Mars to go offline for a month as vast nuclear furnace gets in the way
Ha ha, chuckle Martians, time to play!
Spacecraft exploring and orbiting Mars will be left alone for the next month as the red planet slips behind our nearest star for a bit of a spring break.
The Sun will block radio signals for a month or so, something familiar to old hands such as Mars Express, which has been happily orbiting Mars for almost a decade. It is, …
Cisco gobbles UK mobe mast maker - you know where this is going
Tiny cells in your Wi-Fi router - checkmate, Huawei
Swindon-based Ubiquisys will soon be part of Cisco in a $310m (£205m) buyout. The networking colossus has, in effect, snapped up more than 50 customers wanting small cellular base stations and the technology they want.
Cisco will hand over cash and "retention-based incentives" to persuade key staff at the Brit biz to stay on. …
US to chat again with Campaigners Against Stuff on mobile health regs
Finding proof of a thing not happening: Rather hard
The FCC has launched an official enquiry into the rules around cellphone radiation, and has invited world+dog to pitch in and have their say on the brain-melting devices.
Most of the FCC's suggestions are amendments to the rules on handsets which haven't been updated since 1996. Those ageing rules don't reflect the latest …
Got a BlackBerry? It may be telling your friends when you watch pr0n
Show what I'm listening to: 'I have come to clean your pool'
Using a Blackberry Z10 for a little one-handed surfing might be more public than desired, as the social-sharing baked into the OS likes to share, um, everything.
Blackberry OS10, used on the Z10 handset, integrates social sharing deep into the OS and many users opt in to alerting Blackberry Messenger contacts about their musical …
Hey app developers, here's a way to monitor your users for free!
Also we can offer you an excellent deal on used souls
Compuware's latest foray into mobility is a free bundle of cloudy code for dropping into mobile apps, which it will then monitor and measure for developers' (and Compuware's) benefit.
Compuware's Application Performance Management (APM) lurks quietly in the corner of an app, reporting back every now and then but mostly watching …
Bahrain 4G auction founders under deluge of legal action
When we said 'new', we meant 'incumbent'. Freudian
The Kingdom of Bahrain should have completed its 4G auction by now, but instead the process has been kicked into touch following legal action from an excluded operator.
The auction, cleverly titled "Post 3G" (PDF, slide deck with plenty of visuals), was announced last November and initally open to all, but lobbying from the …
Net neutrality? We've heard of it, says Ofcom
You want mobile Skype, choose your network with care
Ofcom's annual plan is out, setting the regulator's priorities for the next 12 months, and while much of it is structured diagrams and aspirational statements there are some snippets worthy of greater attention.
Ofcom has, for example, decided that treating all packets of internet traffic as equals without discriminating against …
Giant ad company (Google) offers tool assessing worth of ads
Blimey, results show mobevertising is mega effective!
Google has launched a new calculator to let advertisers work out if their mobile spots are worth the money, complete with whizzing graphics and condescending video to explain the idea.
Called "The Full Value Of Mobile" the calculator takes in the results from Google's Click Type Report, which can be generated from the AdWords …
A lightbulb that does IPv6: You know you want it
ZigBee gets ready for the Internet of Stuff
Mesh-networking standard ZigBee now has support for IP, allowing embedded devices (from 'leccy meters to lightbulbs) to be directly addressed as long as the addresser is using IPv6.
The new extension to the standard, ZigBee IP, has been created at the behest of utilities and will be integrated into the next version of the ZigBee …
BlackBerry results not as bad as they possibly could have been
Not even time for a beer yet though, far less champagne
Year-end financial results from BlackBerry appear to show a company stemming the losses and slowly gaining ground, but with a very long climb ahead and no proof it's going to make it.
Revenue for the year ending March 2 was $11.1bn, resulting in a loss of $646m, which is grim compared to last years' profit of $1.1bn - but wasn't …
Motorola minimum-wage sheriffs ride in to SAVE the HIGH STREET
These steenkin' Smart Badges ... do we need them?
