fring folks have been busy these days, I can tell. They’ve announced the new minifring app for JavaME-enabled phones which don’t support VoIP. That means the users of Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) and/or some other feature phones will be able to manage their IM presence, and chat with their buddies on multiple IM networks. Best of all, minifring will support fringAdd-ons!

In a related news, fring has made its app available for Nokia Internet Tablets. Users of Nokia N800 and N810 (I’m not sure will it work on the Nokia 770) can now make Internet calls and chat with their buddies while on the go.

What can I say – way to go fring!

The short video introducing the two new platforms follows after the jump.

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With modern feature phones becoming more powerful these days, it doesn’t surprise to see many of the original smartphone application makers developing J2ME version of their apps. We’ve seen this happening with Epocware, which brought its popular dictionaries to feature phones, and now Mobipocket is trying to do the same thing with its mobile ebook reader.

Mobipocket Reader for Java phones is still in the “alpha” stage, hence you may notice a number of bugs and (in)stability issues. The application was developed for Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) feature phone, but should also work on other Java-enabled handsets.

It’s a good news that Mobipocket is trying to reach the mass market, even though at this stage I would suggest only the adventurous among you should try out Mobipocket Reader. At least until the app hits the “beta” status. Here’s the link which leads you to the page where you can find out more about the app and also download it.

[Via: jkOnTheRun]

Skype has recently launched a Java ME based application to allow mobile phone users to take advantage of the low-cost phone calls and chat with their Skype buddies. Still in beta, Skype mobile “thin” client works on about 50 of the most popular Java-enabled mobile phones from Motorola (NYSE: MOT), Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Samsung and Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE).

The problem with the first release, though, is that Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls are initially supported only in select markets: Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. We’ve no doubts that will change in the upcoming weeks and months, and in the meantime, if your country is on the list, it is advised you’re on some either unlimited or really low-cost data plan in order to benefit from Skype’s offering…

Full Skype’s release is available from here, and the application can be download from here.

[Via: Unwired View]

Paragon Software/Epocware dictionaries are no longer Symbian and Windows Mobile thing only. The mobile software developer announced that it is bringing its award-winning apps to BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) smartphones, as well as select Java ME enabled feature phones — to reach new customers and expand into new markets.

Now, virtually all mobile phone users will be able to have dictionary in their pocket, no matter where they are. Paragon’s offering include dictionary lines from such world-famous linguistic companies as Merriam-Webster, Inc., Oxford University Press, Ernst Klett Sprachen GmbH, Chambers Harrap Publishers LTD and Brockhaus Duden Neue Medien GmbH.

Read the full article »

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless and VOCEL announced the availability of The Pill Phone, a new Get It Now application that provides users with detailed drug information and automatic dosing reminders, right on their phones.

The mobile version of the best-selling medication reference guide (The Pill Book), The Pill Phone application is available exclusively through Verizon Wireless. With The Pill Phone’s Pill Lookup feature, Verizon Wireless customers have access to critical information on more than 1,800 medications and prescription drugs that are commonly prescribed by physicians, including indications, dosing, side effects, drug interactions, photos of medications, and more.

The Pill Phone also offers a Medication Reminder feature, which allows customers to schedule automatic reminders to take their doses at the appropriate times. With the Medication Reminder feature, customers can stay on their familiar medication schedule at home and even when they are traveling. The Pill Phone has received FDA 510 (k) clearance and is protected under U.S. Patent No. 7,340,503.

To purchase and download The Pill Phone, from the Get Going or Tools on the Go virtual shopping aisle of the Get It Now virtual store click on “Get New App” and then “Mind, Body & Soul.” It costs $3.99 per month and requires a Get It Now-capable phone.

Recently, Yahoo-owned collaboration suit developer Zimbra announced that users of any Java ME enabled mobile phone will be able to access their Zimbra Collaboration Suite 5.0 email, contacts and calendars using a dedicated mobile application. The mobile app brings such Zimbra features as conversation views, advanced mailbox searches, tagging, calendar management (accept/decline meetings), and more.

Commenting on the announcement, Zimbra co-founder and Yahoo!’s VP Satish Dharmaraj said: “ZimbraME is key to delivering on our strategy and commitment to provide the best experience and widest range of desktop and mobile support of any messaging platform in the market today. In an increasingly mobile world, a large percentage of people use mass-market handsets and expect to have access to information without needing a smartphone.”

[Via: BigMouthMedia]

Tor Anumana has announced two wireless applications for remote access. The first makes it possible to run a live presentation (like PowerPoint) via a mobile device and share a live demo with others all over the world, instantaneously on their own mobile devices. The second makes it possible to access any file from their desktop, from anywhere in the world, using any mobile device. Sound interesting? We’ve seen a lot of entertainment-style remote access apps/devices/services (Slingbox and Orb spring to mind), but not so much in the Enterprise space, where these apps are firmly targeted – use-cases and screenshots below:

EXAMPLE OF AFAR
Imagine if you’re at the airport and realize you have a conference call in less than 30 minutes requiring you to run a PowerPoint presentation with 6 of your international sales people. You use your mobile device to access the PowerPoint from your home computer via your cell phone and transmit it to the other six. Then promptly on time, you manage the slides all while the others are following along on their own cell phone screen. When the presentation ends, you hang up…and get on your flight, just in time.

