If you’re on the go, Skype’s great for being able to place and receive phone calls anywhere. All you need is a decent internet connection and a headset. Skype also has a mobile solution, so if you have a compatible mobile phone, you can use it for calling. It is available for Android and over 100 Java enabled mobile phones, but as of this writing still no support for the iPhone. Won’t be long. Don’t use it outside your home country, as you’ll get slammed with a lot of additional international rates and data fees. Calls to phones, mobiles or any of your Skype contacts via Skype are only available in Australia, Brazil (Rio de Janeiro & Sao Paulo), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, the United States and the UK.

Want Video? Skype just released Skype 4.0, which includes support for full-screen video calls. Snazzy.

Skype, along with VoIP sort of falls within a gray area of communication and security, not quite being defined as a true ‘telephony’ device and not quite a computer device. This allows for some interesting interpretation of the privacy laws and how they are governed. For example, in the US, Skype does not fall within the FCC’s Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act that requires digital phone networks to allow wiretapping in the presence of an FBI warrant. Skype so far, stated that it does not plan to comply to this act. China has developed a modified version of Skype which adds a layer of sensorship to the system, allowing easedropping of phone calls by the government.

While Skype used to be free, it now has to start charging for its services, which seem reasonable. It’s scalable and is still a great bargin. So if you’re contemplating on going mobile anytime soon, definitely get Skype rolling on your computer or mobile phone.

website: www.skype.com
mobile website: http://skype.com/download/skype/mobile/

Photo provided by Dominique Erhard and Scene Consulting

Each of the 25 yurts–traditional round tents of Central Asia–is a theater where one of life’s fundamental questions is considered and answered with personal stories ranging from the horrors of a refugee camp to ­the wonders of enduring love. The yurts, stand with door open welcoming Parisians and tourists who can wander freely through the village and into each yurt.

“Our company was thrilled and honored to partner with Arthus-Bertrand’s group, GoodPlanet.org, in a project of global significance,” said Emma Kigar, Colorado Yurt Company founder. “Our contemporary re-engineering of the traditional yurt appealed to the artist and designers in Paris. The video presentation requires specific control of sound and light and the yurt structure is simple and elegant, plus it has the allure of a traditional, nomadic dwelling.”

“6 Billion Others” is open in the Grand Palais, 19 Rue Victoire, through February 12th. Fee to enter the exhibit is 5 Euros (perhaps one of Paris’ best bargains this season). Plan to stay long enough to visit one of the video studios and add your testimony to the 6000 already recorded. If a trip to Paris is not in your travel plans, GoodPlanet.org expects to present the exhibit around the world, perhaps with bookings in San Francisco and Mali.

For additional information on the “6 Billion Others” exhibit or the yurts made by the Colorado Yurt Company, contact Dan Kigar, president of The Colorado Yurt Company, at (970)240-2111. You may also visit http://www.6milliardsdautres.org or http://www.coloradoyurt.com.

About The Colorado Yurt Company:
The Colorado Yurt Company is one of the largest manufacturers of yurts in the world. The company was founded in 1977 by current owners Dan and Emma Kigar. In addition to Colorado Yurts, the company also manufactures Earthworks Tipis and Cimarron Canvas Wall Tents.

Google’s Latitude claims several nice features, including location sharing, privacy control, share status and more.

Location sharing starts only when both you and a friend agree. Invite friends via email or easily add them from your Gmail contacts. You can share, set, or hide your location – or turn off Google Latitude – from the privacy menu. You can also hide your location or share only a city-level location with certain friends.

Share status is similar to the very popular Twitter, where you can Create a status message and upload your photo within Latitude. It also syncs directly with Google Talk. You can check your friends’ status messages to see what your friends are up to.

If you’re a very popular person always on the go, such as a college student, this would be a cool thing. You could meet up and see where your friends are quickly. Also it would be a very handy thing while hiking, or on the ski slopes.

Or to be more connected to your close friends so you don’t have to call them as much to still interact. For example, I was over at a friend’s house the other day, and his son came downstairs and opened the front door. His friend was standing there, but didn’t ring the doorbell. I asked him, “Why didn’t you just ring the doorbell?” I dunno, I was here to see my friend, and didn’t want to bother anyone else.”

