Mobile & Wireless

Texas Instruments has worked with a Chinese handset maker to produce a low-cost 2.5G mobile phone aimed at emerging markets like China and Latin America, the companies said Wednesday.

Samsung's SCH-B250 cell phone is the latest model from Samsung to support the satellite DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting) service offered by TU Media Corp. A big problem for TU Media in setting up the service was how to get around potential reception difficulties that would face mobile satellite users, particularly in the city. That's certainly the experience I found with the Samsung phone the day I took it out for a stroll around Seoul.

Slovakia is home to what Flarion Technologies is calling the world's first commercial launch of a new broadband wireless technology designed to compete with Wi-Fi and 3G networks.

The Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC) has published its draft specification for high-speed wireless LANs on its Web site, the group said Friday.

Motorola Inc. and PalmSource Inc. are among the companies that lined up behind a new initiative Monday that aims to promote the use of the Linux operating system on cell phones. The Mobile Linux Initiative was launched by Open Source Development Labs Inc. (OSDL) to tackle technical challenges and generally support the adoption of Linux on handheld devices.

Municipal Wi-Fi is overcoming legal opposition and is on the verge of becoming reality in a number of cities. Pronto Networks wants to use the coming ubiquitous wireless access world as a piggyback to provide its own services.

As is the case with many technologies, in the RFID realm the drive for new features may have left security behind. That's why it's key for organizations thinking of adopting RFID technology to do the due diligence on how it will affect their security level.

Chip vendor picoChip Designs aims to bridge a chasm that is one barrier in the path of WiMax wireless broadband networks. The fabless semiconductor company on Wednesday launched a set of reference designs for both base stations and subscriber equipment that will work for both the current fixed and the future mobile standard for WiMax.

Pushing an end-to-end package to enterprises, Nokia Corp. on Wednesday introduced the first three phones in a new series aimed specifically at business users.

Palm Inc. has lowered the cost of acquiring a personal digital assistant (PDA) with Wi-Fi connectivity, and also is courting technology novices with a new, inexpensive PDA.

Mobile e-mail isn't just for the chief executive and president anymore. At least, that's what many of the companies presenting at Symbian Ltd.'s Smartphone Show said on Monday. Companies including Visto Inc., Nokia Corp. and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB are all talking about their "push" e-mail applications that aim to be attractive throughout the enterprise as well as to smaller businesses.