Posts Tagged “email”
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The Nokia X6 now comes in this special V Festival edition, called the X6V. It includes 25 free music downloads via the Nokia music store, free Bluetooth headphones worth £49.99 and V Festival and Shazam apps pre-installed.
The Nokia X6 has an impressive 3.2 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front of the phone. It’s pocket and palm friendly measuring 111 x 51 x 13mm and it’s great for watching movies with the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. With 16GB of internal memory there’s plenty of storage too. The X6 runs on Symbian OS v9.4 and has a 434 MHz processor, which is enough to compete with many other smartphones in its class. The new X Series range from Nokia with replace the XpressMusic range, it will focus on entertainment and social networking.
The X6’s TFT capacitive touchscreen gives a crisp, bright image and comes with scratch resistant glass. There is a built in accelerometer for automatically switching the screen from portrait to landscape, for widescreen images and videos. For texts and emails the X6 also supports handwriting recognition. A 5 megapixel camera is the same unit from the N97, it has Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, LED flash and geo-tagging to take fantastic images and stamp them with their exact time and location using GPS. The camera also has video recording capabilities and there is the ability to edit images with software provided.
Connectivity-wise, the Nokia X6 has all the usual features you would expect in a smartphone, 3G, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a microUSB slot to transfer files with or without wires. To ensure you never get lost the X6 has Ovi maps sat nav pre-installed, which is now subscription-free. The X6 combines style and technology to bring a fantastic, feature packed flagship phone to the new X Series range.
Tags: 3, all, compare, deal, Deals, email, free, latest, latest deal, mobile, n97, new, new mobile, nokia, palm, phone, phones, sam, test, Touch, xpressmusic
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Owners of Apple’s latest phone are resorting to a bit of duct tape or a dab of nail polish to solve its reception problems
Want to know the must-have item for owners of the new iPhone 4? A bit of duct tape – or a dab of nail polish.
The reason: despite Steve Jobs’s describing the positioning of the antennae which pick up the mobile signal on the outside of the phone, rather than the inside, as “brilliant engineering”, a number of users have discovered that if it is held from the bottom, the signal strength drops off dramatically – because their skin changes the electrical properties of the antennae.
Now, Jobs has informally – and Apple formally – acknowledged the issue: in email replies to owners of the new phones complaining about the problem, Jobs gave a simple response. “Don’t hold it that way,” he told one.
Apple’s slightly longer statement notes that: “Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance with certain places being worse than others … this is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.”
Some users have found tape or nail polish on the corner is a solution.
With the iPhone 4 having been a sellout in many stores – and Vodafone emailing customers whom it promised supplies to tell them that it cannot satisfy them – the problems are an embarrassment for Apple, which had to overcome early problems with wireless reception on its tablet-style computer, the iPad, when that was launched in May.
Dozens of people have posted videos on YouTube showing how the signal reception for 3G voice and data networks falls off when it is held so that the hand touches the antenna parts on the bottom of the phone. Companies selling silicone casing for the iPhone 4 report that they have already been busier, as word of the problem has spread, than they were for last year’s release of the iPhone 3GS.
Professor Joe McGeehan, head of the Centre for Communications Research at the University of Bristol, and an expert in mobile antenna technology, said: “The hand does have a de-tuning effect on the antenna of any mobile phone: it changes the frequency that it responds to due to capacitative effects. How much it affects it depends on the materials surrounding it. If previous iPhones didn’t have this problem, then you have to ask: what’s changed, and might that be causing it?”
Antenna expert Spencer Webb said all mobile phones house the antenna in the bottom of the phone, to minimise the radio output near the head so that the phone will pass safety testing by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC). “The iPhone 4 has two symmetrical slots in the stainless frame,” Webb wrote. “If you short these slots, or cover them with your hand, the antenna performance will suffer. There is no way around this, it’s a design compromise that is forced by the requirements of the FCC, AT&T, Apple’s marketing department and Apple’s industrial designers, to name a few.” He said he had upgraded to the new iPhone, despite the concerns. “I voted with my dollars,” he said. “Sometimes an antenna that’s not great, but good enough, is good enough.”
Apple offers a solution: “bumpers” which fits around the edge of the phone. But at £29, they are too pricey for many to consider – and have not pleased people who think their phone should work correctly out of the box.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, 3gs, all, apple, Apples, email, gadget, iphone, iphone 3gs, latest, marketing, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, networks, new, phone, phones, sim, sol, test, Touch, uk, vodafone
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Available now and fantastic value for money, free on a £25 per month contract with up to £300 redemption cash back.
The Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini comes in two forms; standard and Mini. They are two of the smallest Android phones on the market. The Mini Pro measures 90 x 52 x 17mm and features a slide out QWERTY keyboard and a sharp 2.6 inch touchscreen, making it an incredibly easy to use device. There is a customisable homescreen to access your favourite applications with ease and with the Android marketplace you can download applications to suit your needs.
With the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro you will never miss an update with messages, emails, Twitter and Facebook updates accessible at the tap of a finger and stored together with the Timescape application. Although the device is mini in size, the X10 Mini Pro can store all your favourite music and photos with up to 16GB of memory via a microSD card as well as an impressive list of features include a 5 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, GPS navigation, FM radio and Bluetooth.
The Xperia X10 Mini Pro is a fantastic little device if you want a feature rich phone that won’t weigh you down and could be the way forward for powerful Android devices.
Tags: 10, 3, all, android, card, compare, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, latest, latest deal, mobile, new, new mobile, phone, phones, sony, sony ericsson, test, Touch, twitter, update
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Free on Orange with up to 18 months half price line rental by redemption.
