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Almost half of UK internet users are going online via mobile phone data connections according to the Office for National Statistics.Some 45% of people surveyed said they made use of the net while out and about, compared with 31% in 2010.

The most rapid growth was among younger people, where 71% of internet-connected 16 to 24-year-olds used mobiles.

Domestic internet use also rose. According to the ONS, 77% of households now have access to a net connection.

That figure was up 4% from the previous year, representing the slowest rate of growth since the ONS survey began in 2006.

Among the 23% of the population who remain offline, half said they “didn’t need the internet”.

Household internet access

Year                           Households (millions)                              Percentage
2006                                         14.3                                                        57
2007                                         15.2                                                        61
2008                                         16.5                                                        65
2009                                         18.3                                                        70
2010                                         19.2                                                        73
2011                                          19                                                          77

Northern Ireland excluded from 2011 survey.

Source: Office for National Statistics

The ONS report is the first since dot-com entrepreneur Martha Lane-Fox was appointed as the government’s UK Digital Champion, with a brief to increase internet uptake.

In a statement, Ms Lane-Fox said: “That so many offline households don’t see any reason to get online reinforces the importance of the digital champions network that the Raceonline2012 partners are creating.”

The figure for domestic connections contrasted sharply with the rapid growth in uptake of mobile services.

However, the popularity of 3G broadband did not necessarily mean that more people were going online overall.

Many of those using mobile phones are likely to already have home broadband connections.

Older users, who the government is particularly keen to get connected, appeared to have been relatively untouched by the phenomenon.

While 71% of 16 to 24-year-old who went online said they used mobile broadband, just 8% of internet users aged over 65 made use of the newer technology.

The ONS survey also found a dramatic rise in the use of wifi hotspots – a seven-fold increase since 2011 – suggesting that the rise of 3G has done little to slow demand for free and paid-for wireless access.

All findings were based on a monthly survey of 1,800 randomly selected adults from across the UK.

The increased usage of smartphones has led to an increase in what has long been considered a social faux pas of the highest order, using a phone during a film or a play. – with adults are now almost as guilty of it as teenagers.A new report showed that one in four teenagers and almost one in five adults admitted using their smartphone during a performance.

Ofcom, the communications watchdog, conducted research into how mobile technology was changing habits. People with ordinary mobile phones were far less likely to keep them turned on during a play or film, Ofcom found.

It said the propensity for Britons to use their phones to surf the internet or post messages on Twitter raised issues of “etiquette and modern manners”.

The watchdog found that 27 per cent of teenagers used their smartphones — multifunctional devices allowing access to the internet — in venues where they have been asked to turn them off. Almost 20 per cent of adults also said that they were likely to use their smartphones secretly in supposedly quiet venues.

James Thickett, the director of research for Ofcom, said the high level of smartphone use in venues such as theatres “raises an issue about social etiquette and modern manners and the degree to which we as a society are tolerant of this behaviour”.

Phones going off in the theatre have in recent years become an annoyance for actors. Last month Simon Callow, the actor, said it takes an hour to recover after a phone goes off in a theatre.

Mr Thickett said: “I think what we have found before is that teenagers have always been more likely to use mobile phones in cinemas and theatres. What we are finding now is that for smartphone users, it is much, much higher, but adult smartphone users as well.

So it is not just about adults and teenagers having different values, it is about technology driving the values towards the way you behave in social situations,” he said. The report found that one in four adults and almost half of all teenagers — defined as 12 to 15 year-olds — own a smartphone.

Mr Thickett said smartphones have also altered the work-life balance, with one in four users saying that they would take work-related phone calls while on holiday, compared with just 16 per cent of regular mobile phone users.

Ofcom’s Communications Market Report found that nearly two-thirds of teenagers were “highly addicted” to smartphones, with half admitting using them even in the lavatory. One third of teenagers said that they were likely to use a smartphone during meals, while four in 10 said they answered their phone if it woke them at night.

The phones have also significantly affected how people use leisure time. Almost a quarter of teenagers said they watched less television due to having a smartphone, while 15 per cent say that they read fewer books because of it.

“The rapid growth in the use of smartphones – which offer internet access, emails and a variety of internet-based applications – is changing the way that many of us, particularly teenagers, act in social situations,” said Mr Thickett.

