Link: Truphone Blog - Internet telephony on Nokia mobile phones

Following on from our exclusive coverage on the new version of Truphone, it’s now out of beta and is ready to go.

Some cool new features include:

• VOIP over 3G
• Presence support
• Free SMS to other Truphone users
• Multiple SIM management for travellers

More at www.truphone.com

Have a read of this piece by Mike Elgan via PC World:
Link: PC World - Stalker Terrorizes Family Via Cell Phone?

The Kuykendall family in Fircrest, Wash., claims that a hacker has been stalking them for four months through their camera phones, using the microphones in the phones to listen to them and the cameras to watch. They say that even when they turn off the phones, the hacker can turn them back on.

Any sane individual, particularly a geek, knows that this is absolute rubbish. Have a read through the full article — Mike, who knows his stuff, sorts the rubbish from the reality in a wickedly good way.

Link: Nokia offers mobile photo printing - vnunet.com

Nokia has launched a photo printing service to allow Nseries users to upload images and place an order directly from their smartphones.

Users can select the images in the phone’s gallery application and insert the postal address and other requested information. The order is then processed by CeWe Color and prints are delivered to the address

Link: BBC NEWS | Technology | Apple iPhone faces serious rivals

It’s been the subject of more hype and hullabaloo than any other mobile phone - but the iPhone won’t be available in Britain until late 2007.

But phone manufacturers aren’t just sitting and waiting for the new arrival to storm their market. They claim they already have phones that are just as good looking as Apple’s baby and even smarter.

There’s an interesting video report on the story - worth a watch.

I haven’t had time to play with the really wicked features of the HTC Touch. Instead, I’ve dropped it right in the deep end.

Having turned it on and synched up my contacts, there was no let up at all. Phone calls, text messages, email messages, calendar updates, I’ve been using it as my primary device for about 4 hours and I’m delighted to say it’s keeping up.

I’m just having to remember how to navigate contacts and re-learning the now more familiar menu structure.

The next key test is this: I’m going to meet my friend Tom this evening — and his girlfriend. What will they think of it? I’ll see.

Ben Harvey, with his SMS Text News reporter badge covered in mud, has managed to transmit his latest Friday column to us from a field, somewhere near the little village of Glastonbury.

- - - - - -

So, there I was, knee-deep in mud (or, at least, something wet and brown), watching the Killers play at Glastonbury. Unfortunately, watching them was all I was doing because - due to having to find somewhere to pee (damn you, cider, damn you all to hell) - I’d relinquished my place towards the front of the stage and found myself at the rear of the enormous throng.

…I very nearly wrote “rear of the enormous thong” there…

Idiot jobsworths from the Council, who had turned the speakers down, I wasn’t actually able to hear them very well. Not being able to hear the music at a music festival isn’t actually the most fulfilling experience in the world and, as such, I was about to spin on my heel (or as much of a spin as I could manage, given that, technically, everything below my knees had sunk to underground status) and trudge back to Chez Harvey but, all of a sudden, the smokey air was filled with loud noise of Las Vegas kitsch-rock!

As it happened, the tendrils of Council Health & Safety hadn’t been vanquished but, instead, some cheeky sod in the crowd close to me had pulled out their mobile and started playing Killers tracks out from their little loudspeaker.

This worked well for five seconds before all the people laughing at the absurdity of the situation drowned out both the mobile and the main speakers, but it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it.

Anyway, the fact that mobiles are now so deliciously versatile does gladden my heart. And, in the context of festivals - or any other event organised by the Somme Recreation Society - I’ve put together a little list of reasons why they’re just so, so bloody useful…

1. Calling for help

Cries for help come in many forms; drunken calls to ex-girlfriends, calls to the police because your ex-boyfriend is stalking you, that sort of thing. However, this Glastonbury was marked by the rain, and the solid, unremitting mud the ensured. I managed to escape reasonably easily but others weren’t so lucky – my friend Chris, for example, was stuck in the car-parking fields for fifteen hours.

