If you haven’t yet spotted it, allow me to direct your attention to the left-most portion of your browser window. You should see a floating “Feedback” button next to the main column.

IntoMobile is always looking for new ways to give our community of mobile enthusiasts the most extensive and relevant resource on the web. As such, we try hard to give you, the reader, what you want to see on IntoMobile.

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Asda has announced Britain’s lowest priced PAYG (Pay As You Go) mobile phones deal, selling handsets for £5! Apparently it’s a “no strings” deal so you can buy just the device, without needing to buy an credit (although clearly you’d need some to make calls…..). Over 50,000 of the handset will be available at stores across the UK while stocks last, and there are a choice of four:

• Sagem My212x
• Sagem My220x
• Sagem My150x
• Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 1112

(The PAYG tariffs come from Virgin, T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) and Orange)

News, as if any were needed, that the commoditisation of mobile devices has reached astronomic levels…

[Via: Scenta.co.uk]

Veveo™ Inc., has announced an “extraordinary” new web video experience for Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) Mobile phone owners. Through the SE video-enabled mobile/web portal, customers will have access to over 150m (!) web videos via vtap – which is an apparently unique mobile web video service. vtap allows rapid search and viewing of web videos from sites such as YouTube™, DailyMotion™, and MySpace™ – all using their existing data services.

The intelligence of the vtap solution starts checking videos on input of the first character of text string in to the search area, making results quicker to appear. There is also grouping of video results together in to folders, allowing dynamic menus of results to be generated.

vtap also maintains an indes of more than 150m web videos which are constantly updated – having set up a profile you can collect, organise, and share video as you like.

vtap has been optimised for a selection of Sony Ericsson’s handsets:

The service is available immediately for Sony Ericsson Java Platform 8 (JP8) enabled handsets models: Z770i, K850i, W910i, K660i, W890i, Z750i and Sony Ericsson’s JP7 models: W880i, K810i, T650i, K530i, W580i, K770i, W660i. The service will support English, French, Italian, German and Spanish languages.

Comment: Hmmm, interesting – it will be great to hear feedback from any IntoMobile readers that have one of the above handsets, and happen to try it. My personal experience of working with Mobile Video is that converting (or “transcoding” as we like to say) it can be extremely challenging, especially from some of the more advanced web video formats….

[Via: businesswire.com]

Director Spike Lee has hooked up with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) to direct a movie made with Mobile phone video footage from “everyday people”, in what he is apparently calling the “democratization of film”. The film will be by Nokia Productions and will be over 3 acts – an “assignment” will be announced online for each act, adn then people will have 4 weeks to create their submission.

The central thread (theme) will apparently be based around the way music tells the story of humanity, and different media can be submitted – text, music, video, or images – which you can check out at http://www.nokiaproductions.com.

Nokia will choose 25 submissions, and people will then vote online for the Top 10, of which Spike himself will choose the winners.The final, complete, film will premiere later in the year in LA.

[Via: Reuters UK]

StarHub recently announced that it has now officially launched Singapore’s first nation-wide LBS (location-based service) for mobile advertising. For advertisers, the fit is obvious – send marketing/promo messages (SMS) to subscribers when they are in contextually relevant location. For customers, they get appropriate messages to what they are doing, both on a where and when basis.

For the launch, WTS Travel & Tours, (a big player in travel industry there) will be using the service to inform customers of promos and deals. Other advertisers and merchants will be going live shortly, apparently.

Comment: given the defined (and restricted) geographical area an Island occupies, this is a great place to try out Mobile services – there’s a reason why O2 (NYSE: TEF) deployed 3G first on the Isle of Man for example! Everyone has got to be happy with targeted Ads, but having them contextualised for location is a neat spin on things – I can’t wait for the first set of stats showing the service uptake and conversion in to buyers from those clicking through – bring me the stats!

[Via: hardwarezone.com]

Short but sweet – Echostar were very successful in the recent FCC spectrum auctions in the US – and a lot of people were pointing to the fact that the Satellite Pay-TV operator was going to go Mobile. As some of you probably already know, Echostar also snared SlingMedia not so very long ago, so the pointers were there.

Well the pointers just got bigger, and more accurate – they just announced a partnership with Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) to test DVB-SH (SAT variant of DVB-H) in the US. Interestingly, analysts are saying this ain’t a good move, due to the rol-out costs of the service in the face of existing competition.

Watch this space to see what Echostar actually decide to do – you never know, we might have a hot new broadcast Mobile TV player in the market relatively soon…..

[Via: Broadbandreports.com]

Apparently, there are now more mobile phones in use in Australia than the nation’s population – to be exact, 21.26 million of them!

Of these, 4.5m are 3G, an increase of nearly 200% on mid-year figures between 2006 and 2007. In the same period, fixed line services dropped away slightly (hardly surprising, it’s happening everywhere!).

These stats came from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) 2006-07 communications report – and tell us, not for the first time that penetration can reach 100%+

With Convergence firmly in everyones (in the industry) minds, we can but wonder what the next component of this trend is going to be….

[Via: news.com.au]

Writing for Fortune, ex-The Street writer Moritz cites industry sources in speculating that AT&T (NYSE: T) may be subsidizing the next-generation 3G iPhone to the tune of $199. The price subsidy would help cut the expected $399 and $499 (for the 8GB and 16GB variants, respectively) price tags to a more easily swallowed $199 and $299.

AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499.

Apple has previously prohibited iPhone carriers from subsidizing the iPhone, and has even required that carriers kick-back a portion of iPhone-generated monthly revenue to Cupertino. But, recent moves to clear out iPhone inventories have seen Apple allowing iPhone carriers in the UK and Germany to subsidize the current iPhone’s selling price. Futhermore, rumors are swirling that the next-generation iPhone will hit certain carriers unlocked and without contract – hinting that Apple is considering a radical change to their current iPhone business model.

Apple’s newly relaxed stance on the iPhone-carrier relationship bodes well for the prospect of seeing an AT&T subsidy on the 3G iPhone. But, Moritz’s mention that the next-gen iPhone will sport a 9.2mm thick casing (2.5mm thinner than the current iPhone) while still managing to pack in a 3G radio and GPS receiver, goes against other speculation (from more reliable sources) that the 3G iPhone will actually be thicker. It should be noted that the possibility of a thinner iPhone variant has been thrown into the mix, but the smaller iPhone would exclude the GPS hardware. Is Moritz and his source simply confused on which iPhone rumor to spin off from?

We’re not going to hold out breath on this one – mostly because the speculation comes from unreliable rumor-monger Scott Moritz.

Still, the “source” says that the 3G iPhone will be launched on or around June 27 to coincide roughly with the one-year anniversary of the iPhone’s initial global launch in the US. So, we’ll just have to wait and see which portions, of this latest rumor pans out.

[Via: Fortune]

Sure, CDMA networks are going to stick around for the next couple years, but in the long-term, CDMA’s prospects are bleak. All relevant 4G plans are starting to form around GSM technology like HSPA (HSDPA and HSUPA) and LTE (Long Term Evolution). So, it makes sense that proactive carriers are already planning for the future and jumping off the CDMA ship. As expected, Telstra is now preparing to take down their CDMA network for good – replacing it with their new GSM infrastructure.

Come midnight, Australians still hanging on to their CDMA handsets will no longer see a CDMA signal. Telstra is pushing the migration to GSM networks in order to push the carrier’s “Next G” UMTS/HSDPA network and accompanying data speeds.

The move also opens the door for the carrier to make good on speculation that the Apple iPhone will be coming to Australia via Telstra. The iPhone, and especially the 3G iPhone, requires a GSM network, so the move to GSM and 3G technology is a good sign for iPhone hopefuls in Australia.

[Via: PocketPCThoughts]

While it might look familiar to fans of the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Centro, the newest Palm handset to hit O2 (NYSE: TEF)’s UK network isn’t your fluffy, consumer-oriented  device. The Palm Treo 500 goes back to Palm’s roots in enterprise devices and brings Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard along to hammer home its business prowess.

Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) previously had an exclusive on this particular handset as the Palm Treo 500v, but the exclusivity period has come and gone, allowing for O2 to welcome the device into their stable of smartphones. The Palm Treo 500 offers a tri-band (900/1800/1900Mhz) GSM radio, single-band (2100Mhz) UMTS, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, and a microSD card slot.

It’s not the highest end of the smartphone spectrum, and as such, the Palm Treo 500 is being offered for free with qualifying wireless plans. Head on over to O2’s website for more details.

O2

[Via: the::unwired]