Mobile

Things that aren’t static

Big Brother UK Drops SMS Voting Completely
For years Big Brother has been actively encouraging the audience to vote using SMS messages from the mobiles.
No more. They’re completely dropping the SMS voting, claiming “the mobile phone operators cannot process the votes within a time frame suitable for the voting procedures on the programme.”
When did this change? Is this a new development?
The failure of SMS voting is NOT news
I remember speaking to the tech wizards at the Australian Broadcast Company (ABC) back in 2004 at Broadcast Asia who told that they decided that they could not legitimately use SMS voting as the delivery of it was not reliable enough, especially if there was a need to do it within a certain time period – like gathering votes before a deadline.
They opted for another mobile-based technology, that although slightly more involved for the viewer to use, at least gave a truthful representation of what was going on.
30 May, 2007
“World’s Smallest” SMS M500 Watchfone Wristwatch Ready To Ship
Proudly proclaiming itself as the world’s smallest mobile phone, the SMS M500 Watchfone looks to be more than a gimmick, packing in a useful slab of technology in a wristwatch sized package.
Despite its diminutive dimensions, the M500 is a fully fledged quad-band mobile, sporting audio and video player, a touchscreen, Java support, WAP, Bluetooth and SMS and MMS functionality.
(more…)
29 May, 2007
T-Mobile US Announces the T-Mobile Wing Smartphone
T-Mobile USA has launched the Wing QWERTY Smartphone to replace their popular MDA Pocket PC smartphone.
Built by mobile maestros HTC, the new T-Mobile Wing comes stuffed full with the latest technology, offering quad-band GSM/EDGE support, 802.11g Wi-Fi, a 2.8″ touch screen display and a slide-out, 40-key QWERTY keyboard.
(more…)
23 May, 2007
Avis Offers In-Car Wi-Fi Service
Car rental giants Avis have starting offering their Autonet Mobile-based Wi-Fi service – known as Avis Connect – in their rental vehicles.
The service – priced at an upmarket $10.95 (unlimited usage) a day in addition to the car rental fee – lets multiple users connect to each other and to the Internet via a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot device, powered by the car’s power adapter or cigarette lighter.
(more…)
22 May, 2007
Chargepod 6-Way Charger For Road Warriors
The last time we went away on a business trip, we had to set off with a bag almost overflowing with adapters, lugging no less than five of the ruddy things for our travelling tech kit of a Palm Treo, Ricoh GR, Nikon D80, Vaio lappie and DVD burner.
(more…)
21 May, 2007
EU Mobile Roaming: Proposed Prices Detailed
The members of the European Union have reached a preliminary deal on fixing the cost of Europeans roaming to other countries.
The proposal would have the price caps lasting for three years with Year 1 seeing 49c (Euro)/min to make calls and 24c to receive. The second year this would drop to 46c/22c and the last year 43c/19c. All prices would exclude sales tax and after the third year the market would then again be free, presumably because prices would be significantly lower than that already.
(more…)
16 May, 2007
Mobile Web Users Make Up A Fifth Of UK PC-Based Audience
A new study by Telephia and comScore compares mobile and PC-based Internet usage and shows a huge rise in people accessing the web from mobile devices.
In January 2007, 5.7 million Brits accessed the web using a mobile device, compared to the 30 million people age 15 or older who used a work or home PC to get online.
(more…)
15 May, 2007
BlackBerry Curve On Vodafone UK Soon
Following the announcement yesterday of the BlackBerry Curve joining the now apparently ever expanding range of BlackBerry devices, Vodafone have been in touch to let us know that they’ll have it in the UK from 21 May.
The BlackBerry Curve looks pretty good from the shots we’ve seen. It’s finished in what they describe as a liquid silver colour with chrome highlights, smooth edges and soft curves – a guide to where they got the name from?
BlackBerry are also pitching it as “the perfect balance between work and play.”
New features are showing how the BlackBerry is becoming much more a consumer device, rather than just for business stiffs who feel it reflects they’re important, how often they can check worthless emails being pushed at them by The Man.
One such is that the 2Mpx camera with 5x digital zoom, built-in flash and night mode, can share its pics with just one click using either email, MMS, or Bluetooth.
BlackBerry Curve
Vodafone UK
4 May, 2007
Why Skype SMS Offer Doesn’t Include The UK
We put out a NIB (News in Brief) earlier today about Skype offering half price SMS’s.
It struck us that dear old Blighty (UK) _wasn’t_ included in the list of countries that people could half price SMS to.
Jeepers, Creepers, what’s going on, went the cry!
We got in touch with those who know (Skype-types) and after a short pause came the confirmation that, yes, the UK wasn’t included.
The reason?
“We’re looking at all markets and have started with those that we think will take advantage of the promotion the fastest. Everything is evolutionary at Skype – we rely on early adopter/usage feedback to make sure we get it right for other countries yet to benefit from the promotion.”
Doesn’t make a great deal of sense given the UK’s global reputation of madly texting at every opportunity.
Clearly Skype had to say something and while this might be the official reason, we wondered if it was something to do with the famously-inflexible UK mobile companies, and their unwillingness to show love (or enough of a discount) to dear Skype?
3 May, 2007
Skype: SMS Half Price Offer
Those clever-types at Skype are trying to hook you into the habit of using Skype, not just for your spoken comms and IM, but for SMS to mobiles too.
The feature’s been there for quite a while in the PC version and for slightly less on the Mac, but we guess they think that not enough people know about it yet.
They’re using that old ‘make it cheaper’ ploy to attract your attention.
Until the 8th May, you (any Skype user, anywhere in the world) will be able to send SMSs via Skype for half their normal price to mobile owners in United States, Australia, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Belgium, Thailand, Ireland, Austria and Italy.
How do you SMS in Skype?
Sending an SMS in Skype is a doddle, simply select a contact that has a mobile number stored in it and select the Send an SMS option.
It couldn’t be easier really, could it? … and it gives the advantage of having a full-sized keyboard.
Skype SMS
3 May, 2007