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

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Ban still looms despite temporary truce after BlackBerry maker RIM grants authorities access to ‘secure’ data passed between devicesAfter weeks of standoff between south Asia and North America, the Indian authorities yesterday won limited access to data from BlackBerry smartphones. The 800,000 users of the devices in the country had been threatened with a blackout because of the Delhi government’s growing fear that militants could use the BlackBerry’s secure network to plot terror attacks without fear of being monitored.The authorities can now get access to some data. The arrangement will be evaluated for 60 days, but the prospect of a ban still looms large for Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian company behind the smartphones.India has also opened up a front against Google and Skype. The home secretary, GK Pillai, said the internet companies were being asked to set up servers in India so that the authorities there could monitor data.India’s moves underline the anxieties of emerging governments about the reach of western communications groups, and particularly the BlackBerry.The United Arab Emirates is threatening to block BlackBerry services by 11 October if it does not get access to encrypted messages. Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon are also reviewing the future of BlackBerry services in their countries; all cite security fears over the level of encryption afforded to communication sent between devices.However, this strategy risks alienating the very global businesses such countries are trying to attract, because the employees of multinationals increasingly rely upon BlackBerrys to conduct their day-to-day work.RIM’s problems – its shares have fallen to a 17-month low – lie in the way BlackBerry devices get access to the internet and email through secure centres around the world using specialist encryption.BlackBerry’s Messenger instant-messaging service and its email service have different levels of security, and email security depends on the server being used. Since the BlackBerry was launched 11 years ago, it has been the mobile phone of choice for business users and governments across the world. But RIM’s reputation for producing apparently impenetrable security for high-profile customers is at risk of being irreparably damaged by these new demands.Last Thursday, RIM said it would lead an industry forum on how to allow law-enforcement agencies to get access to communication networks while not encroaching on the security needs of private enterprises. That was all well and good, Indian government sources told Reuters, but the country wanted a technical solution – and quickly. “The government’s position does not change,” the source said. “We are hopeful [RIM] will come up with some solution.”Risk that RIM will lose users’ trustThe problem for RIM is that if it gains governments’ trust by giving them the means to see messages, it will probably lose the trust – and perhaps the business – of users who have previously relied on its security as a way of avoiding the government’s gaze.A university professor in UAE, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Guardian: “The issue has received a lot of coverage in the UAE, but nothing compared to the conversation ‘on the ground’. Since virtually every Emirati aged 17 to 40 owns a BlackBerry and uses the messenger feature constantly, this has been of great concern to them.”I’d guess that around 30% accept this is for security reasons, while the rest believe it to be, at the least, intrusive. The latter believe it to be a response to a number of fairly high-profile Emiratis being attacked, derided, vilified via the messenger broadcast service. Emiratis send many broadcasts daily, and gossip runs through the community like wildfire.”One of the biggest issues for the countries concerned is this messenger broadcast function. Allowing users to send one-to-many messages to everyone in their contacts book has proved an effective and galvanising way of spreading comment, and is often used as a vehicle for anti-establishment opinion – something UAE authorities are sensitive about. “The government walks a very thin line between appearing liberal and modern to the west, and traditional and Islamic at home,” the professor said. “This issue cuts to the heart of the impossibility of doing both at once.The professor, who has owned a BlackBerry for more than a year, said he would have no qualms in switching to another device if RIM’s concessions infringed his right to communicate without fear of government interception. “I can only presume RIM is aware of this and is treading carefully,” he said. “I have faith in the company, as it clearly does little for them to give up what makes the device so valuable – its security.”He added: “This has been called another public relations disaster for the UAE, and I fail to see how someone will not point this out to the rulers – and they are exceptionally concerned with remaining attractive in the eyes of western governments,” he added. “This has done them no favours with the business community internationally nor with the majority of locals and expats domestically.”Falling foul of authorityBeing on the wrong side of officialdom is not new to the Canadian manufacturer. Ironically, given the more recent bout of security concerns, three years ago the French government banned its officials from using BlackBerry devices, citing fears that communication could be intercepted by countries hosting the enterprise servers – namely Canada, the US and the UK. When Barack Obama took office in January 2009, the BlackBerry he had used on the campaign trail was replaced with one with extra security, approved by the US National Security Agency, which was concerned about people trying to tap it.Further east, security demands meant negotiations to take the BlackBerry to China and Russia took two years to resolve in both countries.Unlike Indian officials, who have slipped anonymous tidbits and soundbites to the news agencies, RIM has remained tight-lipped about its negotiations. In a rare public statement addressed to customers earlier this month, the Canadian manufacturer said it co-operated with all governments to a consistent level: “Any claims that we provide, or have ever provided, something unique to the government of one country that we have not offered to the governments of all countries, are unfounded.”The complexity and range of security solutions offered by RIM may be the source of the company’s friction with governments, said Leif-Olof Wallin, vice-president of the IT research company Gartner. “What seems to be the big challenge is that lots of BlackBerry service and infrastructure is not very well understood by the regulatory authorities or by its users,” Wallin said. “Although physically it is the same device, it can be used in lots of different scenarios.”Financially, Wallin said, a ban in India would have negligible impact on RIM’s global business, although the country was the second-largest mobile phone market in the world behind China. And RIM would emerge less tarnished than the countries involved.Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that there will be more than 600,000 BlackBerry sales in India this year and that India’s smartphone market will have reached approximately 12m – a figure forecast to grow to 40m by the end of 2015.”At the very last minute there will be an agreement in place,” Wallin predicted. “Banning BlackBerry devices in the country has significant implications affecting foreign diplomats, foreign enterprise executives. It would be a major inconvenience to lots of important allies.”Monitoring messages on a case-by case basisThat is not to say that the Indian or UAE governments will be given free rein to tap emails or messenger messages. “Our interpretation of RIM’s public statements is that the company is willing to facilitate mobile operators to lawfully intercept some messages,” said Wallin.”And BlackBerry will – on a case-by-case basis – be assisting network operators to decrypt BlackBerry Messenger, we think. With email between the BlackBerry and BlackBerry Enterprise Server, RIM simply does not have the capabilities to decrypt it, and the encryption key is unique to each user.”Though some of our clients are worried about what to do in case a ban is put in place, it looks like BlackBerry [manufacturer RIM] is benefiting from this as they’re not caving in – they’re being perceived as an honest secure company.”Gail Thompson, owner of a landscaping company based in Dubai and a BlackBerry owner, said the ill thought-out warnings were not atypical of Emirates officials. “I’m expecting them to backpedal on it,” Thompson said. “I’m anticipating that [the authorities will] issue a blanket mandate, then realise that it’s unworkable – that’s what I’m I’m hoping. I think they’ve had a kneejerk reaction to things.”They need to take into account that business people are coming into the country and [the UAE doesn't] need another hurdle in the economy,” Thompson said. “People are thinking that it’s ludicrous – we all understand that our emails and calls are monitored, it’s just part of our lives. I just think it’s a cultural thing out there.”But that thinking is not shared by all of UAE’s half a million BlackBerry users.A teacher who has lived in the region for 10 years and wished to remain anonymous said she would blame RIM “for caving into demands that compromise people’s privacy” if the manufacturer facilitated greater access to their emails.”There is no alternative but switching to another device,” she said. “If [RIM] allowed the government to intercept messages, I wouldn’t be sending you this email.”BlackBerryData and computer securityMobile phonesIndiaJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, Blackberry, compare, compared, email, free, global, google, government, largest, line, maker, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, networks, new, phone, phones, review, sam, service, sim, sol, three, uk, world

Many children get their first mobile phone on starting secondary school in September. We hunt down the best first deals for an 11-year-oldWhen to let your child have their first mobile phone is a contentious issue. But the chances are you’ll join the majority of parents and get them one when they start secondary school at 11.At this age many children start travelling to and from school alone and parents like the reassurance of knowing they can call home.So with a bewildering plethora of handset and tariff options, where do you start to find the best deal?Anthony Ball, director of mobile comparison website Onecompare.com says: “You can get a mobile contract for your child, but pay-as-you-go is probably the best move because of the level of control it gives parents. If your child uses the phone too much, the credit simply runs out until you decide to top it up, but they can still receive your texts and calls free.”There’s also little point buying an expensive, flashy phone that could serve as a “mugging magnet”.Many parents will have an old phone they can pass on to their child or, if not, they can pick up a basic model for under £20 and put in a free sim card now available from most major networks, which often offer bundles of texts, call time and, if want, internet access typically starting with a £10 top-up per month. But which one?”The difficulty of getting the first deal for an 11-year-old is that you have little idea of how, and how much, they are going to use their phone,” Ball says. “But as these sims are free and don’t tie you in to a long contract, you can try one and, if that doesn’t suit, simply switch to another.”Earlier this month Tesco Mobile targeted young users with its launch of, arguably, the UK’s cheapest sim-only monthly tariff which provides unlimited texts and 100 minutes of call time for £6 a month.But it’s not available instore – it’s only sold online and over the phone, and is based on a one-month sim-only rolling contract paid by direct debit which means that customers can cancel and switch to other providers should they choose after 30 days.It should particularly suit text-addicted youngsters. Tesco’s research shows that 16- to 24-year-olds are the most prolific texters and, on a personal note, I’ve found that a sim, offering unlimited texts, is definitely the best money-saving mobile option for my two aged 12 and 16.If, however, your child is likely to go over the 100-minute call-time allowance excess calls are charged at 20p per minute and the bill is added on to your £6 monthly direct debit, so the cost could quickly add up. As a safety measure, Tesco puts a £30 cap on the monthly amount you can run up on top of the £6 subscription.If that limit is reached, the phone is barred for outgoing calls (not, importantly, from incoming calls) until the paying customer – the parent in our scenario – calls Tesco Mobile to verify the amount of credit they are willing to pay.But this does highlight the difference between a standard pay-as-you-go deal, where your child cannot run up a bill, and a monthly contract, where they can.Below are a selection of the pay-as-you-go free sim deals on offer for a £10 monthly top-up from major networks which may suit an 11-year-old’s usage.O2 SimplicityFor £10 a month you get unlimited texts plus a choice of either 100 minutes call time to any UK network or 500MG of web time, enough to send and receive up to 500,000 emails a month or surf up to 5,000 web pages. Calls made in excess of those included in a package are charged daily at 25p per minute for the first three minutes, then 5p per minute for the rest of the day. Available at freesim.o2.co.ukOrange If you join Orange with a free sim and choose from one of its pay as you go “animal” packages, you receive £5 free credit with your first £10 top-up. Options include Racoon – a basic, no-frills package, giving a 15p flat call rate and 10p texts to any network any time. For a top-up of £10 per month, Dolphin gives you 300 free texts and free access to the internet subject to a monthly 100MB cap with calls charged at a minimum of 20p per minute and Canary gives you 100 free minutes call time to any mobile (not landlines) at evenings and weekends every month with excess calls charged at a minimum of 20p per minute. Available at freesim.orange.co.ukT-Mobile When you top up by £10 a month you get unlimited free texts as a bonus on top of your £10 credit to use on calls, web-surfing and so on. Call charges are 10p per minute to T-Mobile phones and 25p a minute to other UK mobile networks and landlines. Internet access charges are maximum £1 a day. Available at t-mobile.co.ukTesco Tesco offers a triple-your-money deal so that a top-up of £10 becomes £30 of credit. Free credit is given once a month and is valid for one month. If you top up again in the same month this generates free credit for the following month. Available at www.tesco.com/mobilenetwork/Consumer affairsTelecomsMobile phonesChildrenJill Papworthguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, best, card, charges, cheapest, compare, comparison, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, email, free, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, networks, new, o2, orange, pay as you go, phone, phones, sam, sim, Sim Card, sol, t-mobile, tariff, test, three, uk

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India may extend an August 31 deadline in its standoff with Research In Motion if the BlackBerry maker says it has a solution and asks for more time, a senior government source said on Friday.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Any solution provided by Research in Motion, makers of BlackBerry smartphones, must pass through field trials to satisfy India’s security concerns, a senior government source said on Friday.

