We’ve just had the news confirmed; 3 are rolling out SkypeOUT to all 3 SkypePhones, not just the newer SkypePhone S2, but also the original 3 SkypePhone.  This will allow you to make calls to International landlines and mobiles at Skype’s call rates, instead of 3’s International rates.  There will be a software update in the next day or so which will allow this facility, which will automatically be applied to your phone.

Also, this facility will also be available to those using the Skype on 3 service on other 3UK phones.

One small caveat, we understand that although this will enable you to make SkypeOUT calls, it is only available for International Calls, ie you can not use it to make calls to UK phones numbers (in order to protect 3UK’s call revenue), but with most 3UK contracts coming with plenty of minutes to use, this should not be a major problem for most.

This is an important step that 3UK have been planning for some while, and we look forward to the continuation of this integration.

Although it won’t appear for a few more days whilst the app goes through Apple’s review, the team behind Geocaching.com have written their own iPhone client.  The cost of the application is $9.99 (UK price to be confirmed) and has the functionality you need to look up and seek out caches using the networking and location-based features of the iPhone 3G. It also works with the iPod Touch and first gen iPhone though you will need WiFi for the Touch and the compass won’t work.

The first release will not have the feature to log caches or filter hides and finds, but it will be included as a free upgrade as we add that functionality – hopefully over the next month. We wanted to get the application out as soon as possible since the demand was so high for it.

Some non-obvious features:

• You can look up travel bugs and find out their goal while out on the trail
• Saved Items allows you to save a cache listing and navigate to it, even when you are out of network range
• The application starts in beginner mode which only shows traditional caches. Advanced shows all types
• To help with speed issues on, say, the Edge network, you can restrict the number of results to 5, 10, 15 or 20

Some more screenshots:

Pictures courtesy of Geocaching.com.

Whether you’ve got an old iPod, Archos, iRiver, Creative or Sandisk player, the Rockbox 3.0 replacement firwmare may well offer a better experience on the player than the default manufacturers’ one.  Although not available for every device by these manufacturers, it may certainly bring a new lease of life to elder players, and for those who aren’t so keen on iTunes, it can even remove the need to use it.  Best of all, the firmware comes for free, although it does carry a slightly risk of bricking the unit completely.

Wow, two weeks ago we covered a variety of different deals that 3 are now offering, including unlimited texts.  Well, they’ve now expanded the unlimited texts deal to additionally cover the lower priced texter plans.

So, you now have the choices of 3 different plans (all 18 month contracts):

£15 Texter – £15 per month, with 75 cross network minutes (and unlimited texts)

£20 Texter – £20 per month, with 200 cross network minutes (and unlimited texts)

3 Unlimited Text Plan – £25 per month, with 750 cross network minutes (and unlimited texts); this one still offers most phones for free, unlike the other two above.

These offer fantastic value for those who text a lot, although they don’t come with 3’s typical free voicemail and an additional 300 3UK-3UK minutes, so for those that want a good mix of minutes and texts, a standard plan may be better.

As always, head over to the 3Store for more details (these details are already live on their website)

Nokia Beta Labs has released Nokia Photos 1.5, which is a PC based application to transfer and manage photos from your mobile phone. Nokia Photos 1.5 can now import pictures and videos from any S60 device, digital camera, memory stick as well as from your hard disk. Even better, for S60 devices, you can use Nokia Photos to convert content to store it on the device, as part of the process it will convert videos and photos to the right format, and shrink them (if necessary) to the best size, allowing a greater number to be stored on the device. Newer devices like N78 and N96 understand tags, albums and other organization in Nokia Photos and display them in the Photos application on the phone.

Nokia Photos can also benefit from the geotagging data from photos from the phone, allowing you to view the photos in context on a map. Equally, it can upload media to the Share on Ovi website for sharing with others.

Head over to the Beta Labs site for the download.

Navevo have announced the BBNav, or Blue Badge Navigator, which is a SatNav unit for the UK for disabled drivers, or their carers. As well as the UK & Ireland mapping, 7 digit postcode support, and safety camera alerts, and plenty of normal POIs (Points of Interest), it also includes

• Blue Badge and Red Route on-street parking bays
• Disabled-accessible car parks
• Local council Blue Badge parking concessions
• Over 60,000 Points of Interest (20,000+ Blue Badge specific)

The POIs vary from accomodation to public toilets (including Radar toilets), as well as over 300 beaches with disabled access.  The device has a 4.3″ touchscreen, and also has Bluetooth to act as a Handsfree device.

It should go on sale in October for £200, which includes a 6 month safety camera alert subscription.

A couple of days ago we covered the improvements that Google has made to the location information, but it’s not the only improvement Google have made of late. One key new feature to Google Maps for Mobile is the introduction of the Street View function. Also, Google have introduced walking directions which will be very useful when visiting new cities to actually find your way around. Head over to m.google.com from your phone to download the new version.

We covered NokiaviNe last week (although in that time, it’s changed name from Nokia LifeviNe to just NokiaviNe due to Time Life complaining about the use of the word “Life”), and Ms Jen has been trialling the software in advance of its formal beta release due soon. As well as a number of screenshots, she provides details of her opinions of this version. Head over to her website to read more.

T-Mobile, HTC and Google have launched the T-Mobile G1 phone, the first Google Android based device. The most important news that came out of the well expected US launch is that it will be available in the UK in November, which will only be a few weeks behind the US availability date.

The G1 is 4.6″ x 2.16″ x 0.63″, weighs 5.6 ounces, has a 480 x 320 display, 3G, GPS, a 3.1 megapixel camera, up to 8GB of memory (via a memory card), and has a claimed 5 hours of talktime with 130 hours of standby. However, it’s not all perfect; it doesn’t feature A2DP (Stereo Bluetooth), and doesn’t have video capabilities (although whether that will come with a future OS / firmware upgrade is not clear).  It supports built in applications for email (GMail and IMAP clients), IM, and maps, and will feature a version of the new Google Chrome browser.  Everything will sync automatically with push technology bringing new data direct to the device.

Another key story is that the Amazon MP3 Music Store application will be pre-installed on the device. Although Wi-Fi is required to download the music, you can browse the music store via T-Mobile.

T-Mobile have also stated they will not stop people unlocking their phones (as long as it remains only a minority of people performing the unlocking).  Tethering (ie using the phone as a modem for a laptop or iternet tablet) seems even less clear; T-Mobile have said that the phone doesn’t support it, but won’t be outlawed.

This is going to be a key device in the battle of the smartphones, and it will be interesting to see how Google develop the handsets and the OS over the next year to go head to head with Nokia (Symbian) and Apple.

The phone will be available in the UK in November, and across Europe in Q1 2009.

The technology behind Google Maps for Mobile has been updated, and the My Location feature has been improved with greater accuracy about your current location (if supported by your mobile phone).  As you can see in the pictures above of New York, because there are many more cell towers, Google is able to work out the position with greater accuracy, and as such, reduces the size of the blue circle to reflect this.

Now, in this example, the reverse has happened, because this is from an area with less cell towers (Slater, Iowa, US), the blue circle is larger to reflect this, but Google have still improved the accuracy of the actual centre of the dot with this new version of software.

Even better, because the technology has happened within Google, any Google product that supports location information, including Google Maps for Mobile is automatically benefitting from this new feature without needing to download a new version.