Company has increased contract customers by 40% in 12 months

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(Source Mobile Today)

18 months free line rental on an 18 month contract. You’ll pay £20 per month line rental to T-Mobile and you can claim £360 cashback, which is paid in five equal stages throughout your the contract. Effectively this makes the deal completely free. Other tariffs are available including 12 months free on a 12 month contract. You will need to read and agree to the retailers cash back terms and conditions and remember to send off your bills in order to claim cash back.

The best deal is on T-Mobile Combi 20 (18m) and it’s available for only one more week. You get 200 anytime minutes to any network and 200 texts.

The Nokia 1208 was designed to serve the basic functions of a dependable mobile phone. Equipped with a dust-resistant keypad and a built-in torch, the 1208 will go with you anywhere, from the kitchen to the cellar. Its shell is sturdy enough to withstand the wear and tear that comes with daily use. The Nokia 1208 also has a number of features, including a conversion function, calculator, clock, alarm clock and calendar for your convenience.

Compare all Nokia 1208 deals

Karsten Nohl says he has decoded the GSM algorithm used to keep private more than 80% of the world’s mobile conversations

A German computer scientist has cracked the codes used to encrypt calls made from more than 80% of the world’s mobile phones.

Karsten Nohl and his team of 24 hackers began working on the security algorithm for GSM (Global System for Mobiles) in August.

Developed in 1988, the system prevents the interception of calls by forcing phones and base stations to change frequencies constantly. Most of the UK’s mobile phones use the GSM system and the breach represents a potential threat to the security of mobile phone communication.

Nohl claims that armed with the code, which has been published online, and a laptop with two network cards, an eavesdropper could be recording phone calls within 15 minutes.

“This shows that existing GSM security is inadequate,” Nohl told the Chaos Communication Congress, an international annual meeting of hackers taking place in Berlin this week.

Nohl insisted that he had deciphered the code to force the global telecommunications industry to upgrade its security.

Nohl told the Guardian that important negotiations involving politicians or business leaders could easily be intercepted and they should invest in further encryption software to protect their privacy. “If there is anything secret going on using GSM, this should be of concern.”

The GSM Association, which represents the interests of the worldwide mobile communications industry, played down the security threat and said Nohl’s activity was “highly illegal”.

“We consider this research, which appears to be motivated in part by commercial considerations, to be a long way from being a practical attack on GSM,” said Claire Cranton, a spokeswoman. “To do this while supposedly being concerned about privacy is beyond me.”

Nohl, who has a doctorate in computer engineering from the University of Virginia, insisted his work was purely academic. “We have written advice from our lawyers stating that our research is within the legal realm,” he said. “Obviously the data we produce could of course be used for illegitimate purposes.”

Simon Bransfield-Garth, the chief executive of London-based encryption software firm Cellcrypt, said: “The code that has been cracked is for the 21-year-old 64-bit A5/1 GSM algorithm. In 2007 the GSM Association developed a 128-bit version, A5/3. However, most network operators have not invested to make the required upgrade.

“We said in August when this project began that the code would be broken within nine to 12 months. This is a very significant step.”

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

iPhone will be available on a 12-month contract for £20 a month, but will cost £222 upfront

Tesco today announced its iPhone tariff and revealed it will become the first company to offer the phone to customers on a 12-month contract.

The iPhone is already available on O2 and Orange, but until now buyers either had to sign up for an 18-month contract or pay the full price for the phone and opt for a pay-as-you-go plan.

Last month, the supermarket giant announced it was in talks with Apple to start selling the iPhone. It had promised to bring a bit of “Tesco value” to the must-have phone of the past two years.

This morning, the retailer said that from 14 December the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS would be available from just £20 a month, the lowest monthly contract price in the UK market – although they come with a hefty price tag.

The 3G phone will cost £222 to buy alongside the 12-month contract. Buyers wanting the more upmarket 3GS phone will have to pay £320. The £20-a-month contract includes £60 of calls and texts.

Tesco Mobile will also offer the iPhone 3GS for free with unlimited calls, texts and browsing on a two-year contract, but it will cost £60 a month.

The 12-month deal is expected to appeal to customers who want a short contract. Until now the only affordable way to get an iPhone has been to sign a contract for 18-months. O2 and Orange, the only companies currently selling the phone, charge an up front fee of £87 and £35 a month for 18 months.

Tesco is also offering the iPhone 3G and 3GS on its Triple credit pay-as-you-go price plan. All Tesco iPhone customers will have at least 12 months free unlimited data and access to the BT OpenZone Wi-Fi (UK) service.

Lance Batchelor, chief executive officer of Tesco Mobile and Tesco Telecoms, said: “iPhone is now available and affordable for all, with the best deals in the UK market.

“This is a fantastic announcement for us and we’re delighted to make iPhone available to our customers. It shows what a serious player in the mobile market Tesco Mobile has become.”

