Mike Butcher

Sony is going to allow PlayStation Portable (PSP) owners make VoIP and video calls using a camera and microphone which will hit the shops on 25 May. Gamers will be able to call other PSP owners and some BT phones. BT is developing the software, which was originally intended for the Nintendo handheld. The BBC reports the service will initially only be available in the UK and will only work on home or BT wireless hotspots, of which there are 2,000 so far. There are 24 million PSPs sold globally, eight million in the UK. Interestingly, this will be one of the first applications of BT’s 21 Century Network (21CN).

It’s not clear as yet, but it sounds like you will only be able to make calls if you are a BT customer already, meaning you’ll have to log-in with a customer ID to the network. We wait to be enlightened…

Mobile handsets capable of displaying TV will hit 244 million by 2011, according to the Multimedia Research Group in the US. That’s double the number previously forecast for the uptake rate expected in 55 countries. Big leaps are expected in 2009 when 53 million broadcast TV enabled handsets are expected to ship. The bulk of the 80 mobile TV trials all over the world will become genuine services. Most will be good enough to watch for 30 minutes at a time. According to the report, service revenues from the global mobile TV market will exceed $24bn annually by 2011, with Western Europe likely to lead in revenue terms at over $10bn, followed by the USA and Canada at $7.7bn, and China and the Far East at $5bn.

If the rumour that T-Mobile is in the front line to take the iPhone in Europe then the new rumour that the Apple iPhone will also be available on a pre-paid contract is pretty interesting. The Boygeniusreport.com says they got a few screen shots sent to them which show internal AT&T account codes showing the iPhone available to Pay As You Go subscribers with AT&T in the US. This would widen the market for the iPhone considerably, especially in the US where customers are generally locked into contracts for a long time. If the iPhone is pre-paid in Europe then expect a massive run on the phones – and yet more power to the iTunes music store.

Moblog.co.uk has relaunched its site with a new redesign and launched a moblog for mobile operator 3′s X-Series handset range.

Co-founder Alfie Dennen says: “The new homepage is geared towards being more inviting to new users, whilst also being a much more easy way to discover new things happening on the site. One of the new elements is something we call “busyness”, which calls those posts which have the most comment activity to the front page.”Featured moblogs are also more prominent now, making it easier to see what competitions and interesting images and video are being posted by bands, charities and other organisations moblogging.

A new tag cloud, displays interesting posts and discovers what tags are common throughout the site. The site’s navigation is now always visible at the top of the page, with the addition of the new ‘featured’ and ‘highlights’ links. Some enhancements have also been made to the search page, improving search results overall.

Moblog recently announced a deal to license its technology to Channel for the for Big Art Mob.

So I got my Virgin Media customer pack today. They must be sending it to everyone who has ever touched Virgin (I had a Virgin mobile number once, plus I was on Telewest at one time). Clearly they are going for the whole "we'll simplify TV, broadband, phone and mobile for you" pitch. There is also a response mechanic: If you got to Knowfirst.co.uk you'll obviously have read their printed marketing material. Not just found it via a blog or something. Oh no. To cap it all, in the small print on the back of their slick marketing material are the tiny words: "Security features not available to Mac users." Hmmn, so much for the Apple-esque marketing material then.

It's mylo, says Joi Ito. The Sony mylo ships in the US September 15. No plans for distribution in Japan. Key quote: "The mylo is a nifty little device that does wifi, Skype (you can hold it up to your ear or use a headset), GTalk (no voice), and Yahoo Instant Messenger. It also has a browser (Opera, no flash), has a photo album, plays mp3 and Windows Media Player music, and plays video formatted in the weird mp4 video format that the PSP uses. (I think. I have yet to successfully convert and play a video file.) I used it for Skype on a conference call today and it worked really well with Skype-Out. For some reason I don't seem my contacts list on Skype. The other IM clients seem to work fine (GTalk and Yahoo IM)." It will be interesting to see if the Mylo takes off on Wi-Fi's college campuses and Universities, give than 'the kids' no longer email, and mainly do IM. Bummer for the mobile networks…

AIS Thailand, the largest mobile operator in Thailand, plans to expand its content discovery service, mLive! to reach 8 million subscribers by the end of the year, according to the firm. Powered by Celltick (headquartered in London), mLive! broadcasts streams of content teasers directly across the idle screen of user’s mobile phones, with subscribers offered “personalized content and promotions”. AIS says that during its first year of operation over 40% of subscribers used mLIVE! on a monthly basis, with over 300,000 downloads a day. The service will become available for 8 million users by the end of the year and then extended to the majority of AIS users.

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