Dec 19 2006 - 04:40 PM ET | Samsung
By way of a new handset Samsung has announced a whole new input technology that it's describing as an "optical joystick". The new Samsung SCH-960 does away with a d-pad or mini-joystick and instead uses a sensor that monitors finger...
Dec 19 2006 - 04:34 PM ET | Cingular
Cingular has signed an exclusive agreement with NBC Universal for mobile rights to Saturday Night Live. SNL Mobile is now available to Cingular customers with 3G handsets (a relatively small subset of users). The content is included at no additional...
Dec 18 2006 - 05:18 PM ET | In The News
Previously recused FCC commissioner Robert McDowell was recently re-approved to vote in the approval of AT&T's take over of BellSouth, but has announced today that he will not do so. That leaves the panel in a 2-2 tie and will...
Dec 18 2006 - 01:08 PM ET | Cingular, Data
Cingular has teamed up with MySpace to provide a mobile version of the popular social networking site. In a relatively unique move for a free website, MySpace Mobile will be made available to Cingular customers through a Java application for...
Dec 15 2006 - 04:10 PM ET | Cingular
MasterCard and Cingular have kicked off a trial of mobile payment technology in New York City. MasterCard has previously worked with Nokia and Motorola on the technology which it's calling PayPass. In this trial customers in New York are being...
Dec 15 2006 - 03:59 PM ET | Cingular, SMS
Cingular has announced a 50% price increase for the price for an SMS message. Starting January 21st SMS messages will cost 15 cents (this applies to both sending and receiving). Sprint made this same move back in October. Despite the...
Sprint Nextel has been busy announcing anything new about its EV-DO Revision A rollout while Verizon Wireless has stayed quiet on the topic. To the casual bystander it appeared that Sprint Nextel was pulling away with a huge lead, but...
Dec 14 2006 - 04:36 PM ET | In The News
AT&T is currently testing a free (advertising supported) directory assistance service. An upstart called Free 411 uses the same business model and recently surpassed the 100 million call milestone. AT&T currently charges between 35 cents and $3.50 for each call...
Prada has announced it teamed up to create a fashion phone with LG. While it's not entirely uncommon for a high-end fashion brand to hook up with a mobile phone manufacturer, Prada noted that the two companies worked to develop...
Research In Motion is no stranger to frivolous lawsuits (or paying $600 million to end them), but this time the company is on the other side of the courtroom. RIM is suing rival Samsung over the Korean company's hot new...
Sprint Nextel has launched the Motorola ic402 on its Nextel network. The ic402 is the second dual-mode iDEN/CDMA handset, the ic502 was launched last month. Dual-mode handsets are an important part of Sprint's integration strategy with Nextel. Voice calls are...
Dec 12 2006 - 03:52 PM ET | Backpage, Palm
Palm has cut a deal with Access for a perpetual Palm OS Garnet license. Back in September of 2005 Access bought out PalmSource, the company that makes PalmOS. Palm paid Access $44 million for the license, which is a steal...
Sprint has upgraded its data network to EV-DO Revision A in 10 more markets around the country. Rev A adds significantly faster upload speeds compared to the older Rev 0 technology. The latest batch of upgrades includes many of the...
The Motorola Q Black is the same Q that Verizon Wireless started shipping back in May, but with a sleek new black exterior. Motorola hasn't yet expanded the Q to other network technologies like it was first expected, but rumor...
Dec 12 2006 - 03:05 PM ET | Backpage
Cameron Marlow, a researcher at Yahoo!, has put up a simple tool to calculate the number of key presses it takes to enter in data via multi-tap. His goal was to see how long different URLs would take to key...
Dec 08 2006 - 06:10 PM ET | In The News
Lawyers for the Federal Communications Commission have approved Robert McDowell to cast the tie-breaking vote in AT&T's proposed merger with BellSouth. McDowell recused himself from the vote early in the process because of a conflict of interest he had in...
Dec 07 2006 - 04:41 PM ET | Rumor
BitTorrent Inc. announced that it has bought out competing BitTorrent client µTorrent. BitTorrent is a popular peer-to-peer file distribution protocol used by many applications, including µTorrent and the official BitTorrent Inc. client. It works by breaking files up into many...
Dec 07 2006 - 04:18 PM ET | In The News
According to data released out of a mob trial, the FBI may have the ability to record conversations remotely from a mobile phone when it's not even making calls. Dubbed a roving bug, the phone can be remotely hacked to...
Dec 05 2006 - 01:22 AM ET | Apple, Rumor
Hardly a day goes by without another rumor of an Apple "iPhone", but the one from this past weekend has bubbled up way more than almost all others. Digg.com co-founder Kevin Rose has gone on record in a video podcast...
Sprint has launched another music phone, the Sanyo M1. While the recent trend has been to launch music oriented handsets with limited memory (relying instead on a memory card slot and user upgrades), the M1 sports an impressive 1GB of...
Dec 03 2006 - 05:10 PM ET | Sanyo
Sprint Nextel has launched the Sanyo SCP-7000, a minor twist on the existing SCP-2400. The 7000 is essentially a ruggedized version of the 2400 that also includes user changeable faceplates. Both phones are entry-level and concentrate on the basics. Sprint...
Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is attempting to end a 2-2 tie in the vote to approve a merger between BellSouth and AT&T. Republican commissioner Robert McDowell had previously recused himself from the vote because of past...
According to a tipster we trust, the Nokia N75 is set to launch on Cingular in December. While the N-Series has proven quite popular globally, the N75 will be the first N-Series device available directly from a US carrier. The...
Verizon Wireless has launched the PN-300. While Verizon has slapped its own branding on the handset, the PN-300 is actually manufactured by Pantech. The basic clamshell handset competes with another phone Verizon Wireless launched today, the Motorola W315. Featues of...
Verizon Wireless has added another phone to its lineup, the Motorola W315. We first caught up with the W315 earlier this year at CTIA. Design wise the W315 borrows from the PEBL, albeit with an external stub antenna. Features of...
Dec 01 2006 - 06:34 PM ET | Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel teamed up with mobile email provider SEVEN to launch Sprint Mobile Email. The free download lets users access popular webmail services (AOL, Yahoo, etc) as well as conventional POP/IMAP accounts. Sprint Mobile Email was designed to work well...
Dec 01 2006 - 04:40 PM ET | MVNO
Low-cost mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) TracFone is not happy with the recent Library Congress official approval of phone unlocking. TracFone is a pre-paid carrier and prices its locked handsets at a loss. Since those handsets are locked to TracFone...
