MobileCrunch |  |
- AT&T’s Response To Sprint’s Lawsuit: Bring It On
- BlackBerry Torch 9850 Hitting VZW On Sept. 8th
- Unity Embraces The Heart Of The Gaming World, Launches A Tokyo Division
- Sprint Files Lawsuit To Block AT&T/T-Mobile Merger
- Angry Birds In Real Life
- GameStop Affirms Popularity Of Mobile Gaming; Plans To Sell iPhone, iPod, And iPad
- China Unicom To Soon Offer The iPad 3G For The First Time
- Baidu And Dell Team Up To Take On Tablets, Phones In China
- CamiApp Lets You Digitize Notes On Paper Notepads With Your Smartphone (Video)
| AT&T’s Response To Sprint’s Lawsuit: Bring It On Posted: 06 Sep 2011 02:34 PM PDT  And the fun just goes on, and on, and on. Following this morning’s news that Sprint is suing AT&T/T-Mobile in an attempt to block their proposed merger, AT&T has just returned with a response. As you might expect, it pretty much boils down to “Yeah, yeah, see you in court. Oh, and here are some reasons we’re awesome.” The full text of the response:
How else could they have responded, really? Tucked tail and given up? Of course not. AT&T’s not about to give up on this one — if only because doing so would mean they still have to cough up around $6 billion to T-Mobile thanks to a few fail-safes in the deal terms. AT&T’s already battling the Department of Justice and trying to maneuver their way through investigations lead by just about every other branch of the government — in the grand scheme of things, Sprint’s lawsuit is just a means of forcing AT&T to spread their legal team that much thinner.
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| BlackBerry Torch 9850 Hitting VZW On Sept. 8th Posted: 06 Sep 2011 11:43 AM PDT  RIM’s latest touchscreen BlackBerry is launching on Verizon later this week. The Touch 9850 will hit VZW’s online marketplace on the 8th with retail stores getting the handset on the 15th. The phone taps a 1.2GHz CPU to run BlackBerry 7 on its 3.7-inch touchscreen. A quad-band mobile radio makes the 9850 a global traveler while the rest of the standard suite of WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS completes the connectivity options. Verizon’s 9850 offering hits at $50 more than Sprint’s Touch model, but $50 less than Verzion’s own 9930 Bold BlackBerry. Not that the price matters as this phone is clearly for the BlackBerry loyalist as Android and the iPhone have clearly taken over as the everyman’s smartphone. PRESS RELEASE BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Verizon Wireless today announced the new BlackBerry® Torch™ 9850 smartphone will be available online at www.verizonwireless.comon Sept. 8, and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores on Sept. 15. Watch videos, play games and stay productive on the largest display and highest resolution on a BlackBerry smartphone to date. Powered by the new BlackBerry® 7 operating system, customers can enjoy the next generation BlackBerry browser with optimized zooming, panning and HTML 5 performance. BlackBerry® Balance is now integrated, allowing secure access to business information while preventing it from being copied into, sent from or used by personal applications. Customers can stay connected to their personal and business lives while in or out of the office. Key features: 3G coverage on the nation's most reliable network Liquid Graphics™ technology combines a dedicated high-performance graphics processor with a blazingly fast CPU and stunning high-resolution display to deliver a responsive touch interface with incredibly fast and smooth graphics. BlackBerry Torch 9850 smartphone will be available for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement.
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| Unity Embraces The Heart Of The Gaming World, Launches A Tokyo Division Posted: 06 Sep 2011 10:41 AM PDT  While gaming has spread its tentacles throughout the world and major game development houses can be found everywhere from Calgary to Cambridge, there’s one place that will pretty much always be considered the center of the gaming world: Tokyo. What better place, then, to focus your efforts on winning over the hearts and minds of local developers? This morning, Unity Tech (the folks behind the rapid game development engine Unity) are announcing that they’re making the jump into Japan with a new subsidiary in Tokyo. For those who may not have tinkered with it: Unity is a visual game development tool for quickly building complex games that can be compiled for Windows, Mac, and, with a bit of tweaking iOS, Android, and most of the current-gen consoles. It’s not drag-and-drop by any means, but it’s markedly more accessible than the vast majority of alternatives. The new division’s primary goals with be product localization, sales, and support — in other words, it’s their job to convince the Japanese developer population that their cross-platform development engine is the way of the future. The team leading the new effort is none too shabby, with execs like John Goodale (previously of Activision, Sega, and Crytek) and Shinobu Toyoda (previously the Executive Vice President for Sega of America) hopping on board. Not bad for a little company that launched out of Denmark just five or six years ago, right? If nothing else, this ought to lead to a sudden spike in the number of Unity-powered Dating Sims, right? Ba dum tsss! Unity provides 3D content development solutions, with the Unity platform, its proprietary solution. Unity provides a fully integrated development environment which makes it easier and more cost-effective for content...
