An interesting survey has just been published thanks to ACCESS Systems Americas, Inc. It found that 73% of US consumers buying a new handset said that text messaging was an important feature.

The research was conducted by independent research firm Amplitude Research and other features that scored highly were having a camera (67%), having email capabilities (63%) and accessing the Internet (61%); while only 0.5% of respondents said that battery life was important - not like our own James Whately during Glastonbury.

For the geeks amongst us, it is interesting to read that 39% of respondents have added new applications, while 21% have added six or more new applications.

But it wasn’t all geeks they talked to. They also surveyed some people just like my mum - as 4.83% said that the only reason they have a cell phone is in case of emergency!

You can read more on FierceWireless here.

If you’re planning to go out for the night in any of the major US cities then you might want to try out buzz’d. By texting your zipcode to buzz’d’s shortcode you can be told the answer to the question on everybody’s lips - “What’s going on around me right now?”

There are now 1.2 million venues in the database with 10% of those being added by users themselves. The top cities being New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and London in the UK and not surprisingly the most popular days for usage are Friday, followed by Saturday and then Thursday.

If you’re going out this weekend why don’t you give it a try and let us know how you get on.

Evening readers, Whatley here, writing this on my laptop en route to Pilton for the festival that is known as Glastonbury.

As you know from my last post, the multitude of tools available to the modern day, festival going mobile geek really is quite something… So here, for your pleasure, is a quick rundown of what I am taking with me, starting with the hardware…

Handsets:

I’ve packed my N95, my N95 8GB and my E61i. The E61i is perfect as an ‘emergency’ as the battery on that baby is HUGE and it lasts FOREVER, (well – about 5 days). So if it all goes pear-shaped I can resort to using that. ?The N95s I’m going to tag-team throughout the day/festival. One to carry with me and one to charge. ?Speaking of chargers…

Power:

When it comes to keeping the batteries fully topped up, I’ve covered all bases with this one. I’ve got a Nokia DC-8 battery charger, bought this today, £25. Steep, but I’m a sucker for the branded stuff. It’s worked ok so far.

I’ve also got a Free Loader Solar Charger – this thing gets kudos just for the fact that out of all of the chargers, this was the only one that came with a Nintendo DS adaptor. Which made my girlfriend very happy indeed; Mario Kart for her while I type this passing Stonehenge, (fact).

Finally I have a ‘GoHello’ wind-up charger and, as Ben Smith so rightly said in the last podcast, they ain’t called ‘wind-ups for nothing’. …seriously, I’ve got nothing out of this thing yet. Nothing. Boo.

On top of all that lot, I’ve got four N95 batteries. All (currently) fully charged. So we shall see how long they last!

Software:

Well, stuff like Qik, Google Maps, VOX, SpinVox, Moblog etc… I kinda covered this last time round. I want to talk about the new stuff. Since writing that original piece I’ve acquired two pieces of software; both of which have – so far – impressed me much.

First up is ‘ViewRanger’. I downloaded this in the week and first take I thought ‘What a load of rubbish’. However… THEN I downloaded the Glastonbury specific maps – aka ‘Worthy Farm’ – and WOW, was I impressed! Check out this screenshot:

You can see that they’ve pre-loaded the app with the relative ‘points of interest’ – heh – and if I hit ‘GPS’ it’ll tell me where I am. Rock on. Can’t wait to use this properly.

The other piece of software is from Orange. It’s called ‘GlastoNav’ and at first I really couldn’t get this to work..

..however, once they ironed out the gremlins etc this little app has turned out to be very handy indeed. Not only can I look at the (much richer interpretation) of the map, but also I can plan my schedule for the event… and THEN I can share that schedule with my fellow festival-goers!

That – so far – has again, really impressed me. 

For actual ‘mobile’ stuff, that’s all. But, I have also been given some other cool pieces of gadgetry to use/play with. One is the Flip, which I think Ewan has spoken about a fair amount – my only problem with this is that once my hour of recording is up, I can’t upload it until I get to a USB connection. Bah! We’ll see how I get on with that one… The other piece of REALLY COOL stuff I’ve been given is the Loc8tor which, hand on heart, is the best thing yet (in theory anyway).

