Ever wanted someone to contact you but not wanted to give them your mobile number? No, me either, but if you did happen to answer yes, your prayers have been answered! Loaf is a new texting service that allows for you to send and receive texts without the recipient getting …
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Want anonymous texting? Use your loaf!
The CBI Director-General, Richard Lambert, today commented on the Bank of England’s latest Credit Conditions Survey and the need for measures to restore credit flows across the economy, including the car industry. It’s long overdue, but action is needed.
His comments follow calls for measures from the government to tackle the shortage of credit flow as a matter of utmost urgency.
Mr Lambert was quoted as saying: “The Bank of England’s latest Credit Conditions Survey paints a bleak picture of the impact of the credit crunch on businesses and families. The availability and the cost of credit have both deteriorated in the final quarter of 2008, and are expected to get worse in the next three months. The Government is going to have to do more to restore credit flows across the economy.”
Inventories and capital spending is way down and the overall state of the business economy in the UK has been sagging badly for a number of months, but its finally reached the breaking point and something must be done. It’s good to see a force like the CBI stand up and voice its concern.
Those eagerly anticipating this month’s Macworld and the prospects of a smaller iPhone should be careful, as a slew of tiny clones are introducing confusion as they reach store shelves in several countries, especially Thailand.
While silicone case molds have surfaced that allegedly hint at a smaller iPhone in the works very soon (and its all but been confirmed by Apple as a developing product at this point), a rash of similarly-sized dupes made by anonymous southeast Asian firms have added to the confusion and deception.
The devices, spotted here by AppleInsider in Thailand are almost always designed to mimic Apple’s products as closely as possible and share not only the basic design but the branding as well, in some cases directly copying the logo and the “iPhone” labeling on the back, so they can fool even a trained Apple eye.
Their software is also at times familiar and carries a similar layout, down to icons ripped directly from Apple’s interface, and similar functionality as well.
Aside from obvious color changes such as splashes of gold or pink (this is usually the tip-off that they aren’t real Apple gear), these clones are (when switched off) close enough to the original that they may pass for an iPhone “Nano” to the newbie eye.
If a picture paints a thousand words, then what is a video worth? Well it’s priceless to Nokia’s PR team it would seem as they look to continue to build on the buzz surrounding the Nokia N97. So, to set the excitement level to boiling point Nokia have released a …
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Nokia N97 Demo Video
Samsung has been pretty successful with it’s first big-gun promotion branded handset, the Soul U900, launched last February. And the success was deserved: it had some slick good looks and usability, and really impressive specs for the time.
But time passes quickly in the mobile world, and the novelty and sheen of the Soul wore a little thin, and those once shiny specs are looking pretty dated now.
It’s a good thing Samsung feels this way too, and has something new up it’s sleeve for the next year’s fancy big feature phone, and it’s called the Samsung S8300. Here’s the rundown on it.
Featuring an anti-scratch and anti-fingerprint coated duraluminium chasis (like the Soul), the Samsung S8300 does away with the interactive touchpad (and all its assorted issues and niggles), and opts for a simple to use optical joystick plus a big and bright 2.8? 16 million color touchscreen that’s reported to be sharp as a tack.
Full rumored Samsung S8300 specs include GSM/UMTS/HSDPA connectivity, 8MP camera with autofocus, GPS and 60MB of memory built-in, and DivX playback too. Very solid specs.
It may show up at the CES, or else the Samsung S8300 will probably get it’s official brand name and will be launched at MWC Barcelona in February, and will start shipping everywhere (UK included) in March 2009. No prices have been reported yet, but probably in the range of the Soul price wise (or maybe a little more) would be a safe bet.
APACS has announced that, “following a successful meeting on 11 December between the [UK] credit card industry and Government, real changes for credit card holders who may be struggling to make their regular payments are announced. This delivers on the industry’s commitment to draw up new principles made at the credit card summit on November 26th.
APACS has published a fact sheet (PDF file) to explain exactly what has been agreed and what the changes mean for credit card holders.”
This could mean big and very good changes to a credit card structure in the UK that has been broken for a number of years. People will be able to pay their credit card bills without unfair rules cracking them at every turn.
The Guardian reported that UK credit card “lenders were given two weeks to come up with a set of “fair principles” and warned that the “Office for Fair Trading would be asked to investigate if they failed to agree on a plan.” Meaning their solution wouldn’t go down very well if they were forced to intervene. Perhaps the US should give this a look and adopt some of these policies (though now they’re adopting some of them, albeit reluctantly, in the wake of the credit crunch there).
Ian Clarke, solutions director for O2, sat down recently to give his take (and we agree with most of it) on the state of the mobile market going into 2009.
In 2008, the iPhone created a huge wave in the market in terms of design, features, interface and overall customer experience. It helped stimulate the handset market by prompting handset manufacturers to create even better devices with improved designs and interfaces, all taking advantage of the higher data speeds being offered by the networks (not to mention having to work extra hard to compete in the marketplace). As a result, 2008 was the year when mobile data really took off.
