Sports Illustrated (SI) Digital and Action Engine Corporation launched MySI Mobile, the beta version of a subscription-free, downloadable mobile application that delivers personalized sports content from SI.com.

MySI Mobile allows users to select and track sports scores, find schedules and standings of favorite teams, view SI photos, read the latest sports news and set calendar alerts for upcoming games using their phones. MySI Mobile is ad-subsidized and available just in time to follow the NCAA’s 70th Annual Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship.

“MySI Mobile literally brings the best of SI.COM’S award winning website to the mobile phone user,” said Stacey Vollman, Vice President and GM of SI Digital. “Through this partnership with Action Engine, sports fans will have access to our award winning journalism and content wherever and whenever they need it.”

MySI Mobile was developed using the Action Engine Mobile Application Platform, which provides mobile users with many features to help stay on top of the latest sports news and developments.

“Our leading-edge customers, like Sports Illustrated, The Wall Street Journal.com and MSNBC.com, have embraced mobile advertising as a way to widely deliver high-value content to the phone without forcing consumers to pay yet another subscription fee,” said Scott G. Silk, president and CEO of Action Engine. “As more companies build mobile applications that make their content easy to use and free to download, the wireless phone will become the premier location for driving brand awareness and loyalty with consumers.”

The MySI Mobile application is available today with support for 29 phones running the Microsoft Windows Mobile platform. Windows Mobile is the exclusive launch advertiser for the new service. To download the MySI Mobile application consumers can text “MYSI” to 58585 and receive a text message with a link to download the service. Alternatively, consumers can type http://www.mysi.actionengine.com/provision on their phone’s mobile browser and follow the download instructions provided.

MySI Mobile

Microsoft announced today that it has licensed Adobe’s software for viewing online videos and other files on cell phones. Microsoft will distribute Flash Lite and Reader programs from Adobe Systems to cell phone makers who use its Windows Mobile software.

Flash allows users to interact with more Web sites. Many shopping sites use flash so users can view an item in different colors or try out paint colors on a virtual home or car.

“Flash content is the most prolific content on the web today; it is the way people express themselves on the Internet,” Adobe spokesman Gary Kovacs said.

Juniper Research analyst Julie Ask thinks cell customers are more likely to browse the Web when they have more capable phones, which is good for advertisers.

“The more likely they are to use it, the more that folks are willing to invest in the platform, and the more likely there are to be page views. It’s good for advertisers, it’s good for carriers,” Ask said.

In 2007, 11 million phones carried Windows Mobile. Microsoft predicts that it will double that number this year.

Over 500 million devices have shipped worldwide with Flash preinstalled, amounting to a 150 year-over-year percent growth, Adobe said.

Microsoft hasn’t said how much it is paying Adobe to license the software, but programs will remain free for end-users.

Thumbplay, a mobile entertainment company, announced today that it has raised $18 million in new capital. Thumbplay will use the seed money to expand its direct-to- consumer product offerings, in addition to further developing the tools it provides content owners, creators, publishers and brand marketers. The company plans to accelerate its strategic growth plans and to expand internationally in 2008 to meet the growing demand for mobile entertainment content around the world.

“Thumbplay’s unique off-deck model for selling a wide variety of mobile entertainment content to consumers has already proven to be very successful here in the U.S. and we’re now ready to extend the positive customer experience we already deliver to the millions of mobile consumers all around the world,” said Are Traasdahl, Thumbplay’s CEO and founder.

Thumbplay has over 80,000 pieces of mobile entertainment under license, including ringtones, wallpapers, games, videos, voice tones and text-based services.

The Series E round of investment was led by Brookside Capital Partners, the public equity affiliate of Bain Capital, and Cross Creek Capital, a private equity affiliate of Wasatch Advisors.

“The high quality of our new investors is very significant, since both typically invest in companies which offer opportunities to realize substantial long-term capital appreciation,” said Are Traasdahl. “This is a testament to Thumbplay’s ongoing success.”

