T-Mobile is the latest UK mobile service provider to offer its mobile customers Windows Push Email.
The Push Email service is compatible with Microsoft Windows 5.0 devices, which include the MDA Pro, MDA Vario, and MDA Compact handsets carried by T-Mobile.
The system – as the name suggests – works by ‘pushing’ email straight to the user’s portable device from their businesses Exchange Server, and then notifying them that there’s a message in their pocket.
Just like the cost to the little boy in the ghastly Melba Montgomery song, there will be ‘no charge’ for the new service for business users already on the web’n’walk professional tariff.
This certainly adds extra value to the T-Mobile package, which currently costs £17 a month, or £8.50 when added to Flext, Relax, or Business 1-Plan contracts.
The Microsoft Push Email service comes stuffed with security measures for businesses, including centrally controlled password protection, local data wipe, and a remote data wipe feature to clear devices of company-sensitive data if they get in the hands of ne’er do wells, rogues and robbers.
For added security and convenience (in case you’re a bit forgetful/half-cut), the wipe feature lets owners decide how many incorrect logon attempts can be tried before the phone shuts up shop.
Working over GPRS, 3G and Wi-Fi, T-Mobile’s push email service also offers integration with Microsoft Outlook, letting swivel-action besuited types synchronise tasks and search for contacts on the move.
Virgin Mobile looks set to launch the UK’s first true mobile broadcast TV service in the autumn, with the beardy one’s empire releasing a rebadged version of BT’s Movio product.
Movio uses a system known as DAB-IP, which has emerged ahead of the rival technology, DVB-H, because the required radio spectrum is already available.
Exclusive
As you know, we *heart* nice, new shiny gadgets and we love to sit on the (sometimes uncomfortable) cutting edge of technology.
With the Treo just about everything works. 
Moreover, the interface is fast and responsive and although Palm’s idea of multi-tasking is simply to close down whatever you’re doing and start up the next program (while remembering all the settings) it doesn’t suffer from the gradual slowdown to a crawl that constantly blighted our Windows experience.
Palm Treo 650
We all know the mobile handset is totally fragmented. Sure there’s a standard – it’s called Nokia – but everyone who isn’t Nokia isn’t very happy about that.
Who’s in? Who’s out?
Much excitement is being generated by those companies already using Linux in their handsets. In a ‘don’t forget we’ve been doing this for ages’ way, Yoshiharu Tamura, Executive General Manager, Mobile Terminals Business Unit, NEC Corporation expounded , “As one of the leading pioneers with almost two years of experience shipping Linux-based mobile phones, we are delighted to participate in this initiative. We expect the foundation activities will accelerate further expansion of mobile Linux application developer participation, as well as global market growth of 3G mobile handsets.”
Sad but (supposedly) true: a new study by Nokia has found that over one in five mobile owners said they’d find losing their phone more upsetting than their wallet, credit cards and – unbelievably – even their wedding ring.
Nokia commissioned the research in 11 countries around the globe to discover people’s attitudes towards current and future mobiles, and generally found that people *heart* the things the planet over.
Surfing on the move
Palm have announced the successor to their hugely successful Palm OS-powered Treo 650 smartphone, the Treo 700p.
Bundled with the phone is DataViz’ Documents To Go for reading and editing Microsoft Office files, a PDF viewer and an email client that works with Exchange Server 2003 via ActiveSync, plus POP and IMAP accounts.
So much so that we’re even prepared to forgive the omission of Wi-Fi in the latest Treo (Palm in the US insist that EV-DO should be enough.)
The frequencies 1781.7-1785MHz paired with 1876.7-1880MHz known as the GSM Guard bands have been made available to 12 licensees under the Wireless Telegraphy Act. They are national UK licenses, though the operators of the licenses will have to cooperate amongst themselves so that interference between themselves doesn’t occur. Ofcom expect the licensees to form an industry body that will self-regulate. Operators will also be required to register all radio equipment in the “Sitefinder” database (currently populated by the GSM and 3G operators).
Winning Licensees
New entrants could enter into roaming agreements with the current operators, but unless Ofcom mandates this (which is unlikely) there’s likely to be strong opposition. Since some of the license winners already have GSM networks, they can offer localised services knowing there’s no interference problems with existing infrastructure.
This weekend marks the start of Vodafone UK offering live coverage of international cricket and the Football League Playoffs from Sky Sports to their 3G customers.
Bizarrely, Sky specify that the content is for Personal use only. Errr … it’s on a mobile phone Sky. It’s not like you’re going to get the throngs in the pub crowding around watching it on a tiny screen. That is until someone comes up with a huge magnifying glass that the phone sits behind.
The US mobile companies are finally, really getting hold of delivering content of all sorts to mobile phones.
As with all things to mobile phones, we’d love to see the figures as to who actually pays for access to this. A barrier which has yet to be consistently cracked.