In the 21st Century, the “perks” are significantly pricier, as the BBC has learnt to their cost. Following a Freedom of Information request, the BBC opened up and admitted that the corporation had “lost” £241,019 worth of laptops and mobile phones over the last two years.

Admittedly the BBC is a very large corporation with a lot of employees, so this amount isn’t as shocking as it first appears. Still, 65 mobile phones, 17 Blackberrys and 146 laptops is a lot of gadgetry to go missing, apparently lost or stolen by employees.

Many companies now offer mobile phones and other devices to staff and if a work phone does get lost or go missing it can be a bit of a nightmare. It’s also an added headache for the HR department to track down devices from employees who have left.

Where do you stand if you lose or damage a work mobile or laptop?
If your company is the bill payer, they should be responsible for replacing anything that is damaged or lost, but it’s very much worth your while to check your contract and see if it states that you are liable.

The most important thing to do is to take reasonable precautions, just as you would with your own property. Don’t leave gadgets out of your sight in public places and don’t use your work’s Blackberry while you’re in the bath. OK, we don’t really think that you would do that, but stranger things have happened…

1. Facebook. Over two billion minutes were spent online by UK users who were hanging out on Facebook.

2. Google. Not nearly as many minutes were spent on Google as on Facebook but it still ranked number 2 with 396 million minutes.

3. Microsoft Sites. Less than half that amount of time was spent on these third-ranking sites: 166 million minutes.

4. Orange Sites. They came close to Microsoft; UK users spent 139 million minutes on them in December.

5. AOL. 106 million minutes were spent on AOL (including the minutes that were spent on Bebo, of course).

6. Apple. Apple fans like their mobile web, too; 104 million minutes were logged on this site.

7. Vodafone. Are you a fan of Vodafone? 89 million minutes were spent on this site so somebody must be!

8. BBC sites. Who doesn’t love the BBC? 84 million minutes of user time says that a lot of folks are fans.

9. Flirtomatic. Perhaps the most surprising information to come out of the survey was the fact that 55 million minutes were spent accessing this online dating site. So that’s what the guy in line behind you was doing on his phone!

10. Yahoo. Sliding in to tenth place with 49 million minutes logged was Yahoo!

Only one of the fastest growing online engagement tools, Social Networking. Google Buzz is the company’s challenger to Facebook and Twitter, integrating directly into Gmail. It will work in the same way as every other online community allowing users to post status updates, share content and comment on friend’s posts. Taking key elements from the two big names in social media, buzzers can follow people, as with Twitter and like or dislike things, a Facebook trait.

The Buzz system will work alongside the users G-mail account, messages are sent directly to their inbox highlighted with the Buzz symbol. With its foot firmly in the door of the online world already, Google’s using this to its advantage, public updates will be highlighted in search engines, a recommended content stream will be tailored to each user and Buzz feature have already been integrated into Google’s mapping services and mobile platforms including a mobile app for the Android system.

With Facebook users totalling almost 400 million, Google are going to be hard pushed to wean loyal fans away, but with the company’s track record anything is possible.

Google Translate is already online, a service converting phrases and websites between languages – and whose results range from “missing the point” to “absolutely hilarious.”  It’s simply not possible for a machine to include all the nuances and slang in any translation, and won’t be until computers are so sophisticated we have to persuade them to work for us.  To say that (almost) real-time voice translation by 2015 is a little fanciful, is to say that saving the environment by taking the Unicorn to work is a little unlikely.

But it’ll still be a fantastic service.  While we won’t be discussing international philosophies on the phone, a crude but universal translation service will become essential for travellers.  As long as your target is patient or willing to work a little to understand (and most cashiers/ticket agents/police officers are paid to do those things) a handy pocket “MAKE WORDS LANGUAGE CLEAR HELP” will be useful.  But be warned it’ll sound almost exactly like that quote to the person listening.

What will be revealed at Mobile World Congress is likely to be the user interface of the next Windows Phone, apparently codenamed ‘Metro’.  It will be closely related to the Zune HD interface, to the point where the Zune music player will be integrated and used for PC syncing, and have support for Xbox gamer tags, friends and avatars – all of which brings the Microsoft family closer together in the same way as both Apple did with the iPod and Sony Ericsson have recently done with the Aino.

What Metro won’t have is Flash, multi-tasking, backwards compatibility for applications or the opportunity for manufacturers to insert their own UI over the top.  Again, this lock down seems awfully familiar.  While the lack of a Sense UI-style overlay will not matter if Windows Phone’s own UI has been improved in the way they’re saying – clean, soulful and alive are the quoted terms, whatever they mean in relation to a mobile phone – the removal of both Flash and multi-tasking essentially removes two of the previous selling points over its competitors!

We’ve got a week until Mobile World Congress kicks off and since the rumour says it will only be the UI we’ll see, we presume it’s going to be in video form, making any proper assessment of Windows Phone 7  almost as speculative as the above details.  Perhaps we’ll be surprised and they’ll load it onto an HD2 for us all to have a try, but we won’t hold our breath!

