A colleague of mine is hunting for a SIM programmer — a tip top genius who can write applications directly on to sim cards. Do you have any suggestions or recommendations? Drop me a mail if you do — ewan@smstextnews.com.

Got this from eagle eyed James Whatley who spotted this when he was out walking.

I had a look on the JAG Communications website (jagmobiles.co.uk) but didn’t see any details at all…

That’s a fairly significant offering, eh? Especially if you get unlimited texts or calls.

Remember — wear a helmet!

I had a note in from Vodafone UK today to tell me about their new partnership with Lebara Mobile.

Lebara is a mobile MVNO aimed at permanently based UK immigrants and migrant workers in the UK who want to use their mobile to (primarily) call overseas. Right now, if you grab a Vodafone pay as you go sim from the local store, you’ll be knocked for a ton of cash to call abroad — but not if you get yourself a Lebara sim.

Unlike other MVNO announcements recently (I’m looking at you, Extreme Mobile), I think Lebara’s concept is smart — there is, I reckon, substantial demand from certain segments of the population for this kind of service.

Here are the details of the announcement:

Vodafone UK today announces a new MVNO partnership with Lebara Mobile as part of its wholesale strategy. Lebara Mobile is an MVNO that will provide a competitive way for permanently based immigrants in the UK, and migrant visitors and workers to the UK, to use their mobiles to call overseas.

This SIM-only pre-pay offer will be provided to customers under the Lebara brand, available through a mixture of outlets central to the migrant community. Customers will be supported by own language customer service before and after the purchase.

Tim Stone, director of new business development and wholesale at Vodafone UK, said: “We are delighted that Lebara Mobile is launching today. In March we set out the Vodafone UK strategy to drive revenue growth and, as part of this, our ambitions to grow our wholesale market share. We are very pleased to be working with Lebara Mobile which has proven experience of delivering successful services to the migrant market – a very sizeable market in the UK worth in the region of £500million. We are pleased to be the partner of choice for Lebara Mobile and look forward to reaching this exciting new market in the UK.”

“We are delighted to be working with Vodafone as our key strategic partner for the UK launch of Lebara Mobile. The Vodafone network allows us to offer our customers over 99% call coverage in the UK and allows our customers to make high quality international and national mobile phones calls.” Robert Gaskin, Lebara Mobile UK country manager.

The announcement builds on the agreements made this summer with Asda to deliver a new MVNO ‘Asda mobile’, with TomTom to deliver real-time traffic information to drivers, and more recently with The Carphone Warehouse as MVNO partner for ‘TalkMobile’. All of these partnerships, reflect Vodafone UK’s position as the wholesale strategic partner of choice.

Nadeem Mughal, CEO of custom-ringtone supplier, Voxtones reports that he had a super time at CTIA last week — and found a super reception from the delegates (That’s Nadeem there being interviewed).

If you haven’t tried a Voxtone, fly over to their site and order one for a few quid and try it out. Remember they’ll professionally produce almost whatever you want so be creative!

Have a read of this one in the LA Times. Although much of the evidence in the article is anecodotal, the underlying message — if it’s anywhere near accurate — is fascinating.

The concept being put forward is that email is being retired amongst upwardly mobile (no pun) Chinese who ‘treat Email with the same contempt as an answering machine’. The article goes on to suggest that the Chinese are demanding immediacy — via text messaging, or real time mobile-to-mobile messaging.

Link: Chinese get the message on texting - Los Angeles Times

The 20-year-old from China’s rural Henan province doesn’t own a computer. He visits the local Internet cafe to check his e-mail every couple of weeks.

That’s not to say Xu is out of touch. He just prefers tapping out text messages to his friends on his Lenovo cellphone — the most expensive piece of electronics gear he owns — over typing an e-mail on a computer keyboard.

“When I communicate with my friends, I use short messages,” Xu said. “I send messages in mornings and afternoons, asking, ‘Do you want to come out to eat?’ “

Just fascinating to consider.

It’s not available from Apple. You have to make it yourself. Or talk very, very politely to Geek Technique blogger, Mark Hoekstra and see if he’ll do one for you.

