Link: SMS confusion leads to hold-up false alarm | Herald Sun

A WOMAN sparked a frantic police response in central Brisbane today after misreading a text message from her boyfriend about a possible armed hold-up. However, a police spokeswoman said the incident was a false alarm and the result of a “miscommunication”.

She said a man had made verbal threats over the phone to the company, and one of its employees sent a text message about the incident to his girlfriend. However, the girlfriend “read it the wrong way” and told police there was an armed hold-up at the business.

Although not officially unveiled until later today, we’ve got all the details of the new Skype mobile - launched in conjunction with mobile operator 3. Ewan will be at the press launch later, so expect pictures soon!

The 3 Skypephone is a fully-featured 3G Internet phone with Skype built-in. In addition to Skype calls the phone makes conventional calls and can be used to access 3’s broad range of other internet services.

The handset was developed by Skype and 3 in partnership with Qualcomm, using Qualcomm’s BREW platform to enable Skype to work with core handset features such as address book and messaging. It’s got 3G, a 2-megapixel camera, mp3 player, mobile TV and internet access.

According to the information available, it’s a “small and shiny” handset, weighing in at a tiny 86 grams, and comes in black or white, with a blue or pink trim. Standby time is 320 hours, with a talk time of 270 minutes or 170 minutes of video calling. The screen is a 176 x 220 2.0″ QCIF 262K colour display, and the handset itself has 16MB of external memory plus room for up to 1GB of microSD memory card (it comes with a 256M card as standard).

Price-wise, the 3 Skypephone will be available from 3Stores or on the web from 2nd November, at £49.99 on pay-as-you-go or free with a contract. You get free Skype to Skype calls included (as expected) as long as you’re on a contract or you top up your credit monthly.

More news as it comes in..

Link: Facebook sued for mis-sending dirty texts | The Register

News in from the legal trigger-happy land of the free (via The Register) - Facebook is being sued by an Indiana woman for sending ‘adult content’ via text.

Earlier this week, an Indiana mommy named Lindsey Abrams filed a federal class action suit against the Microsoft-propped social networking site. She’s claiming that it sends thousands of unauthorized text messages to innocent bystanders across the country - and that many of these messages contain “adult content”.

The whole thing seems to come down to a single problem: number recycling. Facebook allows you to sign up with your mobile to receive text alerts when people send you messages, and charges you for each message received. So far, so good. The problem is that they have no idea if you’re still using that number - so it’s possible that, due to the mobile operators number recycling policy, you can end up with the number of someone already registered on Facebook when you take out a new contract.

El Reg cites Santa Clara University law professor and tech law blogger Eric Goldman, who reckons the action will be dismissed under the US Communications Decency Act.

“[The act] states that websites are not liable for what their users say or do,” he told the The Reg. “User provide the telephone numbers. Users provide the messages being sent. And Facebook just forwards them. It may be annoying to get a message that isn’t directed to you, but Facebook isn’t to blame - just you can’t blame the telephone company when someone makes a crank call.”

Canadian mobile operator Rogers is uping the stakes with mobile data speeds in North America, unveiling what it calls the fastest download speeds in the country.

Following the expansion of it’s HSPA service to 25 Canadian markets earlier this month, Rogers - which offers service in the country under the Rogers and Fido brands - has today announced it’s begun field trials of its 3.5G 7.2Mbit/s service in Brampton and Montreal.

“The consumer appetite for mobile applications is undeniable in Canada and around the world,” said Rob Bruce, President, Rogers Wireless.” The data speeds achieved in this trial will enable Rogers to meet our customers’ needs with the most advanced, innovative services today and in the future.”
Rogers is the first wireless provider in North America to trial peak speeds of 7.2 Mbps and is among the top one percent of GSM carriers worldwide supporting 7.2. This trial launches the next evolution of Rogers GSM network, and represents a significant investment in leading-edge technologies. Rogers will have spent approximately $500 million over the past two years upgrading its network towards providing Canadians with the fastest and most reliable wireless network.
“Rogers is continuing to trial, launch and deliver innovative and reliable next generation wireless telecommunications services to Canadians,” says industry analyst, Mark Goldberg, of Mark H. Goldberg and Associates Inc. “The availability of 3.5G mobile services in our own backyard keeps Canada at the front of the world stage with respect to telecommunications services and applications.”

I’ve been trying to use my T-Mobile handset (ostensibly to call SMS Text News blogger, Alex for a natter) but actually to call anyone. Alas, I’m getting network busy … and have been for a good few minutes.

Crazy.

I can’t recall where I found out about eBuddy’s new mobile instant messenger application. I’ve only been using it for a day on my Nokia E61i, however I’m finding it quite smart.

