Communications News

LONDON (Reuters) - Music-lovers watching their favorite acts at live concerts are increasingly becoming targets for gangs of mobile phone thieves, British police said on Monday. Full Story »

Google is introducing a mobile marketing campaign for Place Pages, a service for businesses that faced some early criticism when it launched in September. Full Story »

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Operators pushed market share of cellphones running Google's software a little higher in September quarter in Western Europe, but consumers showed little interest toward them, research firm IDC said on Saturday. Full Story »

The Hearst publishing company unveiled its long-awaited e-reader plan on Friday, describing an "e-reading service platform" coming next year that will distribute content from multiple publishers to a variety of wireless mobile devices. Full Story »

NEW YORK - The Federal Communications Commission on Friday asked Verizon Wireless why it recently doubled the fees it charges customers when they break their contracts on "smart" phones. Full Story »

Dell is setting up a new business unit surrounding mobile products as it tries to expand its presence in the communications market, the company said on Friday. Full Story »

Hoping to use its youth megaphone to counter "digital abuse," MTV announced Thursday a multi-year initiative called A Thin Line that includes a coalition of organizations, special programming, and public-service announcements. Digital abuse includes "sexting" -- sending sexually provocative texts and pictures by cell phones -- as well as cyberbullying and digital dating abuse. Full Story »

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - Sprint Nextel Corp. said Friday it has closed its $426 million acquisition of wireless affiliate iPCS Inc. Full Story »

Twitter has built a mobile site from scratch for its social networking and microblogging service, acknowledging that the current one, while reliable, has an unimpressive user interface and a modest feature set. Full Story »

Verizon Wireless' attack on the iPhone has devolved into chest-beating, with a Droid ad that vaguely slams Apple's "beauty" and any phone that's a "tiara-wearing, digitally clueless beauty pageant queen." Full Story »

Nokia is upping the ante against rivals such as Apple and Go ogle with its preview of the upcoming iteration of Symbian OS (V3) for touchscreen devices. The upgraded mobile operating system is expected sometime next year, together with a bunch of new devices. Full Story »

In the wake of Verizon's decision to increase the early termination fees (ETFs) for advanced devices, the Federal Communications Commission on Friday penned a letter to the wireless provider asking for more details about its decision. Full Story »

Microsoft joined hands with Taiwan's Chunghwa Telecom on Friday to unveil a new deal to sell netbooks at up to 90 percent off their retail price with a 3G mobile broadband contract. Full Story »

DEAR ABBY: I have been married to "Mick" for 22 years -- most of them happy. My problem is his communication skills. I have always had a hard time contacting him. He has a cell phone, but won't take it out of his vehicle. Full Story »

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc expects "exponential" growth in mobile advertising even as the overall market is only starting to emerge from its deep downturn, a top executive of the Internet media company said on Thursday. Full Story »

HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's top cell phone maker Nokia will drastically cut back on the number of different smartphone models it rolls out next year as the Finnish firm tries to shrug off new rivals Apple Inc and RIM. Full Story »

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - First Missouri's youngest drivers were told to quit sending cell phone text messages, and now lawmakers are going after everybody else. Full Story »

NEW YORK (AFP) - A US groom who loves social networking as much as his bride pulled out a cell phone during their wedding to 'tweet' and update his Facebook page. Full Story »