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Monday, April 16, 2012

Last week at The Fonecast: 16th April 2012

Mark Bridge writes:

At the beginning of last week, Facebook and Instagram were the talk of the mobile industry. Was this billion-dollar deal the sign of another tech bubble?  Facebook’s fast track into mobile?  Facebook moving to cement its dominance of online photography?  You, the jury, decide.

A second billion dollar shopping trip also made the headlines as Microsoft picked up hundreds of AOL patents. And here in the UK, the Daisy Group made a £28 million acquisition of audio-conferencing specialist Worldwide Group Holdings.

Were things just going to keep getting better and better?

No. Bringing us down to earth with a bump was Nokia, which – along with announcing its first NFC-equipped Windows Phone device – admitted that its forthcoming quarterly results were going to be both “difficult” and “disappointing”. Expect discussions about the future of Nokia to continue well beyond Thursday this week, when full details are released.

Also with bad news for many people (despite an upbeat ‘transformation’ message) was Sony, which is likely to lose around 10,000 jobs this year as it makes big changes to its electronics business.

Google’s news was pretty cheery, with quarterly results showing revenue up 24% from the same period last year. Meanwhile Barclays was pleased to roll out its Pingit person-to-person mobile payment service to customers from all UK banks and building societies. And crime-fighters in the USA received a boost with news that trade organisation CTIA was working with its members to set up a nationwide stolen mobile phone database (rather like Immobilise in the UK).

Finally to research, where three separate studies told us that tablet sales, machine-to-machine connections and mobile ticket usage were all on the rise. Expect to see a robot with an iPad on the bus very soon.

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

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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