Smartphone use is skewed towards young males in higher social economic groups. However, one in 10 Britons over the age of 55 owns one. BlackBerries are the most popular smartphones among teenagers and students, with their free messaging service, while iPhones are the most popular among adults.

Apple’s new rules for iPad and iPhone apps payments have been criticised after they forced Amazon to change the Kindle app to make buying new books more complicated.The new terms and conditions, which mean publishers must give Apple 30 per cent of the price of any content they sell via apps, came into force on 30 June.

In response, in July, Amazon removed a “Kindle Store” link within its app in order to preserve its profit margin on e-books.

Kindle app users are still able to buy more books, but they must exit the app and navigate to the Kindle Store via the iPad or iPhone web browser.

But the change has left users confused and angry. On the iTunes page for the app, some indicated they didn’t understand the new purchasing process.

“Pointless update,” said SJH31. “Wish I didn’t update now. What’s the point if I can’t buy books.” and “In reality Apple didn’t like the competition and so has hamstrung apps like Kindle. Shameful from Apple.”

Those who did understand the change overwhelmingly blamed Apple.

Apple is competing with Amazon via iBooks, which still allows users to make purchases from within the app. The rule change has forced Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Google to make similar changes to their e-books apps too.

Apple’s rivalry with Amazon is expected to intensify, with the online retail giant reportedly poised to expand its range of gadgets beyond e-readers to include a full colour touchscreen tablet.

Steve Jobs originally announced the new apps payments regime in February.

Apple has since softened it slightly by allowing publishers to charge more for content in apps than they do on their own website, where they do not have to pay a 30 per cent cut to a third party.

Apple announced last week that in just 3 years 15 billion apps have been downloaded through it’s online store.
With a sizeable revenue cut of paid programmes, it has become the accidental goose who has laid the golden egg for Steve Jobs.

And although Apple did not invent the smartphone application, its system has defined the user experience. iOS apps are simplicity at every turn – payment, installation and use.

Others have followed-suit, with great success. Android Market passed three billion downloads in May.

But after a period of rapid growth, native smartphone apps are facing a fight for survival.

That threat comes from web apps – software that runs in a browser rather than being downloaded and installed on the device’s operating system.

Mubaloo, one of the UK’s biggest mobile app developers, estimates that requests from clients for web apps has doubled in recent months – enough to make them the third big player in app development.

The reason for that is simple – developing web apps solves several headaches.

Firstly, like the regular internet, a good web app can be made to adapt to a wide variety of devices rather than forcing the developer to create different products for each platform – be it iPhone or Android, smartphone or tablet.

Secondly, by circumventing the strict guidelines associated with official stores, Mr Mason’s clients can have exactly what they want, and can say for certain when it will be ready for the public.

Should any changes need to be made once the app is live, they can be made instantly, rather than wait several days for approval.

And then there’s the matter of money.

Put an app in the App Store and 30% of each sale goes to Apple. Android takes the same, but the cash goes to payment processors and mobile carriers. Microsoft and BlackBerry also get a cut of what sells in their stores.

Web apps offer developers the chance to cut out the middle man.

If that was not enough of an incentive to fly solo, in February of this year, Apple announced that it would also be taking 30% of revenue from in-app subscription payments.

It is that levy which may have proved be the final straw for cash-strapped publishers relying on a lucrative digital strategy to keep operations moving.

The first major player to adopt a web-apped approach to mobile subscribers was the Financial Times (FT). In June, the newspaper released its debut web app. Since launch it has attracted 200,000 users.

FT bosses have said subsequently that future app development will be focused on web platforms rather than native.

Key improvements in smartphones’ ability to power staple web components mean the FT web app does almost everything the company would expect from a downloaded app – including offline reading.

A portfolio of 6,000 patents was auctioned to realise some value from the assets of bankrupt telecoms firm Nortel.
Google lost the auction as a consortium including Apple and Microsoft made the winning bid of £2.8 billion.

The sale of the patent portfolio started as a five way scrap and boiled down to  two separate combined consortia and individual firms including Google and Intel.