During the last quarter of 2007, Thumbplay announced deals to integrate its mobile entertainment content catalog into the Web and mobile portals of AOL and MSN Mobile, as well as iLike, one of the Web’s leading social music discovery services. Earlier this year, Thumbplay signed a digital distribution agreement to add content from Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s artists to Thumbplay’s already diverse mobile entertainment content catalog.

Thumbplay

Sharp Corp. will start selling cell phones in China before the Beijing Olympics are scheduled to start. Sharp will target the high-end buyers in China’s vast market. Kyocera Corp. withdrew from the Chinese market this month, so Sharp will be the only Japanese company selling handsets in China.

Chief strategist of the equity management department at Daiwa SB Investments, Soichiro Monji, said the path to survival for Japanese cell phone suppliers was either compete overseas or withdraw altogether in light of the maturing domestic market in Japan.

“It (Sharp) is headed in the right direction, but whether it will succeed still carries a question mark,” he said.

“We’ll need to keep watching how the company will fare in China as no other Japanese maker, except for Sony, has succeeded in the mobile business abroad.”

China’s cell phone market is currently dominated by Nokia, followed by Samsung and Motorola. The three companies account for more than 60% of market share.

“There is a growing number of consumers in China who want to buy high-tech handsets, such as those equipped with cameras almost as good as digital cameras, even if they are expensive,” Sharp spokeswoman Miyuki Nakayama said on Friday.

“People want a nice screen especially for the Olympics.”

Sharp is known for its strength in high-tech mobile phone parts such as small to mid-sized liquid crystal display (LCD) panels and small cameras.

Rumors that India will ban Research in Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry service were quashed by the top official in the telecoms ministry today. Security agencies are concerned the service poses a risk because emails sent using the device cannot be traced or intercepted.

“There is no question of banning at this point,” Telecoms Secretary Siddhartha Behura told reporters on the sidelines of an industry conference.

“We are not interested that we say BlackBerry will not used in this country,” he said, adding the telecoms department was “very keen” the services should continue.

“The interactions are going on with various stakeholders including the home ministry … I do believe it will be resolved,” Telecoms Minister Andimuthu Raja said

RIM officials have been told of the department of telecoms concerns. Government officials will meet with representatives of the four mobile phone service providers who offer BlackBerry in India, Behura said.

Sector leader Bharti Airtel Ltd (BRTI.BO), No. 2 Reliance Communications Ltd (RLCM.BO), Vodafone Plc- (VOD.L) controlled Vodafone Essar Ltd and privately held BPL Mobile provide the service in India.

“We want operators to talk to BlackBerry people and put pressure on them to provide the necessary and satisfactory answers to security agencies. That is what we are talking to them,” Behura said.

Court papers filed by Nokia claim Nokia has paid Qualcomm around $1 billion over 15 years to gain access to the chip maker’s early mobile technology patents. The papers, filed in a Delaware court, say the patents are now paid up and royalty-free, according to the terms of 1992 and 2001 agreements with Qualcomm.

A technology license pact expired on April 9, 2007, and the two companies have been fighting ever since. Analysts estimate that Nokia pays around $500 million a year for use of Qualcomm patents and it wants to reduce the sum.

Qualcomm bases its claim on the fact that Nokia continues to ship products that use Qualcomm patents, and therefore the patent lease continues on the same terms as those in the written agreements. Nokia says the cross-licensing agreement can only be extended in writing and that it has paid for the patent in full.

The companies have not disclosed the timeframe of so-called “early” patents, which stem from Qualcomm’s time as the leading developer of CDMA wireless technology.

CDMA technology, which is used in the United States and some Asian countries, failed to gain global adoption when competing against European GSM technology. But it has gained wider adoption in third-generation forms.

Nokia and Qualcomm have over a dozen legal fights pending in courts on three continents. Analysts see these cases as efforts by both companies to gain leverage over the other in an eventual license-pact renewal.

Software developers have downloaded the iPhone software development kit (SDK) 100,000 times since it was made available last week. “Developer reaction to the iPhone SDK has been incredible,” said Philp Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing.

