Company: Pyreos
Sector: Device manufacture
Overview: It works using an infra-red sensor technology that detects the heat of the user’s hands, calculating direction and speed while drawing less power than mobile camera sensors.
Gut Reaction: This is brilliant engineering and whoever worked out how to do this is a genius. Possibly a slightly flawed genius, because I’m not sure how this could be turned into gold.
(Do you, like me, hate the word monetise?)
I’d love this to work. And maybe the technology could be applied to loads of other devices. Like information kiosks.
I wonder if it needs loads of fiddling around with and configuration before it works for each individual. I can never get Dragon Voice Dictation to work for me, and that’s n its tenth revision!

Company: QRpedia 
Sector: Consumer service
Overview: QRpedia is a language detecting QR code that connects worldwide museum exhibitions to Wikipedia. Using a phone’s camera, a visitor can scan a QR code and be taken directly to a relevant mobile friendly Wikipedia page in the user’s preferred language.
Gut Reation: Love the idea. But how many of today’s mobile users visit museums? What if, instead of a Wikipedia page, the QR code took you to a Podcast? And you paid for that podcast, with the money being added to your mobile phone bill?

Hopefully, they'll have loads of QR codes around the stand, that connect to Wikipedia entries on Barcelona

I wonder if there's a QRCode for QRPedia which connects to an interesting story on them in Wiki.

Company: Mediaburst 
Sector: Healthcare
Overview: Florence is a simple SMS based healthcare system used to record and deliver patients vital signs to a service that records and plots the information, and issues reminders to patients. Information is accessible to doctors from smartphones or via the web.
Gut Reaction: Sounds fairly neat. The hard bit will be selling it to the doctor’s surgeries.
How are they doing to do that?

Is it secure? If I was a celebrity, how would I know that a tabloid journalists wasn't going to hack into my records via my mobile?

How are you going to demonstrate this at Mobile World Congress?

Company: Hailo
Sector: Business and consumer application
Overview: Free iPhone and Android mobile app that brings together a network of independent licensed taxi drivers. The app can take smartphone bookings from Hailo customers, provides a social communication channel between drivers and user-generated traffic alerts.
Gut reaction: I could swear there are a couple of these services already in use. Kabbee, Uber, and tweeting Taxis for one.
I like the traffic alerts idea though.
Where can we see it in action? If you make it easier to take bookings, won't this help the mini cab drivers and put the Hackney Cabs out of business. Why do The Knowledge if you can be undercut by untrained mini cabs?

Company: Guardian24 
Sector: Business application
Overview: Guardian24 is lone worker safety application for Blackberry which tracks and provides emergency response service for lone workers. Used by more than 32,000 workers already, they can log their whereabouts, send GPS locations and, importantly, raise an alert in times of need.
Gut reaction: Aren’t there quite a few lone worker apps out there? What’s different about this one?
How do they intend to  demonstrate this? Maybe they should have a few people roaming around Barcelona whom they can track, live. La Rambla is a dangerous place, so I'm sure people would be interested.

Company: Datawind 
Sector:  Mobile device
Overview: Tackling the global digital divide, the Ubislate is the world’s cheapest tablet PC at just $35 each. This 7inch low cost mobile internet device targets developing markets, providing phone functionality and fast internet, increasing speed of content delivery by a factor of 30.
Gut reaction:
I can see event organizers giving these away as freebies. (They’d come loaded with adverts, which you can only eliminate by answering questions or winning a game, or some activity that would embed the memory of that brand deep within your conscious and subconscious minds.
Hang on, that sounds like a good marketing plan. I should keep that quiet. Don’t steal my idea!)

Company: Carbon Hero Ltd 
Sector:  Environmental application
Overview: CarbonDiem is an app for BlackBerry and Android that automatically detects journeys and calculates the carbon footprint, plus it optimises processing and battery power. By aggregating data across groups of users, individuals, companies and event organisers can monitor emissions.
Gut reaction: Like the sound of this. How do they detect the carbon footprint of the journey? Some people drive at 20 mph the entire journey, while constantly hitting the brakes, while some drive economically.
I wish there was an app that disabled the car if the driver did any of the following:
Poodled along in the middle lane refusing to pull over
Constantly hit the brakes for no apparent reason
Failed to use their indicatorsRead More...

