March, 2010

• 23 March

  InVisage camera phone image sensor: Mobile snaps get usable

  

  InVisage hopes to give camera phones a kick up the image quality with its new sensor technology, dubbed QuantumFilm. The start-up promises its sensor will be four times more efficient at capturing light than traditional silicon-based chips. This means it can increase resolution or dramatically reduce noise in low-light. Could this be the start of …

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• 23 March

  T

  

  LAS VEGAS–T-Mobile USA said it will soon have bragging rights as the nation’s fastest 3G network. But will the claim to fame help the company attract new customers? Executives at the CTIA trade show here on Tuesday outlined the company’s network upgrade plans to a technology called HSPA+ that will effectively triple its network download speeds on its 3G wireless …

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• 23 March

  Hands

  

  Now playing: Watch this: Motorola i1 (Sprint Nextel) 1:34 LAS VEGAS–Earlier on Monday, Motorola and Sprint introduced the Motorola i1, the first push-to-talk Google Android smartphone due to launch on Sprint Nextel’s iDEN network. Later that evening, the companies hosted a small dinner to offer the media some hands-on time with the device. Like a number of other Nextel handsets, …

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• 23 March

  Sprint unveils first 4G phone

  

  LAS VEGAS–To no one’s surprise, Sprint kicked off CTIA 2010 here by announcing its first 4G phone. The HTC Evo 4G is not only the carrier’s first WiMax cell phone–previously the carrier only has offered 4G laptop cards and the Samsung Mondi–but also the first commercially available 4G handset with a major U.S. carrier. The Evo runs Google Android OS …

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• 23 March

  Mobile phone buyback offered at carrier stores

  

  With literally hundreds of millions of mobile phones piling up in U.S. homes, how to profitably recycle these devices is a pressing question. Start-up eRecyclingCorps on Tuesday is scheduled to announce that its customer Sprint is offering a phone buyback program in which consumers can get money for older phones when they upgrade to a newer model. eRecycling Corp has …

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• 23 March

  Samsung SCH

  

  Every year at CTIA, the show’s organizers hold an Emerging Tech Awards contest to pick the best products at the show. Samsung entered its previously announced Strive and Sunburst phones in the contest, but then it threw the SCH-U820 into the ring. When we arrived in Las Vegas, the SCH-U820 was nowhere to be found, and Samsung representatives declined to …

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• 23 March

  Skype Mobile coming to Verizon’s BlackBerry, Android phones

  

  Skype Mobile will arrive on select Android and BlackBerry phones this Thursday. Skype Back in February, we read between the lines of a joint Skype and Verizon announcement to deduce that a much-coveted Skype app for BlackBerry was in the works. On Tuesday at CTIA 2010, the two companies took the podium again with a hard release date to share. …

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• 23 March

  Wi

  

  LAS VEGAS – In the next few years it will be difficult to buy a new smartphone that does not have built-in Wi-Fi for speedy Net access, according to a report that ABI Research and the Wi-Fi Alliance published Tuesday. Today, about half the smartphones sold have Wi-Fi. By 2014, the forecast goes, about 90 percent of smartphones will offer …

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• 23 March

  AT&T execs want more spectrum, lighter regulation

  

  LAS VEGAS–AT&T executives are pushing the government to allocate more spectrum for wireless broadband and back off on regulation in order to keep the mobile broadband growth engine revving. Ralph de la Vega, head of AT&T Mobility and the new chairman of CTIA, and Randall Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T, each spoke at the CTIA 2010 wireless trade show here …

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• 23 March

  Poll: do energy ratings sway your purchasing habits?

  

  With this year’s Earth Hour bearing down on us like a stampede of light bulbs heading for the off switch, we’d like to take your pulse on Energy Rating labels: do they affect your purchasing decisions and for which products do they matter to you? Currently, the Federal Government’s Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts measures the energy …

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