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – RIM suggests forum on BlackBerry solution in India

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – RIM suggests forum on BlackBerry solution in India

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BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion (RIM) is set to give the Indian
government the ability to access corporate emails sent as encrypted data before
the end of the week in order to avoid a ban on the service in the country.

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

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Police move to shut down criminal network suspected of global fraud using premium-rate phone lines and stolen iPhonesPolice have moved to shut down a criminal network suspected of running a complex global scam which made millions of pounds from UK mobile phone networks using stolen iPhones and premium-rate phone lines.Eight men and one woman were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud in a series of early morning raids across England today.Officers had been investigating a complex conspiracy where mobile phones were purchased using false identities, and then the SIM cards used to call premium-rate phone lines owned by people involved in the scam.City of London police detectives seized dozens of mobile phones, hundreds of SIM cards, thousands of pounds in cash and fake documentation from homes in Southend, Walsall, central Birmingham, Middlesbrough, and Forest Gate and Southall in London this morning.The raids followed a month-long investigation into a rapidly growing criminal conspiracy profiting from the theft and illegal use of almost 1,000 mobile phones – the vast majority of which were iPhones.SIM cards were removed from illegally obtained phones then shipped abroad and plugged into automatic dialling machines, which repeatedly called lines that charged up to £10 a minute and were owned by members of the conspiracy.The cards accrued enormous bills in a matter of weeks, which were paid by mobile phone networks, but when the companies contacted the registered owners they invariably found people who had fallen victim to identity fraud.O2 was one of the networks hit by the scam, and had £1.2m stolen through premium phone lines in July alone. They contacted police with the results of their own investigation and worked in partnership with detectives from the City of London police – the national lead force for fraud – to uncover an elaborate and expensive fraud.Police now believe a gang of West Africans bought mobile phones on contracts from high street stores using false identities and stolen or fraudulent credit cards.The gang predominantly targeted iPhones for their high resale value. Once the phones were purchased they were sold to a middleman, believed to be based in Birmingham, who would split the SIM cards and handsets before selling the phones to criminal contacts abroad.The SIM cards were then sold to a gang based in London and Essex who were involved in running the premium phoneline scam.Police arrested several members of the gang, all of whom are of Pakistani origin, at homes in Forest Gate, Southall and Southend this morning.They are suspected of setting up a complex network of shell companies to launder the profits from the premium phone lines and hide their identities.At one home in Forest Gate, police found hundreds of SIM cards, £15,000-worth of iPhones still in their boxes, 20 bank cards and several fake passports. At another property they uncovered hundreds of letters that had been prepared to try to con people out of their savings with a promise of a lottery win, a scam known as a 419 con.Investigators have traced the stolen handsets and SIM cards all over the world, including several countries in the Middle East, continental Europe and Vietnam.Police are now hunting to find out where the profits went, as many of those involved lived “under the radar” in council houses with few obvious assets, apart from relatively expensive cars.Detective superintendent Bob Wishart said officers had struck at “a highly sophisticated criminal network” that had been targeting the telecommunications industry and stealing millions of pounds.”Our investigation found a crime gathering momentum,” he said.”Each month more SIM cards were being used to make more phone calls to premium-rate lines at more expense to the network provider.”The criminal exploitation of the latest consumer technology is a recurring theme of our work.”Our collaboration with O2 on this investigation highlights the benefits of how the private sector can work with the police to proactively target common threats to our communities.”Adrian Goreham, responsible for tackling fraud at O2, said: “This was a sophisticated and organised attempt to defraud mobile phone operators.”We are committed to reducing mobile phone crime and have a dedicated team that monitors and investigates such attempted criminal activity.”CrimeMobile phonesiPhoneAdam Gabbattguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Officials say BlackBerry firm Research in Motion will permit Indian authorities partial access to some of its servicesBlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion will allow Indian authorities partial access to its Messenger chat services to placate security fears, a senior government source has told the Reuters news agency.The Canadian company is reportedly ready to allow authorities more access to data transmitted between its handsets, and is talking about how to allay government fears over BlackBerry Enterprise email services.India’s Department of Telecommunications – the body orchestrating the discussions – has asked at least three mobile operators to put in place monitoring capability for the BlackBerry Messenger and Enterprise email by 31 August.RIM has said it will provide a “technical solution” to the worries this week, a government source told Reuters. India has said it will shut down some BlackBerry services by 31 August if no settlement is reached.A senior government source, who asked not to be named, told the news agency: “They have assured partial access to its Messenger services by 1 September and agreed to provide full access by the end of the year.”Last week RIM issued a public statement to its approximately 800,000 BlackBerry users in the country, saying any negotiations over increased access to data transmitted between its devices would abide to four principles: that it was legal, that there would “no greater access” to BlackBerry services than other services, that there would be no changes in the security for Enterprise customers, and it would not make “specific deals for specific customers”.India’s main concern is thought to be with data passed between corporate BlackBerry devices using Enterprise services. When using the BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES), an organisation hosts its own server and encryption key for access to transmitted content, offering a higher level of security.RIM said neither it nor the mobile operator has access to these encryption keys, meaning the only organisation able to decrypt data is the company hosting the server.India is seeking a solution where it can lawfully intercept messages passed between the devices, which may involve using internal servers hosted by a third party.Security fears over BlackBerry