Mobile Content Bits: China Cloud; Photobucket Ovi; Wireless Cars; 12MP Cameraphone; VHA Merger OK

imageChina Mobile Cloud Computing: China Mobile is developing a cloud computing platform — BigCloud — to beef up its mobile internet services. The goal is to provied “featured mobile Internet information service for individual users and corporate users”, and services will include “instant information, content storage, information search, integrated communication, music downloading, mobile map, mobile mailbox, as well as mobile directions” reports TMC News.

Photobucket On Ovi: Photobucket has released a free application on the Ovi store, which lets users create a Photobucket account, log into Photobucket to access personal albums, browse and view the billions of photos on Photobucket, upload images, delete photos, and view and edit photo titles and descriptions. (release)

Car Makers To Focus On Wireless: The majority of vehicle manufacturers will concentrate product development efforts for mature markets on enabling wireless data connectivity in more than half of their next-generation cars by 2012, according to Gartner. “The automotive industry must explore new ways to generate consumer interest, product differentiation and revenue opportunities,” said Thilo Koslowski, research vice president at Gartner. “Web-based applications and services specifically designed to enhance the driving and ownership experience, in particular, represent a significant chance to accomplish this.” (release)

Samsung’s 12MP Cameraphone: Samsung has announced a 10 megapixel cameraphone with a touch-screen auto-tracking feature. As Engadget notes, “12 megapixels translates to files ranging from 2MB to 18MB and beyond depending on the compression used (Samsung doesn’t say)”, which runs straight into storage and data-cost issues. The phone has WiFi for those who don’t want to pay for an unlimited mobile data connection, and 150 Mb of on-board storage…or you can get a MicroSD card, up to 16 GB.

ACCC OK’s VodaHutch Merger: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has given the go-ahead to the merger of Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Australia and Hutchison Australia, with the new company VHA expected to be formed in two weeks. The new telco will have 6 million customers and annual revenues of around A$4 billion ($3.19 billion). The ACCC noted that rather than lessening competition in the market the merger would have the opposite effect: “The evidence gathered in fact indicated that, without the merger, the operators would be unable to sustain vigorous price competition” reports TelecomAsia.

African Mobile Banking: Anybody paying attention in the area knows that mobile banking is gaining the most traction in Africa, mostly because it’s the only form of banking available for vast numbers of people. There are 6.5 million mobile banking customers in Kenya, about one sixth of the population. “The global market for mobile money is growing at 70 percent a year and should attain ‘mainstream’ status by 2012 with more than 190 million customers, or more than three percent of mobile users,” according to Gartner. Mobile banking hasn’t yet made a massive profit in Africa, but the telcos involved see it as a way to increase the stickiness of their customers, notes Reuters.

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