Schiller said a million people watched the video of last week’s SDK launch, which demonstrates the interest developers have in creating applications for the iPhone.

“We’re excited that the iPhone expands the ways our customers can solve key financial tasks wherever they might be,” said Rick Jensen, a senior vice president at Intuit.

NetSuite Vice President Luke Braud said his company is “excited at the opportunity to give every iPhone customer access to their critical business data anytime, anywhere.”

Ethan Einhorn, who demonstrated a version of Super Monkey Ball at the launch, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he was surprised at the iPhone’s graphic power. “The thing that was very exciting for us was we could make something closer to a console experience in a mobile game,” he said.

Not all developers are happy with the SKD. Third-party applications can’t run in the background which means they can’t multitask. Apple written application can run in the background.

“The Apple SDK, as many have come to find, has arguably crippled much of the functionality that set the iPhone apart when first released. Even simple features like the ability to run a program in the background have been crippled in the Apple SDK,” reported Jonathan “NerveGas” Zdziarski, author of the book iPhone Open Application Development.
Developer reactions are “somewhat mixed,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst with Sterling Market Research, in a telephone interview. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm and demand. There’s also some criticism and concern.”

Sterling expects Apple will take corrective measures. “I imagine Apple will try to remedy the most heavily criticized aspects of the SDK,” he said. “I would expect them to be responsive, given that the SDK itself is a response and they’re trying to strike a balance between security and access.”

BT and partner RingCentral will offer an Internet-based phone system in Great Britain that’s easy for small and medium sized business to configure and maintain. U.K. businesses will get a 0844 or 0844 main phone number, and calls can be routed to up to 50 extensions.

RingCentral’s software will allow businesses set up their own phone system with a professional feel without needing to make significant investments in hardware. The software works with mobile, landline and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) calls.

A virtual PBX (Private Branch Exchange) can be configured through a Web-based interface. Tasks such as assigning voice lines, configuring voice mail and an interactive menu can easily be setup.

Customers can make or answer calls using either a real phone or through their PC by using RingCentral’s Desktop Call Controller. The interface allows users to see call logs and launch new calls with a single click by a contact’s name. Voice mail messages can also be delivered to a user’s email to be played through a PC’s speakers. A fax feature allows users to send faxes from Microsoft’s Office application or from a mobile phone.

The service costs 15 pounds a month, excluding VAT. Calls are charged per minute and rounded up or down to the nearest 30 second increment.

Nortel Networks will soon launch new technology that allows telecom companies to quadruple the capacity of their networks. This will help with the data intensive requirements that Internet video, high-definition programming and mobile video phones demand.

Nortel is North America’s largest maker of telephone equipment. It will launch optical technology that delivers speeds of 40 gigabits per second (Gbps). This is about four times as fast as today’s high-end networking speeds. Carriers that utilize Nortel’s new technology will be able to quadruple their network speed right away. The new system will also provide the foundation to increase capacity tenfold to 100 Gbps, as required by growth in “bandwidth sapping” applications.

Denmark’s TDC and Neos Networks in the United Kingdom have already purchased the new technology. Trials with other carriers around the world are being conducted

Grace Digital, a manufacturer of audio and telephony electronics, is now shipping its new line of XLink Cellular Gateway. This device allows consumers to integrate their cellular phone service with their home phones via a cell phone’s built in Bluetooth connection.

Integrating your cell phone and home phone together will help you never miss a cell call while relaxing at home. If the cell phone rings, all the phones in the house will also ring, allowing you to answer from anywhere in the house. XLink also allows you to make any outbound call using your cell phone minutes. Simply dial like a regular phone and XLink will automatically use your cell phone minutes.

If you have poor cell phone coverage in certain areas, place XLink where there is good coverage, and both your cell phone and in-house phones will be able to receive and place calls. Even areas like a basement will be covered.

The XLink is available in two models. The ITC-BTTN (MSRP $169) connects up to 3 cell phones and 1 phone line. If you want to get rid of your monthly home service completely and only use your cell phone service, the ITC-BT (MSRP $159) is available. Both models connect to any Bluetooth enabled cell phone and any cordless or corded telephone.

