Internet Show has everything

Incorporating as it did two other areas of interest - SMS and the Mobile Enterprise, there was no broadband connexion on the two terminals in the Press room and no sniff of a Wi-Fi link either. So wandering around Earl's Court Two exhibition centre unearthed no big news. Even the Premier League (soccer) trophy on the Barclaycard stand wasn't worth nicking just to create a headline.

So we had to content ourselves with messing around on the MediaBurst stand with a package unimaginatively named Outlook SMS. It does exactly what it says on the cover - adds a text (SMS) capability to Microsoft Outlook (and Lotus Notes) - except there's a trial mobile phone location application built in.

This module really was showing in realtime exactly where the INQ's associates actually were. By tracking his handset, Lord Bostoon's was shown to be imbibing in his favourite hostel in Ramsgate, although for some reason the arrow on the map pointed some 50 metres offshore.

Still, Dave Curl of TDK Systems fame had to confess that he really was at home in Oxfordshire instead of being in his Edgware, London offices. The Mageek escaped this dastardly tracking app by dint of being temporarily out of Blighty.

It's an interesting tool because all of its victims were unaware of this intrusion into their privacy. Well, it is a beta version. Anyway, Orange users escaped because the link to their network was down and Virgin Mobile users will be safe because that operator refuses to play ball with this kind of application.

So it was back to using a slow GPRS connexion for this particular INQ hack to file his story.