Mobile Application Developers Opting for Cloud Service

Mobile application developers are taking note of cloud computing. With some popular applications recording a huge number of downloads, cloud service, which can be defined as borrowing of IT resources, is getting an increasing attention for its advantages in traffic handling and cost reduction. 

IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), a type of cloud service for leasing servers and storages, is an effective method to cope with a sudden traffic surge. As the cost is in proportion to the amount used, it can be especially attractive to small and mid-sized mobile application firms. Currently, most of those companies are run by 20 or less staff each and they find it burdensome to maintain their own computing resources. 
　 
“We are going to promote our cloud service mainly to mobile service firms with many members or download hits,” said KT, adding, “We expect that those companies concerned about skyrocketing users and traffic will get much interested in it.” source

One Numer, One Voice Service From Airtel and Nuance

From a Bollywood number as a hello tune to updates about cricket matches, voice-based services have been offering numerous options to users in the Indian mobile phone segment. Bharti airtel and Nuance Communications have revealed a new service dubbed ‘One Numer, One Voice’ to satiate their customers in the country with enhanced precision.

This innovatively crafted service can be expedient for airtel mobile subscribers across the landscape. Thanks to the service, users will simply need to dial a single number, 54321, for accessing all voice-based services. It has been engineered as a single destination for changing Hello Tunes, listening to airtel Radio along with jokes. This initiative will also facilitate customers to receive news and sports updates as well as their daily astrological predictions and more.

Shireesh Joshi, Chief Marketing Officer-Mobile Services, Bharti airtel, explained “At Bharti airtel, we are constantly looking for ways of delivering the best user experience for our 150 million plus customers across the country and accounting for their diverse preferences in language and relative comfort in interacting by voice or text. Our ‘One Number, One Voice’ service provides our customers with the dual benefit of a single number of access for VAS services and the ease ofvoice recognition with multiple language options – giving him a simple and improved service experience. Today, as we join hands with Nuance Communications for the launch of our ‘One Number, One Voice’ service – we look forward to leveraging their expertise towards delivering an improved ‘search and discover content’ experience for airtel mobile customers across India.”

The new offering has been powered by Nuance Communications’ Recognizer 9.0 speech recognition technology. The company also revealed that an extensive pilot project was undertaken in Kerala for almost a year. The results and feedback from the population in the region are said to have helped it for delivering the refined service. Besides, the main menu of this innovation has been designed by incorporating the inputs derived from this research.

“We’re experiencing an unprecedented demand for voice services, as they provide consumers with a fast and intuitive way to access a broad range of content,” remarked Michael Thompson, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mobile Division, Nuance Communications. “Bharti airtel’s One Number, One Voice service is an incredibly innovative initiative that brings the power of voice to millions of consumers across India, providing access to exciting content-driven voice services through a single number and simple voice commands.”

Touted as the first application to have integrated the user interfaceguidelines and framework created by Nuance, this service renders a comprehensive experience to its users. Further, the company disclosed that the intuitiveness of the service is capable of distinguishing between regular callers and those using it for the first time. This ability helps it to offer a customized caller service, enabling frequent users to adopt short cuts whereas new callers can expect a detailed reception.

The One Number, One Voice is available for airtel customers across Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chennai, Tamil Nadu and Chandigarh at Rs. 2 per minute charge. The service currently supports Hindi, English, Malayalam and Tamil and will be soon offered in other languages as well.source

Applications – the next big buzz and opportunity in mobile space

A mobile phone has multiple forms of use and mobile applications only add value to it. Applications such as the Nokia’s Ovi Store, Android Market, Blackberry App World, Apple’s App Store and upcoming versions from Samsung and Microsoft give independent developers a relatively quick and easy route to consumers.

With the current explosion of new applications, it is expected that the market for mobile applications will be as big as the Internet, peaking at 10 million apps in 2020.