Grace Digital

The way wireless carriers handle data traffic in the future may change with a device Alcatel-Lucent announced yesterday. (Bell labs is owned by the French company). The 9900 Wireless Network Guardian measures how different kinds of traffic tax a wireless network. This may lead to new price structures for the various types of data that travel over networks in the future, or how that traffic is directed.

Currently, carriers focus on the amount of data their subscribers download and price plans accordingly. Most providers charge by the kilobyte or allow subscribers to download a certain number of gigabytes a month. Certain data-intensive applications may be banned altogether.

“These pricing plans are a reflection of the fact that they don’t have an insight into what’s happening on the network,” said Michael Schabel, general manager at Alcatel-Lucent Ventures in Murray Hill, N.J.

That’s because the strains data subscribers place on the wireless network don’t match the amount of data they download, Schabel said.

This new technology will tell carriers that some types of traffic, like e-mail or instant messaging, take up to 1,000 times more air time as file downloads do.

“If I look at mobile e-mail, one megabyte takes two hours of air time,” he said, because the mobile network needs to repeatedly set up and tear down the connection.

In comparison, Schabel estimates a 1-megabyte file from peer-to-peer file-sharing takes about 30 seconds to download.

Employees who connect to their company intranets via virtual private networking (VPN) consume large amounts of air time, even if they aren’t sending or receiving any data. This is because VPN software maintains a “heartbeat” that keeps the connection open.

Alcatel-Lucent’s new device isn’t set up to connect to billing systems. It will primarily be used as a tool to help carriers figure out how to deal with data usage, and to build on existing systems that prioritize data traffic to avoid congestion.

Past disasters like Hurricane Katrina knocked out wireless communications and impacted emergency crews and victims when they needed to talk. To avoid similar losses of communications in the future, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants most cell phone transmitter sites in the U.S. to have at least eight hours of backup power in the event main power fails. Regulators claim this will make the nation’s communication system more reliable. Eight months after the FCC released this new regulation, the two sides are still fighting over the issue.

The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., put an injunction on the rule as it considers an appeal by some in the wireless industry. The Cell companies claim the FCC’s backup power regulations were illegally drafted and would present a huge economic and bureaucratic burden. The United States has nearly 210,000 cell towers and roof-mounted cell sites across the country, many of which would require modifications. One industry estimate puts the per-site price tag at up to $15,000.

In a request for the FCC to delay implementing the change, Sprint Nextel Corp. wrote that the rules would lead to “staggering and irreparable harm” for the company. The cost couldn’t be recouped through legal action or passed on to consumers, it said.

Jackie McCarthy, director of governmental affairs for PCIA — The Wireless Infrastructure Association, said the government should allow the industry to decide how best to keep its networks running, pointing out that all the backup power in the world won’t help a cell tower destroyed by wind or wildfires.

“Our members’ position is that the ‘one size fits all’ approach to requiring eight hours of backup power at all cell sites really doesn’t accomplish the commission’s stated purpose of providing reliable wireless coverage,” McCarthy said.

Those fighting the regulation are also claiming that the FCC didn’t follow proper federal guidelines for creating new mandates and that it went far beyond its authority when it created the eight-hour requirement last summer. So far, the FCC is standing its ground and not backing down.

“We find that the benefits of ensuring sufficient emergency backup power, especially in times of crisis involving possible loss of life or injury, outweighs the fact that carriers may have to spend resources, perhaps even significant resources, to comply with the rule,” the agency said in a regulatory filing.

“The need for backup power in the event of emergencies has been made abundantly clear by recent events, and the cost of failing to have such power may be measured in lives lost,” it said

Wireless companies claim the FCC’s regulation will create problems in urban areas, where local zoning rules, existing leases and structural limitations could make it impossible to add batteries or backup generators to cell sites. It can take 1,500 pounds or more of batteries to provide eight hours of backup energy in areas with a lot of cell phone traffic. Many rooftop sites weren’t built to hold that much weight.

