The mobile site opens to a simple search box where you can enter a product name or the number that appears under the UPC bar code found  on most products.  Snappr returns a list of products with price, a picture and user rating if available. The site is available in English and German and can be used anywhere in the world.

Does this sound familiar?  Snappr is a near clone of Barcle which I reviewed in Feburary.  To Snappr's credit, it's a more attractive site than Barcle and seems to work better too.  Searching is much faster and the bar code database seems more complete.  In a quick test with three products, a prepaid mobile phone, a book, and an analog to digital TV converter box, Snappr found the phone and the book, while Barcle found none of the items.  Plus, Snappr shows prices in the search results list, while Barcle requires you to drill down into each item's detail page to find the cost.

It's not all rosy with Snappr though. Products are returned in random order rather than sorted in some logical fashion like by price from lowest to highest. The prices shown are often wildly different than the actual price on the retailer's site. Like that SIM card for $1.19 shown in the screenshot.  The actual price on Amazon is 29.99! There doesn't seem to be a pattern, sometimes Snappr's price is higher than the real price, sometimes lower.

Like almost every mobile shopping site, actually making a purchase can be difficult. There is a "Buy.." link for each item which goes to the retailer offering the product.  But the link often goes to a full web page that is impossible to use on a mobile. Fortunately many of Snappr's items are sourced on Amazon.com which does deliver a mobile page whenever it detects a mobile browser. Registered Amazon users with a credit card on file can even make "1-click" purchases on the Amazon mobile site.

Snappr also has an iPhone app that can use the phone's camera to capture product bar codes so you don't have to key in those long strings of digits. That's a great idea which I hope they extend to other platforms. I don't have an iPhone to try it out with but according to a post on the Agregated Intelligence Blog, it works but is harder to use than Android's ShopSavvy due to limitations of the iPhone's SDK. Source: Mobility.mobi

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Shopping

Ratings: Content:  Usability: 

Mobile Link: snappr.mobi

Here is how it works:

Most of mobile carriers offer free Email To SMS gateways which can be used to forward simple text emails to a mobile phones. And the good news, majority of those gateways are free and available to the general public.

You just need to know the number and the carrier of the recipient to start emailing them to mobile phone. Below we put together a table listing free email to SMS gateways for different carriers. You can use as quick reference both for US and international mobile numbers.

Free Email To SMS Gateways (Major US Carriers)

Free Email To SMS Gateways (International + Smaller US)

These are all I could find from Wikipedia and other sources. If you’re aware of any other ones please share them in comments and I’ll add them to the list.

If you are aware of any other free sms to email gateways please add it in comments. Also let us know whether you tried any of the above and your experience with it.

(By) Aibek, the guy behind MakeUseOf.com

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As mentioned early last month by my colleague Daniel Terdiman, Microsoft is giving users the option to browse and purchase Xbox Live Marketplace content within the browser. The new storefront, which is slated to go live early Wednesday morning, is already beginning to appear on Xbox.com, albeit in incomplete form.

The new system gives Web users the same catalog to browse through and purchase as they get on the Xbox 360, including themes, gamer pictures, demos, and downloadable games. Once players turn on their system at home, all the purchased items are queued up and begin downloading right away.

Users are also able to manage their download queue from the site. This includes the option to view your past purchase history, and re-download old content. Microsoft's new system only lets you do this one item at a time, however I can easily see the company adding a bulk queue management tool later on down the line. In the meantime, this is a far better way to go through and re-download a large number of items than navigating the list on the console. In case of a hard drive crash or any other loss of data, this is a quick way to get back up to speed.

The new online marketplace lets you re-download items you've already purchased. Once you start up your system at home they'll start downloading.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

While you cannot play the movies, music videos, and TV shows from your browser once purchased, the online experience includes the same short video previews that are available on the console itself. It also lets you hop around available content a whole lot faster, despite the addition of alphanumeric searching on the freshly updated system software.

Other small improvements include the option to add more Microsoft points to your account balance, and tack on extra time to your Xbox Live membership. There's also the option to enter redemption codes, which are given out in retail cards and as promotional items for early betas, and exclusive content giveaways. Allowing users to submit these codes at any time means many more folks will be able to claim them in situations where they cannot make it home--giving them a jump start on contests or other limited-time offers.

The new Xbox.com Web marketplace should be completely up and running early Wednesday morning (PST). In the meantime, registered Xbox.com users can still access the new Marketplace interface to add Microsoft Points, edit account information, change Xbox Live membership levels, and redeem prepaid and promotional codes.

With the holidays coming up, could there be a better time than now to make some money while also helping out the environment?

What’s residing in your dead gadget drawer? Are you going to be trading anything in?

BestBuyTradeIn.com - Electronics superstore Best Buy will allow you to trade in a wide range of products in exchange for gift cards you can spend with their company.

BuyMyTronics.com - BuyMyTronics will buy your gadgets from you whether they work or not. Of course, you get paid more the better their condition, but they will even take the broken ones. Can pay by PayPal or check.

Costco Trade-In and Recycle Program - In addition to taking gadgets like iPods, Costco will also accept desktops, laptops, fax machines, printers and more. Payment is in the form of Costco gift cards and can take up to four weeks to process.

EZTradein.com - EZTradein powers some of the biggest trade-in programs out there, or you can just simply go directly to the source. Payment can be made via check, PayPal or a Best Buy gift card.

Gazelle.com - Besides the smaller gadgets, Gazelle will take external hard drives, GPS devices, satellite radios, Blu-ray movies and more. If your item isn’t listed, you can contact them for a personalized quote. Payment can be made via Amazon gift card, checks, PayPal or you can even opt to have the funds donated to one of the charities they work with.

MyBoneYard.com - MyBoneYard takes desktops, laptops, flat panel monitors, MP3 players and cell phones with more items to be added soon. Payment is by Visa prepaid cards.

NextWorth.com - NextWorth takes iPods and iPhones, and pays you by check, Amazon gift card or in-store credit when you trade the device in at one of their retail partners.

RadioShack.cexchange.com - RadioShack, one of the oldest electronics dealers around, will let you trade in your old gadgets, games, consoles and more, and offers gift cards you can spend at their stores.

Sam’s Club - The wholesale club arm of the Walmart corporation will trade your electronics for gift cards for their company.

Toshiba - Toshiba will take in numerous items such as laptops, camcorders, PDAs and so on, paying you by check and sometimes throwing in an extra item like a $25 gift card to Starbucks.

VenJuvo.com - VenJuvo will take all of the usual major items like game systems, HDTVs, laptops and so on, and then you can choose to be paid by check, PayPal or donate the funds to a charity.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, kutaytanir

---
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AT&T's actions will decrease revenue so I can't see any reason they did other than to cut data usage. The 3G data issues that iPhone users have been reporting appear to be caused by  AT&T's 3G network rather than any issues with the phone, according to both lab tests and an analysis of iPhone performance around the world. In my own use of the N95-3 on AT&T in San Francisco, I see frequent hangs and have never achieved a data rate much over 300 kbps, far less than the 2000 kbps HSDPA should be capable of.

In the case of T-Mobile, raising prices in the middle of a recession seems like a sure way to drive away customers or at least discourage them from adding a data package. So what do T-Mobile's new prices look like?  For the details, TmoNews seems to have the best breakdown. Here's a summary comparison:

In addition to raising the prices, T-Mobile will no longer allow the cheapest $9.99 plan to be used with Windows Mobile phones or anything else that the carrier defines as a "Smartphone" which apparently includes the new Samsung Behold. The Behold is a touchscreen device that superficially resembles an iPhone but is really just a typical T-Mobile feature phone with locked down Java that keeps it from running 3rd party data-aware applications.

