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Apple announces social networking service which will display the music interests of friends via iTunes, iPhones and iPod TouchHaving cornered the MP3 player, mobile phone and computer tablet markets with the iPod, iPhone and iPad devices respectively, last night Apple announced its latest expansion – into social media – with Ping.Ping will be integrated into Apple’s latest iTunes software update and will enable users, or “Pingers”, to follow musicians, friends and others to see details including what music they’re buying and what concerts they’re attending.Steve Jobs, Apple’s chairman and chief executive, said the information will arrive in a long stream of updates, similar to the way Facebook and Twitter work.”Be as private or as public as you want. The privacy is super-easy to set up,” he said adding that users can choose to automatically accept followers or decide on a follower-by-follower basis – similar sounding controls to those on Twitter.The service is available immediately to more than 160 million iTunes users, Jobs said, and will also be available across the iPhone and iPod Touch ranges.The feature is believed to have been based on the technology Apple acquired with the purchase of the former online music store Lala.com last year.The iTunes logo will no longer feature a CD – mirroring the change in the program’s focus.Jobs unveiled a range of other upgrades to its products and services, including a new version of Apple TV – which will allow users to stream television programmes and films.The company is also releasing a revamped range of iPods, including an iPod touch with front- and rear-facing camera, Jobs told an assembled crowd of journalists, bloggers and analysts in California.Until now the Apple TV device was “never a huge hit”, admitted Jobs.The box originally allowed users to buy films and television programmes, but the latest version, which is smaller and, at $99, much cheaper than its $229 predecessor, will only allow the renting, rather than purchasing, of content.Users will pay $4.99 for high-definition films on the day they come out on DVD, while the rent of high-definition TV shows will be $0.99, Apple announced.”We’ve sold a lot of them, but it’s never been a huge hit,” Jobs said of Apple TV. The new version will be available within a month.Jobs also introduced a new design across the range of iPods, including the latest Nano, featuring a rotatable screen and a new Shuffle which sees the return of buttons – its predecessor was voice activated.The new iPod Touch will have front- and rear-facing cameras, the latter of which will be able to record HD video content, Jobs added.AppleComputingSteve JobsitunesSoftwareiPodiPhoneMobile phonesTelecomsUnited StatesAdam Gabbattguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc unveiled an aggressive move into the Internet-television market on Wednesday, while also rolling out an overhauled lineup of its iPod devices.

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Palm-sized Apple TV unveiled Apple CEO Steve Jobs has unveiled the next two generations of iOS, updates that will bring multiplayer gaming and high-definition photography to iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches next week and wireless printing and media streaming in November.…

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Apple launches a music-based social network called Ping as part of its latest upgrade to the iTunes music software.

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¡iCaramba! According to a Mexican telco exec, Apple will release an iPhone 4 with an upgrade to its problematic antenna after its “free case” giveaway ends on September 30.… Free On-Demand Webcast – Virtualizing the Hard Stuff

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One of the world’s largest casual gaming companies today unveiled HTML5 versions of 47 of its games websites, proclaiming that it will be the new standard for gaming devices within three years.SPIL Games has thrown its considerable weight behind HTML5 and the upward trend in casual gaming, with users now able to play its games on mobile browsers supporting HTML5 (ruling out devices running Android pre-2.0). Previously, mobile visitors would have been taken to the full browser window displayed in Flash – but that would be slow to render with most phone browsers, and incompatible with Apple devices.But close to a million mobile users try accessing a SPIL gaming website every month, a company spokesman tells us. More than half (52%) of these visits are from Apple devices, 15% from Android, 15% from Symbian (ie Nokia and/or Sony Ericcson) and 6% from BlackBerry devices.The company, which currently has more than 4,000 games in its portfolio, is offering developers prizes totalling up to $50,000 (£41,000) for the best HTML5 game, encouraging