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Blippar could make shopping an augmented reality experience

MWC Preview

The three phrases that are guaranteed to make most mobile users’ hearts sink: mobile marketing, advertising, branding. Well, they have that effect on me anyway. Hang on, I forgot Coupon.

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If it all gets too much, Apical will put on an assertive display and get you an ambience

MWC Preview

We love the sound of Apical's business plan. If, like me, you're dismayed by how much your eyesight has been destroyed by staring into a glowing screen all day, you might be too.

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Copper load of this! TheAlloy is showing its mettle at Mobile World Congress

MWC Preview

What are the biggest problems facing UK innovators? Do they get enough support from government? Does government support actually slow them down? Is it true that BusinessLink makes you jump through so many hoops, and attend so many meetings with dead eyed jobsworths, that you’re better off alone?

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Want to know why we don't make things any more?

Opinion

I desperately want Britain's start ups to thrive but first we have to put the environment in place. The latest initiative by the government doesn't seem too inspiring.

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Jabbakam’s CMTV puts Accent on community monitored housing

Mobile CMTV

It's quite easy to set up a CCTV system that anyone can log into and watch. It's called community monitored TV and it means whole communities can look after each other. It runs on mobiles handsets and tablets too.

When TV surveillance is carried by the community, for the community, it can cut complaints by as much as 85 per cent, according to a study.

The system, known as community monitored TV (CMTV) could help Housing Associations make massive cost savings as anti social behaviour is drastically reduced.

Jabbakam, pioneers of the concept, installed and ran a community monitored TV system for Surrey based housing association Accent Peerless Ltd in an effort to save money and resources and combat anti social behaviour. 

After 6 months of running the system, where all members of the community take turns in watching each other’s property on a shared web cam service, an audit has revealed that the system paid for itself several times over. Not only has the Housing Association saved hundreds of pounds on professional surveillance, it has created a more socially acceptable system and has galvanized a better community spirit.
Read More...

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We've come a long way, but there's no time to rest, warns Sybase mobility guru

Profile, Willie Jow, Sybase

Tablets have invigorated mobile communications, says Willie Jow. We may be mobile, but there's still a long way to go, he warns

When Willie Jow started at Sybase, mobility was for the people working in the field. They carried iPags and Palms and lugged suitcase sized laptops around, in order to input data about sales orders and inventories.

Now, with the explosion of Androids and iPods, tablets and notebooks, it’s a different world. Once it was the Hard Hats of the company, the engineers, who needed to be supported. Now, of course, the user base is much more white collar. The volume of data they’ll be looking for is gargantuan. And the pace of information change is almost instant.

Back then, a tow truck might be typing a few fields into their bulky husky laptop; vehicle registration, time of removal or damage to car, as they dragged it off the street and put it on the back of the truck. That sort of thing. Now, an executive might be turning up for a meeting and expecting the entire updated history of the customer to be on the laptop in front of them.
Read More...

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Mobilising the enterprise is going to be big box office

Gabrile Byrne

Enterprise mobility is going to be the biggest growth market for mobile developers, says screen actor Gabriel Byrne Face it, the enterprise market is a lot more predictable than the box office

Film Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects) gave the performance of his life, as himself, playing the role of a big fan of Sybase.

On a stage in front of 4000 fans, at TechEd in Madrid, he unveiled his passion for enterprise resource planning, cloud computing and in memory transactions.

He seemed to be speaking off the cuff, complete with pregnant poises, while he gave each statement enormous thought as he opened his heart to the audience of customers, journalists, analysts and bloggers.

Who’d have thought that the star of Hollywood blockbusters like Miller’s Crossing, End of Days and Treatment, would be so concerned about the future of corporate computing. But clearly he was sitting in his trailer, performing his own form of data analytics and predicting the future.