I’m normally a big Agile Messenger user but for some reason it’s just been totally disagreeing with my E61i in recent months, leading to me developing a persistent hankering for a Blackberry sporting Google Talk.

eBuddy’s application is really simple and very easy to use. I downloaded and signed-in on MSN within 60 seconds. I’m still used to the Agile way of doing things — that is, you type your text into the screen below the conversation flow. With eBuddy, you’re taken to a text input screen first to enter your text, then you return back to the conversation. Flicking between user conversations is as simple as pressing left or right on the Nokia’s cursor control pad.

Right now, the eBuddy application supports AOL, Yahoo and MSN — I’m sure (and I hope) they’ll soon offer Google Talk support through a future update. Meantime the application looks solid and functional. I’m going to try and give it a good amount of use.

They’re serious about development. Their site reports that they have beta versions of the application for the usual suspects (Symbian, Windows Mobile) but also offer support for NEC, LG, Sharp, Siemens and Sagem…!

Get hold of the application here.

For a little while now, The Daily Telegraph in London has been running an online petition campaigning to keep flights mobile-free.

I would actually like to be able to get a data connection so that I could send and receive email messages; however I wouldn’t like it to be automatic. I’d like to be able to deliberately switch on the facility, rather than be granted it automatically.

Of course, it goes without saying, sitting next to some idiot blabbering that ‘they’re on the plane’ would be shocking. So in that sense, I definitely support the Telegraph’s campaign.

Visit the official campaign site.

Mike’s prediction looks to be coming true…

Link: The Raw Feed: Starbucks Tests Free Wi-Fi In California

Well, the prediction is happening… sort of. Starbucks is TESTING FREE WI-FI at some 1,000 Southern California stores (until October 31).

So this is quite interesting, particularly after I went absolutely nuts about a year ago when I realised just how much T-Mobile was charging, per minute, for access to WiFi in Starbucks stores.

I’ve since used my T-Mobile WiFi account (I added that to my monthly subscription a while ago) quite a few times to perform business-life-saving updates or edits when I’ve been on the road.

If you’re in California, perhaps you could pop into your nearest Starbucks and confirm if they’ve got free WiFi?

I suspect that free Starbucks WiFi will be a massive draw for passing and regular customers. That’s provide that folk don’t spend the whole afternoon hogging tables whilst working on WiFi and only buying one bottle of water…

Introducing free (inter)national WiFi in Starbucks would also change the dynamic on wireless devices. I can’t be arsed, for example, to configure my Nokia N95 to find the T-Mobile hotspot, then LOG ON to the access page and type my extremely long and annoying username and password assigned by the service. It would take a good five minutes of typing to do this. So I never bother using WiFi on my N95 — or my iPhone, for that matter, unless it’s free to use.

It’d also prompt a heck of a lot of other store chains to take a look at their pay-WiFi (or lack of WiFi) — e.g. McDonalds and BT Openzone here in the UK.

This week’s column from Ben Harvey (look away if you react negatively to the word whorebox) makes a call from a telephone box whilst lost at midnight in deepest Hampshire.

And thus, we begin.

The Horror

Time, or, rather, the way we feel it pass, is a funny thing. Once something is more than a few weeks old it’s almost as if it might never have happened, becoming as irrelevant as black & white movies, or the English Civil War, or that era of time, long-lost in the mists of history, when people went round saying “Whaaazzzuuup”.

And, in the same way that some things are always as fluid as quicksand – like fashion, or slang, or Orange price-plans - some are always the same, such as the fact that your Grandparents have always been old, or that Cadburys Creme Eggs used to be bigger, or that payphones have always been a hideous embarrassment that you’d rather shower in hippo-wee than actually use.

Phonebooths are admittedly much-maligned. In fact, there are only a few thing held in such universal contempt; Gary Glitter. George Bush. The Health & Safety Directorate. Speed Cameras. It’s the rate of decline that’s shocking, though - ten years ago the sight of a traditional, solid, old-school phonebooth on a Village Green would be listed, in terms of Nice British Icons, right up there with Handel and Cricket and Tea and Teaching Johnny Foreigner Some F*cking Manners. The inner-city ones, though, the glass & steel rectangles, were always - rightly - hated as being nothing more than notice-boards for prostitutes. When the mobile, in the 90s, became as ubiquitous as Facebook it was the beginning of the end for them.

You can still see them, lurking in the hubbub of towns and villages, sat there, sadly, as unused and unloved as the one condom stowed hopefully in your dodgy uncle’s wallet. Ask yourself; with the exception of orchestrating drug-deals, when was the last time you used one? Or when was the last time that you even got a call from someone in one, the conversation punctuated by the distant pumping of 20p pieces into the clunky maw of that stupidly large silver box? It’s a humiliation just to be forced to use one.