With a stylish design of sweeping curves and a silver diamond shaped navigation key the latest in the Galaxy range, the Samsung Galaxy Apollo I5801, is set to turn heads. A wide range of flexibility is offered by the Android OS v2.1 that allows access to a whole host of downloadable apps to truly personalise the phone. 3G HSDPA Internet access opens up a new world of exciting web sites to visit and the included Google package (Google Search, Gmail, YouTube & Google Talk) offers a familiar browsing experience each step of the way. The 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen is perfect for enjoying both the web and the Apollo’s feature set, with the option to use the handset in landscape or portrait views.
The Galaxy Apollo ensures you can stay in touch with friends and family easily with a range of messaging options that includes texts, MMS, email (with document viewer), push email and instant messaging. Meeting up at previously unknown locations is no chore either with Google Maps and A-GPS support.
Other features include a 3.15 megapixel camera with autofocus and video capture. Captured images can be stored onto the internal memory (a microSD card slot is also provided) or shared easily via wireless Bluetooth. The FM radio and MP3/MP4 player offers the user a truly portable entertainment centre for enjoying favourite music and video files. The Samsung Galaxy Apollo I5801 looks set to be as much of a hit as previous models in the Galaxy range.
Tags: 3, all, android, card, compare, deal, Deals, email, free, google, latest, latest deal, line, mobile, months, new, new mobile, orange, phone, rental, sam, samsung, test, Touch, world
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Antenna design on new iPhone is acknowledged as source of poor connectivity – but Apple says problem is inevitable and advises different grip. Or you could try duct tape…
Apple has issued official guidance – and its chief executive Steve Jobs has issued unofficial guidance – on how to avoid the widely-noted reception problems with the new iPhone 4 when held from below: don’t hold it that way.
The cause has been narrowed down to a circuit being formed when the skin bridges the gap between the left and bottom antennas that form the phone’s outer stainless steel bezel: depending on the conductance of the skin, it can make the phone reception drop off dramatically.
Emailed by the website Ars Technica about the problem, Jobs responded in his normal terse manner: “Just avoid holding it in that way,” he wrote – a response from Jobs that was received by a number of gadget review sites and customers in the US.
Or, in Apple’s official statement – which is only being passed out to news organisations which ask for a statement on the problem, rather than sent out (as happens with iPad or iPhone sales figures): “Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your Phone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.”
The problem emerged within hours of the first iPhone 4 devices being delivered to customers in the US, with dozens posting videos to YouTube showing mobile reception dropping off dramatically when they picked up the phone. Some users wondered why Apple had not spotted the problem during its testing of the iPhone 4 before its launch, and wondered whether the £25 “bumpers” that Apple sells to go around the casing – and protect the metal antennas – was an implicit acknowledgement of the problem. Apple had no comment on Friday on whether it had discovered the problem during testing, or only after the phone went on sale.
Spencer Web, an antenna engineer with Antennasys, notes in a blog post that antennas for mobile phones are generally placed at the bottom of the phone, in order to keep the radiative parts of the phone as far away from the user’s head as possible. In the US the Federal Communications Commission measures the output of a phone, and the amount of non-ionising radiation given off, in specific tests – but Web says that those would not have picked up the problem: “when the FCC tests are run, the head is required to be in the vicinity of the phone. But, the hand is not!”
He added: “The antenna structure for the cell phone is still down at the bottom (I won’t address the WiFi nor GPS antennas in this blog entry). The iPhone 4 has two symmetrical slots in the stainless frame. If you short these slots, or cover them with your hand, the antenna performance will suffer (see this video I found on YouTube). There is no way around this, it’s a design compromise that is forced by the requirements of the FCC, AT&T, Apple’s marketing department and Apple’s industrial designers, to name a few.”
There is some speculation that the problem only occurs on some phones because the antennas are usually covered with a clear finishing solution; if the finish did not cover them properly the phone might be more liable to the problem.
Meanwhile iPhone 4 users are developing their own solutions – which range from the use of duct or masking tape on the bottom edge, painting clear nail varnish over the gap, buying cases to cover the sides of the phone, or – the most expensive option – buying Apple’s “bumpers” which cover the edge of the phone.
Meanwhile another problem has appeared on some of the new models: yellow discoloration under the screen. According to one suggestion, this is due to a chemical used in the fixing process that joins the touchscreen to the glass above it and will fade in a few days. That remains to be seen.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, all, apple, blog, email, gadget, iphone, marketing, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, review, review site, sim, sol, test, Touch, uk
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A study published in the BMJ on 23 June found no link between childhood cancer and mobile phone masts. Over the coming days and weeks we will publish updates on this story and links to sources of further information
• The BMJ has made this research paper freely available
• Email us an update or other useful links
Expert comment
2:00pm: Some comments on the BMJ study courtesy of the Science Media Centre in London.
Eileen Rubery, former head of the public health prevention department at the UK government’s department of health, said: “This is a carefully done study by a highly reputable group … the size of the sample is large and the approach appropriate. It is reassuring that no adverse effects have been found and this fits with the anticipated and known biological effects from such sites and so is consistent with the physiology and biology.”
Malcolm Sperrin, director of medical physics at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, said: “This study seems exemplary in its approach. The findings are well concluded and the methodology is thorough. The findings are generally in support of both the current understanding of tissue interactions and also in support of the work done by other similar research groups. The data is complex and requires some interpretation but the abstract and conclusions are well considered and easy to follow.”
1.30pm: If you only have time to read two things related to the analysis of this story, here they are.
NHS Choices cuts through all the complexity with a superb article on its Behind the Headlines pages. It explains how the study was carried out, what the results are and what caveats there might be on the work.
