Going green can be difficult to incorporate into our daily routines. This year's Special Recognition award for the Sony Ericsson Content Awards provides methods, tips and ideas to make going green easier.

EcoMate, from Instituto Atlantico & Universidade Federal do Ceara, provides a built-in list of detailed actions against Global Warming to help motivate you to take positive steps toward individual and global change.

EcoMate offers various actions you can take to help become a better environmental citizen, and once an item is checked off, your personal score is updated with reward points, much like a gamer score in popular video games. There are quizzes to help you learn more about the planet and 3D virtual friends, such as a polar bear, a pine tree and an orchid, that act as your personal guide.

"There is no other application like it in the market, and its appeal comes from the message that it attempts to convey, which is that we need to do something for our planet," said Ernandes Mourão Júnior of Instituto Atlantico. "One of the greatest advantages of developing for Sony Ericsson is that every new idea gives us the opportunity to work with the top technologies. We expect great things from these technologies, and we believe this year, specifically, Project Capuchin will assist us in providing the best results."

Visit Atlantico's website>>

There are few mobile applications that do a good job of tracking location. There are even fewer that let you socialize while on the go. This year's In-Car Application winner of the Sony Ericsson Content Awards let's you do all that, and more.

GPSed from SHAPE Services in Germany combines GPS with social networking. From the convenience of your phone, you can send a contact your exact location at the moment. Regardless of what software the recipient has, GPSed provides them with a universal link to see where the sender is on a map. The GPSed user can even customize it with a message.

"GPSed combines a location service with a great social component. They've done something new," said Ross Rubin, Director of Industry Analysis, The NPD Group.

GPSed also traces trips on a map and lets users geotag photos, archive trip tracks and share their tracks with others via Facebook and other social networks.

"This feels more like a whole platform rather than just a single application. They could have a whole strategy to build this out more broadly," said David Card, Vice President, Principal, Forrester.

"We're honored to be named a 2008 Sony Ericsson Content Award Winner. Sony Ericsson Developer World creates a perfect environment for our company to focus on delivering indispensable mobile applications for millions of mobile users. We look forward to working with them to take GPSed to the next level," said Igor Berezovsky, SHAPE Services' CEO.

Visit the GPSed website>>

Think you have what it takes to be the fastest in the West? Find out by accepting the Bubble Boom Challenge, this year's winner in the 'It's All About the Entertainment' category of the Sony Ericsson Content Awards.

Bubble Boom Challenge from Zed Group is an intuitive and highly addictive game which tests your skills in linking bubble chains to explode them. But act fast or the bubbles will push the rat off the platform and end your game.

Leveraging the accelerometer in Sony Ericsson phones, you can control how fast the bubbles float and decide where they go with a twist of the wrist. The more you play and experiment, the more ways you discover the power of the motion sensor.

Billy Pidgeon, program manager, IDC said, "This is the type of game that's perfect for a mobile phone… you're having fun immediately, it doesn't take any time to learn, and you can start playing thinking 'I'll just play this for a couple minutes' but find yourself still playing a couple hours later."

With 40 levels of game play, it could take hours to beat. If you're interested in really testing your abilities, upgrade to Premium level to compete against others for prizes and bragging rights.

"This award speaks to the quality of content Zed provides to mobile users," said Alberto Jorge, Games Community Team Leader at Zed Group. "We are proud to have been chosen by Sony Ericsson and we will continue developing games that appeal to gamers of all shapes and sizes."

One of the biggest challenges Zed Group faced when developing Bubble Boom Challenge was how to enable a smooth gaming experience by utilizing the mobile sensors. Zed Group found it really helpful to develop on the SE J2ME platform because the Sony Ericsson SDK for Java ME Platform has JSR 256 support and on-device debugging which allowed them to easily debug the accelerometer on the real device. By utilizing the Sony Ericsson Developer World Web site and the resources in the Docs and Tools section, Zed Group was able to overcome the technical challenges they faced.

Visit the Bubble Boom Challenge website>>

GMT. CET. EST. Rome. Russia. Rio. Keeping track of where you're going and when you are can take its toll. This year's Xperia™ panel winner for the Sony Ericsson Content Awards manages your travel and assists with many essential travel needs.

Spb Traveler from Spb Software helps you keep track of your travel arrangements and stay on top of meetings, even when abroad. It can track time for your destinations, or your favorite spots, while reminding you when your next flight is and your next rendezvous.

"The panels are an absolutely exceptional opportunity for developers, especially taking into account the X1's on-device portal, which will help to further promote quality Windows Mobile software in this competitive market,” said Victoria Krasilshikova of Spb Software. “We had a vision of the new Spb Traveler from the start, but certainly, the idea of creating a panel for Sony Ericsson was the inspiration."

Unique to the Spb Traveler is a 3D globe that animates your trip so you can see where you're going and when with sleek animation. You can also use it to test your geographical knowledge in the Geo Game.

Need to know what the weather is like when you arrive in Mumbai? Done. The Spb Traveler provides global weather forecasts that coincide with your travel plans, as well as travel tools like a flight search and currency, unit, time and clothing size converters.

And if you're in Paris and want to request a glass of water, the Multilingual Phrase Book tool will help you find the words, “Un verre d'eau, s'il vous plait.”

"This Xperia Panel is an ideal travel tool, well-packaged with a clearly defined user experience and is also friendly to use," said Vildan Hasanbegović, Product Manager at Sony Ericsson.

Visit Spb Software's website>>

Staying connected to critical business data anytime, anyplace is vital. The winner of this year's "Being Productive" category of the Sony Ericsson Content Awards couldn't agree more.

Upvise Business from Unyverse Pte Limited lets you access company data so that you can complete a business deal, provide advice to a client or check the status of an on-going project instantly. Ideal for small businesses, the application contains features that keep track of your business correspondence, down to what was said and to whom so that CRM is quick and easy.

"It's one of the first integrated Web and mobile phone applications for small business, where there is a significant void and this application is tackling that... More and more, businesses are becoming virtual organization so people are never in one place, and they have to do business on the go. Sometimes they have a computer and sometimes they have a phone, and this allows them to use both," said Roger Entner, senior vice president, communications sector, Nielsen IAG.

Upvise lists all of your tasks in a single view pane and you can manage them by assigning them to yourself, or a co-worker, and then track those tasks' progress and deadlines.

"It's like a company intranet in your pocket. It's simple and has an easy to administer infrastructure... [making it the] perfect tool for small companies to be more productive," said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group.

Because the application is designed with collaboration in mind, any data entered on a mobile is instantly updated for colleagues to view. It can also be used in conferences to gather ideas and create discussion groups where participants can post their own ideas and vote "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" on those from others. The centralization of collaborative data and ideas accelerates how your team makes decisions and allows everyone to have access to the most up-to-date information.

"We kept the user in mind as we built this application," said Thierry Brethes, Founder & CEO of Unyverse Pte Limited. "We focused on maximizing productivity, and we are glad to be recognized for our efforts."

The most difficult challenge Unyverse faced was in creating the optimal user experience and taking advantage of each phone features, while maintaining one source code base. To solve this problem, they used Netbeans 6.5 along with the Sony Ericsson SDK for emulator testing. They also tested and debugged on more than 10 different phones to perfect the experience, and relied on their beta user community to with the process.

Visit the Upvise website>>