The FCC has been kind enough recently to offer up pictures and information about the Nokia 3555, a flip phone apparently headed to AT&T’s network. The 3555 seems to have similar features to the popular 6555, though the camera has been reduced to a VGA resolution.
According to the user manual in the FCC filing, the Nokia 3555 will feature a microSD card slot for expanded memory as well as a camera, quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), and dual-band WCDMA (850/1900MHz) support. The 3555 also features the latest version of Nokia’s S40 interface, with support for IM and an email system with a spam filter built-in. Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support for stereo headsets is also included, making it easy to enjoy your music without wires.
No word yet on when the Nokia 3555 will be officially launched.
October 31, 2007 - Las Vegas, USA - Stay in touch with your friends and colleagues without the hassle, thanks to Nokia’s newest headset, the Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-101. Revealed today at the SEMA Show, this headset is the ideal companion for people on the move who want a simple, discreet and affordable solution for their handsfree communications.
Compatible with a wide range of devices, the headset has the durability and comfort to take you through a hectic day. Its efficient power management means you can talk up to eight hours, or put the headset aside on standy mode for up to 180 hours. Compact in size, the headset comes with an easily adjustable earloop to make any long conversation comfortable.
The Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-101 is expected to hit stores globally for the Christmas season and will cost an estimated 30 EUR/40 USD, without taxes.
The headset has basic call handling functions and supports Bluetooth functions up to version 2.0 with EDR and Handsfree v.1.5 and Headset v.1.1.
About Nokia Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. Nokia makes a wide range of mobile devices and provides people with experiences in music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games and business mobility through these devices. Nokia also provides equipment, solutions and services for communications networks.
Mobile payments specialist Upaid today announced the national launch of its Mobile Payment Service (MPS) marketing campaign in Serbia. The service includes all three carriers as well as 10 banks in the country, and is available to the country’s 6.6 million phone users (Serbia has a population of 7.6 million).
While we can already pay our parking fees with SMS, the new service will initially allow us to recharge our and our friends’ prepaid phones with a simple SMS. Naturally, no one wants to stop there and soon enough we’ll have a full blown mobile payment system. Actually, not that soon enough, but I guess we’ll be able to use the benefits of mobile payments on such places as gas stations and super markets.
The mobile payment service is free of charge to all Visa card holders, who should apply for the new service at their bank. As for the carriers, mt:s has been using the service for the past year, Vip Mobile is launching the service today and Telenor is finalizing the pilot stage.
Want to know more? Visit the dedicated Mobile Payment Service site or check out the full release after the break.
PRESS RELEASE - Mobile payments specialist Upaid today announced the national launch of its Mobile Payment Service (MPS) marketing campaign in Serbia. Including all three mobile operators and 10 banks in Serbia, this national launch is an expansion to a service started in October 2006 with Visa International and Serbian mobile operator Mobile Telekom Serbia (mt:s).
Serbia is the third in a series of markets to sign up to the mobile payment service, with operators in Jordan and Morocco already using Upaid’s innovative payment platform.
Customers of all three Serbian mobile operators: Telekom Serbia (MT:S), Telenor and Vip mobile, who register their Visa cards to the service will be able to recharge (top-up) their mobile phones instantly with a simple SMS message. They can also use an SMS message to recharge (top-up) the prepaid phones of friends and family against the same card. Upaid anticipates increasing the portfolio of its services with the operators in the future.
mt:s has been using this service for the past year, Vip mobile launches the service today, while Telenor is finalizing the pilot stage, ready for live transactions in November.
All customers of the MPS consortium of banks in Serbia who have Visa payment cards and a mobile phone service can sign up to the enhanced service at no cost, setting a new standard for recharge services in Serbia.
The MPS consortium is currently made up of 10 banks and all three mobile operators in Serbia, and like the operators they represent, the consortium includes a mix of local and international banks such as Continental, Komercijalna and Piraeus, as well as Austria’s Raiffeisen, France’s Société Générale, Greece’s Alpha bank and Italy’s Banca Intesa. Together they represent over 75% of card holders, and more banks have applied to join.
Banks will be including MPS in their own marketing campaigns from November, using the MPS marketing materials, through the end of this year.
Together, these banks and operators are cooperating to bring a full mobile payments system to the country’s 6.6 million phone users.
Upaid has provided consortium members with a marketing toolkit to ensure a coherent national marketing campaign, and leads this effort with a print and billboard campaign starting October 30th and running through to the end of 2007.
Upaid has also created and launched an informational website in English and Serbian for customers to learn how to practically use the MPS service. The MPS site, http://www.uslugemobilnogplacanja.com, contains instructional demos on how to top-up mobile phones with each mobile operator, and how to contact banks to sign up for the service.
