That $1,000 the lad in Lagos needed? Just email it with Google Wallet
Be afraid, PayPal - be very afraid
Google has integrated its payment Wallet with Gmail, enabling PayPal-style transactions from within the Gmail interface, and to any over-18 American with an email address and a Google Wallet account.
Google Wallet has also spread to another couple of handsets, including the Samsung flagships (S4 & Note II) and the HTC One, all …
Half of youngsters would swap PRIVACY for... cheaper insurance
Only old fogies care who knows where they were last summer
More than half of UK youngsters think being tracked is a small price to pay for cheaper car insurance, and 26 per cent will be actively seeking a pay-by-the-mile policy in the hope of saving a few quid.
The numbers come from by YouGov and O2, who asked 2,000 drivers how they felt about being spied on every day - only to …
The quest continues for a fondleslab that fondles you back
British vibro pioneers say: Anything can be a speaker
HiWave, the haptics company which emerged from Brit hi-fi consortium NXT with a mission to make our fondleslabs fondle us back, has fragmented into a part which makes money and the more-interesting Redux.
HiWave owned, and still owns, the technology developed by NXT to drive flat-panel speakers, but the executives were always …
Telly apocalypse foretold for 4G arrival fails to hit London: Brighton next
Good frequency fences make good neighbours, seemingly
Freeview-watching Londoners are safe from 4G interference, with trials failing to elicit even a single complaint - thanks to the capital's comprehensive coverage and its use of a Freeview band well clear of invading 4G signals.
The tests were carried out by at800, the body charged with spending £180m in mobile-network cash to …
My god, what's that STENCH belching from your iPhone?
I love the smell of freshly squashed pig in the mornin'
A new prototype iPhone peripheral pumps out smells based on user interaction, allowing devs to add an aromatic dimension to games and messaging as long as users keep their reservoir stocked.
ChatPerf slips onto the bottom of an iPhone and comes with an SDK allowing anyone to scent-enable their application. Some variation in …
Why UK slid £150m to tax-exempt phone-mast master Arqiva
Private biz bags taxpayer handout? Thank George Osborne
How does one fairly distribute £150m to extend Blighty's mobile coverage? Give the whole lot to a private company that has paid no corporation tax for four years and effectively holds a monopoly.
That company is Arqiva, which owns the vast majority of the UK's TV, radio and mobile phone transmitters. It will get £150m of …
LogMeIn dives into cloudy things with ARM support
Get aboard the IoT bandwagon for £60 or less
LogMeIn has relaunched its cloudy-thing management, now called Xively and available with a sixty-quid ARM development board for those hoping to kick start the Internet of Things.
Not that one needs the £57.99 Jumpstart kit to use Xively's cloud. Support for RESTful, JSON and CSV as well as raw sockets ensure that any IP-capable …
Vodafone gets surprise £2.1bn dividend from Verizon Wireless
Trebles all round in Newbury tonight
US cell network Verizon Wireless will pay out a shareholder dividend this year - and as there are only two shareholders, the $7bn (£4.5bn) divvy will be split between, er, Verizon and Vodafone.
That means Voda - headquartered in Newbury, UK - will take home $3.15bn (£2.1bn).
Vodafone owns 45 per cent of Verizon Wireless - the …
Who is Samsung trying to kid? There will NEVER be a 5G network
Analysis Not just satellites nobbling 'fifth-gen' smartmobes
There will almost certainly never be a "5G" mobile broadband network, but that hasn't stopped Samsung using the trendy moniker to describe its 1Gbit-per-second wireless experiments.
The South Korean giant managed to achieve that data transfer rate through two kilometres of air in the 28GHz radio band, thanks to some advanced …
UK.gov blows a fuse at smart meter stall, sets new 2020 deadline
And once that meter is in, it'll never come out
Smart meters won't be fully rolled out in the UK until 2020, one year later than planned.
And replacing a smart meter with a dumb one won't be allowed under a new set of rules, which are intended to speed up lagging deployments.
