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Sunday, September 11, 2011

This week at The Fonecast: 11th September 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

Welcome to this week's news summary from The Fonecast. Sorry it's late but I have a reasonably good excuse. On Friday I was in central London to meet Hans Eriksson of Bambuser. He was about to stream his life online for 24 hours, relying on social networking to find him off-beat attractions. You'll find our conversation on TheFonecast.com – and the results are at bambuserchallenge.tumblr.com

Anyway, to the rest of the week's news… and I’ll start with some international giants.

Yahoo! has ditched CEO Carol Bartz and has replaced her with current Chief Financial Officer Timothy Morse until a permanent chief executive is appointed. You won’t be surprised to learn that Carol’s unhappy.

Also in the USA, Google has acquired the Zagat Survey restaurant guide business. This may or may not be a big deal for the mobile industry, depending on what happens next.

And Twitter has reached 100 million active users worldwide, with 55 million of them using Twitter on mobile devices.

In the world of network operations, Vodafone has created an R&D centre in Silicon Valley, the O2 More mobile advertising service has acquired six million opted-in users, Everything Everywhere says it’ll upgrade mobile TV for its customers, Orange has introduced a mobile music streaming service, Telefónica is creating a new London-based Digital business unit and Three UK has been feeling a bit left out when it comes to mobile payments.

Meanwhile, mobile manufacturing appears to be dominated by legal issues at the moment. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 remains banned from sale in Germany, while HTC has bought a number of patents from Google and is using them to fight Apple.

But it’s not all conflict. Microsoft has persuaded Acer and ViewSonic to license its patents, thereby covering their use of Android. And the software giant has promised that it won’t be long before Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint find their way into Symbian Belle. (Which raises two questions: What has Android got to do with Microsoft? – and why would I buy a Windows Phone device if I can upgrade my old Nokia instead?)

When you’ve answered those, I’ll challenge you with one final question. If you wanted to promote a “light-hearted, positive and contemporary image of Christianity relevant to the Easter weekend”, what would you do?

The answer, if you’re Phones 4U, is that you’d create a cartoon of Jesus Christ and His Sacred Heart. You’d make sure it portrayed the Son of God winking and giving the thumbs-up sign – and you’d use it to advertise “Miraculous deals”.

This week the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a number of complaints against the ad, noting that it was likely to cause serious offence. Phones 4U has apologised and said it has no plans to run the ads again. Mind you, they’ve not specifically ruled out using other religious figures.

Stay ahead of the crowd by receiving this weekly news summary from TheFonecast.com by email. Simply click the ‘register’ link at the top right-hand corner of our website and enter your details.

If you use an iPod, iPhone or iPad - or you’re simply a fan of iTunes - it’s easy to find our weekly mobile industry podcasts. Click here to subscribe... or search for ‘The Fonecast’ in the iTunes store.
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Opinion Articles

Last week at The Fonecast: 24th June 2013

More of the same

Mark Bridge writes:

Another week, another couple of product announcements from Samsung. There appears to be no stopping them, despite a recent drop in the company’s share price.

This time it’s a couple of tablets – one of which runs both Android and Windows 8 – and a 20 megapixel camera that’s got a 4G-enabled Android device built in.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 17th June 2013

Making the network truly mobile

Mark Bridge writes:

The telecommunications industry was making plenty of headlines last week – but much of it wasn’t particularly upbeat.

The debate about privacy and security continued in the wake of allegations about US agents intercepting internet traffic. Meanwhile, Nokia prepared to make its last Symbian smartphones and Tradedoubler warned that mobile devices were having a negative effect on high-street consumer loyalty.

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How to shield from internet snooping

George Putic of voanews.com writes:

When news broke about U.S. government agencies collecting metadata about its citizens’ Internet and phone communications, many were surprised by its scope. The surveillance covered a vast number of Internet messages and phone calls. The government did not deny the action but pointed out that the collected data contained, not the substance of the communication, but the so-called metadata.

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Giving it all away

Paying with our privacy

Mark Bridge writes:

There’s been a lot of talk recently about PRISM, which may allow the US National Security Agency - and anyone they choose - to access some of our personal online information if it passes through the USA. It’s unclear exactly what (if anything) is being shared with whom… and given the nature of national security, we may never know.

However, alongside the possibility of governments seeing information we thought was secure, it’s also worth pointing out that we choose to share plenty of online information ourselves.

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6 things you need to know about mobile research, smartphone rumours and imaginary new products

Mark Bridge writes:

Where did it all go wrong?  When did the mainstream mobile industry start to slide away from innovation and into repetitive nonsense?  For a while I suspected the downloadable ringtone was to blame. Just days after hearing 'Barbie Girl' on the mobile phone of a man from Vodafone Value Added Services in the late 1990s, I'd downloaded a poptastic tune to my own Nokia 2110. Soon, the entire mobile world was focussed on 30-second instrumentals instead of technical innovation. It was the beginning of the end.

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