A Look at Products In Europe's Pipeline
May 15, 2011
Telephones aren't just for talking. Dynamic Systems Research Ltd., a London-based software development company, hopes its new Airmail service will revolutionize communications with telephone e-mail. Airmail allows digital cellular phone owners to send and receive e-mail directly from their handsets via the Internet, without using a computer or a modem. Users don't have to call up or log on; the phone beeps, an envelope appears on the handset screen, and the message can be read 11 words at a time. Users can then compose their own messages, using the handset's keypad, to send as e-mail. The Airmail service is currently restricted to areas connected to the GSM network, including Europe, Australia and parts of the Middle East and Asia. DSR is in talks with U.S. companies about plans for North America. The service requires a special e-mail address; charges include a one-time connection fee of 25 pounds ($39). The Drive to Cyber-Shopping BP Oil Deutschland GmbH's new frontier is ... groceries? In an experimental venture, the unit of British Petroleum Co. has paired 10 Munich gas stations with a virtual grocery store. BP Electronic Shopping lets gas-station customers choose from more than 10,000 products, placing their order with a touch-tone interactive PC terminal. Cyber-shoppers zoom down virtual aisles full of groceries -- without crowds, long lines or even physical exertion -- and pay with EC debit cards. The shops don't stop at muesli and milk. BP has paired up with Bertelsmann unit BMG Ariola Miller to create an Entertainment Shop offering CDs, videos and computer games, and with mail-order house Pablo Carlos for catalog merchandise ranging from clothes and jewelry to stereos. Goods and groceries are delivered to your home the next day. BP says it's still assessing the project's success, so the fate of electronic tank-side shopping is yet to be determined. One clear advantage: The BP market is open daily until 10 p.m. German stores currently close at 6 p.m. weekdays and 1 p.m. Saturdays. What's next? Banking, insurance and travel services, says BP. Soon gas will be superfluous. The Tippy TV The basic tools of any lazy television watcher's trade are a TV tray, a TV dinner, and a TV remote control. Now French consumer-electronics group Thomson SA takes slothfulness one step further. Its Zeo television adjusts to whatever angle the viewer chooses. Apart from the curvy 1970s design and colors (including pea green and wilting salmon), the Zeo is a basic portable TV with a 35-centimeter screen, flat color picture and mono sound. Should its remote control fall between the sofa cushions, just whistle -- it beeps back. The Zeo sells for 229.99 pounds ($357.75). New Generation of Hotel M.A.I.D. Soon, checking into a hotel will mean checking the latest stock prices and checking your e-mail. M.A.I.D. Multimedia Ltd., a unit of London-based business-information provider M.A.I.D. PLC, has teamed with Thorn Business Communications to supply in-room Internet services to several European hotel chains via Thorn's Guestlink service. Thorn expects Guestlink, which also provides Sega games, pay-per-view TV and other entertainment, to be in some 100,000 hotel rooms world-wide by year end. The new service uses a keyboard and infrared technology with the hotel-room TV. It allows guests access to the Internet, including the World Wide Web and e-mail, as well as some of M.A.I.D.'s Profound services such as news and stock-market updates. Though the Internet module is optional, M.A.I.D. says it expects most Guestlink hotels to sign up. The pilot project runs until the end of October, when the real service launches. Hotels currently on the Guestlink system include Marriott, Hemphill and Holiday Inn. Plastic Access Someday, Internet access points will be as ubiquitous as phones are today, with hookups in restaurants, trains, planes -- maybe even sidewalk booths. Cybercafes are paving the way, but the system is still awkward. If you rent a networked PC in a foreign city in order, say, to check your personal e-mail, you still need to know server addresses, host names and other technical information -- and speak the local language. The new Internet Card from France's Cybercity could make the connection easier. A microchip embedded in the plastic card carries the user's personal network information and even stores a list of Web bookmarks. Feed it into a special reader, and the computer automatically configures to your specifications in your language. The card is targeted at people who work in several different locations, as well as users in libraries and cybercafes. Although the cards themselves cost just a few dollars each, installing the system is still quite expensive; the price may drop as usage expands. A set of cards, software and a card reader, available only for PCs, currently costs around $1,000. A Cup of Java Java, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s programming language, is the hottest thing in cyberspace: Software makers are jumping at it. So you'd expect the winner of Sun's first JavaCup contest for developers of applications using Java to be a Silicon Valley startup, or maybe a nerd from Silicon Alley, Manhattan's ``new media'' district. Think again. By choosing a Swiss team from among the 360 competitors, the JavaCup jurors, sent an implicit message that Europe isn't lagging on the Infobahn. The first prize -- $200,000 in Sun machines -- went to a group of young computer scientists led by Mario Leak, a 28-year-old engineer, for ``Cybcerone,'' a system of interactive computer stations aimed at visitors to the University of Lausanne. Cybcerone groups event data bases, train schedules, campus maps, address books and other information based on a dynamic, user friendly interface. One option opens a series of maps; type in the name of the person you're looking for, and the path to their office is highlighted. --By Kimberlie A. Merriman in London, Bryant Saavedra in Lausanne and Michiko Law in Hamburg.
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