So, in a desperate attempt to stop haemorrhaging cash by having to maintain this disparate, desperate network, BT have tried various tactics, all of them feckless, ranging from installing Playschool-style web-access points to plastering their glass sides with adverts, which at least gave the denizens of our cities a little privacy when jetting their veins full of skag. It’s an oft repeated question, why BT don’t ditch every single one of these useless cubicles, and the only possible answer is that it’s a lingering hangover from the terms & conditions of their privatisation. Either that or they like the skag as much as the next man.

Anyway, it is with great regret that I have to admit that, this week, I had to use one. It was a moment of madness and I hope that this frank admission will draw a line under this unfortunate episode in my life. I hope that the media respects the privacy of my family during this difficult time.

My god! My god. It happened three days ago and I still feel unclean. I keep having visions of a dented, scratched receiver, caked with spittle and earwax, dangling like a bedraggled pendulum through the pool of tramp-piss that covered the loveless concrete floor of that firebombed whorebox. It was, though, a matter of life and death; I’d gone out for a bit of a run, you see, and had gotten lost.

“Gotten lost” is a bit of an understatement, actually. Not since Columbus pitched up in America, expecting elephants & Biryani, has a human being been so woefully misnavigated. Training for the Great South Run this weekend meant that I was putting in my last jaunt of seven miles. One missed turn was all it took to guide me down a series of moonlit country lanes, frost forming on my gloves and bleak despair forming in my exhausted, flailing heart. And so it was that the stage was set for my moment of true disgrace.

I left the house at about 8:45pm. At 10:30pm, ten confused miles later, I stumbled across a village called - rather improbably - Ashley. The village of Ashley consists of three houses, a well, a noticeboard stating the historical importance of the well, a sign warning drivers not to reverse into the noticeboard and, saving my life, a phone-box. This being rural Hampshire, there were of course no little postcards advertising local prostitutes, but that’s only because the prostitutes around here can’t read or write.

I will just digress for a moment and state that I’ve always been surprised when the police & judiciary spend so much time, money and effort on vice-squads, arrests, trials, judges etc., when all they really need to do to stamp out the sex-trade in this country would be to eliminate those colourful, collectable, gynaecologically-educational little cards by just banning blu-tack.

Anyway, where was I. Ah yes, I was in the middle of nowhere. I would have knocked on the door of one of the few houses but people who deliberately choose to live as far away as possible from other humans often object to having sweaty, panting men hammer them awake in the middle of the night, and often shoot first, saw your body up in a hay-baler, feed the lumps to the pigs and then ask questions later. As such my one hope was the disgusting, grubby, crappy, retardedly-primitive payphone sat squatting there like a little red toad. Given the state that I was in, brain fogged with insipient hypothermia, it should really have shone out like some holy miracle, glowing with hope, and I’m sure it would have done, had the light not been kicked out by some shithead kid, it being a bloody phonebox.

Anyway, there I was, lit only by the stars, the frozen breath from my wheezing lungs painting frost on the few panes of glass that hadn’t been broken - it being an old-style whorebox, one of the few original red ones that hadn’t been uprooted to make shower-cubicles for Americans- and it was then that the deepest of shames took me; it wasn’t the booth that saved me; it was Holly Valance.

Yes. It’s true. The only reason I could actually call my brother (who guided me home, via Google Maps) was because I remembered the number for 0800-REVERSE, the reverse-charges service that let me make the call in the first place, cross-country runners not being known for taking much coinage out with them. And the only reason that number stuck in my head was because of a dim memory of an argument over whether or not Holly Valance was fit or not. So there we have it. I owe my life to an crapped-out Australian in a crapped-out whorebox. Torrents of shame. Gushing, withering torrents of shame.

I just hope I can serve as a warning to the rest of you all - if you can keep your battery charged, and if you can remember to take your mobile with you whenever you leave the house then you can live a life that’s totally, completely, blissfully whorebox free. For I was like you, once. The only thing that’s keeping me from dying of humiliation is the simple fact that each of those vandalised little lavatories is a monument, a testament to how the mobile-phone industry has totally owned personal calls in recent history. To borrow a phrase: ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!

Both 3UK and Skype (already partnered with 3UK’s X-Series service), are planning a press briefing this coming Monday to talk about developments between the two companies.

I’ll be there, possibly liveblogging, although Stuart Dredge of TechDigest will probably be there too, MacBook in hand, typing away big time — so I might leave that to him. I watched him briefly at the Blyk launch and he was knocking out the words almost as they were said, straight into what looked like the TechDigest publishing system. I’m definitely bringing my camera though…

It’s going to be an interesting set of announcements, I’m sure.

I had a note in from Alfie at moblogUK to let me know that their The Big Art Mob service (designed for Channel4) has been shortlisted for the World Telemedia Eureka Awards. Super news - congratulations to all there.

