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Apple to drive mobile gaming sales, says research

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ipodtouch.jpgWind back a few years and no-one would have named Apple as being influential in the gaming sphere. Mind you, no-one would have betted on them having a world class mobile phone, either.

Now, research from DFC Intelligence suggests that it’s Apple that could help to drive the mobile game market to $11.7bn annual sales by 2014.

Though they suggest that the likes of Nintendo and Sony will still lead the market, they say that these companies have peaked, while Apple’s platforms will be responsible for the bulk of market growth over the next five years. [Read more…]

Originally posted on October 23, 2009 @ 8:37 am

Google offers pared down Voice service for existing mobile numbers

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If you’re a fan of Google Voice but want to be able to use your existing mobile phone number with the service, there’s good news as Google announces a cut-down version.

Those who already have a Google Voice account and number can now choose to link their existing mobile phone number to the service, which gets them access to Google voicemail, enabling voice-to-text messages for reading on a PC or via SMS.

You won’t be able to use certain features such as call recording or call screening — maybe that will come with time — but you can at least get a little piece of Google on your cellphone if that’s what you like.

Oh, of course it’s US only at present, too.

Via

Originally posted on October 27, 2009 @ 8:21 am

Social media is so addictive it’s turned on after sex

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While it’s not surprising to discover that many people can’t live without their daily dose of social networking sites, some interesting statistics have emerged from the latest study by the consumer electronics shopping site Retrevo.com.

Where 56% of those who took part in the survey said they checked Facebook between one and ten times, over a quarter checked in over ten times each day.

retrevo-social-media-graph

One in three under-35s texts, tweets or uses Facebook straight after sex, compared to just 8% of over−35s, while two-thirds of under-35s don’t have any problem using these services at work.

[Read more…]

Originally posted on October 13, 2009 @ 11:13 am

Shazam music discovery service comes to O2 UK customers

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shazam-logoO2 may still be reeling from its recent loss, but it’s not resting on its laurels, and has partnered with the Shazam music discovery service, finding a new way to make money from its impatient customers.

Some smartphones already have Shazam as an application, so no worries for those users who desperately need to know what that song is, but for those on O2 with lesser handsets, they can now call the 2580 short code, hold their cellphone’s microphone to the source of the music for a few seconds, and then have details of the song texted back to them via SMS. [Read more…]

Originally posted on September 29, 2009 @ 7:28 am

Nokia acquires Dopplr mobile travel service

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dopplr_logoNokia has announced another acquisition in its push to deploy useful mobile services for its cellphone users.

Dopplr is a service that allows travellers to share their personal and business travel plans privately with selected networks, as well as gleaning information about good places to stay, eat and explore in various worldwide cities.

Though the press announcement is shortened to-the-point, this is no doubt a useful service that could tie in well with other services such as Maps, Plazes and Navteq.

Nokia insists that the current experience for Dopplr users won’t change. I expect there’ll be some interesting ongoing development to get Dopplr functionality into Nokia phone software. It could see the expansion of the seven-strong London/Helsinki-based company.

Originally posted on September 28, 2009 @ 8:31 am