Wireless

Verizon Wireless may have found its iPhone killer.

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

On Friday, Verizon will be the first and only wireless carrier in the U.S. to offer Research in Motion's new BlackBerry Storm. The device, which costs $199 with a two-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate, is the first phone that could give Apple's iPhone--offered exclusively on AT&T's network for the same price--a run for its money.

I checked out the new touch-screen phone this week and have been playing around with it for a few days. My first impression is that it's pretty cool. It shares many of the same features that have made the iPhone popular, such as a touch screen, media player, and full HTML browser, making it a strong alternative to the iPhone. (For a full review of the device check out CNET Reviews where editor Bonnie Cha has put the device through its paces.)

But RIM has also been careful to retain the popular features and functionality that have catapulted its BlackBerry devices to iconic status among corporate types.

Take the touch screen as an example, BlackBerry users are accustomed to pushing actual keys. And many people I know who carry both a BlackBerry and an iPhone say they prefer the BlackBerry when it comes to sending text messages or e-mail, because they like the feel of touching buttons.

RIM didn't want to lose this feeling, so the company made sure that users still have to push down on the touch screen as if they were actually hitting a button. As an Apple iPhone user, I have to admit, it took me a little while to get used to the Storm's "push" touch screen. But in some ways I think it's an improvement over the iPhone touch screen. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally called someone or sent a text message before I was ready to hit send, because my finger brushed across that area on the iPhone touch screen.

Another improvement over the iPhone is the fact that the Storm has 1 gigabyte of internal storage and can use a standard microSD storage card to support up to an additional 16 GB of data storage. And because they are standard storage cards, they can be swapped out and replaced. By contrast, the iPhone 3G comes in two versions, an 8GB model and a 16GB model. The storage can't be removed or swapped.

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

Also, the Storm has a removable battery. Again, this appeals to me, because the iPhone's battery can't be removed, which means if it dies, so does my iPhone.

The gloomier forecast
But the Storm isn't a perfect device either. And there are a few things that I prefer on the iPhone. For one, the Storm lacks Wi-Fi. Verizon Wireless' representatives told me they opted not to include Wi-Fi because it adds "bulk, cost, and is a drain on the battery."

But truth be told, I think Verizon didn't want Wi-Fi because the company would rather have customers surf its 3G wireless network. While 3G speeds are a huge improvement over 2.5G speeds, they simply don't hold a candle to Wi-Fi. I can download e-mails and Web pages on my iPhone when using Wi-Fi much faster than when I am using AT&T's 3G network. And I can't imagine it would be much different on Verizon's 3G network.

Beyond its lack of Wi-Fi, I'd say that I prefer the touch screen navigation and Web browsing experience on the iPhone to the Storm. This of course, is a matter of personal taste. The new BlackBerry browser is slick and it works well. It's definitely a huge improvement over its older browsers. But zooming in on pages on the Storm requires clicking a button or actually clicking the screen. And I prefer the iPhone's pinching and brushing movements. But that's just me.

Overall, I think RIM has come out with a device that will give any consumer seriously considering a new touch screen smartphone an alternative to the iPhone. As a result, I think it could help Verizon retain customers ,who have been tempted to leave the carrier for the iPhone.

Let's face it, Verizon's previous attempts at introducing a so-called iPhone kliller have been lackluster. The LG Voyager and the LG Dare, looked cool and sleek, but they weren't true smartphones. RIM's other BlackBerry models have lacked the touch screen and cool factor.

Even though Verizon has not seen huge numbers of its subscribers leave its network since the iPhone was first introduced a year and a half ago, it has lost some as a result. But now, customers who are satisfied with Verizon Wireless's coverage and network reliability, won't have to leave to get a really cool device.

Mesh Wi-Fi provider Meraki is going green with a new solar-powered repeater.

(Credit: Meraki)

The company, which builds low-cost and easy-to-manage Wi-Fi gear, said the Meraki Solar Wi-Fi repeater will ship starting December 4. The price of the solar repeater costs between $749 and $1,499.

Sanjit Biswas, co-founder and CEO of Meraki, said he expects customers in developing markets, where power infrastructure is not reliable or nonexistent, to be especially interested in the product. But he said that there has also been interest among customers here in the U.S. and other developed markets.

"Some people might want to set up a Wi-Fi on their roof or somewhere else they don't have power," he said. "And then they realize how much it will cost them to get an electrician to wire that area."

For this reason, Biswas said that the Meraki Solar repeater is ideal for installations in places like city parks. Even the higher initial cost of the solar equipment will still be cheaper than running power to bay stations and radios throughout a large area like Central Park in New York, he said.

