We will be bringing you some super Palm Pre coverage shortly.

As well as being a MIR Show contributor — and that already sticks him in the pantheon of the Gods as far as I’m concerned — Ben Smith has taken on the rail industry in the UK and left them looking like the damp squids that they are.

His UKTrains Tweet-Alert system has evolved to the next level with crowd-sourced alert functionality.

From today we are testing crowd-sourcing of train travel information in addition to the operator-sourced data we get via the BBC. To have your message automatically retweeted, ensure you are following the Twitter account you want to send an alert to, then add a star character after the name of the twitter account you are addressing:

@[twitter account] * [Message to be re-tweeted]

e.g.

Retweeted: @uktrains * All trains out of Waterloo are delayed at the moment. [star indicates message should be re-tweeted]

Retweeted: @uktr_ virgin * Virgin service earlier dealys seem to have cleared. [star indicates message should be re-tweeted]

Retweeted: @uktr_firstcc* Services into Kings Cross stuck delayed by 20mins. [space between twitter name and * is optional]

Not re-tweeted: @uktr_londonmid Thanks very much for the warning of this morning’s delays! [no star included]

At present the service is built only to act as a proof of concept to gather feedback from users. As such re-tweeting may be delayed by up to an hour (although more typically 10mins). If successful a more rapid service will be provided which treats direct messages in the same way.

In this version twitter accounts for specific operators (the ones beginning @uktr_…) re-tweet messages directed at them. The @uktrains account re-tweets alerts from all operators.

As ever, feedback is welcomed to @bensmithuk.

Our very own Ben Smith is being hunted by the BBC this afternoon. All things being equal I think he’ll be on BBC Radio 4 later today.

They’re after him because of of his brilliant creation: UKTrains.

Here’s the service overview:

Inspired by this tweet from MP Tom Watson and enabled by the excellent BBC Backstage’s travel feeds, this prototype service tweets disruption alerts for 25 UK train operators. The original data is processed and shortened to less than 140 characters (in most cases) by Yahoo Pipes and tweeted via Twitterfeed which also adds a short-link back to the original BBC report. Tweetlater provides the automated welcome DM.

I’ve been using it for a week or so now and it’s come in REALLY, REALLY handy. It’s excellent to have the updates appear in my Twitter stream.

Of course, services like this shouldn’t have to exist. But our rail companies resonating with neolithic incompetence can’t even get their trains running properly (“wrong kind of snow”), let alone get you decent feeds like this.

Instead you end up having to pay 25p plus the cost of a text message to be notified when your train operator has screwed up. That is class-A rubbish.

So kudos to Ben for creating the service.

Head over to the UKTrains site for more information and to subscribe to alerts for your area: http://uktrains.pbwiki.com/.

Update:

Listen to Ben’s interview!

He’s spending 10 days with the GB Paralympic team. And when he’s not looking after our genius basketballers (amongst others), he is hunting for things to review and test — think: navigation, city guides, language tools, social networking tools and related hardware.

Have you got any ideas for kit you’d like him to field test? Drop me a note.

Recorded by phone, this episode has extra smooth-jazz hold music magic…. nice.

COMPETITION EXTENDED: One more week to win a Jawbone Noise Assassin
bluetooth headset – listen to the podcast [33m 13s] for details.

Listen now using the player below or see the links below for other options:

Episode link and feeds:

[Link] Direct link to this episode’s MP3 to download
[iTunes] Subscribe or listen in iTunes
[RSS] Subscribe via your feed reader or another podcatcher

—-

The contributors:

Dan Lane’s blog is at http://invalid.name. He’s CTO at Howler Tech.
James Whatley’s blog is here. He works for SpinVox doing clever social media stuff and also writes their blog. Sometimes he writes for SMS Text News and you can read all of that stuff right here.
Ben Smith is a management consultant. He has a blog, but anything worth reading is contributed here.

Sites mentioned in the podcast:

James mentioned his latest project Stand By What You Say
The Mobile Web 2 Summit Blog can be found here: http://mwsblog.com
Fleishman-Hillard’s Digital Influencer Index.
Apple’s iPhone 3G and MobileMe info.
NinetyTen – Unlimited Drinks sponsors and all-round good-guys.
Mobile Geeks of London IV – 31st July.
Jay Flint is presenting at erlang-exchange.com.
The Nokia 6124 Classic (currently exclusive to Vodafone) is a budget S60 FP2 handset.
The LG Blog is excellent.
James loves the Nokia E65.
Dan passes on a recommendations for JBac Taskman [no link currently] and MagicKey.
Ben loves Zimbra, paticularly hosted by Simply Mail Solutions.

We’re really keen to get your feedback on the podcast – please let us know in the comments or tell Ewan – ewan@smstextnews.com.