Ready to save the high street comes a smart badge from Motorola, promising to turn physical shopping into a connected experience designed to lure back the Amazon generation.
The SB1 Smart Badge isn't the only technology Motorola reckons can save physical shopping, but it’s a key component in the push to bring the convenience of …
Televisions in living rooms now the fastest-growing internet platform
Focus gradually shifts away from porn? Presumably
The humble television holds the future of the interwebs, we're told: New numbers from Netbiscuits shows the lean-back experience more than doubled over the last six months and put other platforms into the shade.
Tablet use is also up, by more than 50 per cent, while smartphones have - it seems - plateaued with a meagre four per …
Microsoft LOVES YOU: Free Wi-Fi on the British railways for a month
Hey, you know what'd go great with that? Office 365
Waiting for a train could be a marginally more interesting experience next month: Microsoft will provide free Wi-Fi on platforms to tempt commuters into buying an Office 365 subscription.
The wireless internet access comes from The Cloud and will cover the larger UK stations. Travellers can already bag 15 minutes of free …
Printed electronics firm prints more money in quest for safer poultry
Their opinion of contact with chickens? It's unprintable
Printed electronics pioneer Thinfim successfully squeezed shareholders for another 26.8m Norwegian Kroner yesterday, following the announcement of a real customer for its printed memory circuits.
The money was raised through a warrant issue to existing shareholders; despite its current size of around 20 people Thinfim is …
Google turns South African schools into White Spaces
Trying to get the government on-side
Google has connected up ten Cape Town schools using unlicensed White Space radio spectrum, hoping to drive legislation permitting broader use of the technology in South Africa and the world.
The deployment is billed as a technical trial, proving that database-controlled White Space radios can operate in the same band as TV …
Voda: Brit kids will drown in TIDAL WAVE of FILTH - it's all Ofcom's fault
Make networks admit price changes? Noooo!
Vodafone UK reckons it will be strong-armed into sending smutty text messages to kids, thanks to a new proposal by Ofcom.
The watchdog wants operators to set prices for the duration of a contract in stone or ensure customers are notified ahead of any changes.
Vodafone's full response to the proposal hasn't been published yet, …
Wireless charging on the Galaxy S4: Samsung goes VHS not Betamax
'A harmless fling', sniffs jilted Qualcomm
Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone will use the Qi wireless charging standard, putting Sammy in bed with the Consortium for Wireless Power despite its avowed commitment to the Alliance for Wireless Power it founded with Qualcomm.
The decision to use Qi charging in the S4, now confirmed by Samsung, could critically wound the alliance …
Brussels 'mulling probe' into brutal Apple negotiations with networks
Or so the mobile operators evidently hope, anyway
The EU is examining Apple's deals with network operators, to ensure it's playing fair - but hasn't yet opened an official investigation.
Citing the ubiquitous "people familiar with the matter" the New York Times tells us that various mobile network operators have been sharing their Apple contracts with the commission after the …
MasterCard stings PayPal with payment fee hike
Secrecy comes at a price
PayPal, Google Wallet and other online payment systems face higher transaction fees from MasterCard in retaliation for their refusal to share data on what people are spending. Visa is likely to follow suit.
The amount that PayPal has to pay MasterCard for every transaction will go up as the latter introduces new charges for …
China Mobile spaffs £4.4bn on 4G 'trial'... before it even has a licence
If we build it, the iPhone will come
China Mobile will build 200,000 LTE base stations, covering 500 million people and costing 41.7 billion yuan, despite the fact that 4G licences won't be awarded until the end of 2013.
The world's largest mobile operator is obviously confident it will get a 4G licence, though until it does the rollout is officially just a "trial …
Cop an eyeful of that: Moto bungs 5-megapixel cam into plod radio
No suggestion an Instagram app expected imminently
Motorola Solutions' MTP6750 is a police radio with a difference: it sports a five-megapixel camera that not only takes pictures but autographs them to stop bent or bungling coppers tampering with the evidence.
