O2 has announced that it'll be offering a fixed-line home phone service from March. The service will be available to new and existing customers who also subscribe to the company's fixed-line broadband service.

There'll be a choice of two home phone packages. ‘Evening & Weekend’ is £9.50 per month, offering unlimited calls to UK homes at evenings and weekends. ‘Anytime’ is £12.50 per month and offers unlimited calls at any time to UK homes, 0845/0870 numbers and landlines in over 20 countries (subject to a fair use policy).

James Rosewell writes:

If you work for a sizeable organisation it’s 65% likely your email, contacts, calendar and task list will all reside on a Microsoft Exchange server. That’s quite a lot of mobile phones to connect and synchronise with Exchange. Microsoft has a solution called ActiveSync now supported by Nokia, Apple and a few others. RIM requires a server that IT departments need to install to allow their BlackBerry users to access these features.

Android has been left behind when it comes to accessing ActiveSync.

The recent earthquake in Haiti has seen text message donations of more than $3 million dollars in the USA, with all four major network operators supporting a text message campaign that enables mobile phone users to donate $10 to the American Red Cross.

Although humanitarian efforts are a priority, restoring communications to the country's damaged capital – Port au Prince – is also seen as an important part of relief work because it will enable the government and aid agencies to coordinate their efforts.

The Eastman Kodak Company says it's filed lawsuits against Apple and Research In Motion. It's complaining to the US International Trade Commission that Apple’s iPhones and RIM’s camera-enabled BlackBerry devices infringe a Kodak patent that covers technology for previewing images – and it's also filed legal cases in New York claiming that other digital camera and computer patents have been infringed.

Laura G Quatela, Chief Intellectual Property Officer and Vice President of the Eastman Kodak Company, said "We’ve had discussions for years with both companies in an attempt to resolve this issue amicably, and we have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement. In light of that, we are taking this action to ensure that we protect the interests of our shareholders and the existing licensees of our technology."