the potential it says is “hampered by different protocols, operating systems, and platform-approval processes within the mobile world”.An aside: Nick Jones, Gartner analyst, has an interesting take on that very subject:”Native platforms will certainly become less important relative to the web platform because HTML5 supports a wider range of applications than the last-generation web. “But native platforms can stay ahead by evolving faster than HTML5, and in different directions to HTML5, it’s not hard to outrun a snail driven by a committee. So although HTML5 will be important the native platform will retain a big edge if you want to develop clever apps. And the native platform owners want it to stay that way.”"Openness is at the core of everything we do,” says Peter Driesson, chief executive of the Netherlands-based company. “We are aware that HTML5 is still at an early stage, but already developers can use it to make great games, and we are confident that the industry will quickly embrace it. Within three years we expect HTML5 to be the standard in gaming devices.”Analysts at Forrester predict the Western European mobile gaming market to grow from €746m (£616m) at the end of 2010 to €1.46bn (£1.2bn) by the end of 2015, due to the growth in paying mobile gamers (31 million to 45 million over the same time frame, Forrester predicts) and a growth in smarphone adoption.• Another noteworthy HTML5 development: Ephemeral rockers Arcade Fire have teamed up with Google Chrome to put together a personalised music video. Nice.HTML5Casual gamingGamesMobileMobile phonesJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Free iPhone app monitors heartbeat – and helps doctors save lives in remote areasThe stethoscope – medical icon, lifesaver and doctor’s best friend – is disappearing from hospitals across the world as physicians increasingly use their smartphones to monitor patients’ heartbeats.More than 3 million doctors have downloaded a 59p application – invented by Peter Bentley, a researcher from University College London – which turns an Apple iPhone into a stethoscope.Last week, Bentley introduced a free version of the app, which is being downloaded by more than 500 users a day. Experts say the software, a major advance in medical technology, has saved lives and enabled doctors in remote areas to access specialist expertise.”Everybody is very excited about the potential of the adoption of mobile phone technology into the medical workplace, and rightly so,” said Bentley, who initially developed the app “as a fun toy”.”Smartphones are incredibly powerful devices packed full of sensors, cameras, high-quality microphones with amazing displays,” he said. “They are capable of saving lives, saving money and improving healthcare in a dramatic fashion – and we carry these massively powerful computers in our pockets.”Bentley’s iStethoscope application is not the only mobile phone programme lightening doctors’ bags and transforming their practices: there are nearly 6,000 applications related to health in the Apple App Store. The uptake has been rapid. In late 2009, two-thirds of doctors and 42% of the public were using smartphones – in effect inexpensive handheld computers – for personal and professional reasons. More than 80% of doctors said they expected to own a smartphone by 2012.The trend looks likely to gain pace as younger doctors enter the workplace. Some medical schools issue students with smartphones. In America, Georgetown University, the University of Louisville and Ohio State University are among those requiring undergraduates to use one.However, experts say they are being prevented from exploiting the technology’s opportunities. Bentley says that he is unable to launch a new range of applications because of out-of-date regulations.”It’s much easier to develop technology than it is to get permission to use it,” he said. “I could create a mobile ultrasound scanner and an application to measure the oxygen content in blood, but the regulations stop me. We’re not allowed to turn the phone itself into a medical device, and what that precisely means is currently a grey area in terms of regulation. That’s the only reason we’re not seeing a flood of these devices yet.”Professor Ian Wells, head of the scientific computing section in the department of medical physics at the Royal Surrey County hospital in Guildford, agrees that innovation is being hindered by regulations that are “still in their infancy”.He said: “The approach of the regulators is not well worked out yet. There’s a wonderful new world out there but we need to find a way for regulators to protect patients and doctors, while not impeding innovation, research and development.”The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – the government body with responsibility for standards of safety, quality and performance in healthcare – recently