Smartphone and 3G growth in South America will create an ecosystem that is capable of supporting mobile banking, according to a Pyramid Research study, “Smartphone, 3G Growth Creates Mobile Banking Opportunity in Latin America.” Banks and telecom operators will be the principle beneficiaries of this growth.

“8.6 percent of all the new units sold in Latin America in 2010 will be smartphones,” said Pyramid’s David Noe.

“”However, this percentage will grow dramatically during the forecast period; our estimation is that almost one-third (32.2 percent) of the new handhelds sold by 2014 in Latin America will be smartphones,” Noe said.

The advanced functionalities of smartphones will enable better access to mobile banking services. According to the report, the mobile payment market should spread across low and high-income populations, as well as among more advanced users. Financial institutions can not miss this opportunity.

To succeed, financial institutions need to take vary their strategies according to the customer.

“The needs, mobile phone capabilities and education levels of end users vary wildly,” Noe said. In an earlier report by Frost & Sullivan, mobile services are set for strong growth in South America. In 2009, the region accounted for $2.5 billion in revenue, and accounted for more than 60 million customers.

VentureBeat’s annual mobile tech conference, MobileBeat 2010 took place this week in San Francisco, and featured speakers HP’s Phil McKinney, AT&T’s John Donovan, and Facebook’s Erick Tseng. The theme of “The Year of the Superphone” spotlit high-powered mobile devices and the operating systems, applications and functionalities that are making mobile the defining platform of new media today.

As for the Startup Competition, the two Tesla awards went to education app EduPath and map maker Micello. EduPath is the 21st century’s answer to bloated SAT prep books - the app has sections for the SAT and LSAT tests, with section tests that students can practice with anytime. Micello, described as the “Google Maps inside a building,” serves to route users through large buildings and geolocate a walking path, with compass function if the mobile device is so equipped.

Additionally, the 2010 Gettie Awards were announced at the conference, named by cross-platform mobile app store GetJar. For each mobile OS, an application was named for best success or innovation:

• Best Java application: WaveSecure Backup – Runs on non-smartphones and backs up or restores data securely
• Best Symbian application: Nimbuzz – Free app makes calls, instant messaging, file & location sharing with Nimbuzz friends and Skype, and major chat networks
• Best Windows Mobile application:Opera Mini – Fast Web browsing and file transfer, data compression for lower mobile plan charges
• Best Blackberry application: Kayak Flight/Hotel Search – Multi-site travel search engine Kayak.com created an app that also manages itineraries and flight information
• Best iPhone application: Tap Tap Revenge 3 – Social rhythm game with free songs and premium bundles of music collections
• Best Android application: Lookout –Runs virus and malware protection in the background, remotely stores backup data, locates a lost phone on a Google Map, remotely sets off a loud alarm on the device, or wipes data
• Best Overall Cross Platform App (Gettie Award): Layar – Augmented reality app for Android and iPhone that gives users contextual information about their location for finding restaurants, learning about buildings or playing games

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Reading your email in your car — what a strange idea, right? Now, thanks to a partnership between BMW and Research in Motion (RIM), it’s possible. The companies together developed a new Bluetooth technology that syncs Blackberry devices with the iDrive system, the computer that controls all functions of the German automaker’s cars. With this new development, the iDrive controller serves as a remote control for the device. Drivers will be able to read new messages in their cars, for example.

This idea is interesting but looks like dangerous; that’s why engineers also developed a voice option. When users click on play, they can listen to their emails in a safe manner. Moreover, contacts are synchronized into the car and there is another smart application: if the driver receives a text message which contains a phone number, they can initiate a phone call with the phone number embedded in the message.

This application will be included in the BlackBerry operating system. BMW owners will just have to synchronize their smartphone with iDrive. But let’s not forget that when the automakers developed the iDrive system few years ago, it was criticized by a lot of users and specialists. Indeed, the system was too complex and it was difficult to understand how it works, so BMW improved the system. Now, it is easier and more intuitive. Let’s hope this new connection with BlackBerry will not weigh down iDrive’s system.

BMW is not the only one to think about the connection between smartphones and cars. Next year, Ford will launch another interesting solution in its new Fiesta model. With it, drivers will be able to control their smartphone apps through voice commands. For example, drivers will be able to listen to Pandora, the free music website, without looking down at their phone. They just have to say a command or use the car radio’s controls.

This new technology makes the driver’s life safer and easier. Thanks to iDrive, they will not just drive a car, they will drive their office!

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“A day in the life with the Nissan LEAF” is a video which shows how electric vehicles (EV) will change consumers’ daily lives. With an iPhone, users will be able to control their cars from their sofa. First, an email prompts them when the charging is done. Then, another application allows them to turn on the air conditioner or heater before the drive. Bye bye first miles driven in glacial conditions in winter! During the long drive (a shopping day in a suburban mall for example), consumers can find in advance where charging spots are located, so they can charge their car when they get there. Nissan shows us an interesting vision of our future, which could be here sooner than you imagine.

