DigitalBeat

Asurion AddressBook unlocks Android’s social media potential

A new application called Asurion AddressBook launches on the Android Market tomorrow, opening up new ways to use social media on the phone — and instantly making the iPhone look even more outdated for not running applications in the background and its lower app integration. Asurion AddressBook can be downloaded here.

At its core, the application is an address book that integrates various app feeds, just like the Palm Pre, Motoblur, or what Friendfeed does on… Continue Reading

Android phones give carrier services more muscle

Google’s Android phones have emerged as major competitors to the red-hot iPhone. And now Android seems to have yet one more thing working in its favor: Carriers have figured out that it offers them some very valuable options to help them differentiate their services from their competitors.

Fundamentally, Android is just an operating system that can be customized due to its open source nature (not so the iPhone). The business alliance behind Android, the Open Handset… Continue Reading

Google launches AdSense for mobile phones — reveals “high-end” strategy

Google has just released AdSense for high-end mobile phones.

It’s a way for advertisers to places ads beside content that is browsed on smartphones, a move that further highlights the search engine giant’s strategy for mobile: It wants to target high-end mobile users.

It’s also significant in that it makes development of applications and content for smartphones so much more appealing.

The offering is basically a mobile version of Google’s AdSense product for desktop computeres (see video below… Continue Reading

Q&A: Flurry, T-Mobile push boundaries on carrier-developer collaboration

Flurry, a company that provides analytics for mobile applications, and T-Mobile have teamed up to release a free analytics platform for the T-Mobile development community focusing on Android, BlackBerry and J2ME. With even more app usage data, T-Mobile will be able to improve its retail strategy and help its customers discover new apps.

On the other side of the coin, developers will be able to use the data to improve the applications they create. T-Mobile is also… Continue Reading

Silicon Valley software developers to get WiMAX network soon

WiMAX, the next-generation technology that will replace aging Wi-Fi networks with smarter, faster Internet access, is slated to launch in the Bay Area in 2010. But a small cadre of software developers will be able to access the network much sooner.

A twenty square mile network, dubbed the WiMAX Innovation Network, “will be announced in the coming weeks”, we learned from Clearwire today. Setting up a network in the Bay Area has proven harder than expected…. Continue Reading

Get ready for Android apps on your refrigerator

Google has been saying for a while now that its Android operating system — currently limited to mobile phones, including T-Mobile’s myTouch launching today — isn’t just for mobile phones. The bigger vision is to see Android on netbooks and even other devices around the home. Now we’re starting to see that vision become a reality, and it’s becoming clear that this will provide huge new opportunities for developers, too.

The New York Times reported in… Continue Reading

Palm’s Pre fails to help Sprint, and RIM snickers

[Disclosure: This post is one of a series of articles sponsored by Verizon. The company has given us editorial freedom to write what we'd like. In return for us covering the company's developer conference, Verizon will be running ads on our site in ensuing weeks.]

Sprint Nextel’s much-vaunted launch of the Palm Pre smartphone hasn’t turned around losses in the company’s subscriber base yet, according to second-quarter earnings results. The company said today that it lost… Continue Reading

Q&A: Verizon says it will be the first to offer ‘true’ mobile video

[Disclosure: This post is one of a series of articles sponsored by Verizon. The company has given us editorial freedom to write what we'd like. In return for us covering the company's developer conference, Verizon will be running ads on our site in ensuing weeks.]

Verizon just launched an app store called Vcast Apps, opening the door for developers to reach 1 billion consumers by working with the company’s software development kits and application programming interfaces…. Continue Reading

Verizon promises developers access to a “billion” customers

[Disclosure: This post is one of a series of articles sponsored by Verizon. The company has given us editorial freedom to write what we'd like. In return for us covering the company's developer conference, Verizon will be running ads on our site in ensuing weeks.]

Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest wireless carrier, will today announce more details of its plan to woo application developers and challenge the dominance of Apple’s iPhone App store.

The details will come… Continue Reading

MobileBeat 2009: Feedback about content, news and dealmaking

Last week, about 500 people attended MobileBeat, our sold-out mobile conference in San Francisco.

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Most people said they enjoyed the content debates and the jazz-filled reception afterward. In one case, a startup entrepreneur said he got three meetings with venture capitalists and four appointments with large companies interested in corporate development deals. In another case, two UK-based companies, Shozu and Touchnote told us they signed a deal on the spot after… Continue Reading

MobileBeat: Listen to panels on mobile gatekeepers and startup competition part 2

Stitcher has delivered more audio recordings of Thursday’s MobileBeat conference. The first link is for the panel entitled What Will the Gatekeepers Do Now? The AppStore and Beyond (pictured above), moderated by Matthaus Krzykowski. And the other is the MobileBeat 2009 Startup Competition — Apps event. (pictured below)

14 finalists picked for MobileBeat2009 Top Startup Competition

VentureBeat’s team of experts has selected 14 finalists for our MobileBeat2009 Top Startup Competition.

We’re revealing the full list at our conference on July 16, but here are some teasers about the seven finalists for the top “mobile services” category and seven finalists for the top “mobile applications” category.

Criteria included needing to be less than three years old. Of the more than 100 qualified applications, 53 were from new companies or products (companies that are either operating… Continue Reading

Adobe’s Flash 10 for Android: A big win for mobile web apps

On Adobe’s earnings call last week, chief executive Shantanu Naraye said his company will introduce version 10 of its Flash multimedia player for Android this October at Adobe MAX 2009. This comes on the heals of handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson’s announcement that it will release its first Android 2.0 handsets with “more multimedia capabilities” the same month.

The significance is that Android developers will build better-performing apps, that can live outside of any official “app store.”

So… Continue Reading

MobileBeat2009 speakers: Nokia board member Tero Ojanpera, Palm’s Michael Abbott

We’re delighted to announce two of the speakers at our MobileBeat2009 conference, to be held in San Francisco on July 16.

The conference comes at a time of considerable tension in the mobile industry: Apple is getting ready to release the next version of its iPhone this month, containing a bunch of new features, even as other players such as Nokia, Palm, Google/Android and Microsoft are unleashing — or are about to unleash — credible alternatives.

Kicking… Continue Reading

Vodafone blitzes Europe with second Android phone, HTC Magic

Phone carrier Vodafone will launch the new Google Android smartphone called the HTC Magic in Germany next week.

It can record video, sports a nifty mobile address book, has touchscreen technology and has a qwerty touch keyboard (which you can have a look at here). The price will start from 1 euro (roughly $1.30), depending on the contract you buy. It offers WLAN, HSDPA und GPS, and comes in white and black. And it features a… Continue Reading

How much will Skype pay EU carriers for the success of its iPhone app?

Skype’s iPhone application, which lets users make cheap or free calls over their phone data plans, is a raging success. Barely a week after its release at the end of March, 2 million users had downloaded the application, representing almost 10 percent of iPhone users.

But phone carriers, fearing the service will eat into their already declining voice revenues, have either restricted its use over Wi-Fi networks (AT&T has), or banned it (T-Mobile in Germany). These… Continue Reading

Details of HTC Android phones emerge through new style of marketing

Two days ago T-Mobile sent an email to Engadget to invite them to an press event on April 21st. Billed as a “private launch event,” it has tech blogs wondering what the news will be: Will the company be announcing a new Android device? Or maybe an update to the code developers use to build Android applications?

I touched base with some of my sources, and here’s what I was able to find out: On March… Continue Reading