Mobile

Government inquiries into what companies are doing with location information from mobile devices enter yet another round next month.

The Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission are holding a public forum on June 28 to discuss the topic, the AP reports. On the invite list are both Apple and Google, companies that have been called to testify in front of Senate subcommittees on the issue twice this month.

Representatives from Apple and Google are slated to appear in Washington, D.C., this Thursday to answer questions about mobile privacy and protection from U.S. lawmakers in a hearing … Read more

The micro-SIM card found in Apple's iPhone 4, both generations of the iPad, and an increasing number of mobile devices could be going on a diet once again.

Reuters reported today that Apple has put forth plans to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) for a smaller version of micro-SIM that could bring extra space-saving advantages to mobile gadgets.

"We were quite happy to see last week that Apple has submitted a new requirement to ETSI for a smaller SIM form factor--smaller than the one that goes in iPhone 4 and iPad," Anne Bouverot, Orange's head … Read more

Most of the Android smartphones on the market are susceptible to an attack in which someone could access calendar and contact data over an unencrypted Wi-Fi network, a team of German researchers said in a new report.

The problem is fixed in the latest version of Android, but 99.7 percent of all Android devices are running older versions, they said. Attacks can be carried out over unencrypted Wi-Fi hot spots by an attacker sniffing an authentication token (authToken) used by the Android devices when they communicate with the Google services, according to "Catching AuthTokens in the Wild: The Insecurity of Google's ClientLogin Protocol,&… Read more

AT&T and T-Mobile need to get working to improve their image among subscribers, according to results released today from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

According to the group, AT&T Mobility's customer satisfaction score over the past year was 66 out of a possible 100, dropping 4 percent year over year. AT&T's rating was the lowest it has been since 2005 when it earned a 62 in ACSI's study. Its high over the last eight years was 71 in 2008.

But AT&T says churn rates matter more than surveys.

"… Read more

AT&T plans to launch a wireless security service next year designed to protect mobile phones from cyberattacks, according to a key company executive quoted in a Reuters article.

The head of AT&T's enterprise business, John Stankey, said the company already sells security products to the business sector but hasn't yet tapped into the more difficult consumer market, where users are sometimes less willing to spend money on such protection.

Interviewed ahead of the Reuters Technology Media and Telecommunications Summit, Stankey told Reuters that subscription-based antivirus services will become as relevant in the wireless world … Read more

A second U.S. Senate hearing over location privacy has been scheduled, a move intended to highlight how well companies notify their customers about when and how their whereabouts are stored and transmitted.

Following the U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing about mobile privacy last week, representatives from Apple and Google are expected to again appear in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to answer questions from U.S. lawmakers in a new hearing that will also include Facebook.

The topic of a hearing, put on by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Insurance, is "… Read more

Nokia will abandon its Ovi brand, the handset manufacturer said today.

The company had been pushing the mobile services brand hard since its 2007 launch, but the Ovi services will rebranded as "Nokia services" later this year. It is not clear how much of this is to do with Nokia's tie-in with Microsoft, a deal that will involve the integration of the Ovi services and content store with Microsoft's Windows Phone Marketplace.

"Ovi" means "door" in Suomi, a Finnish language. As of April, there were 5 million downloads a day of Ovi-branded … Read more

A recent scientific study suggests that bees are significantly disturbed when mobile phones are used in close proximity to the furry critters. The study may shed light on why the bee population is in decline globally.

As bees can communicate through sound, the experiment at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology observed any changes to the noises the insects made when active mobile phones were placed in their hive. The results were quite worrying.

Read more of "Cell phones causing decline in bee numbers?" at Crave UK.

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Richard Bennett's bio below.

The National Broadband Plan delivered to Congress by the Federal Communications Commission last year recommended the licensing of 500MHz of new spectrum to mobile broadband providers, including 120MHz currently held by local TV broadcasters. The nature of the incentive auction that would enable willing broadcasters to transfer this spectrum to mobile operators (for a portion of auction proceeds) is under debate in Washington, as are means of transferring additional spectrum currently held by government agencies.

Wheels move slowly in Washington, and mobile providers can't wait for … Read more