Vodafone is to start selling the iPhone in January.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Better UIs, downmarket Symbian and flat growth

Nokia has laid out its plans for the next year, expecting to maintain its market share in handsets and infrastructure while the industry grows slightly.…

The power of collaboration within unified communications

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(Source The Register)

The fantastic HTC Hero is now available on the 3 network and it comes with the option of Spotify’s unlimited, ad-free, premium music service.

A 12 month subscription to Spotify Premium can be bought for £98.

With Spotify there are no restrictions in terms of what you can listen to or when. A free version, which plays ads between your music, is available for PC. The Premium version, available mobiles and PC, has no ads and better quality sound.

If you wish to continue using Spotify Premium after 12 months, it will cost you £9.99 per month.

Without Spotify, the HTC Hero is free on a 24 month contract. Line rental is £35 per month and for that you’ll get 750 minutes plus unlimited internet, emails, texts and Skype-to-Skype calls.

Compare all HTC Hero deals on 3

Free with 12 months half price line rental on a 12 month contract.

The Nokia 6700 classic is a high spec, midrange phone and the modern successor to the popular Nokia 6300. It has a slick, slender bar design and is made from quality materials. This gives a professional look, although aesthetically it’s fairly conventional. Despite its mediocre appearance the technical capabilities of the Nokia 6700 classic impress.

With GPS and the impressive Nokia Maps software with drive and walk settings, you will never be lost. 3G and HSDPA are also present and give respectable internet speeds while on the move. The 6700 classic is also bundled with the awesome Nokia WebKit Open Source Browser. It has a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, accelerometer, Bluetooth, plenty of audio and video features plus microSD memory card support.

The Nokia 6700 classic also has tap-for-clock and turn-to-mute features, which we first saw in the Nokia 8800 Arte. Overall, this is a quality Nokia mobile phone, highly competitive with a vast array of useful features.

Compare all Nokia 6700 classic illuvial deals

• iPhone to be available in Phones4U stores by Christmas
• Carphone Warehouse loses sole independent stockist status

Carphone Warehouse has lost its exclusive hold on the iPhone as bitter high-street rival Phones4U announced it will also be stocking the Apple device in time for Christmas.

The fact that more than one retailer will be able to stock the device will increase hopes of a Christmas price war, lowering the price of the iPhone for consumers.

Phones4U’s deal follows news last month that Orange had managed to prise the iPhone out of O2′s hands. O2 had a two-year exclusive contract to sell the iPhone and it helped cement the company’s place as the UK’s largest mobile phone company.

After frantic last-minute negotiations Vodafone has also secured the right to sell the iPhone to British consumers, but the company, which is a major partner of Phones4U, will not have it until early next year.

Phones4U, bought by private equity firm Providence Equity in 2006 in a deal that made founder John Caudwell a billionaire, said it will be selling the iPhone to customers on behalf of both O2 and Orange later this year.

Brendan Sweeney, Phones4U managing director, said: “We are very pleased to be partnering with Orange and O2 to sell the iPhone. The iPhone will complement Phones4U’s market-leading product range and offer great choice to our customers. The past 12 months have seen Phones4U continue to grow and increase market share.”

For the past two years, Carphone Warehouse has enjoyed the position of Apple’s sole independent stockist of the iPhone and the company’s executives have talked of the “iPhone effect”, attracting more shoppers through the door.

Carphone Warehouse has yet to announce whether it will also be selling the iPhone on Orange but it is understood to be close to signing a deal with the mobile phone company.

Carphone Warehouse is also likely to sell the device on behalf of Vodafone. In the summer Vodafone abandoned a three-year exclusive deal with Phones4U and returned to Carphone Warehouse, allowing the retailer to once again sign-up customers to its long-term contracts.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

At least that’s what they found

The Prisons service discovered 8,648 mobile phones in prisons in the last 12 months, forcing prisoners to share one between ten, though it also admitted there could be many more.…

Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

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(Source The Register)

Financial Times, Radio Times and Spectator join the race to make money out of ‘apps’

In the two years since it appeared the iPhone has transformed the mobile phone industry and now its effect is being felt in the media world. But it is not the device’s successful introduction of the touchscreen into daily life, nor its stylish looks that have the media world in a spin. It is the fact that iPhone users are personalising their phones with applications – 2bn so far – and amid all the downloadable games, maps, pint-glass emulators and fart generators, some of the “apps” that are proving particularly popular are news.

Crucially, in a world where commercial media organisations are desperate to wring a return from the millions of pounds they have poured into digital content, a sizeable chunk of iPhone users are proving willing to pay for news apps.

Last week the Association of Online Publishers produced its seventh annual census of members, which include major Fleet Street names as well as broadcasters such as Channel 4 and the BBC. It highlighted a dramatic increase in interest in the potential the mobile phone as a content platform.

The bandwagon that Rupert Murdoch started rolling earlier this year, when he pledged that more of his online content would be moved behind some form of paywall, has attracted a lot of passengers with the survey showing that nearly 70% of respondents plan to charge for content in the next 12 months. A large chunk of that charging is likely to take place in the mobile sphere ,with 56% saying they expect to develop “paid for” apps in the next 12 months. These will not just be aimed at iPhone users, but BlackBerry, Nokia and handsets running Google’s new Android platform too. The number of smartphones – devices that can download apps – sold worldwide each year is expected to increase from around 165m this year to 423m in 2013, or just under a third of the total handset market, according to the market research firm Wireless Expertise.