One of the limitations to this study design is that the exposures being assessed occurred in the past, and therefore it can be difficult to assess them accurately, particularly if researchers rely only on people’s recall of events. However, in this study, researchers did not have to rely on people remembering or estimating their exposure to mobile phone masts, instead they used data on where individuals lived and known locations of mobile phone masts. This increases the reliability of the information about exposure.
Despite any perceived limitations, NHS Choices concludes that the BMJ study “appears well conducted”.
Funding
As well as elucidating the way the research was carried out, Ed Yong’s post at the Cancer Research UK blog addresses the issue of funding:
It’s also worth talking about sources of funding. This study was funded by an independent body called the UK Mobile Telecommunications Health Research Programme (MTHR). The MTHR was set up in 2001 to fund research into any possible health effects of mobile phones, following a recommendation by an independent expert group called the Stewart Committee.
The group is jointly funded by the UK Department of Health and the mobile telecommunications industry. It says, “In order to ensure that none of the funding bodies can influence the outcome of the MTHR Programme, it is run by an independent programme management committee.” This is a common theme in this area of research – industry funding has always been mediated by an independent third party, such as the International Union for Cancer Control.
In addition, CRUK have posted data showing that the rates of malignant brain tumours in the UK have remained stable over the past 10 years.
12.40pm: An article in the British Medical Journal today reports a study looking at whether there are any links between children developing leukaemia or a tumour of the brain and whether their mothers lived near mobile phone masts at the time of their birth.
Sarah Boseley’s write-up in the Guardian makes it clear that “Pregnant women who live close to mobile phone masts do not need to move house”. She continues:
Researchers from Imperial College London identified 1,397 children under five who were diagnosed with leukaemia or a tumour of the brain or central nervous system between 1999 and 2001. They compared each child with four children of the same gender who were born on the same day but had not developed cancer.
The researchers studied the distance of the mother’s home at the time of the birth from a phone mast, the total power output for base stations within 700 metres and the power density for base stations within 1,400 metres.
“We found no pattern to suggest that the children of mums living near a base station during pregnancy had a greater risk of developing cancer than those who lived elsewhere,” said Professor Paul Elliott, one of the report’s authors and director of the MRC-HPA centre for environment and health at Imperial.
Press roundup
In the Independent, health editor Jeremy Laurance gives some context for the study:
The increase in mobile phone use – from 9 million handsets in 1997 to 74 million in 2007 – has raised worries about the effects of exposure to low-frequency radiation. Several studies, including the Interphone study involving more than 10,000 people from 13 countries that was published last month, have found no damaging health effects from mobile phones themselves.
Public anxiety about transmitters has grown despite the level of individual exposure from transmitters being much lower than from mobile phones.
The LA Times Booster Shots blog reports some of the ways the researchers thought they might have improved their study:
The mothers whose children were diagnosed with cancer lived an average of 1,173 yards from a cellphone tower while they were pregnant – statistically indistinguishable from the 1,211 yards that separated the other pregnant women from their nearest cellphone towers. Tallying up the total power output of all cellphone towers within 766 yards of each pregnant woman’s home, they found that both groups had nearly the same exposure – 2.89 kilowatts for the mothers of cancer victims and 3.00 kilowatts for the other mothers.
Only one of their models revealed a difference that was statistically significant, though just barely. In that case, higher radio-frequency exposure was associated with a reduced risk of cancer of the brain or central nervous system. (This result calls to mind a mouse study from last year that found that electromagnetic radiation from cellphones actually protected mice from Alzheimer’s.) The results were published online Tuesday by the British Medical Journal.
The British researchers admitted their study would have been stronger if there had been some way to determine the actual radiation exposure for each pregnant woman instead of relying on mathematical models. They also would have liked to have tracked the exposure of babies after they were born, but the necessary data weren’t available. Still, they said that if the cellphone towers had doubled the risk for these childhood cancers, the odds that their study would have picked up on it were greater than 90%.
The Press Associaton, Associated Press, Bloomberg Business Week and Irish Times, and the Washington Post’s The Checkup blog also have reports.
Story summary
12.31pm: Pregnant women who live close to mobile phone masts do not need to move house, scientists said today, following the publication of a study which found no link to early childhood cancers.
There has been public concern over the possibility that living near phone masts could raise the cancer risk of small children and clusters of cases around masts have been reported. But a study published in the British Medical Journal – the first to examine possible links between phone masts and childhood cancer across Britain – found no cause for concern.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, blog, comments, compare, compared, email, free, government, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, sam, sim, station, uk, update
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Broadcast TV could be shown using the existing 3G mobile phone spectrum – without clogging up networks
O2, Orange, and Vodafone have teamed up to test a TV broadcast service which would allow British mobile phone users the chance to watch TV channels on their handsets.
The three companies, who control the bulk of the UK mobile phone market, are testing technology which would enable them to provide broadcast TV over their existing 3G mobile phone spectrum, without clogging up their networks, which are being used by smartphone users to access the web and send emails.
They are working with Ericsson, IPWireless, and Streamezzo on a three-month trial of integrated mobile broadcast (IMB) technology in west London and Slough.
All the UK mobile phone companies offer mobile TV services on their 3G networks but they suffer from congestion if more than a handful of customers use the service in the same place. IMB technology, however, uses part of the airwaves they picked up during the sale of 3G spectrum in the dying days of the dotcom boom which has lain dormant ever since.
This spectrum is perfect for broadcast services as it is “unpaired” – it cannot be used to send and receive signals so it is not used for mobile phone calls. But because it is part of the existing spectrum it works with the phone companies’ systems, making it easy to bill customers. This spectrum is available to more than 150 operators across 60 countries covering more than half a billion subscribers.
The trial, which starts in October, comes after T-Mobile and Orange tested similar technology back in 2008.
