The Beatles go mobile, the Royals go undercover, and gossip moves on to Google and Sony phones

For the first time in several weeks, phone companies have managed to deflect attention away from the iPhone.

First of all, images of Sony's new 5 mega pixel camera phone (codenamed 'Sofia'), were leaked this week (pictured here). The device, which will be capable of capturing images comparable in clarity to photos taken with a high-end digital SLR camera, will come as bad news to the Royal Family, which recently aired its distaste at being photographed by commoners.

Elsewhere, a slightly suspect but extremely professional looking image of a Gucci branded mobile phone emerged, looking alarmingly like a very expensive shiny black soap dish.

More credible, however, were details about the rumoured Google phone. Some supposed mock ups surfaced that, if genuine, don't bode well for the handset's ability to compete in the looks department.

But more positively, Google executive Isabel Aguilera later confirmed that Google is indeed looking into releasing a mobile and assuaged the fears of the trend conscious by stating that as many as 18 potential devices are being tinkered with in Google's various labs (call us vain, but the boys in the labs better start tinkering harder if they expect us to walk about with a G-Phone).

But Apple can't be too bothered by the current (and no doubt temporary) drop in iPhone news. After all, a Harvard Business School professor has guestimalated (that's our new word, meaning to guess, estimate and calculate all at once) that the device has amassed around $400 million worth of free advertising since it was announced.

Just to be on the safe side, however, Apple has been utilising some more conventional hype generating tactics, plastering the entire side of its flagship Manhattan store with an iPhone ad before taking it down hours later.

Those looking for an iPhone killer would do well to keep an eye of the happenings of the CeBIT technology expo in Hanover, which finishes on Tuesday. Lots of the buzz at such events continues to focus on mobile TV devices, although analysts have already been questioning the popularity of mobile TV.

Lastly for now, musicians old and new have been claiming their patches of mobile turf. The Beatles are finally making their way onto mobile phones, although only as video clips, not as music downloads. And Lily Allen now has her very own WAP mobile website, featuring everything you could want to know about the inventor of the Nike trainer and Dolce and Gabbana dress combo. Which in our case is 'not much', but with Lily on board, it can't be long before Englebert Humperdink gets the mobile bug, too.