NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) is joining the mobile money market with its own remittance service. Starting from July 21st, individual users (as opposed to corporate customers) of the carrier’s i-mode service will be able to remit up to 20,000 yen (about $208) per transfer by simply inputting the payee’s mobile phone number. The payee then receives a mail notification on its mobile phone and is given the option of depositing the money in a domestic bank account or having the amount credited to their monthly phone bill. The payee can receive remittances totaling up to 200,000 yen (about $2,080) per month.

Best of all, the service doesn’t require any registration or opening of a specific bank account!

Cost wise, the charges per payment (including consumption tax) will be 105 yen for the payer and 65 yen for the payee. The payee is not charged, however, if the remittance is deposited into a Mizuho Bank account or credited to their monthly phone bill.

We live in a very mobile-oriented society. With laptops and mobile phones in hand, Americans are increasingly more willing to coordinate their lives using mobile technology. Cellphones, in particular, are becoming more and more important to the everyday American. Case in point, a new survey, commissioned by Best Buy, indicates that 6 in 10 Americans (60%) would choose to give up alcohol for a week if it meant they could hold onto their mobile phone - a shocking 15% would even opt to have their teeth drilled in exchange for keeping their mobile phones in their pockets. The survey also highlights that many Americans (47%) haven’t yet made the switch to the smartphone way of life because they’re just too confused about models and features.

The Best Buy survey shows that, while mobile phones are quite important to the average Joe American, there is still a lack of smartphone adoption. Almost half (49%) of US citizens without smartphones think those with smartphones are “too connected to their job” - whatever that means.Interestingly, only 62% of those surveyed said they used text messages as a “convenient and quick way to communicate.” We would have expected this particular statistic to be a little higher.

And, to hammer home the notion that men don’t like asking for directions, even from gadgets, the Best Buy survey reveals that women are much more likely to use the GPS features of their mobile phones - 51% of women versus just 33% of men.

Best Buy surveyed 1,000 Americans, half men and half women all over the age of 18, was conducted by telephone May 29-31 by GfK Roper, a division of GfK Custom Research North America.

Full press release after the break.

Read the full article »

The iPhone OS 3.0 is a bit buggy. With stories of bugs and general instability floating around, the inevitable iPhone OS 3.1 update is looking pretty nice. Thankfully, we may not have to wait too long for Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to go public with the iPhone OS 3.0 update. Apple has today seeded an iPhone OS 3.1 beta and accompanying SDK to the iPhone dev community!

iPhone developers can get their hands on the first update to the all-new iPhone 3.0 OS, but mere mortals like ourselves will just have to wait for Apple to push the update through iTunes. Bug fixes, here we come!

Fluent Mobile launched today, along with Fluent News, its first application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Fluent News is apparently the first iPhone and iPod Touch application to aggregate exclusively made-for-mobile content from the most trusted news sources across the Web into a single, easy-to-read and up-to-the-minute mobile newspaper. It’s also supposed to be the fastest, most convenient way to browse and read news on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Fluent News can also be accessed through other mobile devices at http://www.fluentnews.com.

“We are going to redefine expectations for the mobile Web experience,” said Micah Adler, Fluent Mobile’s CEO. “Over just the past two years, the mobile industry has seen great advances in device capabilities, bandwidth and the sheer breadth of mobile content. However, browsing the mobile Web can still be an extremely frustrating experience. Fluent Mobile is dedicated to narrowing the experience gap between mobile and desktop Web browsing by optimizing the search, organization and delivery of dynamic mobile content. At the forefront of the news industry’s transformation from paper to desktop to mobile, Fluent News is just the first step in our plans to improve the usability of the mobile Web.”

Fluent News makes it fast and easy to see a broad range of the most important news being covered by the top news organizations. Fluent Mobile’s team has developed proprietary algorithms that optimize the mobile browsing experience, including content relevancy algorithms that organize and prioritize the most important stories, making it easy to stay current. In addition, using Fluent Mobile’s content delivery algorithms, Fluent News gives users unprecedented speed-of-access to the latest news in any section without waiting for browser windows to open and load.

