Recently in Awards Category

Adding to its list of prestigious awards, ChaCha announced today that it took home top national prize in the Best New Service category of the American Business Awards, presented at a gala event held in NYC last Thursday. Hailed as "the business world's own Oscars" (New York Post, April 27, 2005), The American Business Awards are the only national, all-encompassing awards program honoring great performances in business.

Stevie Awards were presented in over 40 categories including Best Overall Company, Best Executive, and Best Corporate Social Responsibility Program. More than 2,600 entries from companies of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted for consideration.

This award is the sixth notable industry accolade ChaCha has won since the company launched its groundbreaking mobile answers text service in January 2008 - including being named in May as one of the Top 15 Innovators in the GSMA Mobile Innovation Marketplace America's competition. ChaCha was also recently named one of the "Fierce 15" companies of 2008 by FierceWireless, the online news authority for the wireless industry, and won the prestigious AT&T Fast-Pitch Platinum Award in April for best consumer mobile application at the CTIA Wireless Association Convention in Las Vegas. In March, ChaCha took top prize in the "My Search is Better than Your Search" competition at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Manhattan, and was also ranked as the "No. 1 Alternative Search Engine" in February by Charles Knight of the blogging network, ReadWriteWeb.

Gameloft, a leading developer and publisher of games for mobile phones and consoles, today announced they were named “Best-Ranked Mobile Game Publisher” in an independent study conducted by Pocket Gamer.

Considered to be the leading authority in mobile gaming, Pocket Gamer recently completed a comparison study reviewing game scores received by all game publishers. The analysis was based on 313 international game reviews made public between the months of January and March 2008. Game critique scores were compiled from such influential websites as Pocket Gamer, IGN Wireless, Mobile Game FAQs, AirGamer, and Midlet Review.

The winners of the Apple Design Awards 2008 in the iPhone categories are:

• Best iPhone Entertainment Application: AOL Radio - streams online radio to iPhone and iPod touch, making the iPhone work like an FM tuner.
  
• Best iPhone Social Networking Application: Twitterific - iPhone version of desktop application.
  
• Best iPhone Game: Enigmo - 3D puzzle game where players construct mechanisms to direct lasers, plasma, and water to toggle switches, deactivate force-fields, and eventually get them to their final destination.
• Best iPhone Web Application: Remember The Milk for iPhone & iPod touch - online task management service .
• Best iPhone Productivity Application: OmniFocus - information management tools.
• Best iPhone Healthcare & Fitness Application: MIM -medical imaging application with multi-planar reconstruction of fused data sets such as PET/CT, enabling physicians to retrieve patient images via iPhone or iPod touch.

The GSM Association (GSMA) announced the winners of the Americas leg of the 2009 Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition. The winners were announced at the Mobile Innovation Marketplace -in Atlanta, Georgia this week.

The Global Finalists for the 2009 Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition - Americas Tournament are:

• modu, Israel
• Ubidyne, Germany

And the five Global Semi-Finalists are:

Most Innovative Wireless Device-centric Technology

• CooTek, China

Most Innovative Carrier Infrastructure or Platform

• Ubidyne, Germany

Most Innovative Mobile Application in a Vertical Market

• Tagattitude, France

Most Innovative Consumer Application or Service

• Sharpcast, USA

Most Innovative ‘True Mobile Start-Up’

• modu, Israel

The results from Android Developer Challenge Part 1, Round 1 were announced by Google. We can only image what they do for now.

