Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell C. McAdam has been named president and chief operating officer of Verizon Communications, reporting to Chairman and CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg, effective Oct. 1, 2010.
Smartphone News
The worldwide mobile operating system market will be dominated by Symbian and Android, as the two OSs will account for 59.8 percent of mobile OS sales by 2014, according to Gartner.
Privus Mobile, the Caller ID solution for BlackBerry smartphones, has released new features for its smartphone Caller ID application delivering real-time caller and text identification. Through this feature Privus Mobile announces the name of the incoming call or text for true hands-free operations regardless of whether the person is in the user’s contact list or not.
Nokia finally announced that Nokia N8, the company’s long-awaited, flagship handset, will be on-sale in the last week of September for £429 SIM free or on contract from £35 per month.
Help may be on the way for iPhone 4 users frustrated by dropped calls with the arrival of Radio Frequency Microelectromechanical Systems (RF MEMS), semiconductors that can improve the performance of antennas in cell phones, according to the market research firm iSuppli.
Intel, Nokia and the University of Oulu officially opened the Intel and Nokia Joint Innovation Center. According to the companies, initially the lab will conduct research for “new and compelling mobile user experiences that could leverage the rapidly increasing capabilities of mobile devices.”
Smartphone manufacturers need to accommodate seven core smartphone applications, the “Big Seven”, in their next generation handset designs, according to In-Stat. These big seven applications include email, games, social networking, instant messaging, mapping & directions, music & radio, and weather.
Mobile data usage continues to grow exponentially as 3G technology spreads globally. According to ABI Research, from 2009 to 2015 data usage in Western Europe and North America is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 42% and 55% respectively. In 2010, the average North American user is expected to consume 159 megabytes of data – up from 100 megabytes in 2009.
The phenomenal success of the iPad and iPhone is expected to make Apple the world’s second-largest semiconductor buyer in 2011, potentially positioning the company to become the world’s top chip purchaser in 2012, according to iSuppli.
Today, Research In Motion launched the BlackBerry Torch 9800 – RIM’s first slider smartphone. It features a capacitive touch screen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and the new BlackBerry 6 operating system, which includes a WebKit browser.