For customers of Vodafone who are also users of either the Nokia N95, N96 or 6210 mobile handsets, a new perk is now being offered in the shape of a free TV service.

Babelgum is a free Internet TV service that has just signed a deal with Vodafone, which will see it providing content to Vodafone customers for free on a six month trial. Users of the above handsets will simply have to download a media browser and they will be able to start watching content right away.

Babelgum has stated that this is nothing less than revolutionary for both the company and the general public. The CEO of the company, Valerio Zingarelli, said that it is the “first independent online television company to cross over into full mobile internet”.

Customers will now be able to view clips from movies and TV shows, as well as music, BBC comedy shows, and sports content. They will also be able to upload videos to Facebook. However, at the moment it does appear as if the service will only be able to provide clips from certain TV programmes, meaning full programmes will not be readily available, and the choice will also be limited. Precisely why anyone would want to pay for such a restricted service when the six month deal runs out when YouTube currently shows millions of clips for free is uncertain.

However, could this be the new market for mobile phones? They’ve already made strong inroads into the Internet with 3G, and it does seem like the next obvious step is to offer TV services. Essentially, it will all come down to the content available. There are a lot of good things available on the Internet, but there is a lot of rubbish out there as well.

The Samsung F268 has been commended by Greenpeace for its green credentials. Greenpeace has named the mobile phone as the greenest currently available on the market, meaning that the F268 has beaten fierce competition from the likes of the LG KT520 and the Motorola V9. One of the best features of the F268 is the in-built alarm, which alerts the user as to when they can turn off their phone charger.

The alarm sounds at the moment at which the battery reaches full charge. Many people waste energy unnecessarily by leaving their phone plugged into their charger for far too long. Sometimes phones can be left charging for days on end. The simple alarm feature prevents this from happening and helps to save energy.

Samsung have also included several other green-friendly features in the F268. The model itself contains absolutely no toxic substances and the phone components do not feature brominated additives. The product designers at Samsung worked hard to make sure that the model met official guidelines put in place by the US Environmental Protection Agency as well as the US Department of Energy. The Energy Star requirements are fairly strict and Samsung’s ability to stick to them whilst designing a stylish mobile phone model has impressed many experts involved in the world of mobile technology.

Sandeep Saihgal, who works for Samsung Gulf Electronics, revealed that the company takes their responsibility to the environment extremely seriously. He stated that Samsung remains committed to furthering their business aims whilst remaining dedicated to reducing the impact their activity has on the environment.

New research has suggested that modern mobile phones are leaving consumers not just confused but extremely angry as well. The mobile phone company, Mformation, conducted research in both Britain and the USA and found that over sixty per cent of individuals found the process of setting a new handset up as difficult and frustrating as moving bank accounts. An extraordinarily high percentage of those interviewed (95% to be precise) revealed that they would be more likely to try new mobile services if they were easier and quicker to set up.

A spokesman for the company revealed that modern mobile phones are often wasted on consumers, who fail to use the full range of services on offer because they encounter initial problems. Even consumers who only want to use basic services such as picture messaging are finding it hard because the phones do not seem at all user-friendly.

What makes matters worse for many consumers is the fact that people have difficulties finding quick and simple solutions to the problems that they encounter. According to Mformation, consumers resent having to phone a helpline or browse the Internet for hours in the hope of finding a solution. The director of devices, software and platforms at CCS Insight, a leading mobile analyst, revealed that this is something which mobile companies are currently trying to rectify. He stated that many companies are starting to invest in more training for their staff and several have already set up desks in-store to help customers make the most of their phones.

Over the past year, social networking has continued to increase rapidly in popularity, and it now seems that there really is going to be no end to this trend. Hot on the heels of the release of the INQ1 Facebook phone, RIM PR has released the news that the MySpace application for the Blackberry has just reached one million downloads, just one month after the launch of the application.

This phenomenal figure means that people are increasingly demanding the ability to access their favourite social networking sites wherever and whenever they want to. And, as if the Blackberry was not already a large enough distraction, users of the handset now have something else to keep them occupied.

The popularity of such applications, and indeed the number of new handsets offering a social networking function pre-built in the model, means that soon a phone will not be complete without offering full access to all the best social networking sites.

The social networking revolution did not take long to move from the computer to the mobile phone, and it is uncertain where the biggest growth will be. The whole point of social networking is keeping in touch with online networks. Increasingly, people do not want to wait to access their PCs. Rather, they want to check up on their friends whenever they want.

So, we can expect a lot more of these applications, and indeed phones especially built for the purpose, in the near future as the revolution continues to grow in size.

It will come as no surprise to many people that the mobile phone market is going to be hit just as hard as any other industry this year, with sales declining noticeably as potential customers decide to keep hold of their precious pennies in these dark economic times.

However, the mobile phone is something that people simply cannot live without any more. So, how exactly are the phone manufacturers feeling the pinch? The answer to this question lies in increasing sales of lower-end phones.

We may have been getting bombarded with a whole slew of impressive new phones during recent weeks and months, including the Blackberry Storm, the iPhone 3G, and the Nokia N97. However, tempting as these models may be, people seem to be watching their money with wary eyes during a period which has traditionally seen people going all out and treating themselves to a few of those desirable luxuries that they have been pining after for so long.

According to Dialaphone, phones under the £30 mark have seen the biggest sales increase, as they often represent decent phones that do their job but just lack all the features of the latest and most impressive handsets on the market. The CarPhone Warehouse was even offering the Nokia 1650 for free recently, along with free texts for a month, as long as it was purchased with £30 worth of credit.

It seems that people are wary about becoming involved with long and expensive contracts in the current economic environment. Therefore, until things calm down, people will be happier buying pay-as-you-go handsets and simply making fewer calls.