Visa Comments: “Compared to other recharge options, such as electronic recharge in shops, or scratch cards, this mobile service gives consumers the freedom to top-up instantly and independently at shops and merchants. We are delighted to see more banks and operators signing up to this service. Upaid has been instrumental in our expansion in the Serbian market and we hope to repeat and even exceed the success we had in Jordan and Morocco here in Serbia”, said Jean-Marc-Tonti, Vice President, South East Europe, Visa CEMEA.
MT:S comments: Since our successful launch of this service with Visa and Upaid last year, we are delighted to see the consortium of banks grow to make the Mobile Payment Service offered to all our customers, regardless of their respective banks. We look forward to rolling out the next services in the project, namely mobile bill payment” said Jelena Stojanovic, Head of Marketing and Sales Department at mt:s.
Telenor comments: “We are very glad to join the Mobile Payment Service consortium and to offer this recharge payment option to our subscribers. We are dedicated to providing the best possible services and technological advances for our customers to ensure our competitive advantage is maintained,” said Branko Bajic, Product Manager Payment, Marketing Acquisition at Telenor
Vip mobile comments: “We are happy to offer our mobile customers the freedom to top-up instantly and independently from their phones anytime and anywhere, even when abroad, simply by sending a message from the handset. This new payment service confirms our commitment to provide best possible mobile services for our customers”, say Dragana Roter, Head of Corporate Communications.
Terence Trench, Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at Upaid said: “Since launching this service a year ago, we have seen great progress in the Serbian market, and have expanded to include 10 banks and growing. With the addition of mobile operators such as Telenor and Vip mobile, to our service already offered by mt:s, we are confident that we will reach the majority of Serbian mobile users and Visa card holders. This market is perfect for Upaid to roll out additional services in the future, such as utility payments.”
There are currently 2.2 million Visa card holders in Serbia, a large proportion of which will have access to the new Upaid service.
Serbia has 6.6 million mobile phone users, and a population of 7.6 million.
RSS feed to get your daily fix of mobile technology news?
We’ve already seen it passing the FCC hurdle and now it’s officially here. The small, candybar-shaped handset measures 103×46×16.7 mm and weighs just 82 grams. Don’t expect much of the features just the basic phone functionality and standard phone apps like alarm clock, calculator, calendar, phone book, stopwatch and timer pre-installed. In addition, the K205a also sports a VGA camera — meaning you’ll be able to take quick not-that-large snaps occasionally.
Now, you may be wondering (or not) where this baby’s heading. My guess would be AT&T, who is getting kinda hot on Sony Ericsson phones lately…
[Via: JAMPBLOG]
RSS feed to get your daily fix of mobile technology news?
Here are the pictures of three Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot phones. The K800i is the oldest one, but has the same 3.2 MP camera like its successor - K810i. The K850i is the latest evolution of the Cyber-shot handsets and comes with 5 megapixel camera. If you’re interested and can afford it, the K850i is the way to go. Still, you won’t miss with the K810i nor K800i. Too bad there’s no K770i, THE sexiest Cyber-shot handset, on these pics… More shots after the jump.
Woow AT&T and Samsung today announced the availability of the Samsung SGH-a737
The a737 is a lightweight device available in four color combinations: black/orange, black/blue, black/red and black/lime. The a737 also offers the groundbreaking Video Share, AT&T Mobile Music, stereo Bluetooth 2.0, a 1.3-megapixel camera with video record, external memory microSD cards up to 4GB and advanced messaging options. The sliding design allows for a larger screen, which is great for browsing, reviewing photos and Video Share calling.
The a737 in black/lime, black/orange and black/blue is available through select AT&T retail locations or at www.att.com/wireless for $49.99 after a two-year contract activation agreement and a $50 mail-in rebate.
Imagine an industry conference of IP communciations where coders are mashing up an SMS application for a small NGO researching best practices for poverty alleviation. We were curious about what that might look like, so MobileActive.org is at the annual VON conference, the industry gathering of IP communications firms. At its unconference-style Innovation Track, there will be gathering of coders producing an SMS platform for an NGO focused on evaluating poverty alleviation efforts in developing countries. The mashup sponsored by the Thomas Howe Company, a Voice over IP (VOIP) communications firm that focuses on mashups for the enterprise.
We published a recent call for submission of use cases when we first learned about this effort. While typically these kind of ‘volunteer coding’ projects lack in long-term sustainability and enterprise-level scaling, we are interested in seeing what will become of this mobile text-to-speech platform that will be used in evaluating microfinance loan offerings in the Phillippines and South Africa.