I attach the small part to something I might lose (i.e. the other half) and then, if I do lose her, I switch the big part on and it beeps to tell me how close I am etc… I had a play before I left the house and it rocked my socks. So… again, we’ll see how we get on.

That’s it from me, I’m nearly at Glastonbury and my laptop is about to die. Thanks to Ben Smith for editing this for me and putting the media in etc… You can keep up with my exploits at http://www.glastonblog.co.uk.

See you soon!

J.

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 campaign is here with a mobile site here.

The cleverness about this campaign is the way they’re using mobile technology:

“Bloggers from the three organisations will be roaming the festival, taking pictures and video clips and posting them to  http://leavenotrace.org.uk, which is also available as a mobile website, http://m.leavenotrace.org.uk for easy access on-site. Because these posts will also be marked on a Google map, we’ll be showing where the best examples of green living are - whether it’s solar-powered showers, sculpture made from recycled materials or water-saving systems - as well as highlighting the nooks and crannies of the festival which might otherwise be missed. Plus everyone on the farm can contribute images and video can be posted to the site by sending an SMS or MMS with the keyword TIDY at the start to 07786 201 241″

The bloggers will also be using another of our favourite mobile technologies Spinvox to post to the site during the festival meaning they’ll be producing the entire site’s content from an entirely mobile platform.

Excellent stuff, but also both technologies available to everyone to use right now… It’s incredible to see how quickly mobile blogging technology is maturing.

It looks like July 4th is going to be a big day. As well as the Mobile 2.0 Europe Conference Louis Vuitton is launching audio guides for three Chinese cities - Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai. It is being powered by Clicmobile and they say:

“Louis Vuitton offers a perfectly synchronised audio journey in which the voice of the narrator geographically guides the physical visitor in real time through an area of a city or a district.”

I say, it sounds a lot like the CoolGorilla guide for London called, inspiringly, the London Travel Guide.

If you’re going to Beijing then you can travel around with Louis Vuitton, if you’re in London you can be a CoolGorilla.

Whenever I get a new PC, the first thing I do with it is install Firefox because in my opinion it’s simply the best browser there is. While the people behind it, the Mozilla Foundation, have promised a mobile version codenamed Fennec is on the way by next year, it looks like Mozilla’s development people haven’t been resting on their laurels.

Mozilla Labs’ head of user experience, Aza Raskin, has posted this video on an experimental touch UI concept he’s been working on. Alas, like most concepts, there’s no word on when, if ever, we might be able to see this on our mobiles.

Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Greetings readers, your friendly neighbourhood Whatley here;

While some of us are off gallivanting around the Maldives… sorry, ahem… A DESERT ISLAND …other bloggers, like myself, have to make do with the festival season to amuse themselves here back in the UK.

And what better festival other than the Mother of all festivals: Glastonbury!

Yes, it really IS that muddy. I took that photo myself.

Last year, I think I’m pretty safe in saying;

I was the ONLY person to live blog Glastonbury from a mobile phone.

Yes. That’s right, I blogged the whole darn thing (well as much as my battery would allow) from my Nokia N95-1 (the original silver one, the one with the REALLY poor battery, y’know?).

In fact the only reason my current blog exists is because of my then(?) obsession with Mobile Blogging.

You can go back and read some of my exploits here, here and here if you’d like.
But really, all you need to know is, at the time, the only way I could do this (AFAIK) was through VOX.

VOX has a neat little application that sits on some/most Nseries phones that you can download and is also available as one of the upload options in the Share Online app, also found on most Nseries phones.

Power wise, again only for last year, I had three N95 batteries (BL-5Fs for the true geeks among you) and these two things below:

That on the left is an independent battery charge-base and that on the right, a portable double AA battery powered phone charger.

The former proved itself to be extremely useful, then and indeed over the past year of ownership too. With that handy little device I can always have one battery in my phone, while another charges. This, of course, is all well and good until you go and lose the damn thing… which is what I did a matter of days ago.

I digress.

The thing on the right, I bought that from Amazon, thing is mind…

It . Was. Rubbish.

