NEW YORK-Wireless carriers can only imagine scaling back their costly call-flooded customer support centers and slashing the overhead that comes with them. And wireless users long to regain those wasted afternoons on hold with a receiver glued to their ears only to find they've...
Aether Systems Inc. announced it will acquire mobeo Inc., a company that provides financial news and stock updates on wireless devices such as pagers.Formerly called DocuPro Inc., mobeo delivers quotes on more than 150,000 stocks, options, futures, treasury, foreign exchange and other market data...
SAN JOSE, Calif.-Puma Technology Inc. signed a definitive agreement to acquire Proxi-Net Inc., gaining access to the company's ProxiWare Server and ProxiWeb microbrowser.Puma said it plans to combine ProxiNet's technologies with its Intellisync Anywhere synchronization platform to allow wireless devices to access Internet portals,...
LucentLucent Technologies Inc. introduced software that will turn down transmitter power levels when the user is not speaking into the handset, effectively increasing talk time by extending battery life up to 30 percent. The discontinuous transmission feature will be generally available for network operators...
Mobile phones offer freedom, convenience and portability-as long as the battery works. In Cupertino, Calif., Tropian Inc. is developing technologies it hopes will breath new life into the problem of the dying cellular phone."Tropian has fundamentally redesigned key radio-frequency circuits of cell phones to...
DENVER-Broadband wireless provider Formus Communications Inc. received a broadband wireless access license from Finland's regulatory authority.The multiple-frequency BWA licenses, allowing provision of all voice and data services, cover the country's 15 largest cities and more than 100,000 businesses, said the company.Formus Chief Executive Officer...
NEW YORK-w-Trade Technologies Inc., which developed the w-Trade wireless trading system, introduced a new product called w-Bank.Much like the way w-Trade allows brokerages to offer wireless access to their online trading systems, w-Bank allows financial institutions to offer wireless access to their online banking...
Having made partners of most wireless handset OEMs with its T9 Text Input technology, Tegic Communications Inc. said it plans to make customers of wireless carriers with a new instant messaging application, as yet unnamed.The current desktop version of Tegic's instant messaging notifies Internet...
Drive, fly, go to a movie, sit in the park, eat at a restaurant. Listen for the unmistakable high-pitched ring of a mobile phone traveling over the muffled chatter. Watch as teen-agers pull from their pockets brightly colored pagers, checking to see who is...
With so many competitors vying for the business of telecommunications customers, carriers are finding that keeping old customers is sometimes harder than finding new ones.Athene Software Inc., a two-year-old company based in Boulder, Colo., specializes in providing its clients with the data and knowledge...
MUNICH-Siemens reported a 17-percent earnings increase to $1.12 billion for the first nine months of fiscal 1999, ended June 30. In addition, sales were up 12 percent to $49.4 billion and new orders up 11 percent to $52.3 billion.Virtually all of Siemens' groups contributed...
WASHINGTON-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's (D-S.D.) move to pre-empt the planning commission here from deciding on Bell Atlantic Mobile's Rock Creek Park tower applications set off protests from local officials, environmentalists and others last week, setting the stage for a potentially nasty battle on...
I say ol' chap, want to know how you rate as a reporter of mobile phone health & safety issues in the United Kingdom? Ring up the Federation of the Electronics Industry. Not that they'll tell you, but the folks at FEI are following...
Every year about this time, I long to live in Europe, where holiday lasts for a month. I'm on the beach on the Riviera (because in fantasies, one can always afford the best), soaking up the rays. I'm also skinny, tan (yet cancer-free) and...
FRAMINGHAM, Mass.-A survey conducted by International Data Corp. found penetration of personal communications services phones is growing faster than penetration of either cellular phones or pagers.According to IDC's "1999 Survey of Wireless Users, Former Users and Nonusers," perceived PCS penetration increased from only 4...
More and more, I find myself agreeing with FCC Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth. However, even as I write that, I'm not necessarily comfortable with the claim.It generally has been my experience that political mavericks like Mr. Furchtgott-Roth are disruptive to the democratic process. They are...
NEW YORK-It is true billions of people have never made a phone call, but that fact is worthless in determining actual demand for mobile satellite telephony services, according to Larry Alletto, senior managing director of Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc."Far more important are the...
MONTE CARLO, Monaco-Seemingly lost in the breakneck expansion of the cellular industry is a largely forgotten fact-it was cellular operators wanting a common digital voice standard that drove the rapid adoption of GSM, not the technology developers.This market pull appears to be missing from...
OXFORD, United Kingdom-While the drive to implement Internet e-commerce is being hyped almost on a daily basis, with some justification, as the way forward for almost all future business transactions, the possible success of this application within the mobile world remains less than clear.Many...
The paging industry in North America is making moves that are changing the way the public thinks about paging. It is impacting the way people communicate, and it is opening an entirely new arena for the development and expansion of wireless messaging.The move is...
WASHINGTON-Based on votes by the American public, the U.S. Postal Service declared the cellular phone the most popular 1990s memory, and will depict the cellular phone on a stamp scheduled to be issued in April 2000, said the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.New stamps representing...
ElectofuelElectrofuel Inc. announced the Lithium Ion SuperPolymer battery, which has an energy density of 470 Wh/liter and 183 Wh/kilogram, almost doubling the previous endurance records of rechargeable batteries. With the SuperPolymer battery, laptop computers will run 15 or more hours on a fully charged...
NEW YORK-Exxon Corp., Irvine, Texas, has posted signs at its domestic filling stations requiring customers to turn off their wireless phones before filling their cars' gas tanks due to the slight chance the devices could ignite a fire.Esso Sekiyu K.K. and General Sekiyu K.K.,...
WASHINGTON-While 911, encryption and commercial space launch bills advanced in Congress last week, other wireless-related bills remain steeped in controversy and uncertainty.As important as 911, encryption, commercial space launch, privacy, private wireless, rural cellular and other initiatives are, the issues pale in comparison to...
