According to PC World, Cellular South in Jackson, Miss., joined USA Technologies in Malvern, Pa., this week to announce a two-city consumer trial of WirelessWallet, a service that will let consumers make m-commerce payments from a cell phone. They will use handsets from Kyocera that will act as a digital credit card enabling customers to tap & go their phone on a NFC terminal to make purchases.
Mobile Content Networks won a Meffy award in Monte Carlo for its popular FM Radio Music Search application which was launched on DoCoMo’s D903i in 2006. The Meffys Search and Discovery Award was a new category introduced this year to highlight the great work being done by companies to encourage people to discover and enjoy content on their handsets. Congats!
Advanced M-Pay, the joint venture between the cellular operators AIS and NTT DoCoMo, is spending an additional 100 million baht to promote its mobile payment service, after registering faster-than-expected growth in mobile-to-mobile money refill service this year. The company also expects to earn a profit next year for the first time according to the Bangkok Post.
Here’s a great article, from the cover of Nikkei Electronics Asia June edition, detailing the wireless transmission of electric power. As we see more services and functions for mobile devices, which naturally leads to increased usage, the demand for more battery power has clearly become an issue. Quick wireless power re-charges stations, in convenient locations, may well prove to be a more effective and popular choice to the methanol alternative.
Our research partners over at Infinita dug-up a great little nugget here today, a cool new service called Koacheki or Face Check. Launched by J-Magic just one month ago the site has already registered an incredible 15 million requests! Based on face-recognition software announced by Oki Electric late last year, the company scans photos submitted from users cellphones and responds with a link to review their top three celebrity matches. A simple yet brilliant way to gather a massive marketing mail list for advertisers and other more advanced services that J-Magic offers.
KDDI announced yesterday that they are working with rival operator NTT DoCoMo and the Meteorological Agency to develop a platform which will deliver urgent earthquake “news flash” information to cell phones. According to the limited details made available it seems like they are planning to target users only in the immediate area where an earthquake is expected to hit.
