At this past weekend’s Comic-Con in San Diego Paramount Pictures and Shangri-La Entertainment offered a peak at the upcoming Beowulf movie to enthusiastic crowds. Now comes word that a mobile game will arrive in time for the November 16 movie release.
Gameloft has announced that it will publish the mobile handset version of the game, which will coincide with the release of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PSP versions. Gameloft will develop, publish and distribute the game in more than 75 countries. Based on the classic English poem, the film version is being brought to the big screen by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery.
By 2010 a fifth of all e-mail could be wireless. So says a study by analyst firm Gartner, which predicts that 20% of all e-mail will be accessed wirelessly. This rise will see e-mail take over from other messaging services including text messages and MMS, although it might be some time until mobile e-mail completely overtakes SMS.
Here is a number we didn’t want to see… In Australia only three percent of discarded mobile phones ended up being recycled last year. And with 8.7 million phones being shipped to the land down under that’s a lot of handsets that could be ending up in landfills, as the average user is upgrading their phones every 18 months to two years. According to recently released figures from the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association the proportion of phones being recycled is actually falling! The group is now calling on governments world wide to make the mobile industry more accountable for collecting unwanted phones. 
Match.com will soon let you keep track of your dates from your mobile handsets with MatchMobile, which will be available to users in the United States, the U.K. and Canada later this summer, and then to nine additional countries by the end of the year. The service will provide subscribers with text messages to their phones when they receive an e-mail from other Match.com users. For an extra $5 monthly fee, MatchMobile subscribers can receive and answer e-mail from suitors via their mobile phones.
Today Buzzwire, Inc. (formerly 4th Media) announced that its streaming mobile media service is available as a public beta. This upcoming service will let users create their own customized program lineup and access it on their mobile phones. A formal launch with select carriers is scheduled for the fall of 2007.
As we reported last week Virgin Mobile was pulling the plug on Movio, the under-performing Mobile TV branch that was launched through a partnership with BT using the DAB TV standard. Now with the partnership dissolved it seems that Virgin Mobile will likely discontinue sales and production of the Lobster 700TV mobile handset, which had been the carrier’s flagship mobile TV device. Owners will still be able to access DAB radio, but that hardly seems enough of a draw for the awkwardly designed phone. 
Today Verizon Wireless announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Rural Cellular Corporation to further enhance the Verizon Wireless’ network coverage in markets adjacent to its existing service areas, and increase coverage by 4.7 million, and customer base by more than 700,000. The terms of the deal would have Verizon Wireless acquire Rural Cellular for approximately $2.67 billion in cash and assumed debt. 
A new report from research firm Frost & Sullivan predicts that next generation mobile networks, customized multimedia content and user-generated content could drive growth in Europe’s saturated mobile communications market. According to the study’s findings mobile operators investing strongly in next generation mobile networks and deploying HSDPA networks across Europe. These networks will boost the adoption of user-generated and other multimedia content. 
If you commute by mass transportation in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut tri-state region you can use the Dadnab service to help plan your trips. Users can send a text message with an origin and destination to ‘tri@dadnab.com’, and just seconds later get a text message back detailing optimal routes and travel times, and includes which buses, trains and even ferries to take. The service uses scheduled information from a coalition of 16 transit and public safety agencies
Do you feel the need to stay in constant touch with colleagues and friends? Do you check your e-mail at all times of the day? Well, you’re not alone. According to a new AOL service, the average e-mail user checks his or her mail and estimated five times per day, and 59 percent of mobile users check every time a new message arrives. Washington, DC according to the survey is the most “e-mail addicted” city in the United States. Maybe the government is hard at work… or maybe they’re checking e-mail during those long Senate hearings.
