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2003: Favorite companies
This is the ninth post for Textually 2003 - The Year in Review, a series of entries rounding up the most interesting mobile news (best and worst) reported this year. Favorite companies This is Textually's selection of 15 top wireless technology companies or content providers that have come up with innovative ideas and concepts this year. See My SMS See My SMS, a Paris based company run by Alexandra de Waresquiel, is single handedly raising the level of quality for content on mobile phones. This year they have offered various French mobile operators new SMS services enabling users to chose from passionate litterary text messages written by the best contemporary French writers, download images and texts messages from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's «The Little Prince», original artwork by famous contemporary artists, and recently, in a fund raising event to benefit an AIDS association, See My SMS launched a collection of images by celebrity fashion designers to be downloaded onto cell phones at a premium rate. Shazam Shazam offers a music recognition service enabling users to have music being played in a club or on the radio, identified by simply calling a given number and approaching the cell phone to the speaker. The track name and artist are then texted back. This year, Shazam launched SongMail is a service which allows users to send a 30-second song clip to a friend's mobile, and Tag a Track, a service which enables users to buy the ringtones of the track they have 'tagged'. Oki Electric Industry Oki Electric Industry has developed a new PCM (Pulse Code Modulation)-based sound generator. The new chip, ML2864, doubles the number of polyphonies in a cell phone, from 32 to 64. Sharp Corp and BitFlash Sharp Corp and Canadian software developer BitFlash developed a type of electronic display system for viewing business documents on mobile phones. The software allows users to adjust the width and length of characters on the display of mobile phones without distorting their shape. Surelabs Alertwizard Surelabs Alertwizard offers a security service that sends text messages, photo and video alerts from a monitored area, if someone should break in or just ring the doorbell. MKen Co., Ltd. M Ken Co has developed a Cue Cat type technology that allows users of cell phones with a camera function to photograph an advertisement containing an electronic watermark and then immediately connect to a related website. Empics Empics' New Media Stills Production initiative can provide photos to websites or mobile phones in only 20 seconds from the moment the picture is taken to when it appears. The sports photo agency is currently working with some of the biggest names in sport on how to appeal to sports fans with mobile phones, who want a picture, rather than a text alert when receiving the latest sports news on their mobile phone. Empics is this year's winner of The Growing Business Awards for 'Technology in Business'. NeoMedia technology NeoMedia technology introduced an application of its patented PaperClick technology which links book shoppers to price and availability information at amazon.com through wireless phones or personal computers. "The shopper works by using your cameraphone to take a picture of a book's ISBN number (by using the bar code). Then using a proprietary application, the picture is sent to NeoMedia, who will use the bar code to determine the ISBN number and send you Amazon's price for that book." Apeera, Inc Apeera, Inc., a French company which has developed a solution for mobile network operators, enables mobile phone users to share applications such as mobile games, pictures, cartoons or personal files with their friends and colleagues via their mobile phones. X-Cube Corp X-Cube Corp., a company which sells and administers public lockers, has developed a new type of locker that uses mobile phones to lock the door, thus avoiding the anonymity of conventional coin lockers. By recording the phone number of every user, the new locker could help prevent illegal behaviour. Hypertag Hypertag technology enables mobile users to point and click their cell phones at a movie poster and access digital content, thanks to smart tags that can beam website links to mobile phones. For example, embedded on a historic monument, it could send information about the monument, or placed on billboard advertising a product, give information on that product. Long Range Systems Long Range Systems developped a paging device for restaurants that calls a customer's cellphone and plays a recorded message telling them their table is ready, "allowing them go browse at Barnes & Noble across the street without worrying about losing their place". Upoc.com North America's premier mobile community has taken its messaging features to the next level by launching support for MMS. As a result of the offering, members of Upoc's "Crazy Stuff I Saw" or "NYC Celeb Sightings" groups are able to send photos taken with camera-enabled phones to the rest of the group. Rediff Rediff, an Indian online provider of news, entertainment and shopping services, launched «Rediff Mobile Search», the first cross-carrier keyword-based search for ringtones on the SMS-based mobile platform. Xingtone Xingtone developed software which converts MP3 files to ringtones and enables users to make thier cell phone ring with any piece of real music or any voice or recorded sound. For instance, a favorite tune can play as a ringtone or someone's voice message can play for instance, "answer the phone!". |
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