nexGear proudly presents a new community portal for all anime/manga bloggers.

nexGear Communities is a social network based around choice, flexibility and openness: a system that firmly places individuals at the centre of their activities.

Registered users have the freedom to incorporate all their favorite tools within one environment and showcase their content with as many or as few people as they choose, all within a social networking site.

You will be able to create your own blog, upload files/photos/videos to their own webspace (10MB).

You can also create communities and invite friends to join in your communities. Communities can be about everything from manga, anime, role-playing, serious discussions, affiliation, or just your own group of friends. Each community has it's own webspace of 10MB to store files/photos/videos.

Each blog and community can be fully customised via template that can be edited online in the account settings.

Social network with your friends online now!

Features:
* Personal and Community Blogs with 10MB of webspace each
* Private and Public Communities
* User-friendly interface
* WYSIWYG editor with smileys and image/video attachment
* Integrated Media Resource Management
* Editable templates per blog
* Access control to your blog and communities
* Search engine friendly urls
* Social networking with friends list
* Tagging
* Podcasting
* Full Syndication Support

Click on the "Blog" button to Register an account and start blogging today!

GyPSii announces support for Intel-based Mobile Internet Devices

Including platform support for Moblin-based Linux OS, Windows XP, and Windows Vista

August 20th, 2008, Salo, Finland and Amsterdam, The Netherlands: GeoSentric Oyj’s (NASDAQ OMX: GEO1V), GeoSolutions BV Business Unit (GyPSii), the market-leading mobile digital lifestyle application and geo-mobility social networking platform, today announced that it is optimizing its popular social networking application for Moblin-based Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) based on Intel® Atom™ processor Z5XX series.

The GyPSii® application connects people and content to places and networks -- from work to play to home -- allowing users to share their real life experiences in the virtual world. It is the first application of its kind that enables people to record their life based on their location, bringing together new mobile lifestyle capabilities including User Generated Content, Locating Friends and Points of Interest – all in a single, easy-to-use interface. ABI Research forecasts 90M MID units to ship over the next 4 years, with users from Gen Y, Social Networkers, Young Gamers and the Lifestyle Boomer segments.

“GyPSii is a mobile social networking category leader,” said Dan Harple, Executive Chairman of GeoSentric. “GyPSii is committed to delivering compelling user experiences for leading MID and UMD customers. The deal follows our multi-prong strategy to achieve mass market user adoption,” continued Harple. “In a market that is set for huge growth in Asia, the Americas and Europe, GyPSii now adds our mobile lifestyle application for Gen X, Y and Z on ultra mobile connected mid range devices.”

“Social networking and location-based service trends comprise a significant share of the Internet traffic today and are appealing to MID users. GyPSii’s social networking application is well positioned to capitalize on these industry trends,” said Pankaj Kedia, director of Global Ecosystem Programs for Intel Corporation’s Ultra Mobility Group. “Intel’s low power technologies, combined with GyPSii’s application, should make it easier for our customers to bring compelling user experiences to the MID user.

GyPSii’s applications and services is expected to be featured in Intel’s keynote as showcased at the upcoming Intel Developers Forum in San Francisco from August 19-21, 2008.

In addition to Moblin based Linux OS, GyPSii supports MID running Windows XP™ and Windows Vista™ platforms.

GyPSii currently interoperates on Symbian, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry devices, as well as the Apple iPhone and browser-based Internet connected devices. It can be accessed on the web at www.gypsii.com or a compatible phone’s mobile browser at www.gypsii.com/m. GyPSii-enabled MIDs will be available in the second half of 2008.

London UK – 20th August 2008,

Following last week’s announcement that UK MVNE CallKey had shipped over 200K SIMs, it was disclosed today that a merger with one of it’s leading competitors, CallBlue has been successfully completed.

This merger results in CallKey expanding its network capability with the addition of an HLR (Home Location Register), and MSC (Mobile Switching Centre). This combination expands CallKey’s ability to act as a full MVNE (Mobile Virtual Network Enabler) providing the technology and services to facilitate companies to become full global roaming MVNO’s in a very short time.