services in the country are thought to spring from the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack in which 116 people died. Officials suspect the culprits used encrypted Blackberry services.RIM is facing the threat of a ban on some BlackBerry services in India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.BlackBerryMobile phonesData and computer securityData protectionIndiaJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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BlackBerry maker RIM confident it can met Indian demands over security before 31 August deadlineBlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion is “optimistic” the company can resolve security demands from the Indian government regarding its popular smartphone.According to Reuters, RIM vice president Robert Crow said the Canadian firm’s negotiations with Indian officials are “a step in a long journey”.India yesterday issued a deadline of less than three weeks for RIM to resolve concerns over the security of its BlackBerry device, warning that the phone’s email and messenging service would be shut down by 31 August if no settlement is reached.”Our message to RIM and service providers is that if they don’t come up with a technical solution by 31 August, then the home ministry will take a view and will shut down BlackBerry Messenger and business enterprises services,” a spokesman for the ministry said.Indian officials have been meeting to discuss the future of telecommunications companies in the country, starting with the BlackBerry manufacturer. Similar concerns appear set to be addressed with search giant Google and internet telephony firm Skype at a later date.A senior Indian security official, who wished to remain anonymous, told Reuters: “Wherever there is a concern on grounds of national security the government will want access and every country has a right to lawful interference.”We have concerns regarding [Google and Skype] services on grounds of national security and all those services which cannot be put to lawful interference.”In a public statement addressed to its approximately 800,000 BlackBerry customers in the country, RIM said that the company “genuinely tries to be as cooperative as possible with governments in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations”.RIM said that any negotiations over access to data would be “limited by four main principles”: that it was legal, that there would be “no greater access” to BlackBerry services than other services, that there would be no changes in the security for Enterprise customers, and it would not make “special deals for specific countries”.Nick Jones, a senior analyst at Gartner, said there is uncertainty over whether India is objecting to the use of BlackBerry Enterprise Servers in the country, which afford companies and organisations a higher level of security than for individual customers.Jones said it would be “exceedingly bad” for the Canadian manufacturer’s reputation if it was to change its security architecture to support requests from a government seeking to monitor customer information.Further, BlackBerry messaging is not subject to the same encryption process as email on the device, and so “may be less secure and more open to lawful interception”.”I believe that governments are being very naive about this,” Jones said. “If RIM is perceived as insecure, criminals and terrorists will just switch to more secure communication tools the government can’t intercept. There is a wide choice.”Being able to read RIM traffic is likely only to catch technically unsophisticated criminals who are probably not the big risk in any case.”BlackBerryMobile phonesIndiaTechnology sectorData protectionJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Android set to whack BlackBerry Smartphone sales rose by half over the last three months, according to market analysts Gartner, with the segment now making up almost 20 per cent of phones sold.… Free On-Demand Webcast – Virtualizing the Hard Stuff

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Indian officials contemplate restricting email and messaging services on RIM’s BlackBerry smartphonesA meeting of Indian officials over the future of BlackBerry smartphones in the country has proved “inconclusive”, according to Reuters.Government officials spent Thursday locked in meetings with at least one mobile operator – state-run telecoms company BSNL – to decide whether to restrict services including email and messaging on the device.Security fears over BlackBerry services in the country are reported to spring from the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack in which 116 people died. Officials suspect that the culprits used encrypted services on the device.But an official for the country’s telecoms ministry, who asked not to be named, said the talks with Blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion failed to resolve the issues.RIM’s devices, which have proved popular among corporate customers around the world, offer data protection services different from those on most other mobile devices, encrypting data and processing it in a variety of operational centres outside local jurisdictions.The Canadian manufacturer, also in similar talks with authorities in Saudi Arabia, is facing increasing pressure to allow security agencies access to some of the data passed through its devices.India is said to be seeking access to both email and BlackBerry Messenger functions, while Saudi Arabia is thought to be seeking access only to the latter.An Indian official told Reuters: “If they cannot provide a solution, we’ll ask operators to stop that specific service. The service can be resumed when they give us the solution.”RIM declined to comment.There are between 700,000 and 1 million BlackBerry owners in India, around 500,000 of which are privately-owned and do not incorporate the same security measures as enterprise customers’ devices. India is the fastest-growing wireless market in the world, and is one of the Ontario-based company’s fastest-growing markets.A deal struck between authorities and RIM will likely be seen as a concession, and could be precedent-setting for its operations in other countries.Although RIM declined to comment, a government regulator in Saudi Arabia said earlier this week that the company had successfully completed “part of the regulatory requirements” required to be granted a temporary reprieve from a ban on some services.An official for the country’s Communications and Information Technology Commission said RIM and other local telecommunications firms were testing transmitting data through domestic servers.BlackBerryMobile phonesIndiaJosh Hallidayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Ever find yourself texting someone in the same house? I admit texting a dinner-time alert to save walking up three flights of stairs (it’s not a big house, just a tall one) and I’m not alone.Photo by katielips on Flickr. Some rights reserved.A survey by Best Buy (the US retailer started opening UK stores in the spring, don’t you know?) found 50% of us – and 69% of under 25s – have texted or emailed someone in the same house. (Which could mean young people use their phones more reflexively, are lazier or live in bigger houses.) Women are more likely to do this than men – 53% compared to 46% of men. Apparently calling