Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase, a player in mobile messaging and mobile commerce services, and Telecom New Zealand International (TNZI), a division of Telecom New Zealand, a full-service telecommunications provider, have announced a new partnership for the availability of a joint IPX voice service offering.

The companies are working together to offer a voice service based on managed IP interconnects using Sybase 365′s MPLS-based GRX community, combined with TNZI’s next-generation softswitch technology, which enables VoIP interconnections in Asia Pacific, North America, Europe and Africa, a TNZI official revealed.

Sybase 365′s IPX service is aimed at delivering services including global data roaming, MMS, Roaming Signalling, SMS, IMS services (presence, SIP-based messaging, P2P video) in addition to voice services, partnering with TNZI.

RDF Digital USA and Artificial Life recently announced a collaboration to produce an interactive animated TV show entitled ‘Sleuths’.

Implementing Artificial Life’s MoPA-TV system (‘mobile participation television’ that enables live TV broadcasters to support real-time viewer interaction with their shows using their mobile phones), ‘Sleuths’ is being promoted as the ‘first’ television show in the United States to let audiences become part of the storyline.

‘Sleuths’ is a half-hour animated episodic series featuring four kids solving a mystery every week. In the show, the audiences register and customise their own avatar, which will appear on the screen representing them while the show airs live on national television.

Three times per episode, the avatars of the registered audience members will appear in the show for voting sessions. A question will be asked in each session and they will have to text in their vote within a limited time frame. Those who get it wrong will be eliminated from the screen; those who get the question right will be congratulated on the correct answer and stay for the next question.

At the end of each episode, the top five avatars who answered all of the questions correctly will appear on screen one final time standing with the main characters. All audience members will have a shot as seeing their avatar standing next to the show’s stars, the company explained.

Orange and Research In Motion (RIM) recently announced the new BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone, a new addition to the BlackBerry Curve series of smartphones.

The smartphone provides mobile access to e-mail, messaging (IM, SMS, MMS) and popular social networking sites (including Facebook and MySpace) and features a tactile full-QWERTY keyboard for comfortable typing. It also features multimedia capabilities and access to music, games and other mobile apps for entertainment on the go.

The BlackBerry Curve 8520 smartphone will be available from Orange Spain in frost.

Bharti Airtel, an integrated telecom services provider headquartered in India, has launched a calling rate of 1 cent a minute on its online calling card service Airtelcallhome.com.

The company believes this will enable NRIs (Non-resident Indians) in the US to call friends and family back in India at competitive rates in the market.

Airtel has also launched a host of new features for the US consumers including auto recharge, free SMS from the web and audio conferencing facilities.

AT&T has announced a fresh lineup of smartphones and quick messaging phones that are aimed at making it easier for customers to message with friends and family and manage their business and personal lives on-the-go.

In the smartphone category, AT&T debuted the Nokia E71x and the Samsung Propel Pro smartphones.

In addition, the Samsung Impression and Samsung Magnet, and LG Xenon and Neon lead AT&T’s lineup of quick messaging phones and is understood to have expanded the number of full-keyboard mobile phones in AT&T’s lineup to seven.

Monitise Americas and Metavante have announced the launch of text message banking services.

The service will allow consumers to use text messaging to obtain any-time balance information on their accounts.

It will also enable consumers to set alerts, to notify them when their balance is low or when their payroll deposit has arrived, for example.

Monitise Americas is a joint venture between Metavante, a provider of banking and payments technologies, and Monitise, a mobile money player.

Ericsson has announced the launch of a social networking portfolio for mobile network operators, the Pixl8r initiative and the Social Media Portal.

The technologies together offer simplified sharing of user-generated content between friends across diverse networks.

The Pixl8r drive is an open-standard solution that allows photo sharing sites to interact in real time. With Pixl8r, mobile subscribers can easily share social media across different operator portals and receive SMS notification of friends’ activities regardless of network.

With Ericsson’s Social Media Portal, operators can deliver a Pixl8r-compatible social networking service; and consumers can connect to the social web using any mobile phone.

The solution does not require client downloads, and encourages posting and accessing of real-time, user-generated content to diverse internet communities.

Telenity, a provider of next generation converged services platforms and applications, has announced that Eagle Mobile, an Albanian mobile operator, has chosen Telenity’s advanced messaging solutions including Canvas SMSC, Short Message Service Centre and Canvas USSD Service Centre to handle its messaging traffic and enable the introduction of new USSD and SMS-based services.

Telenity’s Canvas Converged Messaging Solutions are aimed at improving revenues from Person-to-Person (P2P) and Application-to-Person (A2P) messaging with a modular, scalable next generation IP based architecture designed for CAPEX and OPEX savings.