By owning the technical infrastructure that underpins the service, unlike other roaming providers, CallKey has complete control over call costs, quality, security and billing. Callers always receive the best quality because all calls are switched directly from the home network.

CallKey is one of the world’s first and largest suppliers of Travel SIMs, which abolish high roaming fees that are usually charged by incumbent Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).

The company offers a 100% white label platform where MVNO’s can customise everything as their own, including having their own branding of SIMs and web portal, plus customised audio prompts and short-codes. MVNO’s can set up multiple sub-distributors, each with their own discrete pricing, and customisation.

Each MVNO is also given access to their own personal “back office” where they can fully manage their customer and sub-agent accounts, plus view all CDRs in real time. A comprehensive online diagnostics facility provides necessary information for customer support.

CallKey also provides a full A-Z wholesale rate sheet optimized for various regions, including the EU, where MVNO’s can set their own tariffs, thus determining their profit margins. By offering free inbound calls in over 50 countries and cheaper outbound, MVNO’s are able to target corporate and leisure travellers, and genuinely compete against incumbent Operators.

CallKey offers full customisation options, where its core technology can be applied using standardised toolsets defined in an API (Application Programming Interface). The API allows a development partner or customer full network control.

Unlike other travel SIM suppliers, CallKey do not charge any MVNO set up fee, the only start-up cost being the initial purchase of SIM cards.

The company has roaming coverage in over 130 countries and only utilise the highest quality Tier 1 carriers. Each SIM can be reached by either calling a +44 UK mobile number, or as an option by dialling a local number available in various countries. Many premium enhancements include call forwarding, conference calling, call recording and voicemail. Access to a personal web portal provides online voicemail playback, a web dialling feature (with rates competitive with VoIP providers), and the ability to view call records in real time.

For more information please visit www.CallKey.com or email Info@CallKey.com.

Company Releases New White Paper and Presents at Contact Centre World

Redwood City, CA, August 20, 2008 – Clickatell, leading global provider of mobile messaging solutions, today announced its work with First National Bank and Santam Insurance to raise customer satisfaction and reduce costs through SMS within their respective call centers.

According to a 2008 Aberdeen study surveying 4,500 respondents – concerns over a potential recession is a top-three business challenge for companies this year; in another study, Aberdeen found that 88% of best-in-class companies considered corporate profitability to be a key metric driving the need to manage telecom costs – including in the call center.

“We have all been there – we call for service only to be #134 in the queue when we simply need a balance update or tracking number. Consumers are increasingly mobile and interact with a myriad of companies through call centers, often using their mobile phones – they demand quick response times and easy to use systems,” said Pieter de Villiers, CEO of Clickatell. “SMS provides an easy to use mobile solution that doesn’t require long wait times or interactive voice response systems. To better serve mobile customers and save money, organizations with call centers should take advantage of text messaging.”

In this month’s CRMBuyer, results from the recent Aberdeen study found that 80% of best-in-class call centers are leveraging text messaging, and also concluded that there is a marked difference in adoption in non-best-in-class organizations which are not taking advantage of an opportunity to add cost effective touch point between a given company’s expert resources and their customers through the use of text messaging.

Furthermore, the cost of using SMS for customer contact is proven to be a fraction of the cost of live agent communications as well as interactive voice response systems. UK-based call center analyst firm ContactBabel reported that live-agent service calls average ~$12 per call, while SMS costs pennies per message. SMS efficiently replaces the need for live agents, as well as IVR systems, for many simple service inquiries including order status, payment reminders, account activity alerts, delivery notifications, security alerts, and more, allowing live agents to spend time on dealing with more complex customer inquiries.

SMS Raises Customer Satisfaction; Saves Millions

With SMS, customers can rely on immediate, cost-effective and reliable text messages to be sent directly to mobile phones. In addition, SMS enhances “anytime, anywhere” automated self-service, enabling call center agents to reach customers and obtain real time responses from anywhere in the world.