“With the strong growth of data traffic on our 3G networks and the mobile industry’s recent support of this high performance broadcast technology, the time is right to move forward with an IMB initiative,” said Luke Ibbetson, head of technology research and development at Vodafone Group. “By joining our peers in this UK pilot, we expect to be able to explore the potential of delivering broadcast services across available 3G spectrum.”
“Already a leading provider of mobile TV in Europe, our experience shows consumers will take advantage of linear broadcast services if the network experience is consistently good,” said Thierry Bonhomme, head of networks, carriers and research and development at Orange. “Network capability is key for mobile TV roll-out and IMB will enable more operators to maximize the benefits they get from 3G investments with high quality TV service deployments on an efficient, pragmatic and scalable solution that works from country to country.”
“We believe the road is clear for IMB now that it has been endorsed by the GSMA and supported by the wider mobile ecosystem,” said Gavin Franks, head of new business development at O2. “Based on the results of the pilot, we anticipate being able to offer our consumers through our networks a range of innovative new broadcast services such as mobile TV and intelligent broadcasting that will lead to an enhanced user experience.”
IPWireless and Ericsson, two of the pioneers behind the development of IMB technology within 3GPP, have partnered to deliver the end-to-end technology solution for the UK pilot.
IPWireless will supply the core 3GPP broadcast technology that will explore the performance of the TDD spectrum for mobile broadcast services. Ericsson, as the prime integrator, will provide integration services and a media platform. Streamezzo, recently acquired by Amdocs, is a leading software publisher of open mobile development platforms and will provide the rich media user interface for the pilot.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, consumer, email, growth, gsm, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, sam, service, sim, sol, t-mobile, test, three, uk, vodafone
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Ofcom aims to cut £800m off UK’s annual mobile bill but networks say proposals will force millions to give up their phones
Millions of British mobile phone users who rely on their handsets to keep them in touch with family but only use them in emergencies could be cut off – because of plans by the telecoms and media watchdog that are supposed to bring down the cost of making calls.
Ofcom will Wednesday end a 12-week consultation on its plans to slash the cost of calling a mobile phone. But the industry has warned that the likely shake-up will lead to the reintroduction of controversial “expiry dates” on prepay top-ups.
The mobile network O2 is understood to have warned the regulator that its proposals are “irresponsible” and could force millions of people on low incomes to abandon their phones.
Orange has already branded the plans as “a backward step”, while Vodafone has claimed that the proposals, outlined in April, could see the end of mobile handset subsidies. As a result, consumers would have to pay for new handsets when they sign up or renew a long-term contract.
Ofcom hopes to save consumers and businesses almost £800m a year from 2015 by reducing co-called mobile termination rates – the price networks charge each other and fixed-line companies such as BT to connect calls – from 4.3p a minute today to just 0.5p by 2015.
BT, which last year teamed up with the UK’s smallest network, 3, to fight the charges, has argued that mobile termination rates are an unjustifiable subsidy for the mobile phone industry. But the mobile phone companies argue that they use these charges to subsidise a service to lower-income customers.
More than half the UK’s mobile phone users have a pay-as-you-go phone, and many of these have handsets only so that friends and relatives can call them. They only make calls themselves in emergencies but the incoming calls generate enough revenues, through termination rates, to make them viable customers for the mobile phone companies. Under Ofcom’s plans, however, it would cease to be economic to provide many infrequent callers with a mobile phone.
In its 155-page consultation document, which comes with 234 pages of annexes, the regulator argues that the networks should only be able to recoup the actual cost of carrying other people’s calls and should look to other ways of generating revenues to cover their other costs. Ofcom suggests the mobile phone companies could impose “minimum monthly spending commitments” on pre-pay users to recoup their costs.
O2, which has 11.5 million pre-pay customers, argues in its submission to Ofcom that this risks a return to the days when pre-pay mobile phone users saw their credit expire after a set period, whether they had used it or not.
When pre-pay services first appeared in the UK more than a decade ago, many companies issued top-up vouchers that had a “use it or lose it” expiry date. After a wave of consumer protests about what came to be known as “the ‘ouch’ in ‘voucher’”, they dumped these time limits. The four main networks now count as “active” any user who has made or received a call within the previous three months, and there is no expiry date on pre-pay top-ups.
Ofcom’s proposals, O2 argues, would see time limits reintroduced. O2 estimates that millions of pre-pay customers do not regularly top up their phones, only making calls in emergencies. These customers would be forced to waste money topping up phones or risk being disconnected.
The fight over the scheme for termination rates that will take over in 2011 has already lasted over a year and is likely to be acrimonious. When the current caps were imposed, the mobile phone companies launched a protracted legal fight that involved the Competition Commission and Competition Appeals Tribunal.
Ofcom says it must reduce mobile termination rates to comply with EU guidelines. The networks, however, believe the regulator is trying to grab headlines to curry favour with the coalition government. Before the election, Conservative politicians made it clear that they wanted to reduce the regulator’s powers.
3G television tests
Separately, O2, Orange and Vodafone will announce tomorrow that they have teamed up to test a new TV broadcast service that could offer British mobile phone users the chance to watch a host of channels on their handsets.
The three companies, which together control the bulk of the UK mobile phone market, are testing technology that would enable them to provide broadcast television over the existing 3G mobile phone spectrum without clogging up their networks, which are increasingly being used by smartphone users to access the web and send emails.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, bmi, charges, consumer, contract, email, government, HD, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, service, test, three, tmobile, Touch, uk, vodafone
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Airline to install in-flight GSM communications in new fleet of planes to allow text, voice and email from 35,000 feet
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(Source Mobile News CWP)
Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, email, gsm, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, planes, sol, uk, virgin
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Apple sees sales of 600,000 units on Tuesday, with demand in Germany 10 times ahead of that for last year’s model
Apple has reported overwhelming demand for its new iPhone 4 model, selling more than 600,000 in a single day on Tuesday which saw ordering websites crash in the US and UK.
