Wireless connections
If, like us, you have drawers and shelves overflowing with obsolete and unused phone chargers, then a new initiative may banish cable-related angst forever.
The GSM Association, backed by a charge of mobile phone manufacturers and operators, is leading a move to create a universal charger based on the Micro-USB interface.
The second phone based on Google’s operating system Android has been pulled out of the bag by Vodafone as the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona continues to pepper the landscape with new handsets galore.
Mobile manufacturing maestros HTC have announced updates to their Touch Diamond and Touch Pro 3G phones, imaginatively called the Touch Diamond2 and Touch Pro2.
New to the handsets are Push-Internet – a feature that lets users download selected web sites at specified times so they’re quicker to open later, and what HTC are calling a ‘unified communications’ feature.
Shiny new handsets continue to be lobbed out of the Mobile World Congress (MWC) at an impressive rate of knots, and the latest to be seen arcing through the air is Nokia’s new N86 smartphone.
The Mobile Data Association (MDA) has been running wild over towering mountains of raw data, skipping gaily through meadows of mobile traffic reports and splashing in streams of SMS statistics to being you their latest quarterly report on mobile phone usage in the UK.
Covering mobile activity from October 2008 – January 2009, the study looked at text messaging (SMS) and picture and video messaging (MMS) traffic and discovered that UK phone owners sent 78.9 billion text messages in 2008, up an RSI-inducing 20 billion texts on 2007.
Big news for Skype and Nokia … and in turn mobile phone operators.
It’s just announced that Skype will be integrated into Nokia handsets, starting in the 3rd quarter of 2009 with the N97.
As well as allowing Skype calls via 3G and WiFi, Skype to Skype calls will be free (excluding any data charges), we’re also told that “low-cost Skype calls to landlines and mobile devices” will be allowed.
The surprise is that Skype contact details will be integrated into the handsets address book, showing the presence of the Skype user and enabling instant messaging.
Skype has previously had some success getting on to mobile phones, the most significant of which was the deal with 3, but this deal with Nokia is far more significant.
Good for mobile service providers?
As to how the mobile service providers will react to it is quite another matter.
If their subscribers are using data bundles, the operators aren’t going to make any money from calls that are made over their networks, reducing them to providing the plumbing to enable it.
With a deft tug on the velvet rope, Sony Ericsson’s curtains have swished to one side to reveal their new Walkman W995 smartphone, promising punters nothing less than a “complete on-the-move entertainment experience”.
The new phones just keep on coming as the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona looms ever-closer, and the latest update to hit t’Internet is a fact’n’stat assault by Nokia’s new Nokia’s 5630 XpressMusic candybar-style handset.
Powered by the Symbian S60 OS and serving up nippy HSDPA and HSUPA connectivity, it’s rather a pleasing slimline slab of shiny black plastic with a natty coloured trim around the outside.
In yet another leak ahead of next week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, retailer Expansys managed to let the cat out of the bag and posted up full details of the new Nokia E75 business smartphone.
With the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona looming on the horizon, details of new phones are leaking out all over the place.
News has just reached us of LG’s latest flagship multimedia phone, the Arena KM900, which packs a ton of functionality into a familiar-looking package.