American Airlines is targeting mostly mobile customers with a new service that recognizes callers inquiring about upcoming journeys.

The service, called “Remember Me,” is based on caller ID technology to help American Airlines AAdvantage loyalty program customers when they call in for information such as departure gate and flight times. The Telme caller ID technology will cut down the response times to calls made.

“With Remember Me, the need that we’re addressing is the speed to get the information to customers,” said Billy Sanez, spokesman for AA, Fort Worth, TX. “We know that the majority of customers have a cell phone and use that to call us for flight information.

“In the past, it would have taken us 2 ½ minutes to get that information and instead of being reactive, we’re proactive in giving them the right information that they’re calling for,” he said.

With Remember Me, the response time is reduced to between 25 seconds and 30 seconds, according to AA.

The boarding passes can be sent from the site at http://www.aa.com or the mobile site to smartphones as 2D bar code jpegs. The boarding passes can be scanned at Transportation Security Administration checkpoints and at AA gates.

Customers can currently use these mobile boarding passes for domestic flights departing Chicago’s O’Hare International, Los Angeles’ LAX and John Wayne Orange County airports. A successful run could mean expansion to other cities.

“We’re currently testing that rollout pretty well and we hope to work closely with the TSA in other airports,” Mr. Sanez said.

Remember Me and the mobile boarding passes are a series of initiatives that AA has taken on since the airline launched its mobile Web site in January 2008.

The mobile site is accessed by typing in AA.com on Web-enabled mobile phones. Among the many features available, consumers can check flight information, schedules, weather updates and also book trips through the mobile site.

A 6-sheet digital campaign both directing consumers to the nearest Superdrug and advertising a prize draw will be running in train stations.

In the 50 biggest Superdrug stores on 27 February Gillette brand ambassadors will be equipped with bluetooth pods transmitting content about the product and prize draw. The teams will also be leafleting, carrying out demonstrations and giving out information about skincare.

The prize draw will be open to any consumer who purchases a razor in one of the participating stores, with each one having its own winner. Prizes include a tailor-made Saville Row suit, an Aston Martin for the weekend or a speedboat-chaufeurred trip to a show at the O2.

A trend is spreading through small towns across Germany. Tight budgets have forced hard decisions, including turning the lights out at night. No one is on the streets at night anyway, so why pay for the electricity to run the street lights? But residents have revolted. They fear an uptick in crime, or simply for their safety while stumbling through the dark streets to walk the dog or return from a late night out. Proving necessity is the mother of invention, a handful of clever solutions are being implemented; some with interesting consequences.

The solution seems to have started in the small town of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz in the Erzegebirge. Over one and a half years ago, the 900 citizens of Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz were plunged into darkness each night, but given the option to turn the lights on by mobile telephone. Older citizens were concerned about their ability to master this new technology, but practice makes perfect. The first two weeks of the program, the lights remained on almost all night long as residents remained awake late for an opportunity to test the new system! But now the lights stay off except when needed. The town saves 4000 euros ($5300) per year. According to the Berliner Morgenpost daily newspaper, Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz is the inspiration for 4300 person community of Groß Pankow, the most recent community to consider on-call streetlight.

The world's top five mobile handset manufacturers are among a group of 17 major industry firms to have pledged their support for development of a mobile phone charger that will work with the majority of new handsets by 2012. The new 'Universal Charging Solution' (UCS) initiative, announced by the GSMA yesterday, aims to make life easier for consumers by providing a 'one-size-fits-all' charger. The GSMA claims it could potentially lead to 50 percent less chargers being manufactured each year. The new charger is also targeting a 50 percent reduction in standby energy consumption and claims to be three times more energy efficient than some current chargers. The UCS uses a Micro-USB as a common universal charging interface.

Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson are involved in the project from launch, supported by mobile operators 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, mobilkom austria, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone. Mobile chip giant Qualcomm is also involved. Both 3 Group and Telefonica are aiming to have 75 percent of their handset portfolios UCS compliant by 2012, while Orange said it is looking at UCS accounting for two thirds of sales.

