Penton Food Group. "We are pleased to partner with Handmark to bring our more than six million readers, including busy professionals in a diverse range of industries, a great way to access our trusted news and information wherever they are."

Supermarket News, the leading news source for the food retail industry, was the first Penton Media property to launch a mobile application. The Supermarket News mobile app is available now as a free download across all the major mobile platforms by texting 'SupermarketNews' to 46275 or visiting www.supermarketnews.com/mobile.

"Penton Media is a respected news organization with devoted readership and a great reputation for journalistic excellence," said Paul Reddick, Handmark CEO. "They are exactly the kind of publisher that can benefit from customized mobile applications that keep professionals connected with their industry news anytime, anywhere."

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Eric Schmidt Reportedly Invests In Mobile App Company PocketGear (GOOG)

Eric Schmidt has made an investment in app distribution company PocketGear, David Ruddock at Android Police reports.

A PocketGear employee is emailing developers pitching them on selling their apps through PocketGear's store. Part of that pitch is the fact that, "Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, believes in us and is one of our most recent investors. (not yet announced)."

We emailed PocketGear, but CEO Jud Bowman declined to confirm the report.

If Eric Schmidt invested in the company, it was probably a small amount. But, it's certainly interesting that he's investing in a third party app distribution platform.

In the pitch to developers, PocketGear says 20-30% of Android owners don't use the Android Marketplace to buy apps.

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Android Application Development Creating New Wave In The Mobile Market | JKookServ Master Reseller Blog

It contains real influence on changing the look and feel, as well as the functions of a mobile device.

Using Android, the developers can develop influential and pioneering mobile applications very easily and rapidly. Android is a mobile software platform as well as operating system designed on the Linux Kernel. It is open source software, which is created byGoogle and the Open Handset Alliance.

Android provides Java to build up mobile applications. Consequently, the mobile application developers can generate other party applications using Java and Android Framework.

Android provides different features to create inventive and modern mobile applications:

GSM, EDGE, CDMA, Bluetooth, WI-Fi, EV-DO, and UMTS technologies to send and receive data across mobile networks

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Coupons.com Surpasses 1 Million Downloads of Its Mobile Applications

Coupons.com Incorporated, the recognized leader in digital coupons, today announced that its Grocery iQ and Coupons.com applications for iPhone and Android phones have been downloaded more than 1 million times, including more than 300,000 downloads in the last 45 days. Critically acclaimed, both applications have received rave reviews and accolades from the media, bloggers and users, including Grocery iQ being named the best grocery list management application by the New York Times and the Coupons.com application being touted for its ability to load coupons directly to store loyalty cards for a rapidly growing network of retailers.

"Our goal is to give consumers the money-saving offers they want-at the right place, at the right time. Our Coupons.com digital coupon platform uniquely allows us to engage consumers with relevant offers all along the path to purchase, from the moment they identify purchase need to actual purchase, including list building and in-store browsing, comparison and selection," said Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons.com Incorporated.

"Coupons.com has long recognized the value of delivering contextually relevant coupons and the importance of mobile to the shopping experience," said Steve Horowitz, Coupons.com CTO and former Google engineering director who lead the team responsible for the Android operating system and platform. "Our recently awarded technology patents, including for the delivery of contextually related offers, are affirmation of our long-standing history of innovation and represent important building blocks for our continued innovation in the future."

Coupons.com Mobile Apps

Grocery iQ is the wildly popular application for creating and managing grocery lists. The application includes a long list of features and functions to easily create, organize and share lists, including voice recognition and barcode scanning. Grocery iQ also provides easy access to Coupons.com coupons that users can print for redemption and Save to Card coupons that load directly to store loyalty cards. The application has been an Apple App Store Staff Pick, No. 1 in the Lifestyle category and a Top 100 app in the Apple App Store. In addition, Grocery iQ is Featured in the Android Market. Currently free, Grocery iQ is available for iPhone and Android devices.

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RealVNC Interview at CTIA 2009 | Wireless Week

Heres Tommy over a the Real VNC Booth for CTIA Sand Diego 2009. RealVNC provides remote control software which lets you see and interact with desktop applications across any network. For more exclusive cell phone reviews and news, visit http://www.cellphonetrek.com

Having trouble viewing this video? Try downloading the latest version of Flash or contact your IT department.

If you have a video that you think we should run, send a link to ww_web@advantagemedia.com.

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Just Another Mobile Phone Blog: eBay and RIM Offer eBay Application for BlackBerry Smartphones in Six More Countries

eBay application allows sellers to relist items directly within app; buyers can access more information about sellers.

san Jose, Calif. and Waterloo, Ont. - Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM), a world leader in wireless innovation, and eBay, a global leader in mobile commerce and the world's largest online marketplace, jointly announced that the free eBay Application for BlackBerry® smartphones is immediately available on BlackBerry App World™ in six more countries: Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.* The application is also now officially available to North American BlackBerry smartphone users after a successful beta preview period.

