"T-Mobile claims it will be the first to offer video-with-audio messaging. This claim stems from the fact that initial fototext/MMS services supported the transfer of video clips inside a multi-media message but that same clip could not offer an accompanying sound track. T-Mobile claims now to have fixed this particular bug."

That's the good news. The bad news in the same article, from the Inquirer, states that, "T-Mobile's CEO, Rene Obermann, absolutely ruled out any move towards flat rate tariffs for GPRS". Booooo, Booooo!

And a second article relating to the T-Mobile announcement puts more emphasis on what I consider a very worrying trend - "The company will have "T-Zone buttons" placed on new phones to afford users easier access to the [T-Zone] portals. It has also inked a deal with software firm 3G Lab to design common interfaces across different devices for different user groups - a move seen as evident of an increasing trend among operators to exert more control over handset development.

This is actually quite disturbing! It's been creeping up on us for a while with Vodafone really cementing the trend in the implementation of Vodafone Live! with it's 'proprietary buttons'. How has the power shift in the industry panned out like this? Why do the operators have such influence on the handset makers that. You'd think they'd have learned their lessons for the 'garden-walled' flop of WAP.

Proprietary services/GUIs/buttons won't work Mr. Operator!! You are utility companies. And mobile phones are becoming commidities, just like with the PC industry. Get used to it.

I don't want your hand-holding cartoon interface anymore than I want Internet Explorer commandeering my internet browsing. Ever pay much attention to that funny looking Windows key on new PC keyboards? No? Me neither, I never use it. There's a lesson to be learned there .....

I'll be travelling to London in the next few day and was delighted to come across this Real-time Transport Map for the city.

If you're a Radio Userland blogger you can now get David Davies' Weblog assetManager tool which allows you to moblog (mobile blog). Nice.