set up the Medical Device Technology Forum, a group of industry representatives, regulators, users and scientists, to help establish how to regulate novel technologies.”This is such a complex area that we are currently looking at every application on a case-by-case basis,” said an MHRA spokesman. “We want to ensure that these new technologies are effectively regulated – thereby protecting health and avoiding unnecessary deterrents – while at the same time removing any unnecessary obstacles to manufacturers who wish to exploit new technologies for the benefit of patients.”European regulators are also striving to bring their guidelines up to date. A group of regulators from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Sweden and the UK was set up last December to develop guidance for software under the European Medical Device Regulations. They are expected to report at the end of the year.AppsiPhoneDoctorsAppleMobile phonesHealthAmelia Hillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, App Store, apple, apple iphone, best, free, government, iphone, lg, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, sam, uk, world

Apple App Store, 59p eachThe iPhone’s back catalogue may be swollen with lazily designed games and sloppy clones of yesterday’s hits, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for titles that feel fresh and exciting. One of the new releases showcasing this spirit (and that ensures it remains a showcase for the best of gaming’s fringe) is Gravity Runner (App Store, 59p, We Are Colin). Its 2-D platform- jumping form may be familiar but, with the introduction of an exceedingly simple gravity manipulation mechanism that lets the player toy with Newton’s law through a tap of the screen, this tidy little title becomes an engrossing action puzzle game that can prove hard to put to one side.Energetic and polished, Gravity Runner neatly combines a lo-fi attitude with a knack for considered design that will keep delivering thrills long after you think you’ve learned all its tricks.In a similar vein, Splode (App Store, 59p, Escalation Studios) delivers a deft mix of edgy, indie styling and in-depth gameplay. Boiling the concept of minimal interaction down to purest form, each level requires nothing more than a single screen tap, and yet Splode still demonstrates considerable cunning. The player’s task is to clear screens of clusters of drifting and highly unstable explosive life forms by triggering meandering chain reactions with a well-placed detonation. Esoteric, hypnotic, and featuring some incredibly well-implemented dynamic audio, Splode makes for an eerie spin on reaction-based puzzle gaming that should not be missed.iPhoneMobile phonesAppleWill Freemanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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The device combines the benefits of a powerful modern smartphone with some of those of an iPadI’ve been a heavy user of Google Calendar and Contacts for a couple of years now, and that is why I first started using an Android phone, the HTC Magic. My boyfriend recently got the HTC Desire which showed me how the Magic was getting dated, so I decided it was time to upgrade.However, as an SMS-addict and avid tweeter I found the small keyboard on my old phone a bit fiddly and didn’t see that improving with the latest incarnations. Added to that, we recently got an iPad and I liked its convenience for reading articles. I didn’t want to be carrying yet another device around in my handbag, though. So, when I heard about the Dell Streak it sounded perfect: one device that combined the benefits of a powerful modern smartphone with some of those of a ‘pad.I ordered it straight from Dell, SIM-free, for £449. Taking it out of the box I was immediately impressed with the look and feel. It is slim and dense, but not too heavy, and sexily sleek all in black. I find it balances surprisingly well in my left hand, naturally lending itself to being held sideways (landscape). It is also not so large that it cannot fit in a man’s suit or shirt pocket.Actually making calls on the phone in public can be a little ‘Dom Joly’ due to its size. However, that is easily addressed with a Bluetooth earpiece and was not unexpected.The 800 x 480, five-inch screen is crisp, clear and bright, and I am now regularly using it to read the Economist or New Scientist on the train. The 1GHz Snapdragon processor is blisteringly fast, as is the HSDPA 3G and WiFi, making the browsing experience similar in speed to that of a netbook. With K9Mail I can even now access my industrial-strength IMAP mailbox (250 folders and more than 200,000 emails), something I have not previously managed on a phone.As for the 16GB storage, I’m barely scratching it despite telling Spotify to download all my playlists. There is plenty of space for downloading films, and the playback