The critical aspect for any cashless service launch is convincing companies to accept it right from the start – if people find they can’t spend with your system, they won’t.  Ever. iNets has secured an intelligent line-up of starting services, including Singapore Power utilities, Cathay Cineplex’s for entertainment, the United Overseas Bank, cable TV Starhub, and of course a phone service – SingTel.  The service courts new users by following the internet account model, with users able to personalise their logins instead of memorizing cryptic bank-issued codes – which might sound like a security risk, which it is, but no worse than with a credit card.

Meanwhile the West is slowly maybe thinking about perhaps doing it while missing the point entirely.  Services like San Diego’s “Fandango” are offering limited rollouts of a couple of cinemas, and you can only buy tickets or gift cards, and there’s a $1 “convenience fee” for daring to actually use a new system which saves the company from doing any work.  Or would, if they weren’t charging people extra for it.  Silicon Valley analysts agree that there are immense obstacles to cashless payments, apparently unaware that other parts of the world have already gotten on with it.

For mobile phone fans it’s the same old story: things we’re maybe hoping to get someday, Asia already has in three different colours.

This may be set to change though, as the Access Gateway has been re-branded to become the Sure Signal – a far more fitting title given its function – and has had an all important price drop.  The original £160 price tag was way to much to spend making up for the shortcomings of a service you already paid for, however the new £50 price point is much better, especially as the £5 per-month-for-a-year option has been retained too.

The technical aspects of the Sure Signal appear not to have changed, as you still need a broadband Internet connection in your home and the device can handle 32 registered handsets, but only four will be able to make a call at the same time.

Speaking as someone whose mobile reception only works if I’m close to a window at home, where even then it’s only one bar, the Femtocell is an attractive proposition, but I do think it should be free to those in this situation.  What’s your opinion?  Are you planning on Femtocell ownership now the price has dropped, or do you feel as I do that they should be given free of charge to subscribers-in-need?  Let us know below!

Nokia and Apple are locked in an ever-increasing legal dispute based on the fact that there are only a finite number of ways to build a phone, and they’re not going to leave the billion dollar US mobile phone market because someone else did it four seconds earlier. The personal electronics patent battle continues, and the only people anywhere near winning so far are the lawyers. Nokia sued Apple in October last year, alleging the iPhoners were infringing on ten of its patents. Apple countered by claiming Nokia was infringing thirteen of theirs, so Nokia knew they could only do one thing: claim even more by boosting the patent count to seventeen with a separate suit.

Apple’s now going for all the marbles by asking the International Trade Commission to block all Nokia imports into the US, which is about as likely as legally banning sunshine, but it is a serious challenge which will consume Nokia’s time and money – just like they’re eating Apple’s.

Nokia spokespeople announced that the company would “defend itself vigorously,” so you can look forward to several more suits being filed in short order.  And you might want to consider a lucrative career as a lawyer.

Before the GSM network was introduced in the late 80s, mobile phones used an ‘analogue’ network to communicate with each other and it was anything but secure.  Phones could be cloned and conversations could be intercepted with surprising ease, however when the digital GSM age arrived, these security issues were addressed and gossiping on your phone was a far more private experience.

But things change and what was considered secure 20 years ago probably isn’t today, a fact proven by a team of intrepid cryptographers who claim to have broken GSM’s encryption algorithm, potentially opening up every mobile phone conversation or SMS placed over a GSM network to eavesdroppers.

This algorithm is known as the A5/1, and it works by scrambling call data over a series of 80 rapidly changing radio frequencies as it’s sent between your phone and the base station. To break this code, the hackers used many computers to come up with every possible combination of frequencies, creating a code book which when used with specific equipment would provide the key to unlock your phone conversation.

The hacking team published their results and have said they broke the GSM A5/1 algorithm to highlight the inadequacy of its security, although the GSMA – who are behind the GSM standard – say their research does not constitute a ‘practical attack on GSM’ and that similar claims are often made, but with no harmful effects.  They also say the even more secure A5/3 algorithm is being rolled out, making the breach even less of a concern.

But should we as mobile users be concerned?  Not really, no.  It has always been possible to listen in on a mobile phone conversation, but it was very difficult, very expensive and usually reserved for those enforcing the law.  While this new research is said to show is that it can now theoretically be done with open-source software and a few thousand pounds worth of specialist equipment, plus the necessary technical know-how, doesn’t mean it will be, plus the news may push forward the A5/3 algorithm’s adoption.  Besides, speaking on any phone – mobile or fixed – and relaying private, vital or secret information is never the wisest thing to do, as eavesdroppers don’t always need computers to hear your conversation!

For those interested in the more technical side of this story, take a look at the hackers presentation made at a German conference recently.

A rogue German academic has decoded the Global System for Mobile Communications, used for seventy percent of all modern mobile phones, and there’s no James Bond to stop him.  Because Karsten Nohl’s not holding the world hostage – he’s released the decryption for free online to force phone operators to improve security.