Nokia flops out its 4G, 4.7-inch WHOPPER: The Lumia 625
Nokia has announced its sixth phone of 2013, the Lumia 625, and this time it's a large but light budget 4G phone. Nokia says that with LTE carriers launching prepay deals and more affordable tarriffs, they're desperate to offer something cheaper.
The 625 is aimed at the sub-£200 upfront prepay market and these lower tariffs. …
Spotify: If musicians don't give us their stuff they get pirated more
A study by economist (and occasional Reg contributor) Will Page sheds new light on the relationship between streaming services and piracy. Artists who withhold from Spotify may suffer from increased piracy, he finds. Since Page works for Spotify, the words of the great prophet M'andee-rice Davies spring to mind - but it's worth …
Nokia wrings Lumia bling fling, but feature-mobes ding stings
Fallen giant Nokia continued to claw its way back to relevance in the second quarter of 2013: it sold 7.4 million Lumia phones, up 32 per cent from the first three months of the year, but losses in its legacy feature-phone business put a slight dampener on the good news.
Overall revenue is down 24 per cent, year on year, to €5. …
Spotify strikes back at Radiohead - but artists are still angry
Earlier this week Thom Yorke sparked widespread debate over the rates Spotify pays artists by pulling his music from the streaming service as a gesture of protest. Spotify has now replied to artists upset by its chickenfeed payouts.
A spokesperson for the streaming service told trade mag Music Week that “we're still in the early …
Radiohead's Thom Yorke pulls his own music off Spotify
Thom Yorke of Radiohead has become the latest artist to withdraw from Spotify in protest at their paltry royalty payments.
Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, a member of Yorke’s side project Atoms For Peace, announced the decision on Twitter, describing it as a “small meaningless rebellion.” Godrich explained that artists had …
Pure boffinry: We peek inside Nokia's miracle cameraphone
These days, “tech” means anything except technology. The word has become so debased that a group of marketing people talking about their ideas for websites are a “tech scene”. And hosting meetings for marketing people to talk about websites in London in 2013 actually makes you a “tech entrepreneur”. The concerns of real …
Nokia tears wrapper off Lumia 1020 monster imaging mobe
Nokia brought its unique home-brewed imaging technology to a modern smartphone today. By a comfortable distance, the new Lumia 1020, aka "EOS", has the most impressive camera and video recording on any mobile phone today.
We also had a tool around with the prototype at the New York launch today, which confirmed that Nokia has …
BlackBerry's retro-look QWERTY Q5 mobe: Resentment by design
BlackBerry’s second QWERTY-sporting BB10 device is a real puzzler.
BlackBerry has packed most of the horsepower of the first BB10 QWERTYphone, the Q10, in a cheaper package. And it performs almost as well, giving a slick experience with no judder or lag.
It also offers enterprises that scoop up BlackBerrys by the thousands a …
Sleek Nokia Lumia details EXPOSED ahead of Thursday's disrobing
You can’t keep a product launch secret these days – and it doesn’t help when your platform partner is incontinent.
Nokia’s second 41-megapixel phone, and its first running Windows Phone, will be unveiled to the press in New York on Thursday. But leaks have already disclosed its name, specifications and design.
The Windows …
Hitch climate tax to the ACTUAL CLIMATE, says top economist
A Canadian economist has an idea to tackle global warming so simple, it’s stunning no one has thought of it before.
Ross McKitrick, Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph in Ontario, an IPCC expert reviewer and one of its leading critics, proposes a carbon tax with the rate tied to climate response. He explained the …
If BlackBerry were a bunch of startups, would you invest?
Despite recording top-line growth and an increase in cash, BlackBerry took a pummelling on Friday. Short sellers cashed in, and even the most loyal enthusiasts took to fan sites this weekend, questioning their own commitment. The renewed concern is because uptake of the new OS, BB10, came in below estimates.
The figure the …
Bigger than Twitter: Opera releases rebuilt Chromium-based browser
Opera, the pioneering web browser, may have only a small single-digit market share but that still counts as a hefty number of people – it has more active users than Twitter. But it doesn’t look like a happy place today.
Earlier this year Opera announced a decision to base future development of its desktop browsers on the WebKit …
BlackBerry BB10 devices refuse to leap off shelves
So you’re an ageing push-email legend finally selling phones with a shiny modern new operating system, relieving years of pent-up demand. Wouldn’t you want to SHOUT about how many people want them?
