Mobile Phone News:

Ah, we’ve been treated to a few rather neat concept mobile phones over the last few days, and it turns out that today is no exception, because according to PC Advisor, another one’s been announced. This time, however, it’s a mobile phone designed by a Taiwanese research institute, in cahoots with the design house, Pilotfish. And what’s so special about it?

As you can guess from the title, it’s a mobile phone with a bendable, foldable, full colour screen.

So, to see the ‘normal’ 3 inch screen (and since you know the size of the screen in that mode, you should be able to work out that the mobile phone itself is a smidgeon smaller than the Sony Ericsson X1), you just flip the phone open like a book on its side, setting it up in a kind of mini-laptop mode. However, when you want a bit more screen real estate, the back of the phone slides upwards, revealing the rest of the huge 5 inch screen, that up till that moment, was hidden behind the keyboard.

And the reason it can do that is because of the fact the screen bends in the middle. See that taskbar in the middle of the screen?

That’s where it bends (which means your taskbar is right in the middle of the screen, in big mode, but you can move it). So, overall, the screen is bigger than any other mobile phone on the planet, and it should rock. Of course, it’ll need a custom operating system, but with open source OS-es like Google Android (and Symbian Foundation on the way), that shouldn’t be an issue. Just pick a mobile phone OS that does what you want, and figure out how to make it show the extra screen space in big mode. Or use your own third party OS, even if that limits functionality.

Oh, and it’s a bit cumbersome. It actually looks a bit thicker than the Sony Ericsson X1, which may put people off. But if folding screen tech makes it onto other manufacturers’ mobile phones, we could be seeing the start of something special. After all, with the smartphone and netbook markets more or less converging down towards the same space in the market (and let’s be honest, you can see it happening), if smartphones can nick the netbooks’ one big advantage (screen size), they’re laughing, especially since the creators are working on both bigger versions, and touchscreen technology to go inside the bendy screens.

So, here’s to the day we get to see some future Sony Ericsson Xperia phone with a 28″ screen…

It’s about the same size, it’s super-powered, and best of all, it actually exists… grab yourself the Sony Ericsson X1 today!

Well, Nokia’s Comes With Music service is out there in the wild, and although it’s not been available long, Nokia are already on the hunt for their next all-you-can-eat content buffet type thing to stick in their mobile phones, using the same ‘Comes With’ model, according to Engadget Mobile. Nothing’s been decided (or even properly researched and worked out, it sounds like) yet, but it seems likely that if Nokia want more downloadable stuff for their mobile phones, they’ll turn to the separate worlds of movies and games.

In the future, we could well see Nokia Comes With Movies mobile phones, as well as Comes With Games handsets.

Nokia are being understandably reticent to give away any details (in case somebody nicks their idea first), but given that worldwide games giant Electronic Arts have said they’d actively support any new innovation that mobile phone manufacturers come up with to get their games out to punters. Although, knowing EA, it’ll be packed to the gills with more DRM than any software ever seen, in history (Spore, anyone?)…

However, having said that, the idea of a mobile phone, something like a Nokia N96, that you can download loads of games and movies for nothing should be rather appealing, if you’re into that kind of thing. And if you’re wondering why I picked the Nokia N96, remember that it’s got a TV-Out connector, so you can plug it into a telly, and basically have a portable cinema and games console.

The fact it’s got 16Gb memory doesn’t hurt either, and let’s be honest, what with it having BBC iPlayer already, and WiFi, it’s a natural fit…

So, are we going to see Nokia ‘Comes With Other Stuff Besides Music’ mobile phones soon? Well, since it took them nearly a year to sort out the licensing for Comes With Music, I can’t see it happening for maaaaaany months. If and when it does, though, it’s got the potential to be a right cracker!

It’s one of the best multimedia mobile phones out there… grab the stunning Nokia N96 today!

A new app has been released for the iPhone, courtesy of Google. Now, normally, I wouldn’t bother doing coverage of iPhone apps on the blog, but there’re two important reasons why I’ve picked up on this today:

1/ It allows you to do a Google voice search, simply saying what you want into the phone, and it searches for it.

