Handsets

SCHAUMBURG, Ill.—With unexpectedly strong growth in its second-quarter earnings boosting Motorola Inc.’s fortunes, the handset vendor plans to feed the buzz by launching an undisclosed number of much-anticipated new handset …

SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Yahoo Inc. took yet another step onto the wireless playground, inking a deal to preload its Go for Mobile service on “tens of millions” of handsets from Motorola Inc. …

TOKYO—KDDI Corp. is reportedly working with Toshiba Corp., Sanyo Electric Co. and Qualcomm Inc. to develop a common operating system for mobile phones to cut the cost of developing new …

SARASOTA, Fla.—Mobile Voice over Internet Protocol developer xG Technology L.L.C. said it is launching a nationwide deployment program of xMax, the company’s new mobile VoIP service. The company said it’s …

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.—As multimedia-enabled handsets flood the market, so are external memory options, according to a new report from The NPD Group. The number of handsets equipped with removable media …

Two recent Wi-Fi network announcements reinforced the notion that Wi-Fi business models vary from place to place. In Pittsburgh, a free outdoor Wi-Fi network is in the works to provide …

The competitive landscape for the world’s top five mobile-phone vendors at mid-year has come into clearer focus with second-quarter earnings already reported or expected this week. The plot has thickened …

Score a hit in the global marketplace with a sleek handset that spawns imitators and you can crown yourself a design innovator and refer to your designs as “iconic.” This …

Time to play “Guess the mobile virtual network operator.” Your clues: U.S.-based, postpaid but requires no contract and relies on Internet sales and telephone sales for distribution. The MVNO is …

The data on mobile devices and data is clear and simple: smart-phone users consume more data because their devices are optimized for games, video, music and e-mail. Even the most …

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Leap Wireless International Inc. has been growing by leaps and bounds-raising the question of whether the company’s rapid market rollouts …

Tira Wireless is expanding its porting services and stepping onto the crowded playing field of mobile content management. The company this week plans to unveil the latest version of is …

SEOUL, South Korea—Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world’s third-largest mobile handset vendor, said revenue from mobile-phone sales fell 4.5 percent to $4.2 billion from the year-ago quarter on shipments of …

TOKYO—NTT DoCoMo Inc. and Aquafairy Co. said they are jointly developing a micro fuel cell for the Japanese operator’s 3G handsets, a move intended to counter the power demands made …

Hello! And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for …

LONDON—Symbian Ltd. announced the release of its operating system version 9.3, touting it as providing shorter start-up times for smart phones and applications. Symbian OS licensees are currently developing handsets …

COPPELL, Texas—Shares of CellStar Corp. jumped after the company reported a profitable quarter and unveiled a distribution agreement with LG Electronics Co. Ltd. The wireless distributor reported a net income …

LONDON—Wi-Fi network operator The Cloud announced the launch of its Ultra Wi-Fi offering, an all-you-can-eat plan that offers Wi-Fi access in 9 U.K. cities and about 7,000 hotspots throughout the …

ANYANG, South Korea-South Korean handset vendor VK Mobile has gone under, according to news reports. The company, which entered business as a battery maker in 1997, had set its sights …

The deadline for compliance with the European Union’s laws on hazardous substances in consumer goods came and went on July 1 without much fanfare and little news on whether major …

The combined $900 million investment in Clearwire Corp. from Intel Capital and Motorola Ventures establishes that 802.16e technology will be a force in mobile wireless broadband service. Under the investment …

After entering the mobile virtual network operator space with naked ambition, a $500 Sanyo Corp. handset (the “MVP”) and a take-the-world-by-storm marketing spend, Walt Disney Co.-owned Mobile ESPN L.L.C. has …

MUNICH, Germany-BenQ Mobile announced plans to cut up to 10 percent of its German workforce in an attempt to bolster profitability as it moves ahead after merging with Siemens AG’s …

WASHINGTON-A pair of newly published studies link mobile-phone use to biological changes in the brain, but the research does not conclude low-level radio frequency radiation from wireless handsets is necessarily …

As if the Texas wireless market wasn’t hot enough-with Leap Wireless International Inc. launching its Cricket Communications service left and right, and T-Mobile USA Inc. responding aggressively-a new, flat-rate wireless …