out for meals is a regular message, so clearly women are still not emancipated from the kitchen. Digital storage space is now 40% more likely to cause family arguments than hogging the landline (do people still have landlines?), with 50% of us admitting to accidentally deleting stuff and 25% losing photos or contacts. (I lost 12 years worth of files, photos, artwork, emails – phone stolen, laptop died, back-up died, online backup expired. What are the chances?)Best Buy says 52% of us would chose to keep our internet access compared to 19% of us who’d prefer our washing machine, and for 38% of the under 35s, the laptop is the first device we go to when we get home. There’s a generational split between the under 35s and over 35s. Under 35s store most of their music and photographs digitally, but over 35s still have most content on hard copy. I copied all my CDs to an external hard drive and sold them on Amazon, but still have the vinyl, Lionel.Social networkingDigital mediaMobile phonesInternetJemima Kissguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Apple’s iPad is a ‘game changer’, says Rupert Murdoch – but Samsung is about to become its first serious competitor and others will not be far behindWhen Rupert Murdoch announced last week that Apple’s iPad was a “game changer” and would lead to hundreds of millions of so-called tablet computers being sold globally, it was not just the media world that nodded sagely in agreement. The technology industry is also gearing up for a world in which the desktop PC, laptop computer and smartphone are joined by a fourth member of the home computing family.With the same market foresight and cutting edge design that enabled it to revolutionise the smartphone market with the iPhone, Apple has given itself a commanding lead in this new market. But the iPad is about to have several new competitors, some of which will be made by companies that have scores to settle with Apple boss Steve Jobs, having seen him usurp their place in the mobile phone market.It is the very success that Apple had in the smartphone market and the reaction it has produced – especially from Google – that means Jobs will not enjoy the sort of lengthy market lead with the iPad that he has enjoyed with the iPhone.It is three years since the iPhone first appeared and only in recent months have serious competitors arrived. But with one of the first real alternatives to the iPad expected to be unveiled tomorrow in New York by Samsung, there will soon be devices able to compete with and perhaps even better Apple’s product.Speaking to Wall Street analysts as his News Corp empire announced its financial results on Wednesday, Murdoch said: “I think we’re going to see, around the world, hundreds and hundreds of millions of these [tablet] devices” and they are going to change the way that people consume the content created by his media businesses.”Murdoch himself reckons Apple will sell about 15m iPads this year and more than 40m by 2012, with more being made by other manufacturers. But estimates for the potential size of the market vary wildly. One thing is certain, these estimates will be wrong.A couple of months before the iPad launched, ABI Research estimated that 4m could be shipped this year, rising to 57m a year by 2015. But on the run-rate reached since the device launched in the US in April, Apple should exceed 4m this month. At the start of the year, research house Gartner reckoned 4m tablets would be sold this year – including the iPad. After the iPad’s success that estimate is now 14m.To put this into perspective, the tablet market is still small compared with the PC and the mobile phone markets. Sticking with Gartner’s figures, the 14m tablets in 2010 compares with an estimate of 1.4bn mobile phones and 366m personal computers.In financial terms, Generator Research reckons by 2014 Apple’s iPad business will be worth more than $17bn (£11bn), while the worldwide smartphone market will be worth $65bn and the laptop market $195bn.But while the figures for tablet computers may be comparatively small, the technology industry reckons tablets will fundamentally shape the way that consumers interact with digital content in the future. Getting in on the ground floor, so to speak, is crucial.As with so many technology fads, the industry has been here before. A decade ago, Bill Gates unveiled the Tablet PC and the following year told the Microsoft faithful that the new device would become the most popular form of PC within five years. Five years later, Microsoft was still trying. It teamed up with Intel and Samsung for Project Origami to work on smaller handheld digital media and gaming devices. They also failed to capture the public’s imagination.Apple, however, has got its timing right. Whether by luck or judgment, the iPad has emerged during a confluence of events. The ubiquity of broadband internet access in the developed world has created a generation of web users who want instant access and interactivity with media, from music and film to books and newspapers. The media industry, meanwhile, is desperate to move away from the mere “digitisation” of its traditional product so it fits on a PC screen and is ready to experiment with new formats. As the media industry explores new ways of creating content in order to generate new revenues, a tablet represents a perfect half-way house between the sit-forward world of the keyboard-based PC – where online advertising has so patently failed to deliver revenues – and the passive sit-back world of traditional circulation and display advertising-based print media.The iPhone and its host of imitators, meanwhile, have got consumers accustomed to the idea of using touch as their main point of interaction with content, rather than a keyboard and a mouse. Finally, the arrival of operating systems designed specifically for touch-based smartphones means manufacturers have something ready to use, rather than having to shoehorn into their tablet computers pared-down but still bulky “mobile” versions of PC operating systems.After the arrival of Apple’s iOS, when the first iPhone appeared, Google realised the mobile phone industry could not be relied on to create a viable competing software platform on its own. So it created its own operating system, Android.This year, sales of Android devices have already overtaken sales of iPhones in the US and sales in the UK are already up more than 300% as the result of just one new device, the HTC Desire. Worldwide, Android is expected to overtake iOS in terms of global smartphone shipments during 2012, according to forecasts from iSuppli. The company reckons Android will be used in 75m smartphones at this point, up from 5m last year, while iOS usage will be 62m units, up from 25m.Now Android is headed for the tablet market. The two biggest names in communications and software are both still lagging behind. Microsoft is unclear whether tablets should use its Windows 7 software – which does support touch – or base devices on its Windows Phone software, while Nokia has turned to Intel for help in creating new tablet software under the MeeGo brand.BlackBerry, meanwhile, has upgraded its software for touch and looks ready to explore tablets, while Hewlett-Packard recently bought Palm, which will provide it with a solid software base for the next generation of smartphones and tablets.”How long did