Many of the early news apps to emerge after Apple opened its store a year ago have been free to download, relying upon advertising revenues to make a return, and are little more than pretty shop windows for what is essentially content already available on websites. Obvious examples are the free apps from Time magazine, the Telegraph, Daily Star and Sky News and from popular blogs such as the Huffington Post and the influential Dow Jones spin-off AllThingsDigital. Some publishers, such as The New York Times, have gone further, adding tools that allow users to save favourite stories or send stories by email; Thomson Reuters allows users to track their favourite stocks in a customisable portfolio and has rolling share index updates; while the home page for the Independent’s free app gives a constant snapshot of the number of unread stories in each section.

But a new generation of apps is appearing which are aimed at generating their own circulation or subscription revenues. While the iPhone app for the Financial Times is free, the content can only be fully accessed by subscribers, with the casual reader given three free articles per month. It launched in July and Rob Grimshaw, FT.com’s managing director, said it has already been downloaded by more than 120,000 people – equivalent to a quarter of the FT’s global readership – and it has had a rather remarkable effect, it is driving subscriptions.

“With the application we were taking some thing of a shot in the dark,” he says. “But we feel that we have been vindicated … we know there are people who are signing up to become FT subscribers purely because of the application. It is providing a regular stream of subs.

“The iPhone app is not going to make a huge impression on our bottom line in the next year but I can see much more potential in mobile now than I could 18 months or 2 years ago”, thanks to the iTunes apps store, he adds. Later this month the Wall Street Journal will move its app content behind a paywall, offering three months free access for anyone willing to register their details. But other publishers are demanding payment for the app itself, either because it offers a wealth of content not available online for free or because the app offers a service that is tailored for mobile. Earlier this year, BBC Worldwide launched an app for Radio Times, asking TV viewers to shell out £1.79 for what is a very easy to navigate TV listings guide. Since then it has raised the price to £2.99 HAVING SOLD XXX.

Last week the Spectator magazine appeared on the iPhone, charging 59p for a week’s subscription and following its launch it was the third most popular paid-for iPhone news app in the UK, although Apple’s emphasis on new products can meanthis success is shortlived. As a sign of how fledgling the market is, the top two apps last week were basic news aggregators. The Spectator offers a pretty basic application – little more than a photostat copy of the magazine, but it is an “interim version”, says Ben Greenish, the managing director at the magazine’s owner, Press Holdings. A fully digitised magazine app will be launched in about four weeks with a hybrid payment model that asks users to keep paying.

Greenish says: “Our prime ambition is to broaden our reach and make it easy for people to get it. To date we have sold a substantial number of subscriptions, apps, digital subscriptions etc – all giving confidence that people will pay for content of the Spectator’s quality.”

The Guardian is also developing its own paid-for app. Part of the reason many in the media hope they can persuade mobile consumers to part with some cash, even though they expect to get everything for free when using the internet, is that consumers are already used to paying for lots of things on their mobile, according to Tim Faircliff, the general manager of consumer media at Thomson Reuters and co-chair of the Association of Online Publishers.

“People are used to paying something for content and services on a mobile phone, whether it’s a text message or a download or ringtone or wallpaper,” he says. “There is a comfort factor. In that medium people are more aware of the need or requirement for some sort of payment.” The media industry is increasingly hoping it stays that way.

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(Source The Guardian)

Mobile phone network follows Orange into deal with Apple, but cannot sell device in UK before Christmas

Vodafone has secured the right to sell the iPhone in the UK, just a day after Orange broke O2′s two-year long exclusive grip on the device, in a move that is likely to lead to a price-war among the UK’s three largest mobile phone networks.

But under its deal, confirmed by Vodafone this morning, the company will not get its hands on the phone until the start of next year. To try and prevent customers defecting in the meantime, Vodafone has already opened online pre-registration for the device.

Orange on Monday took advantage of a two-year break clause in O2′s contract with Apple to grab the device for the UK market and its very public announcement injected a sense of urgency into Vodafone’s ongoing negotiations with the Californian company. Its deal is understood to have been finally signed off last night.

T-Mobile, in contrast, seems to have gone cool on the idea of stocking the device, while its decision to import unlocked phones from other European countries and sell them to customers considering defecting to O2 is believed to have annoyed Apple.

The addition of the UK and Ireland brings the number of countries in which Vodafone supplies the iPhone to 13. The company had long maintained that it wanted to get its hands on the device, but it dropped out of the original race to secure an exclusive deal because of the high demands being made by the Californian technology company.

