European travellers who use their mobile phones abroad could soon see a dramatic reduction in their bills, after the European Commission announced plans to eradicate roaming charges by 2015.

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“Huge differences between domestic and roaming charges have no place in a true EU Single Market,” said vice-president of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes. “We need to address the source of current problems, namely a lack of competition, and to find a durable solution. But we are keeping an open mind on exactly what solution would work.”

"The sites assemble these bits of data into brilliant databases and reuse the information to provide value-added service—but only within their sites. Once you enter your data into one of these services, you cannot easily use them on another site. Each site is a silo, walled off from the others. Yes, your site’s pages are on the Web, but your data are not. You can access a Web page about a list of people you have created in one site, but you cannot send that list, or items from it, to another site."

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He also bemoans the proliferation of net-connected apps on the Apple iPhone and other smartphones. "The tendency for magazines, for example, to produce smartphone 'apps' rather than Web apps is disturbing, because that material is off the Web. You can’t bookmark it or e-mail a link to a page within it. You can’t tweet it. It is better to build a Web app that will also run on smartphone browsers, and the techniques for doing so are getting better all the time."

OpenBTS is an open-source Unix application that uses the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) to present a GSM air interface ("Um") to standard GSM handset and uses the Asterisk® software PBX to connect calls. The combination of the ubiquitous GSM air interface with VoIP backhaul could form the basis of a new type of cellular network that could be deployed and operated at substantially lower cost than existing technologies in greenfields in the developing world.

In plain language, we are working on a new kind of cellular network that can be installed and operated at about 1/10 the cost of current technologies, but that will still be compatible with most of the handsets that are already in the market. This technology can also be used in private network applications (wireless PBX, rapid deployment, etc.) at much lower cost and complexity than conventional cellular.

Nokia may have come a little late to the app store party, but it's Ovi Store now has plenty of software to choose from, whether you're looking for games or utilities, productivity, comms or entertainment apps.

Not sure where to start? Well, you can start by downloading the following ten apps that will help you get the most from your handset.

The development of the typical app cost $35,000 and the median paid app earns $682 dollars per year after Apple took its cut. You see where this is going.. We get to break even on our App Development costs in... 51 years. I'd say the iPhone battery will need replacing before then, and perhaps our grand kids have grown tired with that oldfashioned antique toy by then. But maybe - just maybe - without any updates to our app, we can sustain 51 years of continuous sales and recover our initial investment. Yeah, and this is obviously without covering any of our marketing costs, and gives us no profit yet, etc...

Just to break even.

If you take that absolute lowest end of the two estimates, $15,000 and do our app 'dirt cheap' - even then, it will take 22 years to recover our costs.

In an updated version of its privacy policy, the company added a paragraph noting that once users agree, Apple and unspecified "partners and licensees" may collect and store user location data.

When users attempt to download apps or media from the iTunes store, they are prompted to agree to the new terms and conditions. Until they agree, they cannot download anything through the store.

The company says the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users. Analysts have shown, however, that large, specific data sets can be used to identify people based on behavior patterns.

Carry your Google Calendar in your pocket! GCalSync is an open source application that lets you do a two-way synchronization between Google Calendar and your phone's built-in calendar. Download events to your phone, or add an event on your phone and upload it to Google Calendar.

S60Addons.com is a home of few freeware Nokia S60 applications: AutoLock, CalSyncS60 and S60Zip.

Until now, mobile phone motion sensors were capable of detecting only repetitive movements such as walking or running.

The KDDI system, is able to detect more complex behaviour by using analytical software - held on a server back at base - to match patterns of common movements.

For example, the KDDI mobile phone strapped to a cleaning worker's waist can tell the difference between actions performed such as scrubbing, sweeping, walking an even emptying a rubbish bin. The aim of the new system, according to KDDI, is to enable employees to work more efficiently and managers to easily evaluate their employees' performance while away from the office.

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"This is treating people like machines, like so many cattle to be monitored and watched over," Kazuo Hizumi, a leading human rights lawyer, told BBC News.

Researchers at Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have developed a method for mobile phones to convert silent mouth movements into speech. The technology is based on the principle of electromyography, that is the acquisition and recording of electrical potentials generated by muscle activity. This muscle activity is measured in the face and converted into speech.

An example is soundless calling.

The user can speak into the phone soundlessly, but is still understood by the conversation partner on the other end of the line. As a result, it is possible to communicate in silent environments, at the cinema or theater, without disturbing others. Another field of use is the transmission of confidential information.