CompareMobiles.com

When Apple decided to sue Taiwanese phone manufacturer HTC, it was hard to see it as anything other than a broadside at Google. After all, HTC makes Nexus One handset, and Steve Jobs has previously told staff that he’s angry because “We did not enter the search business… they entered the phone business”.

The ever-growing conflict between the two is something I mentioned on Monday, and plenty of people have weighed in on the subject, including former Sun Microsystems boss Jonathan Schwartz, who said that any company launching a software patent lawsuit was basically undertaking an “act of desperation”.

But most of the action so far has been from Apple’s side – the accusations about its rivals (including Nokia, which has in turn accused the iPhone maker of “legal alchemy”); the offended and aggrieved statements by Jobs and so on.

So where’s Google in this fight? Is it just staying quiet? Step forward Tim Bray, the Canadian technologist best known for his work on XML. Bray – who has written eloquently on software patents before and who left Sun himself last month – announced over the weekend that he was joining Google’s Android team.

Oh yeah, then he immediately poured fuel onto the fire with an extremely strong broadside about why he dislikes Apple’s approach:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.
I hate it.
I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.

Strong words, and proof that Googlers are prepared to fire back from time to time. It will be interesting to see how long Bray is allowed to speak his mind like this (staff commenting, even obliquely, on lawsuits is something most corporate lawyers dislike intensely) but it’s refreshing to see somebody on either side speaking openly and on the record.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, Apples, best, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, gadget, gadgets, google, HTC, iphone, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, nokia, phone, phones, sol, uk, world

Microsoft apes Apple

Mix10  Microsoft aims to lure Windows Phone 7 developers with free tools. That’s the good news. The less-good news is that Redmond plans to lock down the platform à la Apple’s App Store.…

The power of collaboration within unified communications

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 3, App Store, apple, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, sol, source the register, uk

Setbacks with the internet group’s first handset will see competing products arrive on the market first

Google’s attempt to break into the mobile phone market has hit serious problems in Britain with the launch of its flagship Nexus One device understood to have been delayed until the middle of next month.

The setback means that by the time Google’s first own-branded foray into the market this side of the Atlantic is available to consumers, its local network partner Vodafone will have launched a competing product, which analysts say is better, called the HTC Legend.

While Google has been working with the industry on the Android mobile phone software for several years, the Nexus One, made by Taiwan’s HTC, is the first handset over which the search engine group has had complete control. But launching a new phone has proved more difficult than Google expected.

It was released in the US in January, but Google’s decision to sell it solely through its website immediately came in for criticism as buyers struggled to get help with technical problems, and Google, which has traditionally relied on email for consumer contact, was forced to introduce telephone helplinessupport and the problems it has experienced in the US has given it reason to pause over the phone’s launch outside the US, to make sure it has its customer service operations in place. Last week Goldman Sachs slashed its estimate for Nexus One sales this year from 3.5m units to 1m worldwide.

In the UK, Google will not only sell the phone at full price to any customer who wants to put their existing sim card into it, but it has also teamed up with Vodafone, which will offer the device free to anyone willing to sign a £35 monthly contract.

But the delay in the launch of the Nexus One, which under Google’s original plan would have been available earlier this month, means that it will come after the launch of rival Android devices that analysts reckon are at least as good, if not better. Vodafone, for instance, will be offering the HTC Legend in April which has the same operating system as the Nexus One but is more stylish: being built from a single piece of milled aluminium. Orange and T-Mobile, meanwhile, will both be stocking the HTC Desire – which is exactly the same as the Nexus One, but has an optical trackpad instead of a trackball – from next month.

The delay also means the Google device will be available in the UK only weeks before another hotly anticipated gadget, Apple’s iPad. Several of the UK’s mobile phone companies are finalising deals with Apple to sell the tablet computer to British consumers. Unlike its last mobile device, the iPhone, which was offered through just one exclusive partner for the first two years, the iPad is expected to be available through multiple network operators from the start.

Apple will ship two versions of the iPad in the UK, one that can access the internet using short-range wi-fi networks and one that can also access 3G mobile phone networks. But Apple needs to sign deals with at least one UK mobile network, because the iPad makes use of micro-sims, meaning that buyers cannot just put the sim card from their existing handsets into it. In fact, it will be the first device launched in the UK that uses micro-sims.