As we made our way out, staring out of the car windows that were running with the condensation from our own clothing, the one thing that really struck me was the number of people by mud-glued cars, phoning for the AA or the RAC or any other bugger that could come and pull them out. Can you imagine trying to organise that with phone-booths…?

2. Finding stuff

Tents, at night, are not the most easy of domiciles to find things in. Glasses case? Toothbruth? Dry trousers? Booze? Girlfriend? Groping around in the dark will take ages. As with many other areas of modern life – finding your way down the stairs of a strange house springs immediately to mind – this uncertainty is instantly dispelled by a random stab at your keypad and the resulting glow of LCD illumination from your keypad…

Ah. There she is.

3. Disgusting video clips

I suspect that, on Saturday morning of last week, quite a large proportion of the adult UK population awoke to find a video-clip, on their mobile, detailing – as only filmed imaged can – the pure, whole, complete and enormously lurid documentary of the toilets at Glastonbury.

If you were one of the lucky ones you merely would’ve been sent a clip of the general area, row upon row of Technicolor Polyjohns stood sentinel, like plastic Daleks queuing at the post office. Those less lucky would have clips displaying just how disgustingly muddy everything was (the whole effect reminded me rather of my student days, when for some reason a flatmate decided to melt a Cadbury’s crème egg in our electric kettle).

Those least lucky of all will have been sent a clip of the patty-men emptying the toilets, with their disease-dripping machines that trundle round the site looking like the bastard lovechild of an oil-tanker and a vacuum-cleaner. I’ve heard their mating call, the choking, sucking, liquid schlurping that they kick out when they’re vacuuming all the poo up.

Always reminds me of a kid at McDonalds, trying to hoover in the last of his chocolate milkshake.

4. All wings report in

How did people do this in the past? How? You’re with a group of friends, say, six of you, for the sake of argument. You’re leaving from different parts of the country. How would you know which Little Theft to meet up in on the way down? How would you be able to take pictures of Eddie mooning at a random lorry-driver from the passenger seat of his Focus? (we’ve all got a friend like Eddie, haven’t we…). More to the point, how would you find each other in the midst of 175,000 others? How would Pete Docherty’s handlers find which hedge to pull him out of? How would you call your mother, and say “Mother, I appear to have lost an important part of my brain, somewhere, somewhere in a field in Somerset?”. Alright.

5. As a weapon

James Bond, memorably, once used his mobile to jack 50,000 volts into the brain-pan of a villain who was about to shoot him. You know - it was the one with Terri Hatcher in, looking stupid. Anyway, that’s complete overkill. Modern handsets, due in part to their weight-balance and streamlined design but mostly due to the density of the lithium in their batteries actually make superb throwing weapons. A decent overarm hurl will quite easily stove in the face of most unarmoured assailants and, more importantly, in a festival context, will also signal to the idiot that keeps treading on your toes that you are displeased with him.

In fact, I would go as far to say that mobile handsets are the very zenith of mans efforts to make the perfect throwing weapon - after all, you can’t telephone a javelin to see where it is when you’ve lost it down the back of your sofa.

6. As a personal assistant

Glastonbury is complicated. Naive debutantes consider it to be merely some people sat around in a field with some bands on. The logistics of it, though, are fiendish. What stage is your favourite band on? Where is that? How best do you fight your way through the bovine crowds to get there? Who do you want to see after them, and what stage are that lot on? When do you have to leave so you don’t miss the start? What time does everyone want to hit that noodle place we liked so much? Where do we have to bail Eddie out from after he mooned that policeman?

It’s all so very confusing.

In recent years the Guardian has been very considerate and has given everyone, in their welcome-packs, a tiny, weeny little booklet that lists, in tables, what’s going on. Alas, though, this comes with an itsy-bitsy plastic pouch to put it in. This plastic pouch, in wet years, serves not to keep the guide clean but instead to drown it in rainwater, leading to the oft-seen sight of people trying to forensically dissect the papier-mâché schedule like a particularly feckless archaeologist.

But! Just punch the details into your handset, in the form of reminders, and Bob’s your mother’s brother…

7. As a financial deposit

All of my cash-money having been spent on lager & falafels, I was forced to give my Razr to a toilet-roll salesman in return for a hundred sheets of finest Charmin. On the upside, it had only been my Razr for half an hour; I’d found it lying in a puddle. Tee hee!