it take for competitors to compete with the iPhone?” asks Carolina Milanesi, from Gartner’s mobile devices team. “You are talking three years. But with the tablet I really do not think that is going to be the case. A lot of the things that took time in the smartphone market are already there in tablets. We continue to see Apple dominating the segment for the next three years or so but you will see devices that are very close to the iPad very quickly.”iPadTablet computersAppleTechnology sectoriPhoneMobile phonesRichard Wrayguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Google and Apple are gearing up to launch ads on their apps, a strategy which is set to change the advertising landscape for everBritish mobile users will soon find themselves embroiled in the epic confrontation taking shape between Apple and Google. iAds, Apple’s bid to run advertisements inside apps, is expected to make its UK debut in September. Separately, Google has adopted what its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, calls a “mobile first” approach, prioritising investment in a medium that has become “fundamental to everything we do”.With the iPhone moving into mass market territory and the iPad selling 200,000 units a week, Apple’s decision to start selling mobile advertising seems likely to concentrate a few media minds.In early June, Steve Jobs demonstrated iAds in front of Apple developers in San Francisco. The ad he showed off was a work-in-progress by Nissan. The demo, which included a 15-second video, an interactive application and a form to sign up for a competition, didn’t quite live up to Jobs’s aim of “trying to combine the emotion of video with the interactivity of the web”. But it was slick. In the future, Jobs promised, iAds would bring in the revenue that would allow developers to continue producing “free and low-cost apps to delight users”.There are early signs that mobile advertising, like everything else touched by Cupertino’s genius, will turn to gold. During the eight weeks leading up to the presentation in San Francisco, Apple sold $60m-worth of iAds to the likes of Unilever and Disney. This compares with the $250m mobile online display revenue generated across the whole of 2009 in the US.For media owners, there are two major problems with Apple’s ad model, which the analyst Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research suggested in a recent report has the potential to become an $800m-a-year business within the next year.First, Apple’s approach threatens to reduce media owners to the status of “developers” alongside tens of thousands of competitors. The second problem is that Apple’s business model, like Google’s, reduces media owners’ involvement in advertising markets to a minimum.Mobile giantsApple and Google already own the world’s two largest mobile ad networks. Both are already selling ads directly to advertisers. Advertisers, for their part, aren’t paying to reach mobile users attracted by a specific media company. Instead, in the case of iAds, they pay Apple to reach broad swaths of iPhone and iPad users who share common demographic characteristics.In order to stitch together these communities of users, Apple has been analysing the purchasing history of its 150 million iTunes account holders worldwide who also use iPhones and iPads. Its own hardware produces a separate stream of data about what users do, and where and how they do it. Notably, the privacy policy associated with the iPhone 4 allows Apple, for the first time, to collect anonymised real-time location data on its users.How much of this data will Apple share with advertisers and publishers? “We talk to Apple a lot,” says one publisher. “But we haven’t had that conversation yet.” The ad industry seems similarly uncertain. Michael Collins, the chief executive of Joule, a WPP-owned mobile agency, recently told Business Week that data sharing is “the question that many of us in the industry are very curious about”.Google, too, is forging ahead, but in a different way. On the mobile web, it continues to emphasise lead generation rather than branding. Ian Carrington, director of mobile ad sales for Google Europe, Middle East and Africa, sketches out a scenario in which a mobile user is reading a book review on a handset in a cafe. “The accompanying ad will understand its context,” he says. “It will know what book is being discussed in that review. He adds: “You’ve also got GPS in most smartphones now, so your handset can tell you that this book is £5.99 in a shop 100 yards away, and £4.99 in a shop a mile away.”Google, Carrington says, already knows how to do “the contextual part” of a scenario like this. “We’re still working on the location-based bit,” he adds. Yet the bottom line is that Google’s results-based approach will probably yield small revenues on the mobile web, just as it did on the desktop web.Despite different approaches to advertising, one thing unites Apple and Google. Both companies want to hold on to a relatively large proportion of the ad revenue they generate. Apple, for example, proposes to pass on to developers 60% of the revenue generated by iAds. Google continues to suggest it passes on to publishers “at least 50%” of the revenue generated by ads it runs next to publishers’ content. These levels of commission will look high to anyone who recalls the 15% commission that used to go to media agencies for bringing in advertising for publishers.There’s a further reason for publishers to be wary about the mobile web. As it turns out, Apple and Google plan to take a large slice of what, by anyone’s standards, is a very small pie. Last year, the latest in a series of years dubbed the “year of mobile advertising” by industry boosters, advertisers spent a mere £35m trying to reach British mobile users, according to Enders Analysis. That’s 1% of what advertisers spent on all digital advertising and, as Benedict Evans, a consultant at Enders Analysis, points out, less than the £50m he estimates Britons shelled out last year to have pornographic images texted to their handsets.In the words of one publisher, the cumulative effect of these challenges is a “cautious” and “risk-averse” approach to publishing on tablets and handsets.Others take a more positive view: Matt Kelly, digital content director at Trinity Mirror’s national papers, says Apple has the upper hand “because they’re first into the market, they’ve done all of the development, all of the creative hard work”. “They’re reaping that reward,” he adds. “At the moment, content producers are at the mercy of great technology innovators. But it won’t stay that way forever. We may see a swing towards publishing content on Android if Google’s business terms become more attractive.”Not a bad dealKelly is also wary of the argument that Apple and Google are skimming off too much mobile ad revenue. “The overheads at Trinity Mirror’s newspapers are 75% of revenue – for paper, ink, transport and so on. If someone comes along and says, we’ll replicate the revenues, but the bulk of your costs will be 40%, it’s not automatically a bad deal.”Kelly remains confident about the value of content: “Technology will become commoditised and homogeneous, more open for third parties to come in and innovate and copy. The profits for platforms will decline and the profits associated with content will increase.”Steve Pinches, lead