Smart meters, described the other week as "crap computers in a crap box" by an electronic security …
Brits' phone tracking, web history touted to cops: The TRUTH
Analysis What's inside the info on 27 million punters up for sale
Pollster Ipsos MORI is under fire for touting data on millions of EE customers - from their whereabouts to their browser history - to anyone with a chequebook, including London's Metropolitan Police.
The Met shelved the deal when the Sunday Times learned of the mass info flogging. But private companies have been buying the …
Ancient thumb-driven whirly-wheel smartmobe UI ported to Android
Fandroids, come see what the future might have been
The mobile interface designed to kill the iPhone has finally launched, but as an Android freebie rather than aboard the revolutionary handset we were promised in 2009.
The handset, known as the Else, was built by Emblaze, a company better known for encoding video and suing Apple than making phones. With the help of Japan's …
More Wi-Fi in the sky: FCC to help keep US flyers tweeting
May auction 500MHz to help 'em Instagram hideous dinner in real time
The US spectrum regulator wants to release 500MHz of radio spectrum for aircraft backhaul, creating cheaper connectivity for passengers taking their entertainment into their own hands.
Seventy per cent of American flyers take electronic devices with them, making the screen-back displays increasingly redundant, but mid-air …
Not now, Apple: We've got the Pi-Phone, the smallest mobe network
Vid Cell comms software ported to Brit ARM 'puter
Engineers at communications tech biz Quortus have ported their mobile network core to a Raspberry Pi - perhaps creating the cheapest mobile network ever conceived.
Guildford-based Quortus specialises in building telecoms network gear - but never before using a £30 ARM-powered PC that just needs to be plugged into a radio, such …
NEW ITV Player app IS HERE ... for Samsung fandroids only. Ha ha
Everyone else stuck with working version
A new version of the Android app to watch ITV's online telly is now available - exclusively for Samsung gadgets.
But eager viewers with or without Sammy gear may want to stick with the earlier build of the ITV Player software until the bugs are squashed.
The app exclusive lasts until the end of August, and applies to the new …
Microsoft 'poised' to SPAFF A BEELLION on e-book also-ran Nook
Mobile OS? Check. App store? Check. Books? Oops, not yet
Microsoft is poised to offer $1bn for e-book publisher Nook Media, which was spun out from bookshop biz Barnes and Noble, it is believed.
Internal company documents suggest Nook will abandon its line of Android-powered e-reader tablets to focus on delivering electronic content across various platforms. And that would include …
Boffins' invisible magnetic ring pieces: Next-gen mobe emitters
Vid Wire aerials? Pah. You need a nanoscale 3D vortex
German boffins have discovered that two microscopic magnets glued together can create a radio antenna capable of transmitting into the GHz band - where mobile phone signals and other tech lies.
The disks are only 500 billionths of a metre wide and 10nm thick, so even once a pair of them are stuck together with a similarly sized …
M&S shoppers make quarter of a million NFC payments a WEEK
It's not just ANY bonking, it's posh, food-centric bonking
Posh retailer Marks & Spencer is accepting nearly a quarter of a million contactless payments a week, with a bonk of plastic replacing the rattle of coins.
At M&S Finsbury Pavement (it's a London street, not a food-enabled paving slab) one in three payments under £20 are contactless these days, as shoppers save valuable seconds …
Yes! It's the NFC phone-bonk doorbell app AT LAST
Knock? Use your phone to call? NO, SCAN the TAG damn you
Home owners too lazy to answer the doorbell can relax as the latest innovation from Doorbl puts visitors in touch via a smartphone tapped to the door.
The app, available for Android and iOS, links a Near Field Communication tag to a cloud service which lets one know when a visitor is on the doorstep. This assumes the visitor has …
Don't use Google+? Tough, Google Glass will inject it INTO YOUR EYES
And - shock - it phones home to the cuddly ad giant
Google's techno-specs Google Glass can now deliver Google+ notifications direct to the eyeball - while consuming less power and also reporting back to the Chocolate Factory when things go pear-shaped.
