MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95.
Yahoo! Messenger was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo ID" which also allowed access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail. The service also offered VoIP, file transfers, webcam hosting, a text messaging service, and chat rooms in various categories.
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divisions Verizon Consumer and Verizon Business, and stopped using the Verizon Wireless name. Verizon is the largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 142.8 million subscribers at the end of Q4 2021.
Xobni was a San Francisco-based company that made software applications and services including products for Microsoft Outlook and mobile devices. It was founded in March 2006 by Adam Smith and Matt Brezina from Adam's dorm room in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as part of the Y Combinator summer founder's program. In late 2006, it relocated to San Francisco to be closer to Silicon Valley. It was acquired by Yahoo! in July 2013 for more than $60 million and shut down one year later.
Shazam is an application that can identify music, movies, advertising, and television shows, based on a short sample played and using the microphone on the device. It was created by London-based Shazam Entertainment, and has been owned by Apple Inc. since 2018. The software is available for Android, macOS, iOS, Wear OS, watchOS and as a Google Chrome extension.
UC Browser is a web browser developed by mobile internet company UCWeb, a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group. It was the most popular mobile browser in India and Indonesia, and the second most popular one in China as of 2017. Its world-wide browser share as of May 2022 is 0.86% overall according to StatCounter.
FarmVille is a series of agriculture-simulation social network games developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to Happy Farm and Farm Town. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plowing land, planting, growing, and harvesting crops, harvesting trees and raising livestock. The sequels FarmVille 2 and FarmVille 3 were released in September 2012 and November 2021, respectively.
Word Lens was an augmented reality translation application from Quest Visual. Word Lens used the built-in cameras on smartphones and similar devices to quickly scan and identify foreign text, and then translated and displayed the words in another language on the device's display. The words were displayed in the original context on the original background, and the translation was performed in real-time without a connection to the internet. For example, using the viewfinder of a camera to show a shop sign on a smartphone's display would result in a real-time image of the shop sign being displayed, but the words shown on the sign would be the translated words instead of the original foreign words.
Google Play, also known as Google Play Store and formerly Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating system and its derivatives, as well as ChromeOS, allowing users to browse and download applications developed with the Android software development kit (SDK) and published through Google. Google Play has also served as a digital media store, offering games, music, books, movies, and television programs. Content that has been purchased on Google Play Movies & TV and Google Play Books can be accessed on a web browser and through the Android and iOS apps.
Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices, they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone, | platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.
Pot Farm is a farming simulation social network game developed by Brain Warp Studios and owned by East Side Games. Gameplay involves planting and harvesting different strains of cannabis and manufacturing cannabis-based food items. Many of the plants, quests and achievements are named after elements of cannabis subculture.
Hay Day is a freemium mobile farming game developed and published by Supercell. Hay Day was released for iOS on 21 June 2012 and Android on 20 November 2013. According to a 2013 report, Supercell earned $30 million a month from Hay Day and Clash of Clans. In 2013, Hay Day was the fourth highest game in revenue generated.
Chromecast is a line of digital media players developed by Google. The devices, designed as small dongles, can play Internet-streamed audio-visual content on a high-definition television or home audio system. The user can control playback with a mobile device or personal computer through mobile and web apps that support the Google Cast protocol, or by issuing commands via Google Assistant; later models introduced an interactive user interface and remote control. Content can be mirrored to video models from the Google Chrome web browser on a personal computer or from the screen of some Android devices.
Google Cast is a proprietary protocol developed by Google for playing Internet-streamed audiovisual content on a compatible consumer device. The protocol is used to initiate and control playback of content on digital media players, high-definition televisions, and home audio systems using a mobile device, personal computer, or smart speaker. The protocol was first launched on July 24, 2013, to support Google's first-generation Chromecast player. The Google Cast SDK was released on February 3, 2014, allowing third parties to modify their software to support the protocol. According to Google, over 20,000 Google Cast-ready apps were available as of May 2015. Support for Google Cast has since been integrated into subsequent devices, such as the Nexus Player and other Android TV devices, as well as soundbars, speakers, and later models of the Chromecast. Consumer devices that natively support the protocol are marketed as Chromecast built-in. As of October 2017, over 55 million Chromecasts and Chromecast built-in devices have been sold.
Life360 Inc. is a San Francisco, California–based American information technology company that provides location-based services, including sharing and notifications, to consumers globally. Its main service is called Life360, a family social networking app released in 2008. It is a location-based service designed primarily to enable friends and family members to share their location with each other.
Cheetah Mobile Inc (猎豹移动公司) is a Chinese mobile Internet company headquartered in Beijing. As of January 2017, it has more than 634 million monthly active users.
Kakao is a South Korean internet company that was established in 2010. It formed as a result of a merger between Daum Communications and the original Kakao Inc. In 2014, the company was renamed Daum Kakao. The company rebranded once more in 2015, reverting simply to Kakao.
FunPlus is a video game developer and publisher headquartered in Switzerland, with operations in China, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. The company has developed the following mobile games: State of Survival, King of Avalon, Guns of Glory, and Call of Antia. FunPlus invests in the esports industry.
Samsung Experience was a software overlay for the Android "launcher" by Samsung for its Galaxy devices running Android 7.x “Nougat” and Android 8.x “Oreo”. It was introduced in late 2016 on a beta build based on Android 7.0 “Nougat” for the Galaxy S7, succeeding TouchWiz. It has been succeeded in 2018 by One UI based on Android 9 “Pie” and later versions.
The popularisation of mobile games began as early as 1997 with the introduction of Snake preloaded on Nokia feature phones, demonstrating the practicality of games on these devices. Several mobile device manufacturers included preloaded games in the wake of Snake's success. In 1999, the introduction of the i-mode service in Japan allowed a wide variety of more advanced mobile games to be downloaded onto smartphones, though the service was largely limited to Japan. By the early 2000s, the technical specifications of Western handsets had also matured to the point where downloadable applications could be supported, but mainstream adoption continued to be hampered by market fragmentation between different devices, operating environments, and distributors.
