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Saturday, May 14, 2011

This week at The Fonecast: 14th May 2011

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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Opinion Articles

Review: BeeWi BBS020 solar-powered hands-free Bluetooth car kit

Mark Bridge writes:

Persuading mobile phone users not to hold their phone when they’re driving should be a simple task. It’s dangerous, it’s against the law and the penalties include a fine plus points on your licence.

But even then, there’s often an excuse about convenience and usability. Some people don’t like wearing headsets, some don’t like wires and some simply forget to charge the batteries.

That’s why a new hands-free Bluetooth loudspeaker from French company BeeWi caught my eye.

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The simple case of the disguised iPhone 4

Mark Bridge writes:

I remember the launch of Carweek back in the 1990s. It was a motoring magazine produced as a weekly glossy newspaper; a novel format, although one that probably led to its demise. 'Spy shots' of prototype cars seemed then – as now – to be much sought-after, despite them often not showing much resemblance to the finished product. Indeed, I often wondered how you could possibly road-test the handling of a new car when it was covered with unflattering body parts that served to disguise its shape.

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Maria Sharapova and the 'geek porn' of unboxing

Mark Bridge writes:

'Unboxing' is - or was - the new geek porn. We know this because The Register told us so in 2006, when the practice of video recording the unpacking of new consumer electronics products started to become popular. Just over two years later The Independent tried to tell us that unboxing was still the new geek porn but, by then, conventional porn had probably returned to... er... pole position.

Why do I mention this?  Well, Sony Ericsson has just published its own unboxing video featuring tennis player, model, charity worker and Sony Ericsson brand ambassador Maria Sharapova.

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Scaremongering news stories? There's an app for that

Mark Bridge writes:

Here’s a news headline that caught my eye.

Shotgun certificate up for renewal?  There's an app for that

Or, if you prefer…

Police to allow gun users renew licences with iPhone app

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Mobile payments: solutions get dumber while cards get smarter?

Mark Bridge writes:

Last week I spotted a couple of mobile-related news stories that involved payment company MasterCard. One came from CPI Card Group, which had introduced a “next-generation, MasterCard-approved payment tag” (a.k.a. 'sticker') that enabled “any mobile device to be used to make payments anywhere using the worldwide contactless MasterCard PayPass standard” (by sticking it on the back).

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