BlackBerry spurned the opportunity to do just that in its earnings releases today, covering the first full quarter selling BB10 …
UK sitting on top of at least 50 years of shale gas – report
The UK is sitting on a cheap energy economic revolution comparable to the heyday of North Sea Oil, the British Geological Survey suggests.
The Survey’s estimate of the potential gas reserves of the Bowland–Hodder shale formation - finally published today – indicate that using today’s technology, the rocks should yield 1,329 TCF …
Nokia Lumia 925: The best Windows Phone yet
According to Nokia, the new Lumia 925 is its "third flagship" phone at the moment. It hasn’t retired the other two Lumias (the 920 and the 928) which continue to sail proudly alongside the 925, with all their flags fluttering.
However there are times when one must wave a pedantic arm from the back of the class where the naughty …
Wake up, Uncle Fester! Huawei’s nattering about BUYING Nokia
Chinese dragon Huawei says it has “no plans” to buy Nokia, Europe’s biggest technology company – but it didn’t challenge reports that triggered the story.
The FT found Huawei’s consumer electronics chief Richard Yu musing on a takeover of Nokia. If alarm bells aren’t ringing in Redmond, they should be.
Yu may think that – but …
Apple: iOS7 dayglo Barbie makeover is UNFINISHED - report
Well, this would never have happened under Steve Jobs. Apple sources have briefed a friendly tech blog that the much-mocked iOS7 makeover is still provisional. When was the last time Apple felt obliged to defend anything?
The Barbie-flavoured icons revealed at Apple's WWDC on Monday are merely a "mid-stride snapshot", according …
Nokia, Microsoft put on brave face as Lumia 925s parachute into Blighty
Nokia's latest premium smartphone, the Lumia 925, is now shipping in the UK.
And staff at the mobe-maker told reporters they will be working more closely with Microsoft, which is responsible for the handset's Windows Phone 8 OS, with most of the cooperation focusing on joint-marketing campaigns.
The new Lumia 925 puts the guts …
Interwebs taunt Sir Jony over Apple eye candy makeover
What do we know today that we didn't know on Monday? Don't let Sir Jony Ive anywhere near your icons. Ive may be the world's most famous industrial designer, but his first attempt at creating a new look for iOS 7 has attracted confusion and mirth in equal quantities.
Here's some of the brilliance that inspired the sniggering …
BBC lied to Parliament about doomed £100m IT monster, thunder MPs
The BBC lied to Parliament by giving MPs and auditors glowing progress reports on a £100m computer project that embarrassingly flopped, it is claimed.
The project in question, the "strategic" Digital Media Initiative (DMI), has now been abandoned at a cost of at least nine figures; a rapid decision by the new BBC Director- …
Magpie Apple plunders the competition for cosmetics, as egos run wild
If you're an AAPL shareholder, there are reasons to be deeply troubled by last night's WWDC announcements of new Macs, OS X 10.9 and iOS 7.
It was widely believed that "Apple was unmanageable" after its mercurial, driven co-founder Steve Jobs departed in 1985 - without Jobs, egos ran rampant and chaos ruled. Apple in 2013 is in …
PM Cameron calls for modern, programmable computers! (We think)
Prime Minister David Cameron has made some baffling remarks on IT in a speech to the G8 Summit calling for greater clarity.
Speaking specifically on the subject of the UK's national curriculum and how vital it is to get "education right", Cameron told the confab:
We’re proposing more arithmetic and algebra in maths, more detail …
BBC's Digital Moneypit Initiative known to be 'pile of dung' for years
BBC executives ignored warnings that the corporation's £100m+ digital media extravaganza project DMI was on the rocks - and now it's being reported that the National Audit Office had been misled about the state of the project.
The extravagant scheme was cancelled by new Director General Tony Hall last month, with almost £100m …
Whitehall grants freetards safe haven until 2015
Just as the Bahamas and Panama provide a safe haven for tax evasion, the UK will provide a safe haven for copyright pirates … until at least 2015.
The Ministry of Fun has confirmed that notification provisions - written warnings for downloading stuff illegally, in other words - in the 2010 Digital Economy Act will not be enacted …
MYSTERY Nokia image-mangling mobe spotted in public
More images of Nokia's so-called EOS Windows smartphone have popped out on the web, and this time they show what looks like a final industrial design with a PureView-like camera.