Apple said earlier this month that the device will go on sale in the UK towards the end of April but the mobile phone companies believe that the 3G version of the iPad will not be available until May. Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and Vodafone all expect to be selling the iPad to customers and they are all locked in talks with the Californian company. Apple, however, has made it plain that it does not want iPad users to be tied to long-term contracts with any mobile phone operator. Instead it wants users to be able to pay for mobile network access on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, card, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, gadget, google, HTC, iphone, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, networks, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, released, sam, service, sim, Sim Card, sol, t-mobile, talks, uk, vodafone, world

LONDON (Reuters) – Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile operator by revenue, is to close its navigation business as it could not compete with free services provided by Google and Nokia.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, google, largest, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, nokia, service, sol, uk, vodafone, world

If you have the right kind of phone

Vodafone customers can get free books today, assuming they’ve got the right kind of handset and can find the download page.…

What is your recession sales strategy?

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, sol, source the register, uk, vodafone

Google apps ‘postponed’ on China carriers

Motorola will soon push Microsoft’s Bing search engine onto Android phones in China, after announcing an alliance with the Redmond software giant that will see Bing appear on Androids across the globe.…

Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, moto, motorola, new, phone, phones, sol, source the register, uk

EMI told not to sell single tracks as downloads in ruling which could mean further losses for music label

Pink Floyd, the British rock group behind platinum-selling albums The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, today secured a legal victory for the much-maligned genre of the concept album against the apparently inexorable march of the instant pop download.

In a high court ruling that led the band’s fans to proclaim a victory for their heroes’ artistic integrity over the forces of commercial exploitation, a judge ruled that EMI can no longer sell the songs from any Pink Floyd albums as single downloads or mobile phone ringtones.

After a case brought by the band’s surviving members, Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason, the high court chancellor, Sir Andrew Morritt, said the label must adhere to a clause in its contract with the group intended to “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums” which prevented the unbundling of Pink Floyd’s records.

Pink Floyd became one of the biggest rock bands in history with their elaborate and experimental concept albums and highly theatrical live tours. EMI had argued that its deal with the band, reaffirmed in 1999 before the download market took off, related to physical CDs and DVDs but not to online distribution.

Pink Floyd alleged, and EMI agreed, that the label had allowed online downloads from the albums and allowed parts of tracks to be used as ringtones despite the clause which “expressly prohibits” EMI from selling songs out of context.

The judge granted the band the declaration they sought – that the contract means EMI is not entitled to exploit recordings by online distribution or by any other means other than the complete original album without Pink Floyd’s consent.

“This is great for a band who are the masters of the concept album,” said Matthew Johns, who runs Brain Damage, a dedicated Pink Floyd fan site. “Their music is unlike most other artists and listening to a whole album can be an immersive experience if you get into the concepts.”

Generations of young people have, like Johns, pulled the curtains and turned down the lights to listen to the whole 43 minutes of 1973’s Dark Side of the Moon, in which tracks merge seamlessly, exploring themes of conflict, greed and the passage of time. Each side is a single piece, beginning and ending with a fading heartbeat. It sold an estimated 45 million copies.

The verdict means the band’s music may now have to be taken down from the iTunes online music store which requires that album tracks are for sale individually.

It could mean a further loss of revenue for EMI, which releases recordings for Coldplay and Kylie Minogue but last year posted a £1.75bn loss. Its chief executive, Elio Leoni-Sceti, this week announced his resignation and former ITV boss Charles Allen will take control of its music business.

Yesterday’s verdict is thought to be the first time a band have successfully taken their record label to court over the way it has distributed their music online. It could lead to other cases, music industry analysts believe.

Robert Howe QC, representing Pink Floyd, argued that it would have been “a very odd result” if members of Pink Floyd were able to control exactly how their music was sold as a physical product but there was “a free-for-all with no limitation on online distribution”.Elizabeth Jones QC, appearing for EMI, disagreed and said the word record “plainly applies to the physical thing – there is nothing to suggest it applies to online distribution”.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, free, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, pink, sol, uk

New Mobile & Latest Deal News!

Here’s a new voucher code, which can be used when purchasing any 18 or 24 month contract for £30 and over, directly from Vodafone. Enter ‘freecinema’ at the checkout and you’ll receive a cinema booklet containing 12 Cineworld tickets, one for each month of the next year (up to March 2011). The offer will be available until 18th March.