First National Bank Customers Prefer SMS

“Our customers prefer SMS – it saves them the trouble of having to dial in to the call center or visit a branch to get the account information they need. With SMS our customer gets convenience and FNB saves money. In addition to delivering a better customer experience, SMS has also greatly reduced call center costs associated with communicating routine account information,” explains Len Pienaar, chief executive of Mobile and Transact Solutions for First National Bank, who implemented its text-based inContact service in 2002 and has seen adoption achieve >80% of its entire retail customer base. Clickatell currently manages the SMS delivery for inContact in Namibia. “With the widespread use of mobile phones and innate understanding of text combined with our customers’ desire to maintain active control of their finances, FNB’s inContact has provided our customers with the ability to take advantage of their cell phone as a powerful banking tool.”

Santam Insurance Sees Rapid SMS Adoption and Significant Cost Savings

"Interacting with customers through SMS costs a fraction of what a live agent costs are – so the cost savings for us have been tremendous. And, the communications are effective and pleasing to the customer which helps our business," says Fanus Coetzee, head of Santam Insurance Services Support, which has seen a 500% growth in SMS text alerts during claims processing which lead to significant cost reductions in live agent query handling. "Organizations across all industries should take full advantage of these cost savings by implementing text-based call center services in any industry - financial services or otherwise."

Text messaging can be easily integrated with any existing CRM or call center solution. Clickatell’s easy-to-use APIs and developer tools provide one central point to quickly integrate new SMS capabilities into existing or new offerings. Its two-way SMS functionality provides a reply-path for customers to respond to call center messages. And, its extensive work with the carriers over the past eight years means that Clickatell can reach over 700 networks in more than 200 countries around the world.

To learn more about how to implement cost effective text-based call centers in any organization, Clickatell has published today a valuable white paper titled “SMS in the Call Center: How Mobile Messaging Can Increase Profits and Reduce Costs Immediately.” To download, please visit http://www.clickatell.com/central/campaign...r.php?cid=43328

Clickatell is at the Contact Centres World Africa 2008 Conference this week in Johannesburg at the Sandton Convention Centre. Visit the conference today at noon to hear Deon Van Heerden, Clickatell’s Director of the MEA region, present, “How SMS Can Enhance Your Call Center’s Service Offering.”

IT company Cobweb launches green business community with PC Switch Off Evening

Fareham, 20 August 2008: Cobweb Solutions, which provides outsourced IT services to fast-growing businesses, has joined together with 58 customers to produce a total energy saving equivalent to a tonne of carbon, in just one night on 14th August. The CO2 saving is equivalent to the emissions generated by ten passengers on a return flight from London to Paris.

Cobweb persuaded over 58 customers to turn off approximately 700 PCs as part of their PC Switch Off Evening. If these companies switch of their PCs every evening from now on, that would produce an annual saving of around 438 tonnes of carbon – equivalent to over 21 full flights making the round trip from London to Paris!

The PC Switch Off Evening marks the launch of a new national green business community by Cobweb, who recently achieved the ISO 14001 accreditation which recognises that a company is managing its operational impacts on the environment. Now, the green community aims to encourage small and medium-sized businesses across the country to join together to reduce their carbon footprint, with many more initiatives planned for the future.

Sarah Hildyard from Cobweb Solutions, who organised the PC Switch Off Evening comments:

“The manufacture, distribution and use of IT equipment is responsible for around 2% of total global carbon emissions – that’s on a par with the airline industry. However, there are some real opportunities to limit the environmental impact of IT. For example, industry sources show that up to 60% of PCs are left on overnight. If we all turned off our PCs overnight we could slash IT’s carbon emissions in a single stroke.

“As an IT company, Cobweb believes it has a responsibility to lead the way by reducing our own environmental impact. And by working with our customers we can achieve even more. That is what our new green community is about – collective action that makes a difference.

“With over one third of IT departments likely to have one or more environmental criteria in their top six buying criteria in 2010, it makes good business sense too.”

