Technology trade shows are the least sexy places on Earth. The lighting is unrelenting, the endless halls are soul-destroyingly huge, and the parade of grey suits has all the charisma of a robot army. Add to that the unflinching exhalations of dinosaur-sized air conditioning units that flay all moisture from exposed flesh, leaving a cracked …

More than 20,000 Brits had registered for Barclays’ Pingit mobile money transfer service just two days after it launched, thisismoney.co.uk is reporting. Last week Barclays unboxed Pingit — the service that allows mobile users with a Barclays current account to ping people up to £300 a day via the Pingit app on their smart phone. It works by linking a …

Barclays’ new money service Pingit lets smart phone users send cash to each other via an app. The bank is touting it as a simple way to split a bill or sort an IOU — there’s a daily limit of £300 that can be pinged via the service, with no fee for you to send or receive cash. Currently you …

Phones 4u wants mobile users to take a running JUMP. Nothing to do with scaring you to death with zombie children — or the eponymous 1992 hit single by Kris Kross. Oh no. The mobile retailer is launching a new contract called JUMP — for people who just can’t bear to wait a whole year (or more) to get their …

All rise for the last in a very long line of Symbian phones: the Nokia 803. The Finnish phone fabricators look set to push the venerable OS out to sea with a mighty bang. The 803 will be the final phone coming out of Finland loaded with Nokia’s erstwhile favourite operating system, Symbian, if sources whispering to BGR are to …

Google has finally marched its Chrome browser on to Android. Don’t get too excited yet, as it’s Ice Cream Sandwich-only for now. It’s also a beta release. But if you’re lucky enough to have ICS, the Chrome app can be downloaded from the Android Market — which bodes well for keeping abreast of future updates. We’ve poked and prodded Chrome …

A major software update coming to BlackBerry’s PlayBook tablet later this month — PlayBook 2.0 OS — has been demoed, with whopping great hints at what’s to come later this year with BlackBerry 10. Freshly anointed president and CEO Thorsten Heins signalled the new world order for PlayBook and gave a glimpse of the direction the company will adopt with …

T-Mobile is lining up a new two-year tariff called the Full Monty — nothing to do with former steelworkers getting their kit off and everything to do with unlimited Internets, calls and texts. The operator hopes the 24-month contract, starting at a not insubstantial £36 per month and rising to a seriously substantial £61 per month, will convince first-time smart …

Windows Phone fans — hi there Steve Ballmer! Howdy Stephen Elop! — hoping to get their mitts on the freshly announced ZTE Tania should expect to shell out £250 for a SIM-free handset, when it lands in the UK next month. Mobile blog Recombu spotted listings for the ZTE Tania on online retailers Clove and Expansys — for the princely …

BlackBerry’s two chiefs, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie — the Laurel and Hardy double-act of the mobile world — are being replaced by RIM’s chief operating officer, Thorsten Heins. Thorsten has his work cut out to turn the once mighty mobile tanker around and catch up with the likes of Android and iOS. Here’s our take on the five things …