Last year Nokia released a device with an unfeasibly large (for a phone) sensor that downsamples images, and is capable of knocking out outstanding …
BBC boffins ponder abstruse Ikea-style way of transmitting telly
Future broadcasting could resemble IKEA flat pack furniture - with the bits and pieces of each transmission assembled at home, perhaps in ways not intended by the designer - if boffins at the BBC get their way.
The traditional approach is to mix the media before it's transmitted in a linear stream. But brainboxes at BBC R&D are …
Living with a 41-megapixel 808 PureView: Symbian's heroic last stand
Last year Nokia released to the world a mobile phone that is still unique. It's a smartphone with a 41-megapixel camera sensor, scooping up more detail than some professional DSLRs: it's the 808 PureView.
When I say "released", that’s a little misleading. This showpiece won the Best New Phone gong at last year’s Mobile World …
Google on advertising-funded cesspools: We don't like them either
Did you know that Lexus marketing money has wound up in the hands of a bestiality video website? I certainly didn't either, and it's a sure bet that Toyota Motor Company, which owns the Lexus brand, didn't mean that to happen. But it's just one striking example of how multinational companies help fund the web's darker side. …
Forget tax bills, here's how Google is really taking us all for a ride
Here are a few predictions: Google will shrug off last week's tax scrutiny with a flick of its robotic tail; politicians and campaigners will declare this a "success"; and the much greater toll Google and other multinationals take on the global economy will be ignored.
The protestors, upset about the tiny corporation tax bills …
BBC suspends CTO after £100m is WASTED on doomed IT system
The BBC has suspended its chief technology officer on full pay - after it spunked almost £100m on a "tapeless" digital content management system that didn't deliver.
The £98.4m figure attributed to the failed Digital Media Initiative (DMI) may be a conservative estimate: the BBC Trust has commissioned an external technical …
BMW offers in-car streaming music for cross-Europe road trips
BMW is to offer access to Brit streaming music service Rara in its new Series 5 motors. Is this the beginning of the end for broadcast radio?
What's unusual and interesting about the deal is that it includes 3G access to the music - via Vodafone's mobile network - across Europe. So, wherever you can get a signal, you can get …
MYSTERY Nokia Lumia with gazillion-pixel camera 'spotted'
Nokia will plug the boffinry behind the 41-megapixel camera in its 808 PureView phone into a new Lumia smartmobe, it is rumoured.
The technology involves a gigantic sensor capable of taking gazillion-pixel photographs and clever software to refine the image into a sharp 3MP, 5MP or 8MP shot. The results can match the output of …
Streaming music works for us, say US and UK indie labels
Are legal music streaming services just Kim Dotcom on a diet, with a lawyer?
The debate has raged amongst musicians for years now, and really ignited when Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery took issue with the “new music economy” two years ago. In what became known as the “Letter to Emily” storm last year, …
BlackBerry Messenger unleashed: Look out Twitter and Facebook
BlackBerry announced this week that its flagship messenger service, BBM, will no longer be tied to its proprietary handsets, potentially opening up a lucrative licensing stream which could rescue the beleaguered mobe-maker.
Fan forums have been in meltdown after the announcement. From some, the pain appears to be personal. Odd …
Copyright minister admits: Google has better access to No. 10 than me
Google has greater access to No. 10 Downing Street than the government's own ministers, one such minister has admitted.
Viscount Younger of Leckie, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Intellectual Property - the third copyright minister in a year - made the candid confession before the Media, Culture and Sport …
Currant Bun erects £2 paywall: Wraps digi-paper around free footie
British tabloid The Sun has revealed a subscription plan to access the digital version of the newspaper, Sun+.
The daily is essentially offering a football video package with The Sun's stories wrapped around it, for £2 a week.
Near-live TV clips of Premier League games will be bundled in the deal, as News International's parent …
New Lumia 925: This, loyalists, is the BIG ONE you've waited for
Today, Nokia launched its best smartphone to date: the Lumia 925.
I got some hands-on time with the Windows Phone 8-powered device - and a tour of the gadget by shoegaze icon Nokia senior veep of product management Kevin Shields, who explained some of the key design decisions. It's a covetable bit of kit - but with iPhones and …
BlackBerry and Apple pie this summer. Or BBM-onna-Droid
BlackBerry's hugely popular social-network-in-hardware BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) will be available on iPhone and Android for free from this summer.