The year 2009 will see further innovation around the touch screen functionality we have already seen on some of these devices improving the user experience even further. More simple commands, more ease of daily use, and more customizability will be the hallmarks of the next year.
One of the main developments in 2009 will be camera phone functionality. Most camera phones are throw-ins with 2 or 3 MP and grainy pictures not of much use really. With camera phone features already offering face detection, editing and other user-friendly features historically reserved for digital cameras, consumers will increasingly be choosing a camera phone as a single device rather than a phone plus a camera tacked on. It’s always a sore spot when the cameras on these phones seem to not have had any work put into them.
More devices will be launched on the Android platform, ultimately offering customers and businesses a wide range of applications to make their lives easier on the move. The move seems to be towards more accessibility and open-source thinking, at least in the mobile world. Even Apple has started to open up their thinking to allow more accessibility to the inner workings of the iPhone. This trend will definitely continue in the coming year.
Samsung has claimed three of the top four prepay sellers in the run-up to Christmas in a bid to reinforce its position as the number one manufacturer in the UK by volume, and they’re succeeding admirably. It seems many in the UK favor a prepaid scheme for their cell phones.
The three devices – the J700, E250 and G600 – are selling over 100,000 units in total every week, and have been for a little while now. Sales have been bolstered by the Tocco and U600 handsets, which are also bringing in strong prepay sales as well. It seems Samsung has found a niche.
It is a radical departure from Samsung’s previous reluctance to compete in the prepay market, and marks a new strategy to fight harder for every bit of market share, something they need to do in these tough economic times.
The manufacturer has cut its prices in a bid to hit key prepay price points with operator subsidy – £100 in the case of the G600 and below £30 for both the J700 and E250. The U600 is being pushed below £50, and Samsung has even gone as low as £10 with the B130, which is bottom line more or less, almost cost in some circles.
The manufacturer has seen its share catapult from 19% at the start of 2008 to over 30% as the year closes. We’ll keep an eye on this as Samsung launches a full offensive to grab the biggest slice of prepaid pie in the UK.
Nokia’s first ever touch screen phone, the 5800 XpressMusic, looks set to hit stores in the UK in February next year. It’ll be curious to see how things go. A lot will be riding on the success of this phone, for their music service and the future direction of their company, as far as mobiles go.
Nokia has said that the device – the first specifically designed to host the Comes With Music service – would be available in time for Christmas. However, the manufacturer later revealed that the handset’s release would be delayed until the first quarter of 2009 for engineering and marketing reasons, and to hone their music service.
The 5800 XpressMusic is likely to be a welcome addition to Nokia’s line, with the Comes With Music service yet to take off as the manufacturer hoped (it’s struggling). One of the reasons attributed to the slow start has been the lack of cutting edge handsets that the service has been available on (makes sense; without phones to use it on, what’s the point?).
We reported last week that Nokia is also understood to be preparing to offer Comes With Music on new N96 handsets (with no plan to update existing customers, which caused quite a bit of anger, no doubt).
No final price has been set in the UK as of yet.
The credit crunch is hitting many people, hard. It has even caused many to consider bankruptcy as a way out. Much of this is applicable to the US, but it holds true in many other countries as well.
Bankruptcy should be used as a last ditch effort, if creditors are hounding you and your income cannot even come close to paying off existing debt. Avoiding it really is the best option, and this article is to give you a few tips to do so.
This is essential because bankruptcy can badly influence your ability to obtain credit and loans for the coming 7-10 years. Following are some other alternatives worth considering and some tips to avoid bankruptcy.
Credit counseling
Once you lag behind on your payment schedule, it’s easy to become discouraged. Although filing bankruptcy might appear as the simplest solution, it might not be the most beneficial option. When you really wish to avoid filing bankruptcy, credit counseling may help. A variety of credit counseling services is there to analyze your condition and offer you professional guidance to assist you in improving your financial status. Avoid the scammers who prey on people with bad credit with “magical, instant credit purity” solutions; these rarely work.
Debt consolidation
When you have become overextended by heavy debts, a debt consolidation loan may be a solution. By taking this loan, you can get the necessary money for consolidating all your debts into a single and reduced monthly payment. This makes paying them much less painful, obviously. These require supervision though; some companies keep better records than others do.
Tips for avoiding bankruptcy
Besides credit counseling and debt consolidation, there are some other steps that you can take in order to avoid bankruptcy and possibly avoid it altogether:
1) Take an honest attempt to clear up your debts. A few creditors might be ready to negotiate a lower amount in comparison to the actual amount you owe.
2) Filing for bankruptcy isn’t free. It is essential that you conserve money for that or find an additional job. Think about utilizing the money that you already have and extra money that you can make to start repaying the bills as an alternative.
3) Try to economize. Save as much as you can and utilize that money to liquidate your debts gradually.
If you have been refused a pay monthly contract due to bad credit, you should consider SIM card only contracts.
Because no handset is included with the tariff, networks are much more likely to approve your application than if you were to apply for an expensive phone and high tariff plan.
Learn more about your SIM only contracts
