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Google has updated Google Maps for mobile with the ability to get directons to businesses easier.

With the previous version, if you typed directions and entered a business name, such as “Starbucks”, it would look for addresses with the word “Starbucks” in it, not give you Starbucks the business. Now it’s possible to get directions to restaurants, stores, and other points of interest by entering the business name in the start or end point and give you your desired directions.

High Tech Computer (HTC) has released their 2008 results:  NT$152.56 billion (CA$5.46 billion) with a staggering one-year growth of 28.65%. The 2009 forecast is to launch about 10 new devices and have revenue growth of around 20%.

Looks like there’s one final push in Nova Scotia’s “Come To Life” campaign – this is the ad initiative that created the popular “Pomegranate Phone”.

Nothing is really new to the actual concept phone, just a bunch of stats: website has had over 560,000 visits from more than 190 countries, top 5 countries : 1) United States, 2) Canada, 3) Germany, 4) Italy and 5) the United Kingdom.

Stacey Jones-Oxner, communications advisor for the Nova Scotia initiative said “The goal for the campaign is to grab people’s attention and show them something they wouldn’t necessarily expect of Nova Scotia. It was designed to get people talking about the province as a creative, innovative place – the perfect place to invest, work, live and do business. Since there is so much buzz about the newest smart phones, we thought this was a good device to use. This is especially true when you consider that the people who are interested in the latest technology are exactly the people we’re trying to reach.”

Good on you Nova Scotia… – but was the $300,000 ad budget worth the 560,000 website visitors? No word on how many tourists came to Nova Scotia from the Pomegranate idea… Isn’t this the real question that should be asked?

If you’re unaware of what the Pomegranate Phone could do: It has a phone, e-mail, MP3 player, GPS navigation, full internet browser, built-in camera and video, projector, global voice translator, mobile coffee brewer, personal shaver and harmonica.

For all you Bell and TELUS BlackBerry Storm users this one is for you!

TapOMania has been officially released for the BlackBerry Storm. There are 3 levels of play: Easy, Medium and Hard:
Easy consists of 10 x 10 blocks and can be easily done.
Medium consists of 13 x 13 blocks and can be done.
Hard consists of 20 x 20 blocks and can be done but its more difficult.

The goal of this game is to remove all the blocks from the screen. You can only remove blocks that are two or more of the same pattern, along a horizontal or vertical path.

There are special features in TapOMania to help you out – bombs, lasers and non-selectable blocks: bombs remove all blocks within a one block radius; lasers remove all blocks along a single line; and non-selectable blocks can only be removed by bombs or lasers.

This is on sale now for $3.95 until January 30th – Download it here

[IntoMobile]

The Canadian Government has set a firm February 1st, 2010 date for the cellphone industry to upgrade its 911 system.

Why you ask? Well it seems the 911 dispatchers are missing some necessary equipment to locate emergency calls placed from a cell phone. The technology will cost an estimated $50-million.. but well worth it as more than half the calls are from mobile phones.

Paul Godin, director of the CRTC said “I thought that this would put the matter to rest. We are concerned about the safety and security of Canadians … that’s sort of our guiding light if you wish.”

Nokia’s mobile internet site, Nokia.mobi, has launched it’s own entertainment portal called “Here and Now”. This is automatically bookmarked on every new Nokia device and provides Nokia users with the latest world news, music and celebrity gossip and Nokia services and products.

The press release says it all about the intentions of “Here and Now”. Basically another place to make money from advertising:

“Here and now will encourage users to come back more often and spend more time on Nokia.mobi which is great news for the growing number of advertisers that have been using Nokia.mobi as the launchpad for their mobile advertising campaigns,” added Tom Henriksson, Head of Nokia Interactive Advertising.

More here from Nokia

A group of University of Toronto students have created the “UiRemote” (Universal Infrared Remote) for iPhone with the goal to have this replace all the remote controls in your home. Their website says “This project is still in final prototype stage. We are busy making many improvements to the User Interface and are aiming to release the actual Infrared Module and the Application in the next month or two”. Watch the video here

When there’s a global home crisis going on, real estate organizations have to think creatively to attract new buyers. Coldwell Banker has made their website coldwellbanker.com mobile friendly and can be accessed via your iPhone, BlackBerry or any other smartphone.

Available in 28 countries including Canada, United States, Australia, Mexico, Italy, Aruba, and Colombia, home buyers and sellers can access property listings, use the home value estimator, search criteria such as city, province or state, number of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Michael Fischer, senior vice president of marketing at Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC said “Now consumers in the home buying and selling process can easily search both domestically and internationally using their mobile devices. Coldwell Banker will continue to find ways to blaze a trail with technology that provides global consumers with listings anytime, anywhere.”

via: coldwellbanker.ca

Ever since the $52 billion failed BCE buyout happened last month, there’s been rumour of Bell and TELUS joining forces and controlling about 60% of the Canadian wireless market.

Scotia Capital analyst John Henderson said “A new head of the Competition Bureau this month makes it less likely in our view that BCE or TELUS will consider proposing a merger in the near term”.

Apple announced that music through iTunes will be sold without any copy protection and starting April 2009 they will roll out a 3-tiered pricing structure: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29, albums generally priced at $9.99.

Apple also announced good news for the iPhone users – for the same price as downloading to your computer, you can now download music to your iPhone over a 3G network instead of just Wi-Fi.