With the fast expansion of LTE networks, we need devices to use them. And there will be plenty, according to In-Stat. The research firm is predicting that LTE handset shipments will eclipse 154 million units in 2015 with 290 million LTE subscriptions in place worldwide. Read more »
TechStars New York, now a TV brand thanks to a new Bloomberg series, graduated its second class today of would-be break out stars. The class shows that the program is still churning out a lot of quality, with a pretty polished group of graduates debuting. Read more »
Motorola’s big news was supposed to be the resurrection of the Razr brand with the Droid Razr but the manufacturer took people by surprise with a new fitness and music watch called MotoACTV that drops Motorola into a fast growing market for mobile fitness devices. Read more »
Motorola and Verizon revived the Razr brand with a new Droid Razr, an extremely thin LTE Android smartphone with a dual core 1.2 GHz processor and a super AMOLED display. And it’s got some nice software improvements as well that make it really competitive. Read more »
Waze, the smart crowd-source traffic information application, has picked up $30 million in a Series C round of funding as it looks to capitalize on a burgeoning international opportunity, particularly in China. The company has also hit 7 million users around the world. Read more »
BillGuard, a personal finance service that uses Big Data analysis and crowd sourcing to identify bogus charges, has been racking up accolades since it launched in May. And now it’s pulling in big money: $10 million from Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund and Innovation Endeavors. Read more »
RIM responded to its worst outage ever by giving away $100 worth of apps. And it’s throwing in a month of free tech support. It’s an unsatisfactory gesture and another case of RIM not communicating well enough with consumers who need more reasons to stick around. Read more »
Vlingo, a voice recognition start-up, isn’t sweating the introduction of Apple’s Siri voice action and AI system. In fact, the start-up saw its best week last week with five consecutive days of record usage with voice actions up 50 percent daily over the previous high. Read more »
Shopify, the online shopping platform, has helped power more than 15,000 e-commerce store fronts including shops for Angry Birds, the Beastie Boys, General Electric and Tesla Motors. Now, the Ottawa company is announcing it’s raised $15 million in a Series B round. Read more »
Google Translate conversation mode, which allows two people to speak in different languages and have their words translated in near real time, is now expanding beyond English and Spanish to 14 new languages. The service is also getting some additional features that help facilitate conversations. Read more »
Movable Ink has raised $1.3 million for its real-time email marketing platform and is launching a new app gallery for customers. The company plans to use the money to build out its platform and move into verticals such as retail, publishing, travel, ticketing and events. Read more »
EBay and PayPal formally unveiled their X.commerce platform, an ambitious attempt to bridge online and offline commerce and arm developers and merchants with a host of tools to help them facilitate sales. X.commerce turns eBay into broader technology provider to merchants and developers. Read more »
Group messaging app Kik, which got off to a fast start before it was banned by Research In Motion, is back with a new app for BlackBerry devices. The new Java ME-based app will be distributed directly by Kik and brings back cross-platform support. Read more »
LevelUp, the daily deal play from location-based service SCVNGR, is making another go of it, this time with a credit-based structure that utilizes a new mobile payment system built by SCVNGR. The service is now expanding beyond Boston and Philadelphia to New York and San Francisco. Read more »
LocalResponse, a local marketing system that pushes targeted ads to users based on their check-ins, has raised $5 million. The money will go toward expanding the sales team and building out an enterprise version of the service for brands and agencies. Read more »
Skyfire is moving into high gear with the next iteration of its Rocket platform, a video compression technology solution for carriers, which brings a host of improvements that should be appealing to operators worried about an explosion in mobile video usage. Read more »
AT&T announced on Tuesday it’s extending free Wi-Fi to five more New York parks, part of the plan to bring Wi-Fi to 20 parks spread throughout the five boroughs of New York. Free Wi-Fi isn’t just good will; it’s a helpful tool in relieving cellular networks. Read more »
Fab.com, the design flash sales site, is on a roll with 750,000 members since launching four months ago and $100,000 in sales revenue each day. And now its fulfilling its members’ No. 1 request with mobile apps for iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Read more »
The number of total wireless connected devices is expected to more than double from 9 billion today to more than 24 billion in 2020, according to the GSMA. That growth will be paced by connected devices which are expected to double to 12 billion by 2020. Read more »
Good Technology, which has enabled companies to extend security and management to a fleet of employee devices, is looking to extend its technology to independent software developers, corporate customers and systems integrators, by allowing them to build apps that can ride on Good Technology’s secure platform. Read more »
