Opinion Articles

Monday, March 11, 2013

Last week at The Fonecast: 11th March 2013

Thrills for Tesco customers, chills for Android users

Mark Bridge writes:

As Mobile World Congress 2013 disappears behind us, so the frenzy of news releases about new products and services returns to relatively normal levels.

Tesco Mobile found some moral high-ground, announcing a ‘Tariff Promise’ that says it’ll never raise its monthly mobile phone charges during the minimum term of a contract. Terms and conditions apply, naturally.

And there was good news for Europe’s ‘big five’ mobile operators when the European Commission said it was closing its preliminary investigation into their development of future mobile standards. This development work has now been passed to the GSMA, reducing the EC’s fears that smaller companies could be forced out of the market.

With Spring in the air, the thoughts of telecoms companies have turned to nuptial union. SDL has acquired mobile web specialist bemoko, while Newbury-based Arieso has been acquired by American technology business JDSU.

Talking of such unions, there was less happiness at Motorola Mobility. The Google-owned handset business was reported to be cutting 1,200 jobs – which is on top of the 4,000 lost last year. Those people probably won’t be celebrating the first birthday of the Google Play app store.

Finally, given the cold weather that’s arrived in the south of England, it seems only appropriate to end with news from a group of German researchers who’ve managed to break the encryption on a Android smartphone by freezing it. It was – of course – the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android they cracked… using a tool they’ve named Forensic Recovery Of Scrambled Telephones, or ‘FROST’.

Every Monday morning we summarise the past week’s mobile industry headlines in a newsletter that’s very much like this article. To receive it, simply register your email address at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page.

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