Mobile

Sprint Nextel narrowed its losses in the fourth quarter of 2009 as fewer customers dumped its service, but the company brought in less revenue than anticipated.

The company posted a loss of $980 million or 34 cents per share during the three-month period that ended December 31. This is compared to a loss of $1.6 billion, or 57 cents per share, during the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue was down to $7.87 billion from $8.43 billion during the fourth quarter of 2009. Analysts had expected the company to generate about $8.03 billion in revenue, according … Read more

I have come to terms with the truth: however hard I try, there are some things (and people) I will never understand.

Please let me present Marios Symeonidis. He decided to go on a trip to New Zealand. I can understand that. New Zealand is pretty. It doesn't have many inhabitants. And some of the locals like to perform blissfully threatening dances before rugby matches.

According to a Monday report by Reuters, Symeonidis decided to wander up Mount Ruapehu with a friend. I understand this too. There is some great skiing up on Ruapehu.

Our intrepid tourist then encountered … Read more

If wireless operators thought they'd faced a deluge of data traffic from the iPhone, they haven't seen anything yet, according to a survey from network equipment giant Cisco Systems.

Cisco, which makes the routers and switches that shuttle IP traffic around the Internet, has been using its Visual Networking Index to forecast Internet usage. On Tuesday, the company announced results from its Global Mobile Data Forecast for 2009 to 2014.

By 2014, researchers predict, mobile data traffic throughout the world will reach 3.6 exabytes per month, or an annual run rate of 40 exabytes. This is a … Read more

Google is answering the call from Nexus One phone owners.

More than a month after officially unveiling the new Android-based phone, the search giant on Monday launched a phone support line specifically to answer the questions of Nexus One owners. Phone owners can call (888) 48NEXUS (63987) between 4 a.m. and 7 p.m. PST and reach a live tech, Google advises.

Following the launch of the Nexus One, Google's online support forums were flooded with questions from customers who were having shipping and technical issues. Google attempted to direct questions to HTC and T-Mobile, its hardware and … Read more

Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader, which sold out over the winter holidays, is available online once again, the company said Monday.

The Nook is also expected to show up in most B&N stores by midweek.

After running out of the e-readers over the holidays, Barnes & Noble said it kicked production into high gear so it could ship the Nook to its stores by this week--in time for the next gift-giving holiday: Valentine's Day.

Those interested in buying the reader locally can check the Nook in-store Locator to see if any neighborhood Barnes & Noble store … Read more

It's still not clear how well Google will surmount challenges selling its Nexus One to ordinary folks, but when it comes to endorsement from the tech-savvy realm, it doesn't get much better than this.

Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel programming project, said Saturday not only that he likes the Google phone, but that it was good enough to convert him into a mobile phone believer.

"I generally hate phones--they are irritating and disturb you as you work or read or whatever--and a cell phone to me is just an opportunity to be irritated wherever you … Read more

We've heard a lot about security issues with the iPhone, but the BlackBerry isn't immune to threats from malicious apps.

Tyler Shields, a senior researcher at the Veracode Research Lab, has written a piece of spyware that allowed me to shoot an SMS command to his phone and have his contact list forwarded to my e-mail address in a demonstration. With another short text command, I was able to get his BlackBerry to e-mail me any SMS messages he sends.

And if I had wanted--and he had allowed me--I could have seen a log of all his calls, … Read more

Although Apple's iPad has yet to hit the market, the Federal Communications Commission has expressed concern over its potential impact on AT&T's 3G network.

Without naming AT&T, which has secured a carrier deal for the tablet device, Phil Bellaria, director of scenario planning, and John Leibovitz, deputy chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, outlined their concerns in an FCC blog post Monday:

With the iPad pointing to even greater demand for mobile broadband on the horizon, we must ensure that network congestion doesn't choke off a service that consumers clearly find so appealing, … Read more

Working in customer service is never easy. People can be difficult, nay, impossible at times. But if there is one small rule, especially in this day of rampant networks with nothing better to do than be social, it's the one that says "don't insult the customer."

This rule seems not to have been followed by one customer service representative who works, at least for now, for U.K. wireless carrier Vodafone.

According to the Guardian, this individual posted a Friday tweet on Vodafone's official Twitter page that read: "VodafoneUK is fed up of dirty … Read more