AOL to Launch Mobile Development Platform
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Developers can add another mobile open-application development platform to the mix, this time from AOL.
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America Online Inc. (AOL) is launching a program Monday to promote and facilitate the creation of what it calls AIM Robots for its AIM instant messaging system.
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AOL on Wednesday plans to launch a new  version of its software that lets users access their e-mail,  instant messaging, search and media on the same screen.
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(InfoWorld) - AOL LLC will open up AIM Phoneline to external developers to let them create hardware devices and software applications for this Internet telephony service. AOL will give developers access to the AIM Phoneline platform via APIs (application programming interfaces), the Dulles, Virginia, Web portal said Thursday. AOL, a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., will make the APIs generally available in this year's fourth quarter, but it will show devices and applications built with the APIs at next week's Fall 2006 VON Conference in Boston. The move is part of a larger trend at AOL and among Internet companies in general to enrich their online services with add-ins, applications and devices created by external developers. Companies like AOL, Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. realize they benefit from tapping into the creativity of external developers, be they individuals or corporate programmers. The resulting applications, often called mash-ups, extend online services in ways and directions that the Internet companies may not have considered or may lack the resources to explore. For AIM Phoneline, which is the VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service of AOL's AIM instant messaging service, the hope is that device manufacturers and voice application developers will use the APIs to build new hardware peripherals and software features. AOL plans to introduce three APIs in the fourth quarter to let developers create ring tones for AIM Phoneline, let cordless phones function with AIM Phoneline and build call management features for the service. Along with the APIs, AOL is formally launching the Open AIM Phoneline initiative, an outreach program for external developers interested in extending the service. The program includes a competition for developers called the Open AIM Phoneline Developersâ Challenge. AOL will accept AIM Phoneline applications between Sept. 11 and Nov. 30. The winners will be announced in January 2007. The first-place winner will receive US$3,500, while $1,000 will be awarded for second place. More information will beÂ posted online soon.Â Â  The Open AIM Phoneline program will also have an online store featuring applications and devices built by external developers. AIM has about 43 million users in the U.S. AIM Phoneline, launched in May, offers AIM users a free phone number, free online voicemail and unlimited incoming calls. For outbound calling, AOL offers a plan for $9.95 a month for calls to the U.S., Canada and 30 other countries. AIM Phoneline competes in a crowded market for Internet telephony that also includes services from eBay Inc.'s Skype, Vonage Holdings Corp., Yahoo and AT&T Inc.
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America Online, Inc. is reported to be developing a Web browser based on Microsoft Internet Explorer technology. It is not known when the browser will be released
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An article at eWeek is saying that AOL plans to launch it&#39;s own web browser sometime soon. The &quot;AOL Browser&quot; will be based off of Microsoft&#39;s Internet Explorer and not AOL&#39;s dead Netscape Browser.
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America Online has begun beta testing a streaming media video service through its AOL Instant Messenger software. Dubbed AIM Video, the service will feature music videos, movie trailers, entertainment news, celebrity interviews and sports highlights.
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Hoping to accelerate AOL instant messaging (IM) on mobile devices, America Online has launched the Mobile Developer Program. OZ, LG Electronics, Motorola, Samsung Telecommunications America and Siemens have signed on as charter members.
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Blog: The social networking company plans to launch an API to connect to other services.
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AOL Monday is launching a program to promote and facilitate the creation of what it calls AIM Robots for its AIM instant messaging system.
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A startup called Ribbit is launching a platform designed to let developers create telephony applications they can embed in Web pages and Web-based services.
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(InfoWorld) - Adobe Systems plans to launch the beta of a new runtime later this month that will allow rich Web-based applications to run offline, technology that could threaten the popularity of programming platforms such as Java and Microsoft's .NET. The release of a developer preview of the runtime, dubbed Apollo, will coincide roughly with an ApolloCamp event Adobe will hold in San Francisco on March 16, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. ApolloCamp will give developers a chance to kick the tires of the new runtime. Apollo delivers on the promise of technology Macromedia originally introduced in 2003 called Macromedia Central.Â Adobe purchased Macromedia in December 2005. Macromedia Central was an environment that allowed Flash-based applications to run offline so they didn't need to make continuous calls to servers on the back end, allowing them to run more quickly and efficiently. "Macromedia Central was an early [version] of Apollo," said Pam Deziel, director of theÂ Platform Business Unit for Adobe. Apollo will allow developers to take applications built not only in Flash, but also in HTML, AJAX, and other Web development languages and create them to run locally on a user's desktop, she said. According to Sean Christmann, senior developer at EffectiveUI -- a Denver-based company that has had an early look at Apollo -- the technology acts as a wrapper, which makes it easy to take code from an existing Web application, wrap it in Apollo, and transfer it to the desktop. The key to making this transfer is Adobe's Flex Builder tool, which developers can use to wrap their code with the technology, Christmann said. The Apollo runtime must be installed on the desktop or embedded directly in the application to enable it to run locally, similar to how the Flash player runs Flash applications in the browser, Deziel said. Apollo will be available for free to both users and developers. Anthony Franco, founder and managing partner of EffectiveUI, said Adobe plans to use Apollo to promote revenue-generating products, such as Flex Builder and Flex Data Services, which connects the Flex application framework to back-end data and business intelligence. It also could lure developers away from Java and languages used to develop .NET applications on Windows, Christmann said. "A lot of users start learning programming online, and now they don't have to learn a new language when they want to go to the desktop," he said. Though Apollo is not available for public release yet, EffectiveUI has used it to build a desktop application for eBay so its auction site can run on the desktop without being connected to the Internet or accessed through a browser, Christmann said. EBay will not confirm or deny the existence of the application. There are several benefits for companies with popular Web sites to also have a desktop version that can run in Apollo, Christmann said. It allows companies to interact directly with their users without having to access a browser, and it also takes a load off of their back-end servers if users can access their applications offline. Users benefit from running applications on Apollo, too, he said. If they want to put new products up for an eBay auction, for instance, they can type all of the information about the items and post photos of them while they are offline, then access the Internet later and have that information automatically uploaded to the site, Christmann said. Franco said Adobe plans to release a final version of Apollo in the third quarter, and eBay likely will go live with its desktop application then. Adobe's Deziel would only say that the company plans to release Apollo in the second half of the year.
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Norwegian browser developer Opera Software ASA has developed a product to run on Microsoft Corp.&#39;s Windows Mobile operating system, with plans to ship demonstration versions
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On Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Yahoo announced the Yahoo Mobile Developer Platform, as well as a new mobile home page and the third generation of its Yahoo Go software for mobile phones.
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InfoWorld - Nuance Communications has agreed to buy the developer of the T9 predictive text input software for mobile phones from current owner AOL.
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Also: AOL's mobile ambitions. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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Adobe Systems Inc. later this month plans to launch the beta of a new runtime that will allow rich Web-based applications to run offline, technology that could threaten the popularity of programming platforms such as Java and Microsoft Corp.'s.NET.