In Germany, demand for the new model, which was only unveiled by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs at the start of the month, is running 10 times ahead of that for last year’s model, the iPhone 3GS, reported Deutsche Telekom.
By comparison, when the iPhone 3GS went on sale last year, 1m were sold in its first three days. But that debuted in eight countries, whereas the iPhone 4 has gone on sale only in five.
Apple has apologised to people who tried to order the phone and gave up in frustration, saying demand was far higher than it expected. “We hope that they will try again.. once the iPhone 4 is in stock.”
Since its debut in June 2007, Apple’s smartphone has taken a huge chunk of the smartphone market and forced companies such as RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, and Nokia, which has the lion’s share of smartphone sales, to play catchup. Nokia issued another profits warning on Wednesday, and its share of the smartphone market is falling every quarter.
In the UK, where Apple is offering the phone without a contract through its online store, Apple’s website crashed as people tried to order it. And in the US, where it is only available with a contract from AT&T, the telephone company’s website froze as it tried to cope with an avalanche of orders each of which had to be verified on its own servers. That also led to problems in which some customers saw details of other peoples’ accounts – a reminder of the flaw exposed by a security group last week in which hundreds of thousands of Apple iPad users’ emails were stolen via weak security on AT&T’s site.
As a result of the heavy demand Apple has had to push back the delivery date for phones ordered online, and on Wednesday AT&T suspended orders, citing “unexpectedly high demand”.
Apple said “it was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions.”
Last year in the UK O2 had exclusive rights to sell the new iPhone, and said then that more of those handsets were sold in the first two hours of trading than all handsets in an average day.
This year Apple is selling the iPhone 4 without a contract – at £499 for the cheapest version – and O2, Vodafone, Orange and 3 are competing to offer it on contract terms. However neither O2 or 3 have yet announced prices, or allowed customers to pre-order the phone.
However the new contracts being offered for the phones have sparked anger among web users, who say that the carriers’ use of the word “unlimited” for the amount of data that can be downloaded through the smartphone is misleading. The companies impose a “fair use” cap, while describing the service as “unlimited”.
Now, a formal review by the advertising regulator could be about to put a cap on the practice.
This could mean that fixed-line and mobile operators will not be able to use the term “unlimited broadband” unless they are offering a genuinely unlimited service – and that means nothing in the small print that lets the provider send warnings to customers if they reach a certain threshold.
The review is being led by the Advertising Standards Authority, reports New Media Age, which will work with two ad industry bodies to make a comprehensive assessment of industry claims and consumer complaints on both broadband speeds and “unlimited” tariff penalties.
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(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, 3gs, all, apple, Blackberry, cheapest, compare, comparemobiles.com, comparison, consumer, contract, email, gadget, gadgets, in stock, iphone, iphone 3gs, largest, line, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, nokia, o2, orange, phone, phones, prices, review, service, sol, tariff, three, uk, vodafone
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People have been talking about the coming mobile revolution for 20 years, but on a recent book tour with my Android phone, I realised it’s finally here
I’ve just come back from a month-long, multi-city, US and Canada book tour for my new novel, For the Win. I’ve done book tours before, but this one was different: this was the tour with an Android Nexus One phone, and it was game-changing.
I’ve been told about the coming mobile revolution for 20 years now, but frankly, mobile phones are generally rubbish. The carriers are awful and abusive. The apps suck. And so on. Something’s changed.
Take directions: Google Maps are, of course, the ne plus ultra of navigation, so having them in your pocket is powerful. But combine that with Android’s stellar turn-by-turn directions, which incorporates Google’s traffic data to get you round the terrible snarls, and things get really easy. What’s more, the ability to program the map destination by speaking it (Google’s various voice apps have given it improbably good voice-recognition performance, producing a training set that is wide and deep), or by photographing it on a printout (using the Google Goggles app that converts images to words to Google searches), felt futuristic and deeply right.
Young adult book tours involve a lot of school visits, often in deep suburbs that the media escorts supplied by your publisher aren’t that familiar with (these escorts often come armed with confusing Mapquest printouts that seem to come from an earlier century). When you’re not running late to a tour stop, you’re often running early, with just enough time to stop for a cup of coffee and a snack. Add Google location search to that and you can avoid going to a petrol station or (even worse) McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts and find hidden gems that you’d have to be a local to get at otherwise. I ate better on this tour than I ever have before.
I “rooted” my Nexus One, breaking into the OS so that I could easily “tether” it to my laptop, using it as a 3G modem between tour stops (we didn’t have to root my wife’s matching phone, as Google supplied us with an unlocked developer handset). My typical tour day started at 5am with breakfast and work on the novel, then a 6am interview with someone in Europe, then pickup, two to four school visits with a short lunch break, three or four interviews, then a bookstore signing or a plane (or both). As busy as that sounds, there’s actually a fair bit of dead time in it while sitting in the escort’s car, trying to find the next stop.
This time round, I plugged the laptop into the cigarette lighter and the phone into the laptop – this gave the phone a battery charge and the laptop internet access. And best of all, it meant that I could harvest those dead minutes to answer emails, keep on blogging, and generally stay abreast of things.
Which meant that I got lots more of the touring author’s most precious commodity: sleep. On previous tours, returning to the hotel meant sitting down for three to four hours’ worth of emails before bed, which cut my sleep time to less than four hours some nights. But this time round, I got back to the room completely caught up, and was able to flop down in bed, eat some minibar cashews, and hit the sack.