XBox 360 has delivered 1.9m unique downloads to mobile phones via a Bluetooth marketing campaign.

The gaming giant developed a mobile application featuring trailers and wallpapers from five games including Gears Of War 2, Fable 2 and Lips.

The app was distributed over nine weeks over the Christmas period by media communications agency Universal Mccann via Bluetooth agency Bluepod Media's network of 360 sites.

Stephen McGill, head of gaming & entertainment at Microsoft, said the results of the campaign were impressive.

"It was a flawless execution that pushed an incredible amount of Xbox 360 content out to a huge consumer audience," he added.

In January XBox overhauled its mobile site in a bid to tie it more closely with its existing online properties.

Good stuff! I hope Nokia open this up (at least to a certain extent), cause with all the existing infrastructure in buildings world-wide, a Hybrid system sounds exactly like the solution to the current LBS sensing problems.

Also check out the video below for Nokia Location Sensor:

GS: Please tell me a bit about your company, who you guys are, what it is you do and your aims for the future.

SV: MobME is India's First Technology Business incubated company which was co-founded by college mates Sanjay Vijayakumar, Vivek Francis and Sony Joy. The Founders Raise half a million dollars in college, dropped out and today run a successful startup which is rated amongst the Wall Street Journal 10 Startups to watch for in India, the youngest company to be listed at Nasscom 100 IT Innovators for 2007 and is being awarded India's Most Innovative Startup for the Year 2008.


GS: Do you plan to expand your Bluetooth network or do you want to give more room for cooperation to the operators? (This means that if you make the BT network large enough then the users won't really use GPRS/3G to send their photos to the server, so you are essentially bypassing network ops).

SV: We plan to expand the BT network to over 2000 locations but at the same time we are partnering with India's Leading Operators. Photo Sharing is a nacent segment in India and all stake holders are trying to get the habbit which in the long run will benefit everyone involved.


GS: Do you think it is risky to receive mobile content from the users in terms that it can be a virus or a malicious software?

SV: We filter the content at source itself and delete formats that do not fall into our criteria.

GS: How much participation do you think you are getting from the public in the cafes?

SV: Very High - Since bluetooth is free. Cafe Coffee Day being frequented by Celebrities also ensure some good traction and activity when they visit. Till date over 10,000 Images shared.


GS: Are you getting new users from there, or is it that existing users use your bluetooth network most?

SV: New Users - This was a pilot and was done with the fact in mind that we would soon be launching the Mobshare Mobile Application. These BT zones will serve as our medium to spread the application to target users free of cost.


GS: Do you have some sort of moderation for the content uploaded by the users? How many persons are needed to moderate the uploaded content currently?

SV: Yes - We have a manual moderation in place. A team of 2 content editors are on the job.


GS: Have you developed your own bluetooth solution or are you in some kind of partnership with a BT manufacturer?

SV: We have our own BT solution that does the software part. For the Hardware we have a partner who provides us customized dongles.


GS: Do you plan to give more services via Bluetooth, let's say, photo browsing via bluetooth without the 3G cost / photo editing mobile phone software, etc?

SV: Yes - the first natural progression we will do is video sharing.


GS: Do you intend to expand to other countries? If yes, what would you ask from a local partner in a european country?

SV: Oh Yes. India is an amazingly low cost destination to build products and try them out but the margins really prop up when you can sell in Dollars and Euros :)
We are very logical people and do business with companies in denmark, spain etc for BT as well as other mobile solutions like Low Cost SMSC, USSD, IVR and Voice Applications.
We would also look at reseller models where these companies can take licenses and just plug and play our solutions with remote support from our side.
We would love to be an outsourcing destination for European Mobile Companies who want to hold on to margins and outsource development work.
Finally - we would a partner who shares a belief that in the long run, its not the fastest or the strongest who succeeds but the one who really thinks he can win!!

So imaging enjoying the view at 20,000 feet and your mobile phone rings... "Hey mum, wow, you should see the clouds up here.. They're amazing!" -- looks like we're not too far away..