Shadowpack Inc., creator of the first enhanced wireless environment, today launched Shadowpack 1.0, a free service that increases the functionality of wireless devices -- including smart phones, communicating personal digital assistants (PDAs) and two-way pagers. Through Shadowpack, users can engage in personalized wireless experiences that offer unprecedented efficiency and unique capabilities, enhancing interactions from wireless devices.
Users can register for the free service on their wireless devices at wap.shadowpack.com or from the Web at www.shadowpack.com.
"Anyone who has used the wireless Web knows the frustrations of the experience," said Lance W. Schneier, Founder and Chairman of Shadowpack Inc., who developed the service following his own experience with the wireless Web. "Shadowpack eliminates these frustrations and opens the door to more wireless Web content and services, helping to make the wireless Web an integral part of our personal and business lives."
Shadowpack gives users access to content and services found on any Web or Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) site, including those authored in HDML, WML, and even HTML. Information obtained on a device can be sent to family, friends, colleagues or a user's own email account, giving wireless users the ability to share Web content for the first time. In addition, Shadowpack provides a "Delivery" function that allows content to be delivered to coincide with the user's schedule or regular activities.
Shadowpack remembers a user's previous interactions with any site accessed while in the environment. This minimizes the data entry required to engage in any interaction, including secure m-commerce transactions.
Shadowpack users also have the unprecedented ability to customize their wireless experience. Instead of having to drill down through numerous menu layers to get the information they desire, Shadowpack users can design their own menus, providing easy access to what they want to see.
The Shadowpack Environment is available on any device that supports a WAP compatible browser, including more than 80 models of smart phones, the Palm V, Palm VII, Handspring and Pocket PC families of PDAs, as well as the Research in Motion (RIM) family of two-way pagers. Shadowpack is the first WAP service formatted for multiple device classes.
"We realize that interacting with the wireless Internet isn't quite `point and click.' Wireless devices simply do not have the ability to `surf the Web' in the traditional sense," Schneier says. "Shadowpack makes the wireless experience worthwhile for users by providing them with easy, original and fun ways to get the information and services they desire from their devices when untethered. We are enhancing a new type of Web interaction, better suited for mobile devices."
Using Shadowpack
Through the free Shadowpack service wireless users now can:
-- Get the weekend's local live music scene emailed to your PDA
every Friday night.
-- Send a review of your favorite new restaurant directly to your
friend's phone. And, since the food site is great, you can
have Shadowpack send you the new reviews when they come out on
Wednesdays.
-- Set up a market recap to be delivered to your pager at the
closing bell.
-- Follow the Olympics, find the closest sushi restaurants, see
how the dollar is doing against the euro and check the weather
in London -- all from one screen.
-- Compare the best retail prices on MP3 players but decide to
bid on a used high-end turntable instead. Share the auction
results with your brother.
Any information or site a user accesses through the Shadowpack environment can be added to his/her device's personal My Shadowpack page, emailed to a friend or set up as a custom recurring delivery to any selected device.
Shadowpack Partnerships
Shadowpack has partnered with a variety of premier content and service providers, including Alta Vista's Shopping.com, mySimon and Go2Online, as well as Barpoint, eFax, GolfNow.com, Snaz.com, TravelerSOS and vVault, all of which appear in Shadowpack's extensive directory of wireless Web destinations. Through the directory, users will also find access to top wireless U.S. and international Web sites, including ESPN.com, MP3.com, TD Waterhouse, BBCNews, Siam2you (Thai wireless portal) and Citikey Paris.
Shadowpack has teamed with wireless device manufacturers and service providers such as RIM, Omnisky, Glenayre, Palm, Phone.com, ViaFone, Nokia and 4thPass to provide the Shadowpack experience over a range of devices and protocols.
Shadowpack has also integrated Google's wireless search engine technology, giving Shadowpack members quick and easy access to more than 1 billion Web pages. Each day, Google's award-winning search engine helps millions of users worldwide quickly find the most relevant information on the Internet.
Shadowpack Technology
Residing as a layer in between a user's device and a Web site, Shadowpack's patent-pending technology features an open, modular and extremely scalable architecture that permits the rapid integration of new functions for a large membership base.
The service accesses the Shadowpack Personalization Engine, which securely stores thousands of personal data records per member and the encryption of that data for secure interactions. Shadowpack partners with Certicom to provide data encryption optimized for handheld devices through ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography).
Rounding out the Shadowpack environment is a unique set of Actions that gives the user powerful ways to interact with wirelessly obtained data directly from the device.
The Wireless Market
International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that persons accessing the Web from a wireless device will surpass those using landline connections as early as 2002, with a total of 1.1 billion mobile Web users by 2003. Merrill Lynch agrees -- it foresees 1.5 billion wireless data subscribers by 2005.
Device use is also on the rise. Time Magazine predicts that PDA sales will reach 35 million by 2003, up from just 8.9 million in 1999. Donaldson, Lufkin, Jenrette projects a 2000 percent increase in the number of two-way pagers in the United States by 2002.
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