As I said at the beginning, I think these new rates are designed to curb data consumption rather than to increase revenue.  T-Mobile does not require a data plan even with smartphones or the G1.  These prices will discourage a certain percentage of users from adding data.  The 50MB cap is another indication that discouraging data use is the intention.  Overages on the 9.99 plan are charged at $0.20/MB with a cap of $15.00 on top of the 9.99 for a maximum monthly charge of 24.99.  That will certainly make many users think twice before streaming video or audio.

Users on the old plans will be grandfathered as long as they don't change plans or upgrade from a feature phone to a smartphone, Blackerry or Sidekick.

T-Mobile used to have a reputation for the lowest voice and data rates among the major US carriers. That's no longer as true as it used to be as the following table shows.  It lists the cheapest available voice only plan for feature phones and the cheapest voice + unlimited data plan combination for smartphone's and BlackBerries.  These prices are for the San Francisco Bay area and may not apply everywhere.  The various carriers also offer different amounts of voice minutes with their plans, ranging from 200 (Sprint feature phones)  to 450 (Verzion, ATT and smartphones on Sprint).  T-Mobile falls in the middle with 300.

T-Mobile still has an advantage for smartphone users.  Or maybe not, compared with the other carriers T-Mobile gives you fewer voice minutes and has far less 3G coverage so it's not the bargain it appears to be.

In defense of the carriers, I don't think they are doing this out of greed.  Data use is exploding and with it the myth of unlimited 3G data is dying. In many urban areas, all the available channels are already in use so adding more capacity isn't possible.  AT&T is already doing doing data shaping, giving users with iPhones highest priority, followed by postpaid users and finally prepaid.  T-Mobile is also data shaping, but taking a different approach, anyone exceeding 10GB of data in a month will have their data rate reduced to about 50 kbps for the rest of the month.

Making data more expensive and limiting it to postpaid users is certainly going to have a negative impact on adoption of mobile web services by users. If there is in fact a bandwidth shortage, I don't know what can be done to ease it. Interestingly, the CDMA/EVDO carriers, Sprint and Verizon, don't seem to be doing anything to curb data usage.  Is EVDO significantly more spectrum efficent than HSDPA? How about 4G including WiMax and LTE?  Any readers who are knowledgible about wireless data network technologies care to jump in with a comment?

AT&T's actions will decrease revenue so I can't see any reason they did other than to cut data usage. The 3G data issues that iPhone users have been reporting appear to be caused by  AT&T's 3G network rather than any issues with the phone, according to both lab tests and an analysis of iPhone performance around the world. In my own use of the N95-3 on AT&T in San Francisco, I see frequent hangs and have never achieved a data rate much over 300 kbps, far less than the 2000 kbps HSDPA should be capable of.

In the case of T-Mobile, raising prices in the middle of a recession seems like a sure way to drive away customers or at least discourage them from adding a data package. So what do T-Mobile's new prices look like?  For the details, TmoNews seems to have the best breakdown. Here's a summary comparison:

In addition to raising the prices, T-Mobile will no longer allow the cheapest $9.99 plan to be used with Windows Mobile phones or anything else that the carrier defines as a "Smartphone" which apparently includes the new Samsung Behold. The Behold is a touchscreen device that superficially resembles an iPhone but is really just a typical T-Mobile feature phone with locked down Java that keeps it from running 3rd party data-aware applications.

As I said at the beginning, I think these new rates are designed to curb data consumption rather than to increase revenue.  T-Mobile does not require a data plan even with smartphones or the G1.  These prices will discourage a certain percentage of users from adding data.  The 50MB cap is another indication that discouraging data use is the intention.  Overages on the 9.99 plan are charged at $0.20/MB with a cap of $15.00 on top of the 9.99 for a maximum monthly charge of 24.99.  That will certainly make many users think twice before streaming video or audio.