The authorities were kind enough, by the way, to have issued us all with our very own roll of green, bleach-free, earth-friendly toilet roll upon arrival. I used mine to mummify some random interloper who crashed through our camp at 3am…

8. As a hippy lure

You can say a lot about our crusty friends; you can say what a lot of tosh all that “crystal healing” nonsense is. You can say that they’re idiots for believing in the goodness of ley-lines and the badness of cellular radiation. You can say they smell so profoundly bad that, should they ever find themselves in an airport, all the poor sniffer-dogs in Customs would simultaneously be taking medical retirement. You can say all of this, but I won’t, since my own dear mother is a hippy.

What you can say about them is that they do dress sensibly. Those woven-goat-hair capes they sport around their knife-narrow shoulders, for example, are bloody warm. I decided to obtain one.

I waited until a likely-looking fellow had dosed himself up on mushrooms; out came my mobile, with a kaleidoscopic screensaver selected. I pressed it into his numb, herb-smelling hands and, whilst he tried to see infinity, I sliced away the reed girdle that secured his cloak and then, pausing only to pluck my handset back, made off.

It would’ve been the perfect crime, had it not been infested with stoned lice.

9. As a smuggling device

Prise the back off, pocket the battery and you have a handy little cavern to stow those things that the police would disapprove of. What? Where else am I going to hide my “I Love the Human Rights Act” badge…?

10. Because you make so many bloody friends

You do. There’s only one other time of your life when you make so many lasting friends so quickly, and that’s the first night you spend in prison. You’re in a giant party for four or five days and it’s impossible not to meet people - those you camp near become instant mates if only because you’re bonded with the Dunkirk spirit of staying alive, and sane, and in as good a humour as possible, when you’re soaked and saturated and generally utterly clagged in mud.

Just be sure to take a quick snap of everyone, if only so that you can remember their names when you get back home and sober up. You’ll remember the name of the girl you were really into, of course, but what was the name of that idiot that kept mooning everyone…?

Tesco Mobile have introduced some wickedly good mobile roaming rates for selected European destinations.

From the 12th of July, you’ll be able to make calls from destinations such as Spain and Greece back to the UK for £0.35/min.

Yes, let me repeat that again. THIRTY FIVE PENCE A MINUTE! You what?

Your average Vodafone numbskull customer is being flogged for 35p a minute to phone an off-network friend *IN* the UK. Heh.

Better yet, if your phone rings while you’re on holiday, you’ll only pay £0.15/min to receive.

That is BRILLIANT.

Let’s hear from Andy Dewhurst, Chief executive officer of Tesco Mobile:

“We welcome the new legislation but we want our customers to get better value right away.

“By focusing on value, Tesco Mobile has become the UK’s fastest growing mobile network.

“By dropping our roaming prices in time for the big summer get-away we know our customers won’t have to drop their social lives just because they are abroad.”

No word on the cost of texting abroad as yet, but that’s in the works.

(If you’re a 3UK customer, you can make and receive calls on-net — that is, as long as you’re connected to 3 Italy or the like, at no additional cost. Incoming calls are free to receive and outgoing calls simply use up your price plan minutes as normal).

Link: webitpr | Visto Announces Secure Corporate Email for Apple iPhone

Visto, the leading provider of mobile email solutions for business users, today announced the support of corporate email functionality for the Apple iPhone.

Through Visto, iPhone users will be able to experience secure mobile access to current and legacy versions of both Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino corporate messaging platforms. Visto will enable access that is easy to implement and administer and will alleviate IT concerns regarding security and reliability.

Ah this changes my perspective a little on the Apple iPhone and business email. I will have a look at this when it comes out..

Britons travelling abroad to exotic destinations are now able to receive immediate and free travel health information regarding malaria thanks to a new text messaging service developed by mobile healthcare specialist iPLATO. The service, funded by GlaxoSmithKline Travel Health as part of the Malaria Awareness Campaign, allows travellers to text in the name of their destination country to receive relevant information about the malaria prevalence in that country.
 
