Nokia said this week that it would introduce a new mobile financial service, offering consumers basic financial services based on Obopay technology, a US company which Nokia took an investment in last year.
Nokia Money will enable consumers to send money to another person just by using the person’s mobile phone number, pay merchants, pay utility bills and recharge prepaid SIM cards, accessible 24 hours a day. Nokia says it will build a wide network of Nokia Money agents, where consumers can deposit money in or withdraw cash from their accounts. We suspect that this is aimed more at those emerging countries where people do not have bank accounts, but have a phone. Nokia Money will be shown at Nokia World next week in Germany, and will be rolled out in its first markets in early 2010.
Global IP Solutions said this week that Yahoo! Messenger, will use its GIPS VideoEngine to enable video calling through the new Yahoo! Messenger 10. GIPS has been at the heart of Yahoo Messenger since 2006 and the video calling feature will shift the technology on to allow video calls.
Top ten US cable operator Suddenlink Media said it will use OpenTV’s EclipsePlus campaign management ad insertion technology, to manage all its local ad sales operations in Central and Western ad sales teams. It will handle advertising insertion into over 2,700 TV channels the company said.
French encoder specialist Ateme has announced that P&TLuxembourg, a Luxembourg telco, will use Ateme’s IPTV headend, including HD MPEG-4 AVC encoding when it launches its HDTV linear broadcast TV services later this year. We’ve been to Luxembourg and this has to be the smallest IPTV win ever.
Blackberry handset maker Research In Motion has acquired browser writer Torch Mobile, which authored the Iris web browser for mobile and embedded devices. Financial terms were not disclosed. The toolkit which Torch offers already powers mobile browsers on the iPhone, Symbian S60 and Android.
Not sure how relevant this is to us but IBM has just issued a warning that there is an unprecedented state of web insecurity right now with a 508% increase in the number of new malicious web links discovered in the first half of 2009. This problem is no longer limited to malicious domains or untrusted web sites, and hackers are finding ways of dropping Trojans into more and more popular trusted sites, which then go on to take over PCs. IBM’s X-Force team also said that there are a huge number of unfixed vulnerabilities out there in major software programs. Please don’t let the internet crash again.
According to TechWatch UK, Project Canvas the hybrid broadband DVB-T set top joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel Five and BT is preparing for a 2010 launch date.
US encoder maker Envivio, market leader in mobile TV encoders has just introduced the 4Caster C4 HD, which it says will increase video quality by as much as 35% over previous generations. The company say that HD streams will fit below 6 Mbps, and it is targeted at telcos, IPTV service providers and broadcasters. The new system introduces a new spatial de-noising filter, designed specifically to increase the quality of HD source material before it is processed.
UK public broadcaster ITV has been offered a 25% market share in Hulu UK says the UK Guardian newspaper. Hulu has been getting ready for a UK launch and thinks it can replace the gap left by Project Kangaroo, which has now been sold off to broadcasting services group Arqiva. The US version of Hulu has NBC, News Corporation and ABC as shareholders and it makes elements of their and other video content available on the web.
Apple said this week that this Friday the new version of its operating system OS X Snow Leopard will go on sale at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers. Apple’s online store is now accepting pre-orders. It will offer support for Microsoft Exchange, a more responsive Finder application, Mail which loads messages faster and an 80% faster backup utility, all for £25.
Swiss set top maker Advanced Digital Broadcast, said that it now has an interactive digital satellite set-top box, the i-CAN1110SH which it has designed for the Italian Tiv’ Sat offering. TiVu is a free to air service similar to Freesat in the UK, jointly owned by the Italian broadcasters RAI, Mediaset and Telecom Italia Media. This will be ADB’s first satellite product deployed in Italy. The device supports interactive applications via its embedded MHP middleware and provides a parental control application, and HDMI connectivity.
Australian Foxtel has chosen NDS to supply its Dynamic Audience Measurement System to measure TV viewing across its pay-TV platform services. NDS Dynamic is integrated with TNS Media Research’s RaPiDView, and will measure time-shifted DVR viewing, usage of the EPG and other interactive applications, as well as on-demand and linear TV viewing in participating homes.
The Financial Times in Germany news says that at least four parties are interested in buying Germany’s Orion Cable, including, telco Versatel, and the leading two cable operators Kabel Deutschland and Unitymedia and that also the US investment firm Blackstone is also interested. Orion is the third largest cablco in Germany with revenues of €259 million and 3.2 million homes.
In-Game advertising works says Gamematrix a researcher which offers an experimental eye-traffic system to see where people are looking on a TV screen. It says that brands such as VW cars and Coke Zero already benefit from high recognition rates. But poor placement may cause complete disregard for an advert. The study claims to show that it is not enough to be constantly present in the field of view ‘ placement and design are the key elements for the success of in-game advertising. Advertisers can improve brand recognition by 30% using in-game ads, the company said.