In order to secure exclusive rights to the device in the UK, O2 had to agree to share some of the revenues it makes from its customers with the company. The percentage being demanded was too high for Vodafone, which instead decided to focus its attentions on a closer relationship with RIM, maker of the Blackberry email device. But the first phone to emerge from that partnership – the Blackberry Storm – was blasted by critics because of its difficult to use touchscreen. On his Twitter feed, gadget lover Stephen Fry called the phone “shockingly bad” and “embarrassingly awful”. A new and much improved version of the device is due out shortly.

But under its new deal Vodafone will not have to pass any ongoing revenues over to Apple. Neither will Orange under the deal it has signed. As a result, both companies will have far greater pricing flexibility which should lead to reduced prices for customers, though they will still have to sign up to a long-term contract.

But the fact that Apple has invoked the two-year break clause in its five-year deal with O2 means its original partner has also been able to renegotiate its contract. As a result, O2, the UK’s largest mobile phone network, is expected to retaliate in any price war. O2 insiders maintain that the company had been preparing for an end to its exclusive hold for some time. It has already grabbed another hotly awaited handset, the Palm Pre, under an exclusive deal for the Christmas market and it will be released next month.

“The big winners here are Apple and consumers interested in the iPhone,” said Neil McHugh, managing director of mobile phone price comparison site Rightmobilephone.co.uk, “Now that O2′s monopoly has finally been toppled and with the iPhone now available on three different networks, we should be able to see a much more competitive market, which is only a good thing for consumers.”

“Other handset manufacturers will also be alerted to the wider spread of availability of the iPhone on multiple networks, the next 12 months will be a very interesting time in the mobile industry and ultimately the consumer should benefit.”

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(Source The Guardian)

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is joined in the MediaGuardian 100 by design guru Jonathan Ive as the iPhone goes mainstream

Job: co-founder, chairman, chief executive, Apple (Jobs); senior vice-president of industrial design, Apple (Ive)
Industry: digital media
Age: 54 (Jobs); 42 (Ive)
Turnover: $32.48bn (2008)
Staff: 35,100
2008 ranking: 6 (Jobs); new entry (Ive)

How to reflect the extraordinary impact of Apple’s iPhone? Our panel was split between Steve Jobs, the Apple chief executive who took six months off work this year after a liver transplant, and Jonathan Ive, the creative genius who designed it, along with the iMac, the iBook and the iPod. So in the end they included them both.

Nothing short of a phenemenon, the iPhone blazed a trail in the hugely competitive mobile phone market with rival manufacturers struggling to catch up. “It has completely changed the face of mobile technology,” said our panel. “You can have your whole life on a little glass screen in front of you. Everyone is talking about the iPhone.”

With global sales of more than 21m by the end of March this year, given a further boost in June with the launch of the latest model, the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone not only secured Apple’s future as a manufacturer of high-end smartphones, it also created a burgeoning applications industry. More than 50,000 have been created so far – each one approved by Apple – encouraging take-up of mobile web-based services and providing a potentially lucrative and powerful platform for even the smallest development teams to reach a worldwide audience. The billionth application was downloaded from Apple’s App Store in April this year.

Jobs, whose health has been the source of speculation since 2004, returned to work last month after medical leave. He has been the driving force behind the company, which he founded in 1976 and returned to in 1997 after a 12-year absence, single-handedly rescuing it from the brink of disaster. In between he bought Pixar and helped turn it into the animation powerhouse it is today.

Essex-born Ive is Apple’s senior vice-president of industrial design and knows better than anyone what we are going to be holding in five years’ time. Beautiful to look at and simple to use, Ive’s Apple products have defined the look of a generation.

The graduate of Newcastle Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art set up his own design agency before working as a consultant for Apple and moving to San Francisco in 1992 to work for the company full time. Like his boss, he is said to favour jeans, trainers, T-shirt and a polo-neck sweater.

“The word design is everything and nothing,” Ive told the Independent last year. “We think of design as not just the product’s appearance, it’s what the product is, how it works. The design and the product itself are inseparable. My goal is simply to try to make products that really are meaningful to people. Ultimately there is something motivating and inspiring in seeing someone using an Apple product and enjoying an Apple product.”

But even with Jobs’s return to work, the reality is that the company will one day have to plan for a future without him, and Ive is hugely important to its long-term prosperity. Could he be a contender to succeed Jobs? Possibly. More likely is the company’s chief operating officer, and acting chief executive in Jobs’s absence, Tim Cook. But the question remains: can anyone do it like Jobs?

What a difference 12 months – and a price cut – makes. Last year’s MediaGuardian 100 said the iPhone had “so far struggled to live up to the hype … the Apple chief is not used to coming second”. He still isn’t.

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(Source The Guardian)

Steve Townend and Dominic Keen founded MoBank in 2007 and launched the mobile banking and payment service today. The company is privately funded with a staff of 16 and offices in Odiham, Hampshire. Townend says that his biggest challenge was balancing the demands of customers and the constraints of mobile technology.

• Explain your business to my Mum.

MoBank is a brand new mobile banking service that works with your existing bank account and lets you buy and pay for stuff using your mobile phone – wherever, and whenever you want.

Right now, you can buy all sorts of things using MoBank, like cinema tickets, clothes, books, tickets, flowers, gifts and takeaways.