EXAMPLE OF ASYNC
Imagine that you are at an important meeting and want to make a copy of a file you have back on your desktop. Now with ASYNC, you can access your file (any file) from your computer using your cell phone and transmit it to another computer to print. That’s ASYNC.

So those are the apps – question is, would you use them? Just for your information, the BREW versions of these apps are due Q208, the WinMo versions in Q308, and the Java versions are yet to be given a date. To my mind, that’s slightly US-centric, but hey, we can’t have it all our own way in Europe/UK now, can we!

If you want to check our Tor Anumana’s website, and find out what their name means, you can go here.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s mobile Java based widget platform has been updated. The new application is faster and among other improvements brings:

• Mobile studio which lets users create simple widgets directly on their mobile phones
• Push Email widget
• Open in browser functionality – open any widget content in mobile browser
• Ability to move widgets from the client
• Bookmarks – now also readable in the mobile end
• New functionalities in content search in the Library (mobile and web)
• Banner advertising in the mobile client
• Clear cached data

In addition, homepages of both mobile and regular Widsets websites have been revamped and are now easier to use.

[Via: AllAboutSymbian]

I’m not sure I’ve seen something like this before. Yeah, there are Java ME clients for some mobile social networks, but the idea behind V-Circles is that all the action is on the client. You create or join existing communities from your phone without logging to the actual website.

To put things in perspective, here’s an example how V-Circles can be used as a mobile dating platform:

“Jackie lives in Chelsea but finds it hard to meet decent guys. She downloads V-CIRCLES DATING for free and simply joins a mobile dating V-Circle named West End V-Circle. She then goes out on a few dates with some of the guys in the V-Circle but reckons they ain’t good enough for her. She then decides to form her own private dating V-Circle called Chelsea Singles to improve the quality. Using the application, she invites 5 of her best friends to join Chelsea Singles. They download the free application, and join her V-CIRCLE. Her friends then invite their friends to join the V-CIRCLE too. Now there are over 200 like-minded people living in the Chelsea area who are part of her V-CIRCLE. Jackie and her friends arrange all their dates through the Chelsea Singles. Jackie prefers V-CIRCLES DATING over other dating communities as people can only join by invitation only and she can arrange all her dates discretely on her mobile phone.”

As an alternative, Jackie can send her photos to IntoMobile team and we’ll see whether we can hook her up or not.

[Via: Great Dating Services]

Following hot on the heels of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s iPhone SDK announcements, Sun has jumped into the fray and announced that they’ll be making sure that Java plays nice with Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. The company famous for championing the standardized Java Runtime made the announcement after taking a look at the iPhone SDK. Upon investigating the possibility of porting the Java Virtual Machine for use on the iPhone, Sun found that they could indeed make it work – contrary to Steve Jobs’ statements about Java being a burden.

Sun’s Java marketing VP, Eric Klein announced the decision to bring Sun’s Java to the iPhone as a variant of the Java Micro Edition – a platform that is used on mobile phones.  The iPhone SDK could be used to make the Sun Java Virtual Machine (JVM) run as an application. And, Sun said that there’s a likely possibility that Sun will optimize the Java Micro JVM to work with the iPhone’s more advanced features.

“We’re going to work to make sure that the [virtual machine] offers the Java applications as much access to the native functionality of the iPhone as possible,” Klein said. Furthermore, Klein leaves open the possibility of bringing a variant of the desktop-level Java Standard Edition to the iPhone (which might indicate that Sun will try to make use of the Jazelle technology that’s lying dormant in the iPhone’s CPU). And, Sun doesn’t exclude the possibility of bringing their Flash-replacement JavaFX (!) to the iPhone.

With Java on the iPhone and the SDK ready to roll, we’re crossing our fingers for some truly innovative applications in the near future. Applications (web or native), Java, and a bit of VPN fairy-dust could extend the iPhone’s enterprise role well-beyond what Microsoft Enterprise support could ever hope to do.

Then, combine Java, secure VPNs, and some web-apps or native applications with the prospect of connecting the iPhone to a wireless mouse and keyboard (and then connect it to an external monitor), and you’ve got the makings of a seriously sleek and powerful mobile computer. Sure, there are other devices that might be able to do the keyboard and external monitor thing, and there are even UMPCs out there with mobile computing clearly in their job-description. But all those solutions are either awkwardly bulky, too big, or just plain ugly – there’s no mobile computing solution that’s as sleek, slim and generally chic as the iPhone.

Bring on the enterprise market! I’m not a business user, but I think I’ll be riding that wave all the way to shore – maybe on a 3G iPhone. (Oh, and keep in mind that we’re not just talking about the limited first-gen iPhone – that second-gen iPhone should really stir the pot)

[Via: InfoWorld]