Meraki had announced its solar-powered product last year. But the product was delayed when the company decided to change battery types after receiving feedback that the batteries ran out of power too quickly. The company now uses lithium iron-phosphate, which gives it greater capacity. Biswas says the new battery can store enough energy to power the Wi-Fi radios 24 hours a day seven days a week even during times of limited sunlight.

In addition to its solar-powered repeater, Meraki introduced a new Wi-Fi radio wall plug, which features a hole to screw the unit to an outlet. The design is part of Meraki's push to sell its gear to apartment buildings and complexes. The company has been experimenting with product designs and ideas for better coverage in multiple dwelling units as part of the free network it offers to San Francisco.

Earlier this year, Meraki announced it would help the city provide free Internet access to low-income housing projects as part of its plan to unwire every neighborhood in San Francisco. Meraki, which is based in the Bay Area, sees the San Francisco Wi-Fi network as an important test bed for its products and services.

Virgin America is teaming up with YouTube for its big coming-out party for its Wi-Fi in the sky service.

The California-based airline will launch its Gogo Inflight Internet service on November 22 in a flight over San Francisco. To show off how robust the in-flight Internet service is, the company is planning to stream a live video feed from the plane down to the ground to an audience attending the YouTube Live concert in San Francisco.

(Credit: Virgin America)

The Gogo service will be available to all passengers on a single Wi-Fi enabled plane starting November 24. And by the second quarter of 2009, the company expects to offer Wi-Fi on its entire fleet of planes.

As part of the YouTube live video feed demonstration, 30 Rock's Keith Powell will be part of the show. He'll be filming a segment in-flight for his Web mini-series with co-star Katrina Bowden. After the flight, guests will then go to the YouTube Live event.

CNET Reviews editor Kent German and CNET TV correspondent Kara Tsuboi are planning to be on hand for the event, so check out their blog posts and video of the event. It should be cool.

Virgin America isn't the only U.S. airline to launch in-flight Wi-Fi. American Airlines debuted its in-flight Internet access service in August on 15 of its 767-200 airplanes. Delta Air Lines has said that it will outfit its planes by the middle of next year with Wi-Fi.

American and Delta area also using the Gogo service from Aircell. The cost of the Gogo service is $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours.

Other airlines, such as JetBlue Airways, has been testing its Wi-Fi service on routes between San Francisco and New York. Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines are also testing in-flight Wi-Fi. And others such as United Airlines are considering offering Wi-Fi, but it hasn't announced tests or a commercial launch.

NEW YORK--GPS map maker Navteq is teaming with its parent company Nokia to help drivers get more accurate information about traffic conditions.

Before Nokia bought Navteq last year, the two began working on a project in conjunction with the University of California at Berkeley called Mobile Millennium that uses GPS-enabled cell phones as traffic monitors or "probes" to collect real-time traffic data.

A Nokia GPS-enabled phone acts as a traffic "probe" to provide real-time traffic information to drivers.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET News)

A pilot program using more than 10,000 handsets has already launched in the San Francisco Bay Area. And on Tuesday the companies were showing off the technology at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress here in New York.

As part of the pilot program, researchers are collecting data via GPS and tracking usage patterns to provide real-time traffic reports for individual drivers. All the information is collected anonymously and aggregated statistically to provide the most up-to-date and accurate information.

"The beauty of this approach is that the users also become contributors and the more data that is collected the better the accuracy and range of the service," said Quinn Jacobson, a research leader at the Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto, Calif.

Navteq is a leader in the mapping and navigation market. Its maps have been used by Google and others to fuel their navigation services. And its technology is already being used for cell phone services, such as Verizon Wireless' VZ Navigator. In addition to turn-by-turn navigation, VZ Navigator also provides up-to-date traffic information.

But the problem is that most of the traffic information available through Navteq's technology is collected using government deployed sensors. While these sensors, which sit on the roads and monitor car speeds and traffic volume, do a good job, they are too expensive to be deployed everywhere. This means that traffic information is usually only available for busy highways in large metropolitan areas, but it's missing on arterial roads feeding into these highways or on rural secondary roads.

The application being developed in the Mobile Millennium project will solve this problem, Jacobson said.

Currently, the Mobile Millennium application is only being used in the pilot testing program, but Jacobson said he expects a commercial offering to be available within the next two years. It's not clear yet if Nokia will make the application available to phones other than ones made by Nokia. It's likely that the application could be made available as part of a service offered through a wireless operator. This would likely mean that it would be available on a wide range of handsets from other manufacturers.

Jacobson said those business details haven't been worked out, but it's technically possible to offer the application on any GPS device. Jacobson also emphasized that the application performs better with more users, which means it might be in Nokia's best interest to open it up to other devices.