Despite the fact that malaria is a preventable disease every year approximately 2,000 British travellers return home with malaria, making the UK one of the biggest importers of malaria among industrialised countries. It is hoped that by making it easier for travellers to access important health advice via their mobile phone that this number will be reduced. The service is designed so that once a traveller has been informed about the level of malaria risk at their destination they will be encouraged to contact a healthcare professional for expert advice on protection. Travellers using the service are charged their standard operator rates and the service is available over all networks.
 
Malaria is a risk for British travellers as people increasingly visit countries where malaria is common; there has been a 150% increase in travel to malarious destinations amongst British travellers in the last 10 years. The humble mosquito may be tiny, but it only takes one bite from an infected mosquito to transmit this potentially deadly disease.
 
“We are delighted with using the mobile channel in helping people correctly assess the malaria risk at their destinations”, says Tobias Alpsten, Managing Director iPLATO. “Early reports on the volume of text interactions by travellers using the Malaria Advice Service during the months of May and June alone validate the usefulness of this service and its potentially life saving benefits. We hope that frequent travellers will save this phone number and consult this service whenever they have to.”
 
If you are travelling abroad and would like to use the service, please text the name of your destination country to 07800 000573 and you will receive the text response with further information. This is not a Premium Rate Service and you will be charged according the standard text message rate set by your network provider.

Link: Send SMS officially in Leopard’s iChat - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Reader CrazyRower sends word of something small, but cool coming to iChat in Leopard. According to screenshots from an account named after Apple’s favorite designer, sending a message to an SMS number is now builtin to the iChat File menu.

As we’ve reported before, this is hardly a new feature– you can do it with your iChat (or any other AIM enabled program; I did it on Adium) right now. All you have to do is go up to File, then New Chat, and instead of the AIM account name, just type “+1″ and then any SMS enabled number. And whoever you message can even reply from the phone, and their reply will appear right back in your chat window.

US-only at the moment it seems, but worth keeping an eye on.

So I unpacked it last night and did nothing with it. I just charged it.

It’s the most difficult thing in the world to do — sitting staring at a brand spanking new funky device like the HTC Touch — and not touching it.

I left it to charge properly and had a browse through the manual. I’m not normally a ‘manual’ chap, I usually jump straight in, but I wanted to give the device due attention.

It is, at first glance, gorgeous.

At second glance, even better.

Instead of faffing around with my Apple Mac and trying to sync the two (I’m sure it’ll work fine, I’ll try it another time), I used one of my Windows computers.

Stuck in the new ActiveSync. It’s been a while since I looked at ActiveSync, I can tell you.

In fact, ActiveSync is probably the single best feature of Windows Mobile. It’s why I bothered with the Windows devices in the first place. I just *loved* having my contacts properly, properly synched. (This is back in the days when synching your Nokia or Sony Ericsson required several computer science degrees, minimum).

It is still delightfully simple. More so, nowadays. Helpful menus, things just work. I plugged in the Touch via USB and… well, it’s synching. A minimum of fuss.

I’ve had two calls and three text messages on it already. It is configured with some uber-cool and funky ringtones and alert sounds. They certainly have gone to town on it.

A clunky HP Jornada, or iPAQ, this is not.

HTC Touch - the work phone that looks off duty
Originally uploaded by smstextnews.

I am now in temporary posession of an HTC Touch. I am shortly planning on swapping to it for a week or so. I’m very excited at the prospect of a good looking and functional handset. More soon!

- Taken at 5:36 PM on June 28, 2007 - cameraphone upload by ShoZu

So I was at the 3UK mobile internet seminar this morning at One Aldwych. You know, I’d never been in there before. I’ve always walked by it. My friend Natasha used to go there for the gym all the time. Apparently they play music underwater in the pool. Nifty.

Anyway upstairs in meeting room one and two, all the action was kicking off.

It featured presentations from 3, Yahoo, Skype, Jaiku and the London School of Economics. It also featured toast, coffee, tea, orange juice and croissants. I just had toast. There is some truth to the rumour that I also had a croissant.

