Social networking has become the killer application for mobile broadband and possibly the adoption of smartphones. A survey out today from Allot Communications has measured a 310 percent increase in Twitter traffic from the first half of 2010 and a 200 percent increase in Facebook traffic. Read more »
MetroPCS launched the nation’s first LTE network today in Las Vegas, as well as the first handset to run on it: the Samsung Craft. The network will be fast, and the plans to get on that network will be cheap, but the Craft isn’t a smartphone. Read more »
Hewlett-Packard has resolved its lawsuit against its former CEO Mark Hurd, which arose after Hurd joined HP’s sometimes collaborator and sometimes rival Oracle. According to a joint statement today from both companies, HP and Hurd have settled. Read more »
ChaCha said it will stop delivering text messages to T-Mobile USA customers if the carrier moves ahead with a plan to charge businesses for texts. ChaCha probably won’t be the last company to take such a drastic step in response to the proposed toll. Read more »
AT&T today said it plans to launch its fourth-generation LTE network by mid-2011 and will cover 75 million people by the end of next year. The carrier will spend $700 million this year rolling out the faster networks, with trials set for Dallas and Baltimore. Read more »
ARM’s new Eagle processor core is pretty darn exciting. Who wouldn’t want five times the performance at the same power consumption as today’s chips? But the core also supports virtualization on a chip, which could soon change the way you handle your phone. Read more »
The tech industry has pretty much determined that mobile is the future of the Internet: on your cell phone, on your tablet and in your car. Despite this, there’s still a huge reluctance to allow the infrastructure to helps deliver mobile connectivity: the towers. Read more »
The nature of collaboration is changing thanks to social media, a rising number of teleworkers and –most importantly– broadband. Instead of one-on-one collaboration over distances and in offices folks can now collaborate with multiple people easily. I ran across two examples of this shift this week. Read more »
In the debate over apps versus the web on smartphones, apps are winning, says Gowalla CEO Josh Williams. There’s hope from companies like Opera and Google that the web will surge ahead as HTML 5 becomes more widespread, but Williams has his doubts. Read more »
On Monday Google and Verizon announced a controversial framework for compromise on the contentious issue of network neutrality–the idea that ISPs shouldn’t discriminate against web traffic. But for those who really want to dig into the issue, read what the web is saying. Read more »
Cable and telephone companies added a scant 336,000 net broadband subscriptions during the second quarter, according to the Leichtman Research Group: the lowest amount in the nine years that the analyst firm has tracked such additions. Telcos were the big losers as cable tromped DSL. Read more »
The stage is set for a grand freak-out whereby the security companies inform people that their smartphones are just like computers and thus vulnerable to attack — before pitching a product folks can buy in order to stave off said attacks. It worked for PCs. Read more »
Women are underrepresented in venture-backed startups, according to data released today by a firm called CB Insights, which notes that only 8 percent of venture-backed startups have female founders. That and some data released by Illuminate Ventures has me wondering if there’s a female-focused funding model. Read more »
Today’s compromise between Verizon and Google on network neutrality is a big story, not because it’s going to change the policy discussion much, but because it marks Google selling out the tech and startup community so it can advance it’s own economic interests. Read more »
As expected, Google and Verizon have agreed to make network neutrality enforceable on wireline networks, without extending the same to wireless. However, the agreement does ask for transparency in network management on wireline and wireless networks, and leaves a place for operators to offer managed services. Read more »
Skype today filed to raise up to $100 million through an initial public offering. Last week saw Demand Media file for an IPO and NXP, a semiconductor company, actually go public on Thursday. Is the technology IPO back, or is this a false start? Read more »
LightSquared, a company with plans to build a nationwide Long Term Evolution wireless network has found its first customer in Airspan Networks, a provider of connectivity to utilities for their smart grid efforts. Airspan said it will resell some of LightSquared’s 1.4 GHz spectrum. Read more »
Clearwire now provides its 4G WiMAX service to five new cities, which brings its total mobile broadband coverage to 51 million people. However, it’s August and the carrier is only 43 percent of the way to its goal of covering 120 million people before year end. Read more »
Everyone talks about texting while driving, but what about something I think may be even more distracting — snapping while driving –as in taking photographs? In the last few weeks, I’ve seen several cases of drivers whipping camera phones out and taking pictures while in traffic. Read more »
Apple’s fourth generation iPhone appears to have lost its halo, and complaints are piling up. Today an analyst says that the delay for the white version of the phone isn’t a result of the antenna problems, but because of the display. Read more »