Here it is:

Why did he do this? Well…

Link: paint it black: the iPhone :: projects :: geek technique

Somehow, just like almost all my other gear, I want it to be different. Not necessarily prettier, just different, because it’s mine. So like it or loathe it, this was the general idea: paint it black

… it definitely reminds me of the Apple Newton.

Very funky!

Here’s what Mark’s iPhone would have looked like in the 1970s…

Thanks Stephen!

Ben Phillips, Commercial Director of MoMac, posted this on Facebook a moment ago. If you’re hunting for a position in mobile (you don’t necessarily need to have a track record in the industry), this could be for you:

I am currently looking for an enthusiastic individual with proven sales experience (In any area not mobile specific!) that wants to work for the leading mobile internet platform provider. Our clients range from Ministry of Sound to Conde Nast, from ITV to FHM.

Apart from working with me ;o) there are many benefits including access to world renowned brands and the wonderful world of mobile media.

I am keen to work on referral so if you know anyone that may be interest please get them to give me a shout for more information.

Business Development Manager

Competitive Salary / Benefits

London Based

MoMac is the UK’s Leading provider of ASP mobile development platforms. Working with all major Mobile Network Operators, as well as leading brands such as ITV, Glamour, GQ, FHM, NME and many more, MoMac’s cutting edge platform powers hundreds of dynamic subscription and download sites both on and off of operator portals. As part of our UK expansion, MoMac is looking to recruit the very best candidates within the mobile industry.

Position:

You will be responsible for managing new business activities, revenue generation and growth in acquisition. You will also be required to work with partners to provide new and exciting content and features to the end user. The right candidate will be working with leading brands and content publishers whilst leading the development of relationships within the mobile community.

Requirements:

The right candidate will have proven sales experience. You will be able to demonstrate a proven ability to work at all levels of management ranging from creative to commercial.

The ideal candidate wil lrelish the challenge of creating new projects and relationships. A highly motivated sales mentality is a must.

This is an excellent opportunity to add benefit to a leading mobile platform provider. If you are looking for a challenging, creative and rewarding career then please contact b.phillips@momac.net for further information.

Join the Facebook group here.

Link: New police text scheme is a big hit - Blaenau Gwent - South Wales Valleys - News - icWales

DEAF and hard of hearing people have declared Gwent Police’s new text messaging service an outstanding success.

The initiative, enabling those who face difficulties in contacting police with a phone call to access help via a mobile phone text message, was launched in April this year. Since then approximately 100 residents have signed up to the service.

OK so 100 people isn’t exactly a massive success, but it’s a start - especially for an area of low population density.

Myxer, a leader in mobile content delivery has surpassed the 3 million user mark today, a huge jump since they reached the 1 million user milestone only 6 months ago.

Myxer’s 3 million users are now actively downloading more than 7 million pieces of mobile content each month; roughly 3 downloads per second. There are currently over 150,000 ringtones, wallpapers and videos that are available for free on the ad-supported Myxer website from over 10,000 content providers.

“We think that reaching this milestone so quickly is a statement about how easy our platform and mobile content site are to use, and is also a clear confirmation of the growing demand for mobile content in general,” said Myk Willis, founder and chief technology officer of Myxer. “Our continued growth will be fueled by our aggressive recruitment of content partners, user adoption of new content types like video and over-the-air song downloads, and the vast international opportunity we are just beginning to tap into.”

Congrats to the team at Myxer for this great accomplishment!

Thanks Anthony, for sending me the PhoneFingers link.

PhoneFingers, priced at just under 7 euros for a 25-pack, are made for iPhone’s touch screen to prevent smudges and fingerprints.

The site explains that:

With the Phone Fingers you won’t have to clean your touch screen all the time and it’s an eye catcher too.

It’s DEFINITELY an eye catcher!

Just in case you were wondering, here are two frequently-asked-questions:

How do I put them on?
Gently uproll them on your finger without pressure.

That will, I’m sure, be a strange and possibly rewarding experience!