Our most popular phones qualifying for this promotion are the BlackBerry Bold 9700, the new Nokia X6 and the new Sony Ericsson Vivaz, which is available exclusively in ruby red direct from Vodafone.

Compare the deals here

Sony Ericsson’s curvaceous Vivaz is an all round stunner. So is its 8 megapixel camera, which shoots video in HD – just use the dedicated buttons for photo and video. If you want to see everything in widescreen then flip the Vivaz on its side – or plug it straight into your TV. If music’s more your thing, tap the big 3.2″ touchscreen and fire up the impressive music player. The CD cover is there on your screen. FM radio is a tap away. Record a few seconds of a song, and TrackID tells you the artist and title. There’s also a standard headphone socket – so you can use the pair you love. It’s beautiful and functional. An excellent all-round multimedia phone.

The Nokia X6 16GB 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 Blackberry Bold 9700 has the traditional BlackBerry design with a classic QWERTY keypad and 3G connection, a combination that makes it ideal for emailing as well as quick downloads and browsing on-the-go. It has a sensitive trackpad that helps you glide through menus and a decent camera. It’s a great all-rounder.

Terms and conditions: Free cinema voucher available only to new customers purchasing a pay monthly mobile phone contract of £30 per month or above for a minimum duration of 18 months. Offer only available on orders made online and excludes orders of the iPhone.

Tags: 12, 3, all, Blackberry, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, HD, iphone, latest, latest deal, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobiles, months, new, new mobile, nokia, palm, phone, phones, sol, sony, sony ericsson, test, Touch, vodafone, world, xpressmusic

• Despite the squillions of iPhone apps out there, Apple has worked very hard to keep details of its contract with developers under wraps. No longer: the Electronic Frontier Foundation used Nasa’s iPhone app as an avenue to file a Freedom of Information request to get a public copy of the contract (PDF). And the organisation isn’t happy with what it sees: including a ban on public statements, certain reverse-engeineering restrictions and Apple’s lack of liability in case of something going wrong.

• Google is testing a TV search service, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. It suggests that there’s a pilot scheme for an embedded set-top search service linked to a US satellite TV provider – not the first time that Google has shown television ambitions (here are two examples in the UK). But still worth watching.

• Also in Google, meanwhile, ZDNet brings news of this Goldman Sachs note reducing expectations of sales of the Nexus One – drastically. It now thinks the company will sell 1m handsets in 2010, down from a previous estimation of 3.5m. Why? “Possibly due to limited marketing and customer service challenges” – or, in other words, the decision to sell it online-only.

You can follow our links and commentary each day through Twitter (@guardiantech, @gdngames or our personal accounts) or by watching our Delicious feed.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, apple, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, free, google, iphone, line, marketing, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, service, sol, test, twitter, uk

Let the feds sort it

A US federal judge has sent Apple and Nokia lawyers to their respective corners until the feds get their chance to sort through the competing patent infringement claims.…

What is your recession sales strategy?

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 3, apple, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, nokia, sol, source the register, uk

Taiwanese mobile-phone manufacturer backing Google’s Android OS is accused of infringing 20 Apple patents

Apple is suing the Taiwanese handset maker HTC, alleging that it has infringed 20 patents relating to “the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware”.

Among the patents that Apple alleges have been infringed are a number relating to touchscreen interfaces – for which the iPhone has become the best-known, though it was not the first, mobile device.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, in a statement. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

It is thought that a key element that triggered the lawsuit is that in February HTC released handsets which use “pinch-to-zoom” functionality resembling that of the iPhone.

Apple has filed the suit in the US courts in Delaware, Maryland, but also with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), which has the power to halt imports of products. That would stymie HTC and Google, whose free Android mobile operating system is built into a growing number of HTC phones, and has made significant inroads into the burgeoning smartphone market in recent months.

But the move was received with surprise in the technology community. “I don’t fault Apple for acquiring patents. They have to, for defensive purposes, given the current laws,” noted John Siracusa, a journalist at Ars Technica who has followed Apple closely for years. “But using them offensively sucks.”

