HTC Touch Diamond Is EISA European Smart Phone 2008-9

HTC Touch Diamond Is EISA European Smart Phone 2008-9HTC are, we suspect, bouncing around with considerable joy today, after they were told that their HTC Touch Diamond has won the EISA European Smart Phone of the year 2008-9 award.

The handset runs on on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional overlaid with an updated version of HTC’s TouchFLO 3D interface, which is designed to keep the itty-bitty stylus in its silo and make the operating system more finger friendly.

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Gary McKinnon Gets European Court Date: Newsflash

Gary McKinnon Gets European Court Date: NewsflashYou’ll remember that UK ‘hacker’ Gary McKinnon had lost his House of Lords Appeal at the tail end of July.

He’s attempting to stop his deportation to America to be tried on hacking charges.

He and those in his defence camp, including his lawyers, Kaim Todner LLP, will be breathing a sigh of relief, for the next two weeks at least.

We’ve just heard that the Presidents of the European Court Human Rights will hear his application, before the full Chamber, on 28th August 2008.

Background on the case

A Tough Week For YouTube

A Tough Week For YouTubeYouTube will be hiring more lawyers and policy wonks, we suspect, following a week of complaints and legal challenges to the content that is stored on their servers and show to people around the world.

Yesterday the House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee published a report (PDF) with included “Risks from the Internet, particularly social networking sites and sites hosting user-generated content.” Most of the media used this to focus on YouTube and how evil it is.

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Vodafone To Buy Back £1Bn Shares

Vodafone To Buy Back £1Bn StockVodafone Board feels that their shares are undervalued at present, so to build the share price up again, they’ve just sanctioned the self-purchase of up to £1 Billion of their own shares.

The publication of this decision comes the day after a Vodafone’s shared dropped almost 14% over the day, the largest single-day drop in its history.

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Twinity: Berlin Virtualised In A Game

Twinity: Berlin VirtualisedWe all know how popular virtual worlds are, with the best known examples being Second Life and World of Warcraft.

These worlds are all very well, but they’re set in a fictional world. Not a bad thing for many people, but some players will hanker for more reality.

Get Real
This is where Twinity comes in. Twinity plan to accurately model cities from around the world and they’re starting with one of our fave cities, Berlin.

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BIC Phone Launches In France: €49, Mobile & Ready To Go

BIC PhoneBIC, famous for disposable pens and lighters, is launching the BIC Phone in France today.

As with their other products, the BIC Phone focuses on core functions – making and receiving phone calls & texts.

Available in two playful colours, citrus orange and lime green, the USP of the BIC mobile phone is that it’s ready to go when you buy it.

None of this normal fiddling around with wrestling the battery out of the packaging, finding the charger and leaving it for X hours to get it ready to use – the BIC Phone is charged a ready to go.

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IFA 2008: Continued Evolution

IFA 2008 AnticipatedOne thing is clear, IFA, _the_ European consumer electronics show, knows how to put on a show and how to entertain.

If you’ve been to the show in Berlin that runs between the end of August and that start of September you’ll know what we mean – it’s huge and the companies that exhibit there really go to town to make their stands special.

It’s also very popular with over 100,000 trade visitors from 93 countries visiting it last year. Continue reading IFA 2008: Continued Evolution

European 3G Boom Could Crush Networks

European 3G Boom Could Crush NetworksWith mobile broadband proving a big hit with bandwidth hungry punters, there are fears that networks may become wobblier than Bruce Grobbelaar’s legs as data hungry punters send demand soaring.

A new study by research boffins Berg Insight reckons that with Long Term Evolution and High Speed Packet Access technology on course to become fitted to laptops as standard in the next few years, the mobile broadband market is going to hit enormodome proportions.

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