“We have two quantum leap opportunities ahead of us,” he said, “Cloud Computing. And In Memory Computing.”

Like many an IT... Read More...

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You'll like these TruLink guys, they're goodfellsa

Revew: Trulink 4-Port HDMI Selector

The problem with tellies these days is that everyone wants a piece of them. Truport can sort all that out.

I’ve never has such as awesome piece of technology as our new flat screen. But by a tragic irony, I can’t get near it. The problem is, there’s always some plugging a gadget into the telly.

If I want to watch Goodfellas for the 100th time, I have to get in the queue behind my wife playing her Flip camera videos on the telly. Then there’ll be kids wanting to get on the DVD players, or the Blu-ray players, HD-DVD players, gaming consoles or the Virgin box.

Still, when they’re all out at school and work, and I’m at home, so I can cheer myself up by listening to Joe Pesci swearing and watching him shoot that kid off The Sopranos.

Just to make sure I don’t miss anything, as I wander between the office the kitchen the bathroom and the front door (“Got a package to pick up mate. They didn’t say what”) I like to plug every device humanly possible into the telly, so I can extend coverage to the... Read More...

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Exinda threatens to give the Cloud a right stuffing

Nick Booth

Adam Davison: now, where do I know that name from?

Anyway, Davison is the new VP of something at Exinda (Davison. Davison… that’s going to bother me now) which claims to have invented a genre of networking product.

The sheer volumes of network traffic created by the cloud are going to exceed the limits of broadband and every company in the land will spend £50 pr user a year on trying to optimize their WAN traffic.

This will create a £4 billion global market for WAN optimization. Or rather, the optimisation  of WAN optimization. Because WAN Optimisation already exists.

That’s what companies like Expand and [oh, what was the other one?] do. But not perfectly, evidently.

Which is why we need Exinda, which gets better performance out of the existing WAN optimizers, by dint of its integration, data visibility and control.  For example, Exinda will free up broadband space by filtering out the malware and the spam.

Which, evidently, is... Read More...

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Don't ask Sir Alan about Apple's CEO - he's a lot less than Steve Jobs' worth

Shut it Sugar

Of all the inappropriate responses to Steve Jobs’ death, I thought the decision to seek Alan Sugar’s opinion was the ghastliest. Which is odd, because I usually like cheap and nasty things.

I alone predicted that Ethernet could win out against Token Ring. I got it right when all the analysts were predicting big things for ATM.

What I like about the IT industry is that it’s got no class. No class at all.

Just good enough always beats expensive and lavishly crafted in the IT industry, where everyone knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
 
 But I draw the line at Alan Sugar’s Amstrad.
 
If even a miser like myself can spot the long term benefits of buying a Mac (painful though the initial investment is) I’m puzzled why the BBC couldn’t spot the difference between a visionary like Jobs and Siralan (as the sycophants on his show call him).
 
But no, some buffoon asked Alan Sugar for his thoughts on the passing of Steve Jobs. As if they were peers!

Perhaps they thought Steve Jobs was going to be created. In which case, Sugar would have... Read More...

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Fine tuning IP performance

Nick Booth

Which companies are best at tweaking IP performance? Watch this space as we reveal the quintet of the best companies at fine tuning Internet Protocol - dubbed the IP hone 5.

There are many questions I'd love to ask when I attend IP Expo on October 19th. But sadly, every stall will be manned by a salesman, and they're not the world's greatest listeners. They tend to be one way broadcasters. In networking terms they're great at handshaking, but only half duplex communicators.

Typically, you go to an event like this with a list of questions. Such as:

Communications service providers long for someone to optimise IP service performance. Why has no one done it? What are the consequences of IP's inconsistency?

Who is tackling the problem? What does it involve? What needs to be done?

What tools are available? How good are they? What tools are now available to look deep within an IP network at the performance of IP services? And how can CSPs speed up problem solving for subscribers?

And without fail, they answer it like this:

"We are the world's leading paradigm shifter... truly unique.... having conversations with... Read More...