2/ It doesn’t work properly if you don’t use an American accent.

Er, what?

Yes, according to The Register, the Google app doesn’t appear to work very well with an accent that doesn’t have an American twang to it, or as we call it in Britain, an English Accent. Or Scottish, come to that. Or Welsh. Or any of the scores of accents found throughout these sceptred isles, including Scouse, Geordie, West Country cider festival, Cockney or my own ’slightly Yorkshire with hints of Nottingham and Lincoln’ dialect.

What’s particularly amusing about this is precisely what the searches returned when various people said “iPhone” into their mobile phone, expecting their iPhone to show a search for, erm, iPhone.

Nope. One Scottish gentleman was given searches for ‘Sex’, users in Wales got back searches for ‘Gorillas’ and ‘Kitchen Sink’, and the fairly safe bet of the Surrey accent brought back results for ‘My Sister’ (no joining those phrases together, trust me, you’ll come up with some bizarre and possibly illegal combinations).

Well, I know someone who has an iPhone 3G, our very own Dan… so, I shall be updating this post tomorrow, after we’ve downloaded it, and tried some of our own searches to see what stupid results we get back…

EDIT: We’ve done it, and downloaded the Google Voice Search app, and… yep, it doesn’t work with ANY of our accents. Oh yes, it produced some rather humorous search results, though! And here they are - what we said, first, then what Google thought we said (and yup, we did several for ‘iPhone’)…

iPhone - life poem, Amazon, weather, losing eyesight, typhoon, css ie, Verizon
monkey - wiki
tom jones - home gyms
battery - Tetris

…but my favourite has to be… 

pork chop - adult shop

Ah-hahahahahahahahaha!

So, it would definitely seem that the only way to use Google Voice Search on your iPhone is to speak into the mobile phone, using an American accent. We confirmed that, too, with both me and Dan putting on dodgy American accents to say iPhone. There is probably a very, very high chance anyone doing this will sound like Dick Van Dyke on a bad day, or, god help you, Jason Statham.

Although on the plus side, for everyone else, we are to be treated to the hilarious spectacle of hundreds of UK iPhone users shouting at their mobile phones using truly terrible American accents, to get their search feature working, and thus making complete tools of themselves…

Can you tell I’m looking forward to that part?

I say get a better phone than the iPhone; grab yourself the HTC Touch HD today!

Ah, the environment. A hot topic in every walk of life, even mobile phones. We’ve seen some supposed eco-friendly phones, including the Bamboo phone, or as it shall forever been known round here, the baby-panda-phone. Frankly, most of the ideas I’ve seen on making mobile phones ‘greener’ are, to put it bluntly, silly.

How refreshing, then, to see a development that is actually pointful, that I can see the benefits of, and has a much bigger benefit besides ‘saving the planet’ (more on that in a second)…

Basically, the story is, as reported by Engadget Mobile, that the big five mobile manufacturers (Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung and LG) have all finally agreed on something. What they’ve agreed on is a dead simple thing, but it has profound implications.

And it’s not actually about mobile phones, but rather, it’s about phone chargers. The logic is very, very simple: if your charger is plugged in, and the phone is either fully charged, or isn’t even attached to the charger, then the charger is still drawing power. And as we all know, using more electricity than you need is one of mankind’s greatest evils, according to eco-terrorists. So, the big five manufacturers have come up with a rating system, so people can know exactly how eco-friendly their mobile phone charger is, ranging from 5 stars (very good, will make trees grow) to 0 stars (runs on baby pandas). So, phone chargers that go into auto-shutdown mode when the phone’s full (a genuinely clever idea, and one I fully support) will get higher scores than ones that don’t for example.

Now, I know I’ve made some (ok, a lot of) sarcastic comments about eco-mentalists in this and, well, more than one other blog post. But here, I reckon, the big five manufacturers have come up with a genuinely good idea, because it doesn’t involve stupidly having to crank a handle on the phone for hours before you can use it (yup, baby-panda-phone again). You still use the normal power outlet, it just stops the charger from drawing power while it’s not actually charging the phone. And quite apart from ’saving the planet’, you know why that’s a good idea?