Mobile app analytics firm Localytics found that 20 percent of all mobile apps have social integration through Facebook or Twitter. While Facebook is the most popular tool for social sharing, the average Twitter user drives three times more traffic. Read more »
Square said today it’s up to $2 billion in annual payments processed and has activated 800,000 merchants for its payment system, up from half a million in May. And it’s made a key change in the way it process payments to appeal to larger merchants. Read more »
Despite the threat of online fraud, consumers are increasingly getting comfortable shopping online. ThreatMetrix and the Ponemon Institute did some consumer surveys and found that one-third of people said they plan on spending more online than they do in-store this year. Read more »
While Android has been a leader in handset sales over rival iOS, it has trailed Apple in enterprise adoption. But a couple of new tools from Motorola and AT&T may help close the gap for Google’s OS and help Android thrive in the era of bring-your-own-devices. Read more »
4G provider Clearwire’s stock fell 32 percent to $1.39 Friday following an announcement by Sprint Friday that it was launching an LTE network without the help of Clearwire, throwing into doubt its role in Sprint’s 4G future. The news raises more concerns about Clearwire’s future. Read more »
Sprint is launching an aggressive campaign to rollout a 4G network based on LTE that will cover more than 250 million people by the end of 2013. The third-place carrier said it will move quickly to reuse its 1900 MHz and 800 MHz spectrum for LTE. Read more »
Voice-technology company Nuance Communications has confirmed that it has scooped up mobile text software provider Swype for $102.5 million, according to an SEC filing, adding Swype to its stable of voice and text input technologies. It’s just the latest pickup for Nuance. Read more »
In the coming year, Wi-Fi is going to become a much more vital part of the plan for mobile carriers transforming them from providers of cellular voice and data to purveyors of connectivity thanks to a new Wi-Fi roaming standard in the works. Read more »
Though Steve Jobs said he didn’t consider Siri a search company, but instead an artificial intelligence company, the rollout of Siri on the iPhone 4S can serve to divert some search traffic away from Google, which could eat into Google’s mobile revenues. Read more »
Apple is not done taking on application makers with iOS 5. It just announced it is launching a new location-sharing feature called Find my Friends, that will allow users to easily share their location with other users. It should spark some competition with existing location-sharing services. Read more »
Yahoo is doubling down on quality video, relaunching its video site as Yahoo Screen, a hub for original programming including eight new shows aimed at women along with a host of licensed content from Hulu, Discovery, Fox News and others. Read more »
Microsoft sees the torrent of email newsletters and daily deal updates as an opportunity to differentiate its Hotmail service by providing a host of new tools to help manage this “gray mail,” part of an ongoing attempt to make Hotmail more competitive against Gmail. Read more »
Yahoo and ABC have struck a partnership that combines ABC News’ content with the reach of Yahoo News for a total potential viewership of 100 million users. The alliance will include the debut of GoodMorningAmerica.com on Yahoo and new online programming, including live interviews. Read more »
Mobile backend provider Kinvey found 73 percent of iOS and Android apps are basically static and don’t connect to a backend. IOS apps fare better with 35 percent of apps connecting to cloud backends while 18 percent of Android apps connect to these services. Read more »
Just like TV, mobile usage is highest during prime time, peaking at 9 p.m., according to Flurry. But just as important is the fact that mobile app use is relatively higher throughout the day than both Internet and TV, only eclipsed by TV in prime time. Read more »
Samsung on Wednesday became the latest and most high-profile Android licensee to agree to pay royalties to Redmond. But the deal may not be so much “extortion” — as Google quickly labeled it — as Samsung’s lack of trust and confidence in Google. Read more »
The Kindle Fire is a straightforward tablet that doesn’t try to outdo the iPad but focuses on media consumption. It’s got simpler ambitions with pricing to match. And that’s why I think it’s going to do really well, by exceeding its set expectations. (With video demo.) Read more »
Amazon is finally jumping into the tablet market with the Kindle Fire, a 7-inch $199 device built off Android with its own custom interface and plenty of hooks into Amazon’s marketplace of goods. It also intelligently leverages Amazon’s cloud infrastructure for better storage and browsing. Read more »
The Mango software update will roll out to existing Windows Phone 7 devices starting today and should get to all devices within a matter of weeks. It sets up Microsoft to finally get into the smartphone game in its second year with WP7. Read more »
Isis, the near field communication (NFC) joint venture with Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile said it has lined up HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, RIM, Samsung Mobile and Sony Ericsson, who will introduce NFC-enabled mobile devices that implement Isis’ NFC and technology standards. Read more »