The firmware update is being sent out to those selected by the advertising giant for early access to Glass, which still lacks a …
Wireless goliath bankrolls wireless-free super-hackfest in Blighty
Telefonica switches to wired LAN for Campus Party London
Campuseros* and technology entrepreneurs will be gathering in London come September, for a week of talks, workshops and general tech worship - but there'll be no wireless, despite sponsorship from mobile network giant Telefonica.
The event is the famous annual tech fest and LAN party, Campus Party, which has been running since …
Vodafone slurps MEELLLIONS for redirecting police hotline calls
Ringing the Old Bill will still cost 15p/pop
Vodafone is making more than £2m a year from public reporting of non-emergency crime, and has just landed another three-year contract - charging 15p per non-emergency call to police.
Calls made to the non-emergency "101" number are routed by Cable & Wireless to the nearest police authority and dealt with at public expense. All …
TV gesture patent bombshell: El Reg punts tech into public domain
Pics Vulture North's droid gives lawyers the finger
Gesture control to operate next-gen home electronics is the next patent battleground - so last month we asked you lot for hand movements you'd like to see protected from the lawyers as prior art. Here are the most popular, and practical, suggestions.
Many of the gestures submitted were anatomically impossible, or at least …
App gap flap: New York's e-cabbies FOILED AGAIN
Emergency injunction halts electronic hailing
Hipsters hoping to hail a yellow cab with their smartphone app are going to be disappointed again as a last-minute injunction has limited the deployment of e-hailing taxicab apps Uber and Hailo in the Big Apple.
The deployment was nominally a trial, but few thought it wouldn't foreshadow a launch which would see Uber and Hailo ( …
3D printer spits out CYBORG EAR... but where will you PUT it?
We really do have the technology
Princeton's finest boffins have managed to print out an ear, and it's not just a simple prosthetic, it's actually an enhancement with a radio antenna built in.
The process of combining electrical circuits with flesh is fraught with difficulties, and building ears is a common challenge given the complexity of shape and their …
Dunkin' Donuts temps S Korea with ultrasonic tags
'Tell your friends about your, ahem, sugared dough breakfast'
Korean commuters are being enticed into eating baked goods for breakfast with ultrasonic tags, making them race to Dunkin' Donuts for discounts and social sharing.
Wanting to push up morning consumption Dunkin' Donuts has resorted to filling its stores with ultrasound so smartphone-wielding Koreans can confirm their arrival and …
Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry go to WAR... in the Pentagon
DoD poised to add Jobsian and S Korean kit alongside its BlackBerry stash
The US Department of Defense will be the next battleground for mobile platforms, with the Pentagon about to approve Apple and Samsung devices for deployment alongside BlackBerrys.
Android devices using Samsung KNOX security will complete security testing within the next two weeks, along with BlackBerry 10 and iOS 6, allowing DoD …
Would you trust crowd-sourced maps? Skobbler releases satnav app
Paid navigation via opinion of world+dog
Privacy-conscious Apple fanbois worried about The Man tracking their every move can now buy - and update - an offline mapping app from open-source mapping biz Skobbler.
Skobbler uses maps from the OpenStreetMap project, a crowd-sourced effort which offers an alternative to the maps offerings from Google, Bing and Nokia. Skobbler …
Samsung Galaxy chip confusion halts bonking plastered apps
It's all fun and games until someone changes the spec
Samsung's Galaxy S4 flagship mobile can't grok data transmitted by stickers sold by Samsung to eager app makers.
Electronics embedded in the labels fire out pre-programmed information when a compatible wireless NFC chip comes within range, and work with Samsung's Galaxy S3.
But a new NFC chip in the S4 is incompatible with the …
Former mobile-biz lobbyist Wheeler to become top US frequency cop
FCC boss needs to be auctioneer and priest, too
President Obama has nominated former CTIA boss Tom Wheeler to take over the FCC, putting the man who spent 12 years lobbying on behalf of network operators in charge of their regulation.
