A relatively quiet week in technology this week. With Summer in the northern hemisphere and no major press events taking place, this week is one of the most quiet in some time.

A Virgin phone

The NAB not paying

Police use YouTube

Sneaky is 3

The great firewall of China a

Monday 28th July 2008 - 1st August 2008

A Virgin phone

A couple of weeks after the world wide launch of the iPhone form Apple, Virgin Mobile in Australia has announced that it too will now be selling the new mobile phone and has also released their pricing structure.

Like all other carriers Virgin will lock users into a 24 month contract. It will have no upfront costs for the 8 gigabyte version with a $70 a month contract.

For $70 users will get $520 worth of calls and texts and 1 gigabyte of downloads. For $15 more a month users can get an extra 1gig of downloads.

Source The Australian

Comment

With this news it only leaves 3 to announce plans for the new iPhone.

The announcement now makes Virign the carrier with the best iPhone deals under cutting Optus by $9 a month while offering more downloads.

While Virgin has the best iPhone contract deal, Optus is still the only carrier that will allow you to buy the iPhone and get it unlocked to work on any network.

The 16 gigabyte iPhone is available on a $74 per month plan

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The NAB not paying

The NAB this week had a computer glitch that affected the automatic deposit of their customers wages.

While the problem was fixed it is currently unknown what caused the problem but the NAB has said no customers would be out of pocket.

Source ZDNet

Comment

Computers don't always work perfectly, and problems aren't always easy to find and rectify. While having our pay directly paid into our bank accounts does make life easier, it leaves us reliant more and more on computers, and should anything go wrong we are left affected.

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Police use YouTube

Police in some areas of England are turning to YouTube to shame people who ring up 999, the UKs version of 000, to make prank calls.

Head of communications for Avon and Somerset Police, Chief superintendent Dave Hayler, said: "We made the decision to put these examples of inappropriate 999 calls into the public domain because it is important people realise that wasting the time of the emergency services could cost lives. What could seem a harmless joke could prevent 999 services responding to a real emergency."

You can listen to the calls by clicking here

Source ZDNet

Comment

In what can only be seen as being nice, the police are posting the calls on the internet. Any one caught calling the 999 service in the UK can face up to six months in gaol and a £5,000 fine.

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Sneaky is 3

While they do not currently offer the iPhone mobile phone for sale through their shops or online, 3 the last mobile phone carrier in the country to offer the iPhone has announced they will officially start supporting the iPhone for people who buy it and get it unlocked to work on their network.

From Monday the 4th of August you can buy a 3 SIM card to put into your iPhone and get the best call and data packages of all providers. The full list of plans can be viewed on their site by clicking here

Source ZDNet

Comment

In what has to be the sneakiest piece of marketing ever by a company, 3 is pushing ahead to get the iPhone on their network. If you by an iPhone and get it unlocked to work on any network, 3 has the best monthly deals but you will have to be careful as the 3 3G network is only in major metropolitan areas. 

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The great firewall of China

Even before the IOC announced the 2008 Olympics were to be held in Beijing it was known that China filters what their people can see on the internet.This week it was revealed some high ranking IOC officials made a deal with the Chinese government that would see some restrictions lifted to allow journalists to report on the games, while any site that is deemed to be negative to the communist philosophies remains blocked.

Many reporters are currently complaining about the lack of open internet access in the China.

Source Reuters

Comment

China has always blocked websites that disagree with what it believes, at least they have unblocked some websites to give journalists the ability to work and report on the games.

It was always known this was going to happen, and yes there are ways to get around the blocks if you really want to be able to have complete internet access in China

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