Travelling with your own internet source is brilliant. At Atlanta airport, I was stuck for four hours while a monster storm hammered the building with barrages of lightning. Immediately, every one of the expensive Wi-Fi networks in the building went dead as thousands of stranded travellers tried to use them all at once. I found a corner with a mains outlet, plugged in the laptop, tethered my phone, and enjoyed my own private network connection. It wasn’t fast, but it was free and it worked.
I still have a US T-Mobile account from when I lived in the US, and I pay for the unlimited data plan there (which, like the Orange UK Sim I use here, has a bizarre and fraudulent definition of “unlimited” that includes a data cap). It’s easily worth keeping the account alive for those times that I’m back in the US – one day’s 3G savings (not having to pay for expensive hotel and airport broadband) pays for a month’s mobile service.
But when I travel to places where I don’t have a Sim, such as France or Germany, where I’ll be touring in September, it’s not pretty. Orange charges nearly £1 per megabyte, and its bolt-on Euro traveller plans charge something like £30 for 30MB, and limit you to 30MB per month. I can’t figure out who the putative customer for this is: the travelling exec who really needs email on the road, but receives a tiny trickle of email every day, apparently.
The most absurd part is when you take an Orange UK Sim to France (France Telecom being Orange’s parent company) or a T-Mobile Sim to Germany (Deutsche Telekom has the same relationship to T-Mobile except in the UK, where it’s a joint venture with France Telecom) and the company charges an extortionate roaming charge for using their parent company’s network, on the grounds that they’re “different companies”.
Which is the fundamental paradox of mobile – so long as the mobile carriers remain a part of mobile computing, it will only work for so long as you don’t go anywhere.
• Cory Doctorow’s new novel, For The Win, is out now
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, android, best, blog, charges, compare, comparemobiles.com, email, free, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, orange, phone, phones, roaming, room, sam, service, sim, sol, station, storm, t-mobile, three, uk, venture
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Fanboi Bureau of Investigation
The FBI has moved in to investigate the leaking of email details for the most important tech users in the world – iPad 3G owners.…
Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)
Tags: 10, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, email, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, source the register, uk, world
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It’s the fourth iPhone launch in three years, and this one comes with the added bonus of all that juicy stolen-phone leakage back in April. So unusually, we know what this phone looks like before Steve’s Big Reveal at 6pm tonight.
If you’re too busy for the full colour prelude to Apple’s announcements, here’s the condensed guide to what you can probably expect.
• It looks like this:
• Though the working title, at least for the press, has been iPhone 4G (as in fourth generation) this will probably be called iPhone HD.
• A smaller, lighter, slimmer handset.
• A five-megapixel camera with flash.
• A glass back that improves reception.
• Micro-Sim cards, like iPad.
• The same A4 processor as the iPad (that means a much faster phone).
• A larger, sharper screen at 960 x 640 pixels – increasing screen resolution by four times.
• Improved battery life.
• iChat software will enable video chat with other iPhones and desktop Macs.
• Two models: 32GB and 64GB.
• Available through the existing retailers: Orange, Vodafone and O2.
• iPhone HD will become as the premium phone in what will become a range of iPhones with iPhone 3GS repackaged as a cheaper, less featured handset with 8GB of memory.
• Other rumours for tonight’s announcement at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference include an anticipated cloud-based music streaming service for iTunes, a new and improved Apple TV (that would be one with a clearer, more sellable consumer proposition), new version of Mac’s operating system Mac OS X 10.7 (OS X Lion, perhaps?)
The latest iPhone 4.0 operating system – a reminder
iPhone 4.0 was announced in April and released in beta format for developers. Here’s the quick guide to the new features:
• Multitasking: the oft-requested feature has finally been added after Apple worked on how to balance multi-tasking without sucking battery life or performance. Multitasking has been organised through seven types of service, so music apps would be able to play while you make a VOIP call, for example.
• Folders: Something similar to that pretty stacking feature for folders on the latest OS for desktop Macs will be added, which will make it easier for those of us with loads of apps to organise them in folders.
• iBooks: The feature launched with the iPad will now work across iPhones an iPod Touch too.
• iAd: Apple’s fledgling mobile ads system is designed to deliver ads without taking the user away from the app or game they are using, and will give developers a 60% revenue share.
• Mail: Apple’s email client gets a unified inbox, so anyone with multiple accounts can see all the main in one view. Messages will be organised by thread and attachments open in third-party apps.
• Business: Apple has added email encryption and encryption for other apps to increase support for enterprise users, as well as improving mobile device management features, support for SSL VPN and wireless app distribution.
• Gaming: A major step-up in Apple’s competition to portable games consoles, like Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, Apple is adding a layer that unifies players’ social profiles across all games.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, 3gs, all, apple, apple iphone, blog, card, cheaper, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, email, HD, iphone, iphone 3gs, latest, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, released, review, sam, service, sim, Sim Card, sol, sony, test, three, Touch, uk, vodafone, world
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It’s the fourth iPhone launch in three years, and this one comes with the added bonus of all that juicy stolen-phone leakage back in April. So unusually, we know what this phone looks like before Steve’s Big Reveal at 6pm tonight.
If you’re too busy for the full colour prelude to Apple’s announcements, here’s the condensed guide to what you can probably expect.
• It looks like this:
• Though the working title, at least for the press, has been iPhone 4G (as in fourth generation) this will probably be called iPhone HD.
• A smaller, lighter, slimmer handset.
• A five-megapixel camera with flash.
• A glass back that improves reception.
• Micro-Sim cards, like iPad.
• The same A4 processor as the iPad (that means a much faster phone).
• A larger, sharper screen at 960 x 640 pixels – increasing screen resolution by four times.
