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Sunday, March 11, 2012

Last week at The Fonecast: 12th March 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s all gone a bit quiet. Is it the calm after the Mobile World Congress storm... or is it the knowledge that an Apple announcement will push anything else out of the headlines, even before the product itself has been revealed?

Either way, the last seven days have had significantly fewer news stories than the beginning of the month. But that’s not to say they’ve been completely news-free.

Let’s start with Apple. The company announced a new iPad, called the ‘new iPad’. It’s not slimmer, it’s not lighter... in fact, the tablet’s appearance is more like an iPad 2S than an iPad 3. However, there is a ‘retina’ screen and 4G connectivity, which is certain to give Apple’s sales figures a not-really-needed boost.

Google’s big news was the disappearance of the Android Market. No, it’s not thrown in the towel following the download of 25 billion apps from iTunes, instead it’s transforming its own application store into Google Play. It means you can now ‘Play Music’, ‘Play Movies’ ‘Play Shop’ and ‘Play Books’ on your Android phone. Those last two don’t quite sound right to me.

Also disappearing – but without transformation – is the old application store for Windows Mobile 6 devices and Nokia’s Ovi Share service. You could argue that both are due to Microsoft successes: the success of Windows Phone sales and the success of Microsoft’s own cloud storage services.

On the subject of success, money was making the mobile world go round last week... and it was making the headlines, too. Visa Europe took a 15% stake in the UK-based Mobile Money Network, which is behind the Simply Tap mobile shopping service. It joins the three founders of the shopping service: Monitise, Best Buy Europe and Charles Dunstone.

Sticking with the UK, Telefónica’s technology investment scheme – Wayra – opened for business here and started looking for entrepreneurs to fund. Meanwhile Singapore’s SingTel signed an agreement to acquire US-based mobile advertising business Amobee for over £200 million.

And Three UK launched a range of new price plans with a fixed data allowance that can’t be exceeded.

Finally to France, where a deal between Eurotunnel and French network operators will see 2G and 3G mobile services available inside the Channel Tunnel in time for the London 2012 Olympic Games. People travelling to England from France will be able to use their phones by the end of July, although those travelling from England to France won’t be able to call until the Olympics are over. That means there’ll be plenty of pre-event chatter - and much less talk about the actual results. A situation that sounds strangely familiar, some might say!

Start your week with a reminder of the latest mobile headlines. Simply register at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page and we’ll send you this weekly news summary by email.

The Fonecast is sponsored by 51Degrees.mobi. More details about advertising and sponsorship opportunities are available on the About us section of our website.

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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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