Internet search company Ask.com upgraded its mobile search offering, rolling out a free service featuring Internet sites, driving directions, maps and weather. The subsidiary of InterActive Corp. launched Ask Mobile, an ad-free, Internet-based service designed to minimize the number of keystrokes needed to find...
NEW YORK-Content provider Mobile Streams said it built an off-deck WAP portal to provide content from Showtime Networks Inc. The company said it will offer video clips from various Showtime programs. The portal initially will offer video clips and wallpapers from the new series...
SAN FRANCISCO-Following the lead of rivals Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. announced it will add sponsored results to its new mobile search service. Through a new partnership with voice-commerce vendor Ingenio Inc., mobile Windows Live Search users will be able to make...
NEW YORK-In a move showing the true maturation of wireless services, Sprint Nextel Corp. will begin offering access to content based on TV Land's new self-help series "I Pity the Fool" starring movie and television legend Lawrence Tureaud, aka Mr. T. The Sprint Nextel...
Nokia Corp. will shutter a Fort Worth, Texas-based facility next spring that provides handset logistical and repair services for the American market and will outsource the service to a third party, the company announced. The closure will affect 450 workers; 150 will transfer to...
CHICAGO-U.S. Cellular Corp. said it received $95.1 million from the sale of its stake in regional operator Midwest Wireless Holdings L.L.C. to Alltel Corp. U.S. Cellular said it also expects to receive an additional $10.5 million soon in connection with the sale. The sale...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Trade Commission issued a guide of sorts for municipalities considering wireless broadband, offering city planners and policy-makers a list of the pros and cons of various approaches to the issue. The report essentially outlines a decision tree for municipalities, with a variety...
SAN DIEGO-An administrative law judge with the International Trade Commission handed down a split decision in the acrimonious patent dispute between chipmakers Qualcomm Inc. and Broadcom Corp., ruling that Qualcomm did infringe on one of Broadcom's patents but not on two others. The judge...
BELLEVUE, Wash.-InfoSpace Inc. said it plans to lay off about 250 employees as part of a restructuring plan. The move follows news late last month that Cingular Wireless L.L.C. plans to develop direct licensing relationships with major record labels next year, instead of using...
OVERLAND PARK, Kan.-Sprint Nextel Corp. raised the price it charges users to send a text message to 15 cents, up from a previous price of 10 cents. The carrier also added a cent to the cost of "casual" data usage, increasing the per-kilobyte price...
LONDON—Wireless giant Vodafone Group plc selected two U.S. companies to manage its application development and maintenance services around the world. Vodafone chose to outsource the operations to EDS and IBM Corp. after an eight-month process and 11 competitive bidders. The companies will write code...
"Idealistic" isn't a word commonly associated with venture capitalists. But Brian Biniak, founder of the new wireless venture-capital firm Provenance Ventures L.L.C., believes there is a business case for making the world a better place. "Some people complain about it, and I decided that...
The wireless industry already has MyCircle, Inner Circle, Mobile-to-Anyone, and Sprint-to-Home. Add to that list "myFaves," the new offer from T-Mobile USA Inc. that allows customers to make unlimited calls to a handful of wireless or wireline numbers. The move by T-Mobile USA is...
User-generated content and online communities typically conjure images of teens huddled over their computers creating profiles, sharing video clips and flirting. But David Bankston's view of Internet communities includes such unlikely suspects as the U.S. Department of Defense, CH2M Hill, ABC News and the...
Whether it's goofy pet photos, front row at a rock concert or eyewitness to disaster, the spread of camera-equipped phones has enabled up-to-the-minute photos for social networks and citizen journalism of the most compelling sort. In fact, as camera-equipped mobile phones have penetrated the...
PORTLAND, Ore.—Digital commerce software developer Vesta Corp. acquired Beijing-based mobile top-up company Unimobile in an effort to tap the Chinese prepaid wireless market. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.Unimobile, which was founded in 2000, distributes "recharge cards" for China Mobile prepaid users through...
SAN DIEGO—Novatel Wireless Inc. offered upbeat preliminary results for the third quarter, including revenues and earnings per share that the company expects to exceed previous guidance. The company expects revenues to be between $53 million and $55 million. Earnings per share are expected to...
ATLANTA—BellSouth Corp. said it is expanding its Wireless Broadband Service to Albany, Ga., and Paducah, Ky., this month. The service runs over a pre-WiMAX network. The company said it also is expanding its New Orleans service, which offers residential and business customers high-speed Internet...
WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission's plan to extend emergency alert service rules to mobile-phone operators appears to be in limbo, following congressional passage of a bill that effectively pre-empts telecom regulators from forcing cell-phone operators to participate in a new emergency alert regime and a...
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—Openwave Systems Inc. announced the acquisition of SoloMio Corp., a Texas-based provider of integrated subscriber call management services. Terms of the all-cash deal were not disclosed.Key to the deal is SoloMio's Smart Call platform, which supports both pre-IMS and IMS technology and...
WASHINGTON—Guard-band licensees in the 700 MHz band have asked the Federal Communications Commission to scrap existing band rules that govern how they operate and adopt a plan that they say would give public-safety users a nationwide interoperable wireless broadband network. The plan also would...
SINGAPORE—The Asia Pacific premium content market will explode from a $9.4 billion industry this year into a nearly $33 billion market by 2011, according to new figures from Frost & Sullivan. The market research firm said growing 3G networks, expanding subscriber bases and cheaper...
SUNNYVALE, Calif.—Following Google Inc.'s lead, Yahoo Inc. said it expanded its sponsored-search offering to wireless phones in the United States and United Kingdom. The Internet giant announced the beta launch of a service that returns sponsored, clickable links with search results. Advertisers can develop...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Mobile search startup JumpTap Inc. snared $22 million in a financing round as it welcomed new investor Valhalla Partners. Valhalla led the round, and existing investors General Catalyst Partners, BCE Capital and Redpoint Ventures also participated. JumpTap, which offers a white-label mobile search...