In fact I think it actually USED more battery power than it actually gave back. I ended up passing it onto some fellow festival-ite in our circle of tents…it conveniently came with a bunch of other adaptors – not just Nokia; covered SE, Motorola, Blackberry… the lot. You name it. So at least that much was handy about it…
However, for me – it was no good…

And don’t even start me on the quite frankly RIDICULOUS “Orange Charge Tent“.
I mean, who wants to QUEUE for an hour to charge their handset, only to discover that when they get to the front, they then have to wait around for a further two hours to watch their phone charge at an unsecured bar.
Joined up thinking really not their speciality it would seem…

So… How did I stay charged?

Well, while the Orange monkeys were missing out on potentially 3hrs of great music, I managed to find a little store amongst the clothes stalls and falafel vendors, which specialised in phone charging.
You paid a fiver a go and it was kept under lock and key and all was fine. The system the guy had running behind him reminded me a little of chargebox and it wouldn’t surprise me if they were one and the same… I’ll ask them this year and see. Anyway, this little store became a daily haunt for my good self.

In the morning I’d get up, review any content from the night before, write a quick post or two and then upload as much as I could before my battery died. After that I’d mosey on down to aforementioned phone charging establishment, pay my fiver, and then go off and meet friends who I’d arranged to meet at a later time (do you remember when we did that?!).

Later that afternoon I would pick up my phone, liaise with all the folk that had been trying to reach me for God knows how long, and then get off to another stage where upon I’d take more photos/videos that I would later, no doubt upload.

Lovely stuff.
So aside from the not-so-brilliant portable phone charger, last year was a reasonable success.

But what about this year?

Well, my VOX blog is still up and running.
So I’ve got that working just fine, but now – look at all the other things I can do!

I can upload via SMS, MMS or Email via Moblog.
I can simply make a phone call and speak a blog post through SpinVox.
I can boot up Qik and stream LIVE content direct to the internet. Not only direct to my QIK page, but if I hit ‘55’ while I’m streaming, my 500-odd followers on Twitter will get told about it too!

The plethora of Social Tools now available to the modern, festival-going geek, really… truly… is a spectacle to behold.

I shall be using ALL of those services/apps/tools I’ve listed above… and probably more.

The question is Dear Readers, which ones do YOU think I should be using?

What should your Mobile Geek of Glastonbury be packing in his rucksack to ensure a complete all round mobile performance?

Leave your suggestions below or, if you have anything you want showcased/tested over the coming festival season, email ewan@smstextnews.com

Yes – I know he’s on a ‘desert island’, but he’s already emailed me twice today with two new products that he’s been sent to give to me try out in the mud of Pilton…

So it looks like yet another form of mobile advertising is hitting the streets. This time the ad is played ahead of you singing your next Number 1 hit down your phone and having the clever guys and gals at WeMix.com record it for you.

The application is called MyVox and it is being launched with the “Grammy award winning artist Christopher ‘Ludacris’ Bridges”.

I’ve never heard of Ludacris, but that is probably more a sign of my age than his fame. So this looks like a good thing for the mobile world - a star getting involved and promoting a clever app and potentially increased usage of the phone and the mobile platform. The support of big names in the entertainment industry will certainly help to make US teens in particular adopt new apps like WeMix.com.

Ad-funded is certainly the model that is being adopted by almost every new app to be launched and there’s a lot of merit in that - why get the consumers to pay and have a relatively small audience; instead get the advertisers to pay and have a huge audience because it’s free - everyone’s a winner. The company providing the ads this time round in VoodooVox.

Personally I’m not sure how well this will take off in the UK, but I’m happy to download the first real track that is recorded this way. Who knows a good MySpace campaign, maybe promotion through Blyk and WeMix.com could have a Number 1.

It looks like Google is having no hard time of transferring its out and out lead in internet search across to the world of mobile: according to the latest figures from industry watchers Nielsen Mobile, Google has 61 percent of mobile search sewn up, with Yahoo trailing at just 18 percent of the market. Google users conducted around 9 searches a month; Yahoo users just seven.

