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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Last week at The Fonecast: 21st November 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

Having read some of last week’s headlines, you might think the UK’s Communication Ombudsman has told mobile phone networks not to describe their data tariffs as ‘unlimited’ unless they really are. However, what’s actually happened is that one of the UK’s communication ombudsmen (ombudspeople?) has asked mobile operators to be clear about any limits, to stop unexpectedly high bills from building up and to tell customers before they exceed any limit. Better than nothing but hardly earth-shattering.

Perhaps I’m suffering from the Monday blues but it seems to me that many of the other mobile news stories from the last seven days were equally unexciting for the UK. Damp squib, anyone?

We had O2 switching on the UK’s largest 4G LTE network trial (or ‘the UK’s second 4G LTE trial’, as Everything Everywhere is more likely to call it). It’ll be running a 4G network in London for the next 9 months.

Google followed up its US-based beta Google Music service with a public version of the service. However, music licensing terms mean it’s not available in the UK yet.

But it’s not all completely bad news for UK music lovers. Now available in the UK is BlackBerry’s BBM Music, an app that makes you hope your friends have a similar taste in music but don’t like the same songs. Hmmm. And music discovery service Shazam is rolling out its LyricPlay feature across all its apps for iOS and Android devices, offering karaoke-style lyrics that are displayed in time with the music.

When it comes to mobile money, there’s plenty of news with potential for the UK... but nothing definite.

iZettle launched its ‘chip and PIN’ mobile payment service in Sweden, with some of the funding coming from Charles Dunstone. Intel and MasterCard announced a partnership that could well see NFC credit card readers built into laptops. Plus there was a digital wallet rival to PayPal called V.me, created by Visa and just available as a beta service in the USA and Canada at the moment.

All that was left to cheer me was the preview of next year’s International CES consumer electronics show… and after a couple of hours in the presence of the US Consumer Electronics Association I was reassured that the mobile industry was a good place to be. With mobile businesses - from augmented reality wizards Blippar to gaming accessory designers Fructel - touting their products and services, January’s CES show in Las Vegas promises to be an exciting event. All I need now is some kind of gambling success to finance my trip.

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Opinion Articles

4G doesn't come to Three

Mark Bridge writes:

Earlier today, Three.co.uk published a blog post headlined “4G comes to Three”. But it hasn’t.

I spent most of this morning here at Mobile World Congress muttering about the blog before returning to it this afternoon. And suddenly it’s changed.

The blog post remains. The headline is completely different. Now we’re told “Three to launch leading edge 3G service”.

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How far does it go, mate?

Geoff Varrall of RTT writes:

About 15,000 years ago some indigenous Northern Australians decided that they needed a more efficient way of talking to each other than just shouting a lot.

And blowing into a long cylindrical tube proved to be just what was needed and seriously useful fun – the dawn of the didgeridoo.

Trumpets and bagpipes were invented at about the same time. The ancient Greeks used the trumpet in battlefield communication to devastating effect.

The way you can tell that your didgeridoo is better than everyone else’s didgeridoo is to blow into it and see how far the sound goes.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 20th February 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So said Sir Arthur C Clarke.

Last week’s magic was supplied by imaging company Scalado, which announced a new product called ‘Remove’. The clue’s in the name: it can automatically remove unwanted people from photos taken on a mobile phone. Expect to see it on a handset near you before too long.

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Last week at The Fonecast: 13th February 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s not been a good week for Nokia staff, with 4000 of them likely to lose their jobs from factories in Finland, Hungary and Mexico. The company says it’s moving device assembly to Asia, where it’ll be closer to component manufacturers. The three scaled-down factories will remain open with a new focus on smartphone customisation.

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Could a new legal framework for FRAND principles end the mobile patent wars in 2013?

Mark Bridge writes:

I’m not the first person to point out that mobile phone patent battles are raging all around us. They’ve been going on for years.

However, the topic of FRAND patents - those designated as ‘industry standards’ and therefore required to be licensed on Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory terms - has become an increasingly newsworthy topic.

In the last couple of weeks we’ve reported on an EC investigation into Samsung’s licensing of mobile patents and a Motorola/Apple legal battle that involves FRAND licensing.

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