Mobile

Amazon appears to be readying an advertising platform to compete with Google's AdWords. It reportedly has started talking up its new Amazon Sponsored Links platform with potential partners and is anticipating a launch later this year. Ads from the new platform would replace those from Google curre...

China is developing a homegrown operating system that could be ready as soon as October as part of an effort to wean itself from Western-made software, according to a Sunday report from the Xinhua government news agency. Following hard on the heels of China's announcement last month that it had laun...

The good news for Sprint is the stars seem to be lining up for a recovery. Change is occurring throughout the entire wireless industry. Every player -- including AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular and C Spire Wireless -- is changing. We will start to see lots of new...

Amazon has introduced Amazon Local Register to the mobile payment market, taking on such companies as Square and Paypal Here. The product is a combination of a secure card reader, which sells for $10, and a free mobile app. Together, they offer a platform that allows businesses to accept credit and ...

California is poised to enact a consumer-friendly law requiring smartphone manufacturers to install "kill switches" -- that is, antitheft technology that would be activated by the carrier when a consumer alerts it that a device has been stolen or lost. The technology not only wipes the device of per...

There's a New Sprint in town. Last week the earth shook twice in Kansas City -- once when Sprint decided to end its pursuit of T-Mobile, and then again when it replaced CEO Dan Hesse with Marcelo Claure. What can we expect next? The first thing is this: Sprint is going to be a very different kind of...

Softbank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son on Tuesday announced sweeping changes for subsidiary Sprint. President and CEO Dan Hesse is being replaced by Marcelo Claure, founder and CEO of Softbank subsidiary Brightstar, effective Aug. 11. Also, Sprint has dropped plans to purchase T-Mobile. Hesse's repl...

BlackBerry -- the "sick man of mobile" -- is poised for better times. That was the sentiment expressed by CEO John Chen in an internal memo distributed to BlackBerry employees last week. BlackBerry has completed its restructuring and the workforce reductions that started three years ago have been co...

Apple reportedly is gearing up to do what it does best -- introduce a new gadget or two. Word is the company will hold a spellbinding iPhone event come Sept. 9. With the dust not quite settled over Apple's recently announced liaison with IBM, it will be interesting to see whether there are any new c...

Smartphone maker Xiaomi has been on a tear. It has risen from a lowly device maker to king of the Chinese market in just a year, according to a new report from Canalys. A year ago, Xiaomi held a 5 percent of China's second-quarter smartphone shipment rankings. By the first quarter of this year, the ...

The Internet.org collective's mission of bringing the entire planet online took a step forward Thursday with the release of an app affording limited free mobile Internet access to users in Zambia. While around 85 percent of the world's people are located in areas with cellular network connectivity, ...

Target last week introduced In a Snap, a new image-recognition app that lets users buy products from the pages of select magazine and printed ads. It is unlike earlier variations of such apps in that consumers don't have to scan codes or follow a link to buy a product. It works like this: You select...

If you have been following business and personal technology in recent years, you've seen a quantum leap forward. Unfortunately, education is not moving ahead as quickly. Technology can help, though, and C Spire is setting a good example, propelling Mississippi schools forward. C Spire is helping s...

Twitter posted healthy revenue for the second quarter -- US$312 million, up 124 percent year-over-year. Its profit? Not there yet. However, even though the company reported a net loss of $145 million, investors are likely to overlook the lack of profit for some time. Financials aside, what Twitter r...

BlackBerry on Tuesday announced plans to acquire Secusmart, a developer of high-security voice and data encryption and anti-eavesdropping technologies. Mobile devices increasingly are being used for more critical tasks and to store more critical information, noted John Chen, BlackBerry's executive c...