"The application works really well with 2 percent of the drivers on the road using it," he said. "But 4 percent is even better and so on."

Jacobson said the application will become really useful when it allows users to input specific routes and is integrated with other applications. For example, a daily commuter could program into the phone several routes he drives to work. The traffic application would be able to choose the best route depending on the current traffic conditions. If something changes en route, the application would be smart enough to alter the route.

And for people who never leave themselves enough time to get to the airport or an important meeting, the traffic application could help. Once the application is integrated into the calendar, it could calculate how long it will take, based on current traffic conditions, to get to that appointment. And it could alert the user when he or she should leave in order to get there on time.

Worldwide mobile messaging grew nearly 10 percent in the third quarter compared to the second quarter of the year, fueled by new trends in the messaging market, according to VeriSign, which provides Internet infrastructure services and delivers messages on behalf of carriers and content providers.

The company reported Tuesday that VeriSign enabled more than 58.3 billion messages per day during the third quarter of 2008. This was up from about 52 billion messages sent during the second quarter of 2008.

On average, this means that VeriSign facilitated the delivery of about 634 million messages per day during the third quarter, compared to 572 million messages a day in the second quarter. In the third quarter of 2007, the company helped move 280 million messages per day across its systems. VeriSign said it expects to enable nearly 200 billion messages during 2008.

The company attributed a lot of this growth in mobile messaging to new uses of the technology, which include messaging for social and political change and marketing. One of the most notable examples of this is how U.S. President-elect Barack Obama used SMS text messaging to send messages to supporters during the campaign, even using the medium to distribute some of the campaign's biggest news like the selection of his vice presidential runningmate Joe Biden.

Other groups used text messaging to solicit charitable donations. And several businesses and financial institutions also used mobile. In fact, messaging volume from businesses skyrocketed about 115 percent in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the same period a year ago, the company said. Messaging on VeriSign's Mobile Banking platform also saw a 35 percent bump in volume from the second quarter of 2008 to the third quarter.

VeriSigns figures, which include text messaging as well as other forms of messaging like multimedia messaging, is in line with growth other groups have observed. In September, the U.S. wireless association CTIA noted the explosion in text messaging among U.S. consumers. The group reported that for the month of June, American cell phone subscribers sent about 75 billion SMS text messages, averaging about 2.5 billion messages per day. This represents an increase of 160 percent over the 28.8 billion messages reported in June 2007.

As large employers, such as Citigroup, prepare for massive layoffs, the bad economic news is starting to hit home for consumers afraid of losing their jobs and already looking for ways to tighten their belts.

The recent spate of poor earnings from all kinds of consumer companies, like coffee giant Starbucks, tell us that consumers are nervous about the economy. And it looks like consumers will continue to be skittish about spending over the next several months. Last week Nokia, the largest maker of mobile phones in the world, announced it's already seen sales slip, and it projected that sales will likely continue to be weak in the fourth quarter and into 2009.

While it's obvious that consumers are cutting back spending on certain luxuries like lattes and new cell phones, I wonder if they are also looking to cut spending on monthly services, like wireless, broadband, and cable TV. I recently looked at my stack of monthly bills to find where I could trim some fat from my budget, and I realized that aside from my electric bill, my cable/broadband and wireless phone bills are my top money suckers every month.

Executives from some of the nation's largest wireless and broadband companies have said publicly they don't expect to see huge numbers of people canceling service. For one, wireless, cable TV, and broadband services have become staples in American culture. And second, most people are under some kind of contract for one, if not all, of these services. So canceling their service outright could end up costing them more.

I know I couldn't do without my cell phone, cable TV, or broadband services. But maybe I could manage with less.

That's exactly what CEOs from Sprint Nextel and Verizon Communications have said they expect people to do over the next few months. They expect to see consumers curtail their spending somewhat by cutting back on services. This might mean reducing the number of voice minutes on a voice plan or cutting down the number of channels received as part of a cable TV service. Or maybe people will downgrade from a higher-speed broadband connection to a slower connection for a better price. Perhaps it means getting rid of a traditional voice landline or even a second voice over IP line.

I'm working on a story on how the financial crunch is affecting consumers' decisions about these services, and I'd love to hear from CNET News readers. If you are thinking about cutting back on your cell phone or cable TV/broadband service or if you've contacted any of your providers to try to work out a better deal, please e-mail me. I really want to get firsthand accounts from consumers about how they plan to save money during these turbulent times. Feel free to e-mail me at maggie.reardon@cbs.com.

