4G Bid Results

Ofcom, the UK communications regulator has today announced the winners of the 4G auction that's been taking place over the last couple of months. There were five winners of the auction; Everything Everywhere (EE), Hutchinson 3G UK Ltd (Three), Niche Spectrum Ventures Ltd (BT), Telefonica UK (O2) and Vodafone.

Between the five bidders £2.3 billion was raised with Vodafone paying for the most bands at a cost of £790 million. This is only 2/3 of the £3.5 billion that the UK government was hoping to get from the bidding process. Everything Everywhere (EE) has struggled to attract users to their existing 4G services which they released a few months ago and the UK government are already makes plans for 5G services to come online in less than ten years time. Is this why the bids are so low?

The bidding breakdown is as follows:

Telefonica (O2) who have won the bid for some of the 800 MHz spectrum are obliged to provide coverage to 98% of the UK population by 2017.

Mobile companies are expected to release their services within the next six months which should create quite a bit of competition on both price and data allowances.

Are you planning on switching to 4G? Are you already on 4G? What do you think? Leave your comments below.

Twitter creates Vine

Twitter have released a new iPhone and Android app called Vine. The app allows users to record 6 seconds of video, not all at once, and upload it to the service and to their Twitter accounts. It's been a hit so far with some quite videos being posted.

Apple release a 128GB iPad

A 128GB version of the ever popular iPad has now gone on sale for £639. It is aimed more at the enterprise market rather than consumers. Does this signal the end of the tiny 16GB version of the iPad and maybe iPhone?

Blackberry Launch BB10

At a press launch streamed at locations around the world Blackberry (formally RIM, that's another story) released their new smartphone device, the Blackberry 10. It's offered in two forms; a touchscreen version and a traditional version with a qwerty keyboard.

The touchscreen version, called the Z10, features a 4.2" screen. The device itself looks good and looks to be of good quality.

The big 'wow' though is the OS - It looks brilliant. Something called Blackberry 'Flow' allows users to access the 'hub' where all social network and BBM notifications are without ever leaving the app their in. It look slick.

Blackberry Messenger (BBM) has also got a massive boost. It now offers video calling and voice calling, both free over Wi-Fi and a new screen sharing option that looks fantastic.

The UK will be the first country to get the Z10 as it launches tomorrow (31st January) on a number of carriers.

More details soon as more is released.

Worlds First 1TB Flash Drive

Kingston have released the worlds first 1TB USB Flash Drive at CES.

Long gone are the days of having a pile of USB sticks and worrying if you can fit everything on them.

The DataTraveler HyperX Predator (cool name) is currently available in 512GB with the 1TB 'coming soon'.

The 512GB costs a whopping £710 so the 1TB is likely to be a bit expensive.