You will save a great big bag o’ cash.

Ah, I love it when the worlds of ecology and capitalism combine. ‘Tis brilliant. So, if we get eco-chargers as standard from the big name mobile phone makers, we still get to use cool mobile phones like the Sony Ericsson X1, instead of being relegated to baby-panda-phones.

And no matter how much eco-terrorists whinge (and they do, without having a single shred of understanding about how the technology actually works), the power of the future is nuclear fusion (not mini-fusion reactors built into mobile phones, but… hmmm, now there’s an idea). Incredibly efficient, massive yield, far, far, far, FAR safer than nuclear fission, and no nasty nuclear waste. Beats low yield windmills any day…

You’ll soon be able to charge it without feeling guilt! Grab yourself the amazing Sony Ericsson X1 today!

Here goes with the second of today’s concept mobile phones, courtesy of Engadget Mobile, with a new phone aimed not at the full-on gadget nuts like me, but at the medical and military services, and maybe backpackers. Oh, and First Responders and First Aiders.

It’s called the iCEphone, and as you can see from the pic, it doesn’t exactly follow a traditional design layout…

Based on a kind of Jacob’s ladder layout, what you get is a mobile phone with 3 separate body parts: one with a 3 inch screen, one with a full QWERTY keyboard, and one with gaming buttons and control keys. Whilst I’m not entirely sure of the usefulness of putting game controls on a mobile phone aimed at first aiders and soldiers (two groups of people who I’d really want to keep their minds on the job…), I can see the use of them if the iCEphone’s also going to be sold to consumers. Which it will be. But to backpackers and gap year students, who may well travel round the world with their phone, according to the official site for the iCEphone.

The big addition, though, has to be what’s inside the mobile phone. And no, I don’t mean the camera, or any built-in games, or music players, or whatever else has been added to sell it to consumers. It’s got all that stuff, but that’s not what’s important about it, so I’m not going to talk about it.

No, the most important and groundbreaking bit is the iCE Aid software. I suppose, at this point, I’d better tell anyone who doesn’t know what iCE means. In Case of Emergencies. So, what the iCEphone brings to the world of mobile phones is a full software solution designed with the express purpose of helping to save people’s lives. Approved by the British Red Cross, St Andrew’s Ambulance Association and the St John’s Ambulance Brigade, it has a full portfolio of guidelines based on the latest codes of practice, and could, quite possibly, make the difference between someone living and dying.

Not many mobile phones can make that claim, and this is one feature of a phone that only has to be used once for it to be the single most worthwhile thing to have built-in, ever.

That’s why, despite it not being a top-end super-gadget-phone that I want to own, I say get this thing made, get it out there, and get it out to the people who need to use it. First responders, first aiders, even troops who need to give emergency treatment to their mates in the field… every one of them could benefit from this.

And while I think mobile phones are brilliant gadgets, and should be about communication and stupidly pointless fun, I really can’t emphasise how good an idea I reckon the iCEphone is.

And as someone who’s had to call on the services of the local First Responder and Lincolnshire Ambulance Service (as I’ve said before, two groups of people I have an infinite amount of respect for), I say, to The Medical Phone Ltd, who are making it, “Get it made, and get it out for the people who need it to use, now!”

Meanwhile, if you’re a normal user like me, and you want a Windows Mobile phone, get the best; get the Sony Ericsson X1 today!

I’m a great lover of concept mobile phones, as should be readily apparent to anyone who reads this blog. I loves ‘em, and quite frankly, the more ludicrous the better. However… there are two flavours of ludicrous. First, there’s “this phone is completely daft” ludicrous; second, there’s “crikey, if they make this phone, it’ll change Earth’s orbit, it’s so good” ludicrous.

It’s safe to say that the new concept ‘01Phone’ falls very firmly into the second category.

A joint brainchild between gadget magazine T3 and design house The Alloy (whose concept phones I gushed about last year), this really is a mobile phone designed to fill the nation with the hollow, reverberating sound of people jaws hitting the floor. It could quite simply be, in other words, the single best mobile phone ever conceived by man.