quality of those I’ve tried was great. Sadly there is no BBC iPlayer support, yet.Unfortunately there are other issues, though mostly minor. The supposedly near-indestructible Gorilla glass screen has been disappointing. In three weeks my Streak has picked up a number of fine scratches, two of which I now regularly notice when using it.Further, unlike the HTC Desire or Google’s Nexus One my Streak was shipped with the now ageing Android 1.6 operating system, complete with a number of irritating quirks and bugs despite Dell’s customisations. I have even had to remove the battery to force a reset after a particularly bad crash. The keyboard has also been disappointing, mainly because of the software. Unlike my HTC Magic, the auto-correction system seems over-complex and counter-intuitive, and I can no longer blindly touch-type.The default software bundle could also be better. As an experienced Android user I was fine, just downloading my usual set of apps and syncing up with Google. Those used to the intuitive ease of Apple’s products and without previous Android experience may find it a somewhat steep learning curve. However, Android 2.2 for the Streak is coming out soon and I expect that will be a big improvement.In summary, despite some minor niggles, the Dell Streak is an excellent device. I also think my experiment of trying to get the benefits of a ‘pad and a smart phone in one device has worked. It is big enough to be easy to read, watch or interact with for extended periods but small enough to be highly portable, with all the other benefits of a high-end smartphone. It is a little let down by its older operating system, but even Android 1.6 still overall excels. If you like the idea of a hybrid pad-phone then this could be for you, even if not an Android user. The small investment of time to get to grips with Android would certainly be worthwhile in order to get the full benefits of this device.Pros: Big, crisp screen; fast processor and commas; slim, sleek and good-looking.Cons: No Android 2.2 (yet); poor typing auto-correction; weak software bundle.Dell Streak, £449 (SIM-free).Specs: 5″ 800 x 480 multi-touch screen, Android OS, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor. 5MP rear camera, VGA front-facing camera. Browser: WebKit (Android). Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB2.0. Plays: MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, Midi, WAV, H.263 / H.264, .3GP, MPEG4, WMV. Size: 152.9 x 79.1 x 9.98 mm. Weight: 220g.Kate Craig-Wood is CEO of Memset Dedicated Hosting.Mobile phonesAndroidguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Web video subscription service Netflix Inc launched on Thursday a free iPhone and iPod application that allows subscribers to watch TV shows and movies on Apple Inc’s handheld devices.

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What can’t you do on your phone yet? Remix music? WRONG!Hot off the development bench this week comes Fireplayer – another app trying to offer something new with the music that people will actually pay for. Though this app is free, the idea is that beyond the two free tracks you get with the app (one of which is South Central’s Demons – kudos to them for picking an app to launch their new single) you’ll want to fork out £1.79 for every new song you want to fiddle with. That seems a little steep to me (not that £1.79 is a lot) but there’s something about breaching the £1 barrier for in-app content. Labels seem to like it; Universal and Ministry of Sound are already signed up.Fireplayer was made by the people at Bounce Mobile, who are careful to pitch this as a potential source of complimentary digital revenue for music labels and artists. Once you’ve picked the track and remixed/fiddled with it, you can share your remixed tracks on Facebook, this ticking the viral box.The first time I fired it up the screen was ominously blank for a good five seconds, and more when I fired up the first track. We’ll put that down to teething. Once I reached the mixing desk things got a bit better – it’s not their fault that I’m just not enough of a music geek to appreciate what ‘chop’, ‘low pass’ and ‘keys’ do. Music fiddlers will love it.Where: Apple App StorePrice: FreeDo say: Could you drop the vocals for the middle eight and pump up the bass?Don’t say: Do you have any Joan Baez?See it on YouTube (sorry, no embed.)iPhoneAppsMobile phonesJemima Kissguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Nibbling at the wrong target Opinion  My US colleagues are regulars on John C Dvorak’s excellent Cranky Geeks and a highlight of the show. I was recently intrigued to hear the opinion from Vulture West Coast (in Episode 232) that RIM was toast, and Android would triumph. Now, bearing in mind that I’ve been wrong about mobile more than I’ve been wrong about anything else – quite epically and unheroically wrong – I beg to differ.… Free On-Demand Webcast – Virtualizing the Hard Stuff

