Nokia is giving its millions of users a new entertainment medium on their mobile phone, the Nokia Internet Radio. If you are a Nokia mobile phone user, the new Nokia Internet Radio, is a new web-based service that lets you discover and listen to radio shows broadscasted over the internet. The application can be downloaded free into your mobile phone. Soon, it will be embedded in upcoming Nokia S60 3^rd edition mobile phones.

The Nokia Internet Radio promises to make the discovery of music effortless. Mobile browsing can be done through station name, music genre, country or language. Top ten music countdowns worldwide will be updated on an hourly basis. And when you find an interesting radio station, you can easily add it to a list of you favorite stations as a bookmark in you Nokia mobile phone browser. Hence makin the radio station easily accessible.

The best part about the Nokia Internet Radio is that you can enhance audio quality by selecting appropriate streaming servers that would match the speed of the current network connection that you have. Just like audio streaming on the web through your PC, you will have the option to match the speed of your mobile phone connection with specific streaming servers.

The Nokia Internet Radio is currently available for download to Nokia models such as N82, N91, N95 and N95 8GB. To find out if your mobile phone is compatible with the Nokia Internet Radio, check out the list of compatible devices.

If you’ve been wanting to publish your social site, media site or blog content on the mobile web but don’t want to trouble yourself on the nitty gritty of the procedure, you’ll be glad to know about Bango’s “Get on my Mobile” service. Bango, a mobile solutions provider which specialize in helping businesses, brands and individuals establish “mobile web presence”, has launched the “Get on my Mobile” content push service.

Bango’s “Get on my Mobile” which works perfectly with popular sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Bebo, Friendster, LinkedIn, Blogger, Orkut and Wordpress, links your PC to the mobile web.

Pushing your content such as photos and music file into the mobile web can be easily done via a Bango button that you create on the Bango site. You can link the Bango button directly into a photo stored on your PC website. Bango automatically resizes the photo depending on the mobile phone models that is being used by a user to browse your content.

The “Get On My Mobile” Bango button is free for anyone. To create your own Bango button, just go to www.bango.com and insert the generated code into your website next to the content you want to share on the mobile web. When somebody visits your website, facebook profile or any other social media accounts, they will be given a unique short URL which they will enter into their mobile phone’s web browser to view your content.

The Bango button can also provide you with revenue opportunity via a corresponding charge that is attached to your mobile content. You can also link your Bango button to a mobile website or to mobile versions of social media sites such as YouTube or Flickr. Likewise, the Bango button can also be attached to an email that you can send to your friends and networks.

The obsession of many Americans with their bank balances is a positive indicator for mobile networks interested in mobile banking.

Today, AT&T has declared its official entry in this industry with the launch of its “user-friendly” mobile banking platform in partnership with SunTrust Banks Inc., Wachovia Corp., Firethorn Holdings, and CheckFree Corp.

This new platform empowers AT&T users to check their balances, account history, transfer money, and settle their bills without the hassle of visiting the bank or going online.

Later this year, this mobile app will be pre-loaded on new handsets to make it easy to find and maximize the use of this service. For current subscribers, this mobile app can be downloaded easily and is supported on about 30 million devices in the market.

The system mimics the function of a regular online banking service, so it would not be difficult for any average person to use this platform. At any rate, here are the steps:

1. You need to sign up first at their financial institution’s online banking Web site and you will get a one-time initialization code.
2. After accessing mobile banking on the AT&T handset, simply use the code to link your account to the mobile application on their device.
3. You can then create your own personal identification number (PIN) to provide secure access to the application.

Security is a major concern for online or mobile services. That’s why AT&T has emphasized that data here are all encrypted and you have the power to deactivate it quickly in case you lost your phone.

Is it free? Technically, NO. While it’s free to access the mobile banking service, you need to pay for the data usage. In case you want to try this service, I suggest you get the minimal data plan of $10 per month.

Via Fierce Mobile Content

The growing number of children using mobile phones and the increasing acceptance of mobile web bring worries to many parents nationwide regarding the proliferation of malicious content. In response to this growing concern, America’s largest wireless network Alltel Wireless has decided to add a free filtering application starting February 2008.