Users on the old plans will be grandfathered as long as they don't change plans or upgrade from a feature phone to a smartphone, Blackerry or Sidekick.

T-Mobile used to have a reputation for the lowest voice and data rates among the major US carriers. That's no longer as true as it used to be as the following table shows.  It lists the cheapest available voice only plan for feature phones and the cheapest voice + unlimited data plan combination for smartphone's and BlackBerries.  These prices are for the San Francisco Bay area and may not apply everywhere.  The various carriers also offer different amounts of voice minutes with their plans, ranging from 200 (Sprint feature phones)  to 450 (Verzion, ATT and smartphones on Sprint).  T-Mobile falls in the middle with 300.

T-Mobile still has an advantage for smartphone users.  Or maybe not, compared with the other carriers T-Mobile gives you fewer voice minutes and has far less 3G coverage so it's not the bargain it appears to be.

In defense of the carriers, I don't think they are doing this out of greed.  Data use is exploding and with it the myth of unlimited 3G data is dying. In many urban areas, all the available channels are already in use so adding more capacity isn't possible.  AT&T is already doing doing data shaping, giving users with iPhones highest priority, followed by postpaid users and finally prepaid.  T-Mobile is also data shaping, but taking a different approach, anyone exceeding 10GB of data in a month will have their data rate reduced to about 50 kbps for the rest of the month.

Making data more expensive and limiting it to postpaid users is certainly going to have a negative impact on adoption of mobile web services by users. If there is in fact a bandwidth shortage, I don't know what can be done to ease it. Interestingly, the CDMA/EVDO carriers, Sprint and Verizon, don't seem to be doing anything to curb data usage.  Is EVDO significantly more spectrum efficent than HSDPA? How about 4G including WiMax and LTE?  Any readers who are knowledgible about wireless data network technologies care to jump in with a comment?

That includes some new phones, like the RIM (RIMM) BlackBerry Curve, coming later this year, and refocusing its prepaid Boost Mobile brand for "customers impacted by the current economic environment" with cheaper per-minute rates and a new unlimited-access plan, coming early next year.

Sprint bought Nextel for $35 billion in 2005, but earlier this year, wrote down most of its purchase price as a loss. In recent years, Nextel has been more of a problem than an asset for Sprint, accounting for drastic subscriber losses.

See Also:
Motorola Betting Big On Google's Android To Take On Apple, Rivals
Sprint CEO Disses Google's Android Phone, Wishes He Had One
This Winter's Smartphone Wars Are Set: Who's Going To Win?

The service pack also includes a number of enhancements such as:
• Accessibility
1. Menu navigation: Use arrow keys to navigate the menu within your meeting room.
2. Keyboard shortcuts: Use chording to control key meeting functions.
3. Tab navigation: Cycle through pods and options with the tab button.
4. Color customization: Set a custom color to highlight pods within your meeting room.

• Two New Languages—Russian and Turkish
• Extended Overage Capabilities—hosted customers can purchase packs of 5,000 prepaid overage minutes to increase the capacity of their meetings up to five times their purchased capacity.* Overage minutes can now be applied to Named Organizer meetings, in addition to Concurrent User meetings.
• Expanded Reporting Capabilities—hosted customers will now have access to a far richer reporting environment with a new easy-to-use report building interface.

View this on demand presentation for details about what you'll find when SP1 becomes available in early November.

Launch this presentation in a new window

Why is AT&T doing this?  No one really knows for sure, but I lay the blame to the myth of "unlimited" wireless data.  Bandwidth on mobile networks is actually quite limited.   I believe that AT&T determined data availability on the network was being compromised because  too many people were using the package for tethering and with data cards.  Those uses are prohibited by the MediaNet TOS but the restriction is unenforceable given the anonymous nature of US  prepaid and GSM's easy swapping of SIM cards.  Sure the carrier could revoke a user's data privileges for tethering, but there is nothing to stop the user from buying  a new SIM on eBay and starting all over.  The option probably cut into AT&T's sales of $60/month for 5GB  data card plans, too.

