Many smart phone users won’t be aware of the huge difference in costs for mobile data when using their device on a roaming network, but as highlighted by the Customer Focus Website, even uploading a single picture to Facebook can prove to be expensive.

To upload a meg picture in South Africa will cost the following for contract users:

• 3UK – £1.25
• 02 - £6
• Orange £8
• T-Mobile  – £7.50
• Tesco – £8
• Virgin £5
• Vodafone – Currently £14.99  From 15/06/10 £3

Theres a massive difference in price across suppliers so anyone heading to the World Cup should shop around. 

On an important side note, any Windows users who are using the Mobile Internet when working abroad should turn off Windows Updates – otherwise they may unwittingly pick up a massive bill.

The application, which will rival the functionality of traditional sat nav devices, eg TomTom and Garmin, will be included free of charge with version 2.0 of Google’s Android Operating System and will also include speech control.

Google’s web site outlines the following features:

# Search in plain English. No need to know the address. You can type a business name or even a kind of a business, just like you would on Google.

# Search by voice. Speak your destination instead of typing (English only): “Navigate to the de Young Museum in San Francisco”.
# Traffic view. An on-screen indicator glows green, yellow, or red based on the current traffic conditions along your route. A single touch toggles a traffic view which shows the traffic ahead of you.
# Search along route. Search for any kind of business along your route, or turn on popular layers such as gas stations, restaurants, or parking.
# Satellite view . View your route overlaid on 3D satellite views with Google’s high-resolution aerial imagery.
# Street View. Visualize turns overlaid on Google’s Street View imagery. Navigation automatically switches to Street View as you approach your destination.

A video of Google Maps Navigation can be seen below

Recently USB Dongles have become popular as a form of providing Internet access to Laptops and Netbooks, however these dongles have one important limitation, to use them your device needs a USB port, therefore they can’t be used with devices such as Ipods.

T-Mobile have launched a solution to this problem, a T-Mobile branded Huawei e970 known as the Web and Walk Router. The Huawei e907 acts as a Wifi access point and Internet Router, but rather then use a Cable or DSL connection for it’s Internet connection it uses T-Mobiles Mobile Data network.

The speed of data transfer is never going to match that of a dedicated broadband connection and it will differ from Location to Location but if you are in a strong signal area then the connection speed is fine for Web browsing, email and even streaming video  on BBC Iplayer.

The only negative point we could find is that the only way to power the unit is from an AC power supply, if the unit could be powered by rechargeable battery then this  would make a fantastic in car Router.