SANTA CLARA, Calif.-Following up its widely acclaimed NeoPoint 1000 smart phone, NeoPoint Inc. last week at Wireless I.T. introduced a location-based wireless portal called myAladdin.com.
The portal is positioned as a smart-information service, with features including driving directions and route guides, ATM Locator, traffic information, flight status and schedules, Yellow Pages, radio station directories, TV listings and movie schedules and reviews, all based on the information most relevant to the user’s location.
A global positioning system satellite chip installed in a car cord extension provides the network with the user’s location. NeoPoint is designing a phone battery with an embedded GPS chip to be released soon. The company said the system will support other manufacturers’ GPS devices when available, as well as network-based location services.
But myAladdin.com is positioned as more than a location-based service. It includes the follow-up functions to make the location information more valuable. For example, while the portal will provide users with the four nearest restaurants based on the user’s location, it also automatically includes the restaurants’ phone numbers. The service allows the caller to dial a selected restaurant’s phone number using one-touch dialing.
NeoPoint said myAladdin.com was designed for use on any Wireless Application Protocol-enabled phone a carrier may offer, not just NeoPoint phones. It also supports Code Division Multiple Access, Global System for Mobile communications, Time Division Multiple Access and integrated Digital Enhanced Network transmission protocols.
NeoPoint said it will sell the portal to carriers, which may brand it themselves and decide how much to charge for service. As WAP applications become more prevalent, analysts have said carriers face a new challenge in providing the right type of wireless Internet portal to avoid losing their customers to brands like Yahoo! or Excite.
NeoPoint touted the myAladdin.com portal as a tool for carriers to offer high-value personalized content under their own brand so they may retain their wireless customers.
Key to myAladdin.com is the intelligent agent technology included. Customers initially may personalize services when they first sign up. But since most users rarely update their profiles, myAl-addin.com’s intelligent-agent technology will keep track of what the customer actually uses, and change the profile based on that usage.
The intelligent-agent feature also is capable of sending highly valuable push-based content. For instance, the flight status service has the intelligent agent keeping track of any change in flight status for two hours before that flight is scheduled to depart. Any change, be it gate or time, will cause the intelligent agent to notify the customer automatically.
“It’s definitely got the right look and feel,” said Bob Egan, research director at the Gartner Group. Although the service is available to all WAP devices, even personal digital assistants, NeoPoint has a particular advantage when it’s offered on the NeoPoint phone, he said, because it allows NeoPoint to control both the service and its look on the hardware.
Other features of my-Aladdin.com include over-the-air wireless synchronization with both office databases and Internet content and reverse look-up of incoming calls.
NeoPoint teamed up with several Internet content providers for myAladdin.com services. They include GetThere.com, InfoSpace-.com, Intelligent Information Inc., MapQuest, MasterCard International, Navigation Technologies, onebox.com, RadioDigest.com and TVData.