product development manager at ft.com, says that Apple wants to use iAds to sustain a “huge long tail of apps that really have no easy way of monetising themselves”. Big media is different, argues Pinches. “We have very deep relationships with our advertisers that have been formed over years and years,” he says. “We also have an incredibly deep relationship with our readers.”Evans also sees positives in Apple’s pricing of iAds. “They’re trying to catalyse the market,” he says. “If they’d gone out and said this is going to be cheap, advertisers would have carried on with their small experimental budgets. “But Apple has told advertisers they’re not spending $80,000 on another experimental campaign. Instead they’re each going to spend a minimum of $1m on each iAds campaign.”Rupert Murdoch thinks the iPad “may well be the saving of the newspaper industry”. Yet Apple would like to claim the lion’s share of profits from the mobile web by charging a high price for its hardware. By contrast, Schmidt at Google foresees a future in which handsets and airtime are free, subsidised by advertising.Both Apple and Google need what Jobs describes as “free and low cost” content that engages users and attracts advertisers. On the mobile web, the task facing media owners is to figure out how much revenue they can wring out in return.AdvertisingGoogleAppleAppsSteve JobsiPhoneNissanMobile phonesTrinity MirrorRupert MurdochPeter Kirwanguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Evo Morales has a plan for Bolivia’s lithium – but will those who brought him to power agree to it?In the south-western province of Nor Lipez in Bolivia lies the world’s largest deposit of lithium. The vast and spectacular Uyuni salt flats sit 3,600 metres above sea level. They are shaped like an inverted cone, 400 metres deep, in which layers of salts have sedimented, interwoven between layers of mud and brine, in which the mineral salts have dissolved.In recent years, lithium’s commercial value has risen astronomically. The development of laptops and mobile phones has depended on lithium batteries, and demand has grown to the point where it is now profitable to exploit the mineral even when it is found in a place as remote and inaccessible as this.Uyuni is in the department of Potosí, the site of the legendary Cerro Rico (rich hill), which supplied the Spanish colonial regime with silver for 200 years. Mining continued there in the 20th century, particularly after the Bolivian revolution of 1952 which nationalised the mines, creating among the Bolivian people the collective belief that they were now the owners of huge potential wealth that would never again be exploited by “foreign interests”.So strong was this belief that the first attempt to exploit lithium commercially, in 1992 – 10 years before the wave of popular uprisings in defence of Bolivia’s natural resources which would culminate in the election of Evo Morales – led to a period of protests across the region, and the then government of Jaime Paz Estenssoro was forced to break its contract with the Lithco corporation.Today, the potential exploitation of Bolivian lithium exposes contradictions within Morales’s government, and the possibility of social conflict, as multilayered as the salt lake itself.On the one hand, Morales decreed in 2008 that the state would take full control of the exploitation of lithium. A new arm of the Bolivian Mining Corporation was set up with the aim of constructing a plant for the mineral’s exploitation.On the other hand, since 2009 the Bolivian government has begun negotiations with foreign companies with a view to signing contracts for its industrial production. Interested parties include the Japanese firms Mitsubishi and Sumitomo. And there are other possibilities, too: Morales has travelled widely looking for possible joint investment in lithium production with Chinese, Russian and Iranian firms.Through such partnerships Morales hopes to further fund a number of social welfare projects through the so-called conditional transfer of resources – small amounts of money are given to families, so long as certain conditions are met (for instance, that children are sent to school). This is central to the government’s social strategy.However, the indigenous population of Bolivia’s western areas, who are among the poorest people in the country and who have strong communal traditions, appear to disagree with the policy. The social movements that brought Morales to power have mobilised over recent months around demands for local development, and in defence of water rights. In the mind of many Bolivians, the most important thing is that local communities decide on the uses of resources in their own territory.Bolivia today is undergoing a reconstruction of the state, in the course of which progressive nationalist policies find themselves in conflict with a highly politicised population with its own vision of how best to utilise “the gifts of Pachamama (Mother Earth)”. Not only do the Uyuni salt flats sit above multiple layers of strategic minerals, they also raise questions of how to use them – to which there are multiple answers.BoliviaMobile phonesComputingMiningRaquel Gutiérrezguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Religious fervour surrounds the latest phone technology, despite it only representing a small slice of the world marketI’ve just discovered that the ancient Egyptians worshipped a beetle – a scarab. Quaint, isn’t it? I mean to say, we’ve come on such a lot since those primitive times.But what’s this? A note from my Guardian colleague, Charlie Brooker, about something he calls the Jabscreen. “Several times over the last year,” he writes, “I’ve attended meetings that started with everyone present gently placing their Jabscreen face-down on the table, as though commencing a futuristic game of poker. It wasn’t rehearsed, wasn’t planned, it just happened; a spontaneous modern ceremony.” Charlie was struck by “the sight of a roomful of media types perched reverentially around their shiny twit machines… each time it happened, a vague discomfort would hang in the air until, in a desperate bid to break the tension, someone would mumble a sardonic comment about the sinister ubiquity of the Jabscreen, likening it to Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This would prompt a 25-minute chat about apps and gizmos and which level of Angry Birds you’re stuck on. Sometimes there wasn’t much time for the meeting after that. But never mind. You could all schedule a follow-up on your Jabscreens.”The Jabscreen, you will have guessed, is the Apple iPhone, an object currently regarded with Egyptian-grade reverence by the chattering classes. But, in fact, the obsession with so-called “smartphones” extends way beyond Apple’s device. Whole swathes of geekdom are devoted to various embodiments of Google’s Android phone. Legions of men in suits – up to and including the US president – swear by their BlackBerrys. There are people who believe that their Sony-Ericsson scarab not only spreads sweetness and light, but can also cure chilblains. There are, incredibly, even people who worship devices running Windows Mobile. And so it goes.Not surprisingly, the mainstream media are anxious to service these obsessions, and so every launch of a sacred object is lavishly reported. Last week, for example, RIM – the company that