The use of the ITC could be key for Apple. A recent analysis found that where lawsuits are filed both with US district courts and the ITC, plaintiffs succeed in the latter more often than the former, by 58% to 35%. That means Apple is roughly 50% more likely to win the case with the ITC – and so could block HTC imports of newer handsets.

HTC indicated that it was completely surprised by the case, and had not even received the formal complaint from Apple when the American company announced it publicly.

Apple has submitted more than 700 pages of exhibits relating to its patents to the court in Delaware, Maryland, where it is filing the case. It cites a number of handsets, including the Nexus One handset powered by Google’s Android mobile operating system, and also other handsets which use Microsoft’s Windows Mobile system. HTC has in the past been the largest manufacturer of Windows Mobile handsets – although it has recently shifted its allegiance to Google’s Android, which is free and has captured significant market share since being launched in 2008.

Apple has specified 10 patents in the Delaware filing, and a different 10 in the ITC filing.

The case is thought to be the first in which Apple has taken the first step in suing a rival mobile phone company. Although it has an ongoing patent dispute with Nokia, the Finnish mobile handset maker, the first move there was by Nokia. Apple has since countersued. The case is ongoing.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, best, bmi, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, google, HTC, iphone, largest, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, nokia, phone, phones, released, sol, Touch, twitter, uk

Host your own BES for nowt

BES Express launches today, offering free software for those who want to host their own BlackBerry servers but lack the budget to do so.…

Case Study: WhatsUp keeps Legoland turnstyles ringing

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 3, Blackberry, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, launches, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, source the register, uk

The most damning indictment of phone hacking is that it was almost always used to get gossip rather than expose wrong

The fact investigators working for the News of the World hacked into my mobile phone to cut me out of a potential £30,000 celebrity scoop is not surprising. If you swim with sharks you expect the odd puncture wound. The fact this process is so simple, swift and apparently routine is shocking.

I called the Sunday tabloid one bright afternoon with the name of a celebrity chef and tales of famous London nightclubs, glamorous hotels and sexual impropriety. The reporter I spoke to was Clive Goodman. He promised me the Screws would pay the most – but something about his conspiratorial tones turned me towards a more gregarious Sunday Mirror news editor.

The News of the World was not going to let this apparent front page get away. A rapid succession of calls to my mobile followed. These allowed the caller to access my voicemail – I had not set a password. My personal greeting gave them my real name and my place of work while the messages revealed the identity of my then girlfriend, who was the source of the story.

Goodman called me on my work mobile and aggressively demanded the name of the chef’s female acquaintance. I refused.

It was after that that my mobile phone records were hacked. T-Mobile confirmed a bizarre call where someone pretending to be me failed the most basic security question – my date of birth. Despite this, the caller was able to try again just 15 minutes later and, this time being successful, he was given a full rundown of my recent calls. He then tried to hack my partner’s phone records.

Phone hacking in this way was astonishingly easy. A few years ago, it seemed to be the default method of some News of the World reporters to use information gained in this way. While other hacks were busy knocking on neighbours’ doors or visiting relatives found through birth and marriage records, journalists from the Screws instantly had a direct line to make their offers of “a life-changing amount of money”.

The true scandal here is not just the use of such illegal methods. The most damning indictment of this chequebook journalism is the fact it was only very rarely used to find real wrongdoing by the rich and powerful. Blagging your way into someone’s phone records would be morally defendable if there was a genuine and compelling public interest. Journalists rightly enjoy more latitude under the data protection act and human rights laws – if there is a real reason for subterfuge.

The Press Complaints Commission code states: “Engaging in misrepresentation or subterfuge, including by agents or intermediaries, can generally be justified only in the public interest.”

Muckraking has served the public good: by rummaging through the bins of solicitors Benjamin Pell discovered documents showing the then Tory minister Jonathan Aitken had been involved in Saudi arms deals. But how many of the 100 people targeted by the News of the World’s phone hacking will turn out to be rogue arms dealers, corrupt politicians and corporate killers? And how many will be minor celebrities?

The full armoury of investigative reporting – GPS tracking systems and hidden cameras, “lilly-whites” and “honey traps” – was unleashed against footballers, Big Brother contestants and It girls. And now public figures of means can turn to Max Clifford as a form of defence and use “pay as you go” mobiles. So the tabloid hacks turn on less wealthy, less protected victims.

