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Saturday, May 28, 2011

This week at The Fonecast: 28th May 2011

Mark Bridge writes:

It’s often said that timing is everything. Or is it size?  I’m never sure.

Both came into play this week as online giant Google announced the forthcoming launch of its much-rumoured mobile payment service. Expect Google Wallet to arrive on the Nexus S 4G in the USA this summer. Is it a big deal?  Bearing in mind the lack of any UK information, I’m inclined to think it’s less exciting than the launch of Quick Tap last week... or the US-based clearXchange partnership.

Anyway, there wasn’t much time for Google to bask in the glory of its announcement. PayPal, while not mentioning Google Wallet specifically, is taking legal action against Google and two Google employees who’d previously worked at PayPal. Mobile payments, trade secrets and breached contracts are on the agenda.

Let’s head to Cornwall, where there’s news of a happier partnership. Everything Everywhere and BT Wholesale are planning trials of 4G LTE mobile broadband later this year. If you live in the St Newlyn East area of Newquay, you could be looking at speeds of up to 100Mbps.

If, however, you live elsewhere, you’d be more likely to get 1.5Mbps. That’s what Ofcom reckons the average UK mobile broadband speed is on dongles and datacards.

It may not be close to the maximum possible - but it’s a darn sight better than GPRS, which was launched in the UK just ten years ago. Talking of improvements, the latest J.D. Power Mobile Phone Customer Satisfaction Study shows that mobile phone customers in the UK are more satisfied this year than they were in 2010. Tesco Mobile topped the chart for prepay and post-pay service.

Finally this week, some operating system news. Microsoft announced the details of Mango, its forthcoming Windows Phone OS update. Apparently there are 500 new features - and there’ll also be new manufacturers. Joining Microsoft’s new best friend Nokia will be Acer, Fujitsu and ZTE.

Meanwhile there’s good and bad news for Symbian. Bad news that the EC has closed down the multi-million pound SYMBEOSE Symbian-based development project - but good news that Nokia will support Symbian until 2016 at the very earliest. Anyone splashing out 800 Euro on the brand new gold-plated Nokia Oro will undoubtedly be reassured.


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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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