Initial estimates suggested the portfolio would attract around £1.24 billion but the four days of intense bidding saw the total rise sharply.

As the bids got bigger some firms dropped out and others became partners to pool their resources. From going it alone, Apple joined a consortium that included Microsoft, Research In Motion and Sony.

Ultimately the portfolio was being fought over by two groups: Google and Intel on one side and the Microsoft/Apple-led consortium on the other.

Google’s bids for a pool of wireless patents were based on unusual mathematical theorems. During the sale, Google’s bids were based on pi, other constants and the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

“Google was bidding with numbers that were not even numbers,” a source involved in the auction told the Reuters news agency.

During its bids, Google picked numbers including Brun’s constant and Meissel-Mertens constant that were said to have “puzzled” others involved in the auction. When bids from rivals hit $3bn, Google reportedly bid pi, $3.14159bn, to up the ante.

“Either they were supremely confident or they were bored,” Reuters’ source said.

It is not clear what inspired Google to draw on obscure mathematics for its bids. However, Google co-founder Sergey Brin is widely acknowledged to be a maths prodigy and the bids may reveal his influence.

Currently Google had about 700 patents in its mobile portfolio, many of which relate to using handsets to serve its core competences such as search.

By contrast, he said, the Nortel patents relate to future technologies that will make mobile networks faster and handsets more powerful.

Owning the patents could also ease the burden on firms making Android devices as they would have fewer licence fees to pay.

Use of Android technology from Google is free provided handset makers pipe traffic back to the search giant so it can make money with adverts.

However, the numbers of companies asking for cash to use the non-Google developed technologies found in Android phones was rising, he said.

For instance, Microsoft has announced licensing deals with many Android phone makers including General Dynamics and HTC.

With the control of the patents passing to a consortium that includes firms that are Google’s bitter rivals in the mobile phone world, licence fees could increase.

The charges for making and receiving mobile phone calls while travelling in Europe has been cut.Mobile phone operators cannot now charge more than 32p per minute (plus VAT) for outgoing calls, and 10p per minute (plus VAT) for incoming calls.

The new tariffs are the latest in a series of annual price reductions forced on the mobile industry by the European Commission.

Brussels has said it aims to equalise roaming and domestic charges by 2015.

Price regulation was introduced in 2007 by the then commissioner for information society and media, Viviane Reding.

Since then, the maximum call charge has been reduced by approximately 6% per year.

A group of UK mobile operators – O2, Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile – attempted to challenge the Commission’s price-cutting agenda, taking their case to the European Court of Justice.

However, their complaint was dismissed in June 2010.

Along with the lower rates for phone calls, the commission also reduced the wholesale rate of mobile data from 72p to 45p per megabyte.

Whereas the price cap on voice calls applies directly to the way consumers are billed, the data changes only affect what operators charge each other. There is an expectation, rather than obligation to pass on the savings.

Operators are compelled to place a £45 cap on users’ data consumption, in order to avoid unexpectedly high bills, but customers who wish to continue their data roaming can request to have the limit removed.

The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency says mobile phones are “possibly carcinogenic”.A review of evidence suggests an increased risk of a malignant type of brain cancer cannot be ruled out. However, any link is not certain – they concluded that it was “not clearly established that it does cause cancer in humans”.

A group of 31 experts has been meeting in Lyon, France, to review human evidence coming from epidemiological studies.

They said they looked at all relevant human studies of people using mobile phones and exposure to electromagnetic fields in their workplace.

The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) can give mobile phones one of five scientific labels: carcinogenic, probably carcinogenic, possibly carcinogenic, not classifiable or probably not carcinogenic.

It concluded that mobiles should be rated as “possibly carcinogenic” because of a possible link with a type of brain cancer – glioma.

The WHO estimated that there are five billion mobile phone subscriptions globally.

Christopher Wild, director of the IARC, said: “Given the potential consequences for public health of this classification and findings it is important that additional research be conducted into the long term, heavy use of mobile phones.

“Pending the availability of such information, it is important to take pragmatic measures to reduce exposure such as hands free devices or texting.”