This is an abuse of power by newspapers owned by one of the most powerful media tycoons in the world, Rupert Murdoch. Moreover, the man in charge of the News of the World when this abuse of power was taking place was Andy Coulson. Coulson, we know, jumped ship as the Screws hit the Goodman phone-hacking iceberg and is now captain of spin for the Conservative party as it sails towards power.

This has serious implications. If the Tories win the general election, as predicted, Coulson will be at the very heart of government with an army of civil servants working for him. Yet, by his own admission, when managing a small team of reporters, he was incapable of detecting flagrant criminality on a huge scale.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, blog, charges, compare, comparemobiles.com, deal, Deals, email, free, government, HTC, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, o sim, pay as you go, phone, phones, sim, sol, t-mobile, test, uk, world

Orange relied on iPhone to persuade new customers, while T-Mobile dived back into the pre-pay market

Orange and T-Mobile, who are preparing to merge their UK businesses this year, both had a bumper Christmas, but for wildly different reasons. While Orange relied on the iPhone to persuade people to sign-up to long-term contracts, T-Mobile threw caution to the wind and jumped back into the pre-pay market.

But as both companies had to slash prices and offer customers ever more favourable tariffs in order to remain competitive in the cut-throat UK market, they saw margins decline and average revenue per user – a crucial metric for analysts – take a tumble.

In the last three months of 2009, third-placed Orange added 404,000 new customers, while fourth-placed T-Mobile gained 571,000.

Orange’s figures included 266,000 new contract customers, its best ever fourth quarter performance, and four out of every five of those customers signed up to a 24-month deal, suggesting they were either getting an iPhone or another high-end smartphone, such as one running Google’s Android operating system or a Blackberry.

Orange ended O2’s two year exclusive hold on the iPhone in November and sold about 90,000 in the first month.

Orange’s revenues in the fourth quarter were €1.29bn (£1.13bn), down from €1.3bn, including its struggling residential broadband business, which lost 50,000 customers in the quarter and now has just 840,000 users. There has been intense discussion within Orange about closing down the broadband business, selling the customers to a rival ISP, such as BSkyB, but management have decided to hold onto the operation and it is now offering a free 32GB iPhone to customers who sign up for its high-end home broadband package.

Margins at Orange, meanwhile, declined to 18.4%, down 2 points compared with a year ago, while its average revenue per user – across both contract and pre-pay customers – was £21.41 a month in the fourth quarter, down from £24.25 a year ago.

As it does not have the iPhone, T-Mobile, in contrast, put all its focus on attracting new pre-pay users, putting a lot of marketing spend behind its “free texts for life” for any customer topping up by at least £10 a month. In the second half of the year, T-Mobile added 629,000 new pre-pay users, 570,000 in the run-up to Christmas alone.

All but 1,000 of its new customers in the fourth quarter were on pre-pay.

Revenues, however, were down in the quarter to £737m, from £820m a year ago, with margins of 20.1%, down dramatically from 24.8% a year ago.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) was £18 a month, down from £21 a year ago.

In the same period, second-placed Vodafone added 410,000 new customers with ARPU of £20.40, down from £21.5 a year ago, and margins of 23.2%, down from 25.9%. The UK’s largest mobile phone company O2 will report on Friday.

The fact that three of the four largest players in the UK added almost 1.4 million brand new customers means that either O2 and 3 saw subscriber numbers fall off a cliff, or the first quarter of this year will contain a nasty surprise for at least one operator.

It is unlikely that O2 has seen its winning streak come to a complete halt, given O2 boss Matthew Key’s upbeat statements about life since it was forced to give up its exclusive hold on the iPhone first to Orange then Tesco Mobile before Christmas; and then to Vodafone last month.

As a private company, rival 3 does not provide regular figures, but its owner Hutchison Whampoa, which keeps a very close eye on its mobile phone business, would react fast if UK chief executive Kevin Russell had lost hundreds of thousands of customers in the last three months.

For the past few years, 3 has had between 3 and 4 million users and will report financial figures at the end of March.

