add on some Add-ons
Have you been checking out the fring add-ons? Check out the fring.com website’s Add-on catalog here.
My favourite is the Gmail notifier.
'fring AddOn for Gmail'
Here’s one of our famous fring videos on Add-ons…
‘cellphone crazy planet’
The Australian technology newsletter “ITWire” reports that “61 percent of global population now using mobile phones“.
The International Telecommunication Union Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure has announced that the total number of worldwide mobile cellular subscribers will reach 4 billion before the end of 2008.
Or, to put it another way, that means a global penetration level of 61 percent for mobile phone subscriptions. Compare that to a figure of just 12 percent in the year 2000 and you can appreciate how we have become a cellphone crazy planet in a very short time indeed.
That’s a social, technological and economic revolution that dwarfs most of what we read on newspaper headlines every day.
Now you know why fring has such an international focus!
BTW- The ITU, the UN’s International Telecommunications Union, has their own Youtube Channel. Another Youtube channel worth exploring is fringland’s channel. When we tell you we’re fringing everywhere, we mean it!
welcome to the family
Sony Ericsson G 900 - welcome to fring
S E G-900 users, welcome to the fring family.
where it all began
The first wireless phone calls were made by Alexander Graham Bell in June 1880 here.
Washington DC plaque honouring Bell and the first wireless phone call
Bell considered his “photophone“, a light based phone system, more important than the now ‘traditional’ telephone he is usually remembered for. Readers of the fring blogs will recall Simon from fring’s South Africa blog discussing recent experiments with what may be the world’s fastest wi-fi connection. The technology used in that experiment is directly descended from Bell’s photophone. So, who knows, maybe someday history will concur with Bell’s own assessment. Of course, Bell’s photophone is really the grandfather of fibre optics, the technology that carries over 80% of the world’s data and voice traffic (including mobile phone traffic between cells and the rest of the network). So maybe the history books just haven’t caught up to Bell yet.
fring, of course, works great with the world’s most popular wi-fi technology. I think Bell would enjoy all this!
local councils get the message
As mobile phones become nearly ubiquitous, new applications are emerging all the time. Here’s an example, at least one Sydney local government district, now provides information on road works, garbage pick ups and sporting field bookings via SMS text messages. Residents sign up on-line and get updates of major local council works in their locality. See here.
SMS is a great technology and Australians, in particular, love it. My guess is that love affair will blossom with the whole range of mobile chat and messaging technologies. And this is a field that fring is especially strong. So how long will it be before we can subscribe to chat or ‘micro-blogging’ services from, say. local councils?
here come the androids!
The first “google phone” is on the market. At least on the US market. HTC’s G-1.
Have a look…
And have a look at other phone geeks having a look…
I must say I think I prefer the mix of touch screen and keyboard controls. The best of both worlds?
One of the key features of Android is an open architecture that encourages third party developers to build new phone applications. Here is an example of one that mightn’t be popular with retailers.
Want to know more? The Sydney Morning Herald’s ‘Digital Life’ column recently did an interesting piece on Google, the Android and how it stacks up to the iPhone.
fring linux looks neat
new fring linux screenshot
This is a screenshot of the dial pad for fring’s new linux offering, namely fring for Linux version (1.2.1.63) . Another addition is a history TAB.
It’s a neat looking addition for a neat new tool.
two mobile phone population explosions
ITWIRE reports that there are now more mobile phones in use in the UK than there are people. With all those phones, luckily fring runs on over 50 different brands of mobile phones. There are about a thousand types of handsets that are fringing!
fring to the rescue
Twitter has recently delivered some bad news. They are reducing their SMS messenger service for Twitter users outside of the USA.
You can read the bad news here.
But there is good news too. fring’s support for Twitter provides a low cost alternative for Twitterers wherever in the world they are.
