Finnish authorities ponder emergency messaging system

Helsinki (dpa) - Finnish nationals may next year be able to receive text messages about major accidents or natural disasters as part of a new messaging system planned by the government, reports said Wednesday....

South Korea launches world‘s first broadcast to mobile phone service

Seoul (dpa) - South Koreans have began to see digital TV content on their mobile phones, with the world‘s first commercial launch of digital broadcast on hand-held phones Sunday...

Smartphones with server connection: Do not store critical data

Washington (dpa) - Prospects for the technology sector rose Tuesday as semiconductor titan Intel Corp. reported that first-quarter profits and revenues were bolstered by sharply higher sales of computer chips for laptop models...

CoreMedia Announces New Phase of MINDS Project

August 20th, 2004 CoreMedia, the German-based content technology company, has announced a new phase of the MINDS project (Mobile Information and News Data Services for 3G), which is funded by the European Union. The MINDS project was launched eight months ago by five European news agencies that are developing new news services based on CoreMedia's Smart Content Technology --including content management and digital rights management. The mobile media project MINDS is intended to supply the European mobile network operators and publishers with a first set of standards and concepts for mobile information services by the end of 2004.

Over the past months, several steps have been taken to launch twelve new information and news services for end consumers, companies, and public institutions across Europe. Among these service propositions are special mobile offerings for regional newspapers that want to provide readers with local breaking news, sports livetickers, or information about classified ads. In the focus are also tailor-made products for younger target groups such as local logos for mobile handsets or mobile event and party information. CoreMedia is providing the technology for mobile services.

MINDS is funded by eContent, a market-oriented program which aims to support the production, use, and distribution of European digital content and to promote linguistic and cultural diversity on the global networks. (Note: eContent is not affiliated with EContent magazine) Members of the consortium are the national news agencies of Austria, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Together with the technical partners arvato systems/Bertelsmann, CoreMedia AG, Fraunhofer FOKUS, and Ifra, the group develops mobile media services. Moreover, the consortium plans to define standards that should be valid all over Europe. In this respect MINDS hopes to establish a cooperative network with additional national news agencies.

(www.coremedia.com; www.minds-project.net)