Ofcom produces "Easy Read" guide to mobile phones

Ofcom, the Super regulator, has produced and Easy Reading guide to mobile phones for people with learning difficulties. The guide uses the Easy Read system which uses pictures as well as text to explain things. The guide can also be used by people with limited English skills.

The guide offers advice on mobile phone use and costs as well as information: -

• the different types of mobile phone handsets available
• the costs of mobile phone calls and ways to pay
• free services available for disabled customers
• how to complain when things go wrong.

Ofcom has printed 5,000 copies of the guide which is being made available to every social services Director in the UK. It can also be made available in braille and ordered in large quantities on request.

The guide is also available on-line.

Maybe Blackberry will get a reprive

Blackberry moving into the consumer space was a bad idea on many accounts and rushing out BB10 with many features that were standard with BBOS while adding bells and whistles was also maybe not so clever.

However, now with all the fuss about the US's NSA and UK's GCHQ snooping everybody, businesses and Governments may now seriously be thinking about returning to the venerable Blackberry platform as it's the only phone with an encrypted end-to-end email service.

The German Government has already ordered 40,000 secure Blackberry Z10 phones (who knows why they didn't go for Q10's - maybe a bargain basement sale?). This trend could continue as other governments must also be worried about email snooping.

Blackberry seem to be moving back away from the consumer market and concentrating on what they're good at, encrypted secure communication devices which can meet regulatory approval for organisations such as banks and governments, maybe they'll survive after all, but in smaller markets where people are prepared to pay for the secure services they need.