If you’d like to know exactly what transpired, Stuart Dredge of TechDigest has got it ALL
here. He took his laptop along. I got it wrong, see. I just took a pad of paper. Not good. Stuart was typing the whole time! It shows, he’s captured pretty much everything. Although he didn’t cover the choak-into-cornflakes moment when Tony Saigh of Skype inadvertently mentioned Google in front of James Tipple who heads up Yahoo Connected Life.

Ergo as Stuart has done such a good job already, I thought I’d document the folk round the table rather than the content.

A note 3UK. I’m delighted for them, I really am. It’s so refreshing to speak to a team of individuals from a mobile operator who are clearly excited and motivated at the prospect of delivering great service to their customers. They really have got it right — pricing the internet service at a wholly appropriate £5/10 a month. It’s working. In May 2007, 3UK users sent 118 million instant messages via MSN Mobile. More stats? From July 2006 to January 2007, Yahoo Mobile did 82m page impressions on 3. March 2007 to present? 62m. It’s working….!

Here, then, is a picture courtesy of my new E61i. On the right is Jyri Engestrom, co-foudner of Jaiku, one of the best mobile services I’ve seen in years (read the SMS Text News Jaiku coverage so far).

On the left is Mike Roberts of 3G Wireless Broadband. I didn’t get his card though so I’m not entirely sure what his site is.

I glanced to my left and found James Sherwood of The Register sat next to me. ‘Shit!’ I thought, ‘A proper journalist..’ He was a nice chap though. Beyond him, I caught sight of a person’s notepad with three — COUNT’EM — THREE! — mobile phones arrayed round it. A Nokia N70 and two Sony Ericssons. And a dictaphone.

‘Geez. That person’s a class-A geek like me,’ I thought, ‘You don’t see many of them around.’

Who was it? None other than Bena Roberts, Founder and Chief Analyst of BKI Media — and also Editor of GoMo News! GoMo’s been in my feeds for a while so it was nice to actually say hi to Bena. Interestingly, Bena made a point about Orange and mobile data. She didn’t elabourate though. Big things in the works for next week apparently. I tell you, if Orange dribble out another stupid, stupid, mindnumbingly THICK mobile data plan anywhere in the vicinity of a ‘unlimited off peak data plan’, I will go and buy an Orange Pay As You Go phone and BURN it outside their headquarters in protest. Here’s hoping we get a 7.50 a month data plan from them, eh?

Bumping into Dr Carsten Sørensen from the London School of Economics was thought-provoking. He delivered a brilliant speech — here’s a wee bit of it:

Stuart covered Dr Carsten’s presentation thus (PS that’s Stuart typing there in the video):

Organisations and families spend all our time trying to cultivate boundaries. Who do I want to spend time with? Who do I want to talk to to innovate? Who’s allowed to have my mobile number and who’s not? The problem is, once you give it out, you can’t take it back. So when mobile technology erodes these boundaries, it’s good and bad news – thus, we need to cultivate and organise our contacts – which is where things like buddy lists come in. That’s the gist.

I caught up with Dr Carsten and asked him about his first handset. It’s an interesting answer. He was a late adopter — and eventually got one of those Nokia 8200s — the tiny one — because it was one of the only phones capable of data at the time. He paid over a grand for it too. Right now he’s sporting a Nokia E65 on Vodafone and absolutely loving it. It’s a handsome device.

I then put the same question to John Penberthy-Smith (everyone seems to call him “JPS”), 3UK Marketing Director. His first handset was a Sony. The small squarish one with the boom microphone — with next to no screen. Or no screen. Do you remember it? It was the precursor to the brilliant CMD-Z5 (which, by the way, came with an Internet Explorer wap browser and an on-board answering machine — a genius handset). Now, though, JPS is sporting an LG Shine 3G — not, because, as my friend Ilana commented, ‘it’s great because you always have a mirror in your bag,’ but because of the browser. Apparently the LG Shine 3G web browser is one of the best on the planet. I’ll need to check that out and have a look.

