Mobile

HTC is looking to expand its ability to offer smartphone users multimedia content.

The smartphone maker has invested $40 million in cloud-gaming service OnLive, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. Citing an HTC spokeswoman, the newspaper said that HTC's investment in OnLive will be used to help it deliver more games to players on smartphones. All told, HTC will purchase 5.3 million OnLive shares for $7.50 per share, according to the report.

OnLive currently delivers video games to PCs and Macs over the Web. The company also sells the OnLive MicroConsole, which connects to a user's … Read more

Editor's note: This live event has concluded. You can replay our full coverage of the announcement--including the David Blaine magic show Sprint used to warm up the crowd--in the Cover It Live module at the bottom of this post. Or, for details on the new Echo device and hands-on photos, check out this summary post.

NEW YORK--Sprint Nextel will take the wraps off a new smartphone at an event here this evening.

The company has been tight-lipped about the announcement. But The Wall Street Journal today reported the new smartphone will be a dual-touch-screen device running the Android operating … Read more

The Federal Communications Commission is planning to overhaul the $8 billion phone subsidy program to include funding for broadband in underserved communities.

The FCC is expected to vote on an order tomorrow that will open comments for revising the Universal Service Fund, or USF. In a speech today at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation in Washington, D.C., FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski outlined his proposal for revising the fund. And he talked about the importance of taking action to reform USF now.

"While the world has changed around it, USF--in too many ways--has stood still, and even moved … Read more

In 2010, the smartphone arena continued its shift with Apple and Android vendors grabbing a greater slice of the global market and Nokia and Research In Motion watching their shares drop, according to research firm IDC.

The year as a whole still found Nokia and BlackBerry maker RIM in first and second places, respectively, with the highest market shares and units shipped across the globe, according to IDC's latest "Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker," which was released today. But Nokia saw its annual market share fall to 33.1 percent, from 39 percent in 2009, while RIM'… Read more

The smartphone that Nokia has been touting as its new "flagship" business model will finally reach consumers this week.

Following its unveiling last September and a long delay coming to market, the E7 will have a small, initial launch in the next few days, with a broader launch to follow soon, Nokia announced today.

Nokia's announcement was mum on a number of launch details. However, a Nokia representative told CNET that the E7 will be released first in Finland, the company's home turf. She could not provide names of any other countries, just saying that broader … Read more

Nokia is widely expected to announce some sort of strategy shift when CEO Stephen Elop meets with investors in London on Friday. A new report suggests, however, that several executive departures could also accompany the shift.

German weekly Wirtschaftswoche reported on Saturday that a number of executives may leave, citing company sources. According to a Reuters summary of the German article, among those that may depart are phone unit head Mary McDowell, markets unit manager Niklas Savander, Chief Development Officer Kai Oistamo, and services and solutions manager Tero Ojanpera.

Elop suggested on the company's recent earnings call that a … Read more

The Google-owned Blogger network has released a free app designed to enable people who have built their blogs on the Blogger platform to easily update them from their Android smartphones.

Unveiled this week, the program lets people bang out copy, and take photos with their phones, from directly inside the app--and then either publish their words and images straightaway or save a draft for later. Posts and drafts can be viewed directly in the app or, by way of a quickly accessible menu, in a browser.

Users can also select their location and include that information with their post, switch … Read more

So what is more important to you? Having an iPhone 4 that might drop calls? Or having an iPhone 4 that saves your marriage?

This seems to be the fine and important question posed by AT&T in its instant rebuttal to Verizon's new iPhone 4 ad that suggests you might finally be able to make a phone call.

This ad offers an insight into how an AT&T iPhone 4 might save a marriage that is just about to run aground.

You clearly work too hard. You clearly neglect your wife--who, strangely, still talks to you … Read more

It's hard to know what to make of Nokia these days. Though it still holds a huge worldwide market share and sells more phones than its competitors, it doesn't quite capture the buzz it once had, and its presence in the United States has dwindled.

Sure, the Finns maintain a healthy business selling low-end handsets in emerging markets, but over the last three years, smartphones are where the action is. And though Nokia still succeeds in that space occasionally--we quite liked the Nokia N8, for example--its strategy has been rather unclear.

To its credit, Nokia is aware of … Read more