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Facebook Stretches Out on Android's Couch April 04, 2013 Facebook on Thursday announced a family of Android-based smartphone apps called Facebook Home, which can be downloaded from Google Play. "We're going to talk about how you can transform your Android phone into a great social phone," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at a company event. He added that the company doesn't want to build "a phone or operating system that only some people are going to use."

Samsung to Hang Its Shingle Inside Best Buys April 04, 2013 The latest consumer electronics manufacturer to follow the store-within-a-store trend is Samsung, which announced Thursday that Best Buy will dedicate space within its U.S. showrooms and specialty stores for the Samsung Experience Shop, an area dedicated to the company's products and demonstrations. Best Buy will rollout the Samsung Experience Shop in more than 1,400 Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile stores.

It's Time for Aereo to Soar April 04, 2013 Aereo streams television over the Internet for a fee -- so far only in the New York City region. Its expected rapid rollout has not happened over the past year. Why? One reason is that Aereo was being sued by various broadcasters. However, the decision handed down this week from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals looks good for Aereo.

Samsung, Mozilla to Build Browser Worthy of Android April 04, 2013 Mozilla announced Wednesday that it's teaming up with Samsung to create Servo, which the companies claim will be an advanced, secure mobile Web browser that will draw its power from multicore processors. Servo will be written in the Rust programming language that Mozilla has been working on for the last two years.

Twitter Hands Devs Some New Playing Cards April 03, 2013 Twitter announced updates to its Cards feature for developers Tuesday. The enhancements enable greater integration of media and apps, and target mobile users of the social network, but the overall goal is to allow developers to stuff more content in and around a typical tweet while maintaining the 140-character tweet limit for texts.

At 40, Cellphones Are Sexier but Still Lousy Conversationalists April 03, 2013 Forty years after Motorola Communications' Martin Cooper placed the world's first call over a cellphone in 1973, the audio quality on mobile devices probably isn't much better than that initial call. Although cellphones have evolved from the first brick-sized contraptions to svelte devices with Web search and video capabilities, users continue to suffer from spotty reception and dropped calls.

eBay PayPals It Forward April 02, 2013 eBay is enjoying a surge on Wall Street in the wake of last week's analyst day, when it reassured Wall Street and investors that growth from its core Marketplaces and PayPal businesses was on track. It was the first time since 2011 that analysts had gathered at the company's San Jose, Calif., headquarters.

Yahoo and Summly: CliffsNotes for the Mobile Era? April 02, 2013 The IT industry is no stranger to youth worship, but Yahoo's multimillion-dollar deal for Summly pushes that notion into cradle-robbing -- well, high school-robbing, anyway -- territory. That's because the punchline beneath the headlines is the age of Summly founder. Nick D'Aloisio, 17, appears to have qualified as the world's youngest VC-backed entrepreneur.

New Platform Lets Mobile Ads Chat You Up April 01, 2013 Nuance on Monday unveiled Voice Ads, a platform that can allow companies and marketers to use voice technology to better target on-the-go smartphone users with interactive advertisements. Online marketers want to reach consumers on smartphones and tablets, but tiny screens and other factors related to mobile devices present challenges for advertisers used to designing desktop banner ads.

Tibet-Documentary Filmmakers Draw Ire of Chinese Hackers April 01, 2013 Members of a film crew working on State of Control, a documentary about Tibet, are convinced that the Chinese government is behind cyberattacks on their computers. They've been faced with unknown parties taking external control over a computer's cursor; abrupt log-offs; at least one fried operating system; and DDoS attacks.

Grabbing the Mobile App Brass Ring March 30, 2013 By the end of 2012, 60 percent of U.S. broadband households owned at least one app-enabled consumer electronic device. With connected device ownership at mainstream levels, there is a solid foundation for app development and rapid growth in app economies. Of the primary devices used to access apps, smartphones have the highest penetration rates.

Facebook's Android-Themed Event Invite Redials Phone Chatter March 29, 2013 Facebook is inviting the media to "come see our new home on Android" during an April 4 event, sparking speculation that the social network may indeed be getting ready to introduce a branded smartphone. There is also speculation that Facebook will unveil a modified version of the Android operating system with added social functionality.

New Google Tool Tots Up a Mobile Ad's ROI March 29, 2013 Google this week unveiled new tools designed to help businesses figure out the true worth of their mobile advertising. The tool set, called the Full Value of Mobile, will try to help marketers see all the pathways for converting customers that mobile can offer. "We created the Full Value of Mobile initiative to help marketers better understand how mobile is driving value," said Joanna Werther, head of mobile ads marketing for Google.

Big Data Spawns Big Ideas for Mobile CRM March 29, 2013 If you have been thinking lately that the chief marketing officer has been driving CRM purchases more than the IT department, you're right. "This is the era of the CMO," Larry Bowden, vice president of portals and Web experience at IBM, told CRM Buyer. The reason for that is simple: The amount of information becoming available to the CMO through new technologies and Big Data offers huge potential.

BlackBerry's Q4 Black Ink Bewilders Wall Street March 28, 2013 After a bumpy lead-up to the launch of its Z10 handset, BlackBerry surprised Wall Street on Thursday by reporting a profit for its fourth quarter ending March 2. That wasn't enough to offset its accumulation of losses, though; it reported a net loss of $628 million for the entire fiscal year. It posted fourth-quarter revenue of $2.7 billion, and GAAP income of $94 million, or 18 cents per share.

New Media Metrix Service Counts Eyeballs Across Platforms March 28, 2013 Global digital measurement company comScore this week launched its new Media Metrix Multi-Platform reporting service, which will give publishers and advertisers better insight into how their content is viewed on a wider variety of devices. The new data set builds on the widely used Media Metrix, Mobile Metrix and Video Metrix services from comScore's Audience Analytics suite.

BlackBerry Z10: All Sizzle, No Steak March 28, 2013 When the BlackBerry Z10 was first in my hands, I was prepared to write a glowing review of the new device and operating system. I like BlackBerry. I thought I was going to be able to write how it was a real competitor to the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. I was hoping to be able to say BlackBerry was back. Unfortunately, I can't -- not yet. The new Z10 is better in some ways and worse in others.

T-Mobile's No-Contract Revolution March 28, 2013 When new T-Mobile CEO John Legere was trash-talking the cellular service competition by characterizing their contract plans as "bullsh*t," it took me a couple of days to realize there was far more to his new no-contract iPhone plan than gleeful profanity. T-Mobile is the last of the big four U.S. cellular service companies to offer the iPhone.

Facebook to Slap Targeted Ads on News Feed Billboards March 27, 2013 Facebook announced this week that it will test a new feature that allows select advertisers to run additional targeted ads in user's News Feeds. The test is an expansion of Facebook Exchange, one of the social network's most profitable advertising initiatives. The service allows marketers to check users' online viewing habits via a cookie-based system.

Google+ App Updates Focus on Photos, Tweak Text March 26, 2013 Google has made another bid in its attempt to take on Facebook for social media supremacy with the launch of iOS and Android updates for Google+. The revamped apps have improvements in four areas -- photos, posts, profiles and communities. "Everybody wants to share whatever they're doing whenever they're doing it, and mobile is the place to be," said Andrew Eisner, director of community and content at Retrevo.