If you look around the world, very few carriers offer unlimited data to prepaid users.  What they do offer and what is lacking in the US market are affordable megabyte data bundles.  Italy's WIND for example, has packages ranging from 244MB for €3.00 ($4.14) to 4.88GB for €30.00 ($41.40). That's between $0.008 and $.017 per megabyte.  In contrast the prices that ATT still offers PYG users are; ad hoc data at $.01 per KB ($10/MB) and 1MB and 5MB feature packs for  $5 ($5/MB) and $10 ($2/MB) respectively.  These are outrageous rates, between 100 and 1000 times what WIND charges for the same thing.

In the last 5 months I've used about 470MB of data on an N95 on a  GoPhone account at a cost of $99.95 ($0.21/MB).  This usage represents a couple hours of web surfing a day, almost all of it using Opera Mini which compresses pages to about 20% of normal size, plus a few videos (about an hour's worth of video over the entire 5 month period).  I don't own a laptop so I don't tether.  Using $10 feature packs this same level of usage would have cost a completely unacceptable $940 ($188/month)!

With the loss of unlimited MediaNet there are no longer any cost-effective prepaid data packages available on any major US GSM network.  T-Mobile does give prepaid users free unlimited access to a walled garden on seven sites, but there is no way to get access to the open internet on T-Mobile USA' prepaid plans.

The only GSM alternatives are "hybrid" plans. AT&T's Pick Your Plan hybrid option starts at $29.95/month for 200 minutes plus $19.95/month for unlimited data.  If you don't actually use 200 voice minutes a month there's a loophole that lets you get some of the money back after a year. A major drawback of Pick Your Plan for international travelers is that a  US credit or debit card or checking account is required.  I wonder if AT&T will accept one of these prepaid credit cards that are available at convenience stores? Probably not, but if anyone has done that please let us know in a comment.

T-Mobile's Flex Pay hybrid plan is another posibility at $30/month for 300 voice minutes plus $5.95 for proxied data with only ports 80 ( HTTP), 25 (SMTP), 993 (secure IMAP), 110 (POP) and 443 (HTTPS) available through the proxy or $19.95/month for open internet access plus free use of T-Mobile's 8900 WiFi hot spots.  No credit card is required for FlexPay, you can visit a T-Mobile store each month and make a cash payment

If you are willing to abandon GSM there are some more affordable options.  Verizon will sell you unlimited data  for $1/day (charged only on days used) on their Impulse prepaid plan.  Verizon can control data usage as, unlike GSM, CDMA doesn't use SIM cards. To change handsets you have to call CS or enter the new device's ESN on a web form.  Verizon will not allow you to switch to a datacard or even a smartphone on Impulse.  It is at least possible to hack some Verizon phones to allow tethering. This violates the TOS, of course, and could eventually get you device's ESN blacklisted

There's also Sprint's Boost Mobile iDEN prepaid which has a $10.50/unlimited Wireless Web option.  The downsides to Boost are the extremely limited iDEN phone selection and a glacially slow 19.2 Kps data rate.  All iDEN phones are tetherable out of the box and tethering is apparently allowed by the TOS,  but surfing at a fraction of dialup speeds is no fun at all.

I'll probably load up my Go Phone account with three months worth of unlimited data early in November, When that runs out, it's back to Boost.

What I'd really like to see AT&T do is to replace their present overpriced prepaid data plans with something reasonable, say 250MB for $5, 500MB for $10 and 1GB for $20.  These rates would be attractive for phone only browsing including streaming media but are signifigantly higher than the data card rate of $60 for 5GB to avoid hurting sales of that plan.  I honestly don't expect to see AT&T offering anything like that but it would be the smart thing to do in the long run, getting prepaid users hooked on affordable data for a nice boost in ARPU.