NEW YORK-A new mobile virtual network operator targeting Chinese-Americans officially launched, offering cheap international calls to Asia and a Razr phone with menus in Chinese. Red Pocket Mobile soft-launched about two weeks ago, according to Max Smetannikov, vice president of business development for Global...
NEW YORK-Jamster International bulked up its content portfolio in North America with a deal to offer ringtones, graphics and mobile games from the Walt Disney Internet Group. Disney and its third-party content licensing arm Starwave Mobile already use VeriSign Inc.'s mobile content business to...
LONDON-Best Buy International will team with U.K. wireless retail giant Carphone Warehouse Group to open stand-alone cell phone stores in the United States. In a prepared statement, the firms said a trial of Best Buy Mobile stores in New York "is about to commence;"...
HTC Corp. is looking to capitalize on trends?and possibly buck them-as it works to deliver smart phones in the United States and around the world. With 80 percent of the global Windows Mobile business, the Taiwanese smart-phone vendor has grown rapidly by providing third...
NEW YORK-Fatherhood was the inspiration for creating and naming mobile virtual network operator Kajeet Inc., and the market will test whether those fathers really do know best when it comes to offering a wireless service that will appeal to kids. Daniel Neal, Kajeet's chief...
Two research firms say the future looks bright for location-based services running on Global Positioning System technology. ABI Research's latest study on the subject suggests that subscribers of GPS-enabled, location-based services will reach 315 million by 2011, up from 12 million this year. The...
Visto Corp. will have no trouble paying its lawyer fees. The mobile e-mail service provider raked in another $51 million this week in a funding round led by Oak Investment Partners. The haul follows a $70 million round that closed last November; Visto is...
CHICAGO-McDonald's franchisees John and Karen O'Keefe watched sales flatline for most of the year at their store in Chicago's suburban Woodfield Mall while other restaurants in the fast-food chain's system pulled in gains of 2 percent or better. But after the couple installed a...
Nokia Corp. announced five new GSM phones-the company insists the devices are "multimedia computers"-for the United States, but did not announce any accompanying carrier deals. Three of the devices-the N70, N73 and N91-are optimized for music. The devices include enhanced memory with 1 GB,...
SEOUL-South Korea's Pantech & Curitel Communications Inc. will provide its portfolio of CDMA-based handsets to UTStarcom Inc. for sale in North America under a three-year agreement, the company announced. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.Pantech already is a leading supplier of CDMA handsets...
SAN DIEGO-Digital Orchid is looking to expand its portfolio and global footprint with the acquisition of mobile game publisher Blue Tech. Blue Tech is a 2-year-old vendor based in Madrid, Spain, and is the parent company of Java developer Kato Studios. Digital Orchid provides...
DUBLIN, Ireland-Those waiting anxiously for a .mobi domain needn't wait any longer. The company behind the controversial, mobile-exclusive top-level domain opened registration, allowing the general public to register wireless Internet sites with the suffix. Mobile Top Level Domain Ltd., which manages the domain, hopes...
ATLANTA-Air2Web said it snared $25 million in a financing round led by The Carlyle Group. The wireless software company said it will use the new funds to further its work in mobile marketing as well as expanding into other geographic markets. Existing investors Vantage...
NEW YORK-Nokia Corp. debuted three handsets targeting mobile music lovers at its Nokia Theater in Times Square. The phones are set to be available in select markets within weeks, but Nokia did not name the markets. The company also did not name any carriers...
GREENSBORO, N.C.-RF Micro Devices Inc. said it plans to sell its equity interest in Jazz Semiconductor for between $24 million and $27 million in cash. The company is divesting its interest in Jazz due to the pending merger of Jazz with a subsidiary of...
Just as the dust settled on ADC Telecommunications Inc.'s failed attempt to merge with Andrew Corp., ADC announced plans to lay off about 225 of its 8,200 employees as part of a restructuring effort. Interestingly, the news came on the heels of Andrew's own...
WASHINGTON-Two key Senate lawmakers suggested the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commissions consider imposing conditions-including the divestiture of WiMAX spectrum-on the proposed $67 billion merger of AT&T Inc. and BellSouth Corp. to prevent any anticompetitive warehousing of such spectrum by the combined telecom giants....
WASHINGTON-The House suspended an in-building wireless license to MobileAccess Networks, a move that comes two weeks after Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) admitted in a plea agreement with U.S. officials to backing the bid of MobileAccess-the client of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff-after accepting free trips,...
BASKING RIDGE, N.J.-Verizon Wireless flexed its handset muscle with the launch of Motorola Inc.'s Krzr K1m phone, a music and video-playing handset similar to Motorola's Razr. Motorola gave the wireless industry its first peek at the Krzr in July, but Verizon Wireless is the...
DALLAS-The Open Mobile Alliance Ltd. (OMA) will lead a consortium of companies looking to create an open gaming specification for high-end wireless games. The OMA said the members of the mobile gaming initiative-which was launched early this year-will join the OMA's Game Services Working...
NEW YORK-The race to join the mobile marketing playground continued to heat up with separate announcements from Cascada Mobile and Crisp Wireless. Crisp Wireless said it will team with VML, a Kansas City, Mo.-based marketing technology firm to develop and market mobile advertising offerings...
TAIPEI, Taiwan-Enough already-that's the decision handed down from BenQ Corp. amid heavy losses at its mobile venture, BenQ Mobile. The company announced that it won't pour any more money into its German-based mobile-phone subsidiary. As a result, BenQ said its handset subsidiary may file...
Less than two years ago, carriers were blaming publishers for stifling mobile gaming by churning out a surfeit of high-profile, licensed games that made for a rotten user experience. Now it's the game makers' that are pointing fingers. Handsets are quickly evolving into mini-videogame...
The IEEE standards association announced a leadership shake-up in its troubled 802.20 working group, which is supposed to get the work on a mobile wireless broadband access standard back on track. All of the officers of the working group will be replaced "in an...
