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Filed under: Internet, Windows Mobile, Web services, BlackBerry, Mobile Minute, iPhone

Mowser is dead, the mobile web lives on.

MowserMowser is a tool that helps you cram full web pages onto the tiny web browser on your cellphone. Just go to the Mowser web site, type in the URL you want to read, and Mowser will strip away all the unnecessary visual information that looks fine on a desktop web browser but bogs down your cellphone.

We first covered Mowser when it launched about a year ago, and we're sad to tell you that founder Russell Beattie says the product is "at the end of its life in its current form."


Beattie reports that his company has been having a difficult time raising funds and has been making very little money from advertising. Rather than regroup, Beattie is giving up because he says he doesn't believe in the "mobile web" anymore.

That's kind of sad, because the service was fairly useful if you've got an old school browser and an old school phone, something interesting is happening with the mobile web. Cellphone users either don't bother signing up for web service at all, or if they do they're starting to flock towards devices like the iPhone which can support full web pages without any Mowser-style squashing. The interesting thing about products like Mowser is that they're designed for yesterday's mobile web, not tomorrow's. If Beattie had launched his company in 2004 instead of 2007 it might have been successful. But today the distinctions between the mobile web and the full web are starting to blur, which leaves services like Mowser out in the cold.

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Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

CiviballsI have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

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