Mobile Insight Vol: 9 Issue 378 September 3rd 2007
Casino games to replace ringtones
Forget
ringtones, casino games will be the next boom sector , says Wild Jack Casino. It
wouldn't be a major secret except for the fact that no analyst tracks the mobile
gambling industry's Top Ten yet...More
GPay may never get US patent
The news that Google is plotting to enter the mobile payments sector with a service called Gpay
shocked few. The chances of its patent application succeeding, however, look
rather thin...More
Ultra low cost handsets to boost 3G
Ultra Low Cost Handsets (ULCH) is an area which will become increasingly crucial
for handset vendors. Especially when it comes to selling cheap 3G handsets into
established markets...More
CSR introduces 6th gen Bluetooth chip
Described by CSR CEO, John Scarisbrick, as his company's most important
Bluetooth silicon to date, the sixth version of CSR's chip, Bluecore6,
concentrates on power saving and voice capabilities...More
Vodafone/Orange RAN share stalls
The decision by Vodafone and Orange to share their Radio Access Networks (RANs)
in the UK was heralded as a 'historic agreement'. Six months later and we're
still waiting for something to happen...More
Both Qualcomm and Broadcom claim victory
Yet another twist in the Broadcom versus Qualcomm saga. A US appeals court has just cleared the way for Broadcom to take Qualcomm to court for anticompetitive behaviour...More
Vodafone lands large Indian tax bill
Vodafone has landed itself a big bill for its acquisition of Hutchison Essar
(Hutch) in India. It seems the Indian tax man has decided that the whole deal
should be subject to a capital gains tax of around $1.7 billion...More
Battery explodes in Nepalese Nokia phone
Rumours are circulating that a Nokia mobile phone exploded under the pillow of a Nepalese man whilst he was sleeping.
The stories quote The Himalayan Times Daily...More
Vodafone wants South African expansion
Learning from its bitter experience with Verizon Networks, it appears that Vodafone is looking for a controlling interest in South Africa's Vodacom.
"We've said before that we are interested in increasing our stake...More
Snippets
According to a report from the UK's Ofcom, penetration of 3G mobile phones increased from 7 per
cent to 11.2 per cent in 2006, with rivals such as
Orange, T-Mobile, O2 and
Vodafone now accounting for as much of the 3G
market together as 3 UK. See
FT story ...
A british firm, Iphoneunlocking, says it has been prevented from releasing
its iPhone unlocking software because of legal threats from AT&T's lawyers in
the USA. The firm is a subsidiary of UniquePhones (www.uniquephones.com).
Press release is here... http://blog.iphoneunlocking.com
In Site of the Week (by Tony Dennis)
This week
Honda F1 Mobile
For a site described as "One of the most exciting and informative mobile WAP sites in the automotive sector to date", you'd expect something special.
Sadly Honda's F1 WAP site is hugely disappointing.
So what does it offer? Video clips from the last race at Monaco? Results and summary of performance from the Monaco GP?
Predictions for the next race? None of the above. What it does have are three pathetic F1 style ringtones and three wallpapers showing Jenson Button plus Rubens Barrichello.
The best part is probably the chance to win a tour of the Honda F1 factory in
GB.
For a company which offers state of the art technology, you might expect Honda to have tied location based techniques to displaying where the nearest Honda garage is located.
But, no. Surfers find the nearest Honda dealer by typing in their postcode.
Unfortunately the site's provider – the Mobile Interactive Group (MIG)– seems to think the site is industry leading.
This site definitely does nothing for the Honda brand. But at least it wasn't foolish enough to utilise a dotmobi (.mobi) address for the site.