If you’d like to vote for them, you can do so by texting EUREKA D to +44 7748 358 690.

I’m pleased to see ROK Comics (Eureka B) and Today on 3 Live (Eureka C) in the running too.

I’ve sent in votes for all of them!

Do you remember M&S Mobile?

I was in Marks & Spencer, the famous British retailer, the other day. I had purchased my socks and as I was about to exit the store, I saw a sign advertising their electronics department.

‘Ah hah! I’ll pop up and see what’s going on with M&S Mobile,’ I thought.

Answer? Nothing. Nada. The store clerk explained to me that they ‘no longer did that’.

I don’t recall reading any announcements about the M&S Mobile switch-off. It must have been retired silently or with little press. It was never really going to get anywhere as I remember commenting back in August last year.

Here’s proof, for posterity, that M&S did — once — have an MVNO:

I’ve recovered sufficiently from the 11 hour flights, internal US flights and the rather debilitating jet lag to be able to write a comprehensive overview of the SMS Text News Unlimited Drinks event that we held in Los Angeles last week.

Jeb of Brilliant Expos did some phenomenal work to help us organise the event. His first task was to hunt for the top place in downtown Los Angeles for us to hold the event. Although Jeb’s a regular in and around the LA area, he did a ton of research before recommending we hold the event at The Edison.

The Americans do entertainment very, very well indeed. When it comes to bars, they’re particularly effective — and when it comes to Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the planet, expectations are raised significantly. So when I checked out The Edison, my this-should-be-good radar was set at 10. How was it? Top, top quality. Brilliant. Fantastic. It’s a converted private power station that extends about 3 or 4 floors beneath the ground — picture a huge cavern, expensively decorated and smartly laid out, with numerous bars, dramatic lighting and original features (you can still see a lot of the generators in situ — Do talk to floor manager Juan at The Edison if you’re thinking of booking an event.)

Speaking of generators, that’s where we were. We were allocated The Generator Room for the evening and served by a dedicated waitress who brought forth unlimited amounts of alochol, soft drinks (for me) and wicked food.

First, the key elements: Sponsors. Thank you to Frith PR, WOM World (Nokia) and the Edison Team (who sponsored the Glenlivet whisky for the evening). Without the support of these partners, we wouldn’t have been able to put on the event.

Here I am pointing out the sponsors on our welcome-board at the event:

- Frith PR (based in San Francisco), together with their sister company, London-based Sonus PR, comprise one of the world’s best telecoms-only public relations firms. I’ve got an interview with one of their owners, Martin Smith, coming shortly. Thank you Frith!

- The team at WOM World, by way of sponsorship, sent us over a huge box of the latest and greatest Nokia N-Series handsets. WOM World is a Nokia™ sponsored resource providing latest news, comment and feedback on all things about the Nokia Nseries from the world of social media and beyond. More about the devices later (they went down a storm).

Jeb and I arrived just before 5pm to get setup. The first thing we had to arse about with was the roll-up banner sign. I’d brought it from London (the air stewardess was convinced I was a classical musician carrying some expensive instrument, ‘What kind of instrument?’ she asked. ‘Er, it’s a banner, sorry…’)

After a significant amount of arsing around, the sign was up, then it was time for the now traditional picture-in-front:

This is me:

This is Jeb:

(Those are genuine generators from the 1900s in the background)

Then we arranged the handets on a table. Already The Edison was filling up and quite a lot of people were beginning to eye-up the boxes we had pilled:

WOM World sent us:
- Nokia N76
- Nokia N93i
- Nokia N800 tablet
- Nokia N91 8GB
- Nokia N95

We took’em out their boxes and put’em on the table ready for the Unlimited Drinks audience to check out. These devices are like gold dust, especially in Los Angeles where nearly everyone is walking around with a piece-of-crap handset from five years ago.

Juan, the Floor Manager at The Edison, took advantage of a quiet period prior to opening to sit and geek-out with Jeb and I. He explained that his Treo was really beginning to annoy him and was completely wowed by the N95’s picture and video capabilities — and, I think, supremely impressed a the N93i’s near DVD quality video.

5pm arrived quickly so Jeb and I quickly took a look at the food menu and ordered a load of different platters. I then grabbed the camera and took a picture of us both:

Then guests began arriving. I was looking forward to a more intimate opportunity to network with people — last time, at Unlimited Drinks London, the main issue I had was not having enough time to talk to everyone. With only 50 people across the whole evening, the Los Angeles drinks offered far more opportunity for me to sit and chat with people, as I was doing in this photo:

In fact I think I was busy geeking-out over the N95 which, whatever way you look at it, is still a magnificent handset.

