Cell phone snatching – or in other words, street crime – has become a headache for the average citizens of Karachi as most of them are scared to use their phones on the street on the off chance that the next person they encounter is a bandit. While reviewing the statistics of the year 2007, it was found that about 90,000 cell phones had been snatched and stolen from various parts of the city. It is noted that the highest risk zone vis-à-vis stealing of phones is the east zone.

The graph shows 15 per cent criminal activity with 14,309 phones snatched and stolen from various jurisdictions of the police stations located in that zone. While in the south zone the activity was of 13 per cent, in the central zone, 12 per cent, 11 per cent from the Malir zone and the lowest was at the west zone, where the crime reported was 7 per cent. In the respective zones, the risk areas were Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Korangi, Preedy, Gulistan-i-Jauhar and Ferozeabad, while the towns which were on top inlcude, Saddar town, Gulshan town, Jamshed town, Clifton town, Liaquatabad-North Nazimabad and respectively other towns. The most snatched phone brand was Nokia at 61 per cent, Sony Ericsson at 16 per cent, Samsung at 10 per cent, while Motorola was on the fourth position with 8 per cent.

While commenting on this particular crime situation a senior officer said, “I think this trend started in 2005 where the issue was highlighted, as mobile phones are now more easily available than ever; and obviously Karachi being a major city of the country, there is more usage here and for the same reason, snatching and theft of these devices started this year. To combat this crime we have started working with the stake holders and cell phone companies.” As there was no system laid down previously, the Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) has now started working on collecting the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) through which cell phones can get blocked and invalid since the phone becomes unusable. Initially in 2005, this crime was reported to be hardly 5 per cent; today, however, about 400 to 500 cell phones were stolen. Now the people are encouraged to report this crime, and according to a data, about 130,000 cell phones have been blocked through the process of the IMEI.

Nova media announced the immediate availability. The plug-ins enhances iSync by adding support for additional cell phones. The new version added support for Nokia’s 3500 Classic, 7900, E51, N82 and N95 8 Gigabyte phones. iSync phone plugins is compatible with Mac OS X 10.4.9 and higher as well as Mac OS X 10.5 and higher.

The plug-ins support over 125 cell phones from BenQ Siemens, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.  Apple did not include that with iSync for sharing data with iCal and Address Book. iSync phone plugins 5.1 is priced at €9.95 (about US$14.64) and is available for download at the nova media. Updates are free for one year from the date of purchase.

CCID Consulting, China’s leading research, consulting and IT outsourcing service provider, and the first Chinese consulting firm listed in Hong Kong, presents its article on Mobile Telephone Subscriber Survey and the Degree of Satisfaction.During the 2007 China’s Mobile Telephone Product Conference, the 8th CCID China’s Mobile Telephone Subscriber Degree of Satisfaction Survey Findings Release Conference held by CCID Consulting Co., Ltd., discussion topics included degree of satisfaction of subscribers, product innovation and the five hot segment markets of GPS mobile telephones under the theme “Pioneering the blue ocean of mobile telephones and driving the development of 3G.”During this conference, CCID Consulting released the 2007 White Paper on China’s Mobile Telephone Subscriber Degree of Satisfaction Survey and 2007 China’s Mobile Telephone Market Development Blue Paper.

Based on CCID Consulting’s degree of satisfaction quota system, the 8th CCID China’s Mobile Telephone Subscriber Degree of Satisfaction Survey was conducted with meticulous statistical analysis and expert evaluation. Motorola, TCL and Dopod won the 2007 User-Satisfied Brand Award for brand strategies matching the market. Sony Ericsson, ZTE, Haier, Samsung and Changhong won the 2007 User-Satisfied Quality Award by virtue of their excellent product quality.In the market with homogenous products, innovation has become the source of power for enterprise development, and ZET and TCL earned the Innovative Enterprise Award owing to their sound performance in the mobile telephone blue ocean market. In addition, ZTE E700, Dopod P800 and Amoi N6 won the User- Satisfied Navigation Mobile Telephone Award for their sound performance in the navigation market, and Samsung W579 and Haier N96 won the User-Satisfied Dual- Mode Dual-Standby Mobile Telephone Award owing to their performance in the dual mode market.

Australian-based multimedia content development company, today announced that it will be launching their IamEmo mobile content at Mobile Content World  being held over two days later this week in the United Kingdom. The IamEmo™ mobile content has been uniquely designed to enhance Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). moodmessaging are launching their IamEmo™ mobile content in the UK market on the back of securing a global content distribution deal with Nokia earlier this year. Nokia have partnered with IamEmo™ for the global launch of their new 3220 handset. An introductory selection of IamEmo™ content has been preloaded onto all 3220 handsets, and is being distributed throughout Europe by 123 Multimedia. In the United States, the IamEmo™ content is being distributed by AT&T Wireless via moodmessaging’s distributor Ztango and in the Asia-Pacific Region, the IamEmo™ content is being distributed by SAM CLICK and by Nokia Tones, Graphics and Games.moodmessaging has developed, under their IamEmo™ brand, colour animations featuring Emo™, the Chameleon, that consumers can download onto their mobile phones and send as part of an MMS message to their friends, families and colleagues. The animations featuring Emo™ use colour, facial expressions and body language to illustrate one of eight human emotions in a number of different guises. Emo™ adds emotional context to ordinary text messages, transforming messaging from plain black-and-white text to a colourful, engaging and meaningful exchange.”Communication is not just about what you say, but how you say it. Using Emo™, users can create emotionally-rich messages that immediately engage with whoever you send them to. With Emo™, you know that whoever receives your text message will know exactly how you feel,” said Kevin Brough, CEO of moodmessaging.IamEmo™ is a breakthrough proposition for MMS as it meets the genuine consumer need for expressive, rich messaging. The content is being offered to handset manufacturers and network carriers for preloading into MMS capable handsets. “This not only creates massive differentiation for the handset itself, but also encourages daily MMS usage and the ongoing downloading of new IamEmo™ content,” added Brough.moodmessaging launched their IamEmo™ mobile content in Australia and New Zealand in mid , and had extended distribution to more than seven Asia-Pacific markets by February 2004. There are currently over 40 Emo™ animations available for download to consumers with MMS capable mobile phones, with new Emo™ animations being released globally each month.Telstra, Australia’s largest telecommunications carrier has also partnered with moodmessaging to provide Telstra customers with access to unique IamEmo™ characters including some that have been specifically designed to align with Telstra’s sponsorship and marketing efforts such as Australian Idol. moodmessaging will initially provide Telstra with exclusive customised content preloaded onto Sony Ericsson handsets, with further plans to preload content onto a range of other handsets, including those manufactured by both Motorola and Nokia.moodmessaging plans to launch their IamEmo™ mobile content in other markets throughout Asia before the end of the year and is currently reviewing commercial agreements in other overseas markets.”IamEmo™ will enable users to finally let people know how they really feel using multimedia messages,” commented Brough. moodmessaging will be launching their IamEmo™ mobile content at Mobile Content World from 21-23 September at ExCeL located at 1 Western Gateway, Royal Victoria Dock, London, E16 1XL. You can visit moodmessaging at Pod C6 in the Mobile Content Pavilion.