Here’s a clip of the technology…

We look forward to seeing this technology used for other languages…

Here is the list of startups that presented in the DemoPit, as you’ll see they were not all web startups, some offered innovative cameras, bluetooth headsets and gadgets to remotely control your race cars through the browser! My favorites are iTwin, UserHeat and the PatentBueau… all of which should help increase efficiency and productivity one way or another.

From TC50:
iTwin (Singapore)
LifeMee (Japan)
SealTale (South Korea)
SpySee (Japan)

New Japanese Startups (alphabetically listed):
Adlantis
Ataritsuki
Cerevo Cam
Cognitive Function Balance (from Ledex)
Conit
Fabric Video
HaaLee
Istpika
Jingoo
JokerRacer
Lang-8
LinkThink
MOT
Orihime
Pankaku
Patent Bureau
Pixiv
Photiva
Phroni
RainbowApps
Rigureto
Speeda
Tabereko
UserHeat
Wombit

For a more extensive review on some of the stronger demos… click through to TechCrunch’s review of TokyoCamp.

The latest in the Chinese search-market battle between Baidu and Google, is Baidu’s announcement yesterday that they are launching a number of mobile applications with a local carrier. This move is quicker than anticipated and highlights the growing battle between the two entities. According to this news from PCWorld:

Baidu services including its Internet search, free music download search, and message forum will all be pre-installed on 3G handsets from China Unicom, Baidu said Monday. Baidu will also provide search capabilities for mobile Internet Web sites run by the carrier.

What’s probably most interesting about this, is that China Unicom also happens to be the carrier that is about to launch the iPhone in China. Does this mean Baidu apps will be pre-installed on the iPhone?

Considering the animosity between Apple and Google seems to be growing over Google Voice, Android and Map applications…. perhaps Apple would welcome the chance to shun Google in such a large consumer market?

It is an interesting concept, but I think it is too late on the scene with users having the option of tweeting using twitter applications on their phone, blackberrys and netbooks. The charge of each such SMS is Rs. 1 (about USD 0.023) compared to sending a regular SMS which is anywhere between Rs. 0 and Rs. 0.5. What is also amusing is that as a registered user, you will get tweets from all other registered users. In a way, I will be following anyone who also registers. And they would be following me.

If I were an SMS marketer in India, I would be suitably pleased with such Diwali gifts.

Happy Diwali everyone!

Buuuk.com is a Singapore company that provides location based restaurant information to the consumers on Andriod and iPhone. Once fire up the Buuuk application will be able to search for restaurants where they are located (using their GPS location aware feature), check out the offers available for Buuuk users (or credit card offers), check top rated restaurants and pubs,  submit reviews, etc. In addition, you  can also see the restaurants on the map, get direction to the restaurants, calculate distance as well as time it takes if you take a car, train or bus to the restaurant.

In the latest update to the application, Buuuk added in augmented reality to the application. In the list of restaurants displayed in your location, simply rotate your iPhone to landscape mode and the iPhone camera will turn on (I guess this is the same for Android – as I don’t own Android phone).  You can then follow the direction shown on your screen and walk to the restaurant – neat feature. Guess I will be spending the next few days walking with my iPhone camera on to test out the app. Check out the video below:

For more information, please click here

I suppose that it will take a bit of time to get used to the concept of augmented reality. Can already start to imagine the applications of augmented reality for marketing purposes and retailers making their offers available to companies like Buuuk to be included in their database (for an advertising fees of course). When you walk into a shopping mall with plenty of choices for restaurants, with a flick of the iPhone, you can see what offers is available and where. You can even fire up to see the menu and pricing before making your decision to walk into the restaurants…..just letting my imagination runs wild for now. I am sure retailers out there will have more creative uses for augmented reality.

Sprice.com

In my previous article “Mobile commerce is reshaping the way consumers plan, book and consume travel” about mobile apps re-shaping the way consumers plan and book travel and how most of the current apps are US-centric. Well, Sprice.com has just join the foray of travel service providers with their iPhone apps – “Sprice Hotels” – which is now available in the iPhone Apps store.

