NORCAS is a leading independent charity working with people, of all ages, who have problems with alcohol, drugs or gambling. They provide advice and information and have professional help available if it is needed.

Here’s what Donna Hunt Training & Fundraising assistant at NORCAS had to say about working with us;

“At NORCAS we believe that reducing the problems caused by addictive behaviour can unlock a person’s potential, allowing them to take control of their life and their destiny. If you, or someone you know, has a problem with alcohol, drugs or gambling we’re here to listen. We’re here to help.

NORCAS receives a certain amount of statutory funding, but with the current economic climate it is ever more important for us to raise funds for ourselves.

For just over 2 years, we have worked in partnership with what was National Express East Anglia, now Greater Anglia. Julie Henderson, the Lost Property Supervisor based at Norwich Station, has been collecting mobile phones to help raise funds for NORCAS.

She places a call to us, and we contact RPC Recycle to arrange pick up, and in turn we receive notification of value followed by a cheque.

We then issue Julie with a Certificate of Appreciation to display in the lost property office. Over the last year, Julie has recycled phones to the value of roughly £3000, and continues with an on-going collection”

If you would like to make a donation or find out more about NORCAS please click here

For those who are not aware, HTCSense.com is a cloud-sync service especially for HTC devices, that backed up your contacts, messages, call history, etc. on its servers. It is similar to iCloud, except it is not as comprehensive.

It is a bit appalling that HTC is deleting user data just for renovation purposes; it would have been understandable if the service was shutting down for good. The whole point of syncing your data to the cloud is so that you don’t have to worry about it ever getting accidentally deleted. The users should not have to worry about things like HTC renovating the service; these things should happen in the background without affecting user-uploaded content. It seems HTC has not quite got the point of cloud storage, yet.

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The tablet will go on sale next week, on Friday 16 March. It will be pitched at the same price level as the iPad 2 (the 16GB version will cost £399), come in the same storage sizes (16GB, 32GB and 64GB) and offer similar levels of battery performance (around 10 hours).

The iPad 2 will continue to be sold but will be reduced in price, with the price of a 16GB iPad 2 dropping to £329.

The company said the new iPad’s Retina display, with a pixel resolution of 2048 x 1536, offers the highest resolution ever seen on a mobile device.

Apple boss Tim Cook said, “We are taking it to a whole new level and are redefining the category that Apple created with the original iPad.”

The device features an updated version of Apple’s mobile operating system – iOS 5.1. It runs on an A5X processor, which includes a quad-core graphics module. Apple said the processor is twice as fast as the Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset and four times faster than that in terms of graphic performance.

The camera has also been improved, with the new iPad featuring a five megapixel camera with a back-illuminated sensor, auto-focus, auto-exposure and the same optics as used on the iPhone 4S.

It is also capable of 1080p high-definition video recording with image stabilisation and noise reduction for low-light recording.

Among the device’s other features are speech recognition for dictation (though not the Siri functionality that iPhone 4S owners will be familiar with) and 4G connectivity (though that speed is not yet available in the UK)

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BlackBerry OS 2.0 for PlayBook also packs native calendar, contacts and messages apps – something the initial version sorely lacked.

BlackBerry Bridge is another new feature that lets you seamlessly switch between screens of your BlackBerry smartphone and the PlayBook. It also lets you use your smartphone as a keyboard and mouse for the tablet.

Alongside this update, RIM now also offers many new apps in the BlackBerry App World, which includes a couple of Android apps that work on the PlayBook.

BlackBerry PlayBook users can get the new OS by checking for updates in “Settings.”

For more information, you can visit http://uk.blackberry.com/playbook-tablet/playbook-os2.jsp#!overview

New figures show more than 17 million mobile phones, music players, satnavs and other devices are sent straight to landfill. But the one in three adults who throws away one of the items would have received an average of £43.54 from a recycling centre, according to mobile phone provider O2.

Although some electronic gadgets contain hazardous contaminants such as lead and cadmium, it is not illegal to send them to landfill. However, against a backdrop of near record – and rising – commodity prices and growing environmental awareness, the pressure is on politicians, companies and consumers to recycle more of their discarded gadgets.

The research is the latest example of how Britain is failing to take advantage of the opportunities to recycle valuable materials. Last month, it emerged that the country is exporting 15 million tonnes of industrial waste a year – about half of it valuable scrap metal – because it doesn’t have sufficient facilities to recycle them. The waste exports are so large that they make up a sixth of Britain’s total exports by volume.

With RPC Recycle you can recycle unwanted mobile phones, tablet devices as well as iPods. We pay top prices, so you can be environmentally friendly while earning extra money! We now also have a very easy search tool on our Facebook page, so why not like us there too!

The latest data shows that the troubled BlackBerry averaged 27.7 per cent market share in 2011, and that it hit 8.5 million UK subscribers. Worldwide the number of subscribers grew by 35 per cent year on year, to 75 million in December 2011, driven by growth among young people and in the developing world.

BlackBerry Managing Director for the UK and Ireland, Stephen Bates, said that RIM had dominated pre-paymarket in particular. “We’ve moved the market up by around 40 per cent by offering a proposition people can see the value in,” he said.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, RIM announced the new version of BlackBerry OS7, numbered 7.1, and an update to the PlayBook tablet called PlayBook 2. The company has seen its stock price fall by 75 per cent in a year, and it has missed a series of release deadlines. Recently its co-founders stepped down to make way for a new CEO, but Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie will remain involved in the business.

