I know, I know - just what the world needs, another IM/VOIP mobile app.
Octrotalk does look fairly standard, but it does have a couple of nice featuress.
Firstly, it is compatible with Google Talk (Jabber), MSN, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo chat protocols. It is cross platform - running on Symbian 3rd Edition, Windows Mobile and WM Smartphone as well as the Desktop version of Windows.
It also has a useful file sharing side - you can use it to access shared folders on PCs running the Windows client and there is some kind of P2P file sharing built in to boot.
The downside is… well, it’s yet another IM/VOIP app. Fring is probably a better bet for most yusers, particularly if you need Skype access. Take a look, though - it’s a free download, available here.
There are no shortage of Instant Messaging clients for Windows Mobile and Symbian, and it takes quite a bit to impress us here at Pocket Picks.
Palringo is a new multi-platform IM app for Windows Mobile, Symbian S60 3rd Edition, Windows and Java that might just make the grade.
Palringo supports all the popular IM services (Google Talk, AIM, MSN, etc) as well as its own network. The most significant difference between Palringo and these other services is the addition of Vioce and Picture messaging. Using your phone (or PC) you can take photos or short audio clips and send them to your Palringo contacts. You can also send these through to some of the other supported networks, where they will appear as a web link to the hosted file on Palringo’s server.
If you are a heavy IM user perhaps the most useful feature is the ability to sign in to multiple instances of each service. I use one Google Talk account for work and another for chatting to friends and updating Twitter, etc, and this is a feature I have been waiting for for a long time.
There are still a few rough edges - new IM conversations can end existing ones, for example - but these are being worked on by the Palringo development team.
Palringo is a free download, available here.
Apparently mobile IM adoption is set to triple in Europe over the next five years. A new report from Forrester Research suggests that mobile IM usage will grow from its current eight percent adoption rate to a much more substantial 24 percent by 2013.
That will push the subscriber base up from 26.7 million to 80 million and is apparently thanks to the familiarity that young people have with PC based IM applications combined with the continuous introduction of more IM capable handsets.
The inevitable upshot of this is that SMS revenues will suffer with a prediction that up to 13 percent of SMS traffic will be displaced by IM services in the next six years. Even so, it is not all doom and gloom for the humble SMS as the same report suggests that there is growth in that market too, with traffic expected to climb from 190 Billion messages in 2007 to 233 Billion by the end of 2013.
Big numbers indeed but it is about time that overpriced text messaging had some decent competition.
(Via mocoNews)
Foreign languages are not a strong point for the British public (apologies to those of you who are fluent in a second tongue), so GoogleTalk’s new IM translation bot is sure to come in handy for many of us.
The translation bot automatically translates IM conversations so that even if you and the recipient are not linguistically compatible, you can still chew the fat, blether, blab or whatever you want to call it to your heart’s content. For those of you that don’t know what a bot is, the Google Talkabout blog describes it as “a piece of software that acts as a chat contact and provides some fun or useful functionality.”
But ‘where’s the mobile angle?’ we hear you cry. Well if you are a user of Fring (as in the clever mobile VoIP client) you can use the service via your mobile as GoogleTalk is one of the supported services. All you need to do is add @bot.talk.google.com with the correct preceding code for your chosen language (for example, for an English to French translation you would send [ en2fr@bot.talk.google.com ]) as a friend in GoogleTalk and send it a message. Very clever stuff indeed, hit the jump for a full list of the supported language codes.
Continue reading ‘Talking your *IM* language with GoogleTalk and Fring’
BuZZone is either a great new way to chat on your Windows Mobile or a complete waste of time - it’s really too early to say.
A Bluetooth Instant Messaging app, BuZZone is simple to use and a free download, but you have to wonder - who is this aimed at?
The developers reckon it will see heavy use in ‘trade shows’ (chatting to other attendees about ‘business information’) or in nightclubs (chatting to other drunkards, presumably) . The app lets you publish a personal profile and periodically search for nearby contacts with similar interests.
The only fly in the ointment is the microscopic odds of there being anyone else in the vicinity with a copy of BuZZone, much less one who shares your interests.
The best use case I can come up with for this is in a classroom as an alternative to passing notes under the desk. Not that many schoolkids are rocking Windows Mobiles, but you never know - BuZZone might be the killer app that WinMo needs & this time next year we will all be chatting away via Bluetooth… but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.
Yeigo has updated its mobile VoIP service for UK-based users with several neat new features for free instant messaging to mates.
The Yeigo 2.1 Edition includes full-screen IM chats, Tab Chat letting users IM multiple people, Holler (in which offline users get a prompt that a friend is available), Port ‘n’ Sort (importing contacts from other IM providers such as MSN and Yahoo) and It’s A Status Thing (showing which contacts are online).
Yeigo launched in the UK in October after already being available in South Africa. It claims to offer free calls and IM from Windows Mobile and Symbian mobile phones, which it does, kind of, with no charge to download and use the application. Naturally where it isn’t free is in the user having to pay 3G or wi-fi connection costs while chatting.
If you saw our last post on Android (below) and thought, “hmmâ… maybe I should try and develop something?”, then how about up to $10m in awards for developing a ‘great mobile app’ for Android?
Coinciding with its release of the Android development kit, Google has announced the Android Developer Challenge. Up to $10m in awards is going to be given out “no strings attached” to those who can develop interesting and useful apps for the OS.
The money’s going to be distributed between two separate challenges one before the first handsets are released and one after. The first challenge runs from January 2 2008 to March 3, while the second will launch after the first Android handsets are released next year.
In Android Developer Challenge 1, the 50 most promising entries will each receive $25,000 for further development. They’ll then be eligible for ten £275,000 awards or ten $100,000 awards.
Any applications can be submitted but Google’s looking for ones that ‘deliver a better mobile experience’ in areas like social networking, media, productivity (e.g. email, IM, calendar), gaming, rethinking of traditional UIs, location-based and ‘humanitarian benefits’.
If you fancy going for this, then go here to find out more.
Geodesic announced yesterday the compatibility of its Mundu IM client for an assortment of mobile devices. Like Fring, Mundu IM allows you to navigate your existing AIM, MSN, Yahoo IM, , ICQ, Google Talk and Jabber services via a single client on your mobile phone (which is different to the way standalone VoIP apps like Vyke and Truphone work).
Supported operating systems include Pocket PC, Sony Ericsson J2ME, Palm OS, Windows Mobile as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch. The service has a few neat tricks up its sleeve too such as the ability to instantly share photos and videos taken from camera phones to contacts across all the supported IM services. Apparently this also works with file and music sharing too which is very interesting indeed.
The only kicker is that the application isn’t free (unlike Fring) but considering it is so feature rich, 11 dollars doesn’t seem like such an unreasonable price and will surely provide some pretty stiff competition.
(Via Just Another Mobile Phone Blog)
Recent Comments