San Francisco - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has moved to set up a system that would send text alerts to people on their mobile phones in case of natural disasters and other emergencies. With an order released Wednesday, the FCC adopted technical requirements for transmission of the alerts, which would require the cooperation of mobile operators.
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CHICAGO - Former AT&T chief executive David Dorman will become Motorola Inc.'s chairman next month as the struggling cell phone maker tries to fix its slumping fortunes and split itself into two companies. Wednesday's announcement comes two days after Motorola ended a proxy fight with activist investor Carl Icahn, agreeing to seat two of his nominees on its board of directors.
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Verizon Business has begun offering PBX software that transfers the capabilities of an office phone to a smartphone. The company said last week that it's using Ascendent Systems' Voice Mobility Suite as the basis for its PBX Mobile Extension to support secure access for BlackBerry users back to the corporate PBX or VoIP server.
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Nokia is working on what some observers are calling an iPhone killer. Code-named "Tube," Nokia discussed the device at the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference this week. The new touchscreen handset could debut by the end of the year. According to Avi Greengart, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis, Nokia has been hinting at this device for months. He watched a video about a Nokia touchscreen phone at a December conference.
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BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission introduced new rules on Monday to allow mobile phones to be used on planes via an onboard network. Under the new system, air travellers will be able to receive and make calls and messages safely with their own mobile phones while flying all over Europe, according to the EU's executive arm.
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TOKYO (Reuters) - After a decade as the dominant provider, NTT DoCoMo Inc (9437.T) can no longer say it provides most Japanese with their mobile phones, March figures show, with smaller rivals grabbing share in a fierce fight ahead of the start of the academic and business year.
DoCoMo, the mobile wing of former telephone monopoly Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (9432.T), held a 49.7 percent share of Japan's total mobile phone and personal handyphone market at the end of March, down from 50.2 percent in February, the Telecommunications Carriers Association said on Monday.
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Panasonic has become the first cell-phone manufacturer to ship 100 million units in the Japanese market, it said Thursday. The company first entered the market in 1979 when it launched its TZ-801 analog handset for the new car phone service of NTT Public Corp., the government-owned forerunner to the privatized NTT.
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Apple is opening its iPhone software to outside developers in an effort to make the hot devices even more popular and wrest market share from "smart phone" market king BlackBerry. Apple executives unveiled an iPhone software development kit created to let programmers craft programs for the touch-screen mobile devices combining telephone, video, music, and Internet connectivity.
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Apple Inc. wants the iPhone to become a business e-mail gadget and a portable video game machine that might also help users manage their health records. Cupertino-based Apple unveiled new software Thursday that reflects its intensifying effort to court business customers and placate third-party developers who want to build iPhone applications but have been locked out. A beta version of the software went out Thursday; the full version will be available in June.
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The friendly skies are about to get a little bit friendlier for BlackBerry addicts and messaging fanatics. Discount airline JetBlue announced that it will test free limited Internet service on a single round-trip flight from New York to San Francisco next week. For the time being, JetBlue is planning to offer Internet access only on a single Airbus A320, and only to those using Yahoo e-mail, Yahoo instant messaging, or BlackBerry models 8820 and 8320.
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