”We are thrilled to be extending eBay's mobile presence to millions of BlackBerry smartphone users around the globe,” said Steve Yankovich, vice president of platform business solutions and mobile at eBay Inc. ”When developing any mobile application, we take into account the unique features and advantages of the device to better meet our customers' needs. With BlackBerry's Push Service and multi-tasking technology, eBay buyers and sellers are able to stay up-to-date on great deals and sales.”

With the eBay Application for BlackBerry smartphones, users can search, bid, buy and check their eBay buying and selling activity virtually anywhere. The application leverages the BlackBerry® Push Service to allow users to be wirelessly notified of the status of eBay listings in real-time. With alerts, eBay buyers can be notified when they have won an item or have been outbid, or if a listing on their Watch List is ending soon. Further, eBay sellers can be notified when a sale ends and will be provided with buyer information and the sale price. All notifications are directed to the user's BlackBerry® Email inbox and, because the BlackBerry OS supports multi-tasking, users can simply click the email notification to automatically launch or switch to the eBay application.

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Just Another Mobile Phone Blog: Amazon Adds Video, Audio to Kindle Apple Apps

Amazon.com added embedded auto and video clips to its Kindle e-reader applications for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Amazon continues to aggressively back the Kindle e-reader device, which displays text on a grayscale e-ink screen, but a robust Apple app would conceivably allow the online retailer to carve off a certain percentage of readers who opt instead to purchase an iPad. Multimedia-enhanced e-reader applications will allow readers to listen to narration during a tour, for example, or watch a demonstration video for a cookbook or home-repair volume.

Amazon.com has added embedded audio and video clips to its Kindle e-reader applications for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch—a feature seemingly designed to leapfrog not only Apple's own e-reader, but also those of competitors such as Barnes & Noble's Nook. The new Amazon feature bakes more multimedia into e-books; readers can now listen to a travel author's narration during a city tour, for example, or view a demonstration video inside a how-to text.

“Readers will already find some Kindle Editions with audio/video clips in the Kindle Store today,” Dorothy Nicholls, director of Amazon Kindle, wrote in a June 27 statement. “This is just the beginning—we look forward to seeing what authors and publishers create for Kindle customers using the new functionality of the Kindle apps.”

Amazon's Kindle Website; some media-enhanced books, the company cautions, will need to be downloaded using WiFi, apparently due to large file size.

The Kindle's newest feature seems expressly targeted at Apple's own iBooks application, which itself was touted as an advance over traditional e-readers due to its color screen and ability to display more dynamic layouts. While Amazon continues to aggressively back the Kindle device, which displays text on a grayscale e-ink screen, a robust Apple app would conceivably allow the online retailer to carve off a certain percentage of readers who opt instead to purchase an iPad.

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allAfrica.com: Kenya: Investors Turn to Mobile Directory Market

More investors are putting their money in mobile applications, hoping the massive uptake of mobile telephony will help sustain the new business models.

Mocality is a new mobile-based application that serves up an array of services to small businesses in what promises to be a game-changing innovation in the nascent mobile directory market.

The firm, part of the multi-media Naspers Group that owns the MultiChoice franchise, is offering an application that allows businesses to have standard and mobile websites through which they are reached by customers or suppliers.

In addition, the businesses that sign up get free 400 text messages that they can use to send promotional information to their clients or place orders with their suppliers.

Mocality CEO, Mr Stefan Magdalinski, said the firm's priority is to create a "compelling product" before it can start charging.

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MeeGo mobile effort offers baseline code - Telecommunication, software, Platforms, operating systems, non-Windows, Nokia, Mobilize, Mobile platforms, mobile, MeeGo, linux foundation, Linux, Intel, Development tools, Developer World, application developmen

MeeGo, a Linux Foundation effort to provide a mobile version of Linux, moves on Wednesday to "Day 1" of the MeeGo Handset User Experience project, with developers able to access handset baseline source code and leverage touch capabilities, MeeGo representatives said.

The code is primarily intended for platform developers, handset vendors, and operators. Accessible at MeeGo's website, developers can preview the code and try it out on the Aava Mobile or Nokia N900 as development reference hardware.

[ InfoWorld's Paul Krill reported on MeeGo being touted at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in April. ]

Intel and Nokia have been the primary drivers of Meego, which combines the Intel Moblin and Nokia Maemo platforms. MeeGo is intended for systems ranging from netbooks and media phones to handheld computing devices, in-vehicle infotainment systems, and connected TVs.

"Today, the MeeGo project marks Day 1 for the MeeGo Handset User Experience project. Beginning today, handset-specific source code currently under development toward the MeeGo v1.1 for Handsets release (expected Q4 2010) will be opened to the developer community to access, contribute to and participate in," said Nokia representative Karen Lachtanski. "This move illustrates continued MeeGo momentum and marks the first MeeGo code supporting a touch environment." 

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