According to Samir Kumar, Managing Director, Inventus Capital, mobile today was like personal computers in 1984. Everything was an opportunity, he said, adding, “Mobile application is seen as the next big opportunity after the ringtone market and promises a revolution in active and engaging communication.”

Commenting on the developing VAS market in India, Ponappa PG, CEO, Emerging Markets, mPortal, said, “The advent of 3G, mobile number portability and high penetration of feature rich phones are the reasons why the application market will get a boost.” He felt that there was a huge opportunity in the bottom of the pyramid markets, where people did not understand what applications were. At the same time, he stressed that technology had to be simplified in order to create the need and to tap the rural market.

“Facebook, Pandora, weather applications, Google search and Google maps are the most popular applications,” informed Vijaykumar Radhakrishnan, Chief Technology Officer, Dot Com Infoway, citing the most downloaded applications on mobile.

Much has been said about the need for the print format to co-exist with digital. In order to simplify the magazine reading experience, DCI Mobile Studios is in the pre-launch stage of its magazine application, called Magzter. Throwing light on this application, CR Venkatesh, Managing Director & CEO, Dot Com Infoway, said, “Magzter started with the Indian and the Asian markets. Currently, we have Galatta Cinema, Media Voice, Tehelka, and Global Gujarati as our clients in India.”

However, Magzter as a policy has no exclusive contracts with anyone, thereby allowing the magazine to be on various applications. “That gives me a challenge to keep innovating. If I don’t innovate, the client will leave me and the clients like that proposition,” Venkatesh added.

He further noted that it was difficult to convince publishers in the Indian market to go on the digital platform, while those in the West embraced this as an opportunity. He was confident that with the launch of new tablets, smart phones, and spread of 3G, almost every magazine would want to go digital.

Meanwhile on the aspect of managing accounts, Probir Roy, Co-founder, Paymate, pointed out that the mobile phone was quickly replacing the plastic money concept. At the same time, he stressed on the need for banks to have a strict security policy to ensure foolproof transactions.

Dot Com Infoway’s Radhakrishnan asserted, “Applications is the next big opportunity after ringtones in the mobile space.”

The industry experts were sharing their knowledge and expertise at the Mobile Applications Conference India 2011, which was held in Mumbai on February 19. This day-long conference explored new opportunities that are emerging in the mobile applications space and sought to some light on where the mobile industry is headed and how entrepreneurs and developers can take advantage of that. source

New Study Reveals the Mobile Channel is First.

Neustar, Inc., (NYSE: NSR), a provider of market-leading, innovative solutions and directory services to enable trusted communication across networks, and Aepona, a provider of software solutions for Mobile Cloud Computing, today released the results of a new industry white paper*, authored by Yankee Group, called, "The Mobile Cloud: Unlocking New Profits". The research investigates the growing demand from consumers for high-speed mobile services and its impact on mobile network operators (MNOs), brands, advertisers, content owners, and enterprises. The report reveals that these stakeholders have an opportunity to differentiate themselves and add new revenue-generating services by harnessing mobile cloud computing (mobile cloud).

"Yankee Group is bullish on the prospects for the entire mobile ecosystem - if stakeholders have the ability to work together more efficiently. The industry needs capable stakeholders to step up and reduce the friction that currently stymies the creation of an efficient and profitable mobile platform," said Brian Partridge, vice president, Anywhere Network Research at Yankee Group. "Solutions that can successfully address these key challenges can help the entire mobile ecosystem create more profits."source
Highlights: 

•     MNOs will require new sources of revenue that harness the value of the network investments;
•      Yankee Group believes that the mobile cloud has the potential to change how consumers work, transact commerce, socialize, and entertain themselves.
•      In the last five years, the mobile channel has moved from the bottom of the value stack to the top priority.
•      Enterprise IT managers must deal with the growing need for enterprise application mobility and the impact from productivity tools created in the consumer world that are increasingly being brought into the work environment.
•      Application developers face significant choices about which platform they should target for development and how to achieve wholesale access to MNO APIs.

