It's time again for the International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA)! Like last year, there will be cash prizes and other amazing opportunities for game developers.

 

The winner will have software licenses from Adobe, Nokia phones and a guaranteed contract for an operator and publisher to market the title. A total of US$ 40,000 will be awarded to winners in the following categories:

• Excellence in Connectivity (multi-platform, social networking)
• Excellence in 3D
• Excellence in Game Play
• Best-licensed IP-based game
• Best Casual Game (Flash, Java, etc.)

The contest is global, and participants can submit their games online at IMGA's official website. The basic platforms developers can use to create their games are, but not limited to, Flash, Java, Brew and I-Mode. The submissions deadline is on September 24. There will be 25 finalists chosen who will then have until January 28 to produce a demo version of their concept for the final judging and winners will be announced in Barcelona.

Head on over to their site for further details, provided at the Read link below. Good luck, developers.

MOffy's Heart Bear Matching game is now all set to take over your mobile phones. This classic matching puzzle game featuring Heart Bear & Friends is the latest i-mode game from developer MOffy Limited, and will also be available via WAP2.0. The character of Heart Bear originally came from CRZone in Seoul.

While Heart Bear Matching will initially be available only in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, operators in other regions are looking into carrying the mobile game starting the 2nd quarter of this year. The Heart Bear Matching mobile game will include peripheral contents and products.

  

    

NTT DoCoMo is one of Japan's biggest wireless operators. So it is only logical that consumers would expect the bigger innovations to come from them. The company delivered indeed last Monday after announcing five new 3G FOMA 904i models capable of motion-sensing gameplay.

Accordingly, the motion-sensing capability has been made possible because of Chokkan Game support. After downloading the games from online sites, consumers can play these mobile titles by using intuitive motions such as tracing a finger and tilting or waiving the handset. Of course, the type of motion is dependent on the game's content.

The new phones sport pre-existing features common to DoCoMo units. But aside from the above mentioned, they will also have the following:

• 2in1 support: This service provides the capabilities of two separate handsets in one single unit. Under a single FOMA card, users are provided with two phone numbers and two i-mode mail addresses, and these are accessed independently by means of a Mode Switching function. Switching between modes changes the phone number, i-mode mail address, address book, mail boxes and call history. When using A Mode, the customer cannot view B Mode, and vice-versa.
• Uta-hodai support: Users can download full music tracks from i-mode sites supporting Uta-hodai for a flat monthly subscription fee. When downloading, users will accrue an i-mode information fee and packet communication charges. DoCoMo suggests that users planning to download a significant volume of data every month consider subscribing to flat-rate data communication billing plans "pake-hodai" or "pake-hodai full."

The D904i, F904i, N904i and SH904i could begin arriving in stores as early as May; at the latest they will be available in June. The P904i will go on sale in June.

It's no surprise that this newly-launched 3G handset in a Carbon Black casing and packed with features is from Sony Ericsson. The elegant and slim design of the K610im is very typical of Sony Ericsson's mobile phones.

Sony Ericsson's K610im is the company's first GSM/UMTS phone. It features full support for NTT DoCoMo's i-mode, an operator service that makes viewing multimedia faster and easier and allows access to mobile applications such as iMail, iMMS and Web browsing. Web content and pages especially created for i-mode can be accessed faster.

Sending high-quality photos taken by the K610im's 2-megapixel camera via email or as iMMS messages has also been made easier. With the supplied 64MB Memory Stick, you can choose to store up to 175 pictures you've taken, and the K610im can handle Memory Sticks of up to 1GB capacity.

As mentioned earlier, the phone's slim and elegant design is typical of most Sony Ericsson phones. Many 3G phones in the market are a bit bulky, but the K610im is as light and easy to carry as a 2G handset.

Other features of the K610im include capacity for over-the-air downloads, storage of up to 60 tracks in eAAC+ format in your Memory Stick, MP3 player supporting AAC and AAC+ formats, DoJa stand-by application, 2.5x digital zoom for your camera, and capacity for 3D games, to name a few.

The Sony Ericsson K610im will be made available Q3 2006.

Ever have trouble moving content between your phone and your computer? Well, that may be getting a bit easier. NTT DoCoMo of Japan announced it will be porting Windows Media DRM (Digital Rights Management) to its 3G handsets, which will mean content can be moved between phones and PCs bypassing the Open Mobile Alliance DRM.

Microsoft will grab a big customer base with Windows Media technologies on all NTT DoCoMo's FOMA 3G handsets. And the agreement will also mean an alliance of partners in DoCoMo's i-Mode mobile internet platform who may be looking to put Microsoft DRM into their devices, too.

How many people could this affect? Well, i-Mode has 250m subscribers in 15 countries, and over 50m use the content and internet platform. Most handset makers don't want to port Windows Media DRM to anything other than Windows Mobile, since it gives Microsoft a foothold to build on their phone architecture. However, it may be good for us consumers down the road. By supporting Windows Media Audio and potentially adding VC-1, a Windows Media bundled codec, phones could have direct access to online music and video services, with or without a connection to a PC.

DoCoMo's F902iS model, scheduled to ship this summer will be the first to include Microsoft's Windows Media Audio and Digital Rights Management 10 software. DoCoMo says they are evaluating Microsoft's Windows Media Video for future handsets. Support for Windows Media technologies means that these phones will work with over 100 online music services.

Now, the question is whether Microsoft's Windows Media DRM will be licensed to other, non-Microsoft platforms, and offered to other operators.