With the market saying 'no' to Nokia's Ovi Store, what do you think can be done to change this?It seems that Tunebite allows Nokia’s DRM to be cracked. Tunebite has been around for a while so it’s not a new system.
Tunebite internally “plays” the DRM’ed music at high speed and converts the digital output back into a non-DRM file.
It’s very unlikely that Nokia can do much about this, it’s like plugging the output of the sound card in your PC back into a recorder (though there’s an analogue conversion there). Tunebite does the same thing, but in the digital domain.
News has just begun to trickle out from Telefónica O2 of another HTC device joining the ranks of the Xda league of gentlemen.
Although nothing official yet has been stuck in a press release and fired our way, the Xda Flint AKA HTC Advantage looks like it could be official soon.
A page has appeared on the main Xda website seen here listing the Xda Flint just as ‘new’, but no details or pricing has yet to be published.
We made several attempts to contact O2 press office today to confirm what’s what, but all to no avail and we’re still none the wiser.
Already on board the Xda line-up is the HTC Touch Diamond, under the moniker Xda Ignito which is the High Tech Computer Corporation best selling handset to date.
The HTC Advantage X7510 is an update of the updated version of their HTC Advantage X7500, which came out around Q1 2007. The latest model was first shown the light of day at GSMA Mobile World Congress this year, although this appears to be the first time a significant network has shown an interest.
Xda Flint is a Windows Mobile 6.1 driven QWERTY keyboard 5-inch VGA touch screen based device, which could even include HTC’s TouchFLO overlay. Initially it came out as tri-band, but thanks to the wonders of a flash update it’s now Quad-band, with 3G and WIFI onboard.
There are some that consider this to be the first of the netbooks. If you do look at the actual time line of its arrive and when everyone started calling those lite laptops netbooks, it could have some foundation.
If any more info does come out from O2 officially, we’ll let you know.
That most useful of useful mobile phone internet browsers Opera mini has become officially unveiled, and for the android OS too.
Think back to those heady days of two weeks ago, when VAT was still 17.5% and the BlackBerry Storm was just a pipe dream. Ahhhh, those fond fond memories.
We then brought you news of the latest Opera mini browser moving into beta. Those days are now long long gone.
It appears all has been fixed, all the Is have been crossed and all the Ts have been dotted - with the full working version now being ready to download for your surfing pleasure.
Besides making it 30% faster for our American cousins, they’ve also snuck out a version for T-Mobile’s G1. Those cheeky rascals; as we weren’t made aware of it way back when.
We’re unsure what issues were ironed out at the time of going to press, we did held out for details before we published but all to no avail.
If anything more becomes apparent, or how close the beta was to the final version, we’ll update this piece and let you know. But it’s probably best to uninstall the old and throw on this new Opera Mini instead.
It’s now here, ready to go – enjoy.
News has come to us this week that IBM has now enabled support for Nokia S60 based mobile phones, on its popular to some email software.
Many will say ‘So?’ and ‘Huh?’ followed by ‘What does that mean?’. Well, we’re led to believe that more than 80 million handsets will now have access to IBM’s email solution, firmly sticking the middle finger up at RIM and their BlackBerry’s. Or at the very least it’s given them something to think about.
Not as popular in numbers as the likes of Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes still has 140 million licensed users worldwide. With support now reaching out to Nokia, plus gaining more interest in the long term with prospective users and customers the future looks bright.
Come December this year Nokia S60 3rd edition phones can have real time email, calendar and other functions. This is all via Lotus Notes Traveler (yes, one L), this essentially facilitates the mobile access to their Lotus Notes and Web Access servers.
We’ve seen a list of phones that will be supported. At the time of gong to press, below are the ones that will be compatible.
Nokia E71, Nokia E66, Nokia E90 Communicator, Nokia E70, Nokia E65, Nokia E63, Nokia E62, Nokia E61i, Nokia E61, Nokia E60, Nokia E51, Nokia E50, Nokia N96, Nokia N85, Nokia N79, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia N95, Nokia N82, Nokia N81 8GB, Nokia N81, Nokia N78, Nokia N77, Nokia N76, Nokia N75, Nokia N73, Nokia N93, Nokia N93i, Nokia N80, Nokia N91, Nokia N92, Nokia N71, Nokia 3250, Nokia 5500, Nokia 6290, Nokia 6110 Navigator, Nokia 6120 Classic, Nokia 6121 Classic, Nokia 6122 Classic, Nokia 6124, Nokia 6650 Fold, Nokia 5320 XpressMusic, Nokia 5700, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia 6220 Classic
For more on the Traveler see here
Google has finally announced Google Earth for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
All this while, folks who wanted to go round the earth on their mobile screens had to be content with Earthscape, an app similar to Google Earth, but using it’s own imaging. In fact, the developers had dropped its price from $10 to FREE.
This is the third major release from Google’s stable within a span of 5 days. And boy is this a fantastic release. The Google Earth app takes full advantage of the iPhone’s hardware and gives us some impressive features including the ability to:
The app, obviously, is available FREE on the iTunes Store (iTunes Link). I tried searching for the app on the Indian store, but I was told that it is not yet available.