"The study conducted by Yankee Group confirms our view that the mobile marketplace is at an inflection point," said Steve Edwards, senior vice president, Carrier Services. "Operators need monetize their network investments and support consumers' increasing appetite for rich media services. The Neustar Intelligent Cloud changes the mobile services business model by reducing operating costs and improving the consumer experience, while creating new revenue streams."
Key Findings:
Based on an examination of the mobile marketplace and ecosystem, the Yankee Group believes that a well-executed mobile cloud service eliminates the commercial and technical fragmentation that has proven to be a barrier in the past. The firm believes that by combining mobile cloud services with a motivated ecosystem, there are significant opportunities to enrich the entire marketplace.
"The Aepona software engine powers the convergence of open mobile networks with Mobile Cloud Computing," said Al Snyder, Chief Executive Officer, Aepona. "Through our work with OneAPI, we saw the need for a service that streamlines the path to market for mobile services. By working with Neustar, we are able to enable a rich variety of applications and series that utilize the mobile network features and intelligence available on-demand via the mobile cloud."
The complete white paper titled "The Mobile Cloud: Unlocking New Profits" can be downloaded at: http:// www.neustarintelligentcloud.biz/.

Mobile Medication Reminder Application

3G Technology Well Accepted among Hypertensive Patients in Underserved Communities.

3G handsets and the Pill Phone (News - Alert) mobile medication reminder application are well accepted among patients participating in George Washington University and Wireless Reach Pill Phone Research Study.

The announcement was made by George Washington University Medical Center, One Economy, Cricket Communications, VOCEL, and Qualcomm’s (News  - Alert) Wireless Reach initiative at a mHealth seminar hosted by the George Washington Center for Global Health and the Department of Emergency Medicine.  

“3G wireless technologies offer new opportunities to communicate with patients and the potential to improve health outcomes,” said Dean Brenner, vice president of government affairs for Qualcomm, in a statement.

Thanks to the grant from Qualcomm's Wireless Reach initiative and contributions from One Economy, Cricket Communications (News - Alert) and VOCEL, the George Washington University Medical Center conducted and analyzed a seven-month study to measure the efficiency of the Pill Phone application to improve medication adherence among hypertensive patients.

The Pill Phone study was aimed at analyzing how wireless technology can engage patients, improve health outcomes and reduce health costs. Subjects included 50 Medicaid patients who were recruited from the internal medicine, renal/hypertension and cardiology clinics of The George Washington University Medical Center in Washington.

Hypertension affects more than 65 million adults in the United States and the main reason is poor adherence to blood pressure medications. African Americans are two to four times more likely to have kidney disease than their white counterparts due to uncontrolled hypertension. Hypertensive patients have other issues requiring additional medications and this forces them to take up to 10 pills a day.

“High blood pressure and diabetes are the leading causes of kidney disease, and Washington, D.C. has some of the highest rates of end-stage kidney disease in the nation,” said Richard Katz, director of the division of cardiology at The George Washington University Hospital. “The importance of the Pill Phone Research Study is that it offers a model for disease self-management that can be applied to at-risk communities.”

Each hypertensive patient received a 3G wireless handset pre-loaded with the Pill Phone application. The Pill Phone provides visual and audible medication dosage reminders, tracking and storage of dosage records, image displays of prescription pills and information about potential drug side effects.

VOCEL announced the Pill Phone application in 2008 for three major U.S. wireless operators. Pill Phone enables healthcare providers to remotely monitor patient adherence through a secure Web site, according to company officials.source

3D movies on a 3G cellphone

Those clever chaps at Fraunhofer have found a way to put 3D on a cellphone by combining the new LTE-Advanced mobile radio standard with a video coding technique.

They've come up with a special compression technique for films in high-resolution HD quality, computing the films down to low data rates while maintaining H.264/AVC quality.

And what the H.246/AVC video format is to HD, they say, the Multiview VideoCoding (MVC) is to 3D.

