Intellitext Debuts MSN Search Toolbar With Privacy Protection

The tool is designed to deliver information from the Web or desktop without capturing user information. The company is expanding the capabilities of Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Search Toolbar with a proactive research tool that offers users some added privacy.

By Antone Gonsalves TechWeb News

Intellext Inc. is expanding the capabilities of Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Search Toolbar with a proactive research tool that delivers information from the web or the desktop, but doesn't capture any information from the user, which has been a source of criticism against Google Inc.
The Watson 2.0 add-in, released Friday by the Chicago-based company, contains algorithms that tries to determine helpful information based on what the person is writing in Microsoft Word or Excel, or what their checking out on Web pages in Internet Explorer or the Firefox browsers.
The tool, which is meant to lessen the need to launch a separate search, delivers the information from sources selected by the user, whether Web sites or desktop files, in a small strip that can be placed anywhere. The user can decide whether the sidebar is always in view or hidden.
"We've designed Watson to be very polite," Jay Budzik, chief technology officer for Intellext, said. "Our philosophy is the user is in control."
Control over personal information is what Intellext hopes will make its product more appealing to consumers than Google's search services. Privacy advocates have criticized the latter company for gathering and storing search history and other information from users. Google, however, says it does not share the information with third parties, and uses it primarily to help improve its services.
Nevertheless, Intellext believes people are concerned enough about privacy on the Web to consider its tool, which is sold on a subscription basis and is not supported by advertising. The add-in costs $9.95 a month or $99 a year.
"We think the privacy implications are so significant that we have an imperative to protect (customers)," Alan G. Wasserberger, chief executive for Intellext, said.
Ad revenue, however, could eventually contribute to Intellext's bottom line.
"We do see a day when partners will want to put ads in the Watson client, but when we do that, we'll do it in such a way where the customer's privacy is protected," Wasserberger said.
In launching the tool, Intellext wants to tap the millions of users of Microsoft's MSN Search Toolbar, which includes desktop search and other capabilities. Rivals Yahoo Inc. and Google offer similar toolbars.
The interest in desktop search among the portal giants stems from the fact that most people looking to buy or research products on the web use multiple search engines, analysts say. Tying a person's PC to a shopping and entertainment portal through a desktop-search engine makes it more likely a shopper will start with that site.

Nokia 6630 Music

Nokia 6630 Music

Due September/October 2005

19th September 2005

The Nokia 6630 Music is a repackaging of the standard Nokia 6630 handset which has been around for the best part of a year.

Nokia have enhanced the 6630 by installing an improved music player, and bundling a 256Mb RSMMC memory card, stereo jack adapter and compact card reader into the package, and have cosmetically tweaked it to come in "Rustic Red" and "Aluminium Grey" colour schemes.
It's a slightly oddball device. Many people assumed that the Nokia 6630 was an end-of-life device, having been largely replaced by the slightly better Nokia 6680 and upcoming Nokia N70. Still, the 6630 is a good hardware platform, with a decent 176x220 pixel display, Bluetooth, removable memory plus the Symbian Series 60 operating system. The Nokia 6630's attractive "hamster cheek" design is appealing too. The biggest omission with the 6630 handset is the lack of 3G video calling, as it only has one camera, although that's a pretty good 1.3 megapixel unit.
The clunky stereo jack plug adapter is offputting though (that's the large black cable). Because the Nokia 6630 music doesn't accept a direct connection from a standard headset, the adapter is a necessary but cumbersome component. The compact card reader is also an odd thing, and it's only really useful for people who don't have a multifunction card reader already.

However, the Nokia 6630 platform lends itself well to being a music player. The 256Mb memory card included is enough to be practical, and you can install up to 1Gb of memory into the phone. By our reckoning, that gives about 16 CDs worth of MP3s when recorded at the highest quality (Nokia claim that you can fit 15 CDs worth on the 256Mb card, but in our view this can only be done by recording very low quality MP3s).

Compared to the Motorola ROKR, the Nokia 6630 Music fares well. It has a better camera, larger track capacity, 3G support and an expandable operating system. It even manages to hold its own against the Sony Ericsson W800i, which is a more compact phone with a better camera, but it lacks the Nokia's 3G and smartphone capabilities.

At the same time, Nokia have announced their "Nokia Music Pack" - basically the stereo adapter, memory card and card reader components of the Nokia 6630 Music. This will be available for the 3230, 6230 & 6230i, 6260, 6630, 6680 & 6681/2, 7710, 9300, 9500, N70 and N90 handsets.

