Alltel Wireless seems to be pampering parents lately with new tools to protect their children from any threats.

Following the recent release of Alltel Parental Controls, the wireless network has launched another product called Axcess Family Finder.

In a nutshell, this GPS service gives parents up-to-the-minute and exact location via mobile phone or the Internet. This will provide parents power to locate their children and monitor them on a real time basis. While this wireless network focuses on tracking children, this is also a good tool for monitoring the whereabouts of other family members like your sneaky husband or wife.

This tracking service is also equipped with interactive maps to easily monitor the specific locations. It is very helpful if a parent is monitoring 2 or more children. Moreover, parents can specify the areas where their children frequently stay like school, parks or a friend’s house.

Maybe because Alltel Wireless knows that many parents are sometimes forgetful, there is also a feature called Scheduled Checks allowing parents to indicate the location to track at a particular time – a good way to check if the children are sticking to their schedules.

A service fee of $10 per month is required for each child you want to track. Maximum registration per user is 10.

There are only 3 steps to get this service:

Via mocoNews

None other than the infamous Robert Scoble Taptu after reviewing the search engine. Taptu was designed for doing mobile web searches on a mini-screen such as a mobile, phone or facebook profiles.

With just a few months after it was officially launched, Taptu promises to be not just another one of them mobile search engine. Since it is still in beta, Taptu currently works best with conducting fact-finding and music searches. Searching through the mobile search engine is as easy doing searches on a web search engine. But the big difference is, Taptu displays snippets or widgets of songs, video and web pages on its search results pages. This would save you a lot of time since you already which link would lead you to the right information that you are looking for. You can even click on a video or music link to watch the video or listen to mp3 tracks within Taptu’s search result pages. Again, another time-saving feature for its users.

Since Taptu employs some sort categorization scheme on its search results pages, mobile browsing has become an easy task at hand.This is a very useful application for a small screen and limited operating space of a mobile phone.

The search results page of Taptu is as as simple and as direct of a normal SERP of a web-based web based search engine. Since it would be operating on a mobile phone, Tapu engineers did not made it as elaborate and complicated as many other mobile phones today.

What you get from the SERP are straight forward links to relevant search results which you can access by simply clicking on the link.

Taptu is a young start-up which looks promising and useful even if it still on beta stage. But in due time, Taptu may get the attention that it needs.

Mobile search technology gets a boost with Boopsie’s Smart Prefix Search Engine. With Boopsie’s search engine, you don’t have to type in the full text of your search to get relevant results. Just by typing the first few words of your search term, Boopsie’s search engine would be able to “find” relevant information that you maybe looking for.

The Smart Prefix somehow simulates the way mobile users compose SMS messages using shortened words or abbreviated ones. By recognizing the way text messages are written, Boopsie eliminates the hassles of typing in numerous character to form a word or phrases.

None other than Om Malik of GigaOm wrote something good about Boopsie earlier this year. But since its launch Boopsie never really gained some good ground despite its seemingly useful feature. It’s a pity since, mobile technology such as this is something that the mobile consumers would surely want to have on their mobile phone.

Boopsie Smart Prefix Search works fine with almost all types of mobile phones, including the iPhone. It loads fast on a Sony Ericsson P990i mobile phone through 3G connection. One note worthy feature of Boopsie is the fact that it doesn’t parse web channels by page. It works on a single mobile web page and this page is constantly updated while you are online.

Content providers love Boopsie’s reformatting of publisher’s content on the fly. It can also add time-saving and revenue generating shortcuts like Boopsie’s Click to Call, Show Map and Click to Buy features. Boopsie’s mobile web reformatting technology makes it easy for content providers to have their products or services up on the mobile web in a matter of an hour.

Boopsie is certainly one useful mobile search technology that should receive a much needed attention to increase its user base. The mere idea of time and cost saving benefit it would give to users certainly deserves a heads up.

Verizon Wireless and mShopper, a mobile infrastructure provider that enables shoppers to find, save, share and buy consumer products, have teamed up to deliver an innovative shopping service to mobile phone users. Officially launched yesterday, Verizon Wireless customers can now have access to the mShopper web application right into their mobile phone’s web browser.

So if you are a Verizon Wireless customers, the mShopper application would be a big help the next time your shopping for some items either online or in actual stores. By accessing mShopper’s mobile web 2.0 service, search for the price of your chosen items and see if you are actually getting a fair deal on the items.

mShopper has a catalog of around 9.2 million products listed from hundreds of online merchants. You can search for product listings even if you don’t know the exact search term to use. mShopper’s excellent mobile search engine intelligently searches mShopper’s database to come up with search results relevant to your needs even if you just enter the first few letters of the produce you are looking for.

