Yikes: Sprint terminates its 15-year agreement with LightSquared

March 16, 2012 8:33 AM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

The country’s third largest wireless carrier, Sprint Nextel, has terminated its 15-year agreement with wholesale wireless startup LightSquared.

Back in July, LightSquared signed a $9 billion 15-year agreement with Sprint to build and host its LTE network, which is crucial …

The best Retina Display apps to show off your new iPad

March 16, 2012 7:25 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

Editor's Pick

So you’ve got a shiny new iPad — now what? Given that the most significant upgrade this time around is its new Retina Display, we suggest diving into apps that will best show off the high-resolution screen.

Apple has wisely …

DramaFever, a fast growing Asian Hulu, raises $4.5M from YouTube veterans

March 16, 2012 6:01 AM Ben Popper
Ben Popper

Ever heard of Drama Fever? Cool, me neither. Turns out the New York startup has 1.5 million viewers, three times what they had in March of 2011. Each month these folks spend many hours and up to $10 a pop …

iPad launch draws fans and protesters across the U.S. (gallery)

March 16, 2012 5:38 AM Heather Kelly
Heather Kelly

Apple’s third-generation iPad drew the expected crowds for its big public debut on Friday. The hubbub started a minute after midnight, when select Best Buy and Walmart locations opened their doors to customers. There were lines at some third-party resellers, …

People want their next phone to have a big-a** screen, survey says

March 15, 2012 4:51 PM Sarah Mitroff
Sarah Mitroff

Turns out all those phone-tablet hybrids are actually a hit with consumers. A survey released Thursday from Strategy Analytics found that people want their next phone to have a large screen.

The research organization showed American and British research participants …

Paypal faces a lot of competition in mobile payments (infographic)

March 15, 2012 4:46 PM Dylan Tweney
Dylan Tweney

PayPal announced today that it would be entering the mobile payment market with its own smartphone dongle, PayPal Here.

It’s a triangular widget that plugs into the headphone jack of your phone, similar to the rectangular dongle (pictured above) of …

Thumb is so hot, it’s twice as addictive as Pinterest (exclusive)

March 15, 2012 2:01 PM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

Just a few months after the mobile Q&A company Opinionaided rebranded itself as Thumb, it’s already seeing significant engagement gains — so much so that its users are twice as addicted as Pinterest’s.

Thumb is on such a tear that …

How PayPal Here aims to be a full-service financial product for small businesses

March 15, 2012 1:49 PM Rakesh Agrawal
Rakesh Agrawal

PayPal’s Here mobile payments products represent a direct assault on Square, and the company adds in a few features that would take some effort for Square to replicate.

The new product also provides some invoicing and tracking functionality that could …

Amazon’s Kindle iOS app now ready for the new iPad’s Retina Display

March 15, 2012 12:45 PM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

Amazon has released a major update to its Kindle iOS app today that will let it take advantage of the new iPad’s Retina Display, fixing an issue some reviewers brought up regarding blurry text on earlier versions of the app.…

iFixit tears down the new iPad, finds Samsung LCD

March 15, 2012 10:55 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

Those glorious geeks at iFixit have gotten their hands on Apple’s new iPad, and are currently in the midst of tearing it apart to reveal its lovely innards.

So far, the site has confirmed that the new iPad is rocking …

PayPal Here: A direct — and triangular — competitor with Square (video)

March 15, 2012 10:37 AM Meghan Kelly
Meghan Kelly

Editor's Pick

PayPal is officially a direct competitor with Square. The payments company announced a new, triangular dongle today, which will process mobile payments for small businesses internationally.

“One, this product is better…Two, this product will be backed by PayPal, which means …

AOL acquires mobile photo-sharing app Hipster

March 15, 2012 10:34 AM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

AOL will try to add some cool to its mobile team with the just-announced acquisition of iOS and Android photo-sharing app Hipster.

Hipster was launched in 2011 and is probably best known as the startup that offered a year’s worth …

Patent trolls start suing American cities

March 15, 2012 9:45 AM Ben Popper
Ben Popper

Editor's Pick

The crisis that is the American software patent system has reached a tipping point. It’s no longer just established companies who are being hit with frivolous lawsuits, it’s startups as well. And in a new twist, American cities that are …

Japan’s Gree launches first U.S. mobile social game, Zombie Jombie

March 15, 2012 9:00 AM Dean Takahashi
Dean Takahashi

Editor's Pick

It’s just a cute little zombie game, but it could be the start of something big.

Gree has become a billion-dollar company in Japan with its mobile social games network. Now it is launching Zombie Jombie, the first title made …

Nokia’s design head spending a third of his time developing a tablet

March 15, 2012 8:16 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

As if you needed further proof Nokia is working hard on a tablet, the company’s design chief Marko Ahtisaari has admitted that he’s spending one-third of his time developing the company’s upcoming slate, according to an interview with the Finnish …

WTF: New iPad doesn’t allow FaceTime video chat over 4G LTE

March 15, 2012 8:08 AM Sean Ludwig
Sean Ludwig

Apple, you’ve got some splainin’ to do. The new iPad, which will be released tomorrow, does not allow FaceTime video chat using 4G LTE networks, according to a report by The Verge.

Former CEO Steve Jobs said that FaceTime would …

Amazon’s Android Appstore boasts 31K apps

March 15, 2012 7:40 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

Amazon is celebrating the first anniversary of its Android Appstore launch by putting a bunch of its most popular titles on sale. The company revealed that it now sports 31,000 apps on the store, up from 4,000 at launch, and …

Boku lands $35M from Telefonica, NEA to expand mobile payments

March 15, 2012 6:38 AM Devindra Hardawar
Devindra Hardawar

The mobile payments gold rush continues. Boku, a company best known for its carrier payment offering, announced today that it has received an additional $35 million investment led by Telefonica Digital and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

The funds will be …

Matcha.tv’s iPad app is better than the remote for navigating streaming video services

March 15, 2012 6:35 AM Tom Cheredar
Tom Cheredar

Editor's Pick

Streaming video content on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and several others have significantly grown over the past year, leaving people with a wide selection to choose from. Unfortunately, you have to sift through each service to find what’s available.

The …