It is more likely that because of the way in which the mobile phone companies count pre-pay customers as active or inactive that the first quarter of this year will see a balancing of the books. More than half the new customers added in the fourth quarter so far, are pre-pay users and are likely to have switched between pre-pay providers. But while their new network will count them as a new customer from day one – ie in the fourth quarter – the network they are leaving will not count them as inactive until they fail to make a call or send a text within a 90 day period. As a result, they are not likely to have been identified as customers who have defected until sometime in the first quarter of 2010.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, best, Blackberry, compare, compared, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, free, google, iphone, largest, line, marketing, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, o2, orange, phone, phones, prices, sam, sol, t-mobile, tariff, tariffs, three, uk, vodafone

Document sharing website Scribd to challenge Apple and Amazon in the mobile market

Document sharing website Scribd is making a more direct challenge to Amazon and Apple by launching a mobile service that it hopes will make it easier for millions of people to read on the go.

The move could put the well-regarded startup – described as “YouTube for documents” – into more direct competition with larger rivals such as Amazon and Apple, which is set to launch the iPad and its iBooks application next month.

Scribd already offers more than 10m documents online, including books from major publishers such as Random House and Simon & Schuster, but from today will also begin offering users the chance to read their files on any smartphone or ebook reader.

A simple system to send files to their device – regardless of what it is – may help erase complexity and give people easy access to much more content, said Trip Adler, Scribd’s co-founder and chief executive.

“Right now people are confused about which e-reader to buy, they’re confused about how to get content onto their devices,” he told the Guardian. “This solves all of that by putting all these devices so you can read any content on Scribd on your device.”

At the moment, most ebook readers acquire new titles through applications specifically built by the makers of their gadget – such as Amazon’s Kindle book catalogue. Adler suggested that providing a broad range of material across all devices was largely uncharted territory, but that it should boost the popularity of ebooks and downloads of other types of documents.

“This should help increase sales, because if people can read things they buy on the web on their device, they are more likely to buy it,” he said.

Amazon already offers access to its catalogue of books through the Kindle, as well as an iPhone application, but Scribd’s 50 million users will also be able to download other documents shared through its site – including how-to guides, research papers and self-published books.

The move is part of a wider mobile strategy that the company says will help it tap into the huge mobile devices market. Over the next month, it plans to launch a range of applications for the Kindle, iPad, iPhone and Android handsets, as well as a number of other platforms.

It is also launching developer tools that will enable programmers to create their own applications to search and link to any of the documents held in Scribd’s archive.

“There are maybe a million ebook readers out there, but there are billions of smartphone users,” Adler said.

The launch comes on the heels of a similar effort by Kobo Books, an American ebook retailer which earlier this week unveiled its own system aimed specifically at the UK market.

Kobo has agreements in place with most major publishers – including Bloomsbury, Penguin and Faber & Faber – and says it will also offer many titles for free.

But while the ebook industry has plenty of momentum, it has also been dogged by controversy.

Some publishers have said they will delay ebook releases to protect hardback sales, and Macmillan recently found itself in a feud with Amazon over the price of digital texts.

The outlook for sales, meanwhile, remains unclear. High street retailer Waterstone’s, which has its own ebook store, said that just 80,000 titles were sold in the run-up to Christmas and Amazon is still silent on Kindle ebook sales despite continuing to boast that they now make up a significant part of its business.

Adler said that platform-agnostic selling was a significant step forward that would not only encourage more people to buy ebooks, but could also convince publishers to sell unprotected files, rather than encumber their products with anti-piracy locks.

Scribd has raised almost $14m from investors since being founded in 2007, with backers including Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and former PayPal executive David Sacks.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, compare, comparemobiles.com, confused, free, gadget, iphone, line, maker, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, phone, phones, service, sim, sol, uk

Google handset has hysterics after update

Google’s Nexus One handset is dialling 999 when the user tries to pick up voicemail or call a freephone number, thanks to an over-enthusiastic update.…

Offloading malware protection to the cloud

Read Full Story…
(Source The Register)

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, email, free, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, phone, sol, source the register, uk, update

A Bury school is building a community broadband network to provide free wireless access to families

Read Full Story…
(Source ZDNet UK)

Tags: 3, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, google, mobile, Mobile News, mobiles, new, sol, uk

Despite Google’s protests, its entry into the mobile phone market will change the game – and makes operators ‘dumb pipes’

Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, tried to reassure operators this week that the search engine’s direct entry into mobile phones through its Android platform was designed to make telcos money, not to turn them into “dumb pipes”.