makes the BlackBerry – unveiled its latest assault on the smartphone market. It’s called the Torch and it has a shiny glass screen just like the iPhone. But – lo! – it has something else: a slide-out keyboard!!! Wow!All of which makes one want to scream that it’s only a bloody gadget. But by then one has moved on to the business pages, which are regularly gobsmacked by the sales figures for electronic scarabs. It seems that Apple is selling 4m of the things every month, and is having trouble keeping up with demand. But Android sales – at 4.8m a month – have now overtaken them. Is this a sign that Android will win out? Or will Apple pull some clever marketing stunt – like releasing a cut-down nano iPhone for the Christmas market, just as it did with the iPod? Will the BlackBerry Torch make a late run? And where the hell is Nokia?Are we perhaps losing our sense of proportion? The smartphone market is interesting, but just a small segment of the overall market. In 2009, for example, something like 175m smartphones were sold. The top end of industry predictions of sales over the next few years is about 500m devices. But the world currently buys about 1.3bn phones a year, the vast majority of which are “dumbphones” – ie simple handsets that can’t access the internet and which are much cheaper to own and run.Now, over time, Moore’s Law – which says that computing power doubles every 18 months – will ensure that these dumbphones become smarter. What this means is that the way the market will evolve is not by Apple & co selling more sophisticated, pricey, expensive-to-run smartphones to increasingly downmarket sectors, but by cheap phones gradually becoming more capable as they start to run more sophisticated operating systems.All of which means that the factor that will determine the evolution of the phone market is not the features of specific devices, but the operating system that they run. At the moment there are about 10 different mobile operating systems, which is patently unsustainable. My guess is that we will eventually get down to two or three. Apple’s iOS and Android look like certainties. The question is what comes third – BlackBerry, Nokia’s MeeGo or Microsoft’s Windows Mobile?No matter what happens, let’s remember that these things are just gadgets. After all, even the Egyptians’ holy scarab was only a dung beetle.Mobile phonesiPhoneAndroidBlackBerryAppleJohn Naughtonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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Manufacturers have suckered us into an inexorable lurch from phone to phone, instilling a desire that is never wholly satisfiedDoes your mobile phone cause you status anxiety? Does your ancient, deprecated handset raise muffled guffaws when you produce it in company?I was neither enthusiastic nor particularly early in my adoption of the mobile phone. In 1994 both my parents were very ill in hospital and this forced me to overcome my aversion to what I saw at the time as a mere poseur’s appendage. When my parents died I had no further need of it and allowed the contract to lapse.However, like nearly 90% of adults in the UK, I have since succumbed again. For the past few years I was the moderately contented owner of a Nokia 6230i.My family were very scathing about it, calling it an “east European brick”. They all aspire to the iPhone. Over the years my network provider offered me several upgrades but I refused, reasoning that I was familiar with the handset and it did what I wanted it to do – that is, make and receive phone calls. I tried to remain strong, but in the end I couldn’t argue with the fact that the phone was pretty knackered. So one day I found myself in the phone shop, swapping it and succumbing to what the Daily Mash calls “shiny thing make it all better”.Am I happier? No. It makes calls but, unlike my old phone, it occasionally makes them randomly to assorted contacts without either my permission or my knowledge, the result of an unlocked touchscreen in a pocket full of change.As I reflected on my dissatisfaction with my acquisition, I found myself thinking about the business model behind mobile phone contracts. How can companies afford to give away, on a regular basis, expensive pieces of sparkly kit to each and every subscriber? I was reminded of Neal Stephenson’s visionary essay on the business of selling operating systems In the Beginning Was the Command Line. Written in 1999 it’s a little dated now, but Stephenson brilliantly illuminates Microsoft’s extraordinary and unlikely success, persuading people to pay for boxes full of 1s and 0s.If you’re not technically minded it’s tough going in places, but he sprinkles amusing disquisitions on all sorts of subjects (Disneyland and the MGB sports car to name but two) in amongst the critique of Apple, Microsoft, Debian et al.Initially it was Stephenson’s argument that the business of selling operating systems is doomed, which resonated with me. As an Economics semi-literate I struggle to see how the figures stack up for selling call-time while giving away handsets, but it’s abundantly clear from the number of mobile phone billionaires that the failure is my understanding and not the business model. And then it struck me – the comparison with Stephenson’s essay was not the business model, but the enforced obsolescence.In order for Microsoft to make money out of selling operating systems, they not only have to sell you an operating system but also later persuade you that the version you already own is wrong, unsuitable and decrepit, and must be replaced. Typically they do this by relying on you, the owner, accepting the bundled operating system when buying a new computer to replace your old one, which is a bit like a hi-fi shop insisting that you buy a replacement collection of CDs whenever you trade in your music system.If the manufacturers of mobile phones and operating systems were not able to convince their existing customers that the shiny product for which they had so recently shelled out had suddenly been rendered worthless and must be replaced, their revenue streams would dry up, since they would be forced to rely solely on a comparative trickle of new customers.The analogy between operating systems and phones stands because over time the manufacturers of both (in collusion, one imagines, with their sundry partners) use various tactics to contrive to persuade us that we want “added value”. So a phone becomes a camera, MP3 player, video recorder, web browser, while your OS acquires functions you didn’t know you wanted – User Access Control being a prime example.I’m not a luddite – I know change is inevitable. What I rail against is the effective removal of choice: a mobile is no longer just a mobile, nor is Windows just an OS. The inexorable lurching from phone to phone tells us we have developed a phone-shaped hole in our psyches, which can only ever be partially, or temporarily, satisfied. A nag of grabby need mushrooms, and our hand reaches out for iPhone 4 as iPhone 3 owners curl their collective lip. In no other area of life do we seek to replace what already works perfectly well with a smaller, zingier version … unless we’re a Hollywood actor forever upgrading our blonde.Mobile phonesEdward Collierguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Terms & Conditions

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