The Nokia 6630 Music should start shipping from September 2005 onwards in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Review: Mobile Payment Has Growing Pains

Review: Mobile Payment Has Growing Pains

Sep 15, 8:55 PM (ET)

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN

(AP) MobileLime president & CEO Robert Wesley poses for photos holding his cell phone in front of credit...Full Image

BOSTON (AP) - The logic is solid behind MobileLime, a new service designed to let you leave your wallet at home - or at least some of the cards in it - and instead use your cell phone to buy things. Too bad the service, in my tests around town, didn't seem quite ready for the mobile masses.
As a concept, buying stuff with your cell phone - more on how you do that in a second - seems like a great idea. For one, who leaves home without their cell these days? And with identity theft a growing concern, who wants to hand their credit card over to a stranger?
The concept already has traction in Japan, where NTT DoCoMo says its mobile wallet service has 3 million users. Compared to Americans, Asian consumers are far more accustomed to using advanced phone services.
The people behind MobileLime, Watertown, Mass.-based Vayusa Inc., hope to change that.

(AP) MobileLime president & CEO Robert Wesley poses for photos holding his cell phone in front of credit...Full ImageThe service exists for now at 80 stores in the Boston area. Vayusa claims it has signed up 10,000 users, and CEO Bob Wesley says he expects that to increase dramatically in coming months with nationwide additions to the network.
MobileLime works with any cell phone, regardless of manufacturer or wireless carrier.
Here's how it operates:
_A fast and painless online registration.
_You transfer money into a MobileLime account and use it like a prepaid debit card. Or you set up the system so each transaction is charged to your credit card.

(AP) A MobileLime's sign is seen on the entrance of Angora Cafe in Boston, Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005....Full Image_Once enrolled, you can use the Web site to spot coupons at participating merchants or track your progress in customer loyalty programs. For example, a store might give you $5 off when your cumulative spending there through MobileLime surpasses $75.
_When you're ready to buy something, you pull out the cell phone and call MobileLime. An automated voice greets you by name. You key in your four-digit PIN followed by the location code, a short number posted in the store. Then you give the cashier the last four digits of your cell number.
It's pretty fast - though with all those steps it's slower than cash, unless you begin the keypunching even before the clerk begins to tally your order.
Most attractive are the discounts many MobileLime merchants offer in exchange for being able to track your spending. I got two freshly made smoothies for a total of just $1.09 thanks to the combination of two such deals.
But that's about the only real advantage. It's not like you actually can leave your wallet at home.
I work in downtown Boston, and yet there was only one place nearby that accepted MobileLime: the KaBloom flower stand in South Station, the city's main train depot.
I don't really hold that against MobileLime, because it faces a classic chicken-and-egg problem: Consumers generally don't want to sign up for a technology unless it is usable in lots of locations, but merchants won't bother to adopt a new scheme unless lots of potential customers are on board.
What bothered me more were the service's growing pains.
In my first attempt with it, the sales attendant at KaBloom insisted I couldn't use MobileLime to buy things. She thought it was merely a way to record my purchases so KaBloom could grant me rewards as my spending increased. Paying with the phone? That would leave her register short at the end of the day, she said.
I persisted, and tried to explain, but she stood her ground, and quickly the situation became ridiculous. Someone behind me was waiting. Unwilling to make a flower-buying commuter late for her train, I dropped my pleas, plunked down cash, and left.
Another time, in a creperie in nearby Brookline, I called MobileLime and my PIN got rejected. Again, I ended up paying cash.
Almost certainly, I had simply forgotten my PIN. Not MobileLime's fault, of course, but a downside of the service. So I returned to the Web site and changed the PIN to one I'd be sure to remember.
Then I ventured to a coffee house in Cambridge and tried again.
I ended up making four calls to MobileLime while my cafe au lait was in the works. Each time I entered the PIN, I got silence. Without warning, the call would just drop.
Once again, cash remained king.
Later I was told that the company had made a switch in its computer systems that caused a 20-minute loss of service, which happened to coincide with my test.
From then on, MobileLime worked fine. Discounts due to me were automatically applied. Within seconds of transactions, a receipt was text-messaged to my phone and sent to my e-mail - a setting that can be turned off if you choose.
But the fact remains that the process of calling and punching in codes is too cumbersome.
The real future of mobile payments probably will entail having a radio-frequency chip embedded in the phone casing and letting users just wave the device past checkout-counter readers. Indeed, that technology is already used in Japan's phone-payment services and is beginning to emerge here, too, in new "contactless" credit cards.
To his credit, Wesley says MobileLime is exploring the technology. Until then, I'll hang on to my wallet.