The inspiration provided by Cobweb comes in the form of many environmental initiatives, and it starts from the inside. For example, to celebrate its ISO 14001 accreditation, Cobweb’s staff were involved in a “Green Day” which took place on the 15th of August. On this day, there were green activities, such as no printing being allowed for the entire day, and contributions like “grow your own greens” to raise internal awareness for their staff to continue lowering their carbon footprint.

Mark Davies, Information Security/ Quality Manager for Cobweb commented on the success achieved: “As a hosted IT services provider, Cobweb works hard to keep our environmental impact to a minimum. We also help our customers to reduce their own environmental footprint by reducing the need to maintain energy-hungry servers on their premises.

“We were extremely pleased to receive our ISO 14001 accreditation, but we do not intend to rest on our laurels. We will continue to look at reducing our own carbon footprint and encouraging our customers to join us in a variety of green community initiatives.”

Participating Cobweb customers include J J Browne & Son (Jewellers) Ltd, Whisky Castle Ltd, European Nickel Plc, Rentokil Pest Control, Yellowtail Financial Planning Limited, Max Resourcing Ltd, Thompsons Quantity Surveyors, Tanglewood Clinic and the Down's Syndrome Association.

Cricket legend Sourav Ganguly appointed as brand ambassador

London, 20th August 2008, Vyke Communications (www.vyke.com) the mobile Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service provider, today announces the launch of its consumer marketing programme targeting the Asian expat communities.

According to a recent national survey conducted by Vyke, expats spend more money on their mobile phones than they do on their food bills! With the desire to keep in touch with family and loved ones back home, texting internationally costs on average 25p per text, whereas, using Vyke’s FreeTxT application, costs are only 3p, or free if the recipient is also a Vyke user.

The campaign is being supported by Indian cricket legend, Sourav Ganguly. The international sports star is frequently away from home on tour and finds technology such as Vyke’s VoIP help him to cost-effectively keep close to his family and friends. During a visit to the UK, Ganguly will be carrying out various media activities - web chats, radio and TV interviews discussing different ways of dealing with being away from your family, and demonstrating the benefits of Vyke’s service.

Jan Berger, CMO, Vyke Communications said, “Our research clearly shows that 40% of people from British ethnic communities keep in touch with their families back home by calls or text - an extremely costly habit to maintain. We are therefore very excited to launch this campaign. As part of the programme, we have launched an exclusive expat survival guide blog, www.vykehome.com, offering first-hand advice on coping with homesickness and adapting to life in the UK. Sourav himself will be writing a number of the blogs. We are extremely excited to have Sourav on board as his global lifestyle and strong connection with friends and family make him the perfect Vyke user and ambassador.”

Asian expats can find out more about Vyke and coping with homesickness at www.vykehome.com or www.vyke.com.

Following an in-depth analysis of the EGRC (Enterprise, Governance, Risk and Compliance) technology sector by leading analyst Gartner, SWORD Achiever has been categorized as the only European headquartered representative in the Challengers’ quartile of the report’s “Magic Quadrant”. The Quadrant positions the top 14 suppliers from an overall global survey pool of 400 vendors. And, with no other European company included in the other upper quartile (the Leaders’ Quartile), SWORD Achiever seems set to pose a significant European challenge to the global status quo for the supply of EGRC solutions.

SWORD Achiever, part of the Sword Group, opened a second office in the US last year and has signed distribution agreements, this year, for Eastern Europe, The Middle East and India. In all, the company is now represented in 18 countries. SWORD Achiever also recently achieved Microsoft Gold Certified partner status for ISV/ Software Solutions Competency for their AchieverPlus GRC range.

AchieverPlus provides a single point of access for GRC management for all areas of risk management, compliance management and regulatory affairs, including quality, health and safety, financial, IT security and environmental management, across the enterprise. Combining power and flexibility, with Microsoft’s .NET technology, AchieverPlus provides a unique management gateway that can easily be embedded into an organization’s existing processes without disrupting working practices. The system unifies all the organization’s disparate standards, policies and resources across any number of sites and locations.