Ah, but that’s an easy statement to make, so why is it so good?

Well, basically, mobile phones out there in the world do many different things, and give people a whole swathe of benefits. Mobile phones with top-end cameras, to give you perfect photos. Mobile phones with bags of memory and superb music players, so you can bin your old mp3 player. The internet. Sat-nav.

Well, the list goes on, but the idea posed by T3 is that no individual mobile phone has done everything perfectly, or given customers the perfect version of every single one of those benefits, in one phone (although I’d argue the HTC Touch HD comes close). So, they set out, with The Alloy, to rectify that, to make the perfect mobile phone… and the result is the 01Phone you see here.

And, oh dear god, is it stunning!

The looks are perfect, the features are incredible, and the feel of using it is better than any other mobile phones out there. Well, at least, it is if you believe T3, which, I hasten to add, I am inclined to do…

Imagine a combination between the Touch HD mentioned above, and the Sony Ericsson X1, and the iPhone, and the Blackberry Storm, that takes all the best bits of those mobile phones, makes them even better, and then adds in some new benefits that none of those phones have. So, the basics are two 5 megapixel cameras, front and back (yep, video calls will look as good as videos and photos from the main camera), a massive multitouch screen (with a multitouch stylus that look like a pair of sugar tongs and therefore rocks), 32Gb of built-in memory… all of those things are cool, but you could argue that they’ve been seen in other mobile phones before.

In which case, let’s look at the really cool stuff, the stuff that you just don’t see on any other mobile phones…

Mighty Morphin’ Power Keyboard

First up, the keyboard. As you can see, it’s a slide-out QWERTY affair, except it’s context sensitive, so whilst it is a proper keyboard with proper keys, different pictures or symbols are shown on the keyboard, depending on what feature of the mobile phone you’re using. So, camera controls for the camera, internet keys for the web browser, a choice of QWERTY or old school keypad mode for writing texts… Oh, and it changes colour, too, so you always know what mode the keyboard is in. That is bordering on impossibly awesome, and there are some pics, below, of it in action to show you just how frighteningly cool that idea is.

Wireless headphones hidden inside the phone

With 32Gb of memory built in, and what appear to be stereo speakers on the back of the 01Phone, it should be no surprise that it loves its music. So, how about if it includes wireless headphones that you stow away and store inside the phone itself? Which, presumably, will mean they get charged when the mobile phone does.

The word ‘genius’ comes to mind. And yes, there’s a piccie of that, below, as well.

Two mobile phones for the price of one

Ok, here we go. The coolest thing on the 01Phone, and in fact, the coolest thing I’ve seen on any mobile phones ever, is that black stripe on the back… because it’s not just a black stripe on the back; that, right there, is actually a second, miniaturised mobile phone that lives inside the big mobile phone! In effect, that means that you get two mobile phones instead of one; the hyper-turbo-nutter touchscreen phone for all the flashy, fancy, fun stuff, and a second, cut-down, mini-phone, to use as a simple phone on the go, while you keep the hyper-turbo-nutter shell in your pocket, or in your bag. Small, simple and discreet, that’s the ticket.

That. Is. Astonishing (although I will concede it’s very similar to the Modu concept of modular mobile phones).

Not only that, but you’re supposed to be able to wrap the mini-phone round your wrist, implying that it’s also got a bendy screen, which suggests e-paper (just like the Motorola F3), which means the battery on the mini-phone, when detached from the hyper-turbo-nutter shell, should last roughly, ooh, forever.

Here you go, as promised, some pictures of all that cool stuff:

So, the big question is… will the 01Phone ever get made, or is it just some kind of mad pipe-dream? Well, the problem with most concept mobile phones is that they never, ever see the light of day as real, over-the-counter products. Which is rather disappointing, and would be doubly so in this case. But the thing is… word on the street is that The Alloy are actually in the process of building a fully working prototype, taking it beyond the concept stage, and into the world of “oh blimey, this could actually happen now!”

