And we thought the MVNO-fad was done and over with. A new quasi-MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) is set to start offering its no-contract, unlimited rate plans in the US, using AT&T’s network as its surrogate communications backbone. Unified Technologies Group has announced that they will be offering all-you-can-eat wireless service under the “Zer01” carrier…
Nokia Invests in Obopay Mobile Payments
Obopay, a company which facilitates payments by SMS in the U.S. and India, just recieved a cash infusion from handset giant Nokia for the estimated sum of $70 million. As a result of the investment, Nokia’s head of corporate business development, Teppo Paavolo, will have a seat on Obopay’s board. How Nokia flexes their muscle…
Omron, Renesas partner on capacitive touch sensor solutions
Omron and Renesas have recently announced an agreement to jointly develop capacitive touch sensor solutions, a field that is attracting a great deal of interest since the iPhone introduction. Under the agreement, Renesas will integrate OMRON’s touch sensor technology into its R8C Family 16-bit microcontroller (MCU) products and supply touch sensor solutions for household appliances,…
Sprint Looking to Rent out Wireless Capacity to Hardware Manufacturers?
A recent report has said that Sprint has some “excessive capacity” it’s looking to offload, and hardware manufacturers may be a potential target. The Kindle e-reader is a good example of the kind of non-phone gadget with cellular capacity, but there’s plenty more: Garmin, Kodak and SanDisk were just some of the names dropped in…
Ericsson displays public affection for Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson is hurting. Having just cleared a dismal holiday quarter last year and looking an even worse Q1 2009 straight in the eye, the Japanese-Swedish joint venture known has been rumored to be headed toward a break-up. Ericsson today publicly squashed rumors that Sony was looking to buy Ericsson’s stake in Sony Ericsson, stating…
Apple still talking to China Mobile on iPhone deal
It’s the same old song and dance between Apple and Chinese wireless carriers. In the latest round of we-said they-said negotiations surrounding the iPhone, China Mobile’s CEO Wang Jianzhou confirmed that Apple and China Mobile were still in talks to bring the iPhone to China, but no deal has yet been made. Wang told reporters…
Palm looking to Chi Mei for Palm Pre assembly
How many mobile phones are actually manufactured in-house? Not many. In this world of globalized manufacturing and marketing, mobile phone “manufacturers” churn out handset designs to component integrators. These ODM’s (Original Device Manufacturer) or OEM’s (Original Equipment Manufacturer) take care of the dirty details like how to combine all the various parts into a working…
Sony rumored to be negotiating Sony Ericsson buy-out
Times are tough. For corporations, tough times usually leads to a few employee layoffs and asset fire sales. In this particular case, we’re hearing that Sony Ericsson may soon be a wholly-owned arm of Sony. Word on the street has Sony positioning itself to buy Ericsson’s 50% stake in the mobile phone joint-venture known as…
LG chooses Discretix’ CryptoCell security platform for its LTE chipsets
Our friends from Discretix have recently announced that their CryptoCell security technology has been chosen to provide integrated protection for LG’s new LTE (Long Term Evolution) chipsets, to “ensure a trusted environment for the coming era of high-definition video and streaming, ultra-high speed downloads and much more.” From the official release: Discretix’ CryptoCell will provide…
PayPal Digs Deeper into Mobile World with GlobalPlatform Membership
Electronic payment behemoth, PayPal, has recently announced membership with GlobalPlatform, an alliance geared towards standardizing smartcard payments worldwide. A big part of this organization is mobile technology, and considering PayPal’s involvement in the upcoming BlackBerry App World, I think we’ll see them getting cozy with other manufacturers as well. About a year ago, PayPal first…