For more information on cancer, please click here now: Mobile phones may cause brain cancer new research finds

Google is being sued by the online payments company PayPal for allegedly stealing its secrets less than 24 hours after the search engine unveiled a technology to allow consumers to use their phones as credit cards.The lawsuit, which was filed on Thursday in Santa Clara, California, accuses Osama Bedier, a former PayPal executive now at Google, of misappropriating trade secrets and using them to help his new employer develop its technology.

Stephanie Tilenius, another former PayPal executive now at Google, is alleged to have breached her contract by hiring Mr Bedier from PayPal at the start of this year.

The legal action underlines the scale of the fight between the two companies in the growing mobile payment market, as well as the fierce battle in Silicon Valley for employees.

PayPal, which is owned by online marketplace eBay, is developing technology to be used by shoppers when paying in shops.

Google on Thursday announced a deal with Mastercard and Citigroup that would allow consumers with a phone using its Android operating system to make payments with it.

PayPal has developed “a wide range of trade secrets in the areas of mobile payment, point of sale, and digital wallet, which give PayPal an advantage over both existing competitors and new market entrants, such as Google,” the lawsuit alleges.

According to the suit, Mr Bedier was a key figure in leading PayPal’s ongoing negotiations with Google over making PayPal a payment option on Google’s Android operating system, which is the market leader in the US.

A deal was about to be signed in January, when Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, announced plans to take over as chief executive from Eric Schmidt. Four days later, Mr Bedier left to take a job at Google, the suit alleges, and develop a rival technology to PayPal’s.

Meanwhile, Ms Tilenius, who left PayPal for Google in October 2009, began trying to hire Mr Bedier last summer, it is alleged. “I heard from a little birdie that you might be open to bigger and better challenges, I have a HUGE opportunity for you,” Ms Tilenius posted in a Facebook message to Mr Bedier around July 15 last year, the lawsuit claims. During last autumn, Mr Bedier was interviewed by several Google executives including Mr Page and Mr Schmidt.

Vodafone has reported a big increase in full year profits partly due to the increasing popularity of smartphones.Pre tax profits for the 12 months to the end of March were £9.5 billion, up almost 10% on the £8.7 billion recorded a year ago.

Revenue rose 3.2% to £45.9 billion, slightly higher than analysts had forecast.

The company said it was entering the new financial year in a “strong position” despite “challenging macroeconomic conditions”.

“Customers have adopted data services in increasing numbers, as smartphones proliferate and the tablet market begins to take off,” said chief executive Vittorio Colao.

He added that emerging market performance had been strong, while some European markets had seen signs of renewed growth.

Revenues from selling data to customers, which allows users to browse the internet and check emails on their phones, rose by 26%.

Revenues from emerging market customers rose by 12%.

The company, which has its headquarters in Newbury, gave an upbeat outlook for the coming year, but warned that markets in southern Europe remained “challenging”.

The group has been slimming down its international portfolio of joint ventures and recently sold stakes in Chinese and Japanese mobile operators.

Last month, Vodafone agreed to sell its 44% stake in the French mobile phone operator SFR to Vivendi for £6.9 billion.

Shares in Research in Motion (RIM) fell 12% in after-hours trading after the firm said profits this quarter will be much weaker than expected.
It blamed the cost of developing it’s new tablet format Blackberry, as well as a migration of consumers towards cheaper handsets in its product range.

The share price fall came despite the Canadian firm reporting £579 million net profits for the last quarter, in line with analysts’ expectations.

Revenues of £3.5 billion – were however slightly short of expectations, according to the results released after the close of trading on the Nasdaq exchange.

The company has seen its share of its core US market steadily eroded by smartphone rivals.

Some 48% of its business now comes from outside the key markets of the US, Canada and the UK.

But growth in these new markets has gone hand-in-hand with a shift towards lower-margin entry-point products, the firm conceded.

RIM is banking on its new tablet computer – the Playbook – to regain the initiative.

It will be half the size of Apple’s iPad and will be compatible with Google’s Android operating system.

As well as the new product launch, the company is also revamping its operating system.

The firm lowered its profit guidance for the current quarter, and also broadened its range due to uncertainty over the possible impact of Japanese supply chain problems.

Dr Search points out that the shares could still represent great value- Google’s price earnings is currently rated at 28, Apple at around 20, yet RIM’s is an amazingly only 8.