The handset isn't just for the plod: it uses the TETRA telephony standard common to the police, security and emergency …
1,600 to lose jobs during ST-Ericsson breakup
Joint venture less joint, less venturous
The joint venture which tried to challenge Qualcomm and Intel in the baseband chip market has collapsed, with the loss of 1,600 jobs and another 3,000 or so finding themselves working for someone else.
ST-Ericsson was set up, back in 2009, by STMicroelectronics and Ericsson and has been bleeding money ever since. It did create …
Mobile kingpins to marketing mavens: Bonking is brilliant, wanna try?
But first, let's loosen you up with a little jazz
Vodafone, O2 and EE sent their respective CEOs to Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club this morning, hoping to seduce the UK's advertising industry with the promise of SMS and banner deliveries across networks, with bonking to follow.
The event was part of Advertising Week Europe, and the operators were pushing their cross-network …
Freeview suddenly UNWATCHABLE dross? It may just be a 4G test
Mobe broadband fired up to stress telly transmissions rather than show quality
AT800 - the guys tasked with stamping out radio interference caused by 4G mobile broadband - will switch on 4G transmissions near Dudley to see if Freeview survives the experience.
It's feared national 4G deployment at 800MHz will disrupt terrestrial telly viewing for about two million homes, but exactly how many and what …
Samsung Galaxy S 4: A slim stripper with palms hovering over its body
South Koreans tout THESE killer features you can't live without, probably
Modern smartphones are little more than promotional vehicles for manufacturer services, and the Galaxy S4 is a perfect example, arriving heavily laden with all the things Samsung thinks we should be doing with them.
Like a respectable lapdancer, the Galaxy S4 responds to a roving eye and fingertips hovering over its slim body. …
LG: Oi! Samsung's not the only one with eyeball-tracking smartphones
Little Brother is watching you
LG announced that its Optimus G Pro smartphone will pause video playback when it detects that its owner has stopped looking at it - just hours before Samsung unveiled the same feature for the Galaxy S4.
Eyeball tracking, using the mobile's built-in camera to scroll pages and notice when the user is no longer staring, is set to …
First Samsung Galaxy S4 review leak: Stop FONDLING, start FINGERING
No need to stroke screen, claims embargo-busting journo
Samsung's new Galaxy S4 smartphone isn't being launched until 2300 GMT today - but the first review is already online with technical specifications and videos of it in action.
And it suggests there's no need to touch the mobile's touchscreen to make it work.
A few journalists bagged early access to the new handset on condition …
And for BlackBerry's next trick: Sawing Android, iOS IN HALF
'Secure' biz app and data on mobes to fall under BES spell
BlackBerry has built software to split apps and files on Android and iOS phones into so-called "Secure Work Spaces" to prevent workers from mixing business with pleasure.
These protected containers of data and applications will be managed by installations of BlackBerry Enterprise Server, effectively bringing BlackBerry OS 10's …
Freeview telly channels face £240m-A-YEAR shakedown by Ofcom
Watchdog keeps death of broadcast TV by 2026 on track
Freeview broadcasters in the UK face annual fees that could add £240m a year to Blighty's coffers by 2020.
Ofcom wants to, effectively, charge telly stations every 12 months to transmit over the airwaves, just like mobile phone networks must regularly cough up cash to continue using their licensed radio frequencies for chatter …
What's most important? Bandwidth over kilo-miles, or milli-watts?
Big Blue boffins, AT&T brainboxes beg to differ
AT&T boffins reckon they can fling 400Gb/sec down 12,000km of fibre using a new modulation technique. Meanwhile, IBM's bods say they managed 25Gb/sec over just a few millimetres - but using just 24 milliwatts.