—-

My thoughts:

I’m a Macbook Air-toting iPhone-carrying Apple convert. It’s been a relatively recent thing, but hands-up – it works for me and I love it. Having said that the iPhone 3G is just a ‘tick in the box’ as far as I’m concerned – it’s what was widely anticipated and equals the spec of other high-end handsets. Not bad, but no ‘wow’…

But that’s not the full story… Have you seen the announced prices? Now we’re talking… In the UK, it will be free on new contracts and £100 upgrade for existing customers. At that price the boxes will flood out of the stores and as far as most consumers are concerned the major barrier between them and owning an iPhone is now gone. Much as I wish it wasn’t, the price is the only part of yesterday’s announcement that matters.

The hardcore mobile users (yes, I’m looking at you Whatley) will complain about the lack of external memory card, replaceable battery or a decent camera with a flash, but it won’t be an issue for most – in fact the user experience will trump concerns in that area.

Most Impressive?

The price – no messing straight to the right end of the chart – boom. Closely followed by the speed of execution – on specs alone zero to 3G with developer platform in 12 months… suck that Nokia.

Most Dissappointing?

It doesn’t appear to be going network-independent and the UK’s still a single-operator terratory. On the technical front I don’t see any network-based iTunes sync and suspect the 10MB over-the-air limit on application downloads also means no 3G iTunes Music store (yet), but that’s all software and ‘fixable’. I mourn the passing of ‘at home’ activation, but normobs won’t notice – it’s just the same as other handsets now.

Mobile Me:

Full consumer-grade sync… Genius. Long overdue actually, but this will be the leg-up it needs. Yahoo Go, Danger’s Sidekick and Plaxo Mobile have all been stop-gaps, but this is the full-monty with a polished-looking web interface to match. Ignore that iDisk rubbish – push sync is the key here and it’s Mac to PC too… no iPhone required.

Pricing is, as ever, a bit steep and you have to buy it all or not at all, but this will be a grower… just watch… Apple understand the mobile experience is bigger than just the handset and have built a platform for the future as well as a service for now. However, it hasn’t got an operator logo attached so if I was O2 I’d be reconciling myself to life as a ‘pipe’ about now. The other question is why Nokia hasn’t done this yet. With the Intellisync acquisition they have the know-how and it’s been ‘coming soon’ as part of Ovi forever… Everyone will be offering something akin to this soon. Why do you think Vodafone bought Zyb?

Will I upgrade?

Too right I will – I want the speed hike and at that price why not?

—-

Wrote that last night… Footnote from this morning:

O2 will be offering PAYG options – I think that answers the question about where all the iPhone 1.0’s will be going too as upgraders pass them on to friends and family.

BT’s Openzone WiFi is being added to the iPhone tarriff ‘free’ like the existing Cloud network…. that’s some impressive coverage! Also a smart way for BT to take the pressure of their 3G network in areas like central London.

Dan is more audible this week, although the sound is still ‘authentic’… we discuss Ofcom’s proposed ‘voluntary code’ for mobile broadband providers, Unlimited Drinks (tomorrow!), the Jawbone launch, the state of mobile journalism, Ewan’s upcoming desert-island adventure, our things of the week and so many ’shout outs’ it hurts.

COMPETITION: Win a Jawbone Noise Assassin bluetooth headset – listen
to the podcast [34m 57s] for details.

Listen now using the player below or see the links below for other options:

Episode link and feeds:

[Link] Direct link to this episode’s MP3 to download
[iTunes] Subscribe or listen in iTunes
[RSS] Subscribe via your feed reader or another podcatcher

—-

The contributors:

Ewan MacLeod is the bloke wot made up SMS Text News. Out of his own head…
Dan Lane’s blog is at http://invalid.name. He’s CTO at Howler Tech.
James Whatley’s blog is here. He works for SpinVox doing clever social media stuff and their blog.
Ben Smith is a management consultant. He has a blog, but anything worth reading is contributed here.
Dan Illet, proper journalist and ‘grand fromage’ at our sister blog Greenbang is a special guest this week.

Sites mentioned in the podcast:

OFCOM’s voluntary code and mobile broadband – Guardian write-up.
Be Unlimited are purveyors of spanking-fast broadband and Dan likes them.
‘Unlimited Drinks‘ is back in London on the 10th June. NinetyTen are the super chaps supporting it.
Dan recommends that you’re not a Twitter Sh***er.
The Nokia N78 can be found here.
I didn’t love using Tangler.
The new Jawbone ‘Noise Assassin’ – silly name, cool gizmo.
HTC and Windows Mobile.
Three’s mobile broadband ’starter pack’ bundles.
Get Satisfaction – the customer service network / portal / thingumy.
Free or discounted laptops from Three and PC World.
LJ Rich is cool and knows her tech.
Craig says ‘hi’ from Hook Mobile.
Vaibhav says ‘hi’ from TheSymbianBlog.com.
Alfie says ‘hi’ from Moblog.co.uk
Jeb Brilliant wants to remind people about TopMobile20.com
Mark Guiam says ‘hi’ from thenokiablog.com

We’re really keen to get your feedback on the podcast – please let us know in the comments or tell Ewan – ewan@smstextnews.com.