It’s no surprise that Google should dominate mobile search so completely: its algorithm is streets ahead of its competitors and consumers are just as likely to go to the brand name they recognise from the fixed internet world when they need a mobile search.

But Yahoo’s not resting on its laurels: it’s signed up five new operators to its search platform, where the carriers will provide Yahoo’s oneSearch as the default search to their customers. If Yahoo can get more of these sort of deals under its belt with bigger name operators or even handset manufacturers - the iPhone would be the Holy Grail here - it might be able to stage a bit of a comeback.

God bless America - it looks like Delta has signed up to trial mobile ticketing which will be available from this week for passengers making domestic Delta and Delta Connection flights from New York’s La Guardia airport.

Travellers will be able to download their electronic boarding pass from delta.com, and then present it to airport security and later on at the boarding gate where it will be scanned. It looks like Delta’s got big plans for mobile check-in too: “Future enhancements include standby upgrades and same day, round trip check-in on delta.com, mobile and SMS check-in,” the company said.

It all sounds great, but what happens when your phone dies? Do airport staff have an emergency charger to hand?

Bank of America has been signing people up to its mobile banking service quicker than you can say Big Mac and fries - according to BoA, there are now one million active users doing their finances by mobile and over four million banking sessions taking place every month.

The bank says Los Angeles residents are the most prolific mobile bankers with most users falling into the Gen X or Gen Y bracket - two-thirds of mobile bankers are under 35 years of age. They’re also not just sticking to passive banking like checking their balances, four in ten are also paying bills with their phone.

I’d always assumed that mobile banking was a bit slow to take off because of security concerns (justified or not) around accessing cash over mobile, but it looks like it might just be a plain and simple case of the devices not being quite up to it. BoA says: “Apple iPhone, RIM Blackberry and Microsoft Windows Mobile devices are the most popular ones used by mobile banking customers.” It looks like mobile banking was just suffering along with every other website from phones that didn’t make browsing the user-friendly experience it should be.

It’s not often that you’ll see a mobile network take a punt on ad-funded content. Not often at all. I’m trying to think of a specific example that doesn’t involve the operator’s own portal ad system.

Greystripe, the world’s first and leading ad-supported mobile games and applications distribution platform, have announced a deal with German MVNO, Simyo.

The mechanics of the deal involve a publishing a games portal, containing 800+ free games. Ostensibly, the service is aimed at Simyo customers but, in reality, anyone can download them. Neither Simyo or Greystripe mind, because each game is ‘wrapped’ in advertising, managed by Greystripe — and there’s a revenue split.

I like this model. The user doesn’t get knocked for 5 quid every time they want to try out a game on their mobile (conveniently, Greystripe’s games support over 1,400 handsets). The operator and Greystripe each get a share of targeted ad revenue — on-going, for the life of the game. That could, if it’s a good game, deliver substantial per-user return. And, finally, there’s some incentive to both the operator, Greystripe (and, I imagine, the games developers and publishers), to create and develop GOOD mobile games — an art in itself.

If you’re sat managing a mobile portal of sorts, you might want to pick up the phone and talk to Greystripe about getting your own white-label mobile games offering. It’s Alvaro Bravo, VP of Business Development, that you want to talk to.

Google has announced an update to the latest version of its Mobile Maps software (2.2) with some handy new features. Now as well as the usual street directions from Google, the Mobile Map app can also provide information on public transport too, so you can find what bus or train will get you to where you need to go.

At the moment, the information is only for some 40 cities in North America but I really hope we’re going to see it coming to the London transport network some time in the very near future. And here’s why: the updated Google Mobile Maps has a feature which can tell you when the last bus or train of the day goes.

So, imagine you’re at an unfamiliar pub somewhere and you really fancy staying for just one more but you don’t know if you’ll miss the last bus home if you do. All you’ve got to do is open up Google Maps and voila: you’ll know in a couple of clicks if you can squeeze in a cheeky half and make the last bus or not.

The version with US transit info is available here.

The folk over at ShoZu have been coming up with some new functionality for Facebook users - all through pop-ups on your phone’s idle screen.