Multiple areas of compliance can be included such as regulatory, legislative and best practice, encompassing many industry standards. Specific solutions for the most highly regulated business areas include: Sarbanes Oxley, Life Sciences (FDA 21 CFR Part 11), ISO 9001, ISO 14001 / 18001 and more.

Commenting upon the report, Robert Dent, Business Unit Director of SWORD Achiever stated, “Empirical surveys on the international EGRC market are rare, so this report is welcome and timely. The market knows the quality of Gartner’s work across different technology sectors and the magic quadrant has become a de facto guide as to where individual vendors stand. Naturally, therefore, we are delighted that we have come out as the only European headquartered challenger to the current international status quo. We are confident with the recent rapid growth of SWORD Achiever’s representation across the globe that our position will improve further by the time the next review of the market is conducted.”

A copy of the Gartner Report can be found at www.gartner.com

London, United Kingdom (August 20, 2008) -- RadioFrame Networks (RFN), the leader in small footprint, low-cost wireless base stations today announced it would intensify its sales and marketing efforts surrounding its innovative MC-Series product portfolio for iDEN operators world-wide.

The MC-Series base stations, which have already been implemented in a number of iDEN networks globally, are demonstrating enormous operating expense savings; providing justification for the replacement of legacy iDEN sites as well as further network expansion.

In addition to leveraging existing iDEN Network Management tools, all MC-Series products come equipped with an embedded web server, providing remote configuration management, specialised alarming, diagnostics and troubleshooting. RadioFrame’s System Manager, which comes standard and is accessible via any web browser, provides a level of iDEN features that are entirely unique to the marketplace. RadioFrame’s System Manager fully enables the user to operate and optimise the network infrastructure while minimising truck rolls.

“For a long while carriers have recognized the appealing product features and capital expense savings that the MC-Series products have offered,” said RadioFrame Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Rick Applegate. “As the product has been performing successfully in networks, operators are realising time-to-market advantages, capital expense savings and a reduction in network operating expense.”

“With our focus on cost control, Sprint Nextel has identified RadioFrame’s iDEN base station technology as a way to reduce the operating expense of the Nextel National Network, while at the same time increasing overall performance for our customers who enjoy this robust network and all its capabilities,” said Robert Stedman, vice president of national radio frequency engineering for Sprint. “RFN’s systems use far less space, energy and require far fewer site visits as compared to legacy iDEN gear.”

Stedman added, “The Nextel National Network continues to operate at the highest levels nationally, and Sprint is committed to maintaining high quality network performance.”

The MC-Series iDEN base stations leverage the development experience from RadioFrame’s distributed radio network product platform. The platform is founded on a Layer 2, packet-based architecture with Ethernet control of low-power radios. Additionally, the company announced last year an Outdoor Pole Mount (OPM) product and recently the Standard Capacity system that adds to the current RadioFrame portfolio of iDEN base stations, and the company’s Pico and Femtocell offerings in GSM, WCDMA and 4G technologies.

New Zealand’s leading directory services company teams up with mobile search partner

Copenhagen, London 20 August 2008 – Yellow Pages Group™, New Zealand’s leading directory business has launched its local mobile search product based on mobilePeople’s liquid LOCAL solution. The new mobile search will allow Kiwis using their mobile service to benefit from a wealth of local information accessible on their mobile phones – via browser and/or two way SMS.

The browser based solution allows search by business name, category or keyword and location. Users can then view the results in a list as well as get maps and directions.

In addition the service also includes a new text function where users can text to search a business name, category or keyword and location. The text response includes one result and a deep link to the WAP solution for further results. There is an active click to call function for immediate connection.

Yellow mobile is accessible via both mobile network operator portals in New Zealand and so has 100 per cent reach across both islands, in short every mobile user in New Zealand can potentially use the service.

Yellow Pages Group Digital Media Director Blair Glubb said: “mobilePeople are best of breed suppliers and we are very happy with what Yellow™ mobile will enable Kiwi’s to achieve on the move.”