Clearly our social behavior is radically being changed with new technology, and it will be very interesting to see what Latitude brings to the table now our movements are visible. So much for the movie 1984 and the fear of always being watched. It’s come true in a way we never anticipated.

Noting Google’s release of their new location based product, Latitude, Weinreich said, “All social networks should take pause.” He predicted that location based social networking will no longer be limited to smaller players: “It won’t be just Loopt or Whrrl that are incorporating location now into their social networks, Facebook and MySpace can’t be far behind.”

Location based services have long been tipped to dominate the Internet and mobile landscape in the future. “Often it takes a Google or Microsoft to compellingly make the case that a new feature will become a staple.” With most developers lacking the resources and expertise to develop location platforms for themselves, they will need to find alternative methods to integrate location. Those companies that participate in Xtify’s Social Networking Developer Program will be provided with access to the company’s technical team as well as location information on their users.

“Working with carriers to identify location can be costly and time consuming. In contrast, Xtify is free, can be integrated within hours, is compatible across multiple handsets, and works internationally. ” said Jeremy Levy, Xtify’s Chief Technology Officer.

About Xtify, Inc.:
Xtify’s mission is to location enable any website without the involvement of the wireless carriers and at no charge. Based in New York and backed by venture capital firms Acadia Woods Partners and ETF Venture Funds, Xtify provides a location based services platform to developers. It works worldwide on most BlackBerry, Android, Windows and Symbian devices. For more information, please visit www.xtify.com.

Breaking down the fundamentals of this out-of-sight service you will need to understand how it works. First of all, you will need to log on to www.voike.com and create an account. Keep in mind these services are free. Once you have created an account, you will begin your membership in the world of future telecommunication. This wonderful company will offer you this membership free of charge and with updates everyday, you will never use another service. Providing you with your own personal account information and call in numbers you will be able to manage all of your personal and business needs without lifting a finger. Voike allows you to connect to the internet by simply dialing your call in number and posting your personal or conference telephone recordings promptly. You may also post your voice blogs or leave reminders that will be sent to your phone or computer that will keep you organized at home. If you need to pick up your dry cleaning later in the day, remember to send some emails or make some calls, had a great idea you don’t want to forget; just call and leave a voice command and Voike will do the rest. This is a true blessing for people who are always on the go.

Voike Provides Customers with Supreme Phone & Internet Interaction.

Voike knows how hard it is to communicate on a cell phone when you are driving down the road, not to mention the dangers that are involved; this is why their services are a necessity. By simply calling Voike’s numbers you can dictate your needs and Voike will take care of the rest. This service is completely impressive, in that you are actually able to send voice mails and e-mails without even lifting a finger.
Why pay for Jott or other online companies that offer similar services, when Voike is only a click away. Now you can simply press speed dial and leave messages that can be converted to e-mails in just a few seconds. By the way, your email recipients will hear your voice, making the message more persuasive and understandable.

When things in 2008 unfolded to worsening conditions, with oil prices rocketing to a peak of $140 a barrel, followed by the largest financial crisis since the great depression. Automakers begin to collapse under the weight of an old world order, even as they scramble to cut operating costs, pulling out from luxurious sporting events like the F1. While they begin to develop major plans serious for fuel-efficient and electric hybrid vehicles. It would seem that even their loftier ‘green’ pursuits would have to be scaled back and the Zero Rally Africa has been postponed indefinitely.

“As opposed to the car in all its forms, we always want to prove the viability of our electric bicycles as a solution for more sensible future, although disappointed that we cannot participate this year under the ZRA banner, we’re not going to let that hold us back,” said W W Ching. “This is far too important … and fun to wait.”

So W W Ching, inventor and entrepreneur of eZee bikes and Rupert Nanni (cyclist, trail guide and keen environmentalist) have planned a grueling route on their own.

With their eZee Torq trekking bike, they will travel across 3,000 kms of Africa, starting from Katima Mulilo by the eastern Caprivi Strip, climbing hills, rough roads and the Namibian desert, roll alongside the Orange river and head down to their destination in Cape Town. Averaging some 200 kms per day, they will boldly go where no ‘green’ vehicle has gone.

