Under the deal, Boost will continue to have onsite presence at U.S. tour games and work with CD Guadalajara goalkeeper Luís Ernesto Michel as a Boost Mobile ambassador. The sponsorship will also come to life in Boost Mobile retail stores with Chivas prominently displayed on collateral and merchandising materials.

The carrier has previously sponsored “Chivas Zone,” which is an interactive area with activities, prizes and opportunities for fans to take photos with Chivas players. In addition, brand ambassador Michel and other Chivas players have made appearances at Boost Mobile retails stores, and similar activities will continue in 2012.

At the end of the press release, Boost reminds us that its $10 International Connect Plus add-on now offers greatly reduced mobile and landline rates to more than 200 destinations, including $0.15 a minute to mobile lines in Mexico…

This new partnership will be gradually launched throughout 2012 across 20 African and Middle Eastern countries, with the first markets launching early in the year. The initiative is part of the Wikimedia Foundation’s mobile strategy that aims to reach the billions of people around the world who access the internet solely through mobile devices.

Any customer with an Orange SIM and mobile internet enabled phone will be able to access the Wikipedia site either through their browser or an Orange widget. Everything is free as long as users stay within Wikipedia’s pages…

At the moment, the new feature is limited to foursquare.com and m.foursquare.com websites but it’s matter of days (maybe weeks) when mobile apps for major platforms (i.e. iOS and Android) will get the capability, too. Moreover, this data will soon be available on the hundreds of apps that rely on Foursquare’s API.

I like the idea of knowing prices before visiting some local business, though I’m not sure that’s what Foursquare is all about. Then again, the times are changing and so do smart companies. We’ll see whether this new feature will help Foursquare fight with the likes of Facebook and Google…

[Via: thenextweb]

Google recently brought forth new documents — which are now under review by the EU — in support of the move, which will cost more than $12 billion. Had Google not brought these to the table, the original deadline for the EU’s decision was January 10th and we would have had known the acquisition’s fate by now.

“We’re confident the Commission will conclude that this acquisition is good for competition and we’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review,” a statement from Google reads.

Saying a mobile software company acquiring a mobile hardware company is good for competition is a rather bold move and one that certainly has to be backed by convincing details, such as Google’s argument that it will help defend patent lawsuits tremendously.

The Internet search (among many, many other miscellaneous product categories) company set out to acquire Motorola Mobility in August 2011 for a cool $12.5 billion with the main motives including defense in numerous patent attacks against Android and perhaps to have a louder voice in the making of Android hardware.

We’ll know soon enough if Googorola is a reality.

[via Reuters]

Both parties are satisfied with the outcome of the partnership. “LetsTalk.com allows us to quickly offer our customers a compelling buying experience, complementing the  services we develop ourselves with other relevant ones they want,” said YouMail CEO Alex Quilici. Meanwhile, Dave Frame, Chief Marketing Officer at LetsTalk.com commented, “YouMail’s audience is mobile and smartphone savvy, making it the perfect audience to take advantage of our special offers by providing them with the ability to shop online, away from the pressure of retail stores. With YouMail we now have a valuable added bonus for our customers: a state-of-the-art visual voicemail service that’s only one click away.”

YouMail, which hit the 3 million download milestone in November, was in the news recently after T-Mobile sent a complaint to Google that the app was causing “network disruption” and had it pulled from the Android Market. After remaining on the defense, YouMail eventually found a bug causing the issues, and it quickly reappeared in the marketplace.

It’s nice to see a win-win partnership.

Wal-Mart brands the plan as FamilyMobile and it includes unlimited talk, text, and web for a very reasonable price. The first line is only $45 and each additional line is an extra $35. That means families of two would pay $80 per month, families of three would pay $115 per month, families of four would pay $150, and families of five would pay $185. Some carriers — *cough* AT&T *cough* — easily charge nearly the same price for talk, text, and web for one person that you’d pay for a family of three with Wal-Mart and T-Mobile.

