Vodafone Siri ad 'did not mislead consumers'

A complaint was made over a website advert in October 2011 for Apple's voice-activated software. The complainant argued the ad was misleading because it did not make clear that specific maps-based functions were only available in the United States.
Vodafone said the content of the advertisement that was complained about had been supplied by Apple. In its response, Apple argued the two Siri functions featured in the ad, one that provided a weather forecast and the other that showed reminders, worked in the UK and used location information. The manufacturer said Siri was not integrated with the maps application in the UK and therefore did not use any maps-related imagery in the advert.
The Advertising Standards Authority chose not to uphold the complaint. It said: 'We considered that some consumers may have had prior knowledge of what Siri was reportedly able to do in the US and, with this knowledge, might read into the ad that Siri users in the UK would benefit from similar maps-based functionality. However we did not consider that these consumers represented the average consumer in the UK and, because the ad in itself had not explicitly or implicitly made such claims, we concluded that the ad was not misleading.'

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Roaming charges look set to fall after EU vote

The European Parliament's industry committee backed the proposals, which included allowing customers to buy roaming services from other operators while abroad, in a vote that took place this morning (28 February). The proposals could be put to a vote by the European Parliament in April.
Three's parent company Hutchison Whampoa welcomed today's vote and said consumers would benefit. Christian Salbaing, deputy chairman for Hutchison Whampoa Europe said: 'We support the Commission’s efforts to reduce roaming prices. The committee’s proposed data caps will pave the way for greater competition and lower consumer prices. This proposal is a great result for smartphone and mobile data users across Europe. We urge the Parliament to make these proposals a reality.'
Today's vote was the latest step in attempts to bring cross-border roaming charges in line with domestic prices by 2015. Current legislation capping charges for calls and texts expires in June 2012. The committee said operators should offer retail roaming services from 1 March 2014, in order to stimulate competition. Operators should allow a customer to switch free of charge and inform them of this right, the report said. The committee also proposed allowing MVNOs to act as an alternative to operators when consumers are abroad.
For calls, the committee proposed a cap of €0.25 per minute for outgoing calls and €0.08 per minute for incoming calls from July 2012 for consumers. This would decrease to €0.15 for outgoing and €0.05 for incoming from July 2014. Wholesale prices would decrease from €0.11 per minute to €0.05 per minute between 2012 and 2014. Texts would fall from €0.08 to €0.05 between 2012 and 2014 and the wholesale charge for SMS would drop from €0.03 to €0.01. Data roaming would fall sharply from €0.50 per MB from July 2012 to €0.20 from July 2014. Wholesale charges would drop from €0.25 per MB to €0.05 per MB during the same period.
Angelika Niebler, who wrote the committee's report, said: 'We need to stimulate real competition among mobile operators and guarantee fair roaming prices for EU consumers who are on holiday or travelling for work.'

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MWC 2012: Samsung wins awards double at GSMA Global Mobile Awards

Judges at the GSMA trade body said Samsung had achieved...'success across the board with progress in every category, and outperforming rivals in a tough market.' They said of the Galaxy S II: 'A phenomenal success around the world, this has outperformed all its Android rivals and demonstrated the maturity of the ecosystem.'
Other winners included Apple, which won best tablet for the iPad 2, and Nokia, which won best feature or entry-level phone for the C3-00. The judges said of the entry-level Nokia device: 'The numbers speak for themselves – a blockbusting chart topper with universal appeal.'
Samsung president of IT and mobile communications division JK Shin said of its double win: 'We are pleased to receive this honor from GSMA and believe that it’s a testament to Samsung’s innovation, quality products, and attention to consumer preferences. We sold over 97 million smartphones in 2011, demonstrating that this is the right approach

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Google calls for lighter regulation of mobile industry

In a keynote speech in Barcelona, Google chairman Eric Schmidt said regulation was hindering investment in building better networks. He said: 'It is very difficult to be a telecoms operator right now. You've got the reality that you have to upgrade your equipment to 4G and you have customers who are busy using enormous amounts of the bandwidth that is so scarce for you, and governments, in addition to regulating you to death, are charging huge fees for new bandwidth.'
Schmidt also talked of the shrinking price of devices, dubbing next year's $100 phone this year's $400 device. He said: 'Many people are working on [smartphones] in the $100 to $150 range. When you get to the $70 point you get to a huge new market.'
However, he said the growth of the mobile industry relied on the governments and operators overcoming their differences. He said: 'The operators and regulators have got to sit down and come to some kind of rational collaboration. We at Google are critically dependent on this infrastructure building out.'
His comments follow a row between European Union digital agenda commissioner Neelie Kroes and Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao earlier in the week. Kroes attacked comments by Colao in which he called for lighter regulation. Colao said: 'We should stop having this continuous intervention on prices and let the industry reinvest the money

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Optimus L3 to hit Europe later this month

The Optimus L3 is one of numerous devices LG revealed at Mobile World Congress this week. The device has a 3.2 inch screen and runs Android Gingerbread on a 800MHz dual-core processor. LG described the phone as an 'on the go socialising device'.
Dr. Jong-seok Park, president and CEO of LG mobile communications, said: 'We’ve always believed in the need to offer a variety of smartphone options and many people simply don’t want to pay for a lot of extra bells and whistles We think the Optimus L3 offers all of basic smartphone-related benefits but in a more premium package that hasn’t been seen before on a smartphone in this category.'
After launching in Europe, the Optimus L3 will be launched into Russia and Asia, then other markets worldwide.