He told anxious operators at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that Google had no intention of building broad infrastructure to compete with the operators. Google’s protests that it is helping others to make money will be taken with a pinch of salt by other businesses such as newspapers and sat-nav operators (who have been undermined by Google’s free alternative) but welcomed by consumers.

Of course Google isn’t going to build a rival infrastructure. It is going to bypass it altogether by using Wi-Fi as it becomes increasingly available and letting users choose which operator they might use in conjunction. A week ago I bought Google’s new Nexus mobile device from its US website as my main phone.

Make no mistake, it is game-changing in two important ways. First, it turns the operators from arbiters of how you can use your phone into the equivalent of finance companies. I paid $529 (£338) for a SIM-free phone. I could have left it at that and just used it at the increasing number of Wi-Fi hotspots around town – but that would deprive me of incoming calls and the ability to use services such as mapping in places where there is no Wi-Fi. So I signed up with O2 for a pay-as-you go Sim plus an “unlimited” data package for a very reasonable £7.50 a month. If that isn’t turning the operator into a “dumb pipe” then I don’t know what is.

Others have offered Sim-free phones in the past. What makes this different is that it comes with Google’s integrated suite of services, giving an easy user experience. One click and my Gmail comes up, another one and the day’s calendar, or Twitter or whatever – appears to fill the ample 3.7in screen.

The game-changing part is the way Google is bringing voice back to the telephone in a way that hasn’t happened before. A few months ago I tried the company’s voice search out by speaking an inquiry instead of typing it in and was amazed that it got it right the first three times. Now, on a more extensive test, while well under 100%, it is highly impressive and I intend to use it as my default method of searching for standard queries. It beats the otherwise impressive Vlingo (on my BlackBerry) for speed and accuracy.

Google could have another killer app in the rollout – starting in the US – of its own internet telephone system for mobiles. When that is seamlessly integrated into all the other features that 150m Gmail users enjoy then Google could become a major international telephone operator in its own right. And if Wi-Fi ever becomes ubiquitous, then the sky’s the limit. All this will provide competition for Skype and the up-and-coming UK based Truphone, which I use for all my long-distance calls via a downloaded web app from my iPod Touch. Truphone has its own killer app that neither Skype nor Google has – you can get through to a real human being when things go wrong. Miracles can happen.

If the existing operators come under siege in a few year’s time as a result of web telephony, then they have only themselves to blame for the often contemptuous way they have treated consumers. Sure, they have, commendably, invested billions in much-needed infrastructure, but that is no excuse for what they have done.

They have made three major errors of business strategy and are about to make a fourth. First, they built walled gardens around their phones – depriving users of the universality of the web. One early Vodafone smartphone didn’t even have Google on it. When I inquired why, I was told there was no demand for it. As a consequence of their walled gardens of selected products they paid pathetic revenue shares to content providers thereby strangling an embryonic industry at birth until Apple resuscitated it. Had they opened their walls and given developers a fair return they could have created an app revolution long before Apple.

Second, by milking their customers for exorbitant amounts every time they used their phones to access websites, they delayed the mobile data revolution by several years. It was only when Apple insisted on adopting a fixed tariff – though it wasn’t the first – that web access from phones soared.

Third, by treating promiscuous customers more favourably than loyal ones they abandoned the basis of trust that all good brands need. And the next mistake? They are pushing for abandonment of “net neutrality” whereby all customers are treated more or less equally. They hope to make more money by giving bandwidth preference to content they get money from. You can imagine how popular that will be if some customers get slow broadband or none at all to make way for other people to watch Sky or Virgin videos.

As a phone, Google’s Nexus is the usual mixture of pluses and minuses. It has got a great 5 megapixel camera as can be seen here and a much better screen resolution than the iPhone, but the touchscreen itself is less reliable. Although it has over 20,000 apps in its store – and growing – they are not yet near the quality of the iPhone’s archive. Surprisingly, I have been very disappointed so far with Google’s mapping which ought to be its biggest strength. On a cloudy country walk it failed to make any connection with a satellite for a longitude/latitude fix and as mobile reception was flaky it didn’t download complete maps.

