IMB, which stands for Internet Mobile Banking is a Cape Town based startup that believes it is “more than just a bank” because it offers customers far more. IMB’s main focus is to make payments, particularly from mobile devices, easier for both consumers and merchants in a way that is beneficial to both.

The motivation behind IMB, which initially began by building a mobile wallet back in 2005, was to solve a number of problematic issues associated with online banking. These include expensive fees, lack of micro-billing, inability to use debit cards for online transactions and the search for more efficient ways to transact with money via more efficient software and API services. Another important factor was that many people, like mobile game developers were having to use services like premium rated SMS messages in order to get money from those without credit cards.

James Godwin, Chief Information Officer, who is passionate about what IMB is trying to achieve, says that “Visa, Mastercard and the banks control how people pay for things and we wanted to change that.” Godwin first entered into the mobile technology industry when he began running an internet service provider that he later sold. It was when he opened a developer business that he met IMB’s CEO, Tim Colman. At first, the two wanted to find a way for people to shop online with debit cards, but they met resistance from some SA banks and so headed in another direction allowing websites and brick and mortar businesses to receive payments via mobile phones that was cost effective, safe and efficient.

Another way of making mobile banking more cost effective and providing customers with alternative ways to receive notifications other than from an sms (which is expensive) is by introducing a social element that can further evolve into geo tagging to monitor your spending, sending a checkin to foursquare upon purchase or notifying a friend through Twitter. “There are a lot more options” says Godwin, “but we would like customer feedback to best evolve and direct our system to better enable the social space.”

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On Monday, U.S. and European regulators approved Google Inc’s purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for the price of $12.5 billion and have made it clear that they will be keeping a close watch on the search giant to ensure patents critical to the telecom industry would be licensed at fair prices. Reuters reports that this decision by the regulators was one of a number of approvals that underscored the scramble by technology companies to acquire big pools of patents.

Google’s move to buy Motorola Mobility came shortly after it tried and failed to buy bankrupt Canadian company Nortel Networks’ abundance of patents that was approved by the U.S. Justice Department as an Apple Inc-led consortium purchase.  The patents includes Research in Motion Ltd, Microsoft Corp, EMC Corp, Ericsson and Sony Corp, which agreed to pay $4.5 billion for 6,000 patents and patent applications in July of last year.

In August 2011, Google said that it would buy Motorola for its 17,000 patents and 7,500 patent applications, in order to compete with rivals such as Apple and defend itself and Android phone manufacturers in patent litigation. Antitrust enforcers on both sides of the Atlantic want to prevent companies from gouging rivals when they license patents which  is essential in ensuring that different competing firms’ communications devices work together.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia explained that ”This merger decision should not and will not mean that we are not concerned by the possibility that, once Google is the owner of this portfolio, Google can abuse these patents, linking some patents with its Android devices. This is our worry.”

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For all iPhone users, Instagram has just received a 2.1 upgrade that offers a brand new filter that is going to make your pictures on the social networking service look even better as well as a user interface makeover.

The new, and very useful, feature is called Lux and is for users who have taken pictures that appear too dark in some areas. Lux acts as a light that you can ‘shine’ on your picture’s darker areas so you can actually see the parts of the picture that lie in shadow. Lux is like HDR that you can apply after the picture’s been taken and can further enhance a great image. So, if you have ever taken a photograph using your iPhone that unintentionally results in the subject’s face or part of the background being left in the dark, Lux will now solve this problem for you so no picture is wasted.

Another change with the update is the user interface where the home screen’s navigation icons no longer have labels and in their place is a selection of large and clean stylized icons. Some users may find this change tricky as you won’t know exactly what will happen when you tap one of the buttons. However, it is a quick and easy change to adjust to.

Notifications have also been  improved by taking you directly to the photo, comment or profile once it has been clicked.

Lux brings a whole new dimension to the app for iPhone which has attracted a network of users consisting of 15 million photo enthusiasts and people who just want to have fun with their iPhone cameras to date.

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As an official sponsor of the Orange Africa Cup of Nations Gabon-Equatorial Guinea 2012, Samsung today announced the availability of the ‘Africa Cup of Nations’ App, on the Samsung South African Apps store.

Says Deon Liebenberg, MD of Samsung South Africa; “As Samsung has been a long-time supporter of African football, we felt it only natural for us to invest in such an application; the application will offer fans an opportunity to keep up to date with the latest information and results around the event, with ease and while on the move.”

The application features competitions, galleries, live scores, downloads and fixtures for the 2012 tournament and is available for all fans to download for free.

“We are committed to our customers and through this app we aim to offer the best possible enjoyment of the tournament. Fans can now follow the tournament passionately and not miss out as we understand that it is not always possible to catch all the live action. We, at Samsung, are again meeting the needs of our consumers – in this case sports fans – and are providing them with content that not only allows for great entertainment, but fuels the spirit of African soccer,” concludes Liebenberg.

Recently launched local app Bozza, the first of its kind,  is a mobile app for content distribution that is specifically aimed at musicians, poets, filmmakers and artists. The app essentially allows them to self-publish their content and earn a 50% revenue share off their channels. The content (music tracks, videos, poems, football news, animated clips, peer-to-peer learning & matric tutorials etc.) is all free to the end user and is compressed in such a way that its small enough to avoid high data charges, but without compromising on the quality of the viewing or listening experience.