Kudos to James Tipple and Chloe Graf of Yahoo Connected Life. I really enjoyed their perspective. While James was speaking, I made a mental note to get hold of Yahoo Go 2.0 because I particularly want to have a look at their Flickr support. I’m going to do a ton on Yahoo Go. I cooked up some plans with Chloe. I’d like to set Ben Harvey lose on it for a week or so to see how a normal user takes to it. I was holding back from looking at Yahoo Go whilst it fully launches on a ton of handsets.

Tony Saigh is Business Development Manager, Mobile, for Skype. He deilvered a wicked overview of where Skype’s heading. I particularly liked how Tony humanised the service. Rather than knocking on about how many geeks are using Skype, he talked about his mum — and how she doesn’t really like having to ‘go upstairs’ to make a call via the PC. Instead she’s loving using her Skype wi-fi phone. (Mental note: I need to get one.) He also talked about a couple in a long distance relationship who frequently use Skype Video conferencing — although they’re on different continents, they’d keep Skype Video open for hours on end across the weekend so they can ’share time’, even though the other might be doing the washing or reading the paper. Heh. Wicked.

Speaking of wicked. Then we got on to Jaiku and Jyri’s presentation. I had to stop myself from jumping on to the table, pompoms in hand and cheering GO YURI, GO YURI, GIVE ME A J

JAYYYYYYY

GIVE ME A AAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAA

GIVE ME AN IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

AYEEEEEEEEEEE

GIVE ME A KAYYYYYYY

KAYYYYYYYYYY

GIVE ME A YOUUUUUUUUUUU

YOUUUUUUUU

WHAT’S IT SPELL?

JAIKU!!!!

I am loving Jaiku and I tell you what, the next Symbian version, which I’m hopefully going to get on beta shortly, is a piece of hotness.

My conversion to Windows Mobile is taking place in a few hours. Again.

I think it’s fair to say that I am one of the few hardened mobile geeks who …

- bought the XDA
- bought the XDAII
- joined Orange because of their SPV handsets
- owned every single SPV handset
- loved Windows Mobile. Hated the reboots and slowness.
- has spent thousands on Windows Mobile devices

It all got a weeeeee bit too much for me. But I am determined to change things around. I think I can live beautifully in sync with a Windows Mobile device. I’m particularly enamoured at the concept of the HTC Touch. No keyboard, aye.. but what an interface.

I am picking one up later today, weather permitting.

I think I might swap to it for a week.

Then, I’ll report back. You know, I’m going to like it. I can feel it in my water.

Then, if HTC are ok with it, I’m going to give it to Mr Normob — (”normal mobile user”), Ben Harvey, and see what he makes of it in another write-up. Knowing Ben, it wll be quite an extensive look from a normal user’s perspective.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last 24 hours, you probably know that Tony Blair has quit as the UK Prime Minister, to be replaced by Gordon Brown. He’s not even been in the job a whole day, but already calls are being made for him to… get his own ringtone!

Last week the Boston Herald reported that US presidential hopeful Barack Obama had started offering his own branded free ringtones and wallpapers. According to the article, “The ringtones feature a techno beat along with lyrics like “Go, Obama, Obama!” or clips of speeches the Illinois senator has made on universal health care.”

Not being one to miss a trick, UK personalised ringtone service Singtones has offered Gordon Brown a similar opportunity to engage hard-to-reach British youngsters. The service lets people record their favourite tracks, which are then ‘fixed’ so even the worst voices sound good. The final version, complete with backing track, is then sent as an mp3 file to mobile phones to use as a unique personalised ringtone and caller ID.

“We’ve had a lot of fun speculating which song Mr Brown will go for,” says Singtone boss Jeff Bloom. “He’s waited a long time for the keys to Number 10, so Take That’s Patience would be a good option. Alternatively, Walking on Sunshine might better reflect the optimism of his first days in office.”

Link: Manchester NHS uses SMS for Stop Smoking Campaign :: PublicTechnology.net :: e-Government & public sector IT news + job vacancies:

Smokers in Manchester can now text the NHS Stop Smoking Service and receive stop smoking support, thanks to a deal with Mobifi.

