2006

HONG KONG—Altai Technologies Ltd. snapped up $10 million during its first round of financing and said it plans to use the funds to expand its engineering, sales and marketing efforts to fuel its growth within the citywide Wi-Fi ecosystem. Altai’s …

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—Visto Corp. will have no trouble paying its lawyer fees. The mobile e-mail service provider raked in another $51 million this week in a funding round led by Oak Investment Partners. The haul follows a $70 million round …

NEW YORK—Dada USA Inc. launched its social networking and entertainment community for the U.S. market. The company’s Web site allows users to subscribe to a variety of services and content including personal blogging, profile matching, text messaging, ringtones, mobile gaming …

GREENSBORO, N.C.—RF Micro Devices Inc. said it plans to sell its equity interest in Jazz Semiconductor for between $24 million and $27 million in cash. The company is divesting its interest in Jazz due to the pending merger of Jazz …

NEW YORK—Two research firms say the future looks bright for location-based services running on Global Positioning System technology. ABI Research’s latest study on the subject suggests that subscribers of GPS-enabled LBS services will reach 315 million by 2011, up from …

NEW YORK—Jamster International bulked up its content portfolio in North America with a deal to offer ringtones, graphics and mobile games from the Walt Disney Internet Group. Disney and its third-party content licensing arm Starwave Mobile already use VeriSign Inc.’s …

By Kate MacArthur CHICAGO—McDonald’s franchisees John and Karen O’Keefe watched sales flatline for most of the year at their store in Chicago’s suburban Woodfield Mall while other restaurants in the fast-food chain’s system pulled in gains of 2 percent or …

LONDON—Best Buy International will team with U.K. wireless retail giant Carphone Warehouse Group to open stand-alone cell phone stores in the United States. In a prepared statement, the firms said a trial of Best Buy Mobile stores in New York …

NEW YORK—A new mobile virtual network operator targeting Chinese-Americans officially launched today, offering cheap international calls to Asia and a Razr phone with menus in Chinese. Red Pocket Mobile soft-launched about two weeks ago, according to Max Smetannikov, vice president …

BELLEVUE, Wash.—With the quiet addition of its new t719 flip phone, which offers BlackBerry Connect service and an e-mail-friendly keypad, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. now supplies just over one-third of T-Mobile USA Inc.’s handset portfolio. The t719 uses the same …

IRVINE, Calif.—Mobile search vendor AskMeNow said it launched a national TV advertising campaign to promote its search service. The company’s ad campaign includes 30-second spots that demonstrate the service. The spots will appear on channels including Comedy Central, VH1, ESPN …

SAN DIEGO—Digital Orchid is looking to expand its portfolio and global footprint with the acquisition of mobile game publisher Blue Tech. Blue Tech is a 2-year-old vendor based in Madrid, Spain, and is the parent company of Java developer Kato …

NEW YORK—Nokia Corp. announced five new GSM phones—the company insists the devices are “multimedia computers”—for the United States, but did not announce any accompanying carrier deals. Three of the devices—the N70, N73 and N91—are optimized for music. The devices include …

MADRID, Spain—Mobile transaction provider mBlox said it is working with application service provider Dynetic to provide an SMS-based bidding service to eBay in Spain. The service uses mBlox’s SMS services to alert customers when they have been outbid on an …

ATLANTA—Air2Web said it snared $25 million in a financing round led by The Carlyle Group. The wireless software company said it will use the new funds to further its work in mobile marketing as well as expanding into other geographic …

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—The Wireless Infrastructure Association, better known as PCIA, said it drew its highest attendance numbers—1,400 registrants—to its annual trade show held last week in Nashville, Tenn. The attendance tally marks a 5-percent increase from last year’s results, and signals …

SEOUL—South Korea’s Pantech & Curitel Communications Inc. will provide its portfolio of CDMA-based handsets to UTStarcom Inc. for sale in North America under a three-year agreement, the company announced. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Pantech already is a …

SAN FRANCISCO—Mobile video upstart Veeker said it has acquired ThumbJive, a developer of youth-focused wireless applications. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Veeker, which has been operating in stealth mode, hopes to gain traction with technology that allows …

DUBLIN, Ireland—Those waiting anxiously for a .mobi domain needn’t wait any longer. The company behind the controversial, mobile-exclusive top-level domain opened registration today, allowing the general public to register wireless Internet sites with the suffix. Mobile Top Level Domain Ltd., …

WASHINGTON—The Federal Communications Commission officially launched its Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, naming Ken Moran as its acting chief. The agency has been in the process of creating the new bureau for about a year; FCC Chairman Kevin Martin …

SHENZHEN, China—The Bluetooth Special Interest Group isn’t going to take it anymore—at least that’s the message heard around the world as the group announced it orchestrated a successful raid in a Shenzhen, China, factory suspected of infringing on the Bluetooth …

HERNDON, Va.—GigaBeam Corp. picked up Department of Defense orders through its system integration partner, WirelessGuys Inc., for the company’s wireless fiber links. GigaBeam touts its wireless fiber products, called WiFiber, as being similar to terrestrial fiber in terms of speed. …

BELLEVUE, Wash.—T-Mobile USA Inc. wants its users to get more from life, but the carrier looks to be getting less from Catherine Zeta-Jones. The Bellevue, Wash.-based operator plans to drop its high-profile spokeswoman, according to a report from The Wall …

Less than two years ago, carriers were blaming publishers for stifling mobile gaming by churning out a surfeit of high-profile, licensed games that made for a rotten user experience. Now it’s the game makers’ that are pointing fingers. Handsets are …

There were no last-minute bombshells when the advanced wireless services spectrum auction wrapped up last week after a few final, tedious rounds with a mere handful of bids. T-Mobile USA Inc. was the undisputed and unsurprising highest bidder, walking away …