• AndroidScan - Jeffrey Sharkey
• Beetaun - Sergey Gritsyuk and Dmitri Shipilov
• BioWallet - Jose Luis Huertas Fernandez
• BreadCrumbz - Amos Yoffe
• CallACab - Konrad Huebner and Henning Boeger
• City Slikkers - PoroCity Media and Virtual Logic Systems
• Commandro - Alex Pisarev, Andrey Tapekha
• Cooking Capsules - Mary Ann Cotter and Muthuselvam Ramadoss
• Diggin - Daniel Johansson, Aramis Waernbaum, Andreas Hedin
• Dyno - Virachat Boondharigaputra
• e-ventr - Michael Zitzelsberger
• Eco2go - Taneem Talukdar, Gary Pong, Jeff Kao and Robert Lam
• Em-Radar - Jack Kwok
• fingerprint - Robert Mickle
• FreeFamilyWatch - Navee Technologies LLC
• goCart - Rylan Barnes
• GolfPlay - Inizziativa Networks
• gWalk - Prof. Dr.-Ing. Klaus ten Hagen, Christian Klinger, Marko Modsching, Rene Scholze
• HandWx - Weathertop Consulting LLC
• IMEasy - Yan Shi
• Jigsaw - Mikhail Ksenzov
• JOYity - Zelfi AG
• LifeAware - Gregory Moore, Aaron L. Obrien, Jawad Akhtar
• Locale - Clare Bayley, Christina Wright, Jasper Lin, Carter Jernigan
• LReady Emergency Manager - Chris Hulls, Dilpreet Singh, Luis Carvalho, Phuong Nguyen
• Marvin - Pontier Laurent
• Mobeedo - Sengaro GmbH
• Multiple Facets Instant Messenger - Virgil Dobjanschi
• MyCloset - Mamoru Tokashiki
• PedNav - RouteMe2 Technologies Inc.
• Phonebook 2.0 - Voxmobili
• PicSay - Eric Wijngaard
• PiggyBack - Christophe Petit and Sebastien Petit
• Pocket Journey - Anthony Stevens and Rosie Pongracz
• Rayfarla - Stephen Oldmeadow
• Safety Net - Michael DeJadon
• SocialMonster - Ben Siu-Lung Hui and Tommy Ng
• SplashPlay
• Sustain- Keeping Your Social Network Alive - Niraj Swami
• SynchroSpot - Shaun Terry
• Talkplay - Sung Suh Park
• Teradesk - José Augusto Athayde Ferrarini
• The Weather Channel for Android - The Weather Channel Interactive Inc.
• TuneWiki - TuneWiki Inc.
• Wikitude-the Mobile Travel Guide - Philipp Breuss
• Writing Pad - ShapeWriter Inc

Those of you following along carefully at home (or who bothered to read this far) will notice that there's only 46 in this list. 4 winners opted to continue their efforts in secret and so while we congratulate them too, we can't list them here.

The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) unveiled the winners of this year's Meffys awards at a  gala dinner in Cannes. The Meffys, sponsored by Nokia were hosted by popular TV presenter and Gadget Show guru Suzi Perry.

The new categories of: Quality of Experience, Off-Deck Service, and, Emerging Markets were added this year.

This year's winners were selected from more than 200 submissions from 21 countries covering four continents, underlining the universal appeal of mobile entertainment. 

Rimma Perelmuter, MEF Executive Director, said: "A focus on discoverability, interactivity, usability and affordability were the common strands shared by this year's winners.  Above all, the companies selected by the Meffys judges clearly focused on putting the consumer first; attracting and entertaining subscribers though a variety of appealing offerings including innovative new ad-supported, communities and subscription-based models."

To see the winners and also rans, continue reading.

The 12th Annual Webby Awards announced winners in seven categories honoring mobile Websites.

Achieving critical and popular consensus, ESPN.com Wireless won both a Webby Award and a Webby People’s Voice Award in the mobile Sports category.* The New York Times *won in the News and Listing & Updates categories.

Other winners ranged from major brands like NBC’s “Heroes” (Entertainment), Chase SMS Banking (Mobile Marketplace & Services), and Nike 10R (Gaming) to emerging mobile brands like Zannel (Social Networking).

Winners will be honored at the star-studded 12th Annual Webby Awards Gala in New York on June 10th. Hosted by Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers, the ceremony will showcase winners delivering the Webbys’ famous five-word speeches. The winning mobile Websites will be saluted alongside a remarkable slate of special achievement honorees, including Stephen Colbert (Webby Person of the Year) and musician and producer will.i.am (Webby Artist of the Year).

As a part of the two-year anniversary of “My Circle,” Alltel Wireless, is giving one lucky “My Circle” customer the opportunity to connect with their ‘circle’ of family and friends during a luxury vacation in one of the country’s top vacation destinations in Alltel’s “My Circle Reunion” text-to-win sweepstakes.

Between May 5, 2008 and May 31, 2008, customers can enter to win the “My Circle Reunion” sweepstakes by texting CIRCLE to 102102 or visiting www.alltel.com/circlereunion.

The grand prize package includes a four day and three night stay in one of three relaxation hot spots: Key West, Las Vegas or Palm Springs, Calif; a variety of activities including golf and spa packages; and a special meal prepared by celebrity chef Ted Allen. In order to help the group stay in touch after their getaway, Alltel Wireless is also giving the winner and ‘circle’ of guests a new [handset] and a $200 Alltel gift card.