So, for example, if you’re on the bus home, and you decide you want to go to the cinema after work, you can use MoBank to book tickets straight from your mobile. Or, if you’re on your way out, and you realise you’ve forgotten your Mum’s birthday, you can send her flowers – ordering, buying and paying for them via MoBank on your mobile phone. Plus, we offer balance look up.

• How does that work?

You simply download the MoBank application from the Apple iTunes Apps Store either on you iPhone or on your computer, or visit our website. You then register your debit or credit card, get a secure MoBank PIN, and start to MoBank.

• How do you make money?

We charge a 50p per transaction fee or a one-off lifetime usage charge of £15 (for a limited period only). Plus, we share revenues with retailers selling through MoBank.

• Any weird business experiences so far?

What has been really spooky is that every time we have needed anything or anyone to solve a particular problem they have turned up. It feels like there is some sort of destiny attached to this project.

• What’s your background?

I’ve worked as a senior executive and director at First Direct, Egg and Barclays International.

I was innovation and customer service director at Egg, and was part of the team that built Egg into a leading online bank and developed the first online credit card.

Before Egg I was head of lending at the UK’s first telephone bank, First Direct. After Egg I moved to the Isle of Man and spent two years as operations director for Barclays Private Clients International.

• How are personalisation and recommendation part of your business?

The MoBank software platform will allow us to track consumers’ shopping habits and serve advertisements and offers that match their personal choices. We expect recommendation to play a big part in the growth of MoBank as happy users are your best advocates.

• How will you survive the second dot com crash?

If the second dotcom crash does come, and I’m not convinced it will, MoBank will ride it out because we offer a service that consumers really want and value. We will be part of their daily lives. Plus, with revenues from membership, advertising and retailers we have a robust income stream.

• How many users do you have now, and what’s your target within 12 months?

We launched at the end of May so it is early days but we are planning to have signed-up 75,000 users within the next 12 months.

• Which tech businesses or web thinkers are the ones to watch?

David Cortier-Dutton CEO, www.slicethepie.com.

• Who’s your mentor?

I look to Mark Nancarrow and Paul Gratton both past CEOs of Egg as mentors and Kevin Newman past CEO of First Direct as a personal benchmark.

• And how do you plan to survive the financial crisis?

Because we are launching in the middle of a global economic downturn we have structured the business accordingly. We are a pretty lean organisation and well funded. Our growth targets are achievable and we are offering a service that will make the lives of our users easier.

There is also a demand for what we are offering. Our big thing is making our service relevant and at the moment part of relevance is understanding customer needs in the current economic climate. Our proposition is not heavy on consequence or the pocket, it just makes doing stuff easier.

I’m sure this is a recipe for success.

• What’s your biggest challenge?

Balancing the constraints of what technology can do with the demands of consumers, for super simple banking services – all on mobile phone sized screen.

• How’s you work/life balance?

Getting a new business off the ground is tough going, so I’m working hard. The good news is that I really enjoy it and don’t live far from the office, so my work life balance is pretty good. Having said that, we could all do with a little more life and little less work.

• What’s the most important piece of software or web tool that you use each day?

Tweetdeck as it allows us to communicate what we want to say daily, as and when it happens.

• Name your closest competitors.

As our proposition offers both banking services and a convenient mobile way to pay for stuff so we don’t have any direct competitors at the moment. Banks such as First Direct provide a balance look up service but this is SMS based as opposed to web linked, and it incurs a charge while members of MoBank can check their balances fro free. The second part of our business offers a convenient and simple way to pay for stuff, using the internet from your mobile phone, so in some ways PayPal could be considered a competitor but we are first to offer this as a mobile service.

• Where do you want the company to be in five years?

Juniper Research reckons that more than 150 million consumers will be using their mobile phones for banking transactions by 2011, so I’m confident that there is a great opportunity for a sustainable business.

We expect to be providing a real alternative to traditional banks across the major international markets and have a reputation for deploying, designing and making technology highly relevant in this space. Plus, I hope we will have set a standard on balancing value for customers, workers and investors that others will want to follow.

So what do you think?

• Will retailers sign up for a new mobile payment system?
• If you are running a mobile application business, what challenges have you seen in the industry?
• How is your start-up weathering the recession?

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Didiom is doing something new in the digital music space, offering a mobile service that streams your music collection from your home library – with the added twist that users can choose to ‘bid’ for music by offering a price they think is fair.

Founded in 2005 and self funded, the New York-based company has just added tracks from 1,500 record labels to bring its track catalogue to 1.5m. Founder and chief executive Ran Assaf explains how the company hopes to break the mainstream.

• Explain your business to my Mum

“Didiom is a hybrid mobile service that allows you to stream songs, playlists and podcasts from your home computer to your phone over the air, for free, and also to buy new music from our mobile MP3 store. Unlike any other service, we give you the power to bid on more than 1.5m songs directly from your phone.