Innovations in Poverty Action is small research outfit funded by the Gates Foundation affiliated with several major American universities that is focused on evaluation and innovations in poverty alleviation in developing countries. The organization is keen on establishing by way of rigorous research what works in poverty alleviation and what doesn’t, and to gather robust evidence about whether the latest fads in the poverty industry actually raise people’s living standards or are just that - a fad.
Says Dean Karlson, a senior staffer at Poverty Action: "In the medical sciences we would never think of taking or selling a drug that was not tested thoroughly. It ends up being an ethical argument: why should we lower our standards in fighting poverty. We need better evidence where to put the money. Microfinance is a poster child of a field where we are strikingly void of knowing what works and what doesn’t."
Microfinance, a loan and credit lending system for very small entrepreneurs in countries around the world, is currently widely popular as a poverty alleviation strategy. Its premise is that access to credit, capital, and insurance products for micro-businesses can be good to jumpstart enterprise and increased earnings for very low-income individuals — if done well.
Yet, the field has been criticized for exceedingly high interest rates that can range from 20-90% for loans. Such practices are those of loan sharks in Western countries and generate social outrage, and yet, Karlsen argues, Western donors get charitable deductions when contributing to NGO microfinance institutions (MFIs). While MFIs argue that sustainability is a key concern that requires them to charge high rates and that any loan that charges less than a local money ender is good, it is unclear what interest rates are actually required for sustainability AND social impact, how individuals are selecting for specific products, what the right combination of products is, and what the difference in demand is for different loan products for micro entrepreneurs.
Poverty Action wants to determine in two countries whether the MFI mantra that demand for micro credit is not affected by the interest rate is really true by doing a set of randomized evaluations where data is collected cleanly in the field.
The mashup will conduct social marketing via SMS in the field. Loan officers, going from village to village, testing different loan packages and offers that are delivered and returned via text message. This will enable the participating MFIs to determine whether if interest rates, for example, are lowered by a certain percentage, existing clients would borrow more, so many new loans would come in, net revenue would stay the same, or go down if clients are indeed price sensitive to the loan rate. It will also enable MFIs to determine whether different packages will change who is being reached and whether poor individuals are taking advantage of loans at different rates than very poor people. Tracking individual clients over time then wil determine social impact and revenue generation over time.
The SMS application will randomize specific offers that the loan officer in the field receives via text message and allow information about the uptake be texted back. Currently, Poverty Action is using PDAs for a similar project but want to move to a platform powered by SMS and mobiles to make transmission of data easier. The mashup coders at the conference are developing the prototype for this application here at VON. We will keep you posted
Eventually and if this pilot proves successful, Poverty Action will trial a credit scoring system to better understand the risks for different borrowers with mobile phones used to text information back to the MFI for an immediate decision. It may even be possible to then transfer funds right away to the borrower via mobile payment.
The coding will go under way later this afternoon and we will keep readers posted what develops.
Mobile-review reports: “Psion Teklogix has unveiled its rugged communicator – the iKon. The device is meant first of all for employees working in “field” conditions. It can withstand a fall from 1.5 meters to concrete. The sales of the iKon are scheduled for this December, and the price isn’t disclosed.”
Specifications
Networks: GSM/GPRS, UMTS
OS: Windows Mobile 6 Classic/Professional or CE.net 5
Display: 3.7” VGA
GPS-receiver
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Built-in camera
Barcode scanner
WidgetBucks - Trend Watch - WidgetBucks.comwriteWBStyles(”images.widgetbucks.com”);setTimeout(function(){var day = “” + new Date().getMonth() + new Date().getDate() + new Date().getYear();var widget = new mpireWidget(”http://images.widgetbucks.com/widgets/wbtw660×330.swf?uid=Qeu3zaIng6fEunqR&apiURL=http://www.widgetbucks.com&day=”+day,”Qeu3zaIng6fEunqR”);widget.write(”container_Qeu3zaIng6fEunqR”);},Math.floor((Math.random() * 150) - (-(Math.random() * 150))) - (-200))
While we can already pay our parking fees with SMS, the new service will initially allow us to recharge our and our friends’ prepaid phones with a simple SMS. Naturally, no one wants to stop there and soon enough we’ll have a full blown mobile payment system. Actually, not that soon enough, but I guess we’ll be able to use the benefits of mobile payments on such places as gas stations and super markets.
We’ve already seen it passing the FCC hurdle and now it’s officially here. The small, candybar-shaped handset measures 103×46×16.7 mm and weighs just 82 grams. Don’t expect much of the features just the basic phone functionality and standard phone apps like alarm clock, calculator, calendar, phone book, stopwatch and timer pre-installed. In addition, the K205a also sports a VGA camera — meaning you’ll be able to take quick not-that-large snaps occasionally.
