Las Vegas
style games such as Roulette,
Blackjack and Stud Poker will be
available on i-mode handsets offered
by O2 thanks to a tie-up between
Player X and Probability Games. One of the offerings, Nudge 7,
even has a jackpot that regularly
reaches over £10,000. In order to
bet, customers use the Cashish
systems which enables payment by
credit card or by cash at retail
outlets around the UK. The games are free and have been
validated on all i-mode handsets by
Player X. To date, the highest pay-out has
been £500 to one player.
The picture equivalent of
text messaging is MMS (Multimedia
Messaging Service). It's been
something of a damp sqib. So Cognima has created a system
called ShoZu which it has made easy
as pie to use. And, rather than
recreate the wheel, it has linked
into three popular Web logging
sites. The list includes Flikr,
Textamerica and Webshots. So all you
need do is install the software and
link it to a mailbox on one of those
three services. Then, whenever you take a photo
with a cameraphone, you can choose
whether or not to upload it directly
to the Web. If you choose Yes, it
will be uploaded in the background
via GPRS or 3G. Mark Bole, Cognima's CEO, reckons
that with the data compression
techniques associated with ShoZu,
it's even cheaper than sending an
ordinary MMS message. Given the
outrageous cost of data roaming while travelling abroad (see Mobile Insight passim), ShoZu is programmed
to prompt the user if he or she
wants to upload photos while abroad. Bole reckons ShoZu's popularity
has grown sufficiently to encourage
both handset vendors and network
operators to licence the client. It
remains free to the public. However, future versions for
business use - such as uploading
photos to a corporate file server -
could attract fees.
IPWireless introduces mobile TV in TD spectrum
Just
when
you thought there couldn't possibly be any room for yet another technology that gives you mobile TV, IPWireless has come out with one - TDtv. It's aiming to drive yet another nail into the coffin of DVB-H, the technology which only yesterday, O2 said was wonderful. The beauty with TDtv is that it utilises spectrum that existing European operators already have. It runs in what is known as unpaired TD spectrum and IPWireless already has four European operators already testing the system. One of which is in the UK.
Mobile Insight saw it being demonstrated today and once again, there's no obvious deficiencies with the picture. In fact, this is the only mobile TV solution which we've ever heard of that will work at 200 mph. TDtv has got a lot going for it. For starters, it keeps control of the broadcast content firmly in the hands of the network operator. Not a third party. Plus it offers the chance for operators to mix niche broadcasts sent via 3G with rebroadcast TV channels carried over TDtv. Plus it shouldn't be too expensive to implement. A further curiosity is that TDtv is actually built around MBMS - the TV version of multimedia messaging. So it broadcasts using the cellular base station. IPWireless claims that fitting a satellite receiver to the base station would be the best way to feed it content. Wonder if BSkyB has heard of this? Anyway, Sprint Nextel likes the idea so much it has just sunk $10 million in IPWireless. So TDtv stands a least half a chance of succeeding.
An eight year old girl has
received adult MMS messages from a
T-Mobile UK service called Hot Babes
- totally bypassing all the checks
and balances the operator supposedly
has in place.
The mother was forced to turn to
Mobile Insight for help to try to stop the
arrival of further picture messages
which featured bare breasted ladies. She'd contacted the T-Mobile help
desk but had been informed that the
company could do nothing because the
messages weren't coming from a
service using a five digital
shortcode. It had four digits. Standard industry practice
dictates that sending the word
'Stop' to any five digit code
immediately cancels any
subscription. But the Hot Babes were
coming from a four digit number and
'Stop' on its own doesn't work. So the
Mobile Insight advised the mother to
contact ICSTIS - the UK industry
body for premium rate services. To
her surprise, ICSTIS revealed that
3060 - the shortcode in question -
actually belonged to T-Mobile
itself. A quick trawl of the Net revealed
that 'Hot Babes' is one of many MMS
services available from T-Mobile -
others being far more innocuous. Luckily the T-Mobile help page
revealed that to unsubscribe from
Hot Babes, the handset user needs to
send a text containing the words
'Stop 'Babe' to 3060. It raises questions as to why
T-Mobile's help desk wasn't aware of
the situation concerning 3060 and,
more importantly, aware of the cure.
