Incelligence, the developer of a number of BlackBerry apps in the MobiHand catalog like Carb Checker, Restaurant Nutriguide and Dream Dictionary, has just kicked off a “Pick the Winners” contest for this year’s Academy Awards.

To participate, download the FREE BlackBerry mobile app by going here.  Then just make your picks for the winners and submit your entry from your BlackBerry. The entry that picks the most number of Oscar winners correctly will receive a $100 gift card from Best Buy.   Submissions will be accepted until March 7, 2010, 7:00PM EST.  Only one submission per mobile phone number. Complete rules are included in the application.

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Leroy Mascarenhas of Xtreme Labs let us know that in partnership with CrackBerry and MTV, they have put together a BlackBerry app called Help Haiti to help raise funds for those suffering from this disaster.

This app itself is FREE.   Along with helping facilitate donations (via SMS in $5 or $10 amounts that are added to your monthly cell phone bill), it also serves as a a center for the latest news regarding Haiti. From the Help Haiti app, you can also view photos of the rescue efforts and follow the #haiti and #helpHaiti tweets.

Mascarenhas remarked, “Through this application, those that need it most will receive the help they so desperately need. We thank you for downloading our application, where 100% of the proceeds and donations raised will go towards the following aid groups: Yele, Worldvision and the RedCross.”

There are two versions:  One for non-touch devices (BlackBerry OS 4.2, 4.3, 4.5, 4.6, 4.7 Non-Touch, 5.0 Non-Touch) and another for touch devices (BlackBerry OS 4.7 Touch Screen, 5.0 Touch Screen).

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Thanks to everyone who took part in our Twitter giveaway last week — we collected all the re-tweets and the winners of a free copy of Addictive Tower Defense for BlackBerry are the following users:

akosnitzky
kasperapd
jbyrdman
sloth26
StephenO86

We are going to get in touch with them via PM in the next few hours with instructions on how to obtain their free copy.

Didn’t make the winners list this time? No worries — just keep an eye to “mobihand” on Twitter for the next giveaway!

We are happy to start off a new twitter based initiative: weekly app givaways — your chance to get a best-of-breed app for your BlackBerry, Android or Windows Mobile phone, for free.  Which apps are we talking about? It could be any out of the thousand of mobile apps / games / themes out of our catalog.

How to participate? Easy — follow “MobiHand” on Twitter and keep an eye for a Tweet announcing the giveaway. More in detail:

1 – Follow MobiHand on Twitter and keep an eye for a Tweet we’ll send out every week (along with daily reminders) announcing the giveaway. For example, it could be something along the lines of “5 free copies of <app name> for grabs! Re-Tweet this message to participate in the giveaway. Winners will be announced on day X.”

2 – Once the deadline has passed, we’ll count everyone that Re-Tweeted the message, and randomly assign the prizes, which will be delivered in the form of discount coupons / license codes either via email or Twitter direct message.

Your smartphone will love you! With tens of thousands apps, games and themes from more than a 1000 developers supporting popular platforms (BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm), this giveaway offers something for everyone.

Join the fun!

Smartphones are hot and the mobile content that runs on them (i.e. apps, music downloads, podcasts, RSS feeds, video, wallpaper, and ringtones) is even hotter with new additions springing up daily.   Wouldn’t it be awesome if there were an assistant for your smartphone that could screen mobile content and recommend to you which ones you should pay attention to? That’s the idea behind the FREE SIDEBAR app that is currently available for the Android platform with plans on rolling out for BlackBerry devices, the iPhone, and Windows Mobile smartphones.

In brief, SIDEBAR (www.sidebar.com) is a personal content recommendation and delivery engine that makes it easy for you to discover, access, and share “fun stuff.”

It utilizes a patent pending, highly attuned optimization engine that gets smarter the more you use it.

The company recently completed a highly successful consumer trial conducted with a Tier 1 carrier that validated Sidebar’s appeal and ability to stimulate content consumption and engagement. The trial included 5,000 smartphone users and, in a survey taken after its completion, they gave SIDEBAR high marks for being “easy to use” and “a fun way to get information.” Nearly half of the surveyed active users expressed that they were more likely to consume mobile content as a result of their use of SIDEBAR and 20 percent said that they shared, bought or downloaded a product or service that they discovered in SIDEBAR.

Read the rest of this entry »

Phones Review (UK) just posted a short piece about a free app called DriveSafe.ly by iSpeech, Inc. that runs on BlackBerry and Android devices.  What it does is  automatically read the incoming text messages and emails you many receive while behind the wheel, out loud so you can concentrate on the road. Basically, it was designed to eliminate the temptation to reach for your phone. Along with reading to you, DriveSafe.ly also has an option to auto-respond for you.  The human sounding text to speech is powered by iSpeech.org.

For the BlackBerry, there is a free version and a pro version that runs $13.95. For Android devices, there is only a free version currently available.  Some key features include:

• Automatically plays incoming text SMS and email messages
• Plays messages on demand through menu
• No complicated software to install easy to use
• Small footprint lightweight app does not slow down your phone
• Customizable auto-response and timeout duration

With DriveSafe.ly Pro you get the ability to use additional voices and listen to text messages/emails without sponsor messages.  To learn more, go to www.drivesafe.ly.

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Multiplied Media Corporation, an award-winning, Calgary-based provider of mobile local search services, just announced the addition of restaurant search for over 880,000 Poynt customers in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, which enables users to easily find nearby restaurants, read reviews and book dining reservations.

According to Andrew Osis, the CEO of Multiplied Media, “dining and restaurant queries comprise approximately 50% of business searches in Poynt.”

As with the existing sections in Poynt (Businesses, People, Movies), all search results are based on the consumer’s location – whether acquired by GPS or cell-site, or manually entered – and are sorted by distance.

Information for the new restaurant module is pulled from Citysearch, Yelp, OpenTable.com and Superpages.com.

Poynt is a free application and is available for the BlackBerry Pearl and BlackBerry Curve series smartphones, as well as the BlackBerry Bold, BlackBerry Storm and BlackBerry Tour smartphones.

You can find it in the Free section of the MobiHand BlackBerry App Store or download it Over-the-Air (OTA) by typing this URL into your BlackBerry Browser: http://m.mypoynt.com.

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Version: 1.4.2.72 (8/24/09)

File Size: 531 KB

More information is available at www.MyPoynt.com.