CTIA Round-up: T9 creators reengineer text input

Comcast revealed a new mobile content library on its broadband portal powered by Thumbplay. The service allows Comcast broadband customers to download content from Thumbplay’s library of ringtone, game and video directly to the mobile phone from Comcast’s mobile Web site, m.Comcast.net, as well as its online portal, thus allowing customers to back up what they buy for the phone on the PC.

Wireless IT’s forte, new software and applications, also made their initial debuts. Seven released a new integrated messaging client that aggregates all messaging traffic, contacts and calendar items into a single client. While similar to other unified messaging clients, Seven added some extra features that allow customers to sort messages by sender regardless of whether they came via push e-mail, SMS or MMS.

Openwave revealed new enhancements to its Integra mobile browsing platform that permits the carrier to monitor and bill for data traffic in real time from any phone. Most operators can only track data usage after the fact, adding up usage fees at the end of a billing cycle. The new functionality in Integra, however, creates a launch point for new services like Passport, which allows carriers to institute browsing day passes with a simple one-click transaction. Another new service, OpenMedia, is a document and multimedia as a Web page when accessed by a device that cannot render such media in its original format.