Archive for the ‘Mobile’ Category
Ayna Adds Satellite Imagery To Mobile Version Of Ayna Maps
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 19, 2009 – 8:10 pm |
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As promised when they first launched the mobile version of their mapping service, Ayna.com has gone on and launched a satellite imagery feature for this mobile version, allowing users to see a high-resolution aerial snapshot of the location they are looking for.
Users of the service can now enter any address in the Middle East on Ayna maps, and click on the “Satellite” link to locate and zoom into the wanted area till having the closest image.
The satellite imagery service on the mobile is empowered by DigitalGlobe technology and updated for 2008, allowing users to view the entire world and zoom into 26 Middle East and North African cities, with streets, malls, points of interest, geographic information, buildings and more, directly from their mobile phones.
The satellite map has the same features existing on the normal map: finding points of interest, getting directions, saving favorites, sharing with friends …etc.
The satellite imagery feature should also be available on the web version of Ayna maps soon.
ATH Moves To Invest In Mobile Technology In The Arab World
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 10, 2009 – 12:34 pm | Comments
Accelerator Technology Holdings (ATH) has announced that it is working on establishing a company to fund investment in mobile technology in the Arab region.
ATH is a holding company that acts through a group of companies established in Jordan and Bahrain to identify, invest in and help build best of breed ventures in the ICT value chain in the Arab world, and that has already funded a number of Arab startups through its IV Holdings venture capital arm.
They’re currently working on raising an initial US$10 million in funds, after which they will move on to hiring a management team to launch and run this new company.
They are particularly looking at areas like security and authentication, based on their expectations that financial transactions over mobile platforms will become very widespread in the region in the future, especially with several of the region’s big mobile network operators launching mobile payment initiatives recently.
This new company will operate as a cross between venture capitalist and commercial investor, building ties and working with foreign companies to bring new mobile technologies to the region. They’ve already started talking to businesses in the UK, Switzerland and Norway about bringing their mobile products to the Arab world.
# Source: The National
Twitvid And TwitterFon To Bring Video Tweeting To iPhone 3GS
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 9, 2009 – 2:21 pm | Comments
TwitVid.com, the instant video tweeting service previously reviewed here, and TwitterFon, the most popular Twitter application for the iPhone, announced a partnership where the TwitVid video service will be integrated into the TwitterFon iPhone application, enabling its large base of iPhone users to easily Tweet mobile videos to their Twitter followers who can begin watching the videos instantly, even before the upload from the source iPhone is completed.
The partnership comes on the heels of Apple’s announcement at WWDC ‘09 yesterday that the new iPhone 3GS will incorporate the possibility to capture and edit videos directly on the phone.
Kazuho Okui, CTO of naan studio, Inc., creator of TwitterFon, said that they chose to work with Twitvid and not other video uploading applications because it offers the best user experience and high-quality video, along with its unique ability to offer instant playback of Tweeted videos as soon as the video begins uploading, a patent-pending technology created by Eatlime, the company behind Twitvid.
Twitvid has been working on a number of new features ever since their release, among these are the following:
- The possibility to record videos directly from a user’s webcam.
- The conversion of uploaded videos to High Quality video.
- The ability to chat with people when watching a video.
- The Creation of playlists by uploading several videos at the same time.
- The possibility to send videos directly to YouTube after they’re uploaded on Twitvid.
The TwitVid enabled TwitterFon iPhone application will be available at www.twitterfon.com.
Nokia Offers $100,000 To Top Arabic Ovi Developer
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 2, 2009 – 11:12 pm | Comments
Nokia, through its developer community effort Forum Nokia, has launched a competition called Bil3arabi ‘Calling All Innovators’, inviting all Arab developers around the region to take part by creating local Arabic content for their Ovi Store.
The Bil3arabi competition was announced at the official launch event for their new Nokia N97 phone in Dubai.
Bil3arabi is open to all mobile and web application developers in the region who can submit local content to any category within the Ovi Store, from applications to widgets, video, personalization, games, audio, flash & active idle widgets, with a focus on internet innovation, flash, and mobile games.
The window for submissions opened today June 2nd and will run until October 30th, with the winners to be announced December 7th.
Submissions will be judged both by customers who download and rate the application and experts from Forum Nokia, with the grand prize winner taking home $100,000 for their efforts.
For more details about the competition and how to apply check the site: Bil3arabi ‘Calling All Innovators’
[Via: ITP]
Etisalat Launches Own New Instant Messaging Service
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | June 2, 2009 – 10:54 pm | Comments
Etisalat, the UAE telecoms operator, announced the launch of its own IM (Instant Messaging) service for its mobile phone and internet customers.
Etisalat Messenger is similar in concept to other chatting applications like Yahoo! Messenger, MSN and Google Talk, allowing subscribers to send messages in both Arabic and English between mobile phones and computers.
With this move, Etisalat aims to target the young generation in the UAE with whom instant messaging is one of the more popular forms of communication.
Conversations in Etisalat’s messenger can also include multimedia; for example pictures, video and sound clips. Messages sent while recipients are offline are delivered to them as SMS or MMS messages.
Etisalat Messenger comes in two packages; one with unlimited usage at a fixed monthly rate and another which enables users to send and receive unlimited messages for a fixed session period of 15 minutes at a per session cost.
For more details about Etisalat Messenger, pricing and activation; check the product page on the official site: Etisalat Messenger.
[Via: ITP]
Twitvid.com, A Service to Tweet Videos Quickly And Easily
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 24, 2009 – 12:59 pm | Comments
EatLime, the online video and file sharing service that was previously reviewed here, has gone on and released a new service call Twitvid.com that presents users with an easy way to post their videos to Twitter.