It is being used in a number of different campaigns and by utilising different keywords it provides valuable feedback to measure the success of each marketing ploy. For example, the keyword ‘Galaxy’ is being used for a target campaign with Galaxy Radio and the keyword ‘Smoke’ is being promoted on beer mats which have been distributed to over 100 pubs in Manchester.

People send an SMS text to the Stop Smoking Service and then receive a call providing them with a list of support options, including local trained pharmacists where they live, nearest drop in sessions and also to book appointments with specialist stop smoking advisors.

With only a few days to go until smoking is banned in public places here in England, it’s good to see the NHS is using technology to help smokers quit the habit.

Jersey Airtel, a subsidiary of the Bharti Group, today announced the launch of its mobile services on the Island. The Company will offer market-leading products and services under the Airtel-Vodafone brand to customers on the Island, over its full 2G, 3G and HSDPA enhanced network.

To celebrate the launch, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman & Group CEO, Bharti was in Jersey today to serve the first customer at the Airtel-Vodafone shop, centrally located in Queen Street, St Helier. During his visit, Mr. Mittal also met representatives from the political and business sectors.

Commenting on the launch, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal said, “This is a special day for all of us at Bharti and we are delighted at the launch of our services in Jersey. We are committed to bringing world-class services to customers and adding value to communities and businesses on the Island.”

Mobile entertainment company ROK have just announced they’ve inked a deal with American broadcaster NBC to bring their CNBC Europe channel to mobiles.

“We’re delighted to have CNBC Europe as a flagship channel on ROK TV” said Jonathan kendrick, Chairman of ROK “as we know there is a huge and as-yet untapped demand for live and instantly-available business and financial news amongst our mobile TV customers.”

Commenting on the deal, Martin Kay of CNBC said “ROK TV is a great partner for us to deploy our channel into dozens of mobile operators around the world because of its international reach, and because it is not limited to 3G operaors.”

American TV network CBS had a quick sneak peek and review of the iPhone this morning. It’s on YouTube for your viewing pleasure - unfortunately as embedding has been disabled I couldn’t post it here. Worth a watch though, even if it’s only to see some of the features that’ve been talked about before on here.

Guy Kawasaki has published a rather illuminating overview of his experience with AT&T customer services. All he wanted to do was cancel a service that he didn’t actually order.

Uh huh. You know the story already, don’t you? It’s the usual. If you’ve a few moments and want to read the cringe text along with Guy’s arse of an afternoon, click on!
Link: How to Change the World: My iPhone Review

There’s only one problem: I never ordered DSL, and I don’t want a Dumb Slow Line. How hard could it be to cancel a service that you never ordered? The back of the order said you can get help via an online chat system 24 x 7. Tally ho!

My response to Telcos and mobile operators offering this sort of silly service?

Just let me provision my own stuff, please. Stop putting people and stupid processes in the way.

I’ve heard a lot about James Scroggs, from a lot of disperate people including Mr Networker himself, Oli Barrett. When Oli’s talking about someone — and actually takes the time to call you up to discuss the person, you know it’s good news.

So here we have it officially. James, formerly VP of Marketing at MTV Networks UK & Ireland, is joining SpinVox — one of my all time uber-brilliant favourite services.

He’s an interesting chap. Have a read of this:

Scroggs joined MTV Networks UK & Ireland in 2002 and as VP of Marketing Scroggs spearheaded its brand strategy and activation. MTV has been voted the Worlds Most Valuable Media Brand by Interbrand/Business Week. He was responsible for all advertising, digital, events, products, brand experiences and corporate social responsibility initiatives. He launched a multitude of key brand initiatives and TV franchises, including Pimp My Ride and the BOOM education programme and was the key spokesperson for MTV’s 25th Anniversary celebrations.

Scroggs started work in advertising in 1993, firstly as a Graduate Recruit at DMB&B and as the Account Manager on the Mars Bar ‘Work, Rest and Play’ and Budweiser ‘Genuine Article‘ campaigns. He then joined Lowe Howard-Spink as the Account Director on Stella Artois. He was the anchorman of the consistently award-winning Stella Artois ‘Reassuringly Expensive’ campaign, including the famed Stella Bottle campaign, which won a Cannes Grand Prix, and the launch of the multi-award winning ‘Stella Screen’ film programme, all of which contributed to Stella becoming the UK’s most valuable beer brand.