(Credit: LogMeIn)

There's some good news for BlackBerry owners with broken or misbehaving phones on their hands: starting Monday, service providers and company IT departments using LogMeIn Rescue+Mobile to remotely cure mobile phones from whatever ails them can now support BlackBerry phones.

LogMeIn Rescue+Mobile is desktop software with a mobile component that lets technicians access the phone's entire file system from their remote dashboard (previous coverage). Prior to this release for BlackBerry OS 4.3+, the remote control software was compatible for Windows Mobile 5+, Symbian UIQ 9.0+, and Symbian S60 7.0+, in addition to Windows desktop and Mac OS X platforms.

In case you start fantasizing about trying out LogMeIn Rescue+Mobile on your little brother's phone, one look at the price will remind you of the app's business purpose: the cost starts at $1,956 per technician per year.

Individuals who want to stick to LogMeIn's more casual remote log-ins for productivity or diagnostic desktop purposes should turn to LogMeIn (Windows | Mac) or LogMeIn Free (Windows).

Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch touts Flash for mobile phones at the Adobe Max conference.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

SAN FRANCISCO--Inspired by a new generation of smartphones, Adobe Systems has begun a new, higher-power effort to spread its Flash technology to mobile devices.

The company has worked for years on a lightweight incarnation of its Flash technology for mobile phones, but it now is working to bring the full-fledged Flash Player 10 to higher-end smartphones, Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch said at Adobe's Max conference here.

"We are midst of evolving Flash Player 10 for mobile," Lynch said. "We're taking the full Flash Player and making that run on the higher end of the mobile market."

Adobe naturally isn't the only company that wants to supply the plumbing for applications that run on mobile devices as well as PCs. Sun Microsystems has had some success spreading Java to mobile phones, and it's been working for months on a fancier alternative called JavaFX. And Microsoft, which also has legions of programmers familiar with its technology and development tools, is working hard on Windows Mobile.

Still no Flash for iPhone
Lynch demonstrated Flash Player 10 on devices running Nokia's Symbian operating system, Microsoft's Windows Mobile, and Google's Android operating system. But the quintessential example of the new family of smartphones, Apple's iPhone, so far remains only on the wish list.

"This needs a little more baking. We need to pass the taste test of Apple's head chef," Lynch said as he retrieved an iPhone from a pan full of mobile devices, turning enthusiastic whistles and cheering from a crowd of thousands into a disappointed hubbub. But Adobe is working on it, he said.

Naturally, nobody from Apple shared the stage with Lynch. Google Android leader Andy Rubin, by contrast, made an appearance after Lynch's demonstration of Flash on a T-Mobile G1, the first phone powered by Google's mobile operating system.

That Adobe was able to bring its software to Android affirms Google's strategy of building an "open platform (intended) to give a better Internet experience on cell phones," Rubin said. "Today, seeing Flash 10 makes me feel really warm. It was exactly what Android was built for."

Flash is used for YouTube's streaming video, and Lynch demonstrated a Windows Mobile phone playing a video hosted on the Google service. (The iPhone can show YouTube videos, too, but only after they've been transcoded into a different streaming format.)

Fresh AIR
Flash got its start as a Macromedia technology that could give Web sites animation and basic games. Adobe acquired Macromedia and embraced its vision of turning Flash into a much fuller computing foundation. One key to that foundation is what's called AIR, the Adobe Integrated Runtime, a downloadable software package that lets people run Flash applications outside the browser and when offline.

The New York Times is working on an AIR application that will let people read the International Herald Tribune in a format that looks more like newspaper and less like a Web page. It includes keyboard navigation controls, a browsing mode for the equivalent of flipping through the paper, a crossword that could be filled out, and video advertisements.

The application checks for new content every few minutes, but it can be used offline, too, with the stories and photos that already have been downloaded, said Michael Zimbalist, vice president of research and development at the Times.

Adobe released AIR 1.5 Monday, a version that inherits Flash Player 10 abilities such as better text rendering, support for right-to-left text scripts such as Arabic, multichannel audio, and 3D effects.

Like Flash, AIR is headed for the mobile world. Lynch also demonstrated AIR 1.5 running on a Linux-based Aigo miniature computer--what Intel likes to call a MID, or mobile Internet device. It was using an Intel Atom processor, and the same New York Times application ran on it.

Making Flash Lite easier
Although Adobe has elevated the status of the full Flash Player 10 on mobile devices, it's still working on Flash Lite.

Lynch acknowledged that it's hard to actually run Flash content with existing technology. Now, though, Flash Lite applications can be shared as a simple Web address, he said, and if Flash Lite isn't installed, it can be retrieved automatically.

