SMS Text News reports that UK mobile operators T-Mobile, 3 and Vodafone have confirmed plans to begin rolling out High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technology in the UK by the end of the year. HSUPA is up to four times faster than HSDPA.
I doubt most Nokia N76 buyers in the UK (it's been an exclusive with Vodafone, remember) were reading my review, so I'd love to know the reasons given by users, but a reliable source is quoted as saying that "Vodafone has decided to withdraw the Nokia N76 with immediate effect. This is due to the high level of customer returns of the phone." Can anyone at Vodafone fill in more detail?
T-Mobiles flat-rate data plans, under the moniker of "Web and Walk" have reached 500,000 subscribers (reports Ewan MacLeod of SMSTextNews). At £7.50 per month on top of any regular plan, it's proven good value to many people, but I'm more interested in the problems that MacLeod and other urban dwellers are finding with the speeds achieved. Mobile data is growing, and if the networks are creaking at the moment...
According to The Register, phone giant Motorola has now slipped into third place behind Nokia and Samsung, after a loss-making Q2 2007. El Reg thinks Moto should make more high end handsets, so would that mean more Z8-style Symbian UIQ3 models?
It is inevitable, and with the launch of a closed beat for mobile AdSense, the market for advertising on smartphones is going to explode over the next few months. Looking ahead, eMarketer is predicting that roughly 17% ($2.4 billion) of the world's advertising budget is going to be via mobile devices come 2011.
Yesterday saw the Royal Court in London place a temporary injunction on T-Mobile to force them to conenct T-Mobile Customers to users of the Truphone VoIP service. The reason for the dispute? Termination fees. This is the amount that Truphone would charge T-mobile when a T-Mobile user calls a Truphone user.
Created for users of Three’s Xmobile data package of phones and data (X-Series), but available to all on the web (http://next.three.com/) and on mobile devices (http://3next.mobi/), 3neXt is a newly opened portal designed to highlight online services, mobile compatible websites for end users. Launching with seven recommended pieces of software, including Jaiku and Shozu.
Following up his high profile piece on Psion, midweek over at The Register, Ewan caught up with long time Technology correspondent Andrew Orlowski in a London bar to talk about the article, and to go into a bit more depth on the topics raised. Ewan also wanted to find out what Andrew thought this meant for Symbian and the current smartphone market. And how could today not be complete with touching on the launch of the Apple iPhone in the USA? All this in AAS podcast number 27.
The fourth edition of the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics is out now, with Nokia regaining top place as a result of phasing out PVC and meeting or exceeding a wide set of Greenpeace benchmarks, designed to reduce the amount and toxicity of electronic waste piling up in Asia and Africa.
No new firmware is planned for the Sony Ericsson P990 and W950 after 'R6D23', released two weeks ago. The last firmware release for the M600 was 'R6A16'. Explaining the termination, there's an official statement below from Niklas Sivander, Head of Product Management, Open OS.
It seems that the European Commission is going to recommend all member countries adopt DVB-H, as used in Nokia's N92 and N77, as the mobile TV solution of choice, in the face of at least two other solutions, more prevalent in Asia. The press release is below. (Via S-F)
In AAS podcast 26, Rafe takes a look at the announcement of the Sony Ericsson W960 Walkman device, with comparisons to the upcoming iPhone, Steve decides that discretion is the better part of valour when it comes to casing a smartphone, while Ewan brings up the latest scam on the streets as people seek to get more money out of mobile phone theft. If you want to subscribe regularly, here's the RSS feed.
Nokia is set to reorganise its corporate structure from January 2008 as part its move towards becoming an 'Internet company'. Nokia's current structure of business groups and horizontal group will change to three main units: devices, software and services and markets. Currently S60 devices are produced by the Multimedia group (Nseries), Enterprise group (Eseries) and Mobile Phones group. The new structure sees a greater emphasis on software and services a main stay of which will presumably be the S60 Platform.
According to a report on Gamesindustry.biz, Nokia has now confirmed it will sponsor the Leipzig GCDC game development conference for the third year in a row. Nokia will give a keynote speech, games for the upcoming next gen N-Gage platform will be on show, and there will be N95 phones up for grabs (although as yet no particular phones have actually been confirmed as platform-compatible).
