Clint Boulton

Motorola’s Atrix 4G smartphone is coming early, according to its proud carrier AT&T. Two weeks after AT&T said it would begin selling the Atrix 4G smartphone March 6 for $199.99 with a two-year contract, the carrier Feb. 17 said it would start in-store sales for the Android 2.2 smartphone on Feb. 22. AT&T told eWEEK […]

Google Feb. 17 said it will begin mixing its Social Search results throughout results pages based on their relevance, an effort to raise the profile of a feature that hasn’t drawn much attention. Google launched Social Search in October 2009, adding blog posts, reviews and other content from searchers’ contacts into search results. The idea […]

Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha confirmed the existence of a Google music service, one of the worst-kept secrets the search engine has harbored as it seeks to extend its power in mobile computing versus Apple. Jha, speaking with reporters at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Feb. 16, said: “If you look at Google Mobile services […]

What is it about Google that attorney generals with no technology background smell blood in the water and decide they want to use the search giant as their political springboard? The short answer would be Google’s growing size. The longer answer is the AG’s political ambitions are commensurate with Google’s desire to feed every facet […]

Facebook Feb. 15 acknowledged that it had worked with INQ Mobile and HTC to help the phone makers deliver so-called Facebook phones, or handsets optimized for the 600 million-plus users of the social network. The company, which last September denied it was building its own Facebook-branded phone, also said consumers can expect to see more […]

Seeking to undercut Apple’s subscription service, Google Feb. 16 unveiled a payment service to let publishers set their own prices and terms for digital content they serve on tablets, smartphones and Websites. Google One Pass allows readers to purchase newspapers and magazines from publishers using a single sign-on with an e-mail account and password. Publishers […]

Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha satisfied three weeks of speculation when he confirmed the Motorola Xoom tablet will cost $799 unsubsidized from Verizon Wireless, with WiFi-only models costing $600 price. Jha also suggested the price, which struck analysts and consumers as high, was influenced by Apple’s market-leading iPad. “Competing with Apple, you have to deliver […]

What-if not the intersection of mobility and search-would anyone expect Google CEO Eric Schmidt to discuss at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week? That is exactly what Schmidt did during his keynote. He described how Android smartphones make possible “autonomous search,” where Google’s search engine suggests search results, such as restaurants and museums, that […]

Software Advice analyst Lauren Carlson rekindled an oldie but a goodie topic in a blog post last week: Will Google Enter the CRM Market? That was one of several questions I posed to Google Enterprise President Dave Girouard in his office at the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., in December 2007. Girouard replied: “I think […]

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo dismissed as rumors reports that Google and Facebook have offered to purchase the microblog service, the latest in an acquisition story with a long tail. The Wall Street Journal rekindled the rumor when it said Google and Facebook held low-level talks with Twitter about buying the company for $8 billion to […]

Few people following tablets were surprised when HTC unveiled the HTC Flyer, a 7-inch tablet to compete with Apple’s iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab lineup, and the Motorola Xoom at Mobile World Congress Feb. 15. It’s HTC’s platform choice to power the device that has triggered head-scratching among some tech watchers. While tablets such as the […]

Google’s Android operating system dominated mobile ad impression share through January, collecting 54 percent of hits compared with 28 percent of hits for Apple’s iOS on Millennial Media’s network. Research In Motion took third with 14 percent of impressions, down from 16 percent through December. Android’s January ad impression numbers are up 10 percent from […]