Wideray Named Symbian Publisher Certifier

October 12, 2005; 09:41 AM

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – October 12, 2005 – WideRay (www.wideray.com), a worldwide pioneer and market leader in mobile content distribution, today announced it has been granted Publisher Certifier status from Symbian, a software licensing company that develops and licenses Symbian OS™, the global open industry standard operating system for advanced, data-enabled mobile phones.  This agreement enables WideRay to approve both its own software content browser as well as third-party applications and content, speeding time-to-market for its content provider partners.  The announcement comes on the heels of WideRay’s recent deal with Trans World Entertainment Corp to provide “Download & Go” mobile entertainment stations at f.y.e. – For Your Entertainment retail locations in New York, Los Angeles and Boston. WideRay has also been deployed at U.K.’s Vue Cinemas and London retailers.

Symbian Signed is the industry-endorsed application signing program that promotes best practices in Symbian OS™ content and application development.  The program tests applications against industry-agreed criteria in support of network operator and mobile manufacturer requirements.  Utilizing the Symbian Signed program, WideRay will now tag consumer content delivered to Bluetooth and/or infrared-enabled mobile with the “for Symbian OS™” logo.  Additionally, signed content delivered through WideRay will not trigger the end-user warnings that occur during the installation of unsigned third party content.  The “for Symbian OS™” logo provides confidence to users that the application they are downloading has been tested and approved, is of high quality and does not represent a security risk.

“We are excited about our relationship with Symbian. The Symbian Signed status will allow us to bring content to mobile consumers with even greater effectiveness,” said Grant Wakelin, Chief Executive Officer, WideRay.  “Consumers will see the ‘for Symbian OS™’ logo when the WideRay application is loaded, which will immediately reassure them that the content they are about to receive is legitimate and approved.  Additionally, with our status as a Symbian ‘Publisher Certifier’, we now will be able certify our partners’ content in-house, which will significantly improve our time-to-market.”

Symbian Signed delivers the infrastructure and process necessary for identifying and verifying applications, known as “application signing”.  This is a secure way of identifying an application, authenticating the developer of the application, testing the application against a defined set of criteria and ensuring the application has not been changed since it was tested and signed.  The Symbian OS™ (operating sytem) supports a wide range of rich programming environments including C++, Java, VB, C#, OPL and Flash. 

About Symbian
Symbian develops and licenses Symbian OS™, the global industry standard operating system for smartphones, to the world’s leading handset manufacturers.

About Symbian Signed
Symbian Signed is the mobile industry endorsed certification program that promotes best practice in designing applications to run on Symbian OS™ phones. Symbian Signed applications follow industry agreed quality guidelines and support network operator requirements for applications and content. The program was created to satisfy the mobile industry’s demand for a reduced cost to developers by providing the community with a single generic certification program that all parties can benefit from. For more information please visit www.symbiansigned.com or email symbiansigned@symbian.com

About WideRay
WideRay (www.wideray.com) is a worldwide pioneer and market leader in mobile marketing and content distribution that enables retailers, advertisers, and other location owners to distribute and sell rich media and promotions directly to consumers’ mobile devices.  WideRay utilizes free short range wireless networks that operate on protocols such as Bluetooth, WiFi, and Infrared, WideRay partners with movie studios, music record labels, game developers, and other content owners and aggregators to provide a strong source of rich media that is a complete end-to-end solution for the growing retail category of mobile content distribution. To date, WideRay has been deployed by leading consumer retailers in Europe and North America including EB Games, Trans World Entertainment’s f.y.e stores, and Loews theatres. Founded in 2000, the company is privately held and headquartered in San Francisco. For more information about WideRay, please call +1 (877) WIDERAY or visit www.wideray.com.