Because of high roaming charges, prepaid SIM cards of domestic providers are a good choice when making mobile phone calls in another country. Usually, these prepaid price plans come without any minimum term or any monthly fee and users are only charged when actually making a phone call. Thus, tourists, travelers, au-pairs or exchange students can even take the prepaid SIM card back home and use it again when visiting the country next time. When being in Germany, there is a broad range of prepaid price plans offering low rates for mobile phone calls within Germany and for international mobile phone calls. However, some of them require a minimum turnover by the customer.

Helene Hegemann, 17 years old, has written a very successful novel debut: “Axolotl Roadkill”. She received rave reviews, critics were fascinated about her rich language. “Axolotl Roadkill” even got nominated for the price of the Leipzig Book Fair. But after Hegemann’s copyright misdoings became public, critics tried to take their positive judgements about the spectatcular novel debut back. Again, this new discussion points out the need for an innovative copyright law facing digital demands. Hegemann is right when she defends herself referring to today’s media consumption habits. The handling of information, of texts has changed in a radical way during the last couple of years.

Germany and the internet? Any associations? Suspicion. Anxiety. Prohibition. Frank Schirrmacher, a journalist with some most-hated-man-potential. And a red-haired guy named Sascha Lobo (By the way, who is that again? Why did he happen to be famous?). In his recent book, Schirrmacher, the (old and) wise intellectual identifies dangers of the evil evil internet, which will someday – as “Wash Echte” on his quite famous blog “Ich werde ein Berliner” (“I am becoming a Berliner”) puts it – turn our brains “into elephant poo”. Villains like Google will hunt you down by knowing everything about your filthy interests. And last but not least, all the new communication techniques will make you unable to concentrate, which will accelerate the whole process of getting mentally incompetent.

Android smartphones are great for using Google web services on the way. Services such as Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Search, Google Maps and Google Chrome web browser are already installed on the mobile, new emails are automatically forwarded to the smartphone, and contacts and calendar on the phone are synchronized with the Google server over the air. In Germany, the first Android smartphone T-Mobile G1 appeared one year ago. Vodafone sold the second Android device in the German market, the HTC Magic. O2 Germany was the third German operator …

Getting a new landline is pretty expensive, using call-through services is quite complicated – thus, two adequate alternatives for making international calls at low rates are not available to many phone users. Another way to make phone calls from Germany to other countries in the world at comparably low rates is to buy a prepaid SIM card of a German discount provider specialized in international calls. They offer cell phone plans with which mobile phone users can call family members, friends or acquaintances for rates beginning at EUR 0.09 per minute. However, prices vary and interested parties should select their prepaid starter package carefully.

Since Wednesday walking down the streets of Berlin can be pretty disturbing. Black caps with silver apples on the forehead. On the forehead?! Well, running around like a living ad for the super power Apple has apparently turned into an honour. But is Apple’s tablet PC, the iPad, worth getting more media attention than Obama’s speech? At least, the iPad doesn’t look much like a tampon. It reminds you more of an iphone swallowed by a giant iPod touch. But what about the Amazon Kindle’s post-iPad chances of survival? In any case, with the iPad, Apple can’t offer an e-ink-display like the Kindle.

Sunday, classic hangover day, one might say. But of course, not only New York is a city that never sleeps. There are parties worth going to every day of the week without an exception. But where to go? During the last couple of years, Berlin got famous especially for its electronic music partys. Some tourists only consider visiting Berlin, because they want to see the huge, factory-like seeming halls of “Berghain” – or maybe just the legendary face-tattoo-bouncer, whose communication skills appear to be limited to minimalistic nods. To find interesting events, the websites of city magazines like zitty, tip or – especially recommendable – 030 are always reliable options. A little bit more thrilling is certainly “restrealitaet”, which means “rest of reality” in English…

The exclusive unveiling on January 5th in Mountain View arranged at short notice, the new category “super phone” invented by Google, the new sales model over the Google web store and new features of Android OS 2.1 on the one hand - poor customer support, poor sales on the first week and a high purchasing price whereas manufacturing costs are low on the other hand: The Google phone Nexus One built by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC is the talk of the town. My first impression after being able to put my hands on the new smartphone for a few hours: The Google phone Nexus One (still) is just another Android smartphone.

Despite DSL, ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) is still quite popular among home phone users in Germany. It offers two lines, at least three phone numbers (Multiple Subscriber Numbers or MSN) and a better voice quality as well as more service attributes than analog lines. It also helps internet users who cannot get a DSL or another broadband connection by doubling the data transmission rate of the narrow-band internet connection. Here are three ISDN telephones that are available in German stores for less than EUR 100.00.

My top price plans of 2009 in Germany for home phone, broadband internet, mobile phone and mobile internet users are: O2 o of mobile network operator O2 Germany, Aldi Talk 24 Stunden Internet Flatrate of discount provider Medion Mobile and the double flat rate tariff Alice Fun of Hansenet. All three offers are still available and will stay my first choices in 2010 when it comes to booking a new home phone, mobile phone or internet package until another provider will launch a better price plan. Read why I recommend these three tariffs.