Microsoft has recently updated Bing’s mobile website (m.bing.com) for HTML5-capable browsers. Strange enough, Windows Phone 7 users still can’t access the revamped website, and the new features have been demoed by a Microsoft employee on an iPhone. Here’s what’s new: Transit Directions and Real-Time Transit – allows users to better organize both their daily commute…
Samsung Apps surpasses 100 million downloads
You may think Samsung should close its own mobile app store, but honestly – there’s no reason for doing so with the rising number of Bada smartphone owners. To be fair, they [Bada smartphone owners] are just a fraction of Android or iPhone users, but they represent a respectable market nevertheless. Moreover, Samsung Apps is…
Bling Nation expands FanConnect to Austin
After Chicago, San Francisco and Palo Alto, mobile payments provider Bling Nation is extending its FanConnect social rewards program to the Austin area, allowing businesses to connect with their customers through rewards platform on Facebook. Among the local businesses already participating, we find such companies as Dominican Joe, Jeanie’s Java, Portable, Silver Grill, Simply Fit…
CHARGE Anywhere brings its mobile POS payment app to the iPhone
CHARGE Anywhere — provider of mobile payment solutions and payment gateway services we’ve already covered in the past — is launching its mobile payment app for iOS devices. The company offers three Magnetic Stripe Readers (MSR): an audio jack MSR, a receipt printer with an integrated MSR and an MSR cradle. Signatures can be captured…
Juniper Research: 1 in 7 boarding passes to be mobile by 2013
According to Juniper Research’s latest report titled “Mobile Ticketing for Transport Markets,” one in every seven bar coded boarding passes worldwide will be delivered to passengers’ mobile devices within 2 years. Translated into numbers, that’s 480 million mobile boarding passes, a significant rise from last year’s 160 million. The research company has found 30 airlines,…
World’s first mobile money life insurance pilot launched in Ghana, Africa
International insurance group Hollard Insurance and mobile financial services enabler MFS Africa launched what they say is the world’s first mobile money insurance service, mi-Life. Available through MTN Ghana‘s Mobile Money, the new service provides users with the opportunity to buy life insurance via their mobile phones. Moreover, there are options to initiate claims, queries…
Mexico’s Telcel launches Appia-powered mobile app store
Appia’s recent senior hires already produced results with Telcel, the largest mobile operator in Mexico, announcing it has launched its own Appia-powered mobile app store. Called Ideas APPSTORE, it provides Telcel subscribers with a wide variety of mobile content and applications across platforms like Android, Blackberry, Symbian and Java ME. Both paid and free apps…
Sprint Drive First to combat distracted driving
Sprint is teaming up with Location Labs to tackle distracted driving. The carrier will offer the Sprint Drive First service to help its users manage their mobile devices and focus on driving while they’re behind the wheel. The new service will be launched in the third quarter with a price tag of $2 per month…
Polycom to extend mobile telepresence to Motorola Xoom
Motorola and Polycom announced collaborative development around delivering Polycom enterprise-class HD personal telepresence on Xoom tablets during the second half of 2011. The standards-based Polycom telepresence video application, which is already available for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, promises to deliver “improved enterprise collaboration and productivity” by enabling users to connect via one-to-one or group video…
Sprint to offer Omnilink Asset Locator tracking service
Sprint will offer the Omnilink Asset Locator tracking service through its Business Direct sales channel to provide companies with out-of-the-box security tool for tracking assets at risk of theft. The carrier and its partner Omnilink suggest the following assets for tracking: bank bags, ATMs, computers and data storage devices, vehicles, consumer electronics and designer apparel,…