I was delighted when I spied Aly Govani, Senior Business Development Manager of MX Telecom USA waltz into the Generator Room with friend Jon Reynolds. I’d been looking forward to meeting Aly, as a respresentative of MX. I’ve only ever spoken to Alex Moir at MX in New York and never actually put face-to-name with anyone from their US operation before. Aly was buzzing with energy and excitement about the mobile industry there in the West Coast. The big media companies — and the smaller, nimbler startups — are really grabbing hold of the text medium and making it work for them. Aly had just come fresh from securing a wicked deal with a huge media company in the area. Nice one Aly. I summoned our nice waitress and demanded Aly and Jon order.

Here’s Aly with Sean Malatesta from India Games, next to Ryan and Matthew from Waterfall Mobile:

Sean bounded into the area radiating positivity before machine-gunning recommendations, contacts and suggestions at me — I’ve known him for years as a brilliant dealmaker. He’s Senior Vice President at India Games (view his profile), continually pushing the American games marketplace forward. If you’re doing anything in mobile games, do connect with Sean. Within moments of meeting he got out his Sony Ericsson and showed me a new raft of mini-games based on US version of The Office that, I reckon, will keep me entertained for hours.

I’d been waiting to meet the chaps from Waterfall Mobile for a while after I caught sight of their MsgMe service and then did a story on it. Matthew Silk, Executive Vice President and Ryan Cohen, business development, strode into the event with colleague Ty Braswell. Waterfall (backed by Vista) have three main services — MsgMe, AlertU (campus alerts) and Futuretxt (text scheduling tool). I recall spending quite a lot of time complimenting Matthew on the simplicity of their MsgMe service.

Ty Braswell (above, with Martin of Frith PR) was pretty impressed with the Nokia N95 and within moments we were discussing the third screen and where he saw the next steps for the entertainment industry that, bluntly, hasn’t and still doesn’t understand mobile. We got on to the subject of Sony (Ty was VP of Sony Connect for a while - I found this profile of him online) and then the party really started as I sat back and thought about all the wicked Sony devices I’ve owned.. and how much I actually loved my Mini Disc player. As we talked more about the third screen (’mobile’), I thought I definitely had to connect Ty to Bruce at ROK Entertainment.

Martin Smith together with Teresa and Stephanie, made up the Frith PR contingent. The last time I’d been in the same room as Martin, he was constructing a public relations strategy for one of my companies that supremely delivered. I spent a bit of time with Martin and Teresa (although I didn’t get a lot of time to talk to their colleague Stephanie, who was admiring the WOM World handsets) — I took the opportunity to fire a series of questions at Martin that comprise a Q&A interview about his perspective of the North American wireless market. I’ll publish that shortly.

I saw Mike Webb stride into the room and went over to introduce myself to him. Mike, a friend of Jeb, looks after channel sales for Silex Technology, the people behind many-a-peripheral, including the wiDoc - something I really need to get. Amongst other things, it enables you to synchronise your iPod via wireless so you don’t have to keep on plugging it into your computer when you’re using your iPod in the living room (for example). Nice.

The waitress was kept busy arriving back and forth with cocktails, whisky, beer, wine and nice food:

A few people asked why I wasn’t drinking alcohol and why I was more or less necking Coca Cola. Simple: Jet Lag. Although I did have one or two ‘french fries’ (’chips’):

… and if I’d had a moment, I’m sure I could have been persuaded to try some of The Edison’s very own caviar egg things:

I bumped into Rachel Braver and Darrin Hammer next. Rachel is Director of Public Relations for GLAD — which stands for the Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness. What’s that got to do with mobile, you might think? Tons. TONS. Rachel’s working hard to encourage the adoption of mobile and wireless technology by many organisations (public and private) to aid the Deaf. We briefly discussed the huge benefits that just having a mobile handset brings to someone who’s deaf — from being able to easily communicate with friends and family who’re out and about, to peace of mind when you’re driving (e.g. being able to text for help with a broken down car). The critical element is awareness. Often too little thought goes into the development of wireless services (see my post about the Automobile Association’s service for the Deaf here in the UK).

David Segura, Business Development Manager for (the newly funded) Twistbox then arrived with colleague Russell Malixi, Product Manager (off-deak marketing). Both chaps were filled with enthusiasm for the mobile industry. I talked for quite a while with Russell about Twistbox’s range of services and how most of their business is done outside the continental US. Both chaps gave me an excellent introduction to Twistbox’s business — Twistbox is a global producer and publisher of mobile content, for example, in the adult content space (they’re on deck with the likes of Vodafone UK), in mobile games (check twistboxgames.com) plus they run 50 mobile TV channels live across 15 countries. If you’re looking to do business with Twistbox, look up David Segura at their Sherman Oaks, CA office.

