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Monday, July 8, 2013

Last week at The Fonecast: 8th July 2013

Not all good news...

Mark Bridge writes:

The UK is beginning its week with news of a long-awaited sporting victory for Andy Murray. The telecoms world had its own much-anticipated good news last week, when European roaming rates fell again. And regardless of Neelie Kroes’ plans to abolish roaming rates completely, there’ll definitely be another roaming cut in 2014.

Mind you, not all the headlines have been that positive. HTC’s preliminary results showed an improvement from the previous quarter, although the company is still very much battling from the baseline.

Even more unexpectedly, Samsung’s share price dropped after its interim quarterly results suggested that profits have hit a new record level. Apparently it wasn’t enough of a record to please some people.

There was also bad news for insurance intermediary Policy Administration Services, which was fined £2.8 million for the way it had handled Phones 4u mobile phone insurance complaints, and also for anyone who visits third-party application stores from their Android phone. Mobile security startup Bluebox Security has discovered an Android issue that makes 99% of all Android-based devices vulnerable to attack from apparently-legitimate apps. They’ll be revealing more details in a few weeks’ time, which is just about long enough to sell your current handset and buy a Firefox OS smartphone.

On the positive side of the coin, EE launched its double-speed 4G service and introduced a 'pay as you go' 4G tariff, Three UK revealed a ‘back to basics’ pay as you go offer and Vodafone teamed up with Sainsbury’s to create a mobile phone service for the supermarket.

In addition, Nokia agreed to take over Nokia Siemens Networks, proving it’s not as strapped for cash as many naysayers had suggested. Another hard-won victory, you could say.

On Monday mornings we summarise the past week’s mobile industry headlines in a newsletter that’s a lot like this article. To receive it, simply register your email address at TheFonecast.com by clicking the link at the top right-hand corner of our home page.
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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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