"MVC is used to pack together the two images needed for the stereoscopic 3D effect to measurably reduce the film’s bit rate," says Thomas Schierl of the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications. The technique, he says, can be used to reduce the size of 3D films by as much as 40 percent.

And this means that it's possible to receive excellent quality 3D films over a 3G-LTE mobile radio connection.

The key element is the radio resource management integrated into the LTE system, which allows flexible data transmission while including various quality of service classes.

"The 2D and 3D bit streams divided up by MVC can be prioritized for each user at the air interface to support different services, thus opening up a completely new field for business models," says colleague Thomas Wirth.

This could involve premium services, for example, where only the paying user can watch the 3D version of the film. It could also enable a 3D quality guarantee - even in unfavorable reception conditions such as in a moving car.

The team plans to show off the system at MWC next week.source

10 consumer Mobile Apps for 2012

Analyst firm Gartner has identified what it believes will be the most important mobile applications in 2012. Focusing on high-end devices with an average selling price (ASP) of more than $300 dollars, analysts have identified the top 10 cutting-edge technologies and trends for 2012.

Winning mobile apps will have unique features that cater to the mobile environment rather than act as a mobile extension of their online peers.

“Mobile applications will be a highly competitive marketplace that attracts the interest of many stakeholders," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner.

“Increasingly, mobile applications will define the user experience on high-end devices and device vendors that proactively integrate innovative apps and technologies at the platform layer will have the competitive edge."

Mobile apps themselves will not only generate good revenue ($15.9 billion in expected end-user spending in 2012) but will also drive hardware sales, advertising spending and technology innovation.

Gartner said it expects brand companies to increasingly shift their marketing budget to the mobile channel, and experiment with cutting-edge apps to capture marketing and sales opportunities.

Companies, as well as technology and service providers, that stay abreast of the latest developments could make their products stand out from the pack, enhance brand image and retain user loyalty, said Gartner.

Gartner’s top 10 consumer applications to watch in 2012 are:

• Location-based services (LBSs). Location is one of the main enablers that deliver services to users based on their context and, Gartner expects the total user base of consumer LBSs to reach 1.4 billion users by 2014. LBS strive to deliver features and functionalities in tune with the user’s context, taking into account the user’s location, personal preference, gender, age, profession, intention and so on, thus offering a more-intelligent user experience than basic location services can. Gartner analysts believe context-aware services are a key trend for mobile apps, and location is a key enabler of that.
  
• Social networking. Mobile social networking is the fastest-growing consumer mobile app category of the 19 tracked by Gartner. Social network platforms are sucking in increasing amounts of network traffic. They are becoming portals, transit hubs and cloud storage for increasing amounts of messaging and e-mail traffic, videos, photos, games and commerce. As mainstream adoption progresses, global social sites will be driven toward providing services in partnership with third parties using open APIs, and are likely to evolve to a role as infrastructure providers acting as data warehouses and providing user data and access to the more-consumer-facing brands.
  
• Mobile search. Visual search is usually related with product search to enable price comparisons or to check product information. To bring mobile search to the next level, the app would allow users to take actions based on the result, such as making a call or reservation, buying a ticket, placing an order, and so on. Gartner advises search providers to build the experience around mobile to allow users access to immediate results and to take actions, given the short time span users have. Mobile device vendors should partner with or acquire promising search providers to integrate the technology, preferably at the platform layer, to offer a differentiated user experience.
  
• Mobile commerce. Today, mobile commerce is more of an extension of e-commerce but in a smaller form factor and with a more-streamlined experience. However, over the next 24 months, Gartner expects the emergence of uniquely mobile functions, such as the ability to “check in" to a store to alert a retailer that you are there, or the ability to add items to a shopping cart simply by taking a photo of an item or bar code in the physical store. In the future, Gartner expects richer mobile commerce capabilities to expand from native apps to the mobile browser as HTML5 starts to be deployed, though this will happen at a much later stage.
  