Dubbed as Alltel Parental Controls, this mobile application is powered by Bytemobile’s Unison ACCESS Mobile content filtering solution. This free service relies on a database of sites related to pornography, gambling, violence, and weapons to give parents total control over their children’s mobile phones. Parental Controls is available for both post-paid and pre-paid users and parents can set the filters via Alltel.com or Alltelu.com.

The content filtering database is provided by RuleSpace. Its “dynamic rating” feature allows Alltel to be updated regularly about all the newly discovered sites which can be potential threats to children. It can also block specific pages on a website if the general content is not inappropriate by nature.

I laud the honest effort of Alltel Wireless to restrict inappropriate contents to mobile phones of many children. One could only hope this mobile application becomes a standard in all mobile phones and all mobile networks. More importantly, mobile networks should not monetize this service so it can be truly effective.

Admittedly, there are different ways for children to access these ridiculous sites via mobile phones. A filtering system is just a barrier to minimize access and not a solution. What is needed is a strong collaboration between mobile networks and the big Internet players like Google and Yahoo!

Via Engadget Mobile

What do you think will happen if two giants in the mobile industry combine their forces together? Well, it can result to either a revolutionary technology or a catastrophic flop.

World’s biggest handset manufacturer Nokia and the largest mobile operator in terms of revenue, Vodafone, have teamed up to create new handsets integrating Vodafone services with Ovi, Nokia’s range of Internet services such as N-Gage, Nokia Maps, and Nokia Music Store.

Both companies claim these new handsets will give the mobile consumers more choices in terms of content, communication, Internet services, and superior browsing capability on high speed 3G and 3G broadband networks. It is further emphasized that some handsets, of course the better ones, will be exclusive to Vodafone.

“Web2.0 is all about social networking and enabling people to connect with each other in new ways. Bringing location and context awareness to web2.0 services is the next stage in the web development and Nokia multimedia computers enable people to participate to their favorite internet services on-the-go,” said Executive Vice President and General Manager Nokia Multimedia Anssi Vanjoki, in a press release.

In concept, both parties are winners in this tie-up. As a mobile carrier, Vodafone needs to offer new services constantly to please its target consumers. Why waste time brainstorming and developing new contents if you can partner with a very innovative company, right?

As for Nokia, this partnership allows the company access to large markets and numerous customers since Vodafone is one of the biggest in the world. No need to push extra effort on its business development side to get more customers.

Via paidContent:UK

To meet the demands of small and medium-sized businesses that want reasonably priced wireless e-mails on their mobile phones, Blackberry maker Research in Motion has launched BlackBerry Professional Software

This new software is a streamlined version of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which is commonly used by government institutions and big companies. Designed for up to 30 users only, the cost is $500 for 5 users and $850 for 10 users. It’s a big savings compared to the Enterprise server which is $3,000 for just one user or $4,000 for 20 users.

The big benefits for many entrepreneurs of this new software include flexibility, improvement on communication and teamwork, increase in productivity, and low investment.

Main features are the following:

Facebooks seems unstoppable these days. Aside from securing an exclusive advertising partnership with Microsoft, it’s also making some waves in the mobile arena with the release of its software application for the Blackberry Smartphones.

You can download this free mobile app at www.blackberry.com/facebook/mobiledownload. Depending on your wireless provider, wireless data charges may apply.

T-Mobile USA is the lucky one to be the first carrier to carry this new application. It enables the mobile users to connect with Facebook faster and easier. Key features include:

1. Receive notifications and messages automatically through BlackBerry platform’s push-based architecture
2. User can also set a unique alert (vibration and/or ringtone) for Facebook related content
3. Quickly access essential features to let users quickly change their status, upload a photo, add a friend, poke someone, write on a Wall, or send a message.
4. Invite friends to join Facebook and accept new friend requests
5. Quickly snap and post pictures along with a caption and tags
6. View the Status of friends
7. Read, compose and reply to messages even while offline

It’s too early to capture the general sentiments of Facebook fanatics. However, an early adopter is disappointed with this new app, claiming it is utterly useless because it can’t receive messages from other people.

In a press release, Research in Motion President and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis stated:

Facebook is one of the fastest growing web destinations among BlackBerry smartphone users and it has become an important element in the evolving fabric of personal communications. Facebook and RIM share a vision for enhanced mobile communications and social networking based on open, standards-based platforms and this has allowed us to produce a rich mobile application for Facebook users that leverages the push-based architecture, multimedia features and industry-leading usability of the BlackBerry solution