Today, the Mobile Internet for Dummies book landed on my desk wih a thump. A book like this is a great sign for us, a confirmation that the mobile internet is heading squarely for the mainstream, which hopefully means an increasingly easier user experience and lower data charges from the networks.

It’s got a mention of Taptu, which is very flattering, and, of course, being a “… for dummies” book, it’s got the unavoidable The 5th Wave cartoons - with my favourite being before Part V of the book. You’ll have to get a copy to find out which one it is.

Here’s the link to the book on Amazon US

Here’s the link to the book on Amazon UK

And yes, I realise my top matches the book… I’m that dedicated to my job.

Has anyone else spotted the new (or fairly new) notice on the BBC News website?

With phone cameras getting better, broadcasting over mobile getting easier and more outlets than ever for us to publish our day to day lives, citizen journalism is challenging the old school thinking that big media gets the news first.

Scoble used Twitter to report on the earthquakes in China, receiving instant updates from those affected locally, and the BBC seem to post any ol’ rubbish they get sent, like this pile up of cars in a Belfast Co-Op car park. (Slow news day, guys?)

You can publish from Glastonbury to show your mates on Qik.com quite how muddy you’re getting this weekend (not to curse the weather forecast or anything!), Twitter that Yahoo!’s just fired you or grab shots of a public protest and upload them instantly to Flickr - it’s become so incredibly easy.

But it’s easy to get carried away in the heat of the moment and put yourself at risk, which is why sites like the BBC cover their ass by reminding us not to do anything (too) stupid for the sake of That Great Shot.

What’s the worst situation you’ve put yourself in for the sake of a video or photo of something newsworthy or really funny?

This week’s Carnival of the Mobilists is hosted by Debi Jones at MobileJones and contains a bumper crop of posts from all around the world and on a variety of topics; Handset companies, former handset companies, Internet companies, new entrants and social networking giants are all involved in mashups of services.

Have a look for a good roundup of this week’s mobile news.

This morning, The Register reports O2’s admission that its 3G customers are limited to 128Kb/s connections - with some business users being upgraded as O2 sees fit.

In non-techy terms, this means that you’re buying a 3G phone, with the expectation of fast mobile web browsing, but in fact, you’re being limited to half the potential speed you should get.

A clever fella from the 3G.co.uk forum did a speed test on the network, getting the following speeds:

Is it just me, or are customers not getting at all what O2 is claiming. It’s supposed to be 3G, and it ain’t doing what it says on the tin!

Granted, I’ve got an iPhone, I wouldn’t get 3G speeds anyways, but I do feel sorry for the cheeky sods who’ve been giving me a tough time for having a non-3G phone. I’m currently getting better speeds than you are if you’re also on O2!

Now, immature raspberry-blowing aside, I do hope O2 get their act together and allow non-business users to experience the full potential the network has to offer. This is a stick in the wheels of the mobile web we simply do not need.

[Update: Seems like O2 are set on making an impression on their customer base today. Did you know we're "a bunch of geeks" and would be "muppets" for considering changing networks? Well, it seems too funny to be true, but O2 PR staff may need some coaching on locking their phone before having private conversations.

Did you hear that? Yes, it's the sound of two PR people who are going to have a very bad end of Wednesday...]

Yesterday, I blogged about T-Mobile’s poor decision to ask Engadget Mobile to remove all traces of magenta from its branding. As Stan from Mashable says, “how, exactly, did the T’s lawyers and PR folks think Engadget will react? Humbly remove all traces of magenta from their site, issuing a big ole apology? If they did, they were wrong.”

I bow down to Engadget’s creative response. Note the header changes:

Here at Taptu, you might have noticed we’re very fond of the colour pink. We haven’t received a letter from T-Mobile, but we’ll be happy to tell them where to go if we ever do!