• Improved battery life.
• iChat software will enable video chat with other iPhones and desktop Macs.
• Two models: 32GB and 64GB.
• Available through the existing retailers: Orange, Vodafone and O2.
• iPhone HD will become as the premium phone in what will become a range of iPhones with iPhone 3GS repackaged as a cheaper, less featured handset with 8GB of memory.
• Other rumours for tonight’s announcement at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference include an anticipated cloud-based music streaming service for iTunes, a new and improved Apple TV (that would be one with a clearer, more sellable consumer proposition), new version of Mac’s operating system Mac OS X 10.7 (OS X Lion, perhaps?)
The latest iPhone 4.0 operating system – a reminder
iPhone 4.0 was announced in April and released in beta format for developers. Here’s the quick guide to the new features:
• Multitasking: the oft-requested feature has finally been added after Apple worked on how to balance multi-tasking without sucking battery life or performance. Multitasking has been organised through seven types of service, so music apps would be able to play while you make a VOIP call, for example.
• Folders: Something similar to that pretty stacking feature for folders on the latest OS for desktop Macs will be added, which will make it easier for those of us with loads of apps to organise them in folders.
• iBooks: The feature launched with the iPad will now work across iPhones an iPod Touch too.
• iAd: Apple’s fledgling mobile ads system is designed to deliver ads without taking the user away from the app or game they are using, and will give developers a 60% revenue share.
• Mail: Apple’s email client gets a unified inbox, so anyone with multiple accounts can see all the main in one view. Messages will be organised by thread and attachments open in third-party apps.
• Business: Apple has added email encryption and encryption for other apps to increase support for enterprise users, as well as improving mobile device management features, support for SSL VPN and wireless app distribution.
• Gaming: A major step-up in Apple’s competition to portable games consoles, like Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, Apple is adding a layer that unifies players’ social profiles across all games.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 12, 3, 3gs, all, apple, apple iphone, blog, card, cheaper, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, email, HD, iphone, iphone 3gs, latest, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, released, review, sam, service, sim, Sim Card, sol, sony, test, three, Touch, uk, vodafone, world
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Apple is preparing to reveal its latest iPhone, but many details were leaked after a prototype was left in a bar
Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, is due to unveil the fourth version of the company’s hugely popular iPhone tomorrow – including a screen with up to four times more detail, a camera flash, noise cancellation and longer battery life.
The announcement is expected at the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, which has drawn thousands of programmers keen to write programs – apps – for the device.
More than 51m iPhones have been sold since its launch in June 2007, and a number of developers have made thousands of pounds from selling apps through Apple’s App Store.
But for Jobs the unveiling will be something of an anticlimax – many details about the phone leaked out in mid-April after one of his staff lost a prototype in a bar near the company’s headquarters. It was sold to gadget blog Gizmodo, where blogger Jason Chen took it apart and posted a video declaring: “You are looking at Apple’s next iPhone.”
Jobs prefers to keep details of upcoming products under wraps to heighten expectations. But with more details known about the new iPhone than any previous model, some of that effect is likely to be diminished.
Yet Apple can revel in having passed Microsoft as the most valuable technology company, based on market capitalisation, and having sold 2m of its iPad tablet computers worldwide since they went on sale in the US on 3 April – including a highly successful UK launch that saw a queue of over a thousand people outside Apple’s flagship store in Regent Street, London.
Gizmodo’s posting about the new iPhone has turned into a criminal investigation after the roommate of Brian Hogan – who walked out of a bar with the iPhone – contacted police, worried that the phone was stolen. Hogan had sold the phone to Gizmodo for a reputed $5,000, which had then contacted Apple to see if the phone was a genuine prototype.
Speaking at a conference last week, Jobs acknowledged that Apple had lost “a wireless product” and said it was unclear whether the phone was lost or stolen. “This is a story that’s got everything – theft, extortion, I’m sure there’s sex in there somewhere – someone should make a movie of it,” he said. He added that some people had tried to tell him not to go after Gizmodo, but he had decided he could not let Apple’s “core values” slide – though he did not explain what values those were.
Jobs has recently become notable for personally replying to emails sent from members of the public. He said that he enjoyed the experience: “There’s nothing that makes my day more than getting a random email from some person in the UK that they just got an iPad and how it made their day. That’s what keeps me going.”
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, App Store, apple, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, email, gadget, iphone, latest, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, room, sol, test, uk, world
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• Mobile internet use as much as £8 to view 20 pages
• Fans urged to check with phone operators before travelling
Football fans lucky enough to be travelling to the football World Cup this summer are being warned that they could face huge mobile phone bills if they call, text, tweet or surf the web while in South Africa.
Many mobile phone companies count the country in their most expensive bracket when calculating the cost of mobile phone calls and texts, while accessing the web costs as much as £8 per megabyte with some operators. Football fans will run up that much data usage after accessing as few as 20 web pages, while any that download an “app” while abroad could run up far higher data charges.
Mobile phone operator 3 will this week slash its prices for customers going to the tournament, which starts on 11 June, while Vodafone has already announced it will extend its Passport cheap calls package to include the country.
But with more and more mobile phone users carrying smartphones that can access the internet, use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and send emails, the tournament could turn out to be very expensive for football fans who do not check first with their mobile operator.
“The rise of smartphones, like the iPhone, means that all it takes is a bit of browsing or a downloaded app and you are going to get absolutely stung if you don’t know what you are paying for,” warned Mike Wilson, broadband and mobiles manager at moneysupermarket.com. “The high cost of roaming is always an issue in the summer but the fact that the World Cup is being held in South Africa has upped the ante.
