Michelle Maisto

The Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus smartphones are now officially available on Verizon Wireless’ 3G network.On Verizon’s network, both smartphones can download apps from the Palm App Catalog, browse the Web, stream radio, play video, send e-mails with photo or video attachments, and get down to business with rapid file-sharing features.With Verizon’s 3G […]

While inexpensive netbooks helped keep the PC industry afloat through the recession, feature-rich smartphones, by contrast, are “leading the handset industry out of the recession,” wrote Strategy Analytics analyst Tom Kang, in a Feb. 1 report.Global smartphone shipments reached a record 53 million units in the fourth quarter of 2009-representing a growth of 30 percent […]

The Apple iPad is one more device soon to be gobbling data on the AT&T network.During AT&T’s announcement of its fiscal fourth-quarter results on Jan. 28, however, executives noted that progress has been made in New York and San Francisco-two areas where AT&T has previously acknowledged having service issues.“We’re closing the gap against our immediate […]

Motorola may be the next HTC, aligning itself with Google to offer the equivalent of the Nexus One. For Motorola, the move is a good one since the company is repositioning its business back toward profitability by focusing on Google’s Android operating system.Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha, during the company’s fourth-quarter 2009 earnings call, said that […]

Global handset shipments reached 324 million units in the fourth quarter of 2009, showing a 10 percent increase over shipments from a year ago and the first quarter of positive growth since the third quarter of 2008, according to a Jan. 29 report from Strategy Analytics.The positive growth, the firm wrote, signals an end to […]

The iPad wasn’t the only Apple news to emerge on Jan. 27.iCall, a privately held VOIP (voice over IP) calling company, announced on the same day that Apple had updated its SDK (software development kit) to allow VOIP calls over cellular networks, and that iCall’s eponymous application was the first and only to place VOIP […]

AT&T’s fiscal fourth quarter for 2009 was a strong one, with the carrier adding new wireless subscribers thanks to the strength of the iPhone and posting $3 billion in quarterly income. AT&T added 2.7 million wireless subscribers during the quarter – the second-highest in the company’s history – and for the full year, saw the […]

Apple’s Jan. 27 introduction of the iPad – a 1.5-pound tablet with a 9.7-inch display that was the impetus of months of conjecture, rumors and excitement – wasn’t paired, after all, with a major AT&T announcement, which had also been expected by the rumor mills. AT&T’s status as the exclusive U.S. provider of the iPhone […]

AT&T has filed a class action settlement in a New Jersey U.S. District Court regarding customer complaints about the company’s flat-rate early termination fees. Although the document is dated Sept. 15, 2009, those involved in the lawsuit were notified Jan. 26. The carrier has offered $16 million in cash plus $2 million in “non-cash benefits” […]

USAA introduced Mobile App for Android, enabling its 1.2 million members to deposit checks using smartphones that run the Google Android operating system. USAA first introduced its Deposit@Mobile feature for the iPhone in May 2009, and since then – using the USAA software and the iPhone’s camera to snap a photo of the check to […]

California-based MSI Computer introduced the Wind U135 on Jan. 26, a 2.4-pound netbook that features the Intel Pine Trail platform, which includes the Atom N450 processor that runs at 1.66GHz. The CPU, single chipset architecture and an efficient LED display reportedly increase battery life by 15 percent over earlier models, delivering a battery life of […]

Graphics chip shipments for the fourth quarter of 2009 surpassed expectation, according to a Jan. 26 analysis report from Jon Peddie Research. Intel again led the graphics market for the quarter, with a year-to-year growth rate of 17.9 percent. This helped raise the chip giant’s market share standing from last quarter’s 53.6 percent to 55.2 […]