SXSW

Christina Nguyen White from Sapient thinks the growing hole in your back jeans pocket is getting a bit too personal. And swiping your card is so 2000-and-late. Why swipe when you can just scan? She asked in her panel “Thin Is In – The Future of Digital Wallets.”

Of all the mobile services I’ve seen at SXSW, Airbnb – which allows you to search for and “rent” properties for any length of time via your phone – is probably the best.

What’s better than a rocket in your pocket when you find yourself in a sticky situation? Buddy Guard from MPower Labs of course! The app, which launched this week at SXSW is a mobile protector in your pocket, alerting friends and family of your whereabouts and status in case of emergency.

Google Inc. veteran and VP of Consumer Products Marissa Mayer took the stage at SXSW in Austin, Texas, today and provided and interesting snapshot of Google’s mapping products. Google Maps is provided on all major handsets, and functions as the default service on iOS and Android, the two biggest fish in the smartphone pond.

It has been rumoured since essentially the dawn of time that Google Inc. is going to launch a social network. Although many of Google’s products, such as Picasa, YouTube, and Buzz include social elements, the search giant has yet to launch a full-on Facebook competitor.

Day two at SXSW proved just as interesting as day one.

Scvngr, the location-based game for mobile phones takes gaming to a new level by building a game around existing reality. Like a combination of Foursquare location-based check-ins and a real game, Scvngr builds a game “layer” on top of the existing world.

RCR caught up with two of the most passionate people in mobile today at the SXSW newsdesk – Harold Neidhardt – Founder of MLOVE – and Torsten Schollmayer, a mobile services expert at Sapient.

An unfortunate side effect of a “cool” conference like SXSW is you find a lot of people who truly, deeply believe that they themselves, personally, are changing the world for the better. It’s somewhat sweet, somewhat cheesy, and very, very naïve.

You can’t talk about mobile gaming without talking about Angry Birds, which is why Peter Vesterbacka, Mighty Eagle of Rovio Mobile joined RCR Wireless on an exclusive panel this afternoon in the news desk at the Alcatel-Lucent suite at SXSW.

AUSTIN, Texas-Marissa Mayer, VP of consumer products at Google, gave a keynote on Google Maps at South by Southwest (SXSW) on the first day of the Interactive Festival, March 11. …

Today’s highlights ran the gamut from payment apps to digital wallets, location-based services, and social gaming, to mobile apps for social good.

“This is a mass market thing – if you have 60 million people playing the game, it’s not just geeks anymore,” said Brian Reynolds, founder of Zynga in a keynote at SXSW today. The gaming company responsible for Facebook games like Farmville and Mafia Wars has turned playing video games into a social phenomena – not a private pastime but rather, a hobby to be shared and celebrated.

America’s students are bored, unengaged and dropping out at alarming rates – but technology may be able to save the day. At least according to the panelists on a Samsung sponsored SXSW panel on Friday entitled: Asleep in the Classroom: A Wake Up Call from Tomorrow.

Remember SXSW 2010, when check-in services such as FourSquare, Gowalla and BrightKite were hitting the big time? Austin was awash with people walking into closed doors as they stared intensely at their handsets, making sure they registered that all-important Starbucks check-in.

AUSTIN, Texas-Appconomy, a local startup app developer, unveiled the company’s first app, barely preceding the start of South by Southwest (SXSW) on March 11. The app is named “Grouped{in}” and …

AUSTIN, Texas-Downtown Austin is likely to blossom fruit this week in the form of Apple Inc. Several local news agencies are reporting that Apple will open a temporary store in …