The service doesn’t just post a link to a video when the user tweets, but it uses the patent-pending EatLime technology to upload and stream the video in real time, in a way that a person’s followers on Twitter can start watching the video immediately while it’s still uploading, making it pretty much a live stream.
Users can upload their videos to the service either through the web interface, through their mobile phones (by sending an email or MMS), or through the service’s API.
Just as with other services like twitpic, the user can just login with their Twitter username and password and start uploading and tweeting their videos. Upon logging in, each user also gets an email address that they can use to email their videos directly from their mobile.
The system’s API also helps open it up, making it easy for other companies and developers to integrate the service into their own services and products.
Among future plans is the ability to resume uploading if the connection is lost, enabling users to resume uploading from the exact point where it stopped.
EatLime, the company behind Twitvid.com, is a 5 person San Francisco based company, founded by Mohammad Al Adham from Jordan and Adil Lalani from Pakistan.
Tunisiana Launches A New Fund For Value-Added Services
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | May 2, 2009 – 10:07 am | Comments
Tunisiana, the first private mobile operator in Tunisia, just announced the launch of a fund for value-added services projects.
This move follows the recent publication of a new law in Tunisia relating to the sharing of revenue between telecom operators and value-added services providers.
So in an effort to empower and encourage more entrepreneurs and startups to launch such value-added services, it has created this fund, wherein each project can benefit of up to 30,000 Tunisian Dinars of funding.
The announcement of the fund was made a few days ago at the opening of Tunisiana’s value-added services event where a number of new services were announced by a number of companies, mainly in the areas of business solutions, entertainment and accessibility.
It’s a really smart and welcome move by Tunisiana, and it should be interesting to follow and see how well it goes and how many projects will see the light of day because of it.
I definitely think it’s a model other mobile operators around the Arab world should experiment with for the benefit of everyone: theirselves, these new businesses and their clients.
[Source: WebManagerCenter]
More Arabic Websites From The Gulf, But Few Visitors?
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | April 5, 2009 – 8:24 am | Comments
Arabic websites based in the Gulf are increasing in number but the locals are not using them much, according to experts discussing “Investing in Future Media” at the TMT Finance and Investment 2009 forum that was recently held at Sharq Village hotel in Doha, Qatar.
The opening presentation at the forum expressed concern over the fact that although the number of Arabic websites was increasing, these were rarely visited by those who know the language because they were not satisfied with the contents of the sites.
“This is still an open question,” said Mohamad Murrad, Principal, Vice President and Partner of Booz & Company, when asked if Arabic websites from the region can compete successfully with English websites.
Based on the study explained in the presentation, although there are now more Arabic websites in the region than before, their number is still small compared to that of English websites. Another fact is that most people in the Gulf access the popular sites such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo.
The same study highlighted the growth of the mobile platform, on which it is believed Arabic content can get a market share since 99 percent of the sales in the telecommunications industry are derived from it.
Mobile content is already on the rise and has high penetration in the region but the online network infrastructure for Arabic is still very limited, the study disclosed. It said SMS/MMS-based advertising offerings, although still small, showed strong growth.
Online ads are not very effective in the region, fetching just $2 per user, which is way behind the worldwide average of $27 per user and $59 per user in the United States. “The problem with online ads is very much skeptical, that is how to reach and capture the audience,” said one of the speakers.
[Source: The Peninsula]
Filaty Arab File Sharing Service Launches Mobile Version
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | March 22, 2009 – 9:51 am | Comments
Filaty, the Arab direct file sharing service, which was previously reviewed here, has just launched a mobile version of its service, making it possible for users to upload and share files directly from their mobile phones and devices.
By introducing this service, Filaty hopes to make it easier for people to use the service from anywhere, helping to grow usage of the service and extend their user base.
Users can upload photos and files of up to 100MB through a light, quick interface; and have the link sent to their email address or the email addresses of the friends they want to share with.
The mobile version is available at: http://m.filaty.com (filaty.mobi and filaty.com/mobile work as well.)
On another note, Filaty is now also one of the upload options available in Mrrha, the file mirroring service, previously reviewed here.
Ayna Launches Free Mobile Mapping Service For The Arab World
Mohamed Marwen Meddah | March 17, 2009 – 4:15 pm | Comments
After launching their online mapping service last year, Ayna has gone on and launched the first locally produced Arabic and English mobile mapping service as promised.
The application, unveiled this month, uses GPS technology on the latest-generation mobile phones to give directions and maps to points of interest from the user’s location.
According to Mazen Halawi, the corporate sales manager for Ayna Corporation, it contains detailed information about all major Arab cities and capitals, with numerous points of interest which are searchable, and that will be updated regularly.
It works in a similar way to Google Maps but has the added advantage of routing, or step-by-step directions to a destination, something unavailable for the Middle East through Google Maps.
The service is available for all types of phones except the iPhone and can be downloaded in two formats, for keypad and touch-screen phones, free from the Ayna website.
Users can also send directions to their favourite spots to friends through SMS.
Ayna is also presenting this as a value-added medium for advertisers who seek local advertisements, like banks, restaurants, points of sale, and others.
The application will soon add satellite images, which will allow users to view areas in maps, satellite and a hybrid view.
According to numbers released by the company, the application has been downloaded 12,800 times in its first week.
Ayna launched its online version of its mapping service in November and has more than 50,000 points of interest logged into its Arabic maps so far.