"You can package your application built with Flash and deploy it to smartphones like Windows Mobile and Symbian, and we hope to get to Android as well," Lynch said. "If you don't already have Flash Lite, it will detect that and install it on your mobile phone over the air."

Flash includes auto-update technology so users generally have a current version installed, and Adobe plans to keep that philosophy with its push into the mobile realm, he added. Partners to help enable that update process include Cisco Systems, NTT DoCoMo, Verizon, Comcast, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Qualcomm, and ARM.

Lynch also boasted that Adobe is exceeding its goals for Flash on mobile phones.

"Our goal (was to make) a billion phones Flash-enabled by 2010," Lynch said. "We're actually going to get 1 billion Flash-enabled phones by 2009."

Click here for more news on Adobe's Max conference.

BT's Ribbit released its long-awaited Web telephony platform Monday to developers, which BT hopes will help spur innovation for new products and services in the telephony market.

Until now, most telephony advancements have been made by engineers at a particular company working on a closed, proprietary network. But now Ribbit is offering developers the chance to go behind the curtain and use its network to develop new applications.

Developers will be able to gain access to Ribbit's voice over IP SmartSwitch software, as well as a community site and support, monitoring, and management capabilities. The Ribbit platform will allow these developers to design, test, deploy, and manage voice and communication features used on the Web or within other applications. Developers will then be able to sell their applications through a Ribbit Store.

Pricing hasn't been disclosed, but BT plans to charge developers a fee based on the usage of its VoIP platform.

Ribbit, which launched the beta version of its software last year, has already demonstrated how its software can be used to enhance other Web-based applications. Previously, the company integrated its VoIP technology with Saleforce's customer relationship management software so that users can push an e-mail message into Salesforce. This allows them to attach leads and contacts. Users can also make and receive phone calls from within the Salesforce application.

So far, there are already over 600 developers involved in creating new applications on the Ribbit platform, the company said. Some of these applications involve call centers, social networking mash-ups, unified messaging, and other productivity tools.

BT, which bought Ribbit earlier this year for $105 million, said that it's also opening the software platform up to other phone companies. This would allow other carriers to easily access the wide range of new applications that are being created by the more than 7,500 developers who have signed up to use the platform since it was first available in 2007.

"Our vision from the start was 'programmable telephony'--a platform that enables developers around the globe to design, deploy and monetize the next-generation of telecommunication services," Ted Griggs, CEO of Ribbit, said in a statement. "Now, just four months after BT's acquisition of Ribbit, the platform is live, and we are open for business with developers, systems integrators, and yes, other carriers."

Ribbit is sponsoring a contest to encourage developers to come up with new applications for its platform. The company is offering $100,000 in prize money for the most innovative Ribbit integrations across five general categories. The categories are: business productivity; media, entertainment, and marketing; social networking; carrier integration; and next-gen innovation.

The economic downturn is taking its toll on the cell phone market, as Nokia, the world's largest maker of mobile devices, downgrades its outlook for the fourth quarter and 2009.

On Friday, Nokia announced that it now expects to only sell about 330 million mobile phones in the fourth quarter, bringing its total number of handsets sold in 2008 to 1.24 billion. The company had expected to sell 1.2 billion devices in 2008.

The company blames the weakening economy and currency volatility for its dismal outlook. Simply put, people aren't spending money on cell phones in these uncertain economic times.

"As a result of the rapid change in global consumer spending, which has impacted the mobile-device market, Nokia now expects that the industry mobile-device volumes will be lower in the fourth quarter of 2008 than previously expected," Nokia said in a statement.

In an effort to deal with the reduced outlook, Nokia also announced it will cut costs in 2009. Specifically, the company is looking to "curtail use of external contractors, consultants and professional services." It will also reduce other operational expenses. The company said it would provide more detail on its cost cutting plans in early December at a meeting in New York

Nokia still expects its mobile device market share to remain the same for the fourth quarter of 2008.

Nokia had reported a drop in earnings for the third quarter of 2008. Profits dipped about 30 percent and the company said it could lay off hundreds of workers.

A slowdown in the overall handset market will also likely affect other device makers, including Motorola, which recently reported dismal earnings. The company has been struggling to get back on track for more than a year, but the economic troubles certainly won't be a help.

Executives at the big wireless operators in the U.S. say they expect to weather the economic crisis unscathed. But a reduction in handset sales could mean that consumers may be unwilling to upgrade to a new device and more expensive service. While it's unlikely that large numbers of people would simply cancel cell phone service, these carriers could see a larger number of consumers reducing how much they spend on their service. And some may even see a higher rate of late payments and payment defaults. Sprint Nextel's CEO Dan Hesse has already mentioned this as a possible problem as the economy dips further.