Hosted by Gemalto in association with Samsung and Sun Microsystems, the tenth edition of the SIMagine Contest rewards the most innovative projects for wireless applications

Amsterdam, the Netherlands, February 11, 2009 – The SIMagine developer contest challenges Java™ developers worldwide to present innovative Value Added Services for the cell phone. Expanding over the past nine years, the SIMagine contest has become a major event in the mobile value-added services ecosystem. As part of the 2009 SIMagine worldwide developer contest, around 200 innovative entries in the field of wireless applications were evaluated by a selection committee composed of international members. The eight finalist projects from all over the world are now selected, and their teams invited to present to the public and to an international jury at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

This year’s edition is again strongly themed around two technologies where the SIM card enables very innovative services: Near Field Communication (NFC) and Smart Card Web Server (SCWS).

The exceptional prizes – over 60,000 euros plus the supply of valuable development resources and marketing support to bring the winning ideas to market – attract entries from mobile service specialists, application developers and students from all over the world. Building on the high performance Java Card™ engine for SIM cards which has contributed to the success of Gemalto, the SIMagine developers, mobile operators and service providers take advantage of its powerful popular multi-application capability to quickly deploy value-added services, add new revenue opportunities, increase subscribers’ loyalty and continuously develop their customer base. The wide proliferation of Sun Microsystems Java Card™ platform and Java development tools mean that such applications and services may be rapidly developed, tested and deployed worldwide.

“Through this contest, Gemalto is proud to bring forward-thinking ideas and intuitive insights to the market, and make the most creative wireless services quickly available to operators and subscribers,” stated Philippe Vallée, Executive Vice President, Telecom, Gemalto. “The SIMagine contest continues to catalyze innovative ideas from all over the world, leveraging SIM capabilities while meeting operators and subscribers demand.”

“Sun is pleased to sponsor this prestigious contest which brings together Java Developers from around the world with their innovative ideas,” said David Bryant, Senior Director of Marketing, Client Software Products. “The interoperability and success of Sun’s Java Card platform open up these applications to world-wide deployment.”

The eight finalists are the following:

APiCARDIO – APIILINX (France)
The goal of the application itself is to monitor patients anytime, anywhere with regards to physiological parameters needed to prevent cardiac heart failures, diabetes side effects and obesity. Data is transferred to the SIM card from an external on-body sensor and results are formatted and displayed using the SCWS. This application is useful for self monitoring using the mobile phone.

BioXpress – Precise Biometrics AB (Sweden)
BioXpress enables the implementation of an electronic ticket in a mobile phone SIM card, leveraging notably NFC and SCWS technologies. The solution enables remote, web-based registration of the user’s fingerprints, as well as ticket purchase. It features the Match-On-Card technology for identity verification at border crossings based on fingerprint check.

iCanSee – Rhodes University (South Africa)
iCanSee is a Smart Card Web Server (SCWS) based application, developed particularly for the visually impaired community and provides a web-based front end to the four most frequently used text-based communication tools on a mobile phone: the phone book, SMS, MMS and email. iCanSee allows users to create their own profiles, supporting changes to: background and foreground color (for contrast), font size and font color.

KONNEXSIM – Scientific Engineering Services Ltd (Greece)
KONNEXSIM is an application that uses the KNX open-standard, the standard for home automation, to create a link between a SIM card and any KNX connected device. This can be a heater, air-conditioning, lights, alarms, or shutters. KONNEXSIM turns the mobile phone into the remote control of the system, both locally through Bluetooth and from a distance, through SMS or the Internet, leveraging the strong security level of the SIM card.

SIMail – FH Hagenberg (Austria)
SIMail is a device independent application to administrate business tasks, like mails and calendar events. As it runs directly on the SIM card the Communicator is always on. The “Push-mail” or “Exchange” functionality thus does not depend on the mobile device, but on the SIM card.

SSA (SIM Single Authenticator) – University Carlos III of Madrid (Spain)
This application allows introducing user’s credentials (e.g. username and password) associated to web services in a secure way. The data is stored on the SIM so that in subsequent occasions, the application can automatically provide the credentials on behalf of the user to the web sites and will present a web application with the relevant information about these sites.

TaggyNet – Polytech Marseille (France)
TaggyNet proposes an additional value to on-line communities like MySpace.com, facebook.com or hi5.com. This application provides new ways to exchange information and to be in touch for community members. Many public sites, stores, restaurant, hotels having a tag waiting to be “tagged” represent a potential source of information for customers. This network of tags is intended to grow up because each community member will be able to share his feelings about a specific place. As a result, an indirect publicity will be generated for the whole community.

Web gate – Moscow State University (Russia)
Web gate provides mobile web developers with a powerful tool for designing web pages using the SIM card functionalities through Smart Card Web Server (SCWS). The tool defines web components that can be embedded into a web page, each invoking a specific functionality in the SIM card. As an example, users can develop a web page that allows sending a certified SMS from the SIM using a digital signature.

The eight finalists will present their projects to the jury during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The awards will be attributed during a ceremony on February 17 at 5:30 pm at the Gemalto stand. (8A102).

About SIMagine

SIMagine is the Worldwide Mobile Communication & Java Card™ Developers Contest aiming at stimulating innovations using SIM-based solutions.
The contest initiated by Gemalto is organized in association with the main sponsors Samsung and Sun Microsystems supported by Gemalto’s partners, notably Orange, Telefonica and TIM.Launched in 2000, SIMagine brings together talents such as research engineers and start-up entrepreneurs around the world to propose creative applications for tomorrow’s mobile services.
Over the last nine years, a total of 1,600 participants representing more than 35 countries from all 5 continents have been promoting the Java SIM message through training in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia.
Innovative ideas are brought to life in the field of Gaming services, Financial services, Mobile Contactless services, Interactive services, Community services, Entertainment & Mobile TV, and Multimedia & Convergence. Applications are leveraging new technologies such as Java Card™, SIMToolkit, Smart Card Web Server / HTTP, NFC (Near Field Communication), Multimedia SIM, Peer-to-Peer technologies.

About Gemalto

Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is the world leader in digital security with 2008 annual revenues of €1.68 billion, and 10,000 employees operating out of 75 offices, research and service centers in 40 countries.

Gemalto is at the heart of our evolving digital society. The freedom to communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain, and work–anytime, anywhere–has become an integral part of what people want and expect, in ways that are convenient, enjoyable and secure.

Gemalto delivers on the growing demands of billions of people worldwide for mobile connectivity, identity and data protection, credit card safety, health and transportation services, e-government and national security. We do this by supplying to governments, wireless operators, banks and enterprises a wide range of secure personal devices, such as subscriber identification modules (SIM) in mobile phones, smart banking cards, electronic passports, and USB tokens for online identity protection. To complete the solution we also provide software, systems and services to help our customers achieve their goals.

As the use of Gemalto’s software and secure devices increases with the number of people interacting in the digital and wireless world, the company is poised to thrive over the coming years.

For more information please visit http://www.gemalto.com.

Contacts

Gemalto
Rémi Calvet
Tel: +33 (0) 1 55 01 64 10
Mob: +33 (0) 6 22 72 81 58
E-mail: remi.calvet@gemalto.com

Aline Borne
T.: +33 (0)1 55 01 51 05
M.: +33 (0)6 16 29 87 04
E-mail: aline.borne@gemalto.com

TBWACorporate
Rebekah Lahey
Tel: +33 (0) 1 49 09 26 58
Mob : +33 (0) 6 07 21 08 77
E-mail: rebekah.lahey@tbwa-corporate.com