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How your mobile can give you a better deal on energy prices

Nick Booth

Climate change guru Chris Huhne is a man who certainly gets his points across. He says we deserve big bills because we don’t shop around for suppliers. Well he should know all about switching. Because he’s, er, the energy secretary.

Climate change guru Chris Huhne is a man who certainly gets his points across. He says we deserve big bills because we don’t shop around for suppliers. Well he should know all about switching. Because he’s, er, the energy secretary.

True a smartphone can help you save money on your power. There are apps for shopping around for better deals on gas and electricity. Mind you, finding a deal is one thing. Understanding the deliberately confusing tariff structure is another.

For example, British Gas claims it uses mobile technology to help consumers to save energy. Personally I will have nothing to do with British Gas for reasons you can probably guess. So I’m wary of their Energy Smart – Monitor and compare energy! - phone app.

There are other apps you can run from your phone that manage your power. CloudApps will tell you how much water, carbon and power you are using at work while you’re sitting on the train, looking... Read More...

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How SpinVox stops anyone hacking into your phone

Nick Booth

About the time when the News of the World stealing private moments from anyone with a saleable personal life, I was experiencing my own hacking crisis.

 

In my case, my privacy was invaded came because I was a journalist. I’d been hired as a writer by a multi millionaire to write some case studies about a telecoms dealer. They liked my work so much that they posted the articles, word for word, on their web site. (As was established, when the case finally came to Coventry County Court where I eventually won a pyrrhic court battle

But as soon as they discovered I was a journalist (boo! Hiss!) they decided they hated me. Not only should no good deed go unpunished, they also decided – on receiving the court summons - to embark on a follow up hate campaign involving attempts to access all my phone conversations.

Like an idiot savant, I mounted a brilliant defence against this thuggery, without even... Read More...

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TubeTap helps tube commuters claim their money back after bad service

Nick Booth

You know how ticket inspectors can fine you on the spot if you don't buy a ticket? Well now the tables have been turned! TubeTap has made it easier for us to gain retribution from them.

Around £34m worth of refunds is owed to Tube commuters each year, because the service is so bad. Only £2m is actually awarded. But now the consumer could fight back.

£32 million worth of refunds go uncollected by London’s tube commuters, because the process is so off-puttingly laborious.

Deliberately so, contends Jason Laporte, who has created a mobile application that makes it easier to apply for a refund.

TubeTap automatically identifies a travellers’ Underground route. It calculates the journey-time and then requests a refund when the traveller is delayed by more than 15 minutes from the estimated journey time.

The app submits a refund request to TFL automatically, requiring only one click from the user to consent to their data being used.  A refund cheque is then sent directly to customers.

All users need to do is use it like an Oyster Card – touching it when they enter and leave... Read More...

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New Death App shows the scenes of local fatalities - set to knock 'em dead

Killer app?

The ‘Death App’ which highlights accident blackspots and local murders, was created in just eight hours.

A new mobile app launched today allows people to find the location of recent deaths in their area. Both accident blackspots and recent murders can be found using their smartphone.
 
The ‘Death App’ offers a gruesome and macabre view of the local area, yet also provides helpful and potentially life-saving features. The app shows information on the deaths near to the user’s location and offers a comprehensive map of deaths, searchable by specific location and type.

The deaths can be filtered to find the deaths that are “Near You” or to show the type of death, either car accident or murder.
 
"We’ve created something that appeals to the public’s sense of morbid curiosity,” said Tod Pedler, CEO of MobileNationHQ. “However, the Death App also draws attention to accident blackspots – to help pedestrians and cyclists navigate the streets more safely.”
 
The app is... Read More...

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Mobile gadgets for shouty Apprentice wannabes

Nick Booth

The awful mobile apps featured on The Apprentice were totally Amstrad. Here’s some much better gizmos

The concept of customer relationship marketing always makes me nervous. Handing over your credit card is NOT a sign you want ‘a relationship’. Got that, Alan Sugar’s Apprentices? Last week they talked about customer relationships as they created some awful mobile apps.