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Mobile applications to make you sound like a star of The X Factor or GleeTools. It’s all about knowing how to use them.There was outrage on Saturday after X Factor producers admitted using auto-tune technology for the show’s audition stages. But put that same technology on a mobile app and bam – instant brilliance! Entertain your friends! Horrify your neighbours! Deafen your dog!We’ve found some of the best auto-tune apps for mobile…Glee – Singers Wanted (No Talent Required)Glee fans will wonder how they ever lived without the Glee iPad app, which invites users to sing along to tracks, auto corrects them and then broadcasts them to other Glee app users worldwide on a very pretty globe visualisation. Earn points and get feedback from other users and, for the truly brave, switch off auto-tune and broadcast your tunes ‘nude’. The app makers took the typical iPad strategy of making an extra buck at every step, so you’ll have to pay extra to download most of the best songs from the series. This is Rupert Murdoch’s vision for the future of media, by the way.Where: Apple App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod TouchPrice: £0.59pDo say: I’m so good, I don’t need auto-tuneDon’t say: Isn’t the point that Glee clubbers can sing?I Am T-PainI Am T-Pain knows that every self-respecting artists needs their own iPhone app, but trumped the competition by adding auto-tune technology with the app he launched last September with Smule. T-Pain has a bit of a thing about auto-tune and this app kicked off the trend. But this essentially is a clever, branded, niche karaoke machine. For T-Pain fans. It comes with five songs, and you can buy more if you exhaust those. “It’s actually the same software that I use in the studio, so if anybody actually wanted to be T-Pain, then there you go,” he said at launch.Where: Apple App Store – for iPhone and iPod TouchPrice: £1.79Do say: Check me out doin’ Chopped & Screwed!Don’t say: Who’s T-Pain?LaDiDaYou know how in the musicals they always seem to be singing, but there’s no consistent melody? Well now you too can annoy yourself by making a soundtrack from your daily life, with LaDiDa. Anything you thought wasn’t a tune can become a tune – with LaDDa! Most amusing, as these apps tend to be, after a hard night at the pub. Record your voice, choose from a dub, pop synth or tasty breaks backing and pick your tempo. Rather good fun to try singing an actual real song and see how LaDiDa unintentionally remixes it. Lofi, and we like it.Where: Apple App Store – for iPhone and iPod TouchPrice: £1.79Do say: I can make anything into a song? Don’t say: I’m dumping you via the medium of LaDiDa, ooo ooo ooo, la la la.MicDroidAuto-tune came late to Android – nearly a year late, in fact. MicDroid is pretty bare bones, but if you want to turn your phone into a mic and auto-tune the results, you can do it on an Android handset. This video review from PocketNow.com tells you everything you need to know.Where: Android MarketPrice: FreeDo say: At last – an auto-tune app for geeks!Don’t say: Is that it?I’m left wondering why a Cher auto-tune app hasn’t been created, but then there are only so many hours in a day.Digital mediaAppsiPhoneMobile phonesJemima Kissguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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The move will speed up access for people using the site via iPhones or AndroidMobile users in the UK, Europe and Middle East can now access an HTML5 version of Google’s YouTube video site, speeding up access for those accessing it via iPhones, Android or other mobile devices with browsers able to render HTML5 video content.The launch comes as mobile use of the web is growing rapidly: Google says that YouTube’s mobile site, m.youtube.com, gets more than 100m video playbacks a day – roughly the number of daily views youtube.com was getting when being acquired by Google in 2006 – and every minute an hour of video is uploaded to the site from a mobile device. Mobile video playback also grew by 160% in 2009 on the previous year, along with an increase in adoption of devices able to stream video.The US version of the HTML5 site for mobiles was launched last month.Across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the UK consumes the most YouTube videos on mobile devices, followed by France, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland.The original mobile version of YouTube launched in 2007, but relied on versions of Adobe’s Flash for playback – which was too taxing for most devices. Since then, the development of the HTML5 web standard, and of mobile browsers – notably WebKit, used by Apple in the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, and by Google in Android – able to play