The new functionality looks like this

• Have friends’ newest Facebook photos sent to the mobile as soon as they are posted, with the option to receive a collective feed of the latest photos from all friends and/or individual feeds from specific friends on the ShoZu screen.
• Request automatic delivery of friends’ Facebook status updates to the handset for retrieval from the ShoZu interface, making it easy to keep up with friends’ activities while on the go.
• Have their latest Facebook event listings forwarded to the phone on a regular basis for display on ShoZu, ensuring that users won’t miss the newest event posts as well as providing convenient reminders of parties and other events.
• Change their own Facebook status from the ShoZu screen without the expense of sending a premium SMS, whether they’re packing for vacation, in a new relationship, or looking for a friend to hang out with.

More nice ideas from ShoZu - they seem to have rather smartly picked up the most addictive and expensive elements of mobile Facebooking and then played up to that. More please.

If you fancy a bit of wheeling and dealing on the go, then share trading company E*TRADE has come up with a bit of software that should help you. The E*TRADE

Mobile Pro software pretty much does everything the desktop version does, only this time on your BlackBerry. According to E*TRADE, the software has:
• Free real-time streaming stock and options quotes
• The ability to trade equities and options, including certain conditional orders
• Brokerage and bank account QuickTransfers, including those from outside financial institutions
• Live watchlists and portfolios
• CompleteView of all E*TRADE accounts on one screen
• Secure transactions backed by the E*TRADE Complete Protection Guarantee

At present this is exclusive to BlackBerry devices including the Curve and the Pearl and E*TRADE hasn’t said anything about bringing the software to any other smartphones yet. I can’t imagine we’ll have to wait too long - this looks absolutely like Windows Mobile (and iPhone) heartland.

I just still can’t believe that Orange UK can, with a straight face, publish a poster in its shop windows offering customers free evening and weekend mobile browsing.

What about during the day? Just ridiculous.

I kid ye not, though. This is actually an offer. A genuine offer. People keep emailing me (James from California, this morning, for example) and asking if I’m joking when I say that Orange UK is offering clients free evening and weekend mobile browsing.

Do you seriously mean to say that a mobile operator is offering ‘off peak’ data? What value is that to anyone?

Here’s video proof from the shop downstairs:

Lypp, the GEEENIUS conference calling service has just launched an Outlook plugin. It’s really smart. Have a look at the screenshots showing how it works.

I totally forgot they have a recording and RSS feed service. I think I might give this one a go for international SMS Text News podcasts. I’ll talk to CEO Erik and see if that’s possible.

“Our goal with Lypp for Outlook was to make it easy for Outlook users to create ad hoc and scheduled conference calls the same way they would normally schedule a meeting in Outlook, by using the Calendar.” said CEO Erik Lagerway. “Canadian and US businesses can now access the Lypp advanced conference calling feature-set with ease and at 9 cents/min, business will find it hard to beat.”

Feast your eyes on these conference calling features:
- Microsoft Outlook Add-in/ Plug-in;
- Instant Activation;
- Toll-free Dial-in Access From Any Phone;
- Automated Dial-Out at Time of Meeting;
- 24 Hour Access;
- Automated Notifications;
- Enterprise Account Management: Sub-account creation/editing and central or individual billing;
- Mobile Conference Call Management;
- Call Recording & RSS syndication;
- Phone Book with CSV/vCard Upload;
- Crystal Clear Connections;
- Secure and Private;
- Real-Time Conference Management Controls;
- Detailed billing.

9 cents a minute? Sign me up.

I’m going to check it’s available to international audiences and, bish-bash-bosh, I’m getting an account.

One of the sexiest Lypp features is mobile calling. Check it out. I love it.

The job title on the business card of David Golds is:

Product Unit Manager, Windows Live for Windows Mobile, Microsoft

… and that’s immediately attention-getting for me.

I’ve been a Windows Mobile user for donkey’s years.

Ever since you had to have the patience of a demigod to hook up your Compaq iPaq and your Sony Ericsson T68i via infrared GPRS at 9.6k/sec to check emails, I’ve been a Windows Mobile user. Actually, it was before that. I had one of the first generation Compaq iPaq things. All it did was contacts, calendar and, er, a few other semi useful applications.

