Software and games

BOSTON--Device and network technology is not holding back mobile video, it's the money makers who can't agree on what to do with it.

At least that was the consensus among several mobile video leaders, including Nokia and MobiTV, at Red Herring East's Wednesday panel on mobile video.

"From a network and device perspective we are ready," said Ray Derenzo, vice president of business development for MobiTV, one of the leading mobile video distributors.

Proprietary nuisances, on the other hand, are an issue.

"It's all about the open platform," said Nokia research director … Read more

The fifth version of Motorola's Good Mobile Messaging software will be out later this year with improvements to how the software handles attachments, calendar appointments and deleting massive amounts of e-mail.

If you're not using a BlackBerry, your employer might be using Good Mobile Messaging to "push" your corporate e-mail to a mobile device. Good Technology developed the product before being acquired by Motorola last year, and this is the first major release since the acquisition.

Good 5.0 lets you group e-mails by conversation, deleting those threads from hell in one fell swoop. It lets … Read more

Yahoo! GO, Yahoo's multiservice mobile phone application has been enhanced, adding several incremental improvements. The most noticeable is speed, which Yahoo says has been increased "substantially." Yahoo has also improved its mobile mail client. Users can now open Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PDFs from e-mail attachments. Users can also see all their Yahoo Mail folders, and move messages to and fro.

The mobile version of Yahoo Maps that's been bundled has also seen an update with faster loading times and GPS compatibility. Users with GPS-enabled cell phones can now call up their location right … Read more

MySpace has announced the official beta release of its MySpaceIM instant messaging service which soft-launched informally a year ago. According to a release from MySpace, over 17 million of the social networking site's 180 million members worldwide have installed the downloadable client.

MySpace, which was acquired by News Corp. in 2005, used to operate a browser-based instant messaging service, which it has since phased out.

The MySpaceIM service competes with other ubiquitous and well-established instant messaging clients, like Yahoo Instant Messenger, Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger, and the formidable AOL Instant Messenger. But MySpaceIM hopes to set itself apart … Read more

YouTube's mobile site has been live and available as of a few days ago. The service offers a hand-picked selection of videos users can watch on their mobile devices. Users have access to just the bare essentials, such as running time, rating, and a link to a video's page with more details. There is, however, no community aspect--no user comments, ratings, or video responses--the kind of things that make YouTube so interesting. Also missing is a dedicated video uploader, as mobile users are still required to submit their mobile videos via MMS messaging.

Instead of running in Flash, … Read more

It only runs on Safari--and no one but Apple knows if it'll actually run on the iPhone, because JavaScript support is still a mystery--but the first third-party application built with the iPhone in mind is freely available.

OneTrip, a simple JavaScript shopping list builder that runs only on Safari, was created by designer Neven Mrgan. You can download Safari here to test out the application.

According to Mrgan's Twitter page, the app existed as early as May 31. That's either tremendous foresight by Mrgan, amazing luck that Apple announced Safari as the official iPhone app engine yesterday at WWDC, … Read more

Yahoo Research Berkeley has released prototype mobile phone software called Zurfer that gives people a look at Flickr that's tailored to their particular location.

The software, which requires a "beefy smart phone," shows photos taken recently in a mobile phone user's vicinity, an example of a so-called location-aware service. The software uses Yahoo's ZoneTag technology to infer location from the cell phone tower to which a user's phone is connected.

Zurfer also lets members perform more traditional Flickr tasks, including seeing contacts' new photos, searching for Flickr photos and accessing a Flickr account. All … Read more

Parents of teens already dread getting their monthly cell phone bill, and it could get even worse. The reason comes from an unlikely source: soda pop.

In the coming weeks, Coca-Cola will bring "Sprite Yard" to the U.S. market, a social-networking site that targets cell-phone-toting teens (is that redundant?), with such features as personal profiles, photo sharing and online chat, according to the New York Times.

Jonathan Sackett, the head digital officer at Arnold Worldwide, makes this observation in the report: "Coke could see trouble if teenagers run up high data charges on their phones using … Read more

Sony's PSP has long been a favorite topic among rumor mongers, the latest nugget coming from the BBC about a British Telecom version that would function as a phone among other new features. Nothing has been confirmed, but reports are circulating about some patent filings by Sony for just such a device.

According to the schematic diagrams in its proposal, at least one version of a PSP phone would have a rotating screen not unlike other handsets now on the market. Depending on how the display is positioned, MobileWhack says the device can be used as a PSP, phone … Read more