“The first thing that anyone considering travelling this summer should do is speak to their existing provider and find out what they are going to charge and whether there are any special deals that will reduce that amount. Don’t forget to also shop around for better deals.”
This week 3 will announce that it is dropping its data roaming prices by more than 50% during June and July. It will charge £1.25 per megabyte of data, which compares with as much as £8 per megabyte with Orange.
Owned by Hong Kong-based conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa, 3 is also dropping its call charges for South Africa – making calls from the country to anywhere else in the world will be charged at £1.40 per minute, while receiving calls will be 99p per minute and texts 25p.
While 3′s data roaming charges are cheaper than its rivals, its voice prices are still relatively high. Both O2 and Vodafone charge less, while all four rival networks offer discounts to customers who sign up for special international calling promotions.
Vodafone, for instance, has extended its free Passport service to include South Africa for June and July, meaning football fans who register before they travel can make calls from their existing bundles, after an initial 75p connection charge.
Vodafone has also dropped its data costs but only from 15 June, which is four days after kick-off in the first game. It currently charges £14.99 for 25MB of data a day in South Africa, but from 15 June it will charge £3 per megabyte for the first 5MB used by customers and £15 for every subsequent 5MB.
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, all, charges, cheaper, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, email, free, gadget, gadgets, iphone, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, prices, roaming, service, sol, twitter, uk, vodafone, world
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
The Nokia C5 makes a fantastic buy for anyone into the social networking scene. For ease of access Facebook updates have been integrated into the phonebook providing a quick alternative to going on-line. The free GPS navigator can even share your location with friends and family if desired.
The Nokia C5 will be one of the best mid-range, traditional-style phones on the market with support for email, instant messaging and social networking. The large keys and 2.2 inch display help take the strain out of message creation. Anyone who travels by car or by foot can make use of the GPS feature with Nokia’s Ovi Maps built-in.
The 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash will also capture video footage and the Nokia C5 can also make video calls. Stereo IHF speakers give a relatively rich sound to audio files and the latest news, weather, sports and music releases can be enjoyed using the stereo FM radio. There’s 2GB of memory on board, which can be boosted to 16GB using a microSD if needed.
Connection to the Internet is via 3G or HSDPA, giving complete access to the internet with a fully-featured web browser. Light and compact (89g and 112 x 46 x 12mm) the Nokia C5 also has an amazing battery life, providing up to 28 days of standby and up to 12 hours talk-time.
Tags: 12, 3, all, best, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, email, free, latest, latest deal, line, mobile, mobiles, new, new mobile, nokia, phone, phones, sol, t-mobile, test, update
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Nokia is promoting its Ovi Maps navigation system by offering free cab rides in four cities
Nokia offered me a free cab ride today, which I declined, but perhaps you could get one instead. For the next week, the mobile phone giant is offering free rides in black cabs in four cities: London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. If you spot a cab in its distinctive livery, hail it.
The back seats of the Nokia cabs have been fitted with X6 mobiles with the Ovi Maps service, the idea being to publicise the fact that the service “is now free to everyone, everywhere,” says Nokia. The cab ride will give people the chance to track their journey and see how the turn-by-turn system works.
There are, alas, limits to how far you can take your free cab ride, and the company didn’t bite when I suggested a day trip to Paris. (Well, it does work in 70 countries.) “British soil only,” said the PR, and in my case, definitely inside the M25. OK, so they can’t take me for a ride, but I can’t take them for a ride either.
Under “Project Nike”, Nokia has just done a deal with Yahoo that will make Nokia the exclusive provider of Yahoo’s maps and navigation services (“powered by Ovi”) while Yahoo becomes the exclusive provider of Ovi’s email and chat services (“powered by Yahoo”).
Nokia is also giving away X6 handsets on Twitter — a healthy five per day. To enter, tweet using the hashtag #NokiaFreeSatNav
twitter.com/jackschofield
Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)
Tags: 10, 3, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, email, free, gadget, gadgets, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, nokia, phone, phones, service, sol, twitter, uk
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New Mobile & Latest Deal News!
With a change in design the BlackBerry Pearl 9105 offers all of the superb features experienced on other models but in a compact design (108×50x13mm and 93g). The QWERTY keyboard has been removed in favour of an alphanumeric keypad with optical track-pad and dedicated media keys. Typing long messages without a QWERTY layout has been overcome with BlackBerry SureType predictive text input that learns the words you use most for speedy input at minimal effort.
BlackBerry Application World gives access to an impressive array of downloadable apps and with a 3G HSDPA Web browser, Wi-Fi connectivity and multitasking new apps can be downloaded quickly in the background whilst other features on the Pearl are being used. Pre-installed tools include push email, document viewer/editor, organiser, GPS with BlackBerry maps and BlackBerry messenger with notification when messages are delivered and opened by the recipient.
It’s not all work and no play with thoughtful inclusions such as synchronisation with iTunes and a media player that can provide up to 30 hours playback from one battery charge. Three methods of enjoying your favourite music tracks include a loudspeaker, via headphones connected to the 3.5mm audio jack or by connecting either a mono or stereo Bluetooth headset.
The TFT display has a great resolution of 360×400 pixels, perfect for viewing images captured on the 3.2 megapixel camera. Great images can be captured easily with the aid of auto-focus, flash, 2.5x digital zoom and video record function. The 256MB internal memory can be boosted up to 32GB with a microSD card to store a huge amount of picture and music files.
Tags: 10, 3, all, Blackberry, card, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, email, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobiles, new, new mobile, phone, phones, sol, test, three, world
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A beta version of Onevoice Ribbit will offer corporate customers cloud-based softphones, intelligent call routing and speech-to-text voicemail transcription
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(Source ZDNet UK)
Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, email, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, phones, service, sol, uk
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