Was it Windows Mobile? No! Windows CE! That was it. So I’ve spent thousands. Thousands upon thousands on Windows Mobile devices and associated services.

I remember the day I was in a group meeting with my iPaq and my T68i, trying, serrupticiously, to check my email. It was one of those project meetings that, if you’ve ever been in a media-cum-proper-business, you’ll have had. 20 people around the table at 8am in the morning on a sodding Monday. The stressed project manager insists *everyone* turns up. Our service contract with his company says that I’m charged at £375 per hour out of office hours (office hours are 9-5pm) so that suits me fine. Although it’s still an arse. During the 2 hour meeting, only five people say anything more than a sentence. At the end of the meeting, the even-more-stressed project manager does a quick ‘everything ok with your role’ question to everyone. At the appointed time, I look up and say ‘Yes’ and think, ‘This company’s going to run out of money soon.’

The company did, actually, run out of money. We got paid all our invoices though. Anyway, that is one of the most memorable times where I was DELIGHTED that my iPaq and T68i performed to spec. I was able to check my 5 emails on the device during the 2-hour bore-session and … I shit ye not, I was able to use MSN Messenger to talk to the office. Yes it was hamster-speed, but it was still a brilliant proof of concept. And hugely entertaining for me as a geek.

6 months after that meeting, o2 brought out their XDA plan. I think it had 2 or 3 meg inclusive. I thought that was a brilliant deal! And the device itself, well, it was one of the best on the market at that point. Blackberries hadn’t really hit the UK.

I relied on Windows Mobile A LOT.

I’ve been a vocal chappy when it comes to Windows Mobile of late — words to the effect of ‘you can’t really use multiple apps at the same time, you need to use everything sequentially,’ and so on. For a long time, no one was listening. Or, frankly, no one cared.

I used to accost people sporting Windows Mobile devices at events and demand why they were even bothering. They’d tell me it was ‘fine’ and then I’d spend the next 10 minutes converting them from a reasonably happy user to an annoyed, pissed-off customer, by getting them to run Windows Messenger, Contacts, Send/Receive Email, Media Player and try and phone someone — all at the same time. The moment an hour glass thingy appears, I typically explode.

So it was with some delight in Las Vegas that I witnessed the new 6.1 update on a Samsung BlackJack II. A new interface. Whizzy. Literally ‘whizzy’. Nice animation. It looked good. Stuff worked pretty nicely. Less screw-ups. All in all, rather usable. So usable, that I actually adopted the device as a primary handset for the 2 weeks or so I was on the West Coast.

- Here is me at CTIA one morning saying that Windows Mobile 6.1 will probably be rubbish.
- Fast forward a few hours and here I am loving it.

Which brings me to David Golds. He’s big into internet-oriented communication. Big time. Think inbox, think contacts sync, IM, data sync, social networking, photo sharing and so on. That’s his bag. I’m looking forward to meeting and chatting. There’s no agenda per se and I don’t expect shocking Windows Mobile 7.0 news or the like.

If you’ve got a question for David, I’ll do my best to ask it. Mail it over. I’m ewan@smstextnews.com.

Analysts at ABI Research have put out a report that’s sure to delight the hearts of Linux fan boys everywhere: the company says that by 2013, mobile Linux will be the second place operating system behind Symbian with 23 percent of the market.

ABI says that in the coming years, Linux wars will see the open source heavyweights whittled down to just two: the LiMo Foundation and Google’s Android, with other variants like Nokia’s Maemo carving out niches with particular form factors.

Perhaps the most interesting bit of the report is its predictions for the future of Symbian: “ABI Research found that Nokia’s poor position in the Americas resulted in a 2007 share of only 4 percent for Symbian in the American smartphone market. It is imperative that Symbian looks to grow its share of the North American market by gaining more traction from other handset vendors that are performing well there. Otherwise, the company could face a situation whereby its leadership in the European markets is challenged by a combination of a resurgent Windows and emerging Linux, while simultaneously being locked out of the North American market.”

