Fido is hoping to appeal to both thrifty and trendy wireless phone users with a recently released “free day” airtime package and a retro handset. The Freeday package lets customers have free local airtime on one particular day of the week. The $25 package also includes 250 minutes that can be used at any time over the course of a month. And while it’s difficult to think of any cell phone as having a “retro” look, that’s how Fido is pitching the new Sony Ericsson T300 handset. Designed for younger users, the T300 can be customized with downloadable games, wallpaper and ring tones. The handset features a colour screen and operates on Fido’s GSM network, as well as on the GSM networks of Fido’s roaming partners in 128 countries. Customers can also access the Internet in North America through the handset, using GSM roaming. The handset is priced at $175 after an activation rebate and is available at Fido stores across Canada. For more information, visit www.fido.ca.
On-demand publishing to the rescue
An on-demand publishing outfit and a First Nations group are teaming up to try and save aboriginal languages. Trafford Publishing and the First Peoples Cultural Foundation (FPCF), a group dedicated to protecting aboriginal culture, language and arts, are creating a series of colour primers in aboriginal languages for use by aboriginal language instructors. Once Trafford receives a manuscript of a book, it will store the book as a digital file, which can then be printed on demand in any classroom or school equipped with a Xerox DocuColor system. Trafford’s and FPCF’s first collaboration will see the two publish primers on colours and numbers. Later the two plan to expand to an alphabet primer, books on conversational phrases and dictionaries. They plan to work in a number of aboriginal languages. Once the manuscript and art are ready, Trafford says it can produce a book in as little as four weeks. More information is available at www.fpcf.ca.