Both teams will present their research at next week's OFC-NFOEC conference in Anaheim, California, where the future of …
Applications to run more white-space Local TV stations invited
Button 8 placement perhaps to reflect number of viewers
Ofcom is looking for more aspiring telly barons, with another 28 Local TV franchises up for grabs along with the two that no-one wanted last time around.
Those two are Swansea and Plymouth, but the other 19 Local TV channels from round one have been awarded and should be on air around the end of this year. Now, anyone who …
Smartphone users prefer LOVELY apps to fiddly mobe websites
They'd better load in 2 seconds or less, though
A whopping 85 per cent of smartphone users reckon local apps are better than websites, but they're an impatient bunch and expect a gentle touch to be rewarded within seconds or they'll go elsewhere.
The numbers come from Compuware APM, which hired Equation Research to quiz three-and-a-half thousand global smartphone users and …
Czechs check cheques, reject £680m 4G auction
Watchdog halts spectrum sale, fears high costs'll be pushed onto punters
As bidding topped £680m, the Czech regulator pulled the plug on the 4G auction, saying that to continue would risk pushing cripplingly high prices onto the winner's customers as well as delaying deployments - both to the detriment of the country's citizens.
The Czech Republic was hoping for a fast deployment, and the regulator …
Philips pushes out SDK for multicolour Zigbee LED lights
How many devs does it take to change a light bulb?
Software engineers can finally switch lights on and off, and change their colour, without resorting to hardware controls - thanks to the Philips Hue SDK and its RESTful interface.
The Philips Hue is an LED light bulb with a Zigbee interface which connects to a supplied bridge and thus can be addressed though the home's IP …
En Garde! Villagers FIGHT OFF FRENCH INVASION MENACE
We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight in electromagnetic fields
England's world-famous White Cliffs of Dover have squared up to invading forces for centuries - but visitors to the seafront are warned to expect a more modern-day incursion: French mobile networks armed with steep roaming charges.
Tourists taking a walk along the cliff-tops or beaches at St Margaret-at-Cliffe and St Margaret's …
'Wireless charging' in Galaxy S4 will betray Samsung's best pal
Qualcomm thrown under a bus in Qi battery top-up rumour
Samsung will embrace Qi wireless charging for its highly anticipated Galaxy S4 flagship smartphone, due to emerge on Thursday, we're told.
By plumping for Qi, Sammy will betray Qualcomm: both companies are founding members of the Alliance for Wireless Power, which touts an over-the-air charging system called A4WP. This rivals …
Tech fest 'net activists offer free 'Super Wi-Fi': Now go tell the FCC
SXSW Spectrum's not just for mobile giants, yeah?
A campaign against the selling off of TV spectrum by the national regulator is offering free Wi-Fi, backhauled over newly-released TV spectrum, in the hope that those using it will sign a petition for greater availability.
The free wireless is available at the South by Southwest Festival which kicked off in Austin, Texas, on …
There's cling-ons on the starboard bow! Trekkies' wallets under attack
Pic Clip-on Star Trek comms badges lead crowd-funding projects
Project fundraising websites - such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo - provide a wonderful array of dreams into which one can throw excess money. Between the desperate dance troupes and the technically optimistic, a few gems tread the fine line between genius and insanity.
Begging for your money this week we have the brains behind a …
Virgin Mobile doffs its cap: Web speed limit axed after outrage
For now, at least, as telco scrambles to fix dicky network
Virgin Mobile UK has suspended its internet speed cap while it tries to get its network reliability back up to scratch.
Large numbers of the operator's customers suffered intermittent connectivity over the last week or so, quite possibly related to the company's attempt to impose a 2Mbit-per-second cap on mobile internet …
Kovio gets help convincing world to buy into printed NFC
Symphony Teleca follows Android into supporting Kovio tech
Symphony Teleca will be helping NFC-specialist Kovio realise its dream of dropping printed NFC tags into just about everything, bringing its analytical and technical skills to bear on Kovio's product line.