Bozza aims to to fill the space where there continues to be a lack of locally generated contextually relevant content for the African market, where most individuals engage with digital communication, information and entertainment through their mobile phones.

Optimized to view content on mobile phones, Bozza currently works on all handsets, more specifically feature phones, with BlackBerry optimisation currently in development and smartphone optimisationton to follow in mid 2012.  The app is currently being integrated into the Vodacom app store and MXit users can check out the Bozza bot to find out what the app has to offer.

In 2010, Bozza’s proof of concept which was launched on MXit with seven minutes of made-for-mobile video content, had over 40 000 downloads in 3 days and 170 000 in 3 months. This success proves that there is a receptive market for local quality content and lead to Emma Kaye, Founder and CEO of Bozza, securing investment to build a custom mobile application. 

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As the first cross mobile OS app store in Africa, BandwidthBlog was curious about the performance of the Vodacom app store since its launch on 1 September 2011. We pinged Vodacom for some insight and what we found was some very interesting stats:

Vodacom revealed that the app store offers about 140 000 apps and since its launch has generated over 800 000 downloads. This is an interesting stat as all apps were free to download upon its launch and as of December 2011 the paid apps library was launched. Predictably social networking apps are the most popular downloaded apps followed by games. Taking the top spot for most downloaded app is Facebook chat which is currently the most popular app download. In the local front, the most popular app is the K53 learner’s app for first time drivers. Game apps such as Mario55 and Qeep are also performing well on the market.

As expected, the Blackberry Curve 8520 remains the leader in the top performing devices on the store as one of the most widely used devices in the South African market followed by the never say die Samsung E250.

As we previously covered results revealed that the South African personal finance app for Android, Expenza, listed on the Vodacom app store, quickly gathered more downloads in comparison to its listing in the Android Marketplace. This performance on the Vodacom app store indicates that users are excited about and receptive to a local carrier app and that there could be a bright future for carrier app stores.

The success of the Vodacom app store, paves the way for other service providers in Africa to enter into the app store market. We love the emerging trend of niche app stores, as the international app stores get bloated with millions of apps. App developers also love niche app stores as they find it increasingly difficult to get noticed in the big app stores.

Vodacom has slashed data prices with a new promotion for contract customers, including Top Up. The launch of a Broadband Standard MyGig 1 and MyGig 2 data contract promotion which runs from 07 February 2012 to 06 May 2012 is the latest in a series of data promotions from Vodacom. With this latest promotion, Vodacom has broken the R100 price point on big data bundles – customers will now pay only R99 for 1GB.

“Our previous data promotions proved to be so successful that we decided to do it again. This time we’re giving savings of up to 60% to our customers. It is just the value proposition our customers are looking for at the beginning of the year. And as with all our data products, these promotional contracts will use Vodacom’s high speed data network with the broadest coverage across South Africa,” says Chris Ross, Managing Executive for Commercial Development at Vodacom.

The Broadband Standard MyGig 1, 24 month contract has been reduced from R249 per month to R99 per month, giving customers a 60% saving and the MyGig 2, 24 month contract has been reduced from R349 per month to R149. After the initial 24 months contract period, the contract can be renewed or will continue on a month to month basis, at the then prevailing rate for the relevant bundle size. The promotional offer includes a free modem and normal out of bundle prices apply. There are no restrictions on the use of these data bundles – they can be used any time of the day.

“We recently offered our prepaid customers a 20GB promotion that offered them great value and now we are offering our contract and Top Up customers great value” adds Ross.

Customers can visit their nearest service provider to sign up for a promotional Broadband Standard MyGig 1 or MyGig 2, 24 month data contract or Top Up data contract.

Joe Belfiore

Pocketnow.com has learned new details about the new Windows Phone 8 that include a number of features and themes that were accidentally revealed by senior vice president and Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore in a video intended only for partners at Nokia. The Windows Phone 8 codenamed “Apollo”, is the next version of Microsoft’s mobile operating system that is scheduled for launch after the upcoming Tango update.

According to Belfiore, the overall theme of the Windows Phone 8 hardware ecosystem will be scale and choice in order to address one of the platform’s shortcomings in competing with Android and iPhone based devices’ specifications. More specifically, Windows Phone 8 will have support for multi-core processors and microSD card support will also be added.

NFC (Near Field Communication) will also be supported, with emphasis placed on the phone’s push into contactless payments. The “wallet experience,” as he calls it, will have the capability to be carrier-branded and controlled, either by a secure element on the SIM card or utilizing hardware. In addition, NFC will  allow desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones to share content.

Rather than just share a UI with the next generation desktop and tablet OS, Windows Phone 8 will use many of the same components as Windows 8, allowing developers to re-use most of the code when porting an app from a desktop to the phone. Belfiore specifically mentions that areas of heavy overlap include the kernel, networking stacks, security and multimedia support.

The Xbox Companion app, currently found on Windows Phones, will see a partner client on Windows 8 with Skydrive support promising seamless sharing of data between devices.

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