Commuters on London’s Tube network could soon be able to bellow out, “I’M ON THE TUBE!” if trials to introduce mobile and wireless Internet connections underground from 2008 get the green light.
London Underground (LU) is planning to install technology that will give commuters mobile phone coverage in the concourse, ticketing areas and platforms of underground Tube stations – but not on trains rumbling through underground tunnels.
LU will be chatting to suppliers shortly and aims to undertake a trial of the technology at one underground station in 2006 with a view to extending it across all tube stations by 2008.
Tube bosses say there is strong support among passengers for mobile phone access across its network with plenty of companies interested in getting involved, commenting that suppliers faced “unique practical challenges” around space, power and ventilation constraints.
LU director of strategy and service development, Richard Parry commented, “The process we launch today is to start getting information from the market about how we could best provide a mobile phones service”.
Although execs haven’t revealed how revenues would be generated and split between the operator and the Tube, any income generated would be re-invested in the Tube network to fund further improvements for passengers.
The proposals were announced by London Mayor, Ken Livingston, who said in a statement: “We know that many Londoners would like the convenience of being able to use their mobile phones at Tube stations throughout the Underground network. We also want to see how the technology could be taken even further, for instance wireless internet so passengers could receive up-to-the-minute travel information via their laptop or mobile phone.”
An LU spokesman added “Passengers would like to have mobile coverage at Tube stations but they are less keen to have it on trains”.
Photos copyright urban75
Xdrive has announced an expansion to their service that gives roaming consumers wireless access to their files through any Internet-connected cell phone, smart phone or handheld device. 
“As the Digital Lifestyle continues to become more and more engrained into our everyday life, people are beginning to break away from the concept of one stationary computer,” states Xdrive CEO Brett O’Brien, “People strive for mobility, yet yearn for connectedness. Xdrive’s new wireless features give people just that.” 
Samsung’s R&D team’s crack-like addiction to creating new products continues apace with the announcement of a new Wireless LAN Music Phone. 
Sadly, there’s no QWERTY keyboard on the handset. 
Incorporating not one, but two digital cameras (VGA on the front 1.3 megapixels to the rear), the handset was showcased a month ago at the 3GSM World Congress in Cannes. 
Mindful of the fact that trying to write long emails on a handset’s tiny buttons is as much fun as counting ants, Nokia have also announced their new SU-8W Wireless Keyboard. 
European telco AB has announced that it’s launched the first worldwide free TV station available on 3G mobile phones, via its own TV channel Tango.TV (TTV). 
We couldn’t work out if this was supposed to be the 3G TV station or not, but after five minutes of looking at a blank screen on our desktop media player, we gave up waiting. 
Thrill-seeking mobile phone users around the world slapped out US$400 million on pornographic pictures and video in 2004 – an amount that is expected to rise to US$5 billion by 2010, according to a report by research group Strategy Analytics. 
The US$5 billion forecast for 2010 represents a huge upward shift from Strategy Analytics’ earlier predictions, with the company noting that adult entertainment businesses are aggressively building services and customers appear happy to shell out for them. 
Crown Castle International announced today that it has formed a new subsidiary, Crown Castle Mobile Media, tasked with delivering live mobile television services to handheld devices including cell phones. 
Crown Castle’s support of DVB-H is further evidence that DVB-H is a robust, open standard that will not only bring high- quality television and radio to the market, but will ensure a vibrant marketplace for infrastructure equipment, innovative devices, and compelling services.” 
Motorola is to bundle GPS navigation software and hardware with the European versions of its A780 and MPx220 smart phones. 
GPS navigation has proved a bit of a hit in Europe, with sales bolstering up an otherwise declining PDA market. 
Both handsets use Bluetooth to communicate with a separate GPS receiver. 
ATI Technologies have introduced two new media processors, IMAGEON 2282 and IMAGEON 2182, offering a shovel load of ‘groundbreaking’ multimedia capabilities for mobile phones. 
“The new IMAGEON processors from ATI combine advanced audio and video processing capabilities to turn mobile phones into mobile entertainment centers.” 
Announced at the CeBIT tradeshow, Pretec have introduced a new memory card format for smartphones, called the C-Flash cards. 
This format will also have support for MU-Card, a specification from China lead by Mu-Card Alliance. C-Flash has been adopted as the next small form factor version of MU-Card (called MU-Flash). 
C-Flash has also been submitted to the MMC Association to be considered as the next small form factor standard of MMC.