Developed in a secure location?

I think this town is pretty safe as far as the UK goes.

Stirling (sic) stuff.

like when the guy in the automated house at a technology expo exclaimed "b*gger me"!

Seriously, I know the Reg is just pleased to pass on something pretending it to be news, but this is getting ridiculous. It's a lark, obviously. A "super-secret" factory filled with housewives and soldering irons, developing a state-of-the-art phone? Called the Zumba, which has a website. Called the Zumba Lumpa? Either the Reg is in on this hoax, or they've just proven that they have absolutely no editorial capacity. In which case, I'd like to apply for the job of senior editor please.

So now we are going to have to put up with kids all day shouting things like

"NEW TEXT RECIPIENTS SHAZZA BAZZA AND TEZZA". OH EMM GEE ELL OH ELL EXCLAMATION MARK SEE YOU LATER SEND TEXT"

Clever technology yes, I just feel it's going to be very, very annoying.

Instant fail. No such thing.

And what if you have a cold, or other kind of sore throat, are you completely fucked then?

100% voice recognition accuracy?

100% secure?

I think not.

Danger Will Robinson........

It was a funny report not really aimed at anouncing the phone but a bit of a fishing exercise for VC funding, the beeb fell for it hook line & sinker as a 'good news story' in times of the credit crunchy nut cornflake economic missmanagement meltdown. The phone mockup was a couple of bits of styrofoam, not even a half decent photoshop 3d render!

Why steve, well perhaps he'll licence the technology!

Website 30%

"The technology is so top secret, I can't even give you a demonstration of how it works."

Yeah, right. Heard that before. If it works so well, they should be dying to show it in action, as doing so doesn't reveal any technical details about the implementation. This just indicates that it doesn't work as well as their PR would like you to believe.

"If you lose this phone, it's instantly useless to anyone else [blah blah] totally secure."

Yeah, right. How? 100% accurate voiceprint identification? I don't think so. If you have to authenticate yourself in some way, then it's not really any more secure than any existing phone that can be password locked. Indeed I'd be more worried about some website that's not under my control getting hacked than I would about someone going to the trouble of trying to decrypt data on my phone's internal storage.

Plus, this is a British company, and everyone knows we don't do consumer electronics innovation here any more, so this is pretty much guaranteed bullshit.

the 'inventor' looks like yer typical mobile sales-clown. sorry, another gimmick that we'll never see again. back to the refineries, bbc.

There's footage of people hand soldering components - considering the size of the device and earpiece I doubt it was made in that factory. Looks like a plastic mock-up to me.

...that incredibly thin 'earpiece' has enough electronics to hold a speaker, microphone, transmitter/receiver and battery?

I had to check it wasn't April 1st.

Anyone who claims 100% security immediately disqualifies themselves from being competent to discuss security.

Have to agree with lots of the comments above, stinks of BS to me!

The only thing missing from that crack job of reporting was the tag line "Call now, and we will instantly double your order!"

Terrible.

VAPOUR ALERT!

100% secure = impossible

100% Fully working = erm No

Did you see the workers? cutting 2mm wire? Dont use that in any mobile phone I've owned! Soldering (dear Yanks the L is not silent!) by hand? not in my mobile they arn't!

The size of the track on that PCB was about 3 mm across This thing is sooo FAKE!

No wonder they cant demo it because its a bloody mock up LOL

Maybe they've borrowed the widely-reported "super-encryption" from Obarmy's crackberry?

Rumour has it that the NSA have a roadmap to super-duper-encryption, mega-super-duper-encryption and mega-super-duper-encryption-with-knobs-on.

I'm surprised this wasn't sold as 'green' because the earpiece is obviously made of cardboard.

Paris - she understands a mockery. Perhaps her new best fiend will want one.

that the 1st guy from the company bears more than a passing resemblance to Anton Dubeck from that dancing show the wife watches, what does he know about website security?

On that subject if they have developed a 100% secure web site technology I would guess they could make more from that than any poxy phone?

Er, Wildfire, anyone? Before it canned by Orange? Apparently there were plans to expand into non-voice areas, such as reading out email and text, but the plug got pulled. It shouldn't have been too difficult to get her to take dictation and send it out as a text or email.

"If you loose this phone it is instantly useless to anyone else" -Thats right mate. It would probably be useless before I loose it. Because its not really a phone is it. Your just waving about a thin bit of plastic. I'd stick with your ejector seats. Good luck for the floatation.

...everyone will want a little triangular one that they can clip to their shirt's left pocket! What's with this in the ear nonsense?