Since this weekend, inhabitants of California have been able to test the first US shopping center with charging stations for electric vehicles. Thanks to a partnership between South Coast Plaza, a mall situated near San Jose, and Coulomb Technologies, a company specialized in charging-station infrastructure, Nissan’s vision is already a reality. “Shopping centers are some of the perfect places for the installation of networked charging stations because people spend several hours shopping and dining,” said Richard Lowenthal, CEO of Coulomb Technologies in a press release. Coulomb markets an open driver system network: the ChargePoint Network. Via smartphone, drivers can manage their EV, receiving their charging status by SMS or localizing unoccupied charging stations, for example.

Between fiction and reality, electric vehicles are becoming a new way to move. Besides technological questions, environmental answers and design questioning, EV will definitively change the relationship between drivers and cars. Into this passionate relationship will enter a third party: the smartphone. Like a remote control, mobile will become a link between driver and machine.

Pachube is a way to store, share and discover real-time sensor, energy and environment data from objects, devices and buildings.

Pachube’s Usmane Haque spoke at eComm, sharing his vision of the Internet of Things.

One of Haque’s main points is that consumers and citizens need to understand how data is collected and presented, how bias can be built into the procedure. The idea that open data is the same as transparency obfuscates this.

“Opening up data doesn’t give us insight into what data is,” Haque said. “What are the standards of evidence? Simply opening up the data doesn’t result in public questioning how the data is corrected. It’s how it’s categorized that’s important to understand.”

“We need to think about under whose authority was the data collected?” Haque said. “We’re being asked to trust authorities’ interpretation of data. We’re not involved. Visualizations are important, but it’s important to know how to read visualizations. The public needs to understand this.”

“I’m interested in the public being involved with the creation of data,” Haque said.

Pachube wants to make it easy for individuals and small organizations to build apps that bridge the gap between the physical and virtual worlds.

“I’m trying to encourage an ecosystem of environments,” Haque said.

Haque showed off Pachube’s augmented reality graph of the last 24 hours of a building’s carbon footprint. Ideally, users could point their smartphone at any object and see all its data.

“What I’m trying to express here is the granularity of participation,” Haque said. “Individuals should be able to experiment, developers should be able to prototype, organizations to create and cities to collaborate.”

“Now we’re in this sort of panopticon,” Haque said. “You can’t escape.”

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Until now, the smartphone market has been divided between the main operators, the most blatant example being the agreement between Apple and AT&T. Each brand has its own app ecosystem. More than 300,000 applications will be accessible in the Apple App Store by the end of 2010, and between 50,000 and 75,000 applications will be provided in the Android Market.

Applications are the symbol of the smartphone, but also one of its main values.

For brands that have invested in the mobile app market or want to do so, the breakup of market forces has caused them to multiply applications across platforms. Strategically speaking, smartphones’ individual OS’s maintain control over the attractive and steadily growing market by forcing developers to adapt to a new format for each ecosystem and seeking the consent of the OS owner before an app can hit the market. Apple, Google, Blackberry and Nokia are engaged in a format war that forgets the consumer and constrains brands.

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Tablet computers have been around for a while, but they didn’t really capture the imagination until last year, when rumors of the Apple Tablet swirled with a fury.

Deloitte predicts that netbook-sized tablets – NetTabs – will fill in the space between notebooks and smartphones, reaching perhaps $1 billion in 2010.

NetTabs are netbook-sized tablets whose functionalities are modeled after smartphones. Their cost will be in the $400-$800 range.

“With a new form factor and significant processing capacity, connected portable devices will likely be purchased by tens of millions of people in 2010,” according to Deloitte. “These devices have an advantage over smartphones—which are small for watching videos or web browsing—and notebooks, netbooks, and ultra-thin PCs, which are too heavy, or expensive.

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Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs unveiled Lenovo’s first smartbook today at an analyst meeting in New York.

Smartbooks will bridge the gap between smartphones and netbooks, offering better battery life than the computer but with richer offerings than the phone.

The Lenovo smartbook is about the size of a hand and has a full-size screen and keyboard. Like a smartphone, it has constant wifi connection and has an “instant-on” bootup. The Linux-based user interface consists of six large widgets for things like email and Facebook.

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Motorola announced its first Android handset device today: The Motorola Cliq, with “social skills.” A new, high-performance smartphone is the focus of the Schaumberg, IL-based company’s hope to boost device sales and improve revenue.

Since the success of the Razr several years ago, Motorola has not been making much impression in the wireless consumer market, as independent analyst Jeff Kagan told ComputerWorld today. “Motorola has been stumbling around in the dark,” he says. “This Cliq could be the biggest opportunity for Motorola in many years.”

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Analysts say that the Dow is mimicking the way it acted during the Great Depression. The good news? It will have to act this way another sixteen months to reach the true dustbowls-and-Oakies nadir.

More good news? For Apple, at least, whose sales have yet to be hurt, despite an industry-wide collapse in PC revenue.

TBR analyst Ezra Gottheil says that Apple’s PC unit sales were up 9 percent in December. This while PC revenue overall dropped 18 percent in Q4 2008.

The overall revenue loss was not due to a significant decline in unit sales but to a drop in what people spent, as the average selling price (ASP) of PCs fell 13 percent.

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