Fluent News includes the following features:

• All mobile content, immediately ready to read and formatted for mobile – true one-handed browsing
• Top news sources, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and CNN
• Full range of sections, so readers can browse news by interests, including world, business, sports, entertainment, and technology. Read articles from the top sources dedicated to each section.
• Instant access to complete articles using the integrated browser, with pre-fetching of full-length articles, and intelligent bandwidth utilization.
• Convenient news sorting that reduces redundancy by displaying unique stories, yet offers readers the option to read related coverage. Browse by section, then simply click to dig deeper on any story and compare coverage from different outlets.
• Constant updates so readers always have the latest news
• Easy article sharing through Facebook, Twitter and email
• Offline access to news when an Internet connection is not available

Fluent News is available free-of-charge from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s App Store on the iPhone or at http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=312886230&mt=8. A demo video is available at http://www.fluentmobile.com/demo.html. Fluent Mobile plans availability on additional platforms over the remainder of this year. Fluent News updates, which are formatted specifically for mobile, are also available on Twitter by following @fluentnews.

A multi-country study released today by Lightspeed Research shows the increasingly prominent role mobile phones are taking in our lives.  With ownership of mobile phones so high and so many different functions now available, it is increasingly important to understand how people are using their mobile phones and what future opportunities there might be for new applications.  ? ?Of the four countries surveyed (the UK, France, Germany and the US) it was Americans (49%) and Britons (30%) who were most likely to agree that their mobile phone was now an essential part of their daily life and they’d be lost without it. Almost half of people in Britain (46%) stated they carried their phones with them most of the time – with the 55-64 year olds most likely to do so.

Younger respondents (18-34) who were more likely to feel their mobile was an essential part of their daily life and they would be “lost without it”. And underlining this finding is the fact that two thirds (67%) of Brits leave their mobiles on at night - and only 14% of those switch it to silent.

Perhaps the most interesting result in the survey is that in some markets there are users who never make phone calls from their mobile (see Chart 1 below). In the UK 11% of respondents never make calls; that figure is higher in the US at 13%. 33% of UK and 18% of US respondents make no more than two calls a week. Texting is hugely popular in the UK with half (49%) sending at least one SMS per day and 2% sending a picture or video message (MMS) daily. Women like to send more text messages than men apparently– with 56% compared to 42% sending at least one text per day; men make more daily voice calls – 41% compared to 32% of women.

Mobile phones have evolved with new features such as cameras, games, internet access and music now commonplace on basic handsets whilst smart phones offer even more sophisticated applications such as video. Whilst some people may feel these are unnecessary add-ons, the results show that in fact these functions are becoming increasingly popular. In the UK the most popular daily function is browsing the web at 9%, whilst on a weekly basis it’s taking photos (38% of respondents), followed jointly by browsing the web and playing games (22%) and sending a photo or video (18%). (See Chart 2 below)

Respondents were also asked about a number of new functions that they might like on their phone. In all countries a satellite navigation system was the top choice, with 49% of French, 44% of German, 43% of British and 38% of American respondents choosing that option. Being able to locate friends, family and children in real time through GPS functionality was the second preference in all markets except for Germany, where concerns over privacy prevailed. However it seems that the Japanese system of using the mobile phone handset to pay for public transport (like an Oyster card) isn’t a popular option – this failed to generate interest everywhere except Germany. Amongst the reasons given for rejecting this function included worries about making the phone a target for theft, concerns about cost, and fears of giving too much data to the phone company.

Commenting on the results, David Day, CEO of Lightspeed Research said: “There is no question that the mobile phone is an important tool for daily life for many of the people we surveyed, and that many people use the additional phone applications such as photos, video, music and the internet. However when we look at take up of some of the current functions, as well as those we may have in the future, consumers do express some concerns. There is real fear around data security and the increased risk of theft and this is something the industry as a whole will need to address to encourage consumers to try new functionality such as mobile commerce.”

If you want to check out Lightspeed Research, and/or get the report, click here.

Skype users rejoice! The Skype 3.0 application for Windows Mobile has officially matured past “beta” status, and is now available for download. If you haven’t yet tried Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile, we’d suggest taking a quick look-see. The 3.0 version features an SMS messaging feature that is supposed to cut down on international texting fees as well as a file-sharing feature that basically does what it you’d expect.

The Skype 3.0 Windows Mobile app also rocks an updated UI and presumably does away with some of beta-bugs.

Download Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile here.

The US Census Bureau is getting ready to conduct the most wireless, high-tech census in US history. And, they’ve tapped none other than No. 3 US wireless carrier Sprint (NYSE: S) as the exclusive wireless provider for all their “census-ing” needs. The wirelessly connected Decennial Census will kick off in 2010, and promises to be the most accurate account of the US population in the history of the US Census.

