Mobile

Video-content provider MobiTV is expanding beyond its familiar mobile market to reach the living room and office.

The company, which offers live and on-demand TV shows for mobile phones, is branching out into Internet-connected TVs, set-top boxes, and personal computers. The goal is to offer a TV-anywhere type of service in which subscribers can catch live news and sports as well as on-demand TV shows no matter where they are.

Beyond providing TV on different devices, the new service will sync and converge content. So baseball fans could watch a game on their smartphones, pause it, and then pick up … Read more

Mark your calendars, smartphone fans, as the debut of the first Windows Phone 7 devices is nigh. Microsoft just sent out formal invitations for an October 11 press conference in New York to be co-hosted by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega. The event will begin at 6:30 a.m. PT, and will be followed by an open house, at which Microsoft will showcase its current portfolio of products.

It's no surprise that AT&T will take center stage with Microsoft, as the carrier was named a preferred partner … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--New 4G networks and cool wireless gadgets like the iPad aren't just for playing games and watching movies, companies large and small are looking for ways to leverage this technology to make it work for their businesses.

While many technology trends have traditionally flowed from the corporate environment into the consumer market (think e-mail and voicemail as just two examples), many of the latest trends in mobility over the past few years have originated for consumers.

The Apple iPhone and Google Android phones, and the mobile app craze that has followed, have predominately been focused on meeting the … Read more

To the casual observer, Nokia would seem to be a company with something to prove.

Executive changes, pressure from the Android OS and the iPhone, advanced new hardware from the likes of HTC and Samsung, and the company's lack of carrier relationships in the U.S. have watchers and analysts wondering how long Nokia can hang onto its global dominance in mobile phones. But the company's executive vice president of mobile services, Tero Ojanpera, doesn't seem to be feeling the heat. Either that, or he doesn't have a lot of answers.

In the questions you sent … Read more

This may well be the largest consumer telecommunications refund in history. Verizon Wireless said Sunday it will pay up to $90 million in refunds to some 15 million subscribers who were charged for data usage or Internet access, though they weren't on data usage plans. The company will credit current customers who were billed for bogus data sessions between $2 and $6 each on their October and November bills. And it will cut checks in the same amounts to former customers.

Here's the statement from Verizon Wireless Deputy General Counsel Mary Coyne:

Verizon Wireless values our customer relationships … Read more

Google has acquired a start-up called BlindType that aims to dramatically improve typing on Android and iOS mobile devices.

"We're excited to join Google, and look forward to the great opportunities for mobile innovation that lie ahead," BlindType announced on its blog Friday. The company hasn't released the software, though one review in July was favorable.

Mobile-device typing has changed significantly with the iPhone's functional touch-screen keyboard, Android's reasonably advanced word-prediction system, and Swype's technology for sliding fingers over letters. But as any touch typist or hunt-and-peck tapper knows, mobile typing is still … Read more

The Federal Communications Commission has removed guidance from its Web site that advised consumers shopping for a cell phone to consider the amount of radiation a handset emits. The revisions, which first appeared last week, were not formally announced nor do they appear to be the result of an official change in policy.

On its revised consumer fact sheet the agency says that considering a handset's specific absorption rate (SAR)--which denotes the amount of radio frequency energy (RF) a phone emits--may be misleading because, among other things, the actual SAR for a phone will vary depending on the … Read more

AT&T announced new payment plans for GoPhone today that drastically cut costs to the wireless carrier's prepaid phone service. The revised plans go into effect on October 3, and lower the price of using the Unlimited Daily Talk and Text and Simple Rate plans.

Unlimited Daily Talk and Text users will now pay $2 per day for days they use their phones, as opposed to $3, and the plan includes 200 MB of data. Simple Rate users will see prices drop from 25 cents per minute to 10 cents per minute. Charges apply for making or receiving … Read more

A federal case which alleged wireless carrier T-Mobile had blocked text messages from a service that claimed a medical marijuana dispensary as one of its clients, was settled outside of the court this week according to a report in Wired.com.

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleged that T-Mobile had blocked all clients of a New York company called EZ Texting, specifically because one of those clients was a medical marijuana dispensary search service that operates the site WeedMaps.com. EZ Texting's service lets its clients solicit customers … Read more