Can I use them more than one time?
Phone Fingers are made of very thin durable latex material. By using them gently they would last for a very long time with multiple usage.

Ah hah… interesting! Multi-use!

I’ll definitely get our Friday columnist, Ben Harvey, some of these…

I’ve seen the new Nokia N95 8GB and it’s a piece of genius. Think of the Nokia N95 — quicker, bigger screen and, of course, a lot lot lot more memory.

Mr S of Hutchison Whampoa was brandishing his handset in front of me a little while ago and I was very, very impressed with it.

Have you had a hands-on of the new 8GB N95 yet? Vodafone have the exclusive on it for the time being, here in the UK.

Link: E-Health Insider Primary Care :: NHSmail promotes free SMS for reminders

Contractors, Cable & Wireless’ head of frameworks, Ian Fowler, told E-Health Insider: “Since we launched the NHSmail service, we have seen the use of the SMS functionality grow. Currently we are seeing around 250,000 texts sent across the service per month, but we see the capabilities of this going much further.”

This is good news. The facility is available to any NHS doctor’s surgery — my only issue, I don’t know if the return-path for the messages is set. I think it’ll just be fire-and-forget. Ideally it would be useful if you could reply to your appointment reminder from your doctor — and for that reply to be delivered as an email into their inbox for action. I don’t think they do that yet. Anyway, brilliant to see the medium being used.

Great news from the team at SpinVox, their new service has enabled Voice-Driven posts to popular social networking services such as Facebook, Jaiku and Twitter. Just speak your post into any mobile handset and Social Networks through SpinVox will create the text and post it for you. No need to send an email, SMS etc.

London, UK. - October 25 2007
The power of social networking and microblogging increased significantly today with the announcement from SpinVox, the global leader in Voice-to-Screen messaging, that posting on Facebook, Jaiku and Twitter can be now achieved simply by using your voice. `Social Networks through SpinVox` enables voice-driven social networking from any mobile phone.

“The use of social networks and micro-blogging sites has exploded in the past few years, but, so far, they’ve lacked true mobility and so are not achieving their full potential. Whether you’ve just walked out of a concert or have discovered a great new place to eat, your voice can now be used in place of the keyboard to tell the world the news and capture your thoughts, emotions and experiences `in the moment` as and when they happen.”

Well *that* explains why James Whatley’s status updates on Facebook started appearing in quotation marks!

Check out more info here

Have a read of this one. It’s a difficult issue…

Link: Price for ‘premium’ text messages? $10,000 - The Red Tape Chronicles - MSNBC.com

Sean Clark pays extra each month for his cell phone service so his daughter Amanda can enjoy unlimited, no-charge text messaging. So the Bothell, Wash. man was stunned when his Sprint bill for September showed with nearly $10,000 in text message charges.

Now it’s worth noting that Sean Clark’s daughter — the girl in question — is described as a ‘developmentally disabled 18-year-old’.

A British company, Switch Fire, is mentioned in the article and account for about 13% of the chap’s daughter’s bill:

He also contacted the third-party text providers. One, Switchfire Ltd., a British firm, had charged for 642 messages sent from Aug. 14 to Sept. 5. At $1.99 a message, Clark’s total Switchfire bill was nearly $1,300.

The company refused to offer a refund, saying Amanda had knowingly authorized the charges. Clark provided MSNBC.com with e-mails he said were sent to him by Switchfire customer support manager named Dace Viesture.

“Having checked the history of your daughter’s number, it shows that she signed up for the service on 15 August by texting us ‘guys.’ In response to the request we then sent her the following text message:

‘Almost there! Please text the letter: ‘Y’ to: ‘74447′ to start. 14 textconnectusa.com Help?1-866-662-7132. Send STOP to end.100c per msg rcvd std msg fees,’ which she answered to with ‘yes’. This proves that she had read the previously sent text and confirmed she agreed with the information we sent to her,” the Switchfire e-mail said. “As to the age of your daughter - she has said in chat on various occasions that she is 18 years old, besides, the services she was using were not adult ones. As the service has been initiated and used, we are sorry to inform that you are not entitled to a refund.”

