Passengers are now allowed to use mobile phones during flights on Ryanair. This Irish airline is one of the first to offer this service to passengers. The service was launched on the 10 AM flight to Dublin from Gatwick Airport. Passengers could receive e-mails and text messages and also receive voice calls.

Ryanair was waiting for authorization from the European regulators though they have been keen on introducing this system for the past year.

The next 18 months will see Ryanair introducing this service to its large fleet of 170 aircraft. According to Micheal O’Leary, the Ryanair Chief Executive, we have put forward our first step with today’s launch and will be offering the mobile phone service on our entire fleet. He went on to say that he expected this service to be in demand with the customers. At present, 02 customers, with phones like the Nokia N95 8GB, will be able to use this service. Ryanair is however confident that more networks will sign up. Calls will be offered from 1.50 pounds to 3 pounds per minute, e-mails at 1 pound to 2 pounds and text messages at 40 pence.

On air technology that will be used to offer consumers this service has already been installed in 20 aircrafts according to Ryanair. Presently, six people can use this service simultaneously. This will be increased to 14 people shortly.

The month of March last year saw Emirates, the airline from Dubai, being the first one to introduce the mobile phone service in-flight. This service was launched on the Dubai/Casablanca flight.

Presently, 31 aircraft out of its 128 fleet operate this service offering calls at 2 pounds per minute. A lot of other carriers are considering introducing this ability shortly.

Tags for this article: mobile, service

In this modern era most of us prefer computing on the go. Our computing gadgets are getting more diminutive day by day and they are smarter too. Data usage is also increasing. An average mobile device user maintains gigabytes of data which is crucial for his work and entertainment. So, it’s imperative to have a good backup solution that not only saves the user from data loss but also offers data retrieval on the go.

Thus, Microsoft is going to launch a new service called My Phone that will enable Windows Mobile users to synchronise and store data from their mobile device to web. It’s an online data back up and storage solution that will update and maintain data in real time. The My Phone service will host space for storing photos, videos, text messages and calendar items. That way it is no problem if you are running out of space on a smartphone like the Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia 8GB, because the My Phone service gives you practically unlimited storage space. Apart from using it as a real time back up service the users will also be able to share their data among each other.

My Phone was initially named Skybox. It will be a great service to use as it will not only offer data backup and data sharing but also enable the users to access their mobile information via PC also.

Scott Rockfeld, Director in the Windows Mobile group at the Microsoft Corp. commented, “This new Microsoft cloud service syncs critical information (e.g., contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, text messages, photos, video, etc) on a user’s mobile phone to a password protected Web site. Once synchronized, people can easily back-up and restore mobile phone data. My Phone provides an easy to use Web portal where people can access and manage content on the phone, and share that information with others.”

Raketu has just rolled out its new suite of services for Google’s G1 Android mobile phone. The company specialises in Internet communications, information, entertainment, and social networking and is already catering to Android customers by offering them communication services which let them make PC to PC calls, PC to Phone calls, Phone to Phone calls, and send text messages and e-mails at a low price. Now the company has come up with an additional service which allows G1 Android users to connect to the Raketu services via Wi-Fi and make phone-to-phone calls, send text SMS, email, send and receive instant messages, store and share pictures and much more without downloading a single bit.

Greg Parker, president and CEO of Raketu commented, “Raketu’s release for Google’s G1 mobile will allow users the ability to access free or lowest cost communications services from anywhere in the world. Adding support for the new Google G1 mobile continues Raketu’s focus of providing free or lowest cost communications and entertainment services to all mobile devices.”

Raketu’s new service is available immediately to the G1 users and the users are open to communicate in various ways with others, no matter whether they are also Raketu users or not. Of course, the application has already been available for quite some time for Apple iPhone users. Current Raketu users can access this service immediately but the newbies have to sign up for an account at http://G1.Raketu.com or http://Android.Raketu.com.

Tags for this article: phone, android, g1 pc software

Sony has decided to launch the PlayNow Plus service to combat Nokia’s Comes With Music subscription service. The PlayNow Plus will allow users to surf and download the music tracks of their choice without any restrictions. It gives the user the complete freedom of choosing from a large library of music tracks and playing an unlimited amount of music.

The PlayNow Plus will be initially available with the stunning Walkman W902 phone, which has a mega 5 megapixel camera. Apart from this service, the Sony Ericsson W902 will also be preloaded with 1000 of the best selling songs. So if even if you don’t already have a music collection of your own, you will immediately after purchasing this mobile. Any music crazed mobile phone users definitely have a huge incentive for purchasing this Walkman model.

The PlayNow Plus service will offer seamless high-speed downloads for high quality music. Once downloaded, you can also transfer the files to your PC, with no restrictions at all. With the PlayNow Plus service you can also create your own online profile; invite your own PlayNow Plus friends and recommend tracks to them.

According to Lennard Hoornik, Corporate Vice President and Head of Marketing at Sony Ericsson:

“All mobile consumers want to have content on their phone, but many find the experience difficult, slow and time consuming. With PlayNow Plus, there will be no more barriers, we’re giving consumers the freedom to instantly discover, download, play and recommend all the music they want—anytime, anywhere.”

Few developments would have propelled people to use their mobile phone as a music player or MP3 player more than this one. And if it takes off, it could indeed market the beginning of the end of MP3 players.