Here’s a pic of Russell:

And David (with Martin of Frith in the background):

Here I am wondering why most of America is walking around with such poor devices, whilst David, Amir (Howard Forums member) and Russell stare on:

There was plenty of opportunity for geeking out over various handsets:

I took a particularly shine to the Nokia N76 which I felt was a brilliantly conceived form… ultra SLIM yet with the power and flexibility of Symbian. I made a mental note to closely consider hunting for one on eBay (there’s an auction for one right now ending in 22 minutes…)

Amir and Aly (also a Howardforums member) lost no time in evaluating each handset on display:

Here’s the N91, I hadn’t actually had a hands-on experience with this bar seeing it’s plastic equivalent in various mobile stores:

The N800 drew possibly the largest amount of attention after the N95:

There was no missing the stark beauty of the Nokia N93i. Yes it’s a large one compared to many handsets, but.. come on… near DVD quality video and a brilliant camera:

Here’s my favourite N76. Ever since the StarTac, I’ve always liked handsets that wrap around your face so you can speak into them (instead of speaking into open air with most handsets):

The ever gorgeous N95:

And two extras — I brought along my E65 and my E61i:

I had a super time in Los Angeles — thanks to everyone who came along to Unlimited Drinks and thank you once again to Frith PR, WOM World and the team at The Edison.

We’ll be back again shortly!

Link: Mac Rumors: Apple iPhone is 4th Top Selling Mobile Phone in U.S.

Strategy Analytics states that the iPhone has been the top selling phone for AT&T accounting for 13% of all AT&T phone sales, which makes it the 4th top selling handset in the U.S.

Well, maybe there’s hope for the dire US handset marketplace, afterall?

Update: Do check Ricky’s comment below — he links to a slightly irate Russell Beattie who points out that ‘4th’ isn’t anything to be proud of, considering the hype and marketing behind the device.

However, let me say this: In a marketplace where, despairingly, right now, people are walking into mobile operator stores and *paying* for 5-year old (yet newly manufactured) featureless Motorola handsets complete with a 24 month contract, the fact some people are selecting an iPhone warms my mobile heart. Of course, an iPhone-sporting public aren’t entirely useful to the raft of mobile operators around the planet who’ve made it their business to create games, applications and services for the likes of Symbian or Windows Mobile. But at least they can adapt to the iPhone — and the iPhone doesn’t render the premium text path unsuable. If anything, hopefully the iPhone will, along with existing efforts, push more modern handsets from the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson into the forefront in America.

Otherwise, it’s just dire. Dire. Absolutely dire. The amount of times I had to stop in total despair walking around Los Angeles… LOS ANGELES, come on, it’s meant to be a hip place, modern, with-it… and the teenagers sitting next to me in The Cheesecake Factory bring out 100% grade-A shite handsets. Send a text. Then carry on talking. The handset, for many, will never — not in the next five years, anyway — be more than a functional communications device.

And while that continues, the mass marketplace across America will remain the domain of the quick-draw holstered Motorola RAZR crowd who spend $25 a month AND NO MORE on their telecoms services. Because why should they? $25 a month should be enough for anyone, right? A few minutes, a few texts and a once-in-the-blue-moon call to an auntie in England.

So, the iPhone is doing well in America? Good. Thankfully. PRAISE BE TO JOBS. At least SOMEONE has strode into the market and shaken it up. He’s done everyone a very big favour. Forced some innovation and hopefully awoken the concept in many-a-mind that your handset is not just a glorified walkie talkie but a personal communications and multimedia wonderland of sorts. So instead of just getting the 34th iteration of the RAZR when your two year contract is up in 2010, maybe you’ll take a look at the new version of the Nokia N95, or a Sony Ericsson K890 or similar.

Gahh.

I really have to put blinkers on when I’m walking around in America lest I start grabbing people and marching them to the nearest Nokia store.

Just a note in from Lisa at iTagg to tell me that until the end of October, they’re offering bulk UK text service for 3.5p per text plus VAT. I think this may well be for existing customers only but it’s worth checking — www.itagg.com for more info.

I’ll write it up shortly. I’ve still got the Unlimited Drinks Los Angeles event percolating about my head so I need to blog that first.

Meantime here’s a pic of me at the 3UK launch this evening.

(Self portrait)

Arse. I had another look at Vodafone, as I do every quarter or so.

Still, still, still, they’re hawking 35p a minute to call another UK mobile network with a straight face.

Yes, I know that your calls are rarely screwed up as they are with T-Mobile in my experience, however at least, the majority of the time, T-Mobile works OK.

Can I bring myself to swap to Voda? Would they bring themselves to provide services to me?

Geez. 35p a minute is just a bit … I think I need to keep with the program. It’s a ridiculous price to charge once you’ve used up your minutes.

