giffgaff Blog

The smartphone world never seems to stop turning. We've barely finished with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, and we're already only weeks away from the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. While CES was a largely American affair, MWC is all about European and world-wide releases, so it's definitely the expo to watch if you're living in the UK.

Here in Part 1, we'll be looking at what smartphones and tablets we can expect from some of the biggest names in the business: Asus, Fujitsu, HTC, Huawei and LG. Let's get started!

If you’ve been following our forum announcements you’ll have seen that last week a serious data privacy problem was discovered that affected giffgaff members – it meant that the mobile number of giffgaff members was made available to websites in the “header” information that is passed between web servers and mobile handsets during web browsing.

The problem affected O2 and some of the partners that use its network, which is why giffgaff was affected, and after being detected on Wednesday morning it was quickly fixed by 2pm on Wednesday afternoon.....

Every Sunday we do a round up of the best links from this weeks 5 a Days, as judged by your comments in each thread.

Here's this weeks roundup!

Want to know how to calm an angry girl down and how a dormouse sounds when it snores? Well it's your lucky day as it's all in today's 5 a day 

Now that all of the hubbub has subsided from the Consumer Electronics Show, we can have a nice look at the biggest announcements it provided. CES, which is held in Las Vegas every January, is always a hotbed of product announcements and demonstrations and this year was no different. With thousands of products on display, I’ve narrowed it down to the top 6 biggest reveals of CES 2012: three smartphones and three tablets. Let’s get started!

The mobile phone is now an integral part of our everyday lives and fulfils a whole variety of functions including e-mail, music, photography, social networking, exercise and heart rate monitoring – it can even replace pen and paper. Having everything integrated into one always-connected device means that we no longer need to carry round an entire backpack of gadgets: we can do it all with just one simple portable device.

With the trend towards multiple functions converging into the mobile phone, it’s only a matter of time before our wallets, debit cards and loyalty cards also become integrated into our mobile phone.

Over the last months, we’ve covered NFC mobile payments and a range of mobile applications which can help with your Christmas shopping and price comparison. In this article, we’ll look at the state of mobile commerce: the apps which currently allow you to pay with your mobile phone. We’ll also look East to see what high-tech restaurants in Japan are doing and we’ll see how NFC could revolutionise mobile payments and allow your smartphone to replace your wallet.

Every Sunday, we will be posting a special '5 a day' blog with 5 of the best stories from this week. We read your replies and then judging by your replies, we work out what was the most popular 5 a day for that particular day. This is how it will end up on Sunday's 5 a day blog

Here is the first edition of 'best of 5 a day'. 

Augmented reality Lego? Acrobat dogs? Slumdog Billionaire? Find it all here.

Last week's Poll results are in!

After a new Mobile phone but not after the latest high cost fad?  Find our top 10 mid-range smartphones between £150 and £300.

In our on-going series of articles about mobile technology, we’ve been looking at various different parts of your mobile phone and how they work together to bring you today’s smartphone experience. We’ve also been asking for your thoughts on which features you’d put in your ideal phone for giffgaff members.

So far, we’ve discussed and debated over key components of the modern smartphone such as LCD displays VS organic LED displays, GPS chips and GPS navigation, hardware and software keyboards and voice recognition. We’ve also looked at new and novel form factors such as the Samsung Galaxy Note, a hybrid smartphone-tablet device. This week we turn our attention to one of the most fiercely debated elements of a modern smartphone, the smartphone operating system. The operating system is the software which brings together all of these components and allows you to make phone calls, send text messages and use applications.

Good afternoon giffgaffers.

I bring you todays 5 a day, our collection of the weird, interesting, funny and intriguing things we find around the internet.

Bonjour! Good Morning - the results are in....

The Galaxy Nexus is the world’s first smartphone running Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” – the latest version of Google’s Android operating system. Android 4.0 includes new features such as improved multitasking, a data usage monitor, real-time voice dictation and spell checking, improved web browsing and using facial recognition to secure your phone.

In this article, we explore the Galaxy Nexus and the new features of Android 4.0. We’ll look at how the Galaxy Nexus compares with smartphones such as the Galaxy S II and the iPhone 4S and how to find out whether Android 4.0 will be available on your existing handset. Finally, we’ll look at how you can giffgaff your Galaxy Nexus.

Help protect your children on the Internet, whether they're accessing sites on their mobiles or logging into Social Networks from a PC - find out about content restriction settings and more!

Painting via Typewriter, An awesome five person, 1 guitar song cover, controlled quantum levitation on a Wipe'Out Track, amazing ethereal art and the cutest little girl. 

Here are this weeks Friday Poll results...

Abraham Maslow believed that humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group, such as clubs, office culture, professional organisations, sports teams, or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). They need to love and be loved by others.  The third level of Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs is ‘Belonging’ or as The Big Bang’s most neurotic character refers to it as, “Sheldon Cooper: While Mr. Kim, by virtue of his youth and naiveté, has fallen prey to the inexplicable need for human contact, let me step in and assure you that my research will go on uninterrupted, and that social relationships will continue to baffle and repulse me.”

After the excesses of Christmas, one of the more popular New Year’s Resolutions is always to do more exercise and to be healthier. It’s no wonder that January is the peak month for new gym memberships and why the gyms always seem to be packed in January.

A great alternative to working out in the gym is to integrate exercise into your daily routine: for example jogging around the park in the morning or cycling to work. In this article, we review some of smartphone applications and accessories that allow you to monitor and keep track of your daily exercise routine. We’ll also look at how these applications make it more rewarding to keep fit and how they can help you to stick to your New Year’s Resolutions throughout 2012.