BBC On The Move
Its not an exaggeration to say that one of the biggest stumbling blocks to Rupert Murdoch’s evil pay-wall scheme has been the BBC. The quality and quantity of their free coverage makes paying for news a rather silly exercise. The BBC Trust, an executive group straight from the pages of a Harry Potter novel, have been made aware of the modern fad of consuming content on the go and have poured some of the license payers’ dosh into delivering mobile apps designed for that very purpose. They already knock out a damn fine set of RSS feeds and their public APIs have been put to good use with a plethora of web widgets. And you simplymust check out their backstage blog which is full of lovely little techy tit bits.
For David Attenborough, Dr Who and bringing the Simpsons to the UK, I will forgive the BBC for releasing mobile apps for the iPhone and iPad first – today in fact – and it is lucky for them that they have promised Android (and Blackberry) versions soon. Otherwise they might find themselves reporting on a lone madman with a green robot on a placard ranting and raving outside Broadcasting House.
Orange Enter the Budget Market
The Tactile Internet (pictured) is a low end Orange branded Android phone that is being released in France. It joins a growing number of cheaper so-called ‘entry level’ Android handsets with smaller screens and generally lower specs. They all seem to come with the 2.1 OS though, so that’s something.
Smart Move by Indian Government
Every student needs access to technology and this is probably truer in the developing world than anywhere else. The Government funded Indian Institute of Science are planning on producing a 2GB tablet that can retail for as little as Rs16,000 ($35) in an attempt to keep the country’s 800,000 graduate students in the loop. Long term plans are to make the tablet computer available for just Rs500 ($10). They are still to decide what software will run on the device. Let’s hope they’ve heard of a certain open source operating system.
Cliq gets Taiwanese Makeover
In Taiwan Motorola have announced Two new Android models: the Quench MB501 and XT3 (pictured). The MB501 is basically the Cliq XT and the XT3 is a suped up version with a higher density screen and Android 1.6 (as opposed to 1.5). With 2.1 considered the norm these days, even on low spec hardware, its hard to see these models doing well for long.
Why You Should Have Bought an iPhone
Its not often you’ll hear this on this site but there is one really good reason why you should perhaps have bought an iPhone 4 … It might have landed you with a free Samsung Galaxy S. That’s right. Samsung in a masterstroke of marketing acumen have identified antenna-gate victims in the UK through their tweets and offered them Galaxy Ss for free. Convinced, quite rightly, that once they get their hands on a real phone, they’ll never go back. Before you rush off and tell an iPhone 4 owner, the giveaway glut lasted just a day – but all the same, don’cha just love’em?