Spiral Arm News

Childrens' use of mobile.

The Register reports on the effects of texting. "A recent ACE-COMM survey found 80 per cent of UK teenagers have no restrictions put on their mobile phone use. A survey of Australian children found 42 per cent of boys and 40 per cent of girls were tired enough that their concentration was impaired at school because of late-night texting."

A 2004 study was more positive in an analysis of Australian adolescents. "Contrary to popular perceptions, reports of mobile phone use provided by adolescents in this study do not suggest excessive use, with many adolescents reporting making relatively few calls and SMS messages. Moreover, according to adolescent and parent reports, most families are not in conflict over mobile phone use or mobile phone expenditure."

Disney's new mobile service is aimed at 8 - 14 years olds. "Part of Disney's offer is to give parents greater control over their spending on mobiles and to limit their mobile net access." (Reported in The Register.)

There are also handsets specifically aimed at young children.
The Guardian reported on the launch of a teddy-bear shaped mobile phone aimed at four year old children. "The manufacturer claims its handset is safer than others on the market because the emissions are up to 10 times lower...", however the campaign group Powerwatch said: "Children should not be exposed to radiation, however minimal it is. Microwaves affect children far more than adults."

BlackBerry growth boosts PDA sales.

In 2006Q1 PDA sales were up almost 7% to 3.65 million. The growth figures, from Gartner, include the sales of BlackBerry devices, which grew 30% against declines for Palm, HP and Dell. The average price of PDAs fell by 2.7% , which is attributed to a lack of new models.

Gartner analyst, Roberta Cozza: "RIM is still growing, but in the second half of 2006 we expect other vendors to come out with products with integrated keyboards to rival the BlackBerry. In Europe, Nokia will probably be RIM's biggest competitive threat when it releases its E61 wireless PDA, while Palm will be RIM's biggest challenger in the US."

Research by IDC suggests that "handheld devices" (PDAs and similar devices, but not devices with telephony capabilities -- so taking out BlackBerry sales) are in decline. "The organisation's latest worldwide Handheld Qview report reveals the total number of devices shipped during the first quarter of 2006 totaled 1.5m, a drop of 22.3 per cent year-on-year."

Source: two Computing articles and one from The Register.

O2, Vodafone see rise in users

The BBC report that O2 have signed up 16.3 million users in the UK. The latest rise in customers is more than 13% up on last year. ARPU is now at GBP269.

Meanwhile ZDNet reports the news that Vodafone have reached 10 millions 3G users globally.
"Vodafone Live gives users access to video calls and high-speed downloads. The 10 million figure does not include sales of Vodafone's high-speed data card - which appear to be lagging well behind its 3G phones".

Mobile enterprise boost.

Salesforce have announced AppExchange Mobile, taking 60 applications that talk to Salesforace and making them available to mobile devices, such as PDAs and mobile phones. "It should also attract new [Salesforce.com] customers in a wide range of industries and geographies from organisations large and small. The AppExchange Mobile service is priced at $50 per user per month for Enterprise Edition and Professional Edition customers." Reported in
IT Director and The Register.

More pay-by-mobile services launch.

LUUP has launched in the UK, allowing mobile users to pay for
goods via their mobile phones, although "the service will initially concentrate on helping customers buy mobile content".

UK mobile operators are to launch
a joint Pay4It service later this year. Together with PayPal this makes three
payment services available in the UK.

Reported in The Guardian, which also notes the failure of previous schemes, Simpay and Paybox.

Registration date for .mobi approaches.

In an interview with Computing, Neil Edwards, General Manager of mTLD, answers questions about the .mobi domain.

General registration for .mobi domains starts August 28; limited registration for trademark holders starts May 22. Sites need to comply with the relatively painless Switch On! rules.

PayPal mobile.

PayPal has launched mobile services to allow person-to-person payments via SMS and voice call. Additionally their "Text to Buy" service allows customers to order items which will be delivered to their PayPal-registered home address.