Why bother? There are brilliant gadgets on the market that are perfect for the mobile Meshuganas who appear on this ghastly programme.

The BlueAnt Q2 headset is great for when you’re in a shouty meeting in the back of a limo, after your latest failed assignment. It cuts out the background bleatings of fellow team members, so only your excuses can be heard.

If you’re in an outdoor market, a T1 headset, can out the howling of the wind and the costermongers and keeps working even if you fall off your towering ego and crash to the ground.

Blackberries are relentlessly plugged on The Apprentice, but the best gadget for gobby idiots on public... Read More...

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Ruggedised GSM mobile range unveiled by GAI-Tronics and Burnside Telecom

Rugged telephones

Lightwater based Burnside Telecom has announced a tie with GAI-Tronics that will see it market a series of GSM-based rugged telephone and terminal products.

The jointly developed products will be designed for tough indoor and outdoor use and the first product, the GAI-Tronics Commander GSM, will go to market in Spring 2011. Applications and target markets will include transport networks, leisure facilities, vehicle hire companies and security applications.

Colin Aitken, Managing Director, Burnside Telecom commented: “GAI-Tronics and Burnside have worked together to develop a more affordable integrated solution with a broader range of power management and installation features. Later this year, we will also add 3G support to our portfolio of products.”

Burnside Telecom says that it has seen a significant increase in demand for its range of GSM desk phone and terminal products, and recently supplied retail giant Tesco with its hybrid GSM-based desktop mobile phones for use across 1,000’s of its retail stores,
 
More information available at www.burnsidetelecom.com.uk

Read More...

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A Nokia 8 for the price of an iPhone 4

Analysis

Clearly Nokia is targeting iPhone’s touch-screen smart phone base. That's the conclusion of our benchmarking test.

Our reverse engineering analysis examines each major new platform, component by component. We looked at the Nokia 8 and we think it costs exactly the same as an iPhone 4 to put together.
The Nokia 8 costs as much to make as an iPhone 4, by our reckoning, despite the disparity in features and component selection. They both cost around 190 dollars to produce, given or take a few currency fluctuations!
What does that mean? Clearly Nokia is targeting iPhone’s touch-screen smart phone base. Given that they have different cameras and silicon and just about everything, it’s odd that they should come in at the same price. Or is it?
Of course, we’re making some assumptions. Before you all write in with your complaints that we’ve overlooked Nokia’s investment in research work, software, royalties and licensing, we haven’t. But let’s assume they can are cancelled out by Apple’s.
So, given that the prices are the same, how... Read More...

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The iphone property boom will be a disaster if you choose the wrong web builders

Choose ifindiphone

All the world and their friend of a friend knows how to develop an iPhone app. Or thinks they do. It's like the house price boom of the 80s. And look how that ended.

The mobile app market is like the gold rush and the property boom combined.
All you need to do is think up a funny idea and stick it on ITunes. Pretty soon, word will spread, it’ll become a viral hit and you’ll be a global internet phenomenon.
With a ten pence royalty on each of the twenty million downloads, you’ll never have to work again.
All you need is one kitchen table, a notebook and a few extra glasses of wine to jolt your creativity.
Oh, and some IT developers to make it all happen.
Wait, hang on a minute, IT developers. They’re like builders aren’t they? Even the mediocre ones are booked up until next summer. And let’s face it, your little project is never going to be a priority.
You could always outsource the work. Have you ever been to Offshoreland? Can you make speak Java, with a Ukrainian accent?
Maybe this development stuff is more tricky than you thought.
Come to think of it, maybe you need... Read More...