Worse still, the mother has been
assured that 'Content Lock' on the
daughter's handset SIM card hadn't
been removed. If that turns out to be true,
then how did Hot Babes get through?
Also - why didn't T-Mobile tell the
mother she could check the status of
the SIM's rating simply by dialling
1818? Despite claims that it requires
positive action to get the Content
Lock lifted on a regular T-Mobile
SIM card, at least one young mother
has discovered this simply isn't
true. T-Mobile has been supplied with
full details and has promised to
investigate thoroughly.
See
'T-Mobile defends Hot Babes as non-adult content'.
T-Mobile defends Hot Babes as non-adult content
The official verdict from T-Mobile as to why a minor an eight year old girl
was able to receive messages from a service called Hot Babes is quite simple.
T-Mobile just doesn't class the content as adult. See T-Mobile sends smut to
eight year old girl. The fact that the multimedia messages showed topless women
doesn't apparently count. Which Mobile Insight finds somewhat astounding since
as a family orientated site we wouldn't normally print pictures anything like
as risquι as these. By an amazing co-incidence, one of the women in question
bears a remarkable resemblance to super-model Heidi Klum. Celebrities aren't our
normally field of excellence. But it just so happens that Heidi was one of two
models at the recent BMW Sauber F1 launch which we attended courtesy of Intel.
The other model was Alessandra Ambrosio, who is apparently Brazilian. But we
digress. Our irate young mother now has to complain formally to T-Mobile about
the content in question. If she doesn't get a satisfactory response, she can
then complain to the IMCB - the Independent Mobile Classification Body
responsible for setting a Classification Framework. In other words, you can
appeal to the IMCB if you think that your network operator/content provider is
supplying material of an adult nature to non-adults.
Other key words that can be sent to 3060 which will punch a hole straight
through T-Mobile's Content Lock provision include Girl, Tackle, Hunk and
Erotic. Somehow we don't think that Dilbert falls into the same class. Oh, and
Hot Babes is free for the first 30 days after which each message costs 30 pence.
Flextronics develops IMS based HipTV
Not to be outdone in the mobile
industry's current mania for producing solutions aimed at enabling handsets to
show TV images, Flextronics Software Systems has developed HipTV. The angle
Flextronics is taking is to blend mobile TV in this case based on DVB-H
Technology with an IMS solution. IMS is the glue that will tie mobile networks
in with an IP based framework.
Flextronics reckons that the mobile TV market will grow from circa 130,000 users
to over 83 million users within five years. The creation of Flextronics'
software division was a reaction to the fact that the company found that not
only were its clients within the communications sector outsourcing the
manufacture of electronic devices, they were outsourcing the design and software
for those devices too. Interestingly Flextronics Software Systems is based on
the early acquisition of Hughes Software Systems which, amongst other tasks,
used to produce software for satellite based systems.
A recent study, published by the
British Medical Journal compared the mobile phone
use of 966 people with glioma with
that of a control group of 1,716
volunteers. Based on data collected in
interviews concerning mobile phone
use over a ten-year period, the
researchers concluded that those who
regularly used mobile phones were
not at a greater risk of developing
glioma.
In Site of the Week (by Tony Dennis)
This week
McFly
On behalf of the record label, Universal Music, Graphico New Media has built the official WAP site for the pop band, McFly. The site has a usual mix of ringtones, colour wallpapers, news, dates and biographies of the band members. So far, Graphico New Media has developed WAP sites for seven artists out of Universal's 300 artist Web sites. Given that the URL is quite complicated its lucky that by sending a text message to 'GO MCFLY' to 85080,it will trigger a WAP push message that automatically puts McFly's mobile site into the phone's browser. Graphico claims that not only is it providing paid content for users to personalise their phones with, but also free news, tour dates, and other relevant tips to make fans come back on a regular basis.