The FCC said it would exempt cell sites that can’t comply if companies can explain how they would provide backup service in those areas through other means, such as portable cellular transmitters.

CTIA-The Wireless Association and several carriers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to intervene, saying the exemptions would still leave wireless companies scrambling to inspect and compile reports on thousands of towers.

Jackie McCarthy, director of governmental affairs for PCIA, (The Wireless Infrastructure Association) said, “I don’t think it’s hyperbole or exaggeration to say if it gets to that point with specific sites it could lead to sites being decommissioned,” she said. “If the ultimate endgame is a site being turned off because of noncompliance, the area immediately around that site is going to have an immediate negative impact. It’s going to hurt public safety from day one.”

Sprint Nextel will offer a cell phone models that can connect to a faster data network. Download speeds will double and upload speeds will increase up to eight times. Sprint and Verizon Wireless operate EV-DO Rev. A networks, but use them only for laptop communication cards. Their fastest phones have used the older and slower EV-DO Rev. 0 network.

Sprint announced today that it was releasing a software update for the Mogul phone that will enable the phone to connect at Rev. A speeds. Download speeds will increase to 600 kilobits per second to 1,400 kbps, up from a range of 400 kbps to 700 kbps with Rev. 0. It will be capable of uploads of 340 to 500 kbps, up from 50 kbps to 70 kbps.

Sprint’s broadband network covers 234 million people, and most of its coverage has been upgraded to EV-DO Rev. A, short for Evolution-Data Optimized Revision A.

Mogul runs Windows Mobile software and can be used as a modem for a laptop. It costs $199.99 and requires a two-year contract with Sprint. If you bought a Mogul before today, the software update will be available immediately from HTC’s site.

Mogul HTC Downloads

I’d been meaning to post about these guys a few weeks ago but my schedule didn’t allow it. However, this is an interested hosted PBX company that offers a drag and drop phone interface for larger companies.

The entire system uses a web front end for building your office. You add numbers, message boxes, and response trees by clicking a few buttons and the entire system is hosted offline. You can also “connect” to foreign offices for free, over Monema’s network.

The system works closely with other CRMs and offers call logs and the ability to add international public numbers. They showed me the UI at work in Barcelona and it was sufficiently cool to warrant a second look.

Product Page

Samsung and Adidas are competing against Apple and Nike to offer people a device that plays music and keeps track of users’ workouts. Samsung’s miCoach is a music playing mobile phone that encourages people as they workout. The device tells users to “speed up” if they aren’t keeping pace, and gives them updates on their heart rate, time left in their run, and more.

The device includes a heart-rate monitor, a sensor that can be attached to running shoes and a Web workout journal to help people design and keep track of fitness programs and show progress over time.

Samsung and Adidas are in direct competition with Apple and Nike, which offered the Nike+iPod sports kit in the U.S. in July, 2006. Nike+iPod keeps track of workouts, tells runners the distance they have covered, number of calories burned and other information.

The biggest difference between the two systems is that miCoach is a mobile phone and the Nike+iPod is a music player. The miCoach can play music but only comes with 1GB of storage, while the Nike+iPod comes in 4GB and 8GB models but can’t make calls

Samsung’s miCoach will work with any shoe, unlike the Nike+iPod. The sensor sold with the Samsung/Adidas device fits on the laces of a runner’s shoes, while the sensor in the Nile-iPod system is built into the shoe.

The miCoach mobile phone is a slim, 14.5-millimeter thick slider handset with a 2-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen with a textured back to offer better grip. It comes in seven colors, including pink, red, dark gray, sapphire and silver. The handset includes a 2-megapixel camera and can connect to a computer via a USB (universal serial bus) connection or wirelessly with Bluetooth.

Head on over to CrunchGear to follow our live coverage of the Apple iPhone SDK event, which is being held at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino and will begin at 10am PT.

Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry, is partnering with singer Will.i.am to help merge social networking and multimedia. This is seen as a move by RIM to gain more market share in the consumer retail market.

Will.i.am’s Dipdive online community and content will become wirelessly available on the BlackBerry, said RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie.

