mobile entertainment

Verizon Wireless will begin offering a application to help people plan and manage their vacations to Walt Disney Parks and Resorts starting early next year.

Ad-supported mobile game distributor Greystripe said it will expand its global footprint by partnering with India’s largest online gaming company.The San Francisco-based firm is teaming with Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd., a division of the giant Reliance ADA Group, to offer