As if Apple’s ridiculous tablet design patent didn’t hold enough ominous tidings for the mobile tech industry, the US Patent and Trademark Office just awarded the company another ludicrous claim: that's right, “slide to unlock” is officially an Apple patent. That means all the non-Apple phones and tablets that use the omnipresent unlocking maneuver are possibly infringing on Apple’s intellectual property – which could lead to complex legal battles that tie up competitors’ products, as Apple has done with the Galaxy Tab in Australia.
Nokia's officially back in the smartphone game. The Finnish phone maker announced the launch of its Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 devices at Nokia World, the first Nokia smartphones powered by Windows Phone, and according to company CEO Stephon Elop, "Lumia is the first Windows Phones" period. Those are big words coming from Nokia, do these phones have the moxie to back them up?
Are you a mover and a shaker? What’s that, you’re not sure? If you were on Klout, there wouldn’t be any doubt in your mind. The service keeps track of your activity across the social networks and assigns you a numerical score that lets you know, basically, whether you’re hot or you’re not. If you’ve got Klout, you might get a Mango-packing Windows Phone, too; Microsoft’s giving away 500 of the devices – along with passes to VIP launch parties – through the Klout Perks rewards program.
Go ahead and call your mother, she'd love to hear from you. No home phone, you say? No worries, chatting on your mobile phone is probably safe. It's not going to cause tentacles to grow out of your head, if that's what you're worried about, and according to a Danish study of more than 350,000 people, cellphone users aren't at a higher risk of getting cancer.
Overall it was another strong quarter for Verizon Communications, which added 882,000 retail postpaid wireless customers, plus another 367,000 wholesale and other connections for a total of 1.3 million connections in its third fiscal quarter for 2011. Smartphones accounted for 39 percent of Verizon's retail postpaid customer phone base, up from 36 percent in the second quarter, Verizon said.
AT&T added 2.1 million wireless subscribers during the company's third fiscal quarter for 2011, enough to get over the hump of 100 million subscribers, the wireless carrier announced today. The company also said that sales of Android and other non-iPhone smartphones were nearly half of 4.8 million smartphone sales for the quarter, which has to be news to Google's ears.
One of the big new features in Apple's iPhone 4S is Siri, a "virtual personal assistant" that somewhat understands normal everyday language and will assist with setting reminders, firing off text messages, and other tasks. Android also supports voice recognition, just not to the extent of what Siri's capable of. Don't hold your breath waiting for an Android equivalent.
Nokia posted its financial results for the company's third fiscal quarter of 2011, pulling in revenue of 8.98 billion euros, or about $12.4 billion. That's down 13 percent year-over-year and is 3 percent lower than the previous quarter. Even still, the numbers came out of ahead of what analysts were expecting as Nokia clings to relevancy in its run up to Windows Phone 7.
We get it folks, you don't come here to read Apple content, though the occasional newsworthy blip warrants a bit of coverage every now and then. That includes the iPhone 4S, Apple's latest and greatest smartphone that set a 3-day sales record of more than 4 million devices during its launch weekend. You already know that. But do you know if it will blend? And is the new hardware capable of standing up to 50 caliber armor piercing incendiary rounds? The answers are easy, and the videos demonstrating each one are awesome.
Fast LTE networks are expanding at a breakneck pace, it's just too bad compatible devices aren't coming out at a steadier clip, not yet anyway. The good news is the transition has already begun and it's expected there will be more than 154 million LTE handset shipments by 2015, according to market research firm In-Stat. Are wireless carriers ready?
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