Mobile

The more you roll the dice, according to the law of large numbers theorem, the more likely you are to hit an expected average of 3.5.

And according to Google VP Andy Rubin, the more the search giant blankets the industry with competing Android-droid based mobile handsets, the more likely Google is to hit its expected value of market dominance over Apple's iPhone.

"It's a numbers game," Rubin said. And the numbers look increasingly rosy for Android.

Consider AdMob's new report (PDF), which pegs Android as accounting for 25 percent of mobile ad requests … Read more

Sprint Nextel's road to recovery is paved with many potholes.

The company did beat analysts' expectations for the first quarter of 2010, but high-value customers continued to depart, albeit at a slower rate. And its financial losses in the first quarter widened.

Sprint lost 578,000 postpaid customers who are on a contract and pay monthly bills. This beat expectations, as analysts had expected the company to lose about 623,500 customers, according to Reuters. A year ago, Sprint lost 1.25 million postpaid customers.

The company's net customer loss, including prepaid customers, was 75,000. A year … Read more

A security researcher has discovered that any wireless network can pretend to be an AT&T Wi-Fi hot spot and thus lure unsuspecting iPhone users to an untrusted network connection.

Samy Kamkar, who created a worm that garnered him a million friends on MySpace overnight in 2005, said in an interview this week that he can hijack any iPhone within Wi-Fi range in what is often dubbed a "man-in-the-middle" attack because of the way the devices are configured to recognize AT&T Wi-Fi connections merely by the name "attwifi."

Typically, an iPhone will look … Read more

TomTom's Go Live 1000 navigation device, set for a European launch this summer, will offer real-time connection for traffic, weather, and fuel info on the continent.

The connectivity across 33 European countries will come via Vodafone. That service will be free for the first year and cost 50 euros (about $67) annually after that. The GPS device itself doesn't have a price tag or exact launch date yet.

The Go Live 1000 will feature a 500MHz ARM 11 CPU, 4GB of storage, 128MB of RAM, and a new user interface based on the open-source WebKit browser engine.

With … Read more

The battle for the 21st century TV viewer is heating up as Verizon Communications adds more Internet content to its Fios TV service. But cable may not be the only competitor Verizon faces as more consumer electronics devices such as Blu-ray players and game consoles add similar Net-based services without an expensive TV service subscription.

Starting Tuesday morning, Verizon Fios TV subscribers will be able to watch YouTube videos and listen to Internet radio from iHeartRadio on their big screen TVs via their Fios TV service. The upgrade, which adds to a growing catalog of Web content available through Fios … Read more

Oprah Winfrey, who's famous for giving away cars to audience members, is now promoting driver safety by making cars a "No Phone Zone."

The Governors Highway Safety Association, and its member state highway safety agencies, today announced it is joining forces with Winfrey and Harpo Studios to fight distracted driving during "No Phone Zone Day" on Friday, April 30, 2010.

Since January 2010, Winfrey has been promoting a ban on cell phone use while driving--especially texting.

Currently the states that have banned texting while driving include: California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York, … Read more

The Nexus One might have been a bridge too far for Google.

There's perhaps no other project as important as mobile computing at Google, save of course the need to preserve Internet search dominance. But Google's mobile ambitions took a hit Monday as two key parts of its Nexus One strategy failed to come to pass.

First off, Vodafone announced it will be the sole point of sale for a locked Nexus One phone in the U.K., bypassing the Web store that was heart of the Nexus One initiative. That means in the U.K., Google will … Read more

Verizon Wireless customers waiting for the Nexus One should probably make other plans, as it looks like Big Red's version of the Google "superphone" will never see the light of day.

When the Nexus One was first announced in January, Google revealed that a Verizon model would be made available later this year. However, on Monday, Google posted an entry on its official Nexus One blog site recommending that users head over to Verizon's site and preorder the HTC Droid Incredible instead. The official checkout page for the N1 shows a similar message.

While Google has … Read more

AT&T has a problem. The wireless carrier's subscriber growth is significantly slowing and its exclusive hold on the iPhone in the U.S. may come to an end in 2010.

Sure, AT&T can go back to the iPhone trough, hoping that the forthcoming iPhone 4G will prop up its sales. But that's not going to help the company as it struggles with the blessing and curse of heavy data usage the iPhone has imposed on its network.

What AT&T really needs is a software story, and Foursquare may be a good place … Read more