Join Engadget’s solidarity campaign by going pink for the day, like GearBits, Josiah Miller and Joshua Topolsky.
Read the rest of this entry »

A bit ahead of the game, Engadget Mobile released their April Fool joke last night in the form of an article reporting that Deutsche Telekom has sent them a letter asking them to stop using the colour magenta, as T-Mobile, a DT-owned company, uses it in its branding. It’s a comical attempt on Engadget’s part, but really, it’s a rather unrealistic claim. No company would be stupid enough to think they own a colour…

Oh… hold on. Sorry, I’m being told over the wire that the letter isn’t an April Fool joke at all, and that the General Manager of Weblogs Inc did receive this letter. Ahem. Well, on this note, just in case you begin to confuse the two brands, here’s a simple chart to help you out.

I mean, really, guys!

Since Friday, Cuba is that little bit freer than it used to be. Raul Castro has lifted the national ban on “computers, video players, all sizes of televisions, pressure cookers, electric rice cookers, electric bicycles and car alarms”, according to the Washington Post article, but most significantly, the ban on mobile phone purchases was lifted.

Some Cubans already own mobile phones, but it was never an easy process and phones were mostly acquired from foreigners. The new system won’t be as easy as walking into a store and picking up a Pay As You Go phone a minute later, since users will have to pay in foreign currency and the average salary is under $20 USD a month, which means only wealthier people are likely to be able to afford it.

Regardless, it’s a step in the right direction, and Cuba isn’t the only one moving towards loosening its tight grip over means of communication. North Korea, where people were once executed in public for owning a mobile phone, is allowing its citizens to carry them again.

As ownership picks up pace over the next few years, we’ll most likely discover new facets of Cuba as citizens begin to exercise their freedom to communicate.

As a further proof that mobiles are absolutely taken for granted as a means of communication, I received an automated text message from Persil Services, who do dry cleaning at my local Sainsbury’s, to tell me my dress was ready to be picked up.

I expected to have to dig up that receipt the lady gave me last week, which I crammed in the back pocket of my jeans, never to be found again, but they’ve saved me hassle by reminding me of my ticket number.

They still can’t spell my name right (*sigh*) but otherwise, Persil gets thumbs up on this!

Last week, Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief at The Next Web, interviewed Steve, our CEO, asking some very interesting questions about the mobile social search, wondering whether we were bonkers for seemingly going against Google, the giant of search.

Since launching the new features a few weeks ago, many new users have echoed Ernst-Jan’s thoughts, and it’s truly great to hear it. Without you, our users, we’d just be this mad David against the Goliaths of Search. But with you, we can be mad and daring together. So thank you!

In the past two decades, our lives have become increasingly digital and portable with office work, kids’ homework, entertainment and shopping coming into the household in bits and bytes. We’re faced with more information than ever before, and more ways than ever to access it.

In most aspects, we’re happy with the digitisation of our lives, but have kept a few bastions of the analog world unmodified for centuries, one of which is the book. Unquestionably, the production process is easier than it was in Gutenberg’s days, but we still print with ink onto paper and bind it together with a thick cover.

In the past twenty years, a lot of written word’s moved to the computer screen, but leisure reading is one of those things that’s remained firmly printed on paper. There have been many attempts to create electronic readers that “feel like reading print”, but they’ve all fallen by the wayside without ever getting to critical mass.

Yet, on Monday, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos announced the launch of the Kindle Reader, a new twist on the ebook reader that failed time and time again. Brave move or naive pipedream?

I won’t go into the detailed technical specs since the Machinist does it so well but want to understand how and where this could be useful in today’s world.

Pros:

Cons:

I’m a total bookworm, especially on holiday yet, somehow, I can’t picture myself laying on a deck chair on my next holiday and pulling out my Kindle to read a few lines of The Devil Wears Prada, really.

Now, a device open to other formats, with no wireless, on which content can purely be transferred via USB, without audio or web browser, sold for far less, I would probably consider. It would save me printing so many work documents, and I’d definitely be up for technical books where an update is available when technologies evolve. Imagine how many trees we could save!

I’ll reserve final judgement for the day I get my hands on one of them - If a kind soul wants to lend me one, I’m willing! - but until then, I think it’s an interesting addition to the world of handhelds but not one I’d currently be likely to buy, even as a hopeless gadget addict.

For more reading on the Kindle:

[tags]Amazon, Kindle, eBooks, wireless, Taptu, mobile, technology[/tags]