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Samsung Galaxy S II continues to top charts but popularity is on wane

The manufacturer has three handsets in the top 10, which is based on internet searches and sales. However, Apple's iPhone continued to prove popular. The 16GB iPhone 4S remained in second place with the 16GB iPhone 4 remaining in sixth place. However, a fresh spate of competitively priced deals beginning from £18.50 per month lead to the iPhone 3GS 8GB entering the chart at number five.
Biggest climber was the Samsung Galaxy Note in February, up seven places and re-entering the top 10 at number nine. The Nokia Lumia 800 was also back in the top 10, up six places to number eight.
uSwitch's Ernest Doku said while early adopters boost sales, they are not representative of the majority of sales. He said the bulk of customers are looking for the best value deals. 'The good news for Apple fans is that online retailers are taking deals on the iPhone 4S to the wire. Fierce competition is driving down prices, with re-sellers offering a free iPhone 4S handset, unlimited texts, 300 minutes and 500MB of data for as little as £30 per month.
'The enduring popularity of the Galaxy S II – fresh from a Best Smartphone win at the Global Mobile Awards – may well see it remain at the top until the arrival of a heavily rumoured sequel in the next couple of months.
'Nokia’s Lumia 800 climbing back up the chart is not entirely surprising. Strong continued advertising and the arrival of the Lumia 710 at the beginning of February has stoked interest in both the brand and Windows Phone. The Lumia 800’s re-entry shows that consumers are receptive to the Windows Phone platform as a slick smartphone alternative, not to mention more aggressive pricing from networks, with the handset available for free from just £20 per month.'
uSwitch's top 10 for February
1. Samsung Galaxy S II (no change)
2. Apple iPhone 4S 16GB (no change)
3. Samsung Galaxy Ace (Up one place)
4. HTC Wildfire S (Down one place)
5. Apple iPhone 3GS 8GB (New entry)
6. Apple iPhone 4 16GB (No change)
7. Sony Ericsson Arc S (No change)
8. Nokia Lumia 800 (Up six places)
9. Samsung Galaxy Note (Up seven places)
10. HTC Desire S (Up two places)

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20:20 Mobile faces possible floatation

The firm owns a 45% stake in the company and is understood to be keeping its options open about its holding. A source told Mobile: 'There are a number of exit strategies which include a flotation, a trade sale, a management buyout, or sale to a venture capitalist.’
A Doughty Hanson source said the review was at an early stage but the decision was unrelated to 20:20 Mobile's loss of the Nokia contract last year. He said: 'These reviews are undertaken periodically. There wasn’t any one trigger for the review. Doughty Hanson has owned the company since 2006. Private equity companies tend to hold their portfolio companies for between four and seven years, so this is the right time for a review.’
Brightstar, Brightpoint and Micro-P have been identified as possible frontrunners if a takeover was to take place.The remainder of 20:20 Mobile is owned by a consortium of around 35 banks, which holds a 45% stake, and a group of 20:20 Mobile directors including Meinie Oldersma and James Browning, which owns the remaining 10%.
20:20 Mobile was created when Doughty Hanson bought the handset distribution and logistics business from the Caudwell Group for £347m in 2006. After a financial restructuring in 2008, a consortium of banks was given a 45% stake in the company.

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S3 not coming on March 22nd

There have been many recent reports on many sites that have suggested that the Samsung Galaxy S3 will be revealed on 22 March 
Just wanted to put a stop to this rumours as Samsung has released official word that the event will not be about any new upcoming products to be released. Also, as reported earlier the phone will not be released the the mobile phone congress at end of this month

While it is still not absolutely certain the phone will not be released at either of these events, it makes it very unlikely.
It is hard to say when the Galaxy S3 will finally be released but we are sticking to our intial predictions listed in the other section of this website.
But don’t worry, the release day is coming and we will have it covered

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Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III



2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network	HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
4G Network	LTE 700
Announced	Not officially announced yet
Status	Rumored. Exp. release 2012, Q2

Body	Dimensions	-
	Weight	-
		- Touch-sensitive controls

Display	Type	Super AMOLED Plus capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	720 x 1280 pixels, 4.6 inches (~319 ppi pixel density)
	Multitouch	Yes
	Protection	Corning Gorilla Glass
		- TouchWiz UI v4.0

Sound	Alert types	Vibration; MP3, WAV ringtones
	Loudspeaker	Yes
	3.5mm jack	Yes

Memory	Card slot	microSD, up to 32GB, buy memory
	Internal	16GB/32GB storage, 2 GB RAM

Data	GPRS	Yes
	EDGE	Yes
	Speed	HSDPA, HSUPA
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot
	Bluetooth	Yes, v3.0+HS
	NFC	Optional
	USB	Yes, v2.0 microUSB (MHL), USB On-the-go

Camera	Primary	12 MP, 4000x3000 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
	Features	Geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection, image stabilization
	Video	Yes, 1080p@30fps
	Secondary	Yes, 2 MP

Features	OS	Android OS
	Chipset	Exynos 4212
	CPU	Dual-core 1.8 GHz
	Sensors	Accelerometer, gyro, proximity, compass
	Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Mail, IM, RSS
	Browser	HTML, Adobe Flash
	Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS support
	Java	Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
	Colors	Black
		- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic - TV-out (via MHL A/V link) - SNS integration - MP4/DivX/XviD/WMV/H.264/H.263 player - MP3/WAV/eAAC+/AC3/FLAC player - Organizer - Image/video editor - Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF) - Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk, Picasa integration - Voice memo/dial/commands - Predictive text input (Swype

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