Hewlett Packard has unveiled a free application that allows users to print photos from various Apple mobile devices.

"There's a major shift happening in the mobile domain today," explained Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst, Enderle Group. "Annual camera phone device shipments are exploding on a worldwide basis, and mobile photo printing is quickly growing. Until now, customers had no easy way to print the special moments captured on their (Apple mobile devices)."

Iprint quickly prints borderless, 4 x 6-inch photos stored on an Iphone or Ipod Touch. The new application is fully compatible with Apple's Bonjour technology, which automatically identifies wireless printers connected to a network. Iprint also recognizes a number of industry standard Wifi environments, including Apple Airport, Linksys, D-Link and Netgear.

As IT Examiner previously reported, results of a recent IBM survey indicated that over 50 per cent of consumers would choose a mobile device over a PC for Internet browsing and related activity.

"Worldwide adoption of the mobile phone as the preferred device for accessing the Internet is just around the corner," predicted Dr. Sungyoul Lee of IBM. According to Lee, companies should seize the opportunity to "develop intuitive applications and services that allow people of all ages to effortlessly access and use the Internet while on the go - anytime, and anywhere".

Indeed, accessing the Internet via mobile devices has become quite popular in Africa, where web browsing significantly exceeds traditional desktop-computer surfing. According to Opera, the use of its mini browser in Africa has surged over 180 per cent during the past nine months.

"Month after month we have witnessed our usage numbers in Africa skyrocket," explained Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software. "This tells us that change is underway, and more people now have the ability to access the Internet from locations that were previously unthinkable. It's exciting to see a rise in Opera Mini use in countries like Egypt, where accessing sites such as Facebook and Google from their mobile phone can now be a part of Egyptians' daily lives." X