It’s going to be a tough call for Symbian - it’s always been haunted by the shadow of Nokia, which owns most of the company, and it seems that most other handset makers have dabbled with the Symbian operating system but preferred to stick with old favourites like their own proprietary software for the bulk of their handsets. It looks like Symbian better start hoping Nokia can get its act together and start shifting some serious volume in the states.

Vollee announced back in February that it planned on bringing popular virtual world Second Life onto mobile devices this May. Well, its timetable seems to have slipped a bit, but Vollee’s Second Life plans are ready to go.

The beta of the service can be downloaded from Vollee’s website and there about 40 handsets, including the N95 and the Shine, that are supported at launch and Vollee is promising there’s more 3G and wi-fi enabled devices to come, including the iPhone.

When Vollee first made the announcement, I couldn’t help wondering how they’d be able to pull it off given the processing demands of the service. Here’s how: users download a thin client and Vollee streams Second Life to them. Meanwhile, the company’s VolleeX engine adapts applications for screen size and key layout so the virtual world fits your phone. Clever stuff from Vollee - sounds like just the sort of stuff that might crop up in an operator content bundle in the future.

Good news for fans of Google Gears: Opera has decided to support Gears in its Opera 9.5 Mobile browser, meaning that users will be able to get access to all their favourite Gears apps through any phone equipped with the browser, as well as on Opera’s desktop support.

Alas, the details about Opera’s Gears support are a little on the slim side - the release is pegged as sometime later this year and there’s no technical details available right now - but it’s good to see Gears expanding beyond its previous heartland of Windows Mobile devices.

By joining up with Opera, Gears gets to dodge the operating system question entirely and open itself up to Symbian phones and the massive user base that goes with it. A release date wouldn’t go amiss - I’d be keen to find out how Gears copes with some of the lower end devices.

Announced today, the newest release of Truphone - the VoIP solution for S60 handsets (iPhone is planned) Ewan discussed recently - has added an important feature to it’s existing WiFi-based features… routing calls over the mobile network itself via a local dial-in number or via a call-back mechanism. This allows people out of range of a WiFi hotspot (including a number of commercial ones for which an extra charge applies) and without a suitable 3G data tariff (or just reception) to continue to use the on-phone client as before. Depending on use this option costs the user either a call to a standard land-line or a text message (used to initiate the call-back), although the application takes care of establishing the calls regardless of the method chosen.

The greatest benefit will be to those using Truphone’s flat pricing (3p to landlines, 15p to mobiles) structure for international calling to supported countries (some locations such as the USA are 3pm for all calls) who can now access it from any location with a GSM signal, but either mechanism can be selected via the client for other calls too, for example to reduce high per minute charges on pre-pay tariffs. Local numbers and similar pricing benefits are available to users in all the countries Truphone operates in.

—-

This is an evolutionary step for Truphone - it’s the same mechanism a number of other providers already use (including the iSkoot-provided Skypephone service from 3 and RebTel’s local dial-though service) although packaged nicely for those able to run the client. However it makes sense to eliminate one of the current major criticisms that a WiFi or battery-munching 3G signal was required.

The client is available to download (existing users log-in and select the option to re-download the client from the account management page) and initial testing showed it to be as slick and easy as ever both in installation and use - I’m still amazed at the audio quality that can be achieved over 3G, but that might not be something to use regularly unless you have a particularly understanding network operator…

The next major step will be for Truphone to take advantage of their recent Sim4Travel aquisition and launch their own virtual operator issuing its own SIMs and enabling roaming data - something we’re eagerly anticipating and is promised soon.

I tell you, I’m looking forward to getting hold of an Android-capable handset to try out all these wicked applications coming our way. There’s so much developer freedom — *so* much.

One application that caught my eye recently was Trak.

“Trak”, the site’s front-page reveals, “is an Android based Twitter client that can Tweet your geolocation, and read and display the geolocations of your Twitter friends. With street maps, satellite view and all.”

I’d have that in a minute. Here’s a screenshot of some Twitterers on the Trak map - I highlighted’em in red:

I can imagine applications like these being heavily, heavily used. I can’t wait to see how they perform in the real world!