“You download two apps from our website – Didiom Desktop for your PC and Didiom Mobile for your phone. Just choose the folders where you store your audio files and playlists on Didiom Desktop, and make sure your PC and phone are connected to the internet. You’ll be surprised how quickly your library shows up on your phone. When you add new audio files to your computer, Didiom Desktop automatically scans them and makes them available for wireless streaming on your phone.

“When you find a song or album you like in the Didiom MP3 Store, you can buy it or name your own price to get deep discounts. In just a few seconds, you’ll find out if your bid has been accepted and if your music is ready for download. If your bid is rejected, you can try again as many times as you like. As an additional incentive for you to discover new music, we’re implementing a cash bonus program that pays up to a 35% bonus toward music downloads. There are never any membership or service fees. You pay only for the music you download through Didiom’s credit card service.”

• How do you make money?

“Throughout the beta period, we receive a portion of the profits made through our music store. We’re also in the process of developing additional revenue streams leveraging our placeshifting technology and huge music library.”

• How many users do you have now, and what’s your target within 12 months?

“Our beta customer base has been growing exponentially just through word of mouth. We hope to cross the 100,000-user milestone within 12 months.”

• Name your closest competitors

“Orb in the placeshifting space and Omnifone in the mobile music space.”

• What’s your background?

“I have a diverse background in business, technology, and music. Before founding Didiom, I worked for Amdocs, supervising the company’s business engagements with Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile Germany, Vodafone Ireland and Nextel. My academic background includes a bachelor’s in industrial engineering and management from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and a master’s in entrepreneurial studies from Babson in Massachusetts. My musical background began 30 years ago with classical organ training and a lot of stage experience. Down the road, I switched to jazz piano, and now I just play free improvisations.”

• How are personalisation and recommendation part of your business?

“You can personalise your favorite artist list and get an alert sent to your Didiom mailbox when new albums released by your favorite artists are available in our music store. If you want to recommend a song available in our store to friends, you can have a sample sent to your friend’s email or Didiom inbox.”

• How do you plan to survive the downturn?

“Cutting down on anything and preserving cash.

“One of my favorite professors at Babson, the late Jeffry Timmons, used to say “happiness is a positive cash flow”. Creating a positive cash flow is the key to surviving a dot com crash, though I doubt there would be one in the foreseeable future.”

• What’s your biggest challenge?

“Entering the mainstream through the fragmented mobile market.”

• Which tech businesses or web thinkers are the ones to watch?

“Paul Graham of Y Combinator.”

• Who’s your mentor?

“Three grey-haired gentlemen with rich life experience and tremendous wisdom: Joe Kelley, Ron Weiner, and Bob Jamieson.”

• How’s you work/life balance?

“Doing a startup is not a walk in the park, especially when you have extremely limited resources. I spend as much time as I can with my 2.5 year old son and wonderful wife. Without her tremendous support, it would have been impossible to get Didiom off the ground. Unfortunately, I have little time to hang out with friends and family.”

• What’s the most important piece of software or web tool that you use each day?

“My web browser.”

• Where do you want the company to be in five years?

“With enough resources to help shape the future of digital media.”

Didiom.com

So what do you think?

• Is there enough room in the digital music space for this service?

• How can mobile-based music services overcome the design challenges of mobile handsets?

• Does this kind of service need to break the mainstream, or is it enough to target the music-tech hardcore?

Read Original Story…

(Source The Guardian)

Compare current LG KM900 Titan Black Arena deals here.

As seen on TV, the KM900 Arena is the new and exciting touchscreen phone from LG. It devotes most of its front face to a 3 inch screen which makes it great for reviewing pictures, watching videos and internet browsing.

The KM900 Arena is the new and exciting touchscreen phone from LG. It devotes most of its front face to a 3 inch screen which makes it impressive for reviewing pictures, watching videos and internet browsing. It’s sleek and it feels good quality in your hand, drawing attention for all of the right reasons.

But, play with it and it really comes to life! It has a new 3D touch user interface named S-Class, which is striking. The touchscreen is amazingly sensitive with fluid menus and no lagging.

The hardware graphics acceleration gives it some serious power and initial reports claim that this is the most impressive touchscreen phone since the iPhone was launched.

Under the skin of the LG Arena you’ll find a very respectable 5 megapixel camera with the esteemed Schneider Kreuznach lens and auto focus. It can record DVD quality video and it has DivX playback too. To save all those videos and photos there’s 8GB of internal memory, which can be expanded up to 24GB by adding a 16GB microSD memory card.

Other noteworthy features include Wi-Fi, 3G, HSDPA, A-GPS and a standard 3.5mm audio jack.

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• £1bn scheme will defend UK interests
• ‘No plan for database of all communications data’

The government’s electronic eavesdropping centre has issued a rare response to accusations that it plans to install thousands of black boxes to monitor all internet and telephone use in Britain.

In a statement, GCHQ denied its £1bn plan – called Mastering the Internet (MTI) – was a “snooping project” and said the technology being developed at its complex in Cheltenham was solely to keep pace with developments in internet technology.