So, as far as Switch Fire are concerned, I don’t think there’s much more that they could have done. Since Sean’s daughter has replied ‘y’ to confirm that she’s opting in and that she’s acknowledged the service costs, she — on behalf of Sean (the bill payer) has explicitly indicated acceptance.

What do you think of this situation?

It’s a bit stupid for Sprint to simply just send a $10k bill without warning the bill payer when he got to, say, $1,000. Although do you recall when I ran up a £1,200 (or similar) data bill whilst abroad with Vodafone? No one phoned me from Vodafone. They just let me spend it…

With the end of the year getting closer and closer, SMS Text News wants to know…

What do you think was the one biggest thing in the mobile industry this past year?

and

What are your predictions for the biggest thing to come next year?

I’m in one of those pockets of zero-to-patcy 3UK coverage so I’ve been sat in this office working away via Bluetooth to my 3.5g-conneced Nokia N95. Obviously you’d get about, what, an hour, maximum, from the N95’s battery working as a modem — so I thoughtfully brought my charger. Both laptop and handset have been plugged in and activated for about 6 hours and the service via T-Mobile has been impeccable — fast. Very, very fast.

All is not lost with T-Mobile…

Link: cbs4.com - CBS4 Text Queen Awards ‘Neighbors’ $5-Grand Check

Earlier this month she accepted a challenge from phone giant Sprint who was trying to find the “Biggest Texter” in South Florida. The winner would receive a check for $5-thousand for their favorite cause.

For a solid week, in the kitchen, in the living room, on the way to work, Petrillo received thousands upon thousands of text messages.When the proverbial smoke cleared, Petrillo bested 8 other local TV, radio, and area personalities to win the contest.

Different…

Link: Qantas extends test of in-flight cellphone use

The Qantas trial has only allowed SMS text messages and e-mails - which is a great compromise. Weary jet-setters won’t have to worry about that annoying loud-talker taking the seat next to them. It looks like the rest of the world is set to allow in-flight mobile phone use of some sort.

Fantastic. I really like the concept of being able to send/receive text messages and email — when I want it, in the air. But I reaaaaally don’t want to listen to ‘I’m on the plane’ phone calls at ALL.

Interestingly, how many times have you witnessed someone use a Skyphone? You know many planes have them installed in seats already — but they’re a) very expensive and b) taboo — that is, I’ve never ever seen anyone use one! Have you?

I’ve been sat using the 3 Skype Phone for a day now and I’m loving it. I’m in the middle of a write-up about it, and the launch yesterday.

Following the success of their first auction in September 2007, mobile domain name registrar dotMobi are having another auction, kicking off tomorrow (31st October 2007).

Amongst the 100 “premium names” in the auction are such gems as car.mobi, gps.mobi, gay.mobi, kiss.mobi, love.mobi and map.mobi. If the first auction is anything to go by, the stakes will be high - back in September hosting.mobi sold for $101,000 plus bank.mobi and download.mobi both sold for more than $50,000 apiece.

“The success of our first online auction generated more than $850,000, proving that the market is seeing a strong demand for mobile content. Already, more than 7.5 million pages of .mobi content have been created, many of them using tools that dotMobi makes available for free like http://ready.mobi/ and http://site.mobi/,” said Trey Harvin, CEO of dotMobi. “The auction proceeds allow dotMobi to make tools like these available to encourage the growth of the mobile web.”

Tim Schumacher, CEO of Sedo, said, “dotMobi’s premium names are specifically designed for brands wanting to reach a mobile audience The success of dotMobi’s first auction showed that there is a strong market demand for the mobile web in general and for .mobi names specifically. Additionally, the auction approach of making these premium .mobi domains available for ownership gives countless people and brands an equal opportunity to secure these most desirable domains.”

The auction - handled by domain specialists Sedo - is open to any company or individual, subject to Sedo’s standard auction terms and conditions with additional dotMobi requirements for buyers. Full information, including the list of auction names, is located on the dotMobi web site at http://premiumauction.mobi/.

