Verizon, following GoogleVoice, offering free calls to Haiti
URL: www.mobilecrunch.com
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Mobile Web Meets Internet of Things: Barcode Scanning
Written by Richard MacManus / January 12, 2010 6:00 AM / 1 Comments
What Will be The Tipping Point?
In Japan, barcode scanning is already a popular activity thanks to the culture of using mobile phones for just about everything. In the U.S., where the Mobile Web took longer to ramp up, barcodes are yet to catch on. However there’s one market where barcode scanning could become a mainstream activity in the U.S. and other countries. No, not magazine publishing - although there are valid advertising use cases there. We’re talking about scanning retail products using your mobile phone.
By the end of 2009, a lot of barcode scanning apps had gained popularity in the iPhone and Android, in particular. In November we listed our picks for scanning and other mobile shopping apps to test over Black Friday.
Read more at www.readwriteweb.com
Salon has Twitter’s perceived revolutionary role as its #3 bogus story of the year.
The revolution that wasn’t
TEHRAN — No, this item wasn’t really written from Tehran. Then again, neither were the vast majority of the thousands and thousands of Twitter posts about the aftermath of Iran’s fraudulent elections in June. That didn’t stop the media from declaring the micro-blogging site to be the unsung hero of the burgeoning “Green Revolution.”
Read more at www.salon.com
Love Is Fleeting. A Text Message Is Forever.How Tiger Woods and other cheating men are getting busted through e-mails and cell phone notes.
Emerging text messages and e-mails from Tiger Woods to his alleged mistresses reveal his overtures and flirtations with the women. In the wake of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s summer scandal and subsequent e-mail revelations, William Saletan looked at the way technology is changing the way cheaters cheat and how they get caught. The article is reprinted below.
Read more at www.slate.com
QOTD
I’m kind of enjoying that.
– Sprint CEO Dan Hesse on the “There’s a Map for That” advertising spat between AT&T and Verizon.
by John Paczkowski
Read more at digitaldaily.allthingsd.com
Posted on December 10, 2009 at 4:30 AM PT
Toys“R”Us makes ambitious play for mobile commerce
Toys”R”Us Inc. is ramping up its mobile�shopping capabilities with a new mobile Web site and two applications.
In addition to the mobile commerce push, Toysrus.com is offering free shipping deals and egift cards. Consumers can also sign up to receive instant email alerts on�coupons and unadvertised sales.
“There are two kinds of retailers that need to be looking at mobile today – not as an experiment, but as a must-do priority,” said Nikki Baird, managing partner and Retail Systems Research, Miami. “Those retailers either have a large customer presence among younger consumers, which are very mobile-oriented.�
Read more at www.mobilemarketer.com
The 411 on early-termination fees (FAQ)
Early-termination fees are not new to the wireless industry. For as long as wireless operators have been selling and subsidizing cell phones, they’ve required customers to sign contracts. And they’ve penalized them for canceling their contracts early.
The phone companies say they must charge a fee to recover the cost if a customer quits his or her service early. These fees have angered many customers. Several class action lawsuits have been filed against cell phone carriers and some customers have won. Congress and the Federal Communications Commission have challenged the industry on this practice.
Read more at news.cnet.com
Verizon to Launch an iPhone Next�Year?
The mobile space has long buzzed with rumors of a Verizon Wireless version of the iPhone, and according to Northeast Securities, the device may finally arrive next year. Citing its supply-chain checks, the financial services firm said in a research note issued today that Apple will launch a WCDMA/CDMA2000-enabled version of the device — not an LTE version — through Verizon by the summer of 2010.
Northeast Securities’ note jibes with a new report from OTR Global via AppleInsider, which claims that Apple plans to roll out a hybrid iPhone — enabling the Cupertino company to sell a single global handset “to all carriers” — by the third quarter of next year. Similar to Northeast Securities, OTR Global said the phone would use a new hybrid chip produced by Qualcomm that would allow the iPhone to support Verizon’s network in addition to retaining compatibility with UMTS 3G networks.
Read more at gigaom.com
Just plain and simple response: this would be killer.
Google Acquires Gizmo5 VoIP Service; VoIP Coming to Google Voice?
Read more at lifehacker.com
Google has bought VoIP service Gizmo5, according to tech news weblog TechCrunch. If that’s true, we’re thinking it could mean some seriously cool things for Google Voice.
10 percent to go, but closer (via @JCDunn)
CHARTS OF THE WEEK: iPhone Is Closing In On BlackBerry, Fast