Unlike Nokia’s maps, which can be embedded in your phone Google has to rely on a web connection to download them each time. The other thing about it – and most other similar – phones which doesn’t get reported much is that it is actually difficult to read the screen when you most need to – walking in daylight. But one has to admit for all these occasional quibbles the new generation of smartphones offers awesome yet affordable technology. I would not have dreamed it possible 20 years ago.

twitter.com/vickeegan

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, Blackberry, blog, compare, comparemobiles.com, consumer, free, google, iphone, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, months, new, nokia, o sim, o2, phone, phones, service, sim, sol, tariff, test, three, Touch, twitter, uk, virgin, vodafone, world

New Mobile & Latest Deal News!

Free on an 18m contract from £30 per month.

The Nokia X6 16GB has an impressive 3.2 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front of the phone giving it a very innovative and unique design. The phone is 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 32GB 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 of other smartphones on the market. The new X Series range from Nokia, will replace the XpressMusic range. As well as launching the X6, Nokia will release the entry-level X3 slider phone iearly in 2010.

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. The 5 megapixel camera from the Nokia N97 is built-in, it has Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, LED flash and geo-tagging to take fantastic images of your favourite moments and stamp them with their exact location. The camera also has video recording capabilities and there is the ability to edit images with software provided in the package.

Compare all Nokia X6 16GB deals

Tags: 10, 3, all, compare, comparemobiles.com, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, latest, latest deal, mobile, mobiles, n97, new, new mobile, nokia, nokia n97, orange, palm, phone, phones, sol, test, Touch, xpressmusic

Corporation to roll out official applications, beginning with BBC News in April and BBC Sport in May

The BBC has announced a new range of free applications that will deliver its online services to mobile devices, starting with BBC News in April. The BBC is also considering an iPlayer application for release later in the year.

BBC Sport will follow News, lauching its application in May. Both apps will be launched in a UK and a global version.

Announcing the new mobile services today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, Erik Huggers, said: “It’s been 12 years since the launch of BBC Online, but as media converges and technology accelerates, licence fee payers are increasingly using sophisticated handheld devices to access information. They tell us that they want to access the digital services that they have paid for at a time and place that suits them.”

A range of unauthorised BBC applications are already available and fairly popular. The new official applications now give licence payers an authorised alternative as mobile phones become more powerful and connectivity more accessible.

According to the second largest app store GetJar, an unauthorised version of BBC Mobile was downloaded 110,032 times by January. In December, the mobile BBC site attracted by 1,851,000 visitors.

BBC News

BBC News for mobile will not only provide users with updated breaking news including video and audio, it will also allow them to send comments and pictures directly to the newsroom. However, the demo of the new app reveals that the user integration isn’t as prominent as with the BBC’s international rival CNN.

The simple and intuitive navigation of thn ews app can already be tested online. “The main screen uses a carousel structure so you can quickly catch up on the news by sliding each row sideways to skim through the latest stories. You can also personalise the experience by reordering the rows to put your favourite news section at the top,” says David Madden of the future media and technology mobile team in a blogpost.

BBC News will first be available on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, followed by the BlackBerry OS and Google’s Android later in the year.

BBC Sport

Starting with the football World Cup in South Africa, the sport app will focus on the live match experience. Content that is broadcast on TV by the BBC will be available for football fans as well as on-demand clips of every goal scored in the tournament. Users will also be able to access content from BBC Radio 5 Live, and live text commentaries from BBC presenters and blogs.

The 2010/11 English football season, Formula One and coverage of other sports will be added later in the year. While the UK version of the spoart app will be free, the global version will be released separately by BBC Worldwide and, in line with other international BBC Worldwide services, will feature advertising.

How will news organisations react?

The BBC iPlayer is already optimised for mobile browsers, and available for Nokia’s Ovi app store, but there are plans to make further versions available for other smartphones available to UK audiences only.

While news organisations have pinned their hopes on smartphone applications as a way to make revenue, the BBC will offer its applications for free. Recently, News Corporation’s James Murdoch said that a “dominant” BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK.

Should the BBC charge for its mobile applications or does its licence fee already include them? What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, App Store, apple, bbc, Blackberry, blog, comments, compare, comparemobiles.com, free, global, google, iphone, largest, latest, line, mobile, Mobile News, mobile phone, mobile phones, mobiles, new, new mobile, nokia, phone, phones, released, room, service, sim, sol, test, Touch, uk, update, world