Tue, Jun 21, 2011

SINGAPORE - Imagine this: Settling your dining bills via a wireless payment system on your phone, or scrolling through a mobile food and drinks menu.

This may not be too far off in the future - the Government will be pumping in $15 million to the tourism, retail and food and beverage sector here to develop mobile applications that may do precisely just that, reported The Straits Times.

The initiative, announced on Tuesday, is meant to boost the competitiveness of companies in these industries.

Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Yaacob Ibrahim, said in his keynote address at the opening ceremony of the CommunicAsia conference that the "convergence of social networking, location sharing and mobile devices has created new opportunities and challenges."

He also said that consumers do not just use their mobile phones to make calls or text any longer, as can be seen from the "proliferation of tablets and other mobile devices over the last 12 months."

The Government is currently looking for proposals from companies on innovative mobile services suitable for those industries.

The Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore will fund at least 30 projects, and hopes that the final product will materialise within the next two years.

A key factor that will be taken into account would be how easily the application can be utilised by its user, be it a hawker stall or restaurant. It should not require expensive customisation work.

For more information, visit www.ida.gov.sg