Michelle Maisto

BlackBerry has begun rolling out updates to its BBM apps for Android and iPhone. The updates will include new features, as well as fixes to discovered issues. One early complaint was that the app was causing phones to become overly warm and draining their batteries. In October, following delays, the struggling phone maker made its […]

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) adoption rates are being driven upward by savvy workers, and “especially Millennials,” who are all about “cutting the corporate cord,” Ring Central said in a Nov. 14 report, announcing the findings of a commissioned Dimensional Research survey of 300 IT professionals. A great majority of corporate employees (86 percent) use their personal smartphones […]

John Chen, the new CEO and executive chair of BlackBerry, is now in charge and ready to move ahead, he said in an open letter on the BlackBerry blog Nov. 13. “I know there has been a lot said about BlackBerry, but let me remind you that at BlackBerry, we are not dwelling on the […]

Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s 23-year-old CEO, has turned down a $3 billion offer for his company. Snapchat is a mobile app that that lets users, mostly teenagers—mostly girls—add captions to photos or videos and share them with friends, and then make the content disappear. Photos can only be sent in the moment—no uploading later. Young girls […]

The Isis Mobile Wallet app is now available for nationwide use, almost three years to the day since Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile first announced their support for the NFC-based (near-field-communication-based) mobile-payment solution. The app can be downloaded from the Google Play store. Isis CEO Michael Abbott called the launch of the app a “milestone […]

The BlackBerry Z30, the company’s first 5-inch BlackBerry 10 smartphone, will be available exclusively from Verizon Wireless starting Nov. 14. The news comes amid reports that the Pentagon, which has purchased nearly half a million BlackBerry handsets, is moving ahead with its plan to also support iOS and Android devices. Defense Department officials say their […]

Ericsson Forecasts Surge in Mobile Traffic, Data Over Next Six Years by Michelle Maisto Ericsson Mobility Report: Mobile Subscribers Q3 Mobile subscriptions grew by 113 million during the third quarter, bringing the global total to 6.6 billion. The actual number of subscribers, though (people have more than one subscription), is around 4.5 billion. Fastest-Growing Regions […]

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo says the carrier’s Long Term Evolution (LTE) network is starting to feel the crush of users’ growing data habits. Shammo spoke to investors at the Wells Fargo 2013 Tech, Media and Telecom Conference in New York Nov. 12. Cnet was first to report the rare acknowledgment that the nation’s largest LTE […]

Motorola, at a New York City event Nov. 13, introduced the Moto G, a lower-cost alternative to the Moto X. The Moto G will be priced, before subsidies, at $179. The Moto X, by contrast, is priced at $499.99, though with a two-year contract from Sprint, Verizon Wireless and AT&T are now selling it for […]

Microsoft has said it has a vision that 3D printed objects should be as easy to print as 2D. It’s a vision shared by many makers of 3D printers and involves a future in which the presence of 3D printers in households and small businesses is as unordinary as 2D printers or laptops are today. […]

Apple, Samsung and U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh are headed back to court today, where a jury will be tasked with determining the amount of damages Samsung will pay to Apple for infringing on its patents. Last August, a federal jury in San Jose, Calif., awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages, after a three-week trial […]

Motorola has been promising additional options for customizing the Moto X, its first collaborative effort with parent company Google, and Nov. 11 they arrived. There’s now the ability to, free of charge, print a name or a phrase on the back of the phone, using “fiber laser technology.” (We recommend not going with the “Hashtag […]