ROK Entertainment Group, the UK-based specialist mobile applications developer, has launched its first streamed mobile TV deployment in India through local operator BSNL.

Offering an initial portfolio of 6 channels to include English Music Channel (EMN), Hindi music channel (Geet), an entertainment channel (Bindaas), a Bollywood channel (Zoom), a live Hindi news channel plus a Regional Offering for each Zone from ETV networks for a monthly fee of INR 150 (approximately £1.90), the BSNL Mobile TV service is called “Tiny TV”.

“We’re delighted to be working with BSNL on the delivery of mass-market mobile TV in India” said Laurence Alexander, CEO of ROK “as we all recognise India to be such a dynamic and fast-growing mobile market.”

ROK TV technologies allow video to stream to mobiles at up to 14 frames per second over 2.5G via GPRS and up to 24 frames per second over 3G and Wi-Fi.

“BSNL, with more than 28 million subscribers in India, represents another major step forward in our global deployment of streamed mobile TV ” added Alexander.

ROK is in the midst of deploying 30 white-label versions of its streamed mobile TV service worldwide and, in May this year, agreed to be acquired by US publicly-listed company CyberFund (OTC: CYFD) in a Share Exchange Agreement.

Link: BBC NEWS | England | Merseyside | Mobile appeal for Rhys witnesses

Police investigating the killing of 11-year-old Rhys Jones are sending issuing appeals directly to mobile phones in a bid for more information.

Detectives are using a device that can send messages to Bluetooth enabled phones in Croxteth within a 100m radius of the transmitter.

After a brief hiatus last week, the Flower Fairy has returned.

This week’s delivery is on it’s way to James Geddes of Say Hello. who was nominated annonymously. James and Say Hello have been doing some hot new radio spots that are really making an impact.

Great work James! We hope you enjoy your flowers.

Mobile technology and entertainment company ROK have just announced they’re behind the ‘Ask Terry’ Q&A text service service launched today on UK sports radio station TalkSPORT.

Commenting on the initiative, Laurence Alexander, CEO of ROK said “TalkSPORT is the perfect medium for reaching keen sports fans who find themselves with a burning question that needs answering.

“Our answers to questions asked have a real, live, human interface - most often with a lot of humour involved - and in most cases we are able to reply within 10 minutes”.

Listeners are invited to text ‘Terry’ to 81089 with any question they need answering and they will receive a personalised ‘human’ answer from ROK’s panel of experts via SMS. Questions cost £1.00 each.

“We think our audience will love the talkSPORT Ask Terry service” said Kevin Bird Commercial Director of talkSPORT Radio “and will help put an end to those arguments sports fans have, for example, over who scored the winner in the 1972 Cup Final.”

According to ROK, Terry is a ‘bloke in a dressing gown in the attic with a load of encyclopedias’.  The company claims the UK SMS Q&A market is growing rapidly - with an estimated 1-2 million questions being asked every month. It’s a sector already served well by companies such as Texperts (formerly 82ASK) and AQA - and although this latest venture is aimed at sports fans, ROK say they’ll answer any question on any subject.

Incidently, Allan Clarke of Leeds scored the only goal in the 1972 Cup Final, against Arsenal, with a powerful header from 15 yards out in the 53rd minute.

Link: Majority Do Not Want Mobile Phones on Planes - Survey

Following on from news that the Telegraph’s campaign to ban mobiles on flights has reached 4,000 signatories, travel website TripAdvisor has carried out a worldwide survey and come to a very similar conclusion - phones on planes are bad bad bad..

According to a survey of travel trends by the website, TripAdvisor - some 78 percent of travelers believe that mobile phones should not be allowed on flights. TripAdvisor said that it surveyed more than 2,500 travelers from around the world for its annual trends report.

“The major trends we’re observing are that travelers value cleanliness above all else and are becoming more environmentally conscious,” said Michele Perry, director of communications for TripAdvisor. “Based on TripAdvisor’s TravelCast, the top emerging world destination is Jerba, Tunisia, and Thailand is the hottest country, featuring two destinations in the world’s top ten.”