3UK, previously one of the top electronic music retailers in the UK after iTunes, is embracing Nokia’s Comes With Music offering. Interestingly, it’s hitting their N95 8GB handsets - not the standard 5000 series devices. And that makes a lot of sense. If you already have an N95 8GB then you won’t qualify. I understand its new handsets only. That’s a bit of an arse. But understandable. The date of joy is Monday 3rd of November. So that’s another operator out of the running as an Omnifone customer (I imagine). What next for their MusicStation service?
If you’d like a first-look at Nokia’s Comes With Music, you can read Stuart Dredge’s experience here.
As ever, Mr Dredge does a super job with the piece.
Me? Well, I can show you some silent B-Roll if you want.
Other than that….
When I was a young man… and, more and more I’m feeling a bit middle aged (I’m almost 31), I went to Prague with my friend James for 3 days to ’see a bit of the world’. We were first year students at UCL and we reckoned we should go to Europe every 2nd or 3rd week to really see the place.
The city had only thrown off the Soviet yoke a few years prior to our arrival. There were only two McDonalds, for example.
We stayed at a rather wicked hotel and we got an excellent deal since a travel agent friend of mine had procured that, and the flights.
This was back when I had a 220 pound limit on my Student Barclaycard.
All was good. We had a super time. We, obviously, ate in McDonalds most nights, being rather afraid of actually sampling real Czech food (”they don’t really speak much English do they? And what if they bring us some sheeps eyes or something? … BIG MAC please.”)
Not very adventurous. Ridiculous. I think I ended up having toasted ham sandwiches a lot in the hotel bar too.
Anyway this is related to A&L’s prepay card.
The day before we were due to fly out, my travel agent friend helpfully (i.e. mistakenly) billed our flights to my card. Instead of both our cards, individually.
So my whopping 220 pound’s worth of free credit was erased. I had 2 quid spare, I think.
When we came to check out of the hotel, there was embarrassment all round. My card declined. James’ card declined. And our Switch (”Maestro”) cards weren’t accepted in Prague at that point.
Arse.
After a blank look from James, I was left with no alternative but to phone home and LUCKILY my parents were home.
“I’ve, er, got a bit of an issue,” I explained, whilst the Czech ladies behind the reception desk giggled quietly to themselves at the stupid Brits with no money.
Mum quoted her card number. Balance paid off. All good.
I returned home and promptly took out every single credit card offer I could. Never again will I be stuck in the middle of nowhere without sufficient credit.
But even when you’ve got a perfectly good credit card with LOTS of spare credit, we’re all still subjected to the ‘oh, sorry, it’s declined?’ question — especially when abroad.
The other week I was trying to pay for a bit of hardware in San Francisco and my card declined. Hugely annoying. I’d checked it moments prior to the transaction to *ensure* the transaction would go through smoothly. Despite PHONING the card company to inform them I was abroad… I don’t know WHY I waste my time and money doing that when their computer makes the decisions.
My transaction declines. I smile apologetically and explain that the card is ‘good’. At which point you receive a quizzical look from the retailer (”That’s what they all say, Sir”).
I then explained I’d be back in a moment and I’d phone the bank. I watch as the sales assistant calmly packs away the stuff I was about to buy and takes it back to the storeroom, clearly assuming I was either being a fraudulent arse or just had no money.
Press 1 for credit cards. Blah blah blah. I eventually get through to the ’speak to an operator’ and… yes… you’ve guessed it. They’re closed. Timezones. GAHHHHH!
This happens even with my uber-shocking buy-a-car-with-it Gold Card. Maybe I need an American Express Black one. I wonder if they do special accounts for mobile industry fans? 
Anyway. So what to do?
Get a prepaid travel card.
I got one from Lloyds TSB a while ago and it’s been excellent. I used it all the time in San Francisco with no hiccups. The brilliant thing about a prepaid card is that it’s binary. You either have a balance or you don’t. You can see the credit card computer doing the virtual equivalent of ‘do not pass go, go straight to authorised’.
I really like the confidence that comes from being able to truly purchase something without having the chance of the total rigmarole of having to phone up when the transaction is declined.
The one arse with the Lloyds card? You have to manage it online or via international telephone rates. It’s quite simple as long as you’ve got a web browser. Login, transfer some cash. Spend it on the card.
So you can very easily stick just 100 quid on to the card and fly off to America. Then, if you want to actually SPEND money, transfer another 500 quid. And another 500 quid. Easy to budget and no panics when it comes to refused transactions.
Back to the subject of this post — The Alliance & Leicester Card comes with account top-ups by SMS. Love it. That, I think, is the ultimate in convenience.
Not only can you top up by text, you can also get balance updates and make card to card transfers by text.
This I would pay premium text too. I’d be happy to pay 25p/50p a text to query my balance and make a cash transfer. I like the utility.
So kudos to Alliance & Leicester. Finextra has the relevant news story.
Although negative kudos to Alliance & Leicester’s website designers. Piece of shit. I couldn’t find ANYTHING about this on their site — I was aiming to order — and I did a search for ‘prepaid’ and got this result:
Useless.