The Wall Street Journal was first to the story, reporting that FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn will act as chair while the Senate confirms the …
Audio gumble biz Jawbone gobbles bag of 500 trillion body bits
Human-watching BodyMedia snapped up for $100m
Speaker and headset biz Jawbone has spent over $100m snapping up body sensor maker BodyMedia to get into the wild world of biometrics.
Jawbone already sells the Up, a wristband which closely monitors your movements to estimate calories burnt, but its acquisition of BodyMedia gives it access to a whole load of body-monitoring kit …
Facebook Messenger tech to glue 50bn-strong Internet of Stuff
Machine blabber protocol backed by Cisco, IBM et al
A communications protocol for the Internet of Things - the posh name for a future global network of 50 billion interconnected gadgets - has been chosen by a top standards body.
The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), best known for its OpenDocument format, will adopt and promote the MQTT …
Huawei boss: Next CEO won't be member of my family
Company won't go public either, Ren confirms in leaked internal email
The Chinese telecoms giant won't be listing itself on any public exchange, and the founder's kids won't be taking up the reins either - as their dad reckons they're not up to the job.
Ren Zhengfei, who founded Huawei with a fistful of cash back in 1988, is now 68 years of age. Rumours have been circulating that he'd pass control …
T-Mobile UK punters break for freedom in inflation-busting bill row
What do you mean, the small print doesn't apply?
T-Mobile UK punters reckon they can avoid the mobile network's latest price rise - after the operator swelled its prices beyond inflation.
The T-Mobile contract states that its bills may increase in step with the Retail Price Index, a government-calculated rate of inflation. When this figure reached 3.3 per cent, T-Mobile and …
Peak txt: 1.5 BEELLLION more chat app msgs sent than SMSes a day
Only spam and robots save phone texts from IM stampede
WhatsApp, BlackBerry Messenger and other online chat apps handled more messages than telcos handled texts, says market research biz Informa.
And by the end of 2013, the number of online messages will be double the number of SMS texts, leaving the phone network operators scrabbling for revenue.
Informa pegged 2012's global SMS …
Canadian TV station wails: NFC bonking... it's not SAFE
Credit card cloning? Sigh, we've been here before
Another North American TV network has discovered credit card numbers can be read using a phone, and whipped itself into a media frenzy due to its failure to understand how NFC works.
This time it's Canadian outfit CBC News, last time it was Memphis-based News Channel 3, but the facts remain the same: an NFC-equipped card will …
Tight White Spaces to be penetrated in Blighty this year - Ofcom
And you can get your hands on it by 2014, fingers crossed
White Space networking kit will get large-scale trials later this year, to see if multiple databases and radio protocols can be deployed without knocking TV off the air.
Ofcom hasn't decided who'll take part in the trials, or what parts of the country they'll cover, or even how long they'll last, but they will run this autumn …
T-mobile US in invisible handset handcuff contract smackdown
'No restrictions' ads caused nose growth, pant fires - AG
T-Mobile USA's no-restriction contract turns out to have restrictions, and while they might seem obvious to some the state Attorney General in Washington feels they weren't obvious enough.
The tariffs are designed to separate airtime and handset subsidy, which T-mobile described as coming without a two-year commitment. But while …
AT&T debuts 'Digital Life' robo-home and security tech
Step into Internet of Things: Give us keys to homes in 15 US cities
AT&T is pushing into home automation and security with Digital Life, a new service rolling out across 15 cities, which should carve out yet another niche for the US telecom giant.
The initial sell for Digital Life is security, but the upsell is home automation, all managed through an AT&T website and an AT&T hub connected over …
DARPA looks for a guided bullet with DEAD reckoning navigation
Not only has your name on it, but your address too
Madcap Pentagon tech shop DARPA is looking again at the Global Positioning System (GPS, which makes almost all the world's satnav systems work) in a bid to reinvent the tech which used to be cutting edge military gear but these days is tracking dogs and finding golf balls.
