In many respects, the clunky category known as plain old telephone service is being put out to pasture.POTS, despite still being the dominant mode of phone service, is becoming passe. Throngs of new mobile-phone subscribers are being signed up daily-adding to the current 180...
Most venture capitalists dream of finding the next billion-dollar company hiding in an inventor's garage. Andy Garman, however, dreams of finding the next billion-dollar company hiding inside a current billion-dollar company. Garman is a managing partner with New Venture Partners L.L.C., a venture-capital firm...
TORONTO-Canadians sent more than 710 million person-to-person text messages from their mobile phones in 2004, up from 352 million during the previous year, according to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. The group said Canadian text messaging volumes reached 95.5 million, or more than 3.4...
NEW ORLEANS-America Online Inc. announced deals with two U.S. wireless carriers. Cingular Wireless L.L.C. said it is working with AOL to give Cingular Wireless customers easy access to AOL's new mobile portal, Instant Pictures and mobile You've Got Pictures services.The Instant Pictures feature for...
ANN ARBOR, Mich.-A new survey confirms what has become painfully obvious in society: Americans have a love-hate relationship with cell phones. University of Michigan preliminary data found that while more than 80 percent of wireless subscribers report mobile phones have improved their quality of...
DALLAS-Research and consulting firm Parks Associates said the mobile-phone industry is in a unique position to set digital rights management standards that will work for consumers and industry players."Unlike the personal computing and consumer electronics spaces, the mobile-phone industry has been able to develop...
NEW YORK-MusiKube announced a new deal with Shazam Entertainment to add audio recognition technology to its music recognition and discovery service. NMK Inc. is the company behind the MusiKube brand.NMK promised to launch a new music service across multiple carriers later this month. However,...
WARREN, N.J.-Virgin Mobile is hoping to drive text-messaging use by touting a Thumb Wrestling Championship next week in Miami.The contest, which kicks off Tuesday, is part of a month-long promotion including free text messaging for Virgin subscribers between 8 p.m. and midnight in March....
NEW ORLEANS-America Online Inc. announced deals with two U.S. wireless carriers.Cingular Wireless L.L.C. said it is working with AOL to give Cingular Wireless customers easy access to AOL's new mobile portal, Instant Pictures and mobile You've Got Pictures services.The Instant Pictures feature for the...
Several handset makers and carriers have taken advantage of the spotlight of the CTIA show in New Orleans to release handset-related news this week.Cingular Wireless and Samsung Telecommunications America announced the availability of the Samsung p777, the first phone in Samsung's new line of...
A new survey confirms what has become painfully obvious in society: Americans have a love-hate relationship with cell phones. University of Michigan preliminary data found that while more than 80 percent of wireless subscribers report mobile phones have improved their quality of life, 60...
NEW ORLEANS-Mobile music company mobZilla will use Coding Technologies to deliver streaming audio to mobile phones on the open-standard aacPlus format. The mobZilla subscription service offers streaming, commercial-free music to wireless subscribers and online users for an initial price of $3.98 a month. Users...
Xcelis Communications L.L.C. said it has revamped its call re-routing offering so that now the company will sell its Pantheon product to customers so they can re-route their own calls. The move comes after Xcelis introduced a trial service that essentially re-routed Cingular Wireless...
David Steinberg stands as an example of the surplus of opportunity within wireless. As chief executive officer of Internet activation company InPhonic Inc., Steinberg has overseen the growth of the company's revenues from $0 five years ago to between $315 million and $325 million...
SYDNEY, Australia-Broadcast Australia subsidiary The Bridge Networks will team with Telstra on a year-long trial of Australia's first multi-channel mobile TV service using digital video broadcast for handheld (DVB-H) technology. Harris Broadcast Systems, a Cincinnati-based communications company, will provide transmission equipment for the transmissions,...
Mforma Group Inc. is branching out from the wireless gaming arena and waltzing onto the crowded dance floor of mobile music. The Bellevue, Wash.-based entertainment publisher this week is expected to unveil a licensing deal with music-industry magazine Billboard to provide news, artist information...
OVERLAND PARK, Kan.-Hoops hysteria hit mobile phones this week, as Sprint PCS launched an offering of voice tones from cacophonous college basketball commentator Dick Vitale and an ESPN-branded application based on the NCAA tournament. Wireless users can access any of 14 well-worn Vitale sayings...
STOCKHOLM, Sweden-L.M. Ericsson said it has unveiled a payment solution that simplifies the business model among content providers, mobile operators and consumers.Known as Internet Payment eXchange, the company said the system does not require a new relationship, extra hardware or complicated registration procedures for...
NEW YORK-Nearly half of the nation's 10- to 18-year-olds own mobile phones and a vast majority are interested in handsets that double as music players or cameras, according to a study from NOP World Technology. According to the survey-the fifth in a series of...
A startup company today released a mobile phone designed specifically for 8- to 12-year-old children. "Why aren't parents buying cell phones (for their children)? They're such practical tools," said Fred Bullock, chief marketing officer for Firefly Mobile Inc., the company behind the new device....
WASHINGTON-The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says cell-phone use by drivers is on the rise. In 2004, according to a new NHTSA survey, approximately 8 percent of all motorists in the United States-or about 1.2 million drivers-were using cellular phones (both handheld and hands-free)...
KYOTO, Japan-Omron Corp. introduced a face-recognition technology it said can be implemented in personal digital assistants, mobile phones and other mobile devices with camera functions. The OKAO Vision Face Recognition Sensor is able to recognize and verify the authenticity of device users through face...
TOKYO-Renesas Technology Corp. announced it formed a new design company, Renesas Design France S.A.S in Rennes, France, which the company said will develop and design baseband LSIs for phones. Renesas has been supplying system LSIs for mobile phones since the company's establishment. The company...
SYDNEY, Australia-Broadcast Australia subsidiary The Bridge Networks will team with Telstra on a year-long trial of Australia's first multi-channel mobile TV service using digital video broadcast for handheld (DVB-H) technology.Harris Broadcast Systems, a Cincinnati-based communications company, will provide transmission equipment for the transmissions, which...