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| Sprint Files Lawsuit To Block AT&T/T-Mobile Merger Posted: 06 Sep 2011 10:19 AM PDT  Sprint’s clearly no fan of the pending AT&T/T-mobile merger: in recent memory, they’ve pledged to complain to Congress, commissioned a study to illustrate how awful it would be, and cheered on the Department of Justice as they filed an antitrust suit to halt the proceedings. Now, instead of just sniping from the sidelines, Sprint is taking a more active stance on situation. Their first step: filing their own lawsuit against AT&T, T-Mobile, and Deutsche Telekom. Empowered by the DoJ’s legal maneuvering, Sprint’s recently filed suit claims that the potential AT&T/T-Mobile merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Antitrust Act. Sprint alleges that if allowed, the merger would (among other things) raise prices, stifle innovation, further cement Verizon and AT&T’s power, and harm Sprint and other smaller carriers. Susan Z. Haller, Sprint’s VP of Litigation, has stated that they are “are continuing that advocacy on behalf of consumers and competition” — a laudable goal, but one that reeks of PR tweaking all the way through. While they make some serious points about potential effects of a merger on the marketplace, Sprint’s really fighting for survival. They’re playing their cards pretty well here: the lawsuit was a well-calculated, well-timed move, and you can bet Sprint will continue to ride their consumer-friendly high horse as long as they can. Sprint is going to keep playing up their hero angle, hoping that no matter how this all ends, potential customers will remember their role in all this.
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| Posted: 06 Sep 2011 08:18 AM PDT  Sorry, Rovio. A Chinese theme park located in Changsha, Huna China clearly skipped Trademark Infringement 101 and built a very real, very authentic-looking Angry Birds game. Players pull back a gigantic slingshot loaded with plush Angry Birds and let them fly at balloon pigs sheltered in toy bricks. Chances are you need to make your own bird-flinging scream, though. Angry Birds is a huge hit in China. The game was even part of the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival although just in mooncake form. The explosive growth thanks in large part by Rovio’s acceptance of nearly every hardware platform has turned Angry Birds into a culture phenomenon abroad. Nothing says success like an unauthorized theme park game. Angry Birds is a puzzle video game developed by Rovio, a developer based in Finland. Since its release for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices, over 6.5 million copies... Rovio is one of Europe’s leading independent developers of wireless games with an ever-growing portfolio of award-winning titles spanning many genres from casual to core next-gen console IP. Their...
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| GameStop Affirms Popularity Of Mobile Gaming; Plans To Sell iPhone, iPod, And iPad Posted: 06 Sep 2011 07:36 AM PDT  Still think mobile gaming isn’t a big deal? GameStop disagrees. Though they may not be as in-depth or graphically stimulating as console or PC-based games, but mobile games are accessible to everyone. My grandma can’t play L.A. Noire, but she’s beat every level of Angry Birds. So it only makes sense that GameStop has decided to put a couple new devices on its shelves: the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. GameStop has made a push into the tablet and mobile gaming space as of late. It started an iOS device trade-in program (for select stores) that is expected to roll-out nationally sometime during this year, reports 9to5mac. The company also said in April it had plans to get into the tablet space, whether that be with a device already on the market or by building a GameStop-branded gaming slate. Turns out, nabbing the iOS trifecta was the best plan. With the carriers set on a duopoly, there’s no better time to start opening up other retail locations for Apple products. We vote with our wallets, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have the iPhone or the iPad. GameStop recently received some bad press over taking promotional materials out of games and then selling them as if nothing had happened. Understandably, people weren’t too happy about this. But the Internet has a short memory and it seems that GameStop needs to cover all the bases in its physical stores to remain competitive. Gamestop is an American video game retailer with over 6,000 locations worldwide. The company spun off from Barnes & Noble in 2004 and operates as GameStop and EB Games. Started by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne, Apple has expanded from computers to consumer electronics over the last 30 years, officially changing their name from Apple Computer,...