That being the case, it’s entirely possible that one day soon, the world will see the 01Phone in the flesh. And if it does, then trust me, the world of mobile phones will never be the same again…

Don’t want to wait and see IF the 01Phone ever actually gets made? Grab one of the new breed of smartphones, like the HTC Touch HD, today!

Now, there’s an intriguing question, as posed by the New York Times. Will Barack Obama, who used the internet and blogosphere, and not forgetting mobile phones, so effectively in his election campaign, have to actually give up using email and his beloved Blackberry when he takes up residency in the White House?

Y’see, the United States have a law, the Presidential Records Act, which would put any emails he sent on the presidential record, and open to public viewing. So, presumably that would even include private emails.

All of that boils down to one conclusion: it’s easier for Obama, once in the White House, to just give up his Blackberry mobile phone (which, from pics I’ve seen, looks like a Blackberry Curve 8310). Or, theoretically, he could use it in a sort of read-only mode, reading emails, but not actually replying to them, or sending them. Aides have tentatively put that idea forward as a solution, but I’ll be honest, it just makes the phrase “what an almighty faff” pop into my head. Mind you, there are other concerns, such as email security, and when you’re leader of the free world, it could be argued that having someone nick your emails is more of a big deal than when some pleb like me gets their emails nicked. After all, if my identity gets stolen, as bad as that would be (and yes, I do think identity theft is a very serious crime, and my sympathies go to people who have been victims of it), you can’t use it to launch nukes at Russia…

Basically, what it all comes down to, at the end of the day, is subpoenas, as the New York Times points out, and once again, the lawsuit-happy world and people out to dig the dirt will keep the leader of the free world enmeshed in the 19th century and safely away from any o’ these newfangled ‘mobile phones‘.

However…

Obama has already stated that he’s going to have a crack at dragging the office into the modern world, and expected to be the first president to actually use a laptop on his desk in the Oval Office.

So, will the law be changed? Will Barack Obama be allowed to keep using his Blackberry mobile phone when he’s in office? And if he does go into ‘read-only mode’ on his handset, will he, in fact, get himself a Blackberry Storm?

It’s important questions like that last one that need answering…

Want to beat the new president to the latest technology? Grab yourself the incredible Blackberry Storm today!

Ah, another day, another claim that mobile phones are evil. I really do love it when the old ‘mobile phones will kill everyone’ stories pop up, like this particular one today, on Engadget Mobile. Apparently scientists at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran have concluded that mobile phones are, once again, a threat to people’s health. But not by causing brain tumours, or any of that, oh no sir.

Apparently now, they’ve decided that mobile phones will, in fact, make the fillings in your teeth release mercury.

Yep, that’s right, they’re pretty much saying that mobile phones will make your face melt…

The report they’ve issued suggests that the radiation given off by your mobile phone will react with the amalgam (an alloy of mercury and other metals) in your fillings, and cause it to release mercury. And as we all know from GCSE chemistry, mercury is rather unpleasant stuff, given that it’s really rather toxic. However, it’s very notable that none of the tests and experiments were carried out on massive sample sizes (30 people just isn’t enough, statistically speaking), so any results can’t be said to be fair and unbiased, with any certainty.

Also, the research team themselves go to great lengths to state that the levels of mercury released (which I’m not convinced is caused by mobile phones, anyway) are well below maximum safe levels. So, what we in fact have here is a study about mobile phones that’s being billed as saying mobile phones will kill you when in fact it says nothing of the sort. So, far from it being bad science, as I had first assumed, it’s people misquoting a genuine scientific research project, that hasn’t actually found that mobile phones are dangerous!

Cue the knee-jerk reactionaries starting up their anti-mobile phone campaigns, despite that, in 3, 2, 1…

Meanwhile, in the real world, I shall continue using my mobile phone, and I’ve got loads of fillings. And if and when I get a Sony Ericsson X1, I shall use that, too, and frankly, not worry about my phone melting my face off…

If you want a phone with a SAR rating WELL below the maximum safe score (it comes in at 0.57, well below the highest safe score of about 1.6), grab the Sony Ericsson X1 today!