• Mobile payment. Although near field communication (NFC) payment will be included in high-end phones from 2011, Gartner does not believe that it will become mainstream before 2015. In order to get consumers on board, payment solution providers need to address ease-of-use for users and ease-of-implementation for customers without compromising security. They also need to increase user awareness, extend the service coverage and address ease-of-use to appeal to end users.
  
• Context-aware service. Context-aware applications provide improved user experiences by using the information about a person’s interests, intentions, history, environment, activities, schedule, priorities, connections and preferences to anticipate their needs and proactively serve up the most appropriate content, product or service. Mobile carriers, along with handset manufacturers, should provide expanded location services to include, among others, directory assistance, mapping, advertising and privacy controls.
  
• Object recognition (OR). High-end devices have an increased sensor and processing capability that enable sophisticated applications to recognize the user’s surroundings, including specific objects of interest. Because OR provides an easy-to-use interface, more apps will come to the market with enhanced capabilities by 2012. Users will rely on the camera, as well as other device sensors as a communication tool when OR capabilities are combined with more-traditional app functions, giving users advanced search capabilities and a plethora of entertainment and productivity functionality.
  
• Mobileinstant messaging (MIM). Gartner expects MIM to attract consumers to new types of unified communication (UC) client, provided by over the top (OTT) service providers such as Skype. These service providers are threatening traditional communications service provider voice revenue. Companies that consider including MIM into new products should consider integrating it with other communications types, such as location and presence, but be cautious about developing other functionality, such as federation of social network activity.
  
• Mobile e-mail. Smartphones have begun to drive the mainstream adoption of mobile e-mail through a series of technology enhancements enabling low-cost mobile extensions to existing e-mail service. Gartner expects mobile e-mail users worldwide to increase from 354 million in 2009 to 713 million in 2014, to account for 10.6 percent of the global mobile user base. E-mail addresses are personal and potentially extremely sticky, thus provide carriers, e-mail service providers and OTT players with an opportunity to lock in consumers. Technology and service providers should consider how they can make it easier for consumers to use their affiliated mobile e-mail services as a way of ensuring long-term engagement with customers.
  
  Technology and service providers should consider how they can make it easier for consumers to use their affiliated mobile e-mail services as a way of ensuring long-term engagement with customers.
  
• Mobile video. Mobile phones with larger screens and media tablets offer the ideal platform for video consumption and with careful marketing and consumer education, Gartner believes that carriers and content providers would be able to drive mobile video usage in the coming years. Mobile carriers should partner with YouTube and other popular video providers, so that users can replicate their Internet behavior on their mobile phones, while mobile device manufacturers should integrate HD and 3D capabilities in their high-end devices and look to bundle content either as pre-loaded or as free downloads through an app store. source

Push Mail and Video Download service by Loop Mobile

Loop Mobile expanded its portfolio of Value added Service with the launch of two new services - Loop Mobile Mail and Loop Mobile Video. With Loop Mobile mail subscribers can send and receive emails on their mobile in the form of SMS without the need to have GPRS, whereas Loop Mobile Videos offers multiple genre videos downloads.

Using Loop Mobile Mail service, a subscriber can compose, reply and forward e-mails from the handset using the SMS option. A subscriber’s mobile number by default becomes an email id. For eg:9821XXXXXX@loopmail.in. To use this service Loop Mobile subscribers need to send a message LMAIL to 50303. Loop Mobile is offering this service to both its Prepaid and Postpaid users for free for one year.