“Unlike other vehicles, electric bikes adds to but does replace the human movement, while I’ll enjoy all the benefits of the electric assistance and conventional cycle, a cycle ride like this still requires physical and mental training,” said Rupert Nanni who spent 3 weeks over Christmas preparing for the event. “I also searched all over also for an electric bike that will meet the rigors of this ride and it seems that the Torq will be best for the job.”

“We’ve done several events in the past, including the length of the Mississippi river, across Australia and even across China. When the going gets tough, the tough go eZee,” quips Ching.

About the Event:
Katima to Cape Town will start on the 26th of Jan and end on the 2th of Feb in Cape Town, where the bikes will be auctioned off for charity. More information and updates can be found on http://www.ezeebike.co.za/

About the Company:
Since 2001, eZee Kinetics Technology Co. Ltd has been specializing in the design, development and manufacturing of its own brand of electric bicycles. Today eZee bikes are sold around the world in over 30 cities.

Contact Information:
www.ezeebike.com
kenching (at) ezeebike (dot) com

Abphone, the leading mobile search provider for entertainment and multimedia, announced today that their search engine is currently the only one available on the three French mobile operators’ decks. With over a hundred million page views every month, abphone is the leading search engine for mobile content discovery.

Abphone keeps growing their audience worldwide, thanks to their vertical search service, helping users find and access multimedia content: images, wallpapers, videos and games.

The future is bright for abphone because vertical search is ideally suited for the mobile web. In 2009, we look forward to extending our search offer to address new verticals, such as music and news. We also plan to increase the viral spread of abphone, and we aim at appearing on an increasing number of operator portals, to repeat in other countries the success we met in France.

In 2008, the global abphone audience increased by 30% in major countries such as the USA, UK, France and India, and saw its advertising revenue increase by 40%.
Abphone has become one of the most popular mobile services in the world, surpassing the threshold of half a billion searches last year!

The latest report Mediatech 100, from Library House, ranks abphone among the 100 most promising companies in the medias and technology industry!
In 2008, abphone maintained innovation with the launch of original concepts such as mobile game search, indexing the catalogue of leading game publishers, including world-leader Gameloft, and by introducing Contextual Content Advertising.
In 2009, abphone plans to launch new vertical search services, which will be presented on the French Pavilion, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from 16 to 19 February.

Pierre Scokaert, CEO of abphone declared: “The future is bright for abphone because vertical search is ideally suited for the mobile web. In 2009, we look forward to extending our search offer to address new verticals, such as music and news. We also plan to increase the viral spread of abphone, and we aim at appearing on an increasing number of operator portals, to repeat in other countries the success we met in France.”

Olivier Laury, Director of Contents at Bouygues Telecom declared about abphone’s search engine: “abphone delivers good results thanks to the relevance of the photos and videos it gives to our subscribers, who regularly and repeatedly use this mobile search service.» The speed and relevance of results abphone returns gives a high level of loyalty with an average of 15 sessions per active user per month.

About abphone:
Abphone is the first mobile multimedia search service (photos, videos and games). Launched in 2005, abphone allows worldwide access to entertainment content from m.abphone.com mobile website or from the website www.abphone.com

When you talk with the person at the information desk, they have a complex knowledge base that can pick and choose what is the best solution for you, giving you tailored, custom results. The same with the Concierge at the hotel lobby, they know what’s happening on a daily basis, what’s changed, what’s new, bad, good and a whole lot of other factors. Can mobile technology compete with that? Not hardly. Yet.

Mobile technology is great for factual information, and in recent years, it has started to provide more of the ‘fuzzy’ logic parts of information that humans do naturally every day. Yes it is true that humans have extended their local knowledge into forums, groups, chatrooms, social media sites and so on, but short of Twitter, all of these are still asynchronous, meaning that they’re not real-time, on the fly, according to your current condition. There’s no way that your mobile phone can tell that you only have 30 minutes to grab something to eat, and you’re looking for a small local favorite watering hole that serves a local favorite dish that’s not on the menu. The phone could tell you all the restaurants around you (including MacDonalds and Starbucks), and could probably tell you about the genre of restaurants, but which ones are really good, bad, and which ones have the local favorites? Usually locals don’t want tourists to come to their watering holes, so they usually don’t show up on the map.