You might recall seeing the HTC Census passing through the FCC, on it’s way to some half million (500,000) Census enumerators. HTC created the HTC Census specifically for the US Census Bureau’s Field Data Collection Automation (FDCA) project, which aims to collect and transmit census data back to a central database.

Armed with this EVDO data-only Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC, and integrated GPS, the enumerator’s job of collecting absentee census information will get nice and streamlined. As a high-tech plus, the built-in GPS unit also keeps the enumerator honest.

Makes me wish I had an HTC Census during my stint as a US Census enumerator back in 2000.

[Via: CN]

The QWERTY keyboard is no longer a stranger to iDEN circles. With the introduction of the Motorola Clutch i465, push-to-talk fans now have an affordable QWERTY messaging phone to use with the leading PTT carrier in the US. Following on Boost Mobile’s announcement, Boost’s parent company Sprint (NYSE: S) has today announced the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Clutch i465 as a tough and affordable QWERTY messaging phone for use with Nextel Direct Connect Custom plans.

The Motorola Clutch i465 combines a rugged, yet slim(ish), exterior with a full QWERTY keyboard - the first QWERTY device in the iDEN portfolio. It features a new kind of text messaging service that uses Nextel’s class-leading push-to-talk network. “Group Messaging,” as it’s called, takes advantage of the Nextel Direct network’s strengths - allowing for instant text-communications with a large group.

Sprint says the Motorola Clutch i465 will be available later this Summer for 39.99 with a new two-year service agreement, $20 instant rebate and $50 mail-in rebate. Expect to see the Motorola Clutch hitting all Sprint retail channels.

Register to be notified when the Clutch becomes available on Sprint at this website.

Full press release after the break.

Read the full article »

Vringo and its partner, Innova Group, have announced a partnership with Armenia’s leading mobile operator VivaCell-MTS. Through the partnership, Vringo’s video ringtone service will be available to more than 2,000,000 mobile subscribers of VivaCell-MTS in Armenia through a co-branded VivaCell-MTS-Vringo online platform and will constitute the first deployment of such innovative and stimulative technology in CIS countries.

The VivaCell-MTS-Vringo service, rolling out on a subscription basis, will provide access to Vringo’s video ringtone application and its library of 4,000+ video ringtone clips. For a fee, subscribers may download this premium content.

“Through this arrangement with Vringo and Innova Group, VivaCell-MTS is now able to offer our subscribers more multimedia content and more stimulating ways to use that content than ever before,” said VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian. “We believe Vringo’s fun and captivating video ringtones will be an extra tool in our efforts to keep our subscribers updated with the latest technologies.”

“Vringo is thrilled that VivaCell-MTS is joining our growing family of carrier partners,” said Vringo CEO Jon Medved. “This exclusive agreement will enable VivaCell-MTS to use Vringo’s suite of customizable tools to engage its customers through the most important pivot on the mobile device: the ringtone.”

This is the fourth custom-built in-language carrier platform Vringo has created for an international mobile partner. Others include platforms in Vietnamese for Viettel, in French for Bouygues Telecom, and in Turkish for mobile provider Avea.

In addition to carrier partners, the company also maintains relationships with content providers (including Turner, Discovery Mobile and Agence France Presse) and handset manufacturers, such as Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE), which is including a direct online link to Vringo on its new Sony Ericsson Walkman phones.

Freeverse today announced the release of a new game “Warpack: Grunts” from UK partner company Strange Flavour. It’s a ‘pick-up-and-play’ squad-based shooter for the iPhone and iPod touch with “colorful art, addictive gameplay, extensive content and iPhone OS 3.0 exclusive features!”

Players control a squad of four soldiers as they seek to complete 40 levels of explosive missions, from grenade-bombing the enemy, sniping the main antagonist Evil Dude, to commandeering tanks and helicopters. With four difficulty modes, online highscores for campaigns, and unlockable levels, Warpack: Grunts is chock full of fun for everyone! Taking advantage of the newest iPhone OS 3.0, Grunts will also feature iPod library access for a personalized and unique game experience.

“Grunts is an amazing and exciting game that works seamlessly with your own iPod library, and we’re thrilled to be releasing it with the newest iPhone OS 3.0,” Ian Lynch Smith, President of Freeverse said.

“Warpack: Grunts” is available from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch here.