Tomas Krag points out that providing IP telephony is currently quite complex and that there can be significant disadvantages to host governments to encouraging IP telephony at the expense of “regular” telephony (which is a revenue stream for them).

Don Cameron (donhome (at) mudgeeab.com.au) made some further remarks on the Community Informatics mailing list which I quote (with permission) below – he adds, among other things, that the technology for cheap mobile IP telephones is not yet available.
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A British company, Hypertag, has developed small, cheap tags that broadcast a signal on infrared or bluetooth with simple messages. (Other companies are working on location-based messages using GPS or “cell-ID” but this low-tech solution might be cheaper). I can see that it would be useful for, say, art exhibits, but I am a little worried that it could contribute to a blizzard of automated messages that would pop up on your mobile as you moved around.movies myers mikemovies fucking mommom movies sexmovie celebrities nudemovie humpsmovie download makerclips sex scene moviemovies 1999 released in Map

Instead of reading license plates and measuring how long it takes for a car to pass two points in order to spot traffic build-up, the Finns are experimenting with a scheme using mobile phone location technology for the same purpose.

(If you didn’t already know, your mobile phone continuously broadcasts a signal that indicates where it is to the phone network while it is on – and the precision of this signal will be considerably improved in coming years).

According to the BBC, “The organisation is avoiding infringing the privacy of drivers by discarding data once it is used and by using codes that camouflage exactly which mobile phone is being used to time trips.”

According to this BBC interview with Danger’s CEO, the Danger Hiptop (updated with a colour screen) will be with us in Europe mid-year. The form factor and software is elegant but I can’t see the 18-24 year old target market shelling out $39 to $59 a month here in Europe for it since for comms at least so many people use simple SMS already. I would be tempted to buy it instead of a phone, though, for a modest premium.

While on the subject of mobile comms, Fastxt is also worth a look for IM and SMS addicts in the UK. They are on to a good idea – use Symbian’s software to provide a better instant messaging environment than traditional SMS/MMS and provide software that runs on several (advanced) mobile phones instead of producing your own hardware.

Nature writes about an EU-funded pilot programme to let people rent out PDA-based tourist guides with GPS to guide you to the right info.

This is something I keep telling people someone ought to do. Of course the GPS will only work outdoors and away from tall buildings so some may have problems. I suppose art galleries could put in some kind of “auxiliary positioning” system so the devices could know which painting you were stood in front of? Anyone heard of this kind of thing? Hmmm…

Senegalese farmers are using WAP to find out the latest market prices for their goods. Handy for the farmers – not so great for the traditional middlemen… And according to the BBC’s story, “Prices are kept low and farmers pay for the service as part of a deal between Manobi and the national telephone company.” I wonder what will happen if this arrangement breaks down, and whether the project can scale past the 150 people using it so far. Still, it’s nice to see people trying something a little different…

This company has designed a keyboard that you project onto any surface and type on.

It doesn’t seem to me likely to work as well in real life as it does in the pictures on the site but it is nothing if not intriguing. Apparently, it will be available via Siemens for use with its forthcoming Pocket LOOX PocketPC device.

Wired Magazine now puts its articles online when the magazine hits the newsstand instead of a month later. In the latest issue, you can read about the extraordinary exodus of Filipinos to jobs across the world. I learned, among other things, that mobile phones and text messaging there is extraordinarily inexpensive:

“Each 160-character message costs 1 peso (2 US cents) within the Philippines and 10 pesos internationally, making this possibly the cheapest place on earth to get hooked on texting. And it’s only the calling party who pays. A typical cell phone costs the equivalent of $50; most people buy prepaid cards that, for $6, cover the cost of 300 domestic messages.”

Text messaging costs me 7 times as much…