According to  Vikas Gulati, vice president of Sprice.com Asia Pacific – “The launch of our mobile application Sprice Hotels is a natural progression for our travel search engine as the pool of mobile users around the world to expand exponentially.” (Click here to see the full Article). It is definitely nice to see travel players in Asia Pacific starting to explore mobile application and generate income from the new mobile channel and I definitely look forward for more of such apps.

Excited, I picked up my iPhone immediately and fire up the App store to download Sprice Hotels to have a first hand experience of the App. First impression of the application is that the icon is a striking resemblance of the Hotels.com iPhone App – with a huge “H” representing Hotels.  The app also assumes that I want to book Singapore hotel (leveraging on iPhone location services) – which I am not.  Why do service provider assumes that I want last minute hotels in the location where I am at. There is a tab at the bottom of the screen to search hotel by destinations (which i tried). There seems to be no way where i can select my check-in/out date for the destination where i am going. The application automatically select a default date to return a search results. If I like a particular hotel offer, i can then click on it to select the check-in/out date to check availability for that hotel from a few of Sprice.com’s partners. Overall (in my opinion), a very clumsy experience when compared to other comparison search engine iPhone apps like Kayak.com. I would rate the application 2.5 out of 5 – Encouraging effort nevertheless. Certainly hope that Sprice.com would learn from initial experience and improve the service further to include flight search, store flight itinerary, etc (similar to WorldMate iPhone App).

Anyone tried to book their hotel using Sprice Hotels yet? Would certainly like your comments on that.

Admittedly, my first thoughts of this very expensive Australian foray in the connected public transport arena were very negative. Half a million to put internet on a bus in a city that has a highly developed 3G network as well as multiple mobile broadband suppliers? Not to mention, the San Francisco version was a hybrid “Green” bus that balanced out the emissions generated from so much extra weight/technology. The word excessive comes to mind? On the positive, this opens the door for targeted location based advertising direct to consumers. Think- “Hungry? McDonalds at your next stop”. I assume this could be sold at a premium.

Connected busses are definitely a good thing and pave the way for all sorts of internet capable public services such as trains and trams but are coming a heavy price for the tax payer as well as the environment. Great opportunity for marketeers, though!

Source: News.com.au

The deal stipulated China Unicom spend no less than CNY 15 billion on the project over the next five years, with extra effort to be put towards the development of the 3G network. The local government has even pledged its support and will provide all the assistance needed to help complete the development. The big pay off? A very timely three year exclusive deal for China Unicom to carry the Apple iPhone in China, of course.

For some time there has been speculation whether or not the the carrier would land the iPhone, but today it was made official. The details are very limited at the moment with more to be unveiled in due course. For China Unicom it means a huge leap forward in a market dominated by China Mobile, for Apple this represents a huge opportunity for capital gain and a billion new potential customers to engage.

With the advancement of 3G infrastructure and the iPhone on the way, Apple and China Unicom look like a formidable team, one to watch in the coming months.

To understand why Dell would want to make such a limited mobile, you only have to look at the 3G subscriber numbers. China Mobile, for example, has 497 Million subscribers in total but only 1.09 million of those utilize the 3G network. This means 3G enabled “Smart Phones” make up only 0.21% of their total current business, making a wifi enabled 3G phone a truly niche product. To put this in perspective, AT&T Mobility have 79 million subscribers and have reported 40.8% of them having 3G devices.

With all these facts considered, the Dell Mini 3i looks well suited for the current market and set to do very well.

Sources: AT&T Mobility China Mobile

“There are 150 million WAP users in China so it’s approaching critical mass in terms of mobile internet for the moment, and now is the time when mobile players can start monetising this,” Bensaid said. “Mobile internet used to very much be entertainment-driven, whether it was accessing news, MP3s or pictures, but now it’s a more generic tool for search because mobile can be extremely local.” (Media Asia)

In Japan where Yahoo has the largest market share, Google has used the Mobile channel as a backdoor to gaining some market share, and it looks like the same is happening in China… especially with the recent news of Android phones being launched there soon (eg. Dell).

Baidu will certainly need to move quickly, but I don’t think creating a user-friendly Search function, is going to be enough. To compete with Google it will really need to develop an ecosystem around it’s API and encourage 3rd party developers to use it’s Search API and functionality in as many apps as possible. It’ll be interesting to see how this space develops.