Last week I took a first look at Nokia Maps, the final (launched) part of the Ovi suite I have been reviewing recently. I had, in error, started out using the Maps 2.0 beta not realising the main Nokia site was still linking the original version 1 release… so as a favour Nokia launched it officially this week and saved me the effort of re-visiting the earlier release.

It is, however, a vast improvement over the earlier version - visually more polished with a better interface than the original. It also operates notably more quickly in nearly every respect than the first release which could be sluggish, particularly in scrolling around the maps. It’s now ‘acceptable’ although not brilliantly fast… still work to be done in that area I think. Although one of the most annoying lags - the time taken to update your position on a map - feels much better: one change that makes a big difference. The new application is stable too - after one worrying crash on the first time I ran it on the loaned N82 I was testing it on, it didn’t set a foot wrong on subsequent occasions.

Capability-wise the applications retains a similar feature set - road, satellite and hybrid views of a huge number of countries around the world with both vehicle and walking routing available to buy in yearly, 90-day and 30-day increments in local currency. City guides are also available as a pay-for add-on. There’s also an impressive range of ‘points of interest’ which can be displayed overlaying the maps…

Notable additions in this release though are:

A 3D map display, mimicking the ‘road-ahead’ view dedicated devices like TomTom’s devices provide. This feels a more natural way to view maps when on the move, but when I tested it (admittedly only with walking-speed movement) it retained the standard ‘north up’ orientation - not much use when travelling south. This can be changed manually, but really should track automatically without the need for routing license to be purchased and in-use.

More map and building detail in major built-up areas now gives a better indication of surroundings - particularly useful for navigation on foot when they form a useful point of reference.

Traffic information is coming for Europe soon. There’s nothing available for the UK yet, but it’s a promising capability and shows a commitment to developing the product over future releases.

A screenshot feature is a a further simple addition but makes it possible to share map data or your current location via e-mail or MMS.

Paired with a GPS-capable handset such as the N82 with a warm-standby start-up time of only a few seconds Maps is quickly up and running and often able to receive a GPS signal inside buildings or vehicles. However, there is also a network-based location sensing service (similar to that employed by Google Maps) which offers locations with an accuracy that varies depending on the number of network transmitters in the vicinity - in central London that gives positioning accuracy of a few hundred meters.

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So is it any good? Yes.

When talking about mapping it’s impossible to avoid comparisons with Google Maps and in many respects Google’s offering is quicker and (unsurprisingly) better at searching for locations by name. But the routing and city-guide additions put the Nokia product in a different class - particularly when dealing with ‘points of interest’ which Nokia categorise and identify individually, where Google has no equivalent. Obviously there are some areas for improvement - greater flexibility in the periods routing can be purchased for would be nice, the interface is still laggy at times and the searching feature presents too many options for simple searches, but these are minor criticisms. Coupled with the upcoming web portal and ’social features’ Maps feels like a competent product maturing quickly.

Notes: I was reviewing Nokia Maps for S60, but versions for S40 (still version 1) are also available. It works well with internal GPS units built into advanced handsets, but I also used an external unit which worked just as well and didn’t appear to have an adverse effect on the battery over the internal unit.

Who really wants to be able to use mobile phones on planes? It seems not as many of us as the airlines might be hoping, according to a new survey commissioned by Yahoo. The research found that nearly three out of four people questioned wanted in-air mobile phone use restricted to silent features like SMS.

While Yahoo is somewhat optimistically portraying this as a sign that the average Joe can’t be bear to be parted from mobile IM and the mobile web, it actually looks like people are still after using the old favourites: 38 percent of those surveyed want in-flight SMS and 28 percent wouldn’t mind mid-air mobile email.

The survey also says that the ability to play games while in flight would be a hit with 29 percent of consumers, which sort of suggests that consumers may not even want connectivity, just the ability to be able to turn on their phone and use the features, especially after a recent flight where I was told that I couldn’t look at my phone at all, flight mode or no flight mode. If mobile connectivity on planes means I can look at the clock, calendar, calculator, whatever, on my phone whether I use the network or not, I’m all for it.