back embedded video content using the H.264 codec, rather than Flash’s usual Sorensen or VP6 codecs, has meant that HTML5 video use has become feasible.Google says the decision has been driven by the dramatic growth in mobile access to YouTube, which is more than doubling every year.Several short-form video sites are building players in HTML5: Vimeo brought out a hybrid HTML5 version of its player earlier this month, designed for better mobile playback. But when US-only TV and movie streaming site Hulu unveiled a major revamp of its display earlier this year, it did so using Adobe Flash, saying HTML5 “doesn’t meet our customers’ needs”.The use of HTML5 does not mean that Flash is shut out of YouTube’s mobile version: Adobe’s product can encode video in H.264 as well. But the growing use of desktop browsers such as Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari, which can render H.264 video – and with the forthcoming Internet Explorer 9 also offering it – poses a long-term question about Flash’s continued widespread use.Brightcove, the video hosting service for many media organisations, began offering an HTML5 version of its site in March this year. The New York Times and Time Inc were among the first media outlets to integrate it – allowing playback on Apple’s popular mobile devices, which do not use Flash.Closer to home, Erik Huggers, director of BBC future media & technology, recently defended the corporation from accusations that its widespread use of Flash – on the iPlayer, in particular – betrayed a commitment to open standards.”Our use of Flash is not a case of BBC favouritism, rather it currently happens to be the most efficient way to deliver a high quality experience to the broadest possible audience,” Huggers said, adding: “The fact is that there’s still a lot of work to be done on HTML5 before we can integrate it fully into our products. As things stand I have concerns about HTML5′s ability to deliver on the vision of a single open browser standard which goes beyond the whole debate around video playback.”Though the BBC does deliver H.264-encoded video to Apple mobile devices, it does not do that for Android devices, citing concerns about copying of content via the Android platform, and instead serves Flash-based video to them.However YouTube has said that HTML5 is still some way from becoming the new standard for streaming long-form video content, such as BBC iPlayer content. “While HTML5′s video support enables us to bring most of the content and features of YouTube to computers and other devices that don’t support Flash Player, it does not yet meet all of our needs,” said John Hardin, software engineer at YouTube, in a blogpost published in June. “Today, Adobe Flash provides the best platform for YouTube’s video distribution requirements, which is why our primary video player is built with it.”Microsoft has put its eggs in the HTML5 basket with next year’s release of its internet Explorer 9 browser. Ryan Gavin, Microsoft’s senior director of internet Explorer, said in May this year: “We’re all in on HTML5. We’ve been co-chairing the HTML5 working group, and we’re actually leading the HTML5 testing group.”YouTubeHTML5Mobile phonesSoftwareComputingTelecomsInternetJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Google calendar elbows in too Google has enabled push email on the iPhone, so now received Gmail can interrupt iPhone users just as irritatingly as the native app supplied by Apple.…

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Google calendar elbows in too Google has enabled push email on the iPhone, so now received Gmail can interrupt iPhone users just as irritatingly as the native app supplied by Apple.…

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Can frenemies cooperate? Hot Chips  Google Lab’s visual-search technology, Google Goggles, should be available for iPhone users later this year.… Free On-Demand Webcast – Virtualizing the Hard Stuff

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Application downloads are forecast to overtake revenue generated from voice services by 2013, upping the demand on network trafficFlat-rate mobile data tariffs look like an endangered species in the US and Europe. Mobile operators say that the all-you-can-eat model is damaging their ability to increase their revenues, and that the cost of building next-generation networks and providing the backbone capacity for the data is a “critical challenge”.In a survey for the law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the majority of mobile operators in the US and Europe also say they want to charge to prioritise the delivery of network traffic – which would do away with the principle of net neutrality on wireless networks.And, fearful that handset makers and companies such as Apple, Google, Nokia and BlackBerry maker RIM will reap all the benefits from