Keywords that will help you Send/Receive Emails using your SMS Inbox:

Functionality	Keyword	How to use
To compose a new mail	NEW to 50303	New <recipients mail id> s:<subject> b:hi, let's meet up
To reply back to sender of the mail	REPLY to 50303	Reply <msg id> <UR Reply> e.g. Reply 04 ok, I will attend
To reply back to the sender & all the recipients of the mail	REPLY A to 50303	Reply a <msg id> <UR Reply> e.g. Reply a 04 ok, I will attend
To read more of the message received	READ to 50303	Read <msg id> <part no> e.g Read 04 2
To forward mail to anyone	FWD to 50303	Fwd <msg id> <recipients mail id> <content> e.g. Fwd 04 test.gmail.com hi, check this invitation
If password is forgotten, sending 'Password' will resend a new password for easy access	PASSWORD to 50303	SMS Password to 50303>

• To receive Emails from your Gmail, Hotmail accounts in your SMS Inbox, you set the auto-forwarding option from your current Email ID to the Loop Mobile Mail ID.
• For Emails where you receive attachments, you will receive a link in the SMS using which the attachment can be viewed. Please note the attachment viewing feature is available for only GPRS enabled devices.
• To Unsubscribe SMS UNSUBMAIL to 50303

The other service Loop Mobile Videos is also available to both Prepaid and Postpaid Loop Mobile subscribers. For using this service users will not be charged any rental but subscribers need to pay 10p for each video they download. To use this service subscribers need to send a SMS - VIDEOS to 50800 (toll free) or visit WAP URL http://atcafe.loopmobile.in

Catch Live Concerts On Your Mobile Phones

On February 9, music composers Vishal Dadlani and Shekhar Ravjiani are set to bring the first ever concert that will be streamed live to your mobile phones and PCs. The duo has collaborated with Hungama, Nokia and Airtel for the live mobile music concert for Airtel’s Talk2Me platform and a live web telecast on www.bollywoodhungama.com.

They are the first musicians ever to do a live concert that will simultaneously play on mobiles and the internet. “I don't know of any music show that reached to audiences over mobile and web only,” said Dadlani, adding, they were considering a series of mobile and web concerts in the near future. “Digitisation of music is already happening. Artists have to think ahead of pirates and deliver their content to users directly.”

Vishal and Shekhar are ready to do what they otherwise would not have done at a live concert, with the physical presence of thousands of music lovers. “We will keep a laptop on stage and perform songs that fans request us to perform over the mobile and web medium,” said Vishal.

Airtel’s Talk2Me, a platform for customers to dial, connect and interact with their favourite stars on a real-time basis, charges users a one-time registration charge of Rs 15 and call charge of Rs 2 per minute. The concept was as simple as dialing a number, listening and requesting the music director duofor songs, said Airtel.

The show is expected to be an hour-long event, where mobile subscribers can request songs to be played using the Talk2Me platform, a service that can be availed of by over 200 million Airtel customers.

Shireesh Joshi, chief marketing officer (mobile services), Bharti Airtel, said: “Not limited by location, mobile concert on Airtel will offer unique experience to our customers.” Viral Oza, head (activation, media, online sales and marketing) at Nokia India said: “With more and more young people listening to music on their mobile phones, this unique initiative is very timely.”

But, since it would be a concert on the web and mobile platforms, what would be the quality of sound? Will it be as enjoyable as watching a live performance? “We are confident that with the line-up of performances planned and the technology support, the experience will be seamless. As for the sound, since the performance venue is indoors, with just a handful of audiences in the studio, the quality will be maintained for the virtual audience,” said Dadlani.

Over the internet, Hungama, along with Nokia, will telecast the show as a ‘webcert’. Hungama COO Siddhartha Roysaid: “The last webcert we did on our website www.artistaloud.com was for ArtistAloud.com, where a band called Swarathma performed on January 18. The event witnessed over 18,000 people participating. But we expect the numbers to be even bigger this time as Vishal and Shekhar are mainstream music directors.”

Hungama, according to Roy, is exploring more such mobile music concerts. “While on web, we intend to keep the concerts free or mostly ad-sponsored, on the mobile, this will be a premium service as users get the chance to request and interact with the stars during the concert.”

Hungama believes, while web and mobile concerts may be a new concept, but their popularity is bound to rise quickly as youngsters are keen to experiment. “For those who can’t make it to live concerts, the web provides a platform to enjoy the experience within the comfort of one’s home or the workplace,” said Roy.source