BBM is one of the defining features of the BlackBerry, a brilliantly designed social network that has earned the firm a compulsive following. For BBM's "members", the messenger is …
BlackBerry's Q5 QWERTY gets flirty with buy-curious teens
BlackBerry's new Q5 QWERTY smartphone was revealed today as "youthful and fun", rather distancing the device from its pinstripe pocket-dwelling siblings, the Q10 and Z10.
The Q5 a mid-range sibling to the first BlackBerry OS 10 QWERTY phone, the Q10, which we reviewed here last week. But somewhat surprisingly, the BB10-powered …
Full metal jacket: Nokia launches new Lumia 925
Nokia tweaked the top of its range with a new 4G Windows 8 model today.
The aluminium 925 breaks with Nokia’s Stickle Brick garish-coloured plastic design philosophy and offers a more grown-up styling. The camera module is snaffled from the erstwhile flagship, the 920, with optical image stabilisation, spruced up with an extra …
Android is a mess and needs sprucing up, admits chief
Android looks unstoppable, and it's a mess. The first fact tends to eclipse the second observation, but Android's new supremo diplomatically acknowledges as much in an interview.
"Here’s the challenge: without changing the open nature of Android, how do we help improve the whole world’s end-user experience?" Chrome chief Sundar …
Windows 8 'sales' barely half as good as Microsoft claims
Microsoft claimed last week that it's made '100 million' Windows 8 sales and the claim has been widely repeated. But channel feedback and the experience on the ground point to a very different picture.
The Guardian's Charles Arthur has made a stab at estimating the true figure, and suggests it's much less, at between 57 million …
What freetard are you: Justified, transgressor or just honest?
New research commissioned by UK uber-regulator Ofcom confirms that a tiny number of Brits are responsible for most of the copyright piracy in Blighty - and they're predominantly male and wealthy.
But you knew that already.
However, the ambitious study has tried something new. It attempted for the first time to create a field …
Setanta, ESPN couldn't make UK footie TV work. How will BT Sport?
Having acquired the TV rights to top-flight sports for £736m, BT is to give much of it away to its broadband punters at no extra cost - or indeed to anyone who wants to pony up just a few quid a week.
Last year, the telco shelled out millions for the rights to show 38 Premier league football matches live over a three-year period …
Nokia's debuts new 'Fastlane' UI in $99 flagship Asha 501
Nokia has unveiled a new UI in the flagship $99 Asha 501 to help fend off a dramatic collapse in sales of the low-end devices.
Strong sales of cheap but decent quality Asha in growth markets like China and Africa had helped the fallen Finnish giant weather a tumultuous transition to Windows Phone, which saw its smartphone sales …
Spotify spews 'unencrypted' FREE MP3s all over creation
Spotify has tweaked the music player on its website after someone apparently found a way to harvest every single MP3 file from the audio-streaming service.
The media biz's playback site, which launched in November, did not encrypt data streamed to the listener's web browser, it is claimed. One enterprising programmer said he …
Review: BlackBerry Q10
One of my four-year-olds pointed to a BlackBerry Bold recently and exclaimed "It's HALF A PHONE!". She was pointing at the screen. And the other half? The answer, I elicited later, was that it was some kind of letters game.
Just think about that for a moment. Every day of your life you've seen adults pawing at a phone, but only …
The Metro experiment is dead: Time to unleash Windows Phone+
Is this the moment for Windows Phone 8, the overlooked diamond in the Redmond rough, to shine?
Now that Microsoft bigwigs have realised that cramming their desktop operating system into a touchscreen tablet format was unwise, to put it generously, how about scaling up the smartphone cousin to capture the exploding mobe market …
Secret UN 'ZOD' climate deliberations: UK battles to suppress details
Can the Internet help climate scientists? Not everyone thinks so.
"The Internet is a double-edged sword," Met Office scientist Peter Stott told a London courtroom last week. "There's a whole cacophony of voices on blogs, people with different opinions and people very motivated to dig around. But not in the 'big picture' details …
BlackBerry infrastructure hit by ANOTHER outage
BlackBerry says an outage hit network customers today, but claims that services are getting back to normal.
UK readers told us that BlackBerry network services died at 10am this morning. BlackBerry confirmed the problems via Twitter three hours later and provided us with this statement:
We can confirm that our technical teams …
