AT&T isn’t going to let their exclusive iPhone and its prolific AppStore get all the mobile app glory anymore. The No. 2 US wireless carrier has been pushing mobile applications through their on-deck AT&T Media Mall for longer than Apple has been selling the iPhone, and it seems AT&T wants to make a mobile app…
Borders teams up with Verizon for free in-store WiFi
Barnes & Noble has become the premier mega-bookstore drawing hoards of “customers” to its magazine shelves with free WiFi access. B&N’s deal with AT&T, allows patrons to surf the interwebs with abandon. Borders isn’t going to let it go down like that. The other book retailer has just announced that they’ve partnered up with Verizon…
JCPenney, Cellfire team-up on mobile coupons
U.S. retailer JCPenney is partnering with Cellfire on mobile coupons, allowing shoppers to “ring up savings with an innovative cell-phone coupon program.” As a result, interested customers will be able to carry their coupons with them, no matter where they happen to be, and show/scan them directly from the phone’s screen at the register. For…
National Federation of the Blind and Motorola team-up to make mobile phones accessible to the blind
The National Federation of the Blind and Motorola announced that they will cooperate to “promote technologies that improve the accessibility of cell phones to blind consumers.” As a result, some of the future Motorola handsets, which will be released next year, will provide verbal readouts of information displayed on the screen to assist blind people.…
Kaput: Palm’s relationship with Windows Mobile
Sprint’s all-new Palm Pre is just about the greatest thing to come out of Palm in quite some time. The compact QWERTY slider features a 3.2-megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi, finger-friendly interface, sleek styling and responsive capacitance-based touchscreen. That all adds up to one impressive smartphone – and it’s mostly thanks to the intuitive and fun…
Vringo, Marvel team-up on super hero-themed video ringtones
Vringo and Marvel announced a partnership to create and distribute mobile videos and video ringtones based on Marvel’s superheroes. As a result, a new storefront and web-based editing platform has been created, allowing fans to purchase ready-made mobile clips and/or create their own from the Marvel archives. Initially, the store features footage and pre-cut video…
Telus Acquires Black’s Photography for $28 Million
You probably haven’t heard of Black’s if you’re not from Canada; it’s a chain of photography stores up here, 114 locations all told and pretty popular overall. Well, it appears like the recession has hit them hard and for whatever reason, wireless service provider Telus has decided to snatch them up for $28 million. The…
China Unicom and Telefonica Caught Getting Snuggly
China Unicom and Telefonica, both big names in global telecommunications, have announced an extended partnership in which they would provide mutual infrastructure support and continue an existing alliance. The specifics are pretty vague, but after all is said and done, China Unicom will own 0.88% of Telefonica, and Telefonica will own 8% of China Unicom…
Motorola Mobile Devices ditches Microsoft Office for Google Apps
Microsoft’s Office software suite has enjoyed almost unrivaled domination of the enterprise productivity software market for years now, but the tides are changing. And companies like Motorola are leading the charge. Business Insider reports that Motorola ‘s Mobile Devices Division (a.k.a mobile phone division) will be replacing some Microsoft Office services with Google Apps as…
Google drawn further into FCC inquiry
When Apple rejected a certain Google Voice iPhone app from doing business on the iPhone AppStore, the masses threw up their arms and did what any self-respecting iPhone user would do – they posted their angry comments throughout the blogosphere and then mostly proceeded to take what Apple gives them. That’s just how iPhoners do.…