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This week at The Fonecast: 14th May 2011

Mark

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Mark Bridge writes:

There’s one tech story that’s dominated the week’s news: Microsoft buying Skype. “Why?” and “Really?” appear to be the top questions; we’ll do our best to answer them and provide some more insight in Wednesday’s podcast.

Other big partnership news came from Google, which has been working with Samsung and Acer to create the Chromebook... which is rather like a netbook but using Google’s Chrome OS and with all your personal data in the cloud, not on the hard drive.

How will you get hold of your information?  Well, there’s 3G and there’s WiFi - and with hotspot community Fon now having over four million hotspots worldwide, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Mind you, with the volume of mobile voice and data traffic expected to grow 67-fold in the next 10 years, having both options seems a very good idea.

An assortment of mobile money stories have been vying for attention in the last few days. Visa announced mobile wallet plans for the USA. Chiltern Railways introduced mobile train tickets. Vodafone launched free text donations for charities. And a survey said over 20% of us were now using our phones for banking. We’ll be continuing the theme in our programme next week when we interview the CEO of DigiMo, the Israel-based company that’s just launched “the first true mobile payment solution”.

Finally, I’ll end with some application news. Google - not satisfied with launching the Chromebook - has a new mobile music streaming service in the USA and is updating its app store. Doing even more updating is GetJar, which has bought Infrinity to help customers find the apps they’re looking for. And usage research from Ericsson ConsumerLab inspired the worst headline I’ve written for a while. Smartphone users are 'appy in bed. Sorry. I’ll get my coat.


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Microsoft started last week with news of an own-brand rival to the Apple iPad. The new Windows-based Microsoft Surface tablets will start to appear later this year, although full details of the specifications – including whether or not there’ll be cellular connectivity – remain unconfirmed.

ExclusiveAdding a little extra to every mobile sale will make a big difference

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Is there any product that offers as much potential for additional sales as the mobile phone?

When I visit a coffee shop to buy a coffee, I’m often asked “would you like any pastries or muffins with that?”

On the one occasion that I bought a new car, I was offered the option of paying extra for different colours, for floor mats and for a fancy stereo. When you buy a DVD player or a games console, it’s pretty obvious you’ll be paying extra for entertainment.

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Oh, how cheerful we were last Monday. Apple previewed iOS6, which will bring mobile tickets (and 200 other new features) to the iPhone and iPad this autumn. Vodafone cut the cost of using your phone in Europe with its flat-rate £3-per-day EuroTraveller deal and a few days later Three came up with its own ‘unlimited’ European data roaming.

Yet by the end of the week there were fewer smiles in the mobile industry.

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