RIM’s share of the smartphone market in the US dwindled to 16.6 per cent in the three months to the end of November, according to research firm comScore. That compares to just under 50 per cent for phones using Google’s Android operating system and 28.7 per cent for Apple. RIM has lost just over $70bn (£45bn) of value since its market capitalisation peaked in 2008.

BlackBerry is set to release its new BlackBerry 10 operating system for smartphones by the end of the year, although it has missed previous deadlines. “This new operating system is not about the short term,” said Mr Bates. “This is about us getting fit for the next 10-15 years. Yes we want to be quicker with new capabilities; yes we want to add new things; yes I would love them to come faster – but the reality is that some of this stuff is hard.”

He added that BlackBerry’s new CEO Thorsten Heins would focus on shipping products on time. “This year our fundamental strategic focus is: deliver. We need to prove people wrong and show that we can deliver.” Mr Bates said he felt confident about the coming year for RIM. “There is no shortage of innovation at BlackBerry – we just have to crack this delivery and Thorsten is a great man for that.”

Getting a new BlackBerry? Why not recycle your old handset with us; you could get up to £178.

The UK citizens are being encouraged to recycle electronics including the mobile phones.  In order to have as many UK residents as possible to recycle their old products after the holidays are over now, a new campaign has been launched by The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

Millions of new electronics are received by Britons on Christmas every year, however sadly, less than 30 per cent ever get recycled.  The old devices are either lying around unused or get disposed off unethically causing major environmental concerns.  It is worthwhile to mention that mobile phones as well as electronics get passed down to younger generations at home, but still most of them lie unaccounted for.

Mark Prisk, who is also a part of this campaign, stated that one must keep reminding people to recycle all their old products including cell phones so that landfills do not get unnecessary loaded.  Recycling offers two major benefits.  Firstly, since old products do not get into landfills, we are helping protect our earth and the environment.  Secondly, one receives a monetary benefit too as all recycling companies offer cash to their consumers for recycling old phones and electronics.  If the person makes the old technology available to the right company, lots of benefits can be reaped from usable electronics and old mobile phones.  We pay up to £450.00 for your old mobile..

Any order placed between Friday 23rd December 2011 and Monday 2nd January 2012 will be dealt with from Tuesday 3rd January 2012. This is due to the companies closing times during the Christmas holiday period.

Any existing orders received by 22nd December and meet the full working terms and conditions will be processed within our normal time frames. We will do our best to process any phones received after this date on the 3rd January 2012 due to our office being closed during Christmas.

Please be advised that to ensure the fastest payment over these times, please select the ‘Use own packaging’ option and select BACs as your payment method. This will enable us to provide you the fastest service available.

We will of course be ensuring that all other methods get dealt with as soon as possible however due to delays in mail other payment methods may be delayed.

Many thanks for your understanding and Merry Christmas.

Don’t forget if your’e getting a new phone for Christmas you can recycle your old mobile with us for cash

Ofcom’s sixth International Communications Market study reviewed the internet habits of 17 European nations, finding that 79 per cent of Britons with internet access have bought goods or services online in the last year. Britain online shopping Britain has a higher proportion of people shopping online than any other European country, according to a new report

This the highest proportion of a county’s population measured in the study, while it also revealed that nine in every ten British internet users looked at a retail website online in 2011. The UK also leads the way in smartphone use, with ownership doubling to 46 per cent in the last 12 months. A quarter of the Brits polled access news content on their phones, while 34 per cent play games.

Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said: ‘Across the globe people are embracing e-commerce and social media with enthusiasm. ‘Our research shows that the UK communications market is performing well with prices, the range of services and innovation standing up well against international benchmarks.’

Commenting on the report, Ernest Doku, tech expert at uSwitch.com, said: ‘Pit Britain against the rest of Europe and Ofcom’s survey results cast UK communications in a decidedly positive light, in terms of both access to and our use of the technology available to us. ‘Our take up of smartphones compared to the likes of France and Germany would suggest we’re a nation of early adopters, and the survey also shows we’re streets ahead in terms of superfast broadband connections – though it’s telling that take up is extremely low. For many, super-fast broadband is simply an unnecessary expense.

The next big event likely to affect the tech world is the introduction of 4G mobile phones, Ofcom states. However, with the UK currently lacking the infrastructure required to support these devices, the regulator insists it is important that Britain does not get left behind.

The event which started at 3.30pm with a champagne arrival was then officially opened at 4.30pm by Managing Director Justin Millar and Clarke Willis Chief Executive of Anglia Farmers. Justin Millar opened with a speech giving an overview of the company history, thanking family, customers and staff for all their support. Clarke Willis who also said a few words about the established relationship between both companies cut the ribbon along with Justin to officially open the state of the art customer experience centre.

The open event was an opportunity for both customers and local businesses to come and see the stunning new offices as well see the extensive business communications product portfolio the group offers in the state of the art customer experience centre.  The opening was extremely successful.

The talking points of the evening were the Mural painted by Jenny Leonard, displaying the groups 25 year history, as well as the customer experience centre, an exciting addition to the new building which really boosts the company’s customer experience offering.

Justin Millar said “I would like to say a big thank you to all those who attended, as well as those that made the day special. The event was a huge success and it was great to see such a big turnout, without our customers none of this would be possible”