uVumobile to Bring the Pentagon Channel Straight to your Cell Phone.

uVumobile, one of the leading mobility software and service providers in the world today, has joined hands with the Pentagon channel in an effort to offer live programming to the U.S. armed forces. VXStream, uVumobile’s innovative mobile platform, gives content providers like the Pentagon Channel a great opportunity to deliver rich multimedia content to their target consumer segment on the move.

The partnership between uVumobile and the Pentagon Channel will benefit more than 2.6 million people who serve the U.S. army. Thanks to the new platform, military personnel stationed around the world will be able to access live broadcasts of military news and other useful information using their video enabled cell phones any time of the day. The platform is compatible with Blackberry, Palm, Google’s Nexus One, and Windows Smartphone.

People can subscribe to this service and access all the content by going to http://www.uvumobile.com/tpc on their cell phone. Subscribers can access a wide range of content from the Pentagon Channel including Daily News Updates, Department of Defense news briefings, The American Veteran, The Grill Sergeants, This Week in the Pentagon, Fit for Duty, and Pacific Report. They can also watch the interviews of top military officials and news reports about the great work of the U.S. military forces all over the world.

Personally, I think it is a great initiative from uVumobile and the Pentagon Channel. The job of providing latest military news on a real time basis to military personnel and their families has been made very easy with this innovative platform from uVumobile. So, people can now easily get all the latest news from the Pentagon right on their cell phone screen and stay updated. Given the rocketing popularity of live video streaming technology, I will not be surprised to see more such services from mobile service providers all over the world.

Categories: All things mobile phones, Mobile TV.

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Will Microsoft Tag Change the Landscape of Mobile Marketing?

Using 2D barcodes in mobile marketing is something that we are aware of. However, when Microsoft decides to do it, it definitely deserves a special mention. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it will introduce a new barcode technology which will bring the print medium, internet medium, and the mobile phone together successfully.

At CES (Consumer Electronics Show) 2009, Microsoft released the beta version of what they call Microsoft Tag – a barcode technology which can help to store data in the form of graphical bitmaps.

Microsoft Tag differs from QR codes or any other type of 2D barcode available today because of an important reason – It is based on a brand new technology called HCCB (High Capacity Color Barcodes) which uses triangle shaped color pixels to store data instead of the usual black and white square pixels. Moreover, these tags do not store any information. Instead, they store a unique ID which is used to retrieve information from Microsoft servers. So, it is now possible to store a lot more information than what can be usually stored in conventional 2D barcodes.

Here is how it works.

Microsoft Tag contains HCCB data which is nothing but a unique ID for the information stored in a Microsoft server. When the tag is read, the HCCB data is sent to the server and the publisher’s URL is returned to the mobile phone and the user is able to open the appropriate website in his mobile browser. All this takes place in a span of few seconds.

What you need

What you need is an internet enabled smart phone with a camera, a reasonably good data plan, Microsoft Tag application, and a Microsoft Tag account. This application works on phones which run on Symbian, Blackberry, Android, J2ME-MMP, Palm, Java 2 Micro Edition, iPhone, and any Windows OS.

You can open an account on Microsoft Tag webpage in a matter of few seconds and download the application on to your mobile phone for free.

How you use it?

When you see a print ad with a Microsoft Tag, all you need to do is activate the tag application on your mobile phone and take a picture of the barcode using your mobile phone camera. Immediately, you will be able to see the publisher’s website, which contains information about the product or service mentioned in the ad, on your mobile browser.

Why is it good for businesses?

It is a very simple yet effective way to reach the end user. It makes advertising a lot easier. When people find a product or service mentioned in a print ad appealing, they usually try to get more information about it. If the business owner can give them the information they want immediately, the chances of a sale increase significantly. This is now possible with Microsoft Tag. It is reliable, easy to use, and, most importantly, free. So, a lot people, small business owners in particular, can benefit immensely from this technology. I think this technology will make a big impact in the near future and will increase the scope of mobile marketing tremendously. Let us wait and see if I am proven right or not.

PS - You can read more about 2D barcodes and their role in mobile marketing here,here, and here.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Microsoft, Mobile Web.

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Ready to watch live TV on your Nokia phone?

Monsoon Multimedia, a California based company, has come up with HAVA Mobile Player, digital video service, which has made quite an entry into the market. The video service is interestingly called the ‘sling box killer’, as it is considered a direct competitor to the famous Sling Media.

Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA Mobile Player allows you to watch live TV from your mobile phone. Not just that, you will be able to pause, skip, rewind, and schedule your DVR recordings right from your phone. Monsoon Multimedia is confident that people will find it very easy to use this service on their high-end Nokia phones. They also believe that they can outdo Sling Media with this service. However, this service is meant only for S60 Symbian phones as of now whereas Sling Media’s TV service is available on Symbian, Palm, Windows Live Mobile, and it’s rumored that it will be soon available in Blackberry. With this being the case, I don’t think the HAVA Mobile Player is much of a competition for Sling Media, at least as of now.

This mobile TV service will be made available to the public for free next quarter. However, Monsoon is also planning to run a beta program in between.

The way I see it, mobile TV industry is headed for a unique battle. On one hand, you have devices like HAVA Mobile Player which make live TV available in your mobile phone. On the other hand, you have carriers coming up with separate mobile TV service.

Now, as a mobile user, what would you choose? A mobile TV service from a carrier which lets you choose a certain number of channels for a fixed sum every month, or a device like this one which lets you watch live TV right on your mobile phone without any restrictions?

Categories: All things mobile phones, Mobile TV, Nokia.

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