selling downloadable phone apps, nearly 80% of mobile operators told the EIU that they would benefit from opening their platforms to independent software developers, with 45% believing they should open their own “app stores” to compete with those like Apple’s iPhone App Store and Google’s Android Marketplace and Nokia’s Ovi Store.Apps are becoming increasingly important to handset makers as a means of distinguishing themselves, but operators have seen little benefit from them. Instead, apps usually lead to greater data use from smartphones – but on flat-rate data tariffs, that simply means greater costs for the network operator.Ofcom figures from the first quarter of 2010 show that 18% of the UK population user their mobile handset to access the internet. That is expected to increase alongside purchases of smartphones.Executives expect the downloading of applications to outweigh income generated from voice calls by 2013, and 55% of those surveyed said they should be allowed to recoup some of the money invested in enabling this increasing usage of data.In the US, AT&T signalled the end of flat-rate data tariffs for iPhone users in June, shifting to a model where owners could get up to 2 gigabytes of data per month on standard contracts. In the UK, the four main operators this summer also ended flat-rate tariffs for iPhone owners which were introduced in 2007 when the device was launched.As the number of smartphones being used has grown, so have the demands on networks’ data backbones, which have struggled to keep up, while networks have been hampered by flat-rate data tariffs which they introduced to tempt people to use their services – and then found were taken up so eagerly that the systems struggled to fulfil demand.Current regulation stipulates that no preferential treatment is given to data carried over networks, but the increase in usage of applications, video streaming and internet-connected gaming has meant operators have had to invest in ways of delivering data to users.Proposals recently laid out by Google and US telecom Verizon left room for wireless, mobile networks to be able to discriminate in how they deliver content, saying that the future internet will largely be wireless and shouldn’t be bound to rules governing the internet of today.Last week private discussions were held in the US between lobbyists – thought to include Yahoo and Microsoft – to try come to an agreement on how to manage internet traffic, following the breakdown of net neutrality talks held by the country’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC).• One of the UK’s smaller internet service providers, Demon, today unveiled a new broadband package charging customers £3 extra per month for the prioritised delivery of gaming traffic over its network.Net neutralityMobile phonesTelecomsInternetInternet, phones & broadbandJosh HallidayCharles Arthurguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Heard of Silicon Street? It’s Paul Street, in central London – just round the corner from Silicon Roundabout and a cousin of Silicon Fen… and it’s where messaging service HulloMail is based.Founded in 2008 with seed funding from venture capital, the service has 25 staff and claims phenomenal growth in the past six months with more than 150,000 downloads. Next on the to-do list is a co-branded smartphone version for mobile operators that, hopes chief executive Andy Munarriz, will open the service to millions of users. • What’s your pitch?”We answer your phone when you can’t, sending messages left by the caller straight to your phone – you can play it back as if it where a music track on your iPod. It also tells you when someone called you but did not leave a message. You can see all your voicemails in one single list with a photo of the person next to each message – this saves you time as you can play each messages by simply selecting it. You don’t have to make a call and listen to the person telling you who called, when they called and then wait to hear the messages in the order they were left. It’s much less frustrating! “We have another a cool feature that lets you send a voicemail without having to call that person. Press record, leave your message and then send – it’s is quick and free. “HulloMail is a cloud-based service. Users sign-up by downloading the mobile app from the relevant marketplace (currently Android, BlackBerry and iPhones in the UK, USA and soon Ireland). Part of the sign-up process sets your mobile divert to our cloud answer service (voicemail, in layman’s speak). We then have the ability to answer your phone calls when you don’t – essentially, we replace your mobile operator voicemail service. When someone leaves you a message, we then push it directly to the HulloMail mobile app on the phone and also to your email, so you can play it directly from your device or as an MP3 attachment. “Finally, we