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Bogus HMRC refund messages cash in on tax office chaos

Phishing scam

Phishers are exploiting the chaos created by the HMRC tax error refund. Security experts say bogus emails, pretending to be from HMRC, are being used to harvest victim's banking details

Mobileb2b.co.uk is warning Blackberry, iPhone and Android users to be wary of a spam campaign designed to exploit the widely reported HMRC tax errors.
Tax authorities in the UK are in the process of contacting millions of people, telling them that they have paid the wrong amount of tax. As members of the public wait to be contacted to see if they are due a rebate - or have to make extra payments - they should be careful not to respond to spam emails that offer tax refunds.  
IT security firm Sophos has intercepted emails that claim to come from HMRC with the subject line "You Have An HMRC Refund", that inform the recipient that they have made overpayments.
The email goes on to say that an attached form must be completed before a refund can be processed. Attached to the email is a file called 'Refund-Form.zip', which contains an HTML file called 'Refund-Form.htm' which asks for information including credit card details, full date of birth, and mother's... Read More...

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Androids are great for finding bargains

Mobile Shopping

Google Shopper is not an online corner shop. It's a money saving expert for the Android user. But for some reason, it doesn't seem to be available on the iPhone. That's odd.

Google Shopper is a price comparison system that works on handsets that run the Android operating system.

"I spent an hour in HMV comparing prices of DVDs, picked up the cheapest they had to offer and bought the rest online, saving a few quid in the process," says reader Matt Humphries.

Good man Matt!

Does anyone know if there's an equivalent app for the iPhone.

 

 

 

Read More...

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Balloonimals - the 3D rendering that turns your iPhone into a spittoon

Warranty trasher

I wish I was still friends with Bill Gates. He’d have loved this iPhone story.

A man takes his iPhone back to the shop and claims it’s not working properly. He describes the symptoms. The man in the shop nods his head, and agrees to take the handset in for an examination.
A few days later he gets a call.
Shop man: “We think your circuitry has been eroded. Have you taken your iPhone out in the rain? Or dropped it in a puddle?”
Customer: “No, absolutely not. The only time I let it out of my site is when I let my son play Balloonimals.”
Suddenly, the man from the shop sounded horrified. “You play balloonimals? Good grief. So all that fluid we drained out your phone was saliva? Sorry mate, you just spat on your warranty.”
Balloonimals is an iPhone game where kids inflate shapes, by blowing into the iPhone’s microphone. Great fun. But by the time these 3D renderings have taken shape, your handset is fuller than a wild west spittoon.
The next stage doesn’t help. You’re... Read More...

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Latest Entries

• Stream Communications and Sub10 Systems could turbo charge download speeds
• Pyreos's contribution to mobile is a magnificent gesture
• QRPedia connects
• Virtual nurse Florence will monitor your vital signs via SMS
• You talking to me? A new taxi driver friendly
• Lone workers get protection from Guardian24 but will they get funding
• Datawind seeks to cut the digital divide between the tabs and the tabnots
• Carbon Hero could cut emissions and help us be greener
• Blippar could make shopping an augmented reality experience
• If it all gets too much, Apical will put on an assertive display and get you an ambience
• Copper load of this! TheAlloy is showing its mettle at Mobile World Congress
• Want to know why we don't make things any more?
• Jabbakam’s CMTV puts Accent on community monitored housing
• We've come a long way, but there's no time to rest, warns Sybase mobility guru
• Mobilising the enterprise is going to be big box office
• You'll like these TruLink guys, they're goodfellsa
• Exinda threatens to give the Cloud a right stuffing
• Don't ask Sir Alan about Apple's CEO - he's a lot less than Steve Jobs' worth
• Fine tuning IP performance
• How your mobile can give you a better deal on energy prices
• How SpinVox stops anyone hacking into your phone
• TubeTap helps tube commuters claim their money back after bad service
• New Death App shows the scenes of local fatalities - set to knock 'em dead
• Mobile gadgets for shouty Apprentice wannabes
• Ruggedised GSM mobile range unveiled by GAI-Tronics and Burnside Telecom
• A Nokia 8 for the price of an iPhone 4
• The iphone property boom will be a disaster if you choose the wrong web builders
• Bogus HMRC refund messages cash in on tax office chaos
• Androids are great for finding bargains
• Balloonimals - the 3D rendering that turns your iPhone into a spittoon

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