Mobile

Research in Motion is expected to unveil a new touchscreen BlackBerry next week to rival Apple's iPhone and other smartphones, like ones using Google's Android operating system.

Shares of RIM were up Wednesday on the speculation, reports Reuters.

The new BlackBerry 9800 is expected to be launched at an event in New York City on Tuesday next week. AT&T, which is expected to be the exclusive carrier for the new phone, will be joining RIM for the announcement. CNET reported news of the press conference earlier this week.

For months, bloggers and others watching RIM closely … Read more

While it's easy slinging arrows at Apple for its closed and tightly-controlled iPhone App Store, there's something to be said for its security.

Google's Android operating system has long faced more complicated concerns with its much freer application approval process, its openness to side-loaded apps (installing apps via APK files that you receive through some source other than the Android Market), plus having users root the platform to take control over certain internal system processes.

The "unauthorized" use of apps was a concern that application developers repeatedly brought to Google's attention, the company said … Read more

Sprint Nextel's hot new phones are helping boost the number of subscribers for the first time in a long time. Even so, the company's second-quarter results were down.

For the quarter ended June 30, the wireless carrier reported a net loss of $760 million, compared with a loss of $384 million in the year-ago quarter. Sales dipped to $8.025 billion, a 1.4 percent decline from last year's $8.141 billlion.

On the plus side, Sprint added 111,000 new wireless subscribers for the quarter, its first signs of growth in three years and a welcome … Read more

The U.K.'s privacy watchdog has visited Google to look at samples of data collected by the company from unsecured Wi-Fi networks through its Street View program, and says the data was free of "meaningful personal details."

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which in May said the data should be deleted as it was unlikely to investigate, said in a statement on Tuesday that it had visited Google premises on July 15 to assess samples of the data.

"[While] Google considered it unlikely that it had collected anything other than fragments of content, we wanted … Read more

It turns out Steve Jobs wasn't exaggerating all that much when he said it can take three years to get a cell tower approved in San Francisco.

Since the day Apple sold its first iPhone, AT&T, the exclusive American iPhone carrier, has been under fire for its spotty network coverage, particularly in San Francisco (but New Yorkers are also prone to iPhone reception beefing). The complaints got louder with the 3G phone and hardly abated with the release of iPhone 4.

A seemingly exasperated Jobs addressed the problem in a July 16 press conference. "When AT&… Read more

Shoppers perusing Wal-Mart for a cell phone will soon have double the options--that is, a choice of purchasing a prepaid phone on two carriers instead of just one.

Wal-Mart's Straight Talk wireless service, which has previously run only on Verizon's networks, is expanding to AT&T. StraightTalk is a brand made by TracFone, and is sold exclusively in Wal-Mart stores.

AT&T confirmed to The Wall Street Journal on Monday that StraightTalk phones will work on the network. Wal-Mart would not comment on the impetus behind building out the service to include AT&T.

The … Read more

In 2006, Spyglass Consulting Group released a report, Trends in Mobile Communications, finding that 59 percent of physicians interviewed were using smartphones. Today, according to the firm's latest report, that figure has jumped to 94 percent.

"Physician smartphone adoption is occurring more rapidly than with members of the general public," said Gregg Malkary, managing director at Spyglass. Moreover, Malkary added, "Physicians are showing a clear preference [almost double] for using the Apple iPhone (44 percent) over the RIM BlackBerry (25 percent)."

A note of caution: the study's sample size is small. The "Point … Read more

HTC announced Tuesday that it's launching its own name brand of smartphones in China, with four phones set to take the stage this year.

Although the mobile phone maker already holds a presence in the Chinese market, its phones there have previously been sold under the Dopod brand. These will be the first phones in China to carry the HTC name.

"We are proud to introduce the HTC brand in China and look forward to bringing a fresh customer-centric smartphone experience to consumers in China," Cher Wang, chairman of HTC, said in a statement.

The phones will … Read more

AT&T has confirmed that it's working on a fix for the software glitch in its Alcatel-Lucent equipment. Reuters reported earlier today that the wireless carrier will issues the fix in the next two to three weeks.

The fix, which AT&T says is relevant for less than two percent of its customers, is expected to significantly boost upload speeds from as low as 100Kbps to as high as 1.7Mbps. Download speeds, which were not affected by the glitch, should not change.

AT&T first admitted the problem on July 7 after customers in select … Read more