Interesting Mobile stories that caught our eye.

Where are You?

Ex England Rugby captain Will Carling left his iPad on the train but was determined to get it back. He used the built in GPS to follow the device as it went literally around the houses and updated his progress to his 46,000 twitter followers.

Logging on through his PC he could track its movements via MobileMe app and even sent a message to it telling the people who had it that it was being tracked. The device was eventually handed into the railway station’s lost property office and reunited with its owner.

Above the law?

Users who watch BBC TV via their Anroid and iPad /Phone devices with no TV licence are unlikely to be caught. The new free app enables users to watch and listen to the BBC on the move and appears to be genuinely ‘free’. Mobile devices be they tablets or phones can’t be tracked and so can avoid the £145.50 licence fee. The detection is still very much based on addresses with 97% of households holding a licences and although the BBC plans to force a registration to catch offenders this would appear an easy one to avoid.

Mobile Facebook

We have all enjoyed Facebook apps on mobiles an dthey are some of the popular apps but now Facebook have gone one step further new HTC and INQ, Android smartphones that offer greater Facebook integration. A dedicated button will take the user straight to Facebook and will place Facebook features prominently on the home screen.

The Facebook phones will feature video and photo alerts as well as text and home screen that instantly updates as friends post messages and pictures on the Facebook.

This is not only a win for Facebook users but also Google’s Android platform. It offers retailers opportunities to seel and promote more on Facebook Places, which shares the user’s location with friends and provides special offers from retailers.

The INQ Cloud based phones, which will also integrate the Spotify music on demand service.

Two Lost Souls Join Hands

Earlier this week we wrote about the dire straights Nokia now find themselves i9n today as everyone seems to be passing them on their journey down the charts.
As if to compound the issue they have now announced that they are to partner with Microsoft and that it will now use Microsoft's Windows Phone as its main smartphone platform, cutting research and development in its own platform which is dying on its feet. However some woulkd suggest that putting to lame dogs together doesn’t make a good one it merely puts two dead dogs together and could hasten the decline of both.

The once dominant Finnish phone market looks as if it is going to experience terminal decline and the appointment last year of Stephen Elop, a former Microsoft executive, as CEO looks like it set the agenda and there are even rumours that he may relocate to Silicon Valley.

Combining Nokia with Windows Phone platform looks ill conceived and is highly unlikely to draw users away from the rampant Android and iPhone platforms.