1800 minutes, by the way, goes quickly if you’re a mobile blogger. That’s 1 hour a day — or 6 x 10 minute calls, per day. Not unexpected. I don’t want to get to the 20th of the month (for example) and then start being pillaged for 35p a minute for my calls.

You agree to 75 quid a month in the store, you see, then the bill arrives and you remember they have to add on VAT. That’s £88.13 in total.

Now assume that from the 20th to the 30th of the month, I make 6 x 10 minute calls a day to other UK mobiles.

60 minutes @ 35p = £21

Multiply by 10 days = £210 and add on VAT, bringing the total cost to £246.75.

Add on my original £88.13 price plan.

Total Vodafone bill: £334.88 for the month.

Arse. That’s WHY my bills were so high when I was a Vodafone user you see.

Deary me. Well, this pricing structure will change in time, I’m sure.

You know I’m getting wound up by T-Mobile UK disconnecting regularly. Not on every call, but regularly. It really is a wind-up.

I’m considering swapping to Vodafone pay-as-you-go.

Strange. I never thought I’d write those words.

No matter how you paint it, ‘pay-as-you-go’ has a reeeeeeeeeeeeeelly bad reputation.

I just don’t know whether arsing around with a series of monthly contracts is worth it. I spend about 200 a month on T-Mobile. I’m more or less ‘committed’ to that because of the price plans I’ve selected.

I wonder… really, wonder… if I swapped to a pay-as-you-go SIM for a month and took advantage of one of the other operator special offers (’unlimited’ texts if you top up on a Friday or whatever)… what would my bill look like?

Hmmm.

Status Updates
Originally uploaded by k3ith.

Keith, regular SMS Text News reader, HUGE Blackberry user and HUGE Facebook user, was amongst the first to get hold of the Facebook for Blackberry application this afternoon.

He stuck the application on to his handset and had a peer around. He kindly took a load of screenshots of the application in use on his Blackberry.

Keith’s less than impressed, contributing this comment to the related news story on SMS Text News:

Ok. maybe i have missed something on the “download” of the application.

I have it on my Blackberry and I am stunned at how useless it really is. I can’t receive messages from people, as it only appears that I can send them.

I have two messages sitting in my inbox on Facebook that appear when i log into the website but don’t appear when I log into the FB application. I can’t view the Facebook mini or news feed on the application. Essentially, it is a one way application to allow you to send messages, send invites, poke people, upload photos or update my status.

Thats it.

It appears to be quite a poor excuse for a Blackberry Facebook Application.

Sorry Blackberry / Facebook team, you missed out on this one.

You can see the gallery here.

In fairness to the Facebook & Blackberry teams, there will be a lot of people who, I’m sure, will be content with poking folk, sending messages/invites and uploading photos — as well as setting status.

I wonder if they’ve plans to extend the application a little more? I’ll need to get hold of a Blackberry and try it out.

I couldn’t find the download link at Facebook… the RIM press release advises:

Facebook users will be able to download the application at www.facebook.com from their PC or BlackBerry smartphone beginning later today.

Ok: Go to http://www.blackberry.com/facebook/ on your Blackberry — or try this direct URL.

Anyway, now they’ve got $240m from Microsoft, perhaps they could put that to good use working on the next version?

A few months ago I signed up for Mosio

They sent me the typical txt saying please reply to this message to validate etc. etc. So I tried to do it, but for some reason it just didn’t seem to work. Not entirely sure why, just wouldn’t go through, bounced back, etc etc. Ok the first time was totally my fault, because I have a heck of a time figuring out catchy word shortcodes on a phone with a Qwerty keyboard. Seriously, you expect me to remember that the K is on the 5 button when it’s not blatently staring me in the face?

Anyway. I kind of gave up on Mosio. I didn’t bother to email tech support or anything, probably because I wasn’t planning on using it right then and there, and it kind of slipped my mind.

Until this morning, when I woke up to find an email from Mosio. It had my slightly perplexed for a moment as I thought “I didn’t ask them anything” (it was also 6:30am at the time, so that also added to my perplexedness)

The subject line read

Fido Customers - a quick “how to” on using Mosio

Oh, ok. Here’s me in my sleepy state trying to remember if I had asked for help, and deciding I hadn’t, read on.

Hi There!

Noel
Mosio Support

Thankyou Noel! That did seem to be my problem. Everytime I tried to txt an email, it was sorry no luck! And you went ahead and validated my phone for me too, making it extra simple for me to now use your service. How helpful!

This is the first time I’ve ever personally seen someone go out of their way to help their customers, or in this case potential customers, even when they didn’t ask for it. I’m not the type to contact tech support unless it’s dire. I’m intrisically lazy, if it’s too much effort for me, or I have to sit on a phone for half an hour trying to enunciate words perfectly so the automated system picks them up, I don’t want any part of it. But now I’m ready to use a service I probably would have let fall by the wayside.

