GetJar, which distributes free mobile applications to consumers on the Internet and over the phone, said it is branching out its business by building application storefronts for wireless carriers. A few months ago, that would have been unheard of because carriers typically want to own the relationship with their subscribers. [...]

-- AT&T; (NYSE: T) Brings Back College Football SMS Voting: AT&T; is reminding college football fans that they can once again begin voting for their AT&T; All-America Player of the Week via SMS. The carrier is also putting up video highlights and photos of each candidate on its mobile NCAA [...]

Zi Corp.'s license agreement with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) for predictive text services has been renewed and it couldn't have come at a better time. Nuance Communications, which makes speech-based technology for customer service, directory assistance and voice-activated commands on wireless devices, has been dogged in its pursuit of the company [...]

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) shared its plans today for how it will distribute applications mobile phones running its Android operating system, and it sounds startlingly similar to Apple's (NSDQ: AAPL) App store. Google wrote today on the Android developer blog that it will be called Android Market, "an open content distribution [...]

Reuters' mobile journalism project, which is no longer using the catchy "MoJo" moniker, is reprising its Davos roving-reporter experiment at the Democratic and upcoming Republican conventions - but without a cell phone in sight. While its mobile efforts to date - including packages from TV reporter Matt Cowan and equipping [...]

Sony's (NYSE: SNE) CEO Howard Stringer was quoted as saying in a German newspaper on today that its mobile-phone joint venture with Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) must do better, Reuters reported. "We have to work together again as we did two years ago. Or the joint venture will have to find [...]

Consumers worldwide are expected to purchase as many as 190 million smartphones this year, representing an increase of 52 percent compared to last year. Gartner Research Director Carolina Milanesi told Dow Jones: "We are expecting the smartphone market to grow strongly with royalty free operating systems like Symbian, Android, and [...]

Last week, I caught up with Jeff Holden, the CEO of Pelago, which is developing Whrrl, an application for mobile phones that lets people share opinions about events and restaurants and organize meet-ups with friends. Pelago has the distinction of being the first investment of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer's [...]

Beauty and fashion online-only mag VIV, which relaunched this past week, is readying an iPhone-specific version for next month, MIN reports. The title started as an all-digital magazine last year. The magazine is backed by Fiji Water founder David Gilmour, whose firm has also bought VIV's technology provider, digital mag [...]

More often than not, video on mobile phones is a lackluster experience. MediaFLO has been the most obvious exception to that rule in the United States since its service launched in March 2007. Although its nationwide rollout has been slow and customers aren't paying $15 a month for the broadcast-like [...]

-- 2.9 million text messages sent from Obama campaign: Nielsen Mobile estimates 2.9 million people received a text message from the Obama campaign that named its vice president over the weekend. Nic Covey, director of insights at the firm: "While much has been said of the timing and the scoop [...]

Qik, the popular-among-bloggers mobile video streaming service, has received new fundingq from Marc Andreessen and his longtime business partner Ben Horowitz. Andreessen is the founder of Ning, and Horowitz is the VP and GM of HP's business technology organization unit these days. The Foster City, CA-based company did not disclose [...]

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has done an undisclosed amount of strategic investment in already-heavily backed online and now mobile HD video tech provider Move Networks. This is technically part of its third round, which it earlier closed in at $46 million from investors such as Benchmark Capital, as well as Cisco, [...]

Now that the 2008 Summer Olympics have come to a close, the mobile industry is looking for the next big news event that could drive traffic and create long-term users for the new medium in the U.S. And based on just a handful of events and announcements that have occurred [...]

Australian telecom firm ComTel is making a brave move: it is launching SMSpup Mobile, a new prepaid MVNO service offering AU$130 of talk and text value for AU$29 per month but customers who agree to receive five SMS or e-mail ads per day will only be charged AU$10, a 65 [...]

Two separate reports released today confirmed that the iPhone is selling well despite initial activation problems, and that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) believes that it will continue to sell well after launching in various countries. -- T-Mobile International said it has sold more than 120,000 iPhone 3G devices since it went [...]

The $100 million iFund investment pool, created by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has invested in five iPhone start-ups, NYT reports in a profile piece on Matt Murphy who heads up the endeavor. Pelago, the parent of mobile location-based service Whrrl, received an investment from KPCB before the iFund was [...]

Frequent Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) forecaster Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, has come out with a whopper of a prediction that dwarfs many of his previous iPhone guesses. He's expecting Apple to sell 13 million iPhone 3Gs this year and 45 million next year, BusinessWeek reports. On the lower [...]

Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR) filed a proxy statement with the SEC today, asking shareholders to vote for the merger between the Kirkland-based company and the WiMax division of its biggest competitor Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel. The vote will take place at a shareholders meeting, which has not yet been set, however, [...]

Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) said today it is launching PlayNow Arena, the long-awaited upgrade of its online music store PlayNow on Monday. The new internet site—which will debut first in the Nordic countries—adds games and other applications to the mix, and will start off with a million tracks [...]

— India's "Small But Enthusiastic" Reception: Maharajas, rich kids, and entrepreneurs: so that's who's buying the iPhone in India, according to a Reuters report from the front line, which found that the launch of the iconic handset in India had "none of the mass hysteria" that accompanied its debut in [...]

Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) is in final stages of a deal with Google (NSDQ: GOOG), on a comprehensive search deal...Google will be the default search provider on Verizon devices and give it a share of ad revenue. The deal isn't yet final yes, the story says, and the two sides [...]

Palm (NSDQ: PALM) released the Treo Pro yesterday, a new handset which the company hopes will resurrect the brand as it faces stiff competition from Research In Motion and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). The unlocked device will sell directly to customers for $549 in the U.S., starting later this year and [...]