FierceWireless has named it’s top 15 of the most innovative and smart emerging companies in the wireless industry, FierceWireless’ annual Fierce 15 list.

1. Bluepulse - a free mobile social messenger.
2. Carrier IQ - the only company embedding diagnostic software in the phone.
3. Celltrust - enables enterprises to connect, exchange and transact mobile data securely
4. Cequint - provides technology that enables wireless carriers to offer enhanced Caller ID services which includes city ID.
5. ChaCha - “mobile answers” text message service.
6. DeviceAnywhere - database of devices for developers.
7. Firetide - 70 Mbps wireless backhaul for data, VoIP, and real-time video.
8. Loopt - LBS coupled with social networking.
9. mFoundry - mFoundry is becoming the platform for mobile banking: Motorola and PayPal are among its investors.
10. Pelago - Pelago’s first product, Whrrl, allows you to discover the world through the eyes of your friends and other people you trust..
11. Sequans Communications - WiMAX silicon provider.
12. SkyCross - specializes in advanced antenna technology.
13. Ubiquisys - femtocell innovator.
14. uLocate - LBS specialty and the proud owner of www.where.com.
15. vLingo - voice recognition engine.

“One thing all our Fierce 15 companies have in common is a bright executive team and the potential to advance the wireless industry. Here are the firms that we think will become great success stories.” wrote editor Sue.

The Navteq LBS Awards were announced at CTIA.  The winning entries were:

Grand Prize Winner: Spotjots from N23

lst: Mediated Spaces Wildlab

2nd: heywhatsthat

3rd America's Emergency Network

Andrew Seybold, Inc. announced the winners of its Andrew Seybold Choice Awards at CTIA Wireless 2008.

Choice Award winners were announced at the  18th Annual Andrew Seybold Wireless Dinner at the Venetian Hotel.. The evening's awards centered around the theme of this year's dinner, Embrace, Empower and Envision, and featured Rhythm and Hue, a performance art show by world renowned artist David Garibaldi.

Andrew Seybold Choice Awards were created to honor the most innovative wireless mobility products and concepts and their positive impact in the world of wireless mobility connectivity. The mission is to raise the profile of exemplary companies and organizations among the press, the wireless industry and the general public. Finalists were selected in six categories from more than 150 entries submitted worldwide.

The winners of the 2008 Andrew Seybold Choice Awards are:

Most Innovative Wireless Devices      
Research In Motion for BlackBerry Pearl 8130

Most Innovative Consumer Application
MobiMate for WorldMate Live

Most Innovative Business Application
Pacific DataVision for SkyMail

Most Innovative New Service by a Wireless Operator or MNVO
T-Mobile USA for HotSpot @Home

Most Innovative New Design Concept   
Qualcomm for Gobi Global Mobile Internet Technology

Best New Company   
SnapTell for SnapTell's Snap.Send.Get solution

CTIA WIRELESS 2008 announced the winners of the third annual Emerging Technology (E-Tech) Awards. The E-Tech awards honor the best products and innovations in a number of categories representing the wireless ecosystem, including mobile consumer electronics, consumer mobile applications, enterprise solutions, network infrastructure, mobile widgets and 4G. CTIA WIRELESS is taking place this week at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The Best in Show award, chosen by CTIA WIRELESS attendees via text voting, goes to the Instinct by Samsung, exclusively from Sprint. The Instinct phone was unveiled during Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse's keynote address on Tuesday. Text voting capabilities were provided by iLoop, OpenMarket and NeuStar.

"This year's E-Tech award winners represent all facets of the mobile lifestyle - from the enterprise to the consumer," said Robert Mesirow, CTIA vice president and show director. "We'd like to thank each of the judges for giving their time and expertise to the process of choosing this year's top entrants. Congratulations to all of the winners."

Andrew Seybold, Inc., announced the selection of Finalists for the 2008 Andrew Seybold Choice Awards, which honor the most innovative wireless mobility products and concepts and their positive impact in the world of wireless mobility connectivity. More than 150 entries were submitted worldwide and Finalists were judged, evaluated and selected based on a defined set of criteria.

