MobileWeb

eBay launched its new eBay Mobile application, eBay Deals, adding several new features to the online auction site's already-popular mobile-commerce apps.

eBay Deals features: Daily Deals, access to limited-quantity items from trusted sellers at deep discounts and with no charge for shipping; Deals, a mobile-optimized search to find items with zero bids and less than four hours remaining; the ability to instantly post eBay shopping activity to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter; Shake for Deals, which enables iPhone and iPod Touch users to shake their devices and let the app find the best deals for them; and Top Deals Search, which makes the seven top pre-loaded search categories available via an icon.

eBay said its mobile app is on track to reach $500 million in sales by year-end, with an item purchased every two seconds.

Facebook members interesting in hunting for iPhone apps but seeking both the thoroughness of a directory and the assistance of reviews might want to play a few quarters in the Mplayit iPhone Arcade, as recommended by TechCrunch.

Mplayit iPhone Arcade includes the more than 100,000 existing iPhone apps, as well as other mobile apps, and each app has a dedicated page with videos, detailed descriptions and reviews, according to TechCrunch. Users also have the option to click through to the Apple App Store and purchase apps, with Mplayit receiving an affiliate fee.

Mplayit iPhone Arcade also recommends apps based on behavior and allows sharing of apps via Facebook and Twitter, and Mplayit founder and CEO Michael Powers told TechCrunch Facebook is the ideal platform due to the ability for users to tap into their social graphs to discover and share apps.

The controversial retweet feature is now available to all Twitter users, and TechCrunch also pointed out that according to the Twitter mobile account, retweets can now be sent via SMS.

Texting "RT username" to 40404 in the United States will automatically retweet the last tweet sent by whatever user name is entered, in the new style of retweeting, TechCrunch reported.

Mobile-service provider Orange UK created Snapshot, an app that allows Twitter users to send picture messages, Twitter director of mobile products and partnerships Kevin Thau reported on the Twitter Blog, alongside the news that Orange UK turned on Twitter SMS.

Thau posted:

The U.K. has had an outsized cultural impact on the world. From music to sports to literature…and now—MMS with Twitter.

Today, not only has Orange UK turned on Twitter SMS, but it has added a first-of-its-kind special enhancement. Orange UK users can also send picture messages (MMS) to 86444 in addition to text messages because of a site that Orange UK has created called Snapshot. The best part is that it is incredibly simple to use:

Take a photo on your Orange mobile phone

Select "Send via MMS" or "Send multimedia message"

Send it to 86444

Twitter does not charge for this service. It's just like sending and receiving messages with your friends—your carrier's standard messaging rates apply. Give it a try by sending a text message to 86444 with the word "START." This means that with the same shortcode, 86444, UK users can tweet via SMS with Vodafone, O2, and now Orange.

With the iPhone making inroads in Asia, it made perfect sense for Facebook to try to keep up, so the social-networking site added Chinese- and Japanese-language translations to version 3.03 of its iPhone app, Inside Facebook reported.

The app had only been available in European languages, including English, Spanish, French, German and Italian, according to Inside Facebook.

Although Facebook is banned in mainland China, some 58,000 people accessed it via proxy software in October, and the social-networking site is allowed in Chinese-speaking regions such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other Pacific Rim countries, Inside Facebook pointed out.

Inside Facebook added that the social-networking site added nearly 10 million users in Asia, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent in October, reaching a total of 60 million.

If a start-up Website is named Retrevo, users would expect it to retrieve. And if said users are shopping for consumer electronics, they won't be disappointed, according to TechCrunch.

Retrevo allows users to access product reviews via SMS or Twitter. According to TechCrunch, mobile-phone users can text "retrevoq" followed by the brand name and model number to 41411, and they will receive a response within seconds including a recommendation, a fair price, a range of prices and a link to a full review on Retrevo's site. It works the same way for Twitter users, who can tweet @Retrevoq with the product brand name and model and receive information via an @reply.

Joe Hewitt, the Facebook developer who had been leading the social-networking site's project to develop the Facebook iPhone app, hung up on Apple Wednesday, TechCrunch reported.

Hewitt sent a tweet Wednesday that read:

Time for me to try something new. I've handed the Facebook iPhone app off to another engineer, and I'm onto a new project.

When contacted by TechCrunch, Hewitt elaborated:

My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple's policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want. However, I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer.

The Web is still unrestricted and free, and so I am returning to my roots as a Web developer. In the long term, I would like to be able to say that I helped to make the Web the best mobile platform available, rather than being part of the transition to a world where every developer must go through a middleman to get their software in the hands of users.

Full-content digital replicas of more than 1,300 newspapers and magazines can now be accessed on the iPhone or the BlackBerry following the release of versions of PressReader for those platforms by NewspaperDirect.

The new PressReader applications are available free-of-charge via Apple's iTunes App Store and RIM's BlackBerry App World.

Titles available include The Washington Post, New York Post, Globe and Mail, National Post, The Guardian, Daily Mail, International Herald Tribune, The Australian, Gazeta Wyborcza, Corriere della Sera, Bangkok Post and Kommersant.

NewspaperDirect CEO Alex Kroogman said:

While other news applications offer limited Website access or a reduced version of the publisher's content, PressReader delivers the publication in its original layout with all of the content from its print edition, including advertising. As the mobile and handheld market evolves, we plan to offer PressReader on additional, new smartphones, e-readers or tablets, as they are announced. This includes the highly anticipated Apple tablet.

A company called Peek today unveiled a mobile device built specifically to allow Twitter users to tweet.

Called TwitterPeek (nice branding!), the handheld device sells for $99.99 (which includes six months of service, and then $7.95 per month after) or $199.99 (with a lifetime service plan). It's being sold exclusively on Amazon.com.

TwitterPeek can be used only for tweeting. CNET News.com's Don Reisinger has some details:

The gadget lets (users) tweet, reply, retweet, send direct messages, and download followers. It supports one (Twitter) account at a time. Users can also view TwitPics by clicking the "view content" option from the TwitterPeek menu.

As the Peek blog suggests, TwitterPeek is targeting Twitter users who don't have smartphones and data plans.

Technically you can use SMS on a regular phone, but it's really not the same. So most Twitter users are stuck using the web -- and they're missing out.

The company points to this recent Rapleaf study of Twitter clients to make its case that most users are "stuck" tweeting from the web, but that could be a flaw in reasoning. I suspect the reason that 65% of tweets are sent from the web (instead of a Twitter-specific client or mobile device) is because people tweet a lot at work or from home at night. But that's just a theory; we'll see how this all plays out.

In addition to the black model shown, TwitterPeek also comes in blue. You can see a demo below of TwitterPeek by Engadget's Joshua Topolsky on Jimmy Fallon's late-night show. (I'm not sure how well it bodes that some members of the audience laughed when Topolsky explained that "all it does is send tweets and gets tweets back.")

Your iPhone can protect you from swine flu. Well, maybe not physically, but Harvard Medical School created a Swine Flu iPhone app that helps to educate users about H1N1, TechCrunch reported.

The app features videos, animations and text describing the basics of the virus, how to reduce risk and how to prepare for it, as well as real-time updates and news from Harvard Med School, according to TechCrunch.

The Swine Flu app also boasts a "HealthMap" feature that tracks the state of the epidemic in users' current locations and other locations, as well as an interactive symptom checker, TechCrunch reported.

The video below from Harvard Medical School describes the Swine Flu app: