Omio News Blog

Dog & Bone

Washington prisons are using sniffer dogs to locate contraband mobile phones. According to the Washington Post, ‘Smuggled cellphones allow inmates to run criminal enterprises, threaten witnesses and warn fellow inmates about the movements of correctional officers.’ So it’s imperative for wardens to confiscate them. As phones have got smaller they have become easier to smuggle, so traditional searches are not as effective in locating illicit items.

I know these dogs are trained for use by law enforcement professionals but I want one. In those first terrible hours of the day when you’re trying to leave the house, the phone is always the first thing to go missing. How many times have I ended up crawling on my hands and knees at 5 to 9 peering under furniture in desperate search of my LG Shine? Only to find it inexplicably in the fridge or a shoe. They just need to train a dog to find keys and my morning routine would be revolutionised.

Will the BlackBerry Thunder have a Higher Res Screen than the iPhone?

It’s still unconfirmed, but the news leaked from the House of RIM is that the BlackBerry Thunder will have a 360×480 screen, compared to the iPhone’s 320×480. More news: the official model number is the BlackBerry 9500 and it’ll be running OS 4.7.0 (the BlackBerry Bold runs OS 4.6). Feel free to print off the above picture (from Boy Genius Report) and put it on your wall next to that poster of Megan Fox.

Source: BlackBerry News

Thank You, Sony Ericsson

I’ll admit that, with the exception of the hefty but impressive Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, I have been less than complimentary about Sony Ericsson. Yes their business sense may leave something to be desired but I cannot fault their generosity. At yesterday’s British Grand Prix they donated their spare boxes of chicken and chips to Team Omio. Thank you SE; may your profits increase every day. If you want to send us a few XPERIA handsets too, that’d be great.

How to Use iPhone to Impress Women

Here’s an article for any inadequate geeks out there looking to impress a woman with an iPhone.  Hang on, surely one glance of your iPhone and any woman will be so confused and baffled by the bright colours and shiny buttons they will just follow you home, like a puzzled magpie. But no, apparently there are 7 ways an iPhone can help you get laid. For example you can showcase your dangerous side with your unlocked iPhone, as the article states, ‘I don’t play by the rules, danger doesn’t scare me, and I have crazy skills you can’t even comprehend.’ Hmmmmm…. You can charm your potential victim girlfriend with the ultimate seduction playlist and some speakers, woo away to the sounds of ‘Lady in Red’, ‘Baker St’ and ‘Careless Whisper’ and she’s yours. The article offers another powerful insight into the female psyche with ‘Women like men with money and ambition’ which you can reveal through using the stocks and shares widget on the iPhone.

If you are considering any of these tactics I suggest the simplest way to use your iPhone to find a woman is to ring up your local neighbourhood massage palour and arrange an appointment.

Source:Peoplejam

Free Ice Cream!

Get yourself down to Notting Hill Gate and Kensington tube stations tomorrow from 12 and you can get a free ice cream courtesy of BlackBerry. These smart phones companies will do anything for publicity. What next, Steve Jobs handing out slush puppies?

Remember The Garmin Nuvifone?

Many moons ago I wrote about the upcoming Garmin Nuvifone. Packed with exciting features including, unsurprisingly, full GPS functionality, it sounded like a winner. All was quiet for a few months but now a guy over at Laptop Mag has had the chance to rub his sticky mitts over it. What did he discover? Apparently it has a very good UI and is packed with GPS goodies. Unfortunately Mr. Laptop Mag didn’t have the chance to test out all of the phone’s functionality (web browser, camera, MP3s etc.), but the Nuvifone is shaping up to be very nice indeed. You can read more about it here.

Mobile Banking Revolutionises Money Transfer in Africa

Mobile phones are revolutionising banking in Africa. In Kenya where many people do not have bank accounts the only way to send money from the cities to the rural areas is to hand it over to bus drivers who will drop it off on the way. Not very efficent or indeed secure. Even if you are lucky enough to have an account, the lack of branches and ATMs hinder access to money.

The dramatic growth of mobile phone use in Africa offers a solution to the banking problem. You can now transfer money by text rather than by bus driver. Orange Money is a pioneering service that lets people deposit cash through Orange’s network of local retailers who can send it to other registered Orange Money customers. It is even possible to withdraw money from your local store. I always knew people who worked for Orange shop were bankers, this is the proof. What is certain however, is that this is a really clever way of utlising current technology to deal with a real problem that affects millions.

Source: The Guardian

The iPhone Vs The Nintendo DS: Let Battle Commence!

Apple’s always involved in some sort of battle, first it was with Microsoft, next it was the music industry, then the mobile phone industry and now the hand held console industry.

According to an article in Forbes, the Nintendo DS might be the next target in Apple’s pugnacious rampage through home electronics. The iPhone has the touch screen of the DS and the motion sensitivity of the Nintendo Wii, a powerful combination. With the launch of Apple App store, developers will be able to add software to the iPhone and the iPod Touch, and the ability to download games as well.

Rumours abound that ‘Spore’ the new god-game will be released on the iPhone at the same time as the PC, Mac and Nintendo DS. It would be amazing to get sophisticated console games on a mobile phone and I’m not talking Snake. But it is worrying that Apple seems to want to control every aspect of our electronic life. It smacks of control freakery and makes me wary about this hyped company.

Source: Forbes

Mobile Phone Users Secretly Tracked As Part Of Study

Insert clichéd comment about an Orwellian world here. Researchers secretly tracked the location of 100,000 individuals (from a country that isn’t the United States) by monitoring their mobile phone use. They concluded that people tend not to stray too far from home- nearly three-quarters of those studied stayed within a 20-mile-wide circle for six months.

It would have been illegal to conduct the study in the US so the researchers instead chose another, unnamed, “industrialised country”. They didn’t check with an ethics panel if this was ok because “the experiment involved physics, not biology”. Is this really a valid excuse? Could I drop bricks on people’s heads from the sixth floor of a building and claim that it was an experiment on the effects of gravity on bone? Sure I’d be arrested but at least the ethics panel would be ok with it. If maiming/killing people in the name of science is wrong then maybe I don’t want to be right.

The research used mobile phone masts to track when participants made or received calls or sent texts. The researchers had no idea what the participants’’ phone numbers were and could not say precisely where people were. Still, this raises ethical questions because mobile phones are supposed to be private. Was it worth tracking these poor unfortunate mobile phone users? All the study showed was that people are lazy and like to stay in one place – hardly groundbreaking.

Source: msnbc.com

N96 Release Date

The wait is finally over. The Nokia N96 is set to ship on the 31st of July according to Play.com. The N96 follows on from the highly popular N95 and promises to add some great features like 32GB of memory, 3G HSDPA and 5 MP camera.. The N96 will cost a princely 599.99 for the handset alone with an offer for 10% off a sandisk 8GB.

Source: Boy Genius Report