Zumobi,
first announced in March, is touted as an alternative to using a traditional Web browser for discovering and consuming Web content and services on a mobile phone or handheld device. The interface displays up to 16 different "tiles" per screen, allowing users to "snack on content," according to the company.
A collection of Zumobi "tiles"Zumobi says its back-end servers are constantly updating the websites on the phone, so sites load instantly when a user clicks the tile, and can also be used even when a phone is out of range of wireless service. Users determine what site appears in each tile, and they can send tiles to each other.
Zumobi's servers send website information to phones continuouslyAccording to the company, the Zumobi UI is based on many years of human-computer interaction (HCI) research. The UI reportedly adjusts to different devices and modalities, such as portrait, landscape, numeric keypad, touchscreen, mini-QWERTY, or traditional up/down/left/right navigational controls.
Pledging to offer "an open, device-neutral platform for building and deploying rich content for mobile phones," Zumobi says a beta version of its SDK will be available to developers simultaneously with the launch of the Beta Program, delivering on the companys promise of an open, device-neutral platform for building and deploying rich content for mobile phones.
Versions for Blackberry and selected J2ME implementations will be available "early in the second quarter of 2008," according to the company, which adds that the software and underlying service will be advertising-supported and remain free to the user.
An Adobe Flash-based demo of the product can be viewed by visiting the company's website,
here.
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