Oh, but there is a catch. You will get unlimited data for families included in the plan, but it’s not as fast as one might hope. Families get access to T-Mobile’s 3G network for the first 250MB of usage. Then, for the rest of the month, you are forced to mosey along on 2G speeds. If you are in a family of five, you’ll probably drop to 2G speed within a week. Plus, you can completely forget about any HSDPA+. (Editor’s note: It should be noted that the plans provide 250 MB of data per line, so it will likely take you longer to go through that. Additionally, new activations until March 16 will get the first 5 GB of data per line up to 3G speeds until March 31.)

Though Wal-Mart and T-Mobile’s unlimited talk, text, and web plan is still a good value, if you want to shop around other carriers for shared data plans, Sprint has its Everything Data Family plan and Verizon Wireless is shooting for a 2012 release. AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega recently commented that the carrier is “still working on” its offering.

[via Walmart]

The Korean company said it doesn’t want Olympus’ camera business, but it may consider some sort of an alliance, according to Reuters. “We are open to the possibility of an alliance with Olympus,” the source with knowledge of the matter said on condition of anonymity.

Of course, a Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment, leaving us some room to speculate.

So what could Samsung take/buy from Olympus? How about camera technology and tout its phones to sport better cameras than those sold by other handset makers. Nokia is betting heavily on this strategy, emphasizing Carl Zeiss lenses in its select camera phones. Can Samsung do something similar? Just imagine – Samsung Galaxy S II with Olympus camera. Sounds cool, doesn’t it? What do you think?

[Via: Reuters]

In other words, decent navigation is finally coming to Bada. Now we don’t know what are Samsung’s future plans for its own platform and when the Wave 3 successor will be released. Guess the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona could give us some answers. We’ll see…

[Via: SammyHub]

As one familiar with Apple might expect, Steve Dowling, spokesperson for the company, wouldn’t go into detail about the plans or goals for the Anobit acquisition. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” was the best Dowling offered.

According to a report from Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., Apple is the world’s largest NAND flash memory customer, capturing 23 percent of the share. All of Apple’s most popular devices run on flash memory. The iPhone, iPad, and iPod line have been shipping with it for years. As of 2010, the MacBook Air joined Apple’s family of flash storage-based devices as well. It’s significantly more expensive than regular hard drives, but flash is way faster and almost always silent.

One benefit of the Anobit acquisition might be to help Apple keep up with demand for its iOS devices. The iPhone 4, iPad 2, and iPhone 4S all saw major shipping delays immediately after they debuted. In fact, it’s still a challenge to get your hands on a 4S. Apple’s additional control over the flash memory parts could potentially help ramp up the production process in the future.

[via BusinessWeek]

Spotzot searches through thousands of sources everyday for in-store and online promotions and coupons valid at over 400,000 merchant locations from the top 750 national and regional U.S. chain operators. The company then delivers the highest-value deals via free APIs that are used by a growing number of publishers to power mobile and web-based shopping experiences, helping publishers increase their user base, enhance engagement and drive more revenue. Spotzot’s patent-pending targeting technology intelligently presents the deals that will generate the highest click-through rates based on the user’s location, interests and shopping behaviors.

As for these two apps – FastMall is the navigation app for shopping malls with interactive maps of over 1,250 malls throughout the country, while Point Inside is made to enable retailers to engage proactively with customers through their smartphones at every point along the purchase path. Both apps can be downloaded from the links below.

FastMall (FREE) [iTunes link] [Android Market link]
Point Inside (FREE) [iTunes link] [Android Market link]

Each of the 50 Patrón XO Cafe and Ultimat-branded goCharge kiosks feature a large digital touchscreen that entertains customers with brand specific content as they recharge their mobile phones. The goCharge kiosks can simultaneously charge up to 16 mobile devices, including nearly all models of phones and mp3 players. Moreover, all of them [kiosks] incorporate patent-pending charging technology that provides the “fastest charging speed available in the market.”

Bars on their end benefit from the increased “dwell time” of customers, who are purchasing additional beverages and food while their phones are charging.

In a nutshell, it’s a win-win-win deal and we like it for that.

Finally, iPhone users can get a free goCharge app to easily locate all bar network participants and get directions to them. Pretty useful feature for “heavy mobile warriors.”

goCharge Finder (FREE) [iTunes link]