The 2008 Andrew Seybold Choice Awards Finalists in each category are:

Most Innovative Wireless Devices: Plantronics for Calisto Pro Series, Qualcomm for Gobi Global Mobile Internet Technology, Research In Motion for BlackBerry Pearl 8130, Telular for Wi-PATH SX7

Most Innovative Consumer Application:  MediaFLO USA for FLO TV, MobiMate for WorldMate Live, Nuance Communications for Nuance Speech Solutions in Ford SYNC, Obopay for Obopay.

Most Innovative Business Application:  AirClic for AirClic MP 5.4, Kodiak Networks for Kodiak Connected Applications, Pacific DataVision for SkyMail, Strata8 Networks for Strata8 Networks Enterprise Cellular.

Verizon Wireless was the only wireless carrier named to IDG Computerworld’s first-ever list of top Green-IT Companies for 2008. The honor is part of Computerworld’s inaugural Green-IT Companies feature in its Feb. 18 issue and online at Computerworld.com.

In recognizing the company, Computerworld noted Verizon Wireless deployed more than 7,000 thin clients in 12 call centers nationwide, reducing energy consumption and cooling costs. Power consumption tests at the company’s Chandler, Ariz., call center showed a 62.5 percent overall decrease in energy usage after deployment. Verizon Wireless also rolled out power management software on 61,000 managed desktops companywide that enables automatic shutdown and sleep schedules. The initiative accounted for a 24 percent reduction in both PC power consumption and CO2 emissions. In addition to pursuing energy-saving technology in call centers, Verizon Wireless has also implemented virtualization technology in its data centers. This approach, coupled with the higher energy efficiency of the new servers, significantly decreases electricity and cooling costs.

“Being ‘green’ is not just saying you’re conscious about the environment and its challenges. In today’s business world, it’s about efficiency, power consumption and applying those green principles to smart business decision making,” said Don Tennant, editorial director, Computerworld. “The companies recognized in our first Top Green-IT Computing issue have taken a serious look at how they impact the environment and how they can address those challenges with good business sense.”

NAVTEQ , announced at Mobile World Congress 2008 that UbiEst is the European grand prize winner of this year’s Global LBS Challenge.

The winning application, UbiSafe, a new LBS service that gives families the peace of mind of always knowing the location of loved ones. Users can set preferences or get notifications via their mobile phone to know instantly that a child has left school or a user defined safety zone.

Three runners-up were also selected by the judging panel and include:

Senda: Chronomove; Chronomove reduces the daily stress of commuting by taking the mystery out of travel times. Drivers get fastest route options based on real time traffic conditions and highly accurate travel time estimates with this always on solution. Chronomove is powered by AtlasCT.

Oxford Softworks: Nearme Nearme is a highly portable LBS application that enables advanced POI searches based on user location and preferences. Branded and trusted content such as reviews, pricing and photos are delivered to cell phones to empower users to explore their surroundings and make informed decisions. Nearme is powered by deCarta.

GyPSii: GyPSii is an integrated web and wireless application that connects user-generated content (such as restaurant reviews) to people and places. Find friends, view shared videos and photos in real time, or explore the environment around you.

The worldwide contest, which has established a reputation as the premier event in the location-based services (LBS) industry, challenges application developers to build innovative location-based services which work with mobile phones and/or wireless handheld devices using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ maps.

GSMA named GestureTek the overall winner for its handset interface in for the 2008 Mobile Innovation Global Award.

GestureTek's EyeMobile Engine takes mobile gaming and navigation to new heights. This software-only solution uses the existing camera on a mobile device to deliver a gesture-based interface to mobile applications. An entertaining and intuitive alternative to conventional button interfaces, EyeMobile allows users to do anything they would normally do with their mobile device, such as play games, answer calls, make menu selections or scroll, pan and zoom in on photos, simply by shaking, rocking or rolling their device. With the EyeMobile Engine, handset manufacturers can offer all of the benefits of gesture recognition technology, without the expense and real estate of adding specialized hardware.  The EyeMobile Engine Application Programming Interface (API) also provides application developers with the means to integrate motion control into their applications, much as they do with current conventional controls, such as keys and buttons.

The Winners:

• Most Innovative Wireless Device-centric Technology - Inside Contactless (France)
  
• Most Innovative Carrier Infrastructure or Platform - Flexenclosure (Sweden)
  
• Most Innovative Mobile Application in a Vertical Market - GestureTek (USA)
  
• Most innovative Consumer Application or Service - Tagattitude (France) Most Innovative True Mobile Start-Up - Audience (USA)