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| China Unicom To Soon Offer The iPad 3G For The First Time Posted: 06 Sep 2011 07:12 AM PDT  China, your savior is on his way. Per a WSJ report China’s certification agency recently gave a nod of approval to the iPad 2 3G. The iPad 2 has been a hit in the China market since its May debut, but outside of Hong Kong, only the WiFi model has been available. This approval paves the way for a China Unicom 3G model and enough coin for Apple to make Scrooge McDuck jealous. Apple is slowly warming to the massive China market. The iPhone launched in the country a few years after its US release and a recent report indicated China Mobile and Apple are in talks to bring the iPhone 4 to its massive 600 million subscriber base. A China Mobile iPhone, or even iPad, would require a different mobile radio as the government-owned telecom operates on a homegrown wireless standard rather than the GSM/CDMA type used elsewhere. No word on when China Unicom subs will be able to pick up a 3G iPad 2. The word comes just this morning from the WSJ and alongside the news that search giant Baidu and Dell have teamed up for a series of phones and tablets. China, it seems, is the next great oil field, just sitting there, slightly undercover, for gadget makers to tap for untold riches.
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| Baidu And Dell Team Up To Take On Tablets, Phones In China Posted: 06 Sep 2011 06:35 AM PDT  Hot on the heels of Baidu's new mobile OS launch, reports are circulating that the Chinese search giant is partnering with Dell to build tablets and mobile phones. China is a goldmine in terms of potential consumers. With over 900 million mobile subscribers, China is becoming one of the fastest growing tablet markets, as well. As the Google of the Eastern world, Baidu should have no problem marketing hardware under its brand name. And Dell’s business in China seems to have picked up as well, though the name carries far less weight with consumers than Baidu’s. According to an analyst who spoke with Reuters, Dell may be "grasping at straws" in an attempt to breathe life into its tablet business. The Dell Streak 5 tablet has been discontinued in the States, but a Dell spokesperson said that the company "has a partnership with Baidu [and] the Streak 5 tablet, so the partnership will be in that space." It's not clear whether that means we should expect a Chinese version of the Dell Streak 5 or just another similar minitab. Either way, Dell and Baidu will face some strong competition in China. Lenovo has seen great success in the Chinese market over the past few years, and Apple has an almost terrifyingly strong presence there. We've heard of girls giving up their virginity for an iPhone 4 and a Chinese teenager selling his kidney for an iPad 2. With brand dedication like that it may be more difficult than expected to rip people away from their beloved Apple. And the companies won’t have much time to do so, either. Though neither company gave a solid timeline, a spokesperson said we may see the partnership’s first offering in as early as November. Baidu is the largest Chinese language search engines. Baidu's mission is to provide the best way for people to find information online, including Chinese language web pages, news, images... Dell develops, manufactures, and sells personal computers and other computer-related products including servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals and televisions.
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| CamiApp Lets You Digitize Notes On Paper Notepads With Your Smartphone (Video) Posted: 06 Sep 2011 06:19 AM PDT  Japanese stationery maker Kokuyo has come up with an easy way to digitize and permanently store what you jot down on paper notepads: all you need is a an iPhone (or soon Android handset), a special app called CamiApp (available for free and in English on the App Store), and notepads made by Kokuyo. The company says that taking pictures of the notes is enough: CamiApp adjusts the quality through using AR markers or a black frame before it lets you tag, edit, email or store your notes on Evernote or Dropbox (as JPEGs). Kokuyo is currently preparing an Android version and thinks about exporting their CamiApp-optimized notepads. This video (in English, shot by Diginfonews in Tokyo) provides more insight:
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