Ben Smith
Time to tap the big brains of the readership this morning…
I’m experiencing a major problem with dropped calls at home. Yesterday calls throughout the day dropped within a few minutes. I suspect it may be a Three issue (the odd ‘network busy’ message), but it’s coincided with me starting to use new handset and I’ve [...]
One of items I was sent for review in China that excited me most was the SPOT messenger - a unique device that receives a GPS signal to identify your position and then allows that to be re-broadcast via the SPOT satellite service with an ‘OK’, ‘non-emergency help’ or ‘emergency help’ message. It’s intended for [...]
Continue ReadingIn search of an alternative to the predictable smartphone or netbook option for mobile working, I took the Selwyn Electronics DigiMemo with me to Beijing. A kind of electronic clipboard operated with a special pen pages of written text and graphics are captured and downloaded via USB to the PC-only software. Because it’s not all [...]
Continue ReadingBack on the Great Wall I gave the BT8030 headphones / speaker combination the thumbs down and the BR2050 mini-headset the thumbs up, but what a difference a more extended test makes…Â I’ve already updated my view of the BT8030s to a qualified ‘not half bad’ (for travel) in my review, but unfortunately the BT2050s [...]
Continue ReadingWell, not yet…. It’s just a music phone people.
The fresh round of leaked photos of the device we’ve all been calling the ‘Tube’ which first made it’s fleeting public appearance in that Batman movie has got everyone (including the usually-calm Financial Times on Tuesday) talking about Nokia’s new ’smartphone’. Some of the more breathless coverage [...]
As shown in my clip from the Great Wall, included in Mobile Industry Review Show 27, I took the unusual combination-product - the Jabra BT8030 Bluetooth headphones, headset and speakers - with me to Beijing. Deployed normally as a chunky pair of headphones which connect to mobile handsets or computers to perform standard duties in [...]
Continue ReadingTo follow-up on Dan’s mention of QR codes, the City AM free paper in London had a prominent QR code on it’s Friday edition linking to a Mippin-ised version of their website. Kudos to them for including it (and good instructions on how to use it) and to Mippin for being the ‘website mobiliser’ of [...]
Continue ReadingI wandered over to Victoria this evening take a look at what would be big for Christmas this year from Carphone Warehouse (silly name, good shop). It ranged from the ‘meh’ to the ‘wow’ so here’s a quick overview in pictures. The event was organised as a ‘home’ with each vendor in a different room…
Netbooks [...]
Continue ReadingLastminute.com’s FoneFood application I blogged last week has got location-aware today courtesy of Google’s new Mobile Gears geolocation API. See here for more details.
Congratulations to Marko and the team for snagging such an impressive partner in Google and getting the Lab’s first big mobile project as one of their two launch apps!
Here’s the Google video [...]
Lastminute.com’s Labs team have today announced the launch of their first mobile application FoneFood - an impressive European-wide multi-lingual restaurant table reservation service. The best apps explain themselves so…
Awesomely simple the application takes your location and food preference, displays a list and Google map of options that are bookable. Users can then book and receive [...]
Continue ReadingOnce this month’s warm-up event in Beijing is tidied away some of the most exciting sport you’ll see will be coming to you from Beijing… the Paralympic element of the 29th Olimpiad. Your intrepid reporter will be with Team GB’s medal-winning wheelchair basketball team reporting live - I’ll also try to give you the low-down [...]
Continue ReadingConsumer and small-business e-mail hosting provider Fastmail has launched a variety of new authentication mechanisms for its’ products including one-time passwords by SMS - ideal for web access on untrusted computers. Users pre-purchase credits for SMS (Fastmail already offer mail-to-SMS services) and append the one-time password to a base password, which is pre-configured. Passwords have [...]
Continue ReadingInvisible Shield is the well-reviewed clear-plastic wrapper for mobile devices including iPods and laptops. Its incredible claim is that it protects devices making them scratch-proof. Having seen the demo videos I’ve no doubt that’s true.
One of the privileges of writing for SMS Text News is that you get to review stuff that manufacturers send out. [...]
Just had a text from O2 with a link to information on iPhone 3G availability and an apology (at the bottom) over the launch shambles (of sorts)…. Here’s the key bits that confirm some of the other reports we’ve seen about stock:
O2 and Carphone Warehouse (CPW) stores will have limited numbers of iPhone 3G this [...]
Continue ReadingJoikuSpot is a clever little application that lets you turn your S60 phone into a WiFi hotspot allowing other devices to use data via your phone’s 3G data connection. It’s been available in beta and then in ‘light‘ form for some time now providing a limited feature set (missing WiFi encryption or support for protocols [...]
Continue ReadingOn Thursday I’m flying to Dublin for Unlimited Drinks on one of Europe’s most-used and least-loved budget airlines Ryanair. I have, in the past, been terribly bored on Ryanair flights because they ban the use of any mobile phones during the journey… even if they’re in ‘flight mode’. That means no games, no music and [...]
Continue ReadingAs the storm dies down here’s what we know:
O2 are sold out of all iPhone 3Gs online.
There are no white 16GB models to be offered from launch.
The PAYG version won’t be launching any time soon - possibly not until Christmas.
Carphone Warehouse are selling new connections on-line, but upgrades must be done by phone or in-store. [...]
…well so far. Possibly.
Yes that’s right, the usual launch day farce:
0700: E-mail customers announcing you open for business in 1hr.
0800: Don’t open.
0815: Open.
0845: Slow to a crawl before completing a transaction.
0910: Switch to ‘failover’ plain-styled registration page.
0920: Error on submission of the order.
0922: Don’t bother erroring, just re-load the order page on submission.
Genius.
…and before you [...]
In addition to making upgrades available today, O2 are also selling the iPhone 3G online to new customers for delivery by courier on the 11th July and activation at home. See the online O2 store.
Continue ReadingBetween 7am and 7:30am this morning (well for me anyway) O2 sent text and e-mail messages to customers who had registered an interest in upgrading announcing the upgrade shop would open from 8am… it started working from about 8:15.
Of course it’s hung half-way through the process (20 mins so far and counting) and started with [...]
Today T-Mobile announce a commitment to customers on their £30 per month Solo 30 and Combi 30 tariffs to match any other operator’s offering of minutes and texts - although notably it’s not offered on their popular Flext tariff which provides a flexible allowance to use on either SMS or voice calls.
Described as ‘ground breaking’ [...]
News just in from the guys at Moblog about their mobile blogging platform which is driving a great initiative by Greenpeace, Oxfam and Water Aid intended to make sure Glastonbury farm (yes, it’s a real farm with real cows and stuff) is back in a working state as soon as possible: the Leave No Trace [...]
Continue ReadingSo, Ewan’s called me out… the E71 isn’t perfect after all. I still have to make my own tea and women don’t appear to be any more attracted to me than before (for the record, aside from my long-suffering girlfriend, the count is zero interest in the last week - I’d rate that as [...]
Continue ReadingSince SMS Text News switched over to using the Disqus comment system we’ve seen a huge increase in commenting and discussion… a good thing. However, one of the things that has been missing (for too long in our opinion) is trackback support for linking articles… Yesterday the Disqus team announced their new trackback feature and [...]
Continue ReadingJust prior to the virtual on-line session, the 4(!) bloggers at the event got to spend a few minutes with the product managers.
Here’s what was discussed:
Q: Why FP1 not FP2?
A: Nokia needed a stable and reliable platform to build the unique (security and messaging) E-series features on. At the time the products started development [...]
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