Applause to Noel and the team at Mosio! Great job in my opinion.

Our mate Tony from Gomo News is reporting live(ish) from the conference floor at CTIA. He’s been in the Facebook presentation and reports the following…

Link: GoMo News

RIM Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is brought on stage to announce a deal between the two companies which will allows Blackberry users an improved experience.  Facebook for Blackberry is the imaginative name, this means:
- Facebook application on all Blackberries with integrated news feed and push updates from the website
- Immediate options to photo upload pictures to Facebook with people tags and captions
- Integrated with Blackberry address book friend invites (sounds like more opportunities to skive off work than ever)
- Integrated Facebook email updates

T Mobile is apparently the first US carrier who will be offering these facilities embedded in handsets to Blackberry users - you can also download the app from the website.

A big coup for Blackberry who’re working hard to penetrate the consumer space owned by the likes of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and so on. If the Blackberry Facebook app is anywhere near as good as the Google Talk integration is, it could be a winner.

Link: BBC NEWS | Business | Carphone enters Vodafone tie-up

Just when you thought it was safe to venture out onto the High Street.. Carphone Warehouse (who neither sell carphones nor demand customers visit their warehouse) have just launched yet another MVNO.

According to the BBC, this one is going to be called Talkmobile, and will run alongside their existing Fresh and TalkTalk Mobile services. This time they’ve partnered with Vodafone - the previous two efforts have been with T-Mobile.

The service will apparently be a post-pay (contract) service, based around a nine month tie-in.

Details are sketchy at the moment, but Carphone have made it clear they’ll continue not to offer Vodafone deals in their stores.

We’re delighted to annouce that Shopsy, our very own SMS Text News mascot and mini Dacshund, won 1st Prize in the Halloween costume contest at PetSmart. He won a first place ribbon and a $20 gift card for the store.

Shopsy, owned by Krystal (site administrator and flower fairy), won the prize sporting a custom designed Hot Dog outfit.

There was some debate about the possibility of dressing Shopsy in an SMS Text News sandwich board or perhaps in a mobile phone costume. Eventually, Krystal, decided to take full advantage of Shopsy’s frame and figure for the custom Hot Dog outfit. I think it worked very well. Here are some pictures of Shopsy in action:

Link: Show Us Your Verizon Face: Verizon To Pay $1 Million To Customers After Falsely Advertising Data Plans As “Unlimited”

According to NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Verizon Wireless has agreed to reimburse $1 million to customers for wrongful account termination after falsely advertising their wireless plans as “unlimited,” when in fact the company sets limits and terminates the accounts of heavy users.

Good, good.

Link: webitpr | End2End Strengthens Mobile Gaming Offering with Acquisition of Terraplay Creates market leading solution for hosted mobile gaming

End2End, the leading provider of managed service solutions for mobile data, today announced its acquisition of Terraplay, the leading provider of connected-gaming services. The deal substantiates End2End’s position at the forefront of developments in the mobile gaming space and allows End2End to offer operators market leading solutions in connected and multiplayer gaming, a fully managed mobile gaming offering, in addition to its full mobile content delivery platform.

Terraplay is a world leader in connected mobile gaming and has been an innovator in developing solutions which allow operators and games publishers to connect their mobile gaming communities. The company’s expertise ranges from community tools to multiplayer functionality, in-game micro billing and in-game advertising, with many leading publishers among the customers that have already adopted Terraplay’s technology.

The acquisition of Terraplay will see End2End become a world-leading mobile gaming specialist, with a wealth of experience in delivering outsourced solutions for mobile data. End2End is now perfectly placed to help operators increase revenues by effectively managing their mobile gaming offerings.

Bernadette Lyons, Managing Director at End2End commented: “We expect connected gaming to be major factor in the dramatic growth of the mobile gaming market and Terraplay are the best in the business. Connected gaming can transform the experience for the gamer, with features such as multiplayer, competitions and buddy lists, but it can also have a major impact on operators, creating opportunities for flexible business models such as pay-per-play, rental and advertising.”

“By combining Terraplay’s expertise in connected gaming with End2End’s experience in mobile content delivery, we believe we have created an incredibly valuable and unique proposition for operators,” said Sven HÃ¥lling, CEO of Terraplay. “It is an exciting deal which will allow the company to offer innovative new solutions and a market leading connected gaming experience.”

End2End’s customer base now includes all the major mobile carriers, including Vodafone, T-Mobile, 3, Orange and O2, and with the mobile gaming market expected to grow from $3 billion at the end of 2006 to $17.5 billion by the end of 2011, the opportunity for those operators is clear. As advancements in technology create an influx of new handsets with improved game graphics and functionality, connected gaming is expected to play a major part as the market grows.

Ends