let you send new and reply-to voice messages to your contacts without having to make a physical call. These messages are called Hullos – short voice messages you can send directly to fellow HulloMail users or anyone with an email address.” • How do you make money?”We make most of our money from technology licenses and services, but this will shift to revenue from co-branded cloud-based services for consumers, in conjunction with mobile operators. We also expect the consumer services to pay for themselves when we launch paid-for advanced features from autumn 2010.” • How are you surviving the downturn?”We are keeping focused and not overextending ourselves. We are lucky that smartphones are still selling like hotcakes and users are hungry for apps.” • What’s your background?”My background is in software and systems design. I consider myself a technologist with a passion of user interface design. “I’ve worked for 20 years in software and telecoms. I also founded VoxSurf in 1999, which pioneered the world’s first web and open standards-based call completion and messaging platform. This is currently deployed to 35 million users globally. I previously worked for companies such as Accenture and Sprint, specialising in the design, development and installation of service delivery platform architectures to a number of industries. This ranged from phone banking to field force management. I’ve also authored several mobile web and messaging technology patents.” • What makes your business unique?”Being the ‘son of VoxSurf’, HulloMail is in a sweet spot of having large-scale services deployed with mobile operators and now a consumer focus of our own in one of their core service areas. I believe this is a unique and fresh combination in the industry today and places us in a very good position to modernise voice messaging services as a consumer brand. Our strategy to scale the business is to offer mobile operators a co-branded HulloMail. We are extremely focussed and good at what we do so our goal is to work with mobile operators in a fresh way to help deliver a service that people want. “We are passionate about providing consumer-led innovation as opposed to simply delivering technology for technology-focused solutions, which is what I believe many traditional vendors currently present to mobile operators.” • What has been your biggest achievement so far?”We licensed our technology to one of the largest telco vendors in our space that continues to use it as the basis of one of their successful platforms today. I cut the code of the prototype for what became our technology platform over a two-week holiday. It still puts a smile on my face when I think of it.” • Who in the tech business inspires you?”In business James Dyson inspires me. I would imagine that telling VCs you have re-invented the Hoover must have been as hard as telling VCs you have re-invented voicemail. He had to go to Japan to prove a point. I’ve been luckier – I only had to nip over to Ireland. “Steve Jobs and his Apple team turned mobile on its head. Despite the negative vibe on their walled garden approach, it is thanks to Apple that companies like HulloMail could prove a mobile concept directly with consumers. Only five years ago it was impossible to deploy an app without getting involved with a device manufacturer and a mobile operator – the process length alone could kill the business.” • What’s your biggest challenge?”Scaling the business, by accelerating consumer growth.” • What’s the most important web tool that you use each day? “Email – I believe that email continues to be the killer app. However I use email too much and I should call people more often.” • Name your closest competitors”You have the traditional telco vendors such as an Ericsson or Comverse, or Acision selling messaging systems to the mobile operator. You also have the web-based guys such as Google and Google Voice. Neither of them offers mobile operators a web-based cloud model coupled with actual consumer demand for the product, like we do.” • Where do you want the company to be in five years?”As a recognised telco brand, which is deployed to millions of mobile users.” • Sell to Google, or be bigger than Google?”If I was a mobile operator focussing on differentiating my services, HulloMail would be a good option to enable a horizontal voice and video messaging strategy across multiple devices. Is there a mobile operator bigger than Google?” hullomail.com Internet startupsDigital mediaMobile phonesAppsJemima Kissguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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…for your own good Apple has applied for a patent covering an elaborate series of measures to automatically protect iPhone owners from thieves and other unauthorized users. But please withhold the applause.…

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