He’s the guy who anchored the Reassuringly Expensive one, eh? He’s also the one to thank for the wicked Channel4 movies brought to you by Stella. See. It does work, brand building. I remember’em.

He then moved on to the ill-fated ONdigital as Senior Brand Manager, drove its relaunch as ITV Digital with the genesis of the still famous ‘Al & Monkey’ campaign, recently redeployed for PG Tips, before joining MTV. He is on the Board of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Director of Robin Wight’s ‘Ideas Foundation’ and patron of a high profile Mental Health charity CALM - Campaign Against Living Miserably.

I’m really excited to see what he cooks up at SpinVox. Kudos to them for hiring him.

Just in case you’re on the hunt for a SpinVox primer:

SpinVox launched the world’s first voicemail-to-text service in 2004 in the UK and this year has launched its service in North America with further deployments scheduled for South Africa and Canada in the coming months. The company expects to go live with 12 deals in 2007, reaching an initial potential customer base of six million.

SpinVox services enable both Wireless 2.0 and Web 2.0 businesses with its range of voice-to-screen products which convert any voice to text and deliver it to any screen – mobile, computer or PDA. The most recent SpinVox deals include its launch with leading blog provider Six Apart to provide its 12 million LiveJournal customers with voice-powered blogging and the launch of its voicemail-to-text service with Cincinnati Bell in the U.S.

Go ahead and get yourself a test account at spinvox.com. It’s pure brilliance, the service.

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Originally uploaded by smstextnews.

I have never quite managed to get SoonR to work for me, I think because I wasn’t reading the instructions properly. I need to sit down and figure out exactly what I should be doing to connect it to my Apple(s).

However, this real world example from their recent email newsletter illustrates just how good a proposition it offers:

Andrew K. from San Francisco was trying to catch a standby flight for business. When he went to retrieve an email with the flight info, the email had been blocked by his employer’s anti-spam software. He knew the login information was on his home computer, but he needed to find it quickly. Then, he remembered that SoonR can use the power of desktop search to find any file. So he quickly logged onto SoonR, searched his computer, and instantly found the log-in information. He was able to check in online and made the flight!

Have you got experience with SoonR?

Jersey-based company Blubell Technologies have launched their new software app Blubell for Skype - a PC-based application that allows you to make and receive calls on Skype using your Bluetooth headset.

The software also provides mobile-like features such as voice dialing, voice recognition and caller identification.

Lars Nielsen, MD of Blubell Technologies commented, “We wanted to bring to the user a mobile-like experience - without the prohibitive charges associated with mobile telephony. We know that many users regularly initiate calls on mobile phones well within the Bluetooth range of their computer - and by using blubell‚ instead of a mobile phone, they can now do so in the same way but for free by making better use of the standard equipment many users already have rather than investing in dedicated VoIP equipment.”

You can download a free 14-day trial of Blubell for Skype from www.myblubell.com

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Originally uploaded by smstextnews.

Checked out MobiLuck? I went to visit them in Paris a while ago. They’ve got a hot understanding of the potential of mobile social networking and their service is extremely neat.

They’ve made the following updates to their online service:

- See people who have recently connected even if they’re not currently online
- A RADAR to find all your friends and new people nearby
- Search for people by age and gender, whether they’re connected, and whether they’ve uploaded their picture (important for checking out the good-lookers!)
- Search for people and places using tags or keywords
- Invite your friends to join in

The key challenge I have with MobiLuck is that it doesn’t yet seem to be available for Series 3 Symbian handsets — so for me, testing and playing with it is rather difficult.

On the plus side, the service is available for hundreds.. literally hundreds of different handsets.

And they’ve got a huge installed base. Millions.

I’ll ask the chap who’s speaking about Jaiku tomorrow about MobiLuck and see what he says.

Are they still knocking along at a decent pace? I haven’t seen ANY news about them recently. Heard much?