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Mobile internet war heats up
The mobile internet war is intensifying at a rapid rate. In the week since Online's cover story on the subject, there has been a steady stream of hardware, network and content announcements.

First up, Vodafone, which has beefed up its content by teaming up with the likes of WH Smith, the BBC and the Met Office.

Next, its rival Virgin Mobile claims to be the first mobile phone company in the world to offer all its customers WAP (wireless application protocol) browsing. That means they will all be able to look at specially converted web pages and order goods from sites from, among others, the BBC and Virgin Megastore.

Virgin is able to offer the service thanks to a unique SIM-card based browser, which means you don't have to buy a special WAP phone.

Virgin claims this is "silicon socialism at its finest" because you won't have to buy an "expensive top-of-the-range phone first" - but that doesn't quite tell the whole story. You'll still spend a lot more on the handset at Virgin because its unsubsidised, line rental-free handsets are all more expensive than their rivals. That means a Nokia 3210 is £29.99 plus contract at Cellnet, but £149.99 at Virgin. A Cellnet WAP phone costs £129.99, plus line rental, at Cellnet. The benefit with Virgin is that you do not have to pay line rental or standing charges, or sign a contract.

Meanwhile, electronics giant Motorola is fighting back against market leader Nokia and resurgent Ericsson with a new set of mobile phones, previews of innovative devices and an alliance with handheld computer maker Psion.

The most eye-catching gadget shown off to journalists in New York last week was the Timeport Wireless Communicator, a messaging device that is around the same size and weight as a pack of cards.

Despite its small size, the Communicator can send and receive email and messages independently of a mobile phone, discreetly vibrating when a new email or news update arrives. The device, finished in grey, sports a tiny Querty keyboard and LCD screen which, although not up to the standards of Psion or Palm devices, is adequate for short emails. It also features productivity software like an address book and scheduler.

When it goes on sale later in the year, the device will run on GPRS (General Packet Radio Services) - a new, much faster mobile standard due to arrive in the UK this summer.

The only problem with the addictive little gadget might be the price. At around the £200 mark, it might have been a big stocking-filling hit. But we're reliably informed they'll cost quite a bit more than that - keeping them in suits rather than schoolbags. It's up against the new Siemens IC35, announced in Cannes on Tuesday.

It looks rather like its Motorola rival, with a tiny keyboard and screen, and has similar functions. But it also carries two advantages: it'll be on sale sooner, in late spring, and it'll be cheaper, at around £150. The downside is that the IC35 is less elegant a solution than the Motorola, needing to be combined with a mobile phone with built-in data interface in order to do email. We wait to see if playgrounds fill with kids grappling with the intricacies of wireless networking.

Also unveiled by Motorola were a series of WAP enabled mobile phones. They included the Timeport P7389e - an e-commerce phone into which you can insert a "smart" mircochip-carrying banking card, and buy services and goods from WAP sites. The banking card payment system - using e-cash or credit cards - offers an alternative to paying for your orders through your mobile phone bill. The mobile bill option is a simpler method than fiddling with plastic, but one which, understandably, credit card issuers were less keen on. The e-commerce phone will go on sale this summer.

Motorola has also teamed up with handheld computer manufacturer Psion to make a new series of mobile devices. This is only the latest in a series of alliances forged between leading technology companies as the mobile internet battle heats up.

In December, Microsoft and Ericsson formed a joint venture to develop a mobile internet browser for handheld devices.

Meanwhile Nokia is working with Palm Computing to develop new wireless internet gadgets. (NM)

Cameras go mega
Olympus will become the first digital camera maker to break the three-megapixel barrier when it releases its £800 Camedia C-3030 Zoom model later this month.

Its 3.34 million pixel resolution means it will vie for the title of highest resolution compact camera on the market with the Canon PowerShot S20 (featured in Online last week), which is due to arrive in the UK in March. The C-3030 Zoom doesn't just do stills: it can also act as a video camera as well. It features a QuickTime video mode that enables users to capture up to 190 seconds of video at 160x120 resolution. An internal microphone gives users the option of adding audio to their shot or footage.

The C-3030 is also the first Olympus digital camera to sport a USB interface and serial port connection. Other facilities include a 3x Zoom lens, infrared mode, six-flash modes and a 32MB SDRAM buffer that allows the unit to shoot 3.5 frames a second. The camera also offers black and white, sepia and blackboard/whiteboard modes and comes with 16MB SmartMedia card. (AN)

Play it again
Digital video recorders - TiVo and ReplayTV - are becoming popular in the US because they let you "pause" and "rewind" live TV broadcasts or pick up where you left off.

You can't buy them here, yet, but Dixons has launched two powerful Advent PCs that let you do the same thing.

The systems work in the same way: by streaming the TV broadcast to a PC hard drive and playing it back.

Doing it with a PC means you can also use the computer to play games or audio CDs and watch movies on DVD.

Dixons is starting with two systems with Intel Pentium III processors: the 800MHz Advent 8810 (256MB memory, 40GB hard drive, 19in monitor) at £2,466, and the 600MHz Advent 8737 (128MB memory, 20GB hard drive, 17in monitor) at £1,409.

Both systems also have TV cards, DVD-rom drives, Sony CD Rewriters and 65K modems.

The software that provides the VCR features is MGI's Pure DIVA (for Digital Interactive Video and Audio). (JS)