ITN is set to steal a march on its rivals by delivering up-to-the minute election analysis and comment through a partnership with Vodafone Live!
The UK news broadcaster will be providing an election news service to Vodafone Live! subscribers, headed up by their political team, including Nick Robinson and Alastair Stewart.
The service will aim to keep party loyalists and floating voters abreast of the fast changing political scene in the final days before the general election, with a salvo of updates and announcements sent direct to 3G handsets.
The package will also include a general election video and text news service featuring ITN’s team of journalists and presenters – and we sincerely hope that it doesn’t resemble the high tech, eye-popping, candy floss mess that currently passes for their TV election coverage.
The service will include daily text updates and a picture message sent at 8pm every evening, consisting of a video and text summary of the key political events of the day, plus an opinion polls round-up.
Unfortunately, the service doesn’t seem to be interactive, with no option for subscribers to vote or comment on the delivered news stories.
Nicholas Wheeler, managing director of multimedia content at ITN, commented: “This is a new facility using mobile technology that was not available at the time of the last election.”
“We are seeking to engage our audience in new ways using a range of interactive platforms.”
With a rallying, hands-on-the-flag clarion call, he concluded: “We aim to break more news stories and we aim to push back the frontiers of political reporting in the UK.”
Motorola handset owners will now be able to go multiplayer bonkers, courtesy of a new selection of real-time, multiplayer games from Motorola’s consumer portal, www.hellomoto.com. 
As well as playing directly against other phone users, game-hungry portal visitors will also be able to compete in ladder tournaments, view global rankings and chat in-game. 
“This represents another major step forward in the development of Terraplay given the stature of Motorola in the global wireless market. Motorola’s initiative is excellent news for the growth of the multiplayer sector,” purred Jeremy Lewis, Chairman of the Advisory Board, Terraplay Systems, “Multiplayer gaming, offered as premium services, is a real revenue generator and an ideal path to higher ARPU for all service providers”. 
There has been much rumblings of discontent from content suppliers to the mobile phone industry, and, as the globally dominant brand, Vodafone have been taking a lot of the flack. 
Feeling the pressure, Vodafone have tried to placate their grumbling partners in the short term by dishing out a sizzling barbeque of buzzwords, liberally doused with PR doublespeak. 
It looks like Tim Harrison, Head of Games at Vodafone Group Services, had been smoking pure Moroccan Buzzword when he came out with this piece of baffling industry-speak: “Having pre-agreed, pan-regional marketing and distribution capacity will allow us to run multi-territory co-marketing more easily, improve efficiencies for our partners and benefit the industry as a whole.” 
I had a Sony W800 Walkman Phone in my hands for the first time today at the Sony Media Experience in Bordeaux. There’s already been a terrific buzz about this camera and it was great to get my hands on the thing during what Sony claims was its first European outing. 
The central music button is the focus of the handset and, not surprisingly, pressing it takes you straight to your music selection. 
The software comes with the handset will take music CDs straight from the player on your machine to handset, without intervention. 
TComm has launched a mobile TV service capable of delivering live, streamed and downloaded audio/video content to mobile phones. 
Subscribers currently have a choice of six premium channels with another eight channels rolling out over the next 60 days. 
Tony Johnson, the Content Manager of TComm (UK) Limited, was on hand to lavish praise on his own service: “With content from UK and US production companies such as 2 Minute TV, Fearless Music, Sandy Frank Entertainment and Hungry Biker, TELLYfone sets a new standard in content provision for the mobile phone market.” 
A special promotion is offering free access to the service throughout April, after which access will be on a paid subscription basis. 
We’ve never quite been persuaded to move to 3, but these two price plans they’ve just announced sure look tempting. 
The second plan, “Talk, Text & Video 600”, is an enhancement to 3’s best selling plan, “Talk & Text 600”.As you’ve probably worked out, clever reader, this new plan bundles in 3’s video mobile services to the £35 (US$65/€50) a month package. 
Bob Fuller, 3 UK CEO swivelled on his heels and span out the corporate spin: “3 is the fastest growing network in the UK, we now have over 3 million 3G customers and we continue to lead the market for both value and video mobile services. With these new price plans 3 continues to set the pace for value in the UK mobile market. 3 was the first network to launch live, over-the-air, multi-player gaming, the first to stream concerts live over video mobile and first to launch quickplay video streaming of 3’s content.” 
Orange, the UK’s most popular mobile network, has wheeled out the initial line-up for its Great for Music handsets; the Nokia 6680 3G handset, Nokia 3230 and Sony Ericsson K300i handsets. 
“The Official UK Chart’s decision to include music downloads from Orange World in its Chart demonstrates that the music industry has recognised the rising importance of mobile music downloads within the digital music sphere,” said Mark Ashford, head of music, Orange UK. “The advent of digital music downloads on mobile means that up-to-date phones also act as music players, making digital music accessible for one in three people in the UK.” 
Orange will also be trying to look hip and radical while promoting their corporate brand at the forthcoming Glastonbury and T in the Park events. 
Vodafone Netherlands have added two further ‘channels’ to their current 20 plus channel UMTS (3G) service. 
To date, Vodafone has EuroSport and RTL Nieuws exclusively and their addition brings the total number of TV channels available to 23, joining CNN, Playboy Channel, 2GOTV and MTV. 
With a long parp on their PR trumpets, 3 notched up another first with the launch of “over-the-air” real-time multiplayer games over their network. 
These console-esque games are being supported on the 3 network by the Mophun gaming engine that is being supplied to 3 by Synergenix. 
The announcement of these advanced handheld games would suggest that 3 is pro-actively targeting the lucrative console market, and looking to lure potential Gizmodo, DS and PSP customers. 
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.