Mobile operator 3 has launched an innovative service that, for the first time, pays customers to receive calls and texts.
Called ‘WePay’, the new pay-as-you-go price service rewards customers with cash credits for calls and texts they receive – and the payment is higher than you might expect too, with punters earning 5p per minute for received calls and 2p per text received.
So a customer who manages to keep a caller nattering for a full five minutes will earn enough credit to send two texts, or a picture message or watch the highlights from two episodes of Coronation Street.
Cash credits can be claimed whenever customers purchase a new WePay Top-up voucher, but there is a small catch: the credits have to be generated over 30 days and the money can only be used to purchase more 3 services.
Designed to boost usage of data services, 3 also hopes that the cash-back scheme will prove attractive to new punters and tempt customers from other networks to switch.
However, the slow speed in which numbers can be ported in the UK is causing concern to Graeme Oxby, 3’s Marketing Director.
He claims that it can take at least seven days to port your number in the UK, compared to countries like Ireland and Pakistan, where it only takes “just a couple of hours”.
Oxby continued: “Because the process can be slow, only a fraction of people on PAYG port their number when they get a new phone. Our new reward for picking up calls and texts makes it worthwhile for consumers to move their number.”
The WePay top-ups come as all-cash vouchers available in £10, £15 and £20 denominations, with no expiry date. However, the WePay cash credits are only valid for 30 days.
Graeme Oxby, 3’s Marketing Director, commented, “The introduction of WePay means we’ve raised the bar on rewarding loyal PAYG customers and at the same time created a way for everyone to enjoy music and TV on their mobile.”
The WePay tariff is available from 1 February 2006.
It’s been a long time coming, but Dutch enormo-corp Philips are looking set to finally roll out their innovative Wi-Fi-enabled VoIP telephone, the VP-5500.
Announced way back in Sept 2005, the VoIP phone comes with a VGA camera that rotates up to 240 degrees, letting users check out their look on the built-in, high-resolution LCD display before committing a potential videocall fashion catastrophe.
Built around established standards-based technologies like Wi-Fi and Linux, the VP5500 can be upgraded wirelessly, opening the door to future upgrades – giving operators the chance to add value-added services as the becmoe available.
To be honest, we’re still a little unsure about video calling.
A few years ago, you’d be greeted with a blank face or a call to the local psychiatry service if you started going on about ‘listening to your downloaded podcasts’, but figures released from the BBC show how the format is continuing to grow in popularity.
The chart also revealed that nearly two million downloads took place during the BBC podcasting trials over December.
Simon Nelson, controller of BBC Radio & Music Interactive was enthusiastic: “It’s fantastic to see how the demand for radio downloads has grown since we first offered them in 2004. These figures underline the enduring relevance of radio in the digital world.”
According to an online survey conducted by brand-meisters Brandchannel.com, Google has held on to its title as the world’s most influential brand in 2005, pushing Apple out of the numero uno spot for the second time this decade.
Globally, top honours went to Google, who outflanked brand rivals Apple with an avalanche of punter-pleasing freebies like Google Mini, Desktop and Google Earth, described by Brandreport as, “arguably the greatest thing to hit the Internet since porn” (steady on, chaps!).
Although Google whipped Apple globally, the company still rules the roost on their home turf, with Steve Jobs’ outfit being declared the leading brand in North America in front of their rivals.
It’s a story of booze and beer in the central & Latin America segment, with Corona and Bacardi sitting proud in first and second places respectively.
A heady mix of ever plummeting digicam prices, larger memory card capacities and more capacious hard drives means that it’s easy to end up with photos and videos scattered to the four corners of your PC, making it nigh on impossible to find your pictures.
A start-up screen gives new users an overview of features to help them get started while upgraders will be glad to see the program sticking to the tried and trusted three-paned interface, coupled with a useful ‘image basket’ function.
Unlike many other image management programs, you don’t have to ‘import’ images into the program before they can be viewed, so the program also doubles up as an excellent image file browser.
At times, the sheer weight of features can prove a little overwhelming to new users, but for keen photographers keen to keep a vice-like grip on their growing photo collections and looking for a strong, all-round image management solution, we strongly recommend ACDSee.
Wi-Fi usage has still a long way to go before it really catches on in the UK according to a new survey carried out by Toshiba.
These figures seem in stark contrast to our recent 
Not surprisingly, a fear of someone swiping their laptop played a big part in people’s reluctance to whip out the Wi-Fi (25%) as did privacy fears (27%).
With a high-end feature set offering auto, scene, aperture and shutter priority modes plus full manual exposure controls, Panasonic’s beautifully sculpted 8 megapixel LX1 is clearly aimed at the discerning photographer who knows their ISO from their f-stop.
On most compact digcams, exposure adjustments are invariably achieved by fiddly excursions through endless sub-menus, but the LX1’s design affords fast, direct access to a host of vital functions like ISO rating, shutter speed, aperture and file size/quality – essential for those looking to capture the ‘decisive moment’.
Although some cameras mimic a 16:9 shooting ratio by cropping off the top and bottom of the picture, the LX1 has a true 16:9 sensor, with users able to switch formats via a handy switch on the lens barrel (no sub-menu burrowing needed).
Camera controls
Photographic modes
Of course, the capable image stabilisation goes some way to compensate for these serious shortcomings, allowing handheld longer exposures at low ISO ratings, but that’s going to be a dead loss if you’re trying to freeze action in low light.
Conclusion
According to figures released by French Web metrics firm XiTi, the open source Mozilla Firefox browser has now grabbed a massive 20% average market share in Europe, creating a growing challenge to the current leader, Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Over here in Blighty, it seems that the Brits are yet to be wooed by the might of Mozilla, with the country recording one of the lowest proportions of Firefox users in Europe – just 11%.
Other Web metrics companies have produced somewhat less spectacular estimates of Firefox’s market share, with OneStat.com reporting in November last year that the browser had notched up a global market share of 11.5%.
Two recent studies into mobile TV on 3G mobile phones have managed to produce rather inconclusive results concerning the willingness of the great British public to use the service and how much they’d be prepared to pay for it.
The feedback seemed back-slappingly reassuring, with 83 per cent of the triallists “satisfied” with the service, and 76 per cent indicating they’d be keen to take up the service within 12 months.
“This trial is further illustration that we are moving from a verbal only to a verbal and visual world in mobile communications,” said David Williams, O2’s technology chief.
BT has cut short its ambitious plans to transform phone boxes into interactive Internet gateways.
In a public statement BT said, “There are no immediate plans to reduce the base of public multimedia kiosks other than moving to locations with better revenue earning potential and agreeing moves with our managed site owners.”
With the continuing exponential growth in Internet-enabled mobile phones and Wi-Fi, we wouldn’t be surprised if we see some of these all-singing phone terminals disappearing sooner rather than later.