U.S. Cellular has introduced the Overage Protection service, which includes sending users an SMS when they’ve used 75% of available minutes or text messages, and another when they reach 100%. The idea is, of course, to inform customers how they’re managing their pre-paid accounts.
In order to sign-up for the free services, customers should visit the carrier’s retail store, contact customer service or access their account at uscellular.com. Then they decide who will receive the alerts. The service runs nightly, calculating the usage. If a predefined threshold is reached, a text alert will be sent the next day during normal business hours.
We like the idea and I can see virtually every U.S. Cellular customer signing up for Overage Protection…
Spotify, the Swedish music service that many in Western and Northern Europe have been enjoying for a little over a year now, has finally released a Symbian application! Complementing their iPhone and Android application, this new Symbian application makes the Spotify service available to over half the smartphones recently sold in Europe. I’d give you a video demo, but I’m not a Spotify Premium member. I’d like to be a Spotify Premium member, but their billing system doesn’t take my Finnish credit card, nor my American credit card for some strange reason.
To download the client, simply visit http://m.spotify.com in your mobile browser and it will automatically detect the device you’re using and begin downloading.
Sprint (NYSE: S) users with BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) and Android smartphones can now use YouMail-powered visual voicemail service free of charge. You know how it works, right? Just like on the iPhone, plus more:
You can scroll through incoming voicemail messages to see caller information including caller name, time of call, and length of message
Play voicemails by simply clicking on them
Share and forward voicemails as an email or post to a blog
Delete, archive or save voicemails, forever
In order to use YouMail on your phone, you’ll need the YouMail application. Search for it in the BlackBerry App World or Android Market, depending which device you use. Then go to YouMail’s website, sign up for a YouMail account and follow the brief instructions for forwarding unanswered calls to YouMail. It’s that easy.
I’ve reported on the Amazon Kindle International Edition before (here), which is an interesting device, because its packing a SIM card in it that can roam seamlessly across network in Europe – in fact you could argue it’s the main way of acquiring e-books for that device.
Well now there’s another (yes, another) e-book reader, the Bookeen Cybook Opus, which has a couple of interesting traits:
Some kind of landscape mode
A price-point that is worryingly close to the Kindle
Yep, that’s right, this bad boy isn’t packing 3G data, yet it’s only $40 cheaper – that’s not good, is it?
Right now, from a mobile data connection perspective, Kindle is cream of the crop – but could we see a newer revision of the Opus coming soon, with 3G or WiFi data? Quite possibly.
Bill Perry, Senior Services Marketing Manager for Forum Nokia (NYSE: NOK), posted some statistics from the Ovi Store which has now been open for 5 months. The Ovi Store is available on over 100 devices, with users from over 180 different countries, and developers from 65 countries. There are 8 countries that have an Ovi Store in their native language and support operator billing: UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Italy and Russia. By the end of Q1 2010, that number should rise to over 20 countries. The top 10 countries accessing the Ovi Store are Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Russia and the UK. In most of those countries the top 2 devices used to get to the Ovi Store are either the Nokia 5800 or N97. Each registered user downloads an average of 8 pieces of content, and the number of downloads in October compared to September is up by 70%.
Couple that data above with the information Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo gave during the Q3 2009 financial results conference call held on the 15th of October, where he said:
We grew our active users from 46 million to 61 million.
61 million users x average of 8 pieces of content per user = 488 million downloads?
Why isn’t Bill Perry providing any figures such as number of applications? The media would take that number and compare it to the massive 100,000+ applications in Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s App Store and claim Nokia is failing.
Why isn’t Bill Perry providing any figures for the number of downloads? Same reason as above.
Latitude, a Google (NSDQ: GOOG) service built into Maps for Mobile for sharing your location with trusted friends, just got two big updates. First up is location history, which, when enabled, will allow you to see where you were at specific times on desktop Google Maps, and follow your tracks sequentially. This seems like it could be very handy when trying to retrace steps from a hazy Friday night, seeing where you took a wrong turn, or any number of other scenarios. I’d really like to be able to slap on a Panoramio layer on top of that so I could see where geotagged pictures sit in the larger scheme of a trip. The other update is Location Alerts, which pings you via e-mail or SMS whenever someone on your Latitude list is nearby – very helpful for impromptu meetups, but depends on having a well-populated friends list. It certainly saves the hassle of actually opening up Google Maps and navigating to Latitude to see who’s usefully nearby. To get started with Location History, head on over here to enable it on your Google account, or over here for Location Alerts.
MasterCard introduced the MasterCard Mobile Payments Gateway, a mobile payments processing platform that enables financial institutions and mobile operators to deliver “end-to-end mobile payments solutions through the MasterCard Worldwide Network.”
And the first partners that will use the new service is already on board – Brazil’s Itau Unibanco and Redecard, along with mobile operator Vivo. Using the service, interested consumers will be able to use their phone as a mobile wallet and link their existing credit, debit or prepaid MasterCard or Maestro card accounts to their mobile phone to fund mobile-initiated payments.
MasterCard is working with the company called Smart Hub and has created an open mobile payment processing platform through the MasterCard Payments Gateway to facilitate the launch of MasterCard Mobile payment solutions in developing markets.
Finally, following the launch in Brazil, MasterCard said it will introduce MasterCard Mobile payments solutions through the Mobile Payments Gateway in select markets around the world.
Use Amazon.com to order everything and anything your little heart desires off the internet? Want to get notifications on when orders are fulfilled, shipped, and arrive at your door step? Amazon is now doing that via SMS. Read their FAQ for more information.
Between Amazon.com and Newegg.com, I’ve easily spent over $10,000 via e-commerce back when I lived in the states. Why oh why does is suck so hard in Europe is beyond me.
Livestream is extending its video streaming platform to include the iPhone and iPod Touch users. What this means is that using Livestreem Procaster, you can stream video from a webcam, video camera or even broadcast PC/Mac’s desktop to all the interested iPhone/iTouch users over 3G or WiFi.
The streaming on the iPhone/iPod Touch works over Safari as Livestream relies on the H.264 HTTP live streaming functionality included in iPhone’s native QuickTime player, removing the need for any application install requirements.
However, this doesn’t mean Livestream has forgotten developers. Quite the contrary, they also unveiled a Representational State Transfer (REST) API, which developers can use to integrate live streaming into their own iPhone websites and/or apps.
Finally, if you want to start streaming some video to the iPhone audience, all you need is the mentioned Livestream Procaster, connect a camera, select iPhone 3G Quality and press “Go Live” button. It’s that easy and you can get additional details from here.
There’s a new service called TextSanta.net, which makes sure your child gets a text message from Santa himself. Although it’s not cheap — $5.49 for SMS service is kinda steep — it will certainly make your child at least a bit happier.
Parents can choose from three SMS packages or customize their own and define when these should be sent from Santa Claus, Christmas morning included.
TextSanta.net on its end will donate $1 of every sale to the March of Dimes which improves the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. Nice!