“Probably the two hottest trends in wireless are social networking … and the other one is the multimedia, which is principally portable music,” Balsillie said.

Will.i.am is famous for his career with the band Black Eyed Peas and his “Yes We Can” Barack Obama video, which became a huge hit on YouTube.

Balsillie said users currently view social networking and downloading music and other multimedia as two separate experiences. He thinks the two will merge into one.

Dipdive is an example of this. Political blogging meets music video content.

“It brings the artist into a direct relationship with the fan,” Balsillie said.

RIM is increasing its offerings of “lifestyle applications” like games and multimedia in an attempt to attract more retail users to the traditionally business focused BlackBerry.

Last fall RIM launched Facebook software designed for its smartphones to make it easier for customers to browse the popular social networking Web site.

As RIM tries to expand its consumer base, about two-thirds of all 12 million BlackBerry subscriptions are still classified as government or large corporation.

In January of this year, Bangladesh added over 2 million new mobile phone subscribers. This poor nation of 140 million now has 34.4 million subscribers. The Bangladesh Telecom Regulatory Commission said 2007 saw growth of 58% due mainly to price cuts made by the country’s six competing cell phone carriers.

A number of market surveys predict that the number of mobile phone users will increase to around 50 million by the end of 2009.

Bangladesh’s top mobile provider, Grameenphone, increased its subscription base to 16.9 million from 16.7 million at the end of 2007. Aktel ended January with 7.3 million up from 6.4 million. Warid Telecom added 220,000 subscribers in January, increasing its base to 2.4 million. The only CDMA carrier CityCell increased to 1.5 million users up from 1.41 million in 2007. State owned Teletalk reached the 1 million mark in January, up from 850,000 at the end of 2007.

The age of Dick Tracy may be here, but instead of fighting crime, a student in Thailand was caught cheating on university entrance exams with a mobile phone that is worn as a wrist watch. Education Ministry officials are banning exam takers from wearing watch phones and other wristwatches. Photographs of the phone watch will be sent to exam centers around the country and students will have to rely on wall clocks.

“I have ordered the 18 examination centers nationwide to ban students wearing all kinds of watches to the exams this weekend,” senior ministry official Sumate Yamnoon told reporters.

Investigators caught a student receiving text messages on his phone watch during national exams in Bangkok last weekend. This novel method of cheating is a reflection of the difficulty of earning a university place in a country where some university engineering or medicine departments might take only one in 100 candidates.

“Cheating techniques have developed along with technology advancement. What will students use next year after the mobile phone wrist watch this year?” a baffled Utumporn Jamornman, another senior ministry official, asked reporters.

OpenMoko, a developer of open source mobile devices, is offering its phone case CAD files to the world. With these files and a 3-D printer, anyone can make plastic parts for their mobile phone. Users will be able to customize handsets to unique specifications.

“We want people to create their own flesh for their phone,” said Steve Mosher, VP of marketing at OpenMoko.

OpenMoko CAD files are available under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license.

In the past, said Mosher, creating a unique plastic part might cost a $100,000. “But today, with desktop manufacturing, you can build parts on your desktop for $3,500,” he said.

The cost of 3-D printers is a factor that may inhibit home molding of plastic parts. Low-end commercial printers sell for around $20,000 but a cheap non-commercial unit like Fab@Home Project Model 1 costs about $2,500. 3-D printing is being compared to the revolution of desktop publishing in the 1980’s. As prices of software and hardware are lowered, more people are expected to make augmentations for mobile devices at home.

Last year, OpenMoko released its Neo 1973 handset for developers; the phone is currently sold out. The company’s first consumer release, the Neo FreeRunner ($450), is slated for release sometime this spring. A $600 advanced version for developers is also planned.

OpenMoko is an independent subsidiary of FIC, a Taiwanese electronics manufacturer. The company was founded on the premise that devices should be completely open. “The thought was that if you freed the software up to people outside the company, you’d unleash an army of Davids, who had at least as much imagination as people inside the company,” said Mosher. “The makers of things that are outside the company will help us create insanely great products.”

OpenMoko