DARPA's director Arati Prabhakar has announced that GPS …
Verizon sniffing around Vodafone's US stake again
$100bn in used greenbacks would spark serious tax bill
Verizon is putting together a $100bn bid for Vodafone's stake in its wireless business, and is ready to take the offer public if a boardroom deal can't be agreed.
Half that hundred billion will come in Verizon shares, the rest in borrowed cash, Reuters tells us in its exclusive coverage. But however the money comes it will hit …
Mobes' pay-by-bonk just isn't cool enough, sniffs Tesco bod
The kids won't use it, let's stick to cards
Tesco reckons contact-less pay-by-wave technology in phones has had its day - and the shopping giant is moving back to relying on cash and traditional payment cards.
The stumbling shelf-stacking titan will continue to punt its customer loyalty schemes and vouchers on smartmobes - but bonking NFC-capable devices against tills to …
O2 scoffs at call-centre outsource fears, forgets to rule it out completely
Just speculation, but it might happen
Rumours that O2 UK plans to outsource all its telephone support work have been dismissed as speculation by the mobile network operator. The cynical among us will note that's not the same as completely ruling it out.
The whisperings were enough to prompt an emergency motion from the Communication Workers Union, stating that more …
Crackdown looming on premium-rate phone number internet ads
Hey, it's a way to make money off the internet!
Time may be short for companies who make a living with internet-promoted premium phone numbers, as the UK regulator of such matters opens a second consultation aimed at denying them obscurity.
Adverts will be required to state clearly that they aren't linked to the service they're promoting, and will be required to use the term …
O2 to turn your innocent nipper into Silicon Roundabout hipster
Scout Camp for the 21st Centur- Hey wait a second...
O2 will be running 28 UK events titled Think Big School, pushing 3,000 youngsters through two days of training so they can learn to write code and pitch business ideas like a skinny-tie-and-sneakers-wearing Shoreditch type.
The first Think Big School has kicked off in London, but the two-day events, which are run in conjunction …
Sprint promises to take 2G into the Internet of Things
They'll be no refarming round here
Sprint has committed to keeping its 2G network operational beyond AT&T and Verizon, hoping to sign up some machines even if fleshy humans wander away.
Announcing a deal with u-blox to provide embedded modules which are pin compatible with GSM kit already in use, Sprint promised to maintain its CDMA network for "the long term", …
Ofcom: When shall we squeeze Freeview's girth?
Luvvies and White Space tools can't even touch unloved bottom
Ofcom wants to know when Freeview broadcasts should be kicked down the dial in favour of iPad-friendly 4G signals - and, controversially, whether the BBC should be recompensed when it happens.
Ofcom mooted the idea of shuffling Freeview aside onto new frequencies back in 2011, and put it into last year's plan with a 2018 date. …
App reads The Indie's dead-tree pages - so you don't have to
Tabloid-broadsheet joins digital world circa 2003
Printed pages of lefty paper The Independent can be scanned by a phone app and decoded into links to recently updated words and pictures online.
The newspaper, operated by Russian father-and-son duo Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev, is using "augmented reality" app Blippar, which uses a phone's camera to recognise pages from the day …
Securing the Internet of Things - or how light bulbs can spy on you
Analysis Fifty billion hackable devices batten down the hatches
It's going to be a tough task securing the Internet of Things, an upcoming massive global network of web-connected fridges, freezers and pacemakers. But according to experts gathered in Cambridge last week we can't even start locking it down until we know who's going to make money from it.
The meeting was run by Cambridge …
EC sends antitrust complaint to smart chip cartel suspects
Fireside chat fails to satisfy
With settlement talks stalled, the European Commission has launched a formal investigation into whether suppliers of cryptographic chips conspired to fix prices across Europe. The commission announced today that it had sent out a warning to several smart card chip suppliers that it was investigating allegations that they had …
