The iPhone just recently launched in the UK, and as expected by UK mobile service provider O2, things went well according to plan. Customers flocked the Apple London flagship store and were all abuzz with excitement as they were all whipped up to get their own slice of Apple's delicious iPhone pie. Do read the full article to get the dibs on what went down.

Here's a treat for gamers in the UK. Rumor has it that Eidos Interactive just got the rights to the BBC's highly popular EastEnders soap opera. Speculation goes that Eidos is planning to release the game as a casual title for either the DS or mobiles.

First, a game based on the BBC's Little Britan TV sketches, and now this. Visit the Full Article for the rest of the details for this particular rumor.

The results are in: chosen as this year's Ultimate Game of the Year in the Annual Golden Joystick Awards is (dun dun dun) Gears of War! Gears of War also won the All-Nighter Award, Editor's Choice Award and is the Xbox Game of the Year.

Other winners of the 25th Annual Golden Joystick Awards are the Nintendo Wii, which won Innovation of the Year, World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade as the Online Game of the Year, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess as the Nintendo Game of the Year, and God of War II as the PlayStation Game of the Year.

Here are the other winners of the Golden Joystick Awards:

• Girls' Choice Game of the Year 2007: Guitar Hero II
• Family Game of the Year 2007: Wii Sports
• Handheld Game of the Year 2007: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories
• Mobile Game of the Year 2007: Final Fantasy
• Soundtrack of the Year 2007: Guitar Hero II
• Developer of the Year 2007: Codemasters
• The Total Film One to Watch 2007: Assassin's Creed
• Retailer of the Year 2007: Game
• Publisher of the Year 2007: Nintendo
• PC Game of the Year 2007: The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar

Here's to another year of great games!

After much hullabaloo and criticism for the One Laptop Per Child Project, production has finally started and the earliest batch should be ready by this October.

 

For those unfamiliar with the OLPC, it's a non-profit organization set out to revolutionize the standards and methods of education for children the world over. It particularly targets regions that can't afford the luxuries of a decent education. The project is just about what it's named after: to provide a laptop for each child. The laptop, dubbed XO, currently costs US$ 176 but is aimed to be sold for the initial goal of US $100.

Let's look at what it actually offers for the US$ 100:

• It's tough, set to survive in harsh conditions. It's case is waterproof and guess how they test it? They put the laptops in ovens at 50 degrees.
• It can be manually powered. That's right, it can be powered through solar energy, by a foot-pump or even by pull-string. You don't have a lot of sockets available in Nigeria.
  
• It has 1GB of memory using open-source software. You can't use it to make your office presentations, but think how many books you can fit in there.
• It has WiFi and a camera.

That's pretty good, and kids would certainly benefit from it greatly. The idea has been widely criticized, much for the goal that seems like an idealist's dream and for the seeming impossibility of such an undertaking. However, the dream has been realized and even Kofi Annan, ex-secretary general of the United Nations, commends the laptop as an "expression of global solidarity."

A war of words has erupted between One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Nicholas Negroponte and Intel chairman Craig Barrett. According to the BBC, Professor Negroponte said that the chip-maker "should be ashamed of itself" for working to undermine the OLPC's US$ 100 laptop initiative.

Negroponte also said that Intel has "distributed marketing literature" to governments with titles like "the shortcomings of the One Laptop per Child approach." These reportedly outline the supposedly stronger points of the Classmate, Intel's new US$ 200 laptop.

Intel boss Barrett has dismissed these allegations as "crazy." "We're not trying to drive him out of business," he said. "We're trying to bring capability to young people." Barrett also noted that there are "lots of opportunities" for both camps to work together.

The BBC reports that devices hailed as the next generation of mobile phones have been put on display at the User Centre in the University of Dundee's Queen Mother Building.

These six new phones, which support "intimacy and sensuality", are the creations of second-year students from the College of Art, Science and Engineering's product design course. One of these phones is call the Aware, a phone contained within a necklace which sends a tingle down your back if a friend is nearby. Another is the Boom Tube, which allows people to make music together.

"This exhibition has a phone for everyone," said Sarah McMichael, one of the students who designed the Aware. "Our aim was to get away from the unsocial mobile phones that today's world is being taken over by, to learn to communicate and interact with each other on a new level."

Reuters reports that British Home Secretary John Reid is planning to approach Apple and Sony to join a summit that will focus on fighting crime in Britain. Reid wants mobile phone and mp3 player manufacturers to focus as much on security features for their devices as on other design features.

"New technology, lifestyle changes, new commodities and new gadgets mean that the criminals continually move on," Reid told the BBC's Sunday AM program. "So when we defeat them on mobile phones, they move on to Sat-Navs and then on to iPods." Reuters noted that crime figures released last week showed an 8% increase in the number of street robberies in Britain.

"We already have a close working relationship with mobile phone manufacturers," a Home Office spokesman said on Sunday. "John Reid is likely to approach Apple and Sony in the coming weeks to join this summit." The spokesman also added that during the coming week, they will be drawing up a list of other manufacturers to include for the summit.

In a recent talk given by Laura Bush, she said that approximately 850,000 children are reported missing in the US each year. These are not good numbers by any account. That's why SmartLabs, in conjunction with a bunch of other organizations and the UK Serious Crimes Unit, have started up a program called Lost and Found to lessen, if not completely eliminate, this problem.

So what are the projects goals?

• utilize cutting edge and future technology tools to mobilize community intervention
  post images of missing children (or adults) and running a GPS-enabled system with live and online objectives to track sightings
• mobilize groups to block roads, explore fields, find those who are lost and report those who are hiding them
• include Skype links, mobile sensors and links to public webcams + podcasts and broadcasts where participants can see their own input to achieving success in FINDING lost community members, and to change the nature of play, and the sense of responsibility it entails.

How does it work? Based on the diagram below, the system uses a simple server-client architecture where users will receive new information and pictures of missing kids via their cellular phones. If any of them are spotted, then they can report this new information which will be processed real-time; this data will be disseminated among the community who can then possibly dish out helpful feedback. The GPS-enabled system along with the regular streaming of information should be able to track down the child along with the offenders who are presumably in custody of the child.

 

This is something that we hope every QJ reader will support because of its potential benefits to the community and to the youth in our nation.

Starting October 1, 2006, Virgin Mobile will begin streaming jolly-old English (the British, not the language) programmes onto cellular phones across Her Majesty's Britannic Isles with its new Virgin Mobile TV service, becoming the first European cellular provider to do so. Virgin will begin selling the Mobile Lobster 700 Mobile TV Phone (which has been quaintly dubbed with affectionate British humour as the "Telly-Phone") that will receive the service through two payment plans:

• For free with a subscription contract of £25 or more; and
• For £199 on a prepaid plan with the first three months of service free and £5 per month thereafter.

The Telly-Phone will be featured in a multi-million pound ad campaign featuring Baywatch babe Pam Anderson Lee (we wonder if "Baywatch" or Pam also comes with the service. Hmm...). The programmes will be broadcast over the DAB digital frequency spectrum, which currently services more than 85% of the British population, and the device will also receive DAB digital radio frequencies. The Telly-Phone will also be Virgin Mobile's first Windows-based smartphone.

On the offer from Virgin Mobile TV are:

• BBC One (trial basis for 12 months and for free),
• ITV1,
• Channel 4 ("Channel 4 Short Cuts," its made-for-mobile program), and
• E4