Jens Andersen, CEO and co-founder of mobilePeople, commented: “Yellow Pages Group are the most comprehensive solution providers in New Zealand and we are proud to be working with a company of such pedigree.”

Store and forget attitude costs millions as demand for access to historical data grows and business risk increases.

London, 20th August 2008 - According to a new report by analysts Forrester Research, businesses are exposing themselves to increasing operational risk and costs because of inadequate database archiving strategies. Archive store specialists Clearpace say that this adds to an increasing body of evidence that shows it is critical that IT managers place the same priority on the long term retention and retrieval of structured data, as they do on managing email and document archives.

Report highlights include:
• 50% annual growth is reported in online transactional data and repositories
• 27% of enterprises surveyed have 50 or more terabyte production databases
• 64% of enterprises surveyed have over half of their databases on costly tier 1 storage
• 20% of data centre infrastructure spend is to support data growth

In the report, Noel Yuhanna, Principal Analyst Forrester Research says “Database archiving often fails to get the attention it needs compared to other critical activities related to production databases and data warehouses.” He continues, highlighting the compliance pressures now being faced, “An archival system becomes critical when you need to access archived information in response to a legal summons, customer service issue, security investigation or technical issue. The value of archiving grows considerably as it becomes easier to access the archived data.”

John Bantleman, CEO of Clearpace, who commissioned the research, said, “With legal demands for access growing conventional approaches to database archiving are increasingly being found lacking. They focus on lifting and shifting inactive data from production databases to improve application performance, without considering how to optimize the way archived data is stored. Get your archiving right and you reduce storage costs and guarantee, simple, future-proofed access. Get it wrong and at worst you could face prison.”

Clearpace’s view is supported by Forrester Research’s report, “Why Database Archiving Should Be Part of Your DBMS Strategy.”, which highlights the viewpoint that archiving approaches need to advance from simply considering how to select and move data into an archive to encompass specialised archive repositories that ensure data integrity, security and availability.

The independent researchers questioned 150 senior IT executives evenly split across the US and UK. The responses indicate that the volume of enterprise data is growing at 50% per annum, driven by a new-generation of applications together with a strong demand to retain data for business analytics and trend analysis. 75% of the survey respondents state that they are now managing 10 or more databases of at least 1 terabyte. This growth is causing serious performance and storage challenges.

Typically 85% of production data is comprised of inactive records. With 64% of respondents saying that their enterprises have over half of their databases residing on expensive tier one storage solutions, the costs of holding inactive data in this environment are significant and unnecessary.

Understanding this, many enterprises are identifying and moving inactive data from the production database into traditional archives such as tape storage, XML files or another database on lower tier storage. With each of these types of archive, little or no emphasis is placed on maintaining long term integrity or usability of the archived data. Data retrieval times for data stored offsite on tape for example are typically measured in days, if not several weeks. Furthermore the costs of dedicating developer resource to rebuild systems and data structures can outweigh the value that was supposed to be safeguarded by purging the production database. In contrast, shifting data to an archive RDBMS adds complexity and requires resources similar to production databases for ongoing support – hence it rarely fully achieves the desired cost savings.

According to Forrester’s survey, the top two drivers of archiving strategies were regulatory compliance and business requirements. With national and supranational government regulations requiring enterprises to store specific information such as call records for several years, and increasing business demands for access to historical information, it is easy to see why.

“IT managers need to achieve a balance between the compliance demands for retention and the business demand for economical storage and retrieval. Current database management system technology is optimised for transactional processing, data warehouses are optimised for analytics but both fail to adequately address archiving needs. Worse still the lines between archive stores and backup, which have very different drivers and requirements, are all too often blurred.” says John Bantleman. He continues, “Forrester’s research clearly illustrates the need for the new generation of archive stores. These deliver both massive reductions in storage footprints, through data compression, together with the security, immutability and point-in-time query capability that enables quick, simple and unimpeachable fulfilment of regulatory obligations.”

The report ‘Why Database Archiving Should Be Part of Your DBMS Strategy’ is available to download from http://www.clearpace.com/resource_library.php