In an unusual move in response to a weekend report, the agency, which does not usually comment on media stories, said in a statement: “GCHQ is not developing technology to enable the monitoring of all internet use and phone calls in Britain, or to target everyone in the UK. Similarly, GCHQ has no ambitions, expectations or plans for a database or databases to store centrally all communications data in Britain.”

It was suggested that the MTI project would give GCHQ the ability to “spy at will” on all internet traffic in Britain, including emails, website visits, social networking sessions, and telephone calls, 14% of which are made using internet protocol (Voip) systems such as Skype.

Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, recently announced that she was ditching plans for a single “big brother” database that would centrally store all communications data in Britain, but up to £2bn of public money would instead be spent helping private internet and telephone companies to keep information for up to 12 months in separate databases.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, welcomed the climbdown but opposed the newly proposed network of black boxes, to be used by private companies. “If companies are to be required to hold even more information than they do at present, concerns about access and use become even more important,” she said.

GCHQ acknowledged the existence of the MTI project, and said it was necessary to meet the threat posed by “those who threaten the UK and its interests”, although it did not specify what the project would involve.

It stated: “We must reinvest continuously to keep up with the methods that are used by those who threaten the UK and its interests. Just as our predecessors at Bletchley Park mastered the use of the first computers, today, partnering with industry, we need to master the use of internet technologies and skills that will enable us to keep one step ahead of the threats. This is what mastering the internet is about.”

It added that GCHQ was “subject to rigorous parliamentary and judicial oversight” and that the interception of information would be allowed only in cases of national security, safeguarding economic wellbeing and the prevention and detection of serious crime. “Interception for other purposes is not lawful and we do not do it … GCHQ only acts when it is necessary and proportionate to do so; GCHQ does not spy at will,” it said.

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(Source The Guardian)

The handset of choice for business people now comes at a price that is sure to prove popular in the wider market

The fiercely addictive BlackBerry – aka the “CrackBerry” – has become the mobile of choice for those wanting to access email on the go, and has been priced at a level that has put off all but the most dedicated.

However, if you have always secretly hankered after one, but couldn’t justify the expense, T-Mobile has this week come to your aid. Since yesterday, the mobile network operator has been offering the BlackBerry Pearl for a one-off £179.99. Included in that price are all the emails you can send and receive for the next 12 months, plus unlimited internet access.

It means that, for the first time, users can join the ranks of BlackBerry owners such as Barack Obama without having to commit to an onerous monthly payment.

BlackBerrys have largely been the preserve of those who are, or whose company is, prepared to typically spend £50 a month to keep them in constant contact with their emails.

But faced with the growing threat from rivals, including the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry has decided it needs to appeal more to the mainstream consumer market.

For those of you who have seen fellow travellers maniacally punching their BlackBerrys but have been just too embarrassed to ask what they are doing, the handsets allow users access to their work or personal email (or both), almost as if they were sitting in front of their computer.

While plenty of other phones now offer email access, the BlackBerry is still considered the top handset for email access alone. Last year Orange slashed the cost of operating a BlackBerry. Now T-Mobile has gone a step further, making them affordable for most mobile users.

T-Mobile allows users to pay the one-off fee, and use the phone on a pay-as-you-go basis. After paying £179.99 for the phone, all email and internet access will be free for a year. Users will have to pay for any calls on the normal pay-as-you-go tariff – 20p per minute for the first two minutes each day then 10p/min for all other calls that day. Texts are charged at 10p.

T-Mobile says anyone could top up the phone with a small sum then simply use it to access their email for the year – without ever making a call.

At the end of the 12 months, people will have to pay another fee to retain the “free” access. This charge has not been fixed but is likely to be in the order of £100. Alternatively, at the end of the year, there’s nothing to stop you taking your BlackBerry and switching it to another deal, or rival provider.

It should be noted the phone you get is not the top-of the-range BlackBerry handset. The Pearl 8110 smartphone comes in silver, has a 2-megapixel camera, in-built GPS (so you’ll never get lost), and a 3.5mm earphone jack for listening to music on the move.

It also comes with preloaded quick-links to certain websites including Facebook, MySpace and Flick. Note, however, it does not have a full-sized Qwerty keyboard.

Crucially, it costs less than half the price of the pay-as-you-go iPhone that is offered by O2 – this, admittedly, has lots of other applications and features, but for email is arguably less effective.

Before you sign up, you should check out Orange’s rival pay-as-you-go offering. It will sell you its BlackBerry for £155, which includes £10 of calls. Again, you get unlimited email and web access; however you need to pay the mobile phone company £5 a month for continued “unlimited” access. Call charges are 15p/min on its basic Racoon tariff.

Alternatively, plenty of phone companies will provide you with a free BlackBerry if you are prepared to sign a 12- or 18-month contract from £30 a month, although these do include a calls and/or text allowance.

Also, be aware that while there are plenty of users who love their BlackBerrys, some have grown to hate them, unable to control their need to constantly see whether they have been contacted. They have not been dubbed the CrackBerry for nothing, but at least the pay-as-you-go deal gives you a chance to try them without signing an expensive contract.

