Michelle Maisto

Steven Sinofsky left Microsoft in November 2012, after 23 years with the company and just weeks after ushering the company through the development of its first hardware computing product and delivering to market Windows 8, an operating system overhaul meant to refresh the company and its image. (For some users, the overhaul was too dramatic, […]

The BlackBerry Q10 is coming. Soon. T-Mobile, which has been accepting preorders since May 14, will have the Q10 smartphone in stores June 5, for $99.99 down and 24 monthly payments of $20 to customers who qualify. Verizon Wireless began taking pre-orders for the Q10 May 30, promising shipment by June 6. It’s selling the […]

Samsung has made a fortune, and claimed the industry’s leading market share, feeding the consumer appetite for smartphones with large displays. However, recognizing that some folks want a phone that can fit in a pocket, it has introduced the Galaxy S 4 Mini—a more petite and less powerful version of its newest flagship phone. “We […]

Motorola plans to introduce a new product line during the next few months into October, and has big hopes for a new hero phone, the Moto X, Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside said during a May 29 interview at the D: All Things D event. Since being purchased by Google in 2012, Motorola has yet to […]

Dish Network has increased its offer to acquire Clearwire to $4.40 per share. The move suggests a potential shift of focus, from Dish’s bid to merge with Sprint—which is also trying to acquire the approximately 50 percent of Clearwire that it doesn’t already own—back to its earlier plan to acquire the spectrum-rich Clearwire, a plan […]

Amazon has introduced a Login with Amazon service, joining a growing effort to reduce the number of online log-ins and passwords that we hold in our heads (and attach to our monitors with sticky notes). It’s also a nice little branding shout-out to Amazon’s 200 million-plus active users. Login with Amazon is available to Websites […]

Apple CEO Tim Cook, sitting for an interview May 28 at the 11th D: All Things Digital event, gave interviewers Kara Swisher and Walter Mossberg surely exactly what they expected: a lot of smiles, a lot of demurrals and very little new information. What Cook did say for certain is that Apple will roll out […]

The planned merger between Sprint and Softbank is now in the hands of the Federal Communications Commission. The carriers announced in a May 29 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has approved their deal. The approval comes with the parties entering into a […]

Smartphones, not wireless carriers, are often to blame for dropped calls and “mobile black holes,” according to a new report from Danish research firm Strand Consult. The firm is calling for greater consumer and media education on how smartphones interact with mobile networks and an end to the “gag orders” it says smartphone makers force […]

Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision, also known as Foxconn, is expected to announce a new partnership with Mozilla June 3, and introduce a joint-effort tablet running the Firefox mobile operating system. Reuters reported the news May 28, pointing to a report from Focus Taiwan, which cited an “industry insider.” Earlier rumors had pointed to a smartphone. […]

Nokia, in a gesture for mobile users in developing markets, has added a free Mail for Exchange app to its Nokia Store. The app, which uses Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol, will enable users to sync work emails, contacts and calendar information between certain Nokia Asha smartphones and office servers. The app can be paired with […]

Nokia has talked about getting the next billion people online, but it’s Google that’s planning to build the networks. Google is “deep into a multi-pronged effort” to build and run wireless networks in emerging markets such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, according to a May 24 report from The Wall Street Journal. Google plans […]