UPDATED 14:44 EDT / DECEMBER 12 2012

Breaking Analysis: Jibe Mobile Wants to Joyn with Carriers, Grokr vs Siri, Airwaves for Sale?

 

Jibe Mobile is banking on mobile video chat to become an integrated feature of other apps. The CEO of Jibe Mobile, Amir Sarhangi, said that the days of old school calling or texting someone, even on a cell phone, are coming to an end. SiliconANGLE News Desk Editor Kristen Nicole agrees with his statement. She said that a lot more application chat tools are being used in lieu of text messaging.

Kristen Nicole explained, “It really seems like they want to make video chat a feature and not a service in itself.”  She also said other companies are looking to do the same. She gave the example of Microsoft and Facebook teaming up to incorporate more Skype functionality and make Skype an extension of social networking. Kristen gave a brief overview of Joyn, saying that it offers more integrated options for communication tools beyond MMS.

Yesterday the company announced it raised $8.3 million in funding from European carrier Vodafone and Japanese gamemaker MTI. Sarhangi said that Jibe’s first opportunities will be in mobile games, helping them to get connected in a way similar to how Xbox Live enabled gamers to participate together in games. He said Joyn can enable true mobile multi-player gaming with almost no lag, which would be a dream come true for mobile gamers since over 4G, games can have 40-60 milliseconds of latency.

In further app development news, former McAfee CEO Srivats Sampath is forming Grokr, which aims to be the “Google Now” for iOS. Google Now is, of course, Google’s answer to Apple’s personal assistant Siri – where users can use voice commands to send emails, check weather, flight information and more – but Google Now also pulls information regarding commuting, calendars and more to keep the user on task with their life.  Kristen Nicole defined what sets Grokr apart from Google Now and Siri is the fact that it has broader access to information than Google Now. Grokr aims to provide direct answers versus links or search results.

With all this app innovation on the way, it only makes sense that Apple, Samsung, RIM and many other technology companies are making a push to Congress for more airwaves. A group letter was signed and sent on Tuesday. The FCC is currently working on laws to auction off television signals to cellular companies which doesn’t seem to be enough for the cellular carriers. The letter stated “As technology companies, we joined this debate because policymakers need to know that we cannot simply engineer our way out of this problem.” Kristen Nicole said they attributed their need for more airwaves to the increase in mobile devices, smartphones and tablets and that they’re facing the challenge of having the ability to increase connectivity for end users and consumers.  See the entire segment with Kristin Feledy and Kristen Nicole on the Morning NewsDesk Show.


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