Artificial Life Extends Business to South Africa, Announces Upcoming M-Health Platform Extension with HIV/AIDS Mobile App
HONG KONG and LOS ANGELES, April 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Artificial Life, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: ALIF), a leading provider of award-winning mobile technology and applications, announced today an expansion of its business into South Africa through the extension of its Opus-M Health platform to include an application that will be used for the care management of HIV/AIDS patients.
The Company (ALIF) announced that it is in the process of establishing an office in South Africa in Stellenbosch near Capetown for its South African operations. The new business activities will be carried out in close co-operation with M-Health Middle East Ltd., a recent investment partner with Artificial Life. Both companies will focus on developing and expanding their mobile health care services and products customized for South Africa. The Company is in negotiations with several additional business partners in the region and is in the process of recruiting senior executives to assist in its efforts of building up local operations.
The Company currently already provides two mobile health monitoring apps: GluCoMo™, a diabetes monitoring app, and Opus-M Health: Neurodermatitis an app for monitoring the skin condition known as neurodermatitis. In the past, these two applications were targeted mainly to industrialized markets. However, GluCoMo™ as well as the upcoming patient monitoring app for HIV/AIDS will now also target the BRICS emerging markets of which South Africa is a new member. Featuring functions such as patient/medication monitoring, reminders, and education/health tips, the application will be built especially with the treatment of HIV/AIDS in mind. The Company will again be leveraging its Opus-M technology to power the backend system to ensure reliability and security of user-sensitive data.
According to AVERT, an estimated 5.6 million people are living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa in 2009 – more than any other country. It is estimated that in the same year, around 310,000 South Africans died of AIDS. The highest prevalence age group is 15-49, at 17.8 percent.
According to International Telecommunication Union's survey, South Africa is Africa's biggest mobile phone market as of 2009, with over 46.4 million mobile users. The number is forecasted to pass 52 million at the end of 2015. Also, data from On Device Research shows that 57 percent of South Africa's mobile Web users have never, or infrequently use the desktop Web.
The application will be offered to provide support and awareness to patients and caregivers as universally as possible. In an effort to further expand its reach, the Company aims to develop the application not only for smartphone platforms such as iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7, but also for lower grade phones.
The Company is in discussions with major health care providers and other partners to make the application available to a broader audience for free. The goal is to offer the mobile app for free to the end user and have health care providers, insurances and advertisers cover the cost.
"We believe that the BRICS markets will be central for mobile health services in the future. South Africa is a vast country with a strong need for diabetes and HIV/AIDS services especially for its non affluent population. We hope we can help with our products to improve the health care situation in South Africa," said Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Artificial Life, Inc.
For more information about products and mobile solutions by Artificial Life, please visit: www.artificial-life.com
Sources:
HIV & AIDS in South Africa." AIDS & HIV Information from the AIDS Charity AVERT. AVERT. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://www.avert.org/aidssouthafrica.htm>.
The Market for Mobile Phones in Africa." Africa Business Pages. Africa Business Pages. Web. 14 Apr. 2011. <http://www.africa-business.com/features/mobile_phones_africa.html>.
Global Mobile Statistics 2011: All Quality Mobile Marketing Research, Mobile Web Stats, Subscribers, Ad Revenue, Usage, Trends… | MobiThinking." Home | MobiThinking. MobiThinking. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.<http://mobithinking.com/stats-corner/global-mobile-statistics-2011-all-quality-mobile-marketing-research-mobile-web-stats-su>.
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About Artificial Life, Inc.
Artificial Life, Inc. has been a pioneer in artificial intelligence and mobile technology since its inception in Boston in 1994. We are a public US corporation (OTC BB: ALIF) with listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurt: AIF.F; Xetra: AIF.DE) and headquarters and production center in Hong Kong. We have additional offices in Berlin, Germany (EMEA headquarters), Tokyo, Japan, and Santa Monica, USA. Currently our main business areas are: high quality (3D) interactive (massively multiplayer) mobile games, mobile participation television, mobile business applications, our powerful mobile commerce technology platform OPUS-M™ and our green IT solutions provided by Green Cortex, Inc. We have won many industry awards for our outstanding technology and products.
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Forward-Looking Statements:
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding our future results of operations, financial condition and business prospects. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may", "will", "should", "expect", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict", "potential", "continue" or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Although such statements are based on our own information and information from other sources we believe to be reliable, you should not place undue reliance on them. These statements involve risks and uncertainties, and actual market trends or our actual results of operations, financial condition or business prospects may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward looking statements for a variety of reasons. Potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, our ability to obtain additional funding to operate and grow our business; the unproven potential of our mobile gaming business model; changing consumer preferences and uncertainty of market acceptance of our products; timely adoption and availability of 3G and broadband mobile technology; market acceptance for use of mobile handheld devices to play the interactive games; unpredictable mobile game development schedules; our reliance on a relatively small number of brands; our ability to license brands from others; our dependence upon resellers and telecommunication carriers and operators to distribute our products; our ability to successfully develop, introduce, and sell new or enhanced products in a timely manner; and the timing of new product announcements or introductions by us or by our competitors. For additional discussion of these risks and uncertainties and other factors, please see the documents we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-KSB filed on March 16, 2010. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this press release.
For more information on ARTIFICIAL LIFE, INC., please contact:
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Adeline Law |
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Tel: +852-3102-2800 |
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SOURCE Artificial Life, Inc.
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