—MS Releases Tag For IPhone: Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has released its second iPhone application, Tag. It “enables users to instantly access mobile content, videos, music, contact information, maps, social networks, promotions, etc. simply by pointing the device’s camera to a custom tag” writes TechCrunch, which makes it another visual barcode system like QR Code. Do we really need the visual barcode system to fragment as much as the mobile handset market has? They seem to get more information into less space, so at least the new system has that benefit, but the codes aren’t that big in the first place and the reader is pretty useless without companies using the codes to advertise.

—Skype On Android, Java: Skype is expanding its mobile service, announcing a version of Skype lite for Android handsets and “more than 100 other Java-enabled mobile phones” (release). It’s also available for Intel-based Mobile Internet Devices, which run over WiFi with some devices offering 3G or WiMax connectivity (release). Reuters spoke with Chief Operating Officer Scott Durchslag at CES, who said: “The operators thought in the past we were something just shy of Satan…Now we have carriers coming to us.”

—SlingPlayer Mobile For Blackberry: SlingMedia has announced that SlingPlayer Mobile Beta is available for certain BlackBerry smartphones. Slingbox customers in the US, Canada and the UK can get it as a free download during the public beta (release). More details about Sling’s DVR service on paidContent.org...

—Slacker On Blackberry: Personal radio station company Slacker has announced a free Slacker Mobile application for Blackberry Smartphones. The service caches so that users can store the stations on a memory card and listen to them without a network, and there are also detailed artist bios and album reviews for each song (release).