It was ages ago that we were one of the first sources to identify Happy Slapping – back in January 2005, in fact. Since then, it’s grown from a tasteless prank – filming on a camera phone an unsuspecting victim’s reaction to being slapped on the cheek – to filming incredibly violent, illegal and unprovoked [...]
Archive | July, 2007
The Cord Continues to Fray
I’ve been writing for a long time now about how more and more people are cutting the cord, by ditching landlines and going exclusively mobile. And it seems the trend is accelerating reports El Reg. This also casts a big dollop of shiny doubt over the wisdom of any kind of quad play strategy. Consulting [...]
I Just Called To Say “I’m Thirsty”
The silly reason of news has arrived a little early with this story of thirsty plants phoning their owners to ask for more water. A group of post-grads at New York University, have been working on a project they call “Botanicals”, which consists on a water sensor in the soil, connecting over a wireless LAN [...]
The Mobile Projector
Motorola have announced that they’re going to build a prototype projector for mobile phones, according to to Sci Fi Tech. The resulting image will be about 15 inches (the same as a laptop) and will be better than DVD quality. Obviously, it is only a prototype we’re talking about here, so it might be 12 [...]
Ad-Funding Whinge
Informa’s Mobile Media (no link, it’s hard copy) reports from the recent Off-Deck Conference about a speech given by a Mr Oswin Eleonora of Acision (formerly known as LogicaCMG), in which he attacked the way that the mobile market has “become obsessed with the notion of ‘free’” and ad-funded content and services. His point is [...]
Nokia Buys Media-Sharing Site Twango
The WSJ is reporting that Nokia will announce on Tuesday that it’s bought a media-sharing site called Twango. I’ve not heard of it before, and when I tried to visit the site I was greeted with a message saying it was down for maintenance (or perhaps a Nokia rebranding), though the Journal says it’s like [...]
New Phones for Old Follow Up
Back in March, I greeted the launch of Emporio’s phone for old folks with little scepticism. After all, would people over 50 (some still surprisingly youthful) really want a phone that labeled themselves old farts, unable to cope with technology? Surely, if such a phone were needed, a more subtle approach is called for. Well, [...]
Save Business 2.0
Business 2.0 is one of my favourite business reads for ideas and coverage of what’s going on at the bleeding edge of today’s commercial trends. It also has a ridiculously influential readership, from what I can see. But plummeting adsales is causing parent, Time Inc, to think about shutting it down. Josh Quittner, the editor, [...]
An Alternative Approach to Customer Care
Last week, I wrote about Sprint Nextel’s decision to fire 1,000 of its customers, who were using its call centre too much. It’s certainly one approach to customer care. I’m currently reading Allan Leighton’s book “On Leadership” and he tells a story about Dyson, the plucky little British company that took on and consistently wins [...]
Hate To Say I Told You So
I haven’t said a whole lot about Motorola’s (mis)fortunes lately, apart from a post in May that echoed what I’d been saying for almost two years — that the company needed to move on from the RAZR and come up with something to replace it. But this week, the company said that it would miss [...]
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