This is when the question turns to less of “what” you’re seeking and more into “how” you seek it. Mobile technology can give you the “what” but have a lot of difficulty in the “how” part, which is inherently a human trait. For example, when people travel, either they stay a tourist, seeing all the tourist spots, stay on the tourist path. They send post cards, usually pack a large suitcase and don’t try to blend with the local customs.

The other part tend to immerse themselves in the local custom and culture, trying to remove their foreign status and try and connect on a local level. They seek local knowledge, and don’t pride themselves on being a tourist. They’re experiential, seeking the real cultures, opening their minds to find something new and exciting.

This is where mobile technology falls short. While it’s easy to show the ‘what’ i.e. find the Louvre in Paris, how do you find that really great coffee shop just around the corner that’s famous for a particular style of coffee preparation? That’s where local knowledge comes in.

There has been several academic research projects on this subject over the past 10 years, but as with most academic projects, they tend to stay academic. Researchers like Scott Fisher from the University of Southern California who heads up the Interactive Media Division has explored this area in some detail, using augmented reality to superimpose virtual information over real world scenery. Ultimately the problem with this technology was that the user needed to wear about 100 pounds of gear and a virtual reality headset to see everything. Not too practical.

Other researchers and location-based amateurs have started ‘geo-tagging’ which is pretty cool, where using your mobile phone, you can write something about your current location, then upload it to your blog with the coordinates to ‘tag’ that location with your comments. Problem with this is dissemination, i.e. how does another person find the tag, and know that it is contextually relevant to them. It’s back to the same problem of “how” does the technology give you better contextualized local knowledge.

At the moment, there is no one great answer to solve this incredibly complex problem, but with the recent change in accelerated technology capabilities, i.e. broadband speeds and sufficient computing power onboard a small device, there will be a point at which the technology will be technically capable of doing it. The question will stand of whether humans will have to adapt to a new style of discovery and local knowledge, or will a new style be invented. Exciting times.

For example, things like MNP (mobile number portability) now enables users to keep their mobile number across phones, and One-seg broadcasting, which now enables all cel phones to receive terrestrial digital TV broadcasts. This propelled a swift increase in compatible handsets available.

But an even more interesting development is the introduction of mobile phones aimed at children and the elderly, increasing the overall market saturation.

Many of their studies are showing trends that mobile phones are increasingly becoming a natural part of lifestyle and habits. Most users state that it gives a user the ability to contact others regardless of time and place, and a significant number now say that it is a single device for various purposes.

Signs of attachment and addiction are also showing, with many users feeling lost or insecure if they’ve forgotten their mobile phone when they go out.

This is a facinating site that is a must read. Website is in both Japanese and English.

Website: http://www.moba-ken.jp/

Skout’s online dating service and iPhone application are being launched at the 6th annual Internet Dating Conference in Miami, Florida, January 22nd and 23rd, 2009.

“When I founded Match.com, I envisioned how the internet could change the way singles discover each other . As we stand at the cusp of mobile convergence, Skout is perfectly positioned to disrupt the online dating market. Skout represents what all dating companies must become to not only just remain relevant, but to survive,” says Match.com’s founder Gary Kremen.

The Skout dating service is available on virtually every mobile phone with a browser as well as via a laptop or desktop computer by visiting http://www.skout.com .

The company is also releasing SKOUT, an iPhone application, available free of charge at Apple’s App Store under the Social Networking / Lifestyle categories.

“We are very excited about today’s release of our Skout dating platform and the SKOUT iPhone application,” says Skout Founder and CEO Christian Wiklund. “We’re making it easy for singles to discover others with similar interests, using location information and mobile phones. Skout brings cheer to people who are on the go and typically don’t have time to find someone special.”

According to Juniper Research, the mobile dating market will reach 1.4 billion dollars by 2013. Skout is perfectly positioned to take advantage of this growing market.

About Skout
Skout is a mobile, real-time, location-based dating platform that helps people meet singles in their vicinity by chatting and sharing photos and other user-generated content. The company is based in San Francisco, CA. The service is available on over 10,000 mobile devices, as an iPhone application, and on any Internet-connected laptop or desktop computer.

website: Skout.com