There used to be essentially two types of places to buy wireless: directly from the carrier store, or through an indirect retailer. But as online sales become an increasingly important part of the overall buying experience for customers, what was once a two-way tug-of-war...
Shiny gadgets, big and small, drive the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. In that sense, the show levels the playing field for a few halcyon days in early January in the desert. Mobile handset vendors, for instance, present their wares amid fierce competition...
Thinner, more power, less drain on a handset-no, it's not a supermodel whose New Year' resolution is giving up mobile communications. It's a new mobile memory chip produced by Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.The South Korean conglomerate announced today that its new, 1 gigabyte, mobile...
Wirefly, the online retailer, is offering mobile handsets at prices that defy gravity.Tis the season, apparently, for free or low-cost offers on the market's leading handsets to erode the last bastions of resistance to signing up for wireless service.The Motorola Inc. Krzr, for instance,...
LG Electronics Inc.-the South Korean home appliance giant and parent of LG Telecom-has replaced its top corporate officer and the head of its telecom unit in an effort to reignite its fortunes in mobile handsets and flat-panel displays, according to media reports.A former corporate...
Like a runway model sporting the latest fashions, mobile handsets have gone thin with a vengeance. That's hardly earth-shaking news, but new data reflects the industry's headlong embrace of thin. And practical constraints pose some limits to this squeeze play.Those limits-seemingly acknowledged by some...
Qualcomm Inc. plans to profit from in-house Bluetooth intellectual property to drive down the cost, power consumption and footprint of chip-based functionality in mobile handsets and consumer electronic devices, the company said last week in the wake of its acquisition of much of RF...
SAN DIEGO-Qualcomm Inc. reported plans to acquire RF Micro Devices Inc.'s Bluetooth-related assets for $39 million in cash. Qualcomm said that the acquisition, which focuses on Greensboro, N.C.-based RF Micro Device's Bluetooth-related intellectual property and team in San Diego, would enhance its ability to...
TOKYO—Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. announced that, in partnership with Intel Corp., it has developed specifications for mobile handsets that will allow users to install their own operating system, one that would run side by side with a pre-installed OS. DoCoMo said its specification...
LONDON-Smart phones will represent the fastest growing segment of the mobile handset market this year, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. The company said year-on-year volume of smart phones will increase more than 40 percent this year. By comparison, basic phones are expected to...
The math is simple: mobile devices are requiring more power at a rate greater than improvements in current battery output and longevity can provide it. There's nothing earth-shattering about the essential proposition, of course-mention the topic of battery life in handsets and colleagues eagerly...
LOS ANGELES--In its eight-year history, Symbian has had one profitable year--last year, its first in the black. While this is a critical turning point in its business fortunes, one likely to be repeated this year and henceforth, smart-phone penetration worldwide is about 7 percent...
Vodafone Germany launched a downloadable Java-based mapping application that features hi-resolution aerial photos and a searchable database of more than 4,000 German points of interest. Like Google Earth and other mapping applications for computers, Mobile Earth allows users to access satellite images of specific...
The advent of contactless payment technology in mobile handsets ushers in big possibilities for credit-card companies, network operators, and handset and chip vendors-if all parties can agree on an equitable business model. For consumers, new technologies such as near field communication, or NFC, offer...
Commercial telematics, in particular mobile research management, is driving location-based services today, according to ABI Research. But the next big battleground will be to add Web portals to vehicle navigation devices. Following is a roundup of trends to watch in location-based services. The technology...
Location-based services seem to encompass consumer applications that generate plenty of excitement among consumers, yet somehow, uptake of LBS applications is not exactly booming-except in cars. Cell-phone users in the United States have been slow to adopt mapping and tracking services, but drivers are...
As smart-phone sales go, so go the fortunes of the operating systems that make the hybrid phone/computing devices run for prosumers and enterprise customers. Recent research by Compete Inc., which measures online consumer interest in the United States, however, shows that shoppers familiar with...
The big issue for some players in the wireless community regarding Java ME revolves around its owner, Sun Microsystems Inc., which announced at its May JavaOne conference that it was mulling how to go open source with the industry's dominant programming language. This move...
Nothing kills a party like running out of food and booze. And, when guests show up in droves, beyond expectation, you check your supplies and commandeer friends for a mad dash to the store, right? Especially if each and every guest feels compelled to...
Big just got bigger. The strategic trade-off between profits and market share stood out in stark relief. And the global market for mobile handsets remains insatiable, creating market opportunities for the nimble and those with heft. Yes, all in the first quarter. Arch rivals...
The signature letters in LG Electronics Co. Ltd.'s name, back at the dawn of time when the company formed in 1958, stood for Lucky Goldstar. Whatever connotations that name might have once had undoubtedly would be lost on mobile-phone consumers in the United States...
Espoo, Finland—Nokia Corp. announced that the average selling price for its mobile handsets in the first quarter was around $125, up from $120 in the previous quarter. The Finnish wireless behemoth had previously estimated that its ASPs in the first quarter would be flat...
LAS VEGAS-When Jorma Olilla, chairman and chief executive officer of Nokia Corp., bid farewell to the industry at CTIA Wireless 2006's opening day keynote session on Wednesday, he asked the audience's indulgence to reminisce about wireless' coming of age during his 13-year tenure. Olilla...
WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission's decision to back the wireless industry in health litigation against mobile-phone companies has become a flashpoint in six brain-cancer lawsuits awaiting a key ruling by the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.The FCC in November sought court permission to...