So, how do you add mShopper’s Mobile Web 2.0 service in your mobile handset? Simply launch the browser in your phone, subscribe and accept the terms and conditions of the service after paying the monthly subscription access fee of $5. This monthly subscription comes with other Mobile Web 2.0 perks such as unlimited airtime for Verizon Wireless V CAST service, ESPN MVP and Get It Now services. on Wireless’ V CAST service, ESPN MVP and Get It Now^® services.

Nokia is launching SEEK, the third dimension in the continuing evolution of its social network for mobile phones, MOSH, sometime in December. SEEK allows mobile users to request for mobile contents from their MOSH network. MOSH community member can then send suggested mobile sites that answers the SEEK query or create content themselves for the perusal of the requesting MOSH member.

SEEK promises to be a helpful tool for MOSH users. You can possible ask anything from the MOSH network, and for sure, with its 6 million users, somebody will have an answer to your query. You can request for a map of Bangkok or seek for the video on how to bake lasagna. Certainly, other MOSH member would have the information you need right in your mobile phones.

SEEK is the third installment in the series of application/enhancements that Nokia has been introducing for its mobile social network. The first one allows content uploading and sharing and the second lets MOSH members customize their mobile devices.

Lee Epting, Vice President of Forum Nokia said that responding to the needs of the MOSH community has been the strong focus of MOSH. “We have always focused on MOSH being a service created for, and shaped by, users. Seeing users request content from one another, as well as the desire for community discussion, forms the foundation of SEEK…We expect this to take creativity and mobile customization to a new level,” says Lee.

The good thing about MOSH and its applications is that these are not NOKIA exclusive. The MOSH network was developed from the ground up specifically to answer the need for social networking among mobile phones regardless of brand and mobile carriers.

Although mobile internet is still in its early stages, mobile users are beginning to show some interest with this breakthrough technology. This is a good sign of progress for a market that is expected to grow from US$33.2 million in 2007 to US$1.4 billion in 2012.

A new survey conducted by research firm The Kelsey Group has revealed that about 45% of US mobile phone users say internet capability is a major consideration for their next mobile phone purchase.

Moreover, local commercial search and maps are the most preferred web applications. Currently, only 26% of the surveyed respondents have internet access plan for their mobile phones.

“The combination of unlimited data plans and next-generation Internet- enabled mobile devices, like Apple’s iPhone, suggests mobile Web access will grow to become ubiquitous. Growing mobile Internet usage and increased satisfaction with mobile Internet applications are among the converging factors that we believe point to a breakthrough year ahead for mobile ad adoption,” said Matt Booth, senior vice president and program director, Interactive Local Media, The Kelsey Group.

However, one big challenge for the telco industry is how to integrate the mobile ads. Technically, it is very feasible but a recent global survey has shown that 61% of the 9,500 respondents in 21 countries had rejected the ads on mobile TV and Internet services.

Search giant Yahoo is beefing up its mobile search presence more than anybody can think of. A few days ago it launched a new service that integrates the functionality of the highly successful web service, Yahoo Answers with its mobile search facility OneSearch. Yahoo answers provide answers to queries provided by Yahoo’s millions of members worldwide while OneSearch gives mobile users instant vital information right into Yahoo’s mobile web portal. Combining these two search interfaces in one useful mobile web portal certainly results in a powerful mobile search facility.

So, when you are stuck somewhere in an unfamiliar place and don’t know where to go, you can simply access Yahoo’s OneSearch portal on your mobile phone and ask for directions on where’s the best place to stay or dine. Yahoo Answers and OneSearch will work together to come up with the most reliable and useful recommendation for you. As an added information to chew on, Yahoo’s OneSearch would even display relevant citations related to your search culled from Wikipedia’s vast information resources.

To get a better grip of how this interplay of Yahoo OneSearch and Answers work, take a look at the sample search results for the OneSearch query “2008 Summer Olympics?” The search result displays links to the Yahoo answers with an added Wikipedia link.

Aside from the improved mobile search, OneSearch also rolled out its flight information search which provides users with specific flight status such as arrivals and departures, delays, and gate assignments.

These improved mobile search capabilities are currently available in major countries aside from the United States.

With these new avenues of search technology, Yahoo may very well be on its way to reclaiming its pre-Google status as one of the web’s major player. That is, if Google won’t catch up with its own mobile web search technology.