Lenovo’s purchase of the mobile phone arm it sold off last year signals its intention to penetrate the global market, but the move could dilute its core computer business, according to a Shanghai-based analyst. The Chinese computer maker last week announced it bought back Lenovo Mobile Communication Technology in a deal worth $200 million in …

Would you like an iPhone for free on a £24 contract? Sure you would, but you can’t have one. You can, however, bodge together an iPod touch and a MiFi wireless modem, add a dash of wishful thinking, and just pretend. Mobile network 3 is offering a MiFi and an 8GB iPod touch, including 5GB of data per month, for …

Fans of Midomi, the song-identifying app for iPhone, will still recognize the app when the iPhone prompts an update to version 3.0, even if they don’t recognize the new name: SoundHound. The app’s core remains the same with its outsize orange button you tap to sing, hum, or record a song you want to ID, buttressed by another button for …

Nokia N97 Corinne Schulze/CNET The smartphone space has grown extremely competitive over the past couple of years, and though in a numbers race Nokia continues to sell more smartphones than its competitors, particularly overseas, the Finnish handset manufacturer is slowly losing its grip on the top spot. Realizing the changing landscape, Nokia announced on Thursday that it will reduce its …

As the number of apps and games continues to grow for Android, it’s getting harder to keep on top of everything. Rather than trying out every title that enters the Android Market, I like to look for specific genres of apps. For instance, I really enjoy casual games on my T-Mobile G1. I always find at least a few minutes …

It’s official. Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, announced Thursday that it is buying a controlling stake in the TV network and movie studio NBC Universal. The total value of the blockbuster media industry deal, which had been rumored since September, is estimated at around $37 billion. The new joint venture will merge Comcast’s cable channels, which are worth about …

Sanyo Pro-700 Sanyo It was back in April 2008 that we saw Sprint Nextel come out with a bevy of new QChat phones like the Sanyo Pro-700 and the LG LX400, which were designed to offer push-to-talk interoperability between CDMA and iDEN networks. Now, however, it seems that Sprint is doing away with its QChat offerings altogether, in favor of …

Christmas is traditionally a time of babies in mangers, warm family embraces, and pagan tree worship. But, for those of us who are more into Babycham than the baby Jesus, Christmas can be a liver-destroying drink-a-thon. You Booze, You Lose, a new iPhone app from Channel 4, hopes to help you rein in the Christmas spirit by giving you a …

MySpace Music launched in the UK today, and we just don’t get it. Not only is it ludicrously late to the party (even Sky — a TV company — beat it to market), it’s just horrible to use. The idea is that you can stream as much free music as you want (think Spotify, Sky Songs, et al), from major …

For those who don’t know, I’ll start this tale by briefly recounting the origins of Napster. It started ten years ago as a brilliant, but illegal, introduction to downloading music on the Internet. It was really only surpassed by AudioGalaxy in its ingenuity, but the record industry got scared and had it shut down. Of course, such a recognisable name …

The Federal Communications Commission opened a formal proceeding Wednesday to get feedback on whether it should reclaim some spectrum licenses held by TV broadcasters and auction them off to wireless broadband providers. The public comment notice issued by the FCC is the first step in a process that could pit TV broadcasters against the FCC and the wireless industry. FCC …

What do you get for the iPhone user who has, well, an iPhone? After all, the device itself is the gift that keeps on giving. Am I right? Anyway, I’ve rounded up five iPhone-friendly items for the holidays. Whether you’re shopping for a Secret Santa gift for a co-worker, a stocking stuffer for your hubby (or missus), or something to …

The App Store offers a handful of solutions for transporting data from iPhone to printer, but few work as easily as Print Magic. The $6.99 app makes it a cinch to print text, Web pages, and photos, all without wires: it connects via Wi-Fi to any printer on your network (or any shared printer on your Mac). Well, almost any …

Joel Comm, creator of the famous iFart application, is using a new platform to state his case for a new App Store review process. Comm is the first developer that we know of to create a video appeal aimed directly at Steve Jobs. (See video below.) The new application, a “cha-ching” button that makes a cash register sound when pushed, …

Finally, some good news from Nokia. On Wednesday, the world’s largest maker of cell phones said it expects sales volumes of mobile handsets to increase 10 percent in 2010 from 2009, as the market rebounds from a worldwide recession. “Going into 2010, the overall mobile-devices market is stabilizing, and it is growing more in the areas where Nokia has competitive …