Symphony Teleca, a product development strategist and analyst, describes itself as a "partner for captivating connected …
You searched for 'japan tsunami' - well, there's one behind you
Google extends emergency alerts - no sign of Godzilla warnings
Google's public alert system - which splashes warnings across search, maps and Google Now pages - has been extended into Japan nearly a year after it debuted in America.
The red flags aren't limited to just those living in the East Asian nation: anyone searching for things in Japan or looking at its maps on Google will see …
Throttled customers rage over Virgin Mobile UK's tight cap
EE wasn't supposed to choke them
Virgin Mobile UK's experiment with throttling is turning into nightmare as customers across the network complain of fragmented data services barely suitable for email let alone the promised 2Mb/sec.
The wireless mobile comms brand, which is run by Virgin Media in the UK, only recently started capping mobile data speed at 2Mb/sec …
The supercomputers LIED: UK rainfall is rising, but won't drown our phones
Ofcom counts jam jars above ITU's models
UK rainfall fell well short of the ITU's apocalyptic predictions in 2010, and isn't rising as fast as models predicted, according to Ofcom which has been measuring the levels in jam-jars.
Ofcom's numbers come from rainfall gauges - jam jars with rulers stuck to the side - and cover 1990 to 2010 (1991-2011 in Scotland and NI), …
Open Garden releases v2.0 of 'crowd-sourced' mobile wireless app
But what's this - you can't turn it OFF?
Startup Open Garden has a new Android version out, allowing anyone to create a mesh network without rooting, and share that network with the world too.
The idea of Open Garden is to use all available internet signals from various devices at the same time via a mesh network to deliver an efficient and consistent mobile internet …
Germans Joyn in the operator-backed rival to Skype
What? I have to know a number, instead of a handle?
Deutsche Telekom has jumped aboard the Joyn bandwagon, joining Telefonica to extend interoperable VoIP and other IP services to eighty per cent of Germans - and pushing security alongside functionality.
The service is live now, for those who want to download the Joyn Android client from Google Play. An iOS version us promised …
Plastic Logic shows off bendy 'leccy posters: Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
It's great tech, surely there's a niche for it somewhere
Still searching for an application for its innovative printed-on-plastic screen technology, Plastic Logic has teamed up with TOPPAN to showcase a 42-inch screen built for posters and displays.
Forty-two inches (just over a metre) might not be the biggest of screens, but the prototype being shown off at RetailTECH Japan is 3mm …
Sparkfun takes roadtrip across US in campervan full of electronics
Forget coding, everyone should learn to solder
Component retailer Sparkfun has bought an RV and will be touring all 50 US states to take electronics into the classroom, though the company's motivation is notably suspect.
The tour will run over the summer, and the Sparkfun crew will attempt to visit at least one school in each state with three or four staffers, a professional …
Virgin Mobile coughs to choking its customers
2Mb/sec ought to be enough for anyone
Virgin Mobile UK has admitted it is capping mobile data at 2Mb/sec - claiming it is for the benefit of customers - as it tries to keep everyone connected.
Customers started noticing the speed cap in the last few days, but as it's being applied piecemeal it has been hard to pin down. That is, until the company last night admitted …
4G operators move into new homes in the spectrum 'hood
Another £27m changes hands
Bidders in the UK's spectrum auction have now sorted out who's going where, and who's going to knock out our TV reception once the 4G networks get switched on.
There were two bits of spectrum auctioned off: the low-frequency 800MHz band, which was freed up when analogue terrestrial TV was switched off, and the higher-frequency 2 …
O2 pops out vital new feature: Making phone calls from phones
TU Go VoIP app goes live
O2 has launched TU Go, the awaited VoIP service allowing customers to make and receive calls from five devices at the same time.
The move is no surprise: O2 has been promising TU Go for a while, but its now available to all contract customers who can sign up and download the apps for iOS, Android and Windows 7. Calls are routed …
