Vodafone has lost £21.8 billion ($41 billion), a UK record. Fortunately for the company, this staggering loss comes from Vodafone writing down the value of its assets (principally the German company Mannesman it bought for the bargain price £112 billion back in 2000), rather from it actually losing real money. And shareholders haven't lost out (yet!) either, as the share price actually rose 2% on news that Vodafone was returning £9 billion to them.
To put these figures in context, though, the total value of BT, the UK's primary fixed-line telco, is £19 billion, while Marks & Spencer's, high street uber-retailer, is worth £9 billion. So with one bold strike of an accountant's pen, Vodafone has lost the entire worth of BT or two Marks & Spencer's! Crazy world this mobile phone business!
[Source: BBC News]
BenQ-Siemens have been showing off their new BenQ-Siemens EF51 mobile phone....in the bath! The EF51 was first announced at 3GSM, and is another mobile music phone from BenQ-Siemens, with dedicated music buttons and quite a good, clean design.
More pics of the BenQ-Siemens EF51 after the jump.
Posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 11:38 pm by Mike Evans
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News
Chinese students have created an interesting series of designs centred around mobile phones. Most obvious is the LG 353i 'Chocolate' phone modelled out of chocolate (what else?!). Less obvious is the NEC N500iS's starring role as part of a miniature basketball court. Completely bonkers is the NEC N355i wrapped in grass and placed strategically next to a carefully constructed dog turd!!
Why? Just...why?!
Pictures of the other mobile phone designs after the jump.
Posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 11:35 pm by Mike Evans
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Uncategorized
Mobile operators have threatened that VoIP applications such as Skype will be resisted on mobile phones "at all costs." Telecoms.com reports one anonymous vendor at MEM2006 telling them "do you really believe dual-mode phones that allow people to cannibalise operator revenues are going to arrive? They may well do but no operator is going to subsidise that phone so if you want one, you'll have to pay £450 for one."
Vodafone UK began an early mobile TV service in collaboration with BSkyB back in November 2005. In the 6 months since then, they've registered 100,000 subscribers, who collectively consume 70,000 TV streams a day.
The success of the mobile TV service has taken Vodafone by surprise. "The message there is that customers want mobile TV and they are paying for it," Roger Matthews, head of sports and entertainment for the Vodafone Group, told delegates at the Mobile Entertainment Market conference (MEM2006) in London. "There are more subscribers than we expected and they are paying more than we expected."
Posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 11:19 pm by Mike Evans
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News
Motorola has finally gotten off its ass and announced a new range of super-slim mobile phones even thinner than its existing RAZR range. Currently called the SCPL (which allegedly is short for 'scalpel', but could just as easily be short for 'sceptical'), the new phones will have five features that will make them stand out from rival phones, according to Motorola bigwig Ron Garriques.
I'm guessing those five features will be beige, white, yellow, mauve and turquoise!
Mobile phone displays are set to get much, much sharper.
So sharp, in fact, they'll be able to be used under the same conditions in which people currently use paper, ranging from very dimly-lit rooms to bright day-light conditions.
The technology behind this display breakthrough is known as electrowetting, which apparently manipulates the natural forces intrinsic to an oil and water interface...obviously!
Posted on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 at 7:28 pm by Mike Evans
Filed under
Prototypes
Inventables, a product design studio, have developed the "Origami Cell Phone", a concept phone design inspired by e-paper developed by Mag-Ink, and the Popout Map. The concept is designed to squeeze more screen space from existing form factor sizes.
Not so sure of the technical feasibility of this concept - looks more like a very bad Photoshopped effort rather than a serious concept phone. I much prefer BenQ-Siemens's concept phones!
[Source: Inventables, via Textually.org]
BenQ-Siemens have announced the new BenQ-Siemens EF71 music phone, its first mobile phone to use the new Q-fi brand. Fixing Sony Ericsson's walkman phones directly in its sights, BenQ-Siemens's Q-fi phones focus specifically on music. The EF71, for example, features a 10-band equalizer that lets you customize your music, as well as innovative 3D surround speakers.
Add a 2 megapixel camera, 30fps video camera and understated yet attractive good looks, and the BenQ-Siemens EF71 looks like quite a decent phone.
More details and pictures of the BenQ-Siemens EF71 after the jump.
Sony Ericsson went mad last week, releasing four new mobile phones onto an unsuspecting market. One of the most interesting was the Sony Ericsson W710i sports phone, which has been designed for the more active user. As part of this emphasis on sport, the W710i comes with an arm band, letting you wear your mobile phone on your arm as you jog. With your phone suitably, er, armed [ahem!], you can use the W710i's nifty sports features, such as its pedometer and running speed measurement tool.
Looking at this picture of the W710i's arm band, though, I'm not so sure it's as practical as it sounds. Aside from the fact it looks like a gadget-laden growth emerging from an arm, it also seems to scream "steal me now"!
More pictures of the Sony Ericsson W710i after the jump.