Lap up free web surfing with BT’s plug-in dongle

Do you use your laptop away from home and want to access the internet on the cheap? Then you might want to consider BT’s £50 dongle.

A dongle is a small plug-in for your computer that allows laptop users to access the internet via the mobile phone network. This week BT said anyone on its broadband package, which costs £15.65 a month, can pay a one-off £50 for its dongle, then surf the web for free from almost anywhere in the UK.

In certain areas it will give internet access at speeds of up to 7.2Mb and works on the 3G network, which covers 80% of the UK.

The dongle is £50 if you are on BT broadband option 1 and 2, or £9.99 if you are on the higher download option 3 (which costs £24.46 a month). Downloads are limited to 1GB a month, equal to roughly 300 e-mails, 400 minutes of websurfing, 48 photos, or 144 songs. John Petter, managing director of BT’s consumer division, said: “You can use mobile broadband on the train, in the coffee shop or in the park for all the things you go online for – to look at emails or check the football results.”

Rival mobile phone company 3, which has traditionally offered the cheapest dongles, charges £48 plus £10 a month for 1Gb of downloads, although the purchase fee is waived if you sign an 18-month contract.

New BT customers also have to sign an 18-month contract but pay nothing to use the dongle, thereby saving £120 a year.

The BT dongle, however, only works with Windows operating systems – a version for Apple Mac users is on the way. Meanwhile, BT Total Broadband customers already have free access to the BT FON network, 150,000 BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots across the UK and Ireland. Customers will also soon benefit from BT’s takeover of Wi-Fi hotspots at more than 650 Starbucks cafes in the UK and Ireland.

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(Source The Guardian)

Home secretary rules out state-run ‘super-database’ but firms would store details of calls, emails, texts and web browsing

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, today ruled out building a single state “super-database” to track everybody’s use of email, internet, text messages and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Smith said creating a single database run by the state to hold such personal data would amount to an extreme solution representing an unwarranted intrusion of personal privacy.

Instead the Home Office is looking at a £2bn solution that would involve requiring communications companies such as BT, Virgin Media, O2 and others to retain such personal data for up to 12 months.

The decision to abandon a state central database is a setback for the police and security services who wanted rapid access to the data while conducting counter-terror and crime investigations. Instead they will have to apply for the data to be released to them on a case-by-case basis to each individual telecoms and internet company.

Smith, publishing a consultation paper detailing the private sector solution, said: “Advances in communications mean that there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and we need to ensure that we keep up with the technology being used by those who would seek to do us harm.”

She said it was essential that the police and other crime-fighting agencies had the tools they needed to do their job. “However, to be clear there are absolutely no plans for a single central store. We recognise that there is a delicate balance between privacy and security, but to do nothing is not an option as we would be failing in our duty to protect the public.”

She argued that more privacy concerns were raised by the proposal to store all the personal communications data in a state-run single database than individual private companies retaining the information for access by the police and security services as and when they needed it.

The home secretary said the cost of the project was around £2bn over 10 years, far short of speculation that it could be as high as £12bn.

The Home Office consultation paper published today was originally expected in the early new year but has been delayed by an intense cabinet debate over whether or not to go ahead with the state database.

The paper makes clear that the Home Office regards it as technically the best option, describing it as “the least challenging technically to implement and the cheapest to build and run”.

But it adds that the government “recognises the privacy implications in holding all communications data from the UK in a 12-month period in a single store. The government therefore does not propose to pursue this approach.”

Instead communications companies are to be required by legislation to ensure that all traffic data – who sent a text to whom at what time and from where – is collected and kept in Britain. They will also be asked to store additional third-party data crossing their networks including phone calls and internet use from outside Europe.

This goes far beyond the current data collected for billing purposes. The companies will also be asked to organise the data – for example, matching it where it relates to the same person so that the authorities can access it in a form that is immediately usable.

Smith said that while the new system could record a visit to a social network such as Facebook, it would not record personal and private information such as photos or messages posted to a page.

“What we are talking about is who is at one end [of a communication] and who is at the other – and how they are communicating,” she said.

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said the details of the policy remained unclear. “The Home Office has been sending out conflicting signals on the superdatabasefor some months, frantically briefing journalists in private but failing to publish any detailed proposals,” she said. “If this statement from the home secretary marks a genuine change of direction on privacy policy, we will welcome it. However, it might be wise to read the small print first,” she said.

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(Source The Guardian)

This is a cash back offer from Mobiles2YourDoor (part of Phones 4u). Available online only. To make cash back redemption easier, they have now increased the redemption window to 60 days.

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The Sony Ericsson T303 is a compact phone that’s easy to use. If you like your mobile to be functional and sexy, without being too complicated and techy then this is for you. It has a classy mirrored finish and compact sliding design. Features include a decent camera, built-in MP3 player, Sony’s TrackID music recognition, a built-in FM radio and Bluetooth.

The Sony Ericsson T303 is a move away from Sony Ericssons recent releases but is sure to be a hit with those people who are after a distinctive handset with great aesthetics that won’t cost the earth.

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