Anyone who’s read this bog in the past may remember I did a post, ages ago, about the Zeki phone, aimed at toddlers. And you may remember my sentiments from that story, which can be summed up thusly:

Ahem.

Stop giving mobile phones to kids!

I mean, let’s be honest, I didn’t need a mobile phone until I was at least 21. Mind you, the fact that mobile phones were about as widespread as, well, as something very tightly knit that wasn’t everywhere, back then, is probably a factor. I still maintain, though, that I honestly can’t see the point of kids having mobile phones. But maybe I should be a bit more specific: it’s young kids I don’t think should have mobile phones. They don’t need ‘em, and I certainly reckon they need them to keep them safe, since that’s the parents’ job.

So, where does this leave the new Samsung Tobi S3030 that’s been reported on by MobileBurn? As a mobile phone designed and being marketed for kids, does that mean it’s a daft idea, a phone that just won’t sell?

Well, no, because Samsung have actually been rather canny with the Tobi S3030. Sure, it may be ostensibly designed for kids, on the surface, but when you look into the features… well, it’s not vastly different from a Samsung mobile phone aimed at adults. They say it has animated menu icons, but so do many Samsung mobile phones. And, I might add, the menus on the Tobi, despite being ‘kiddified’, aren’t a million miles away from those on the Samsung U900 Soul.

The Samsung Tobi’s other big selling point is its safety features, specifically SOS call, SOS message, and ‘fake call’ (no idea what that is, but I’m guessing it simulates someone ringing you to distract whoever’s trying to kill you/steal your dinner money). And yet… those features are present on a lot of Samsung mobile phones.

So, what you’ve got with the Samsung Tobi is, in fact, pretty much no different, internally, from other Samsung phones.

And that, right there, is why Samsung have been very canny. They haven’t just made a mobile phone that can only be sold for kids. They’ve made a phone that can be sold for kids (well, teenagers, which I’m not against, unlike Zeki, who made a phone for toddlers), but that also works for other people. Like, for example, young single women who have to go to their car after work, in the dark, on a quiet car park. Surely I can’t be the only one who can see how much that would benefit young women who could, theoretically, get mugged or worse? And surely I can’t be the only person who can see the benefits others would get from what is, essentially, a kids’ phone that’s not really a kids’ phone?

And as for the outlandish and bright designs, hey, some people prefer their mobile phones to look like that, no matter how old they are. After all, if a woman in our office, who is 41 (and as she says, rapidly approaching 42, although she insisted I remind people she doesn’t look it) can have Spongebob Squarepants as her ringtone, and keep a straight face, then anything is possible…

If you want a bright, loud phone that shouts out your personality, the Samsung Tobi is for you. Meanwhile, if you want a phone that’s a bit more restrained and classy, grab yourself the Samsung U900 Soul, today!

Great news from USEB today, as they’re reporting that the Sony Ericsson C905 is officially the best selling mobile phone in the UK this week. According to the weekly stats, Sony Ericsson’s share of the market stands at nearly 29%, a large proportion of which must surely be down to the C905 going on general release; and that, when you consider how many other mobile phones are on sale, is a massive success.

Mind you, having had a play with the Sony Ericsson C905, it’s not that hard to see why. Because it’s brilliant.

It is, in fact, a properly nice mobile phone. I’m not going to go on at great length about the spec of the Sony Ericsson C905, because it’s well-known by now, but I will say that this is probably my favourite of the recent crop of 8 megapixel mobile phones, partly because of the Cyber-Shot technology in it, partly because of the Sony Ericsson badge on the front, and partly because of the stupidly cool lens cover.

Yes, I know it’s daft to fall in love with a mobile phone’s lens cover, but that’s what I fell in love with on the Sony Ericsson C905. Well, after the camera, obviously.

Anyway, this is just a short blog post to congratulate the success of the Sony Ericsson C905. I’d like to leave on the words of David Hilton, UK marketing manager for Sony Ericsson, and apparently grand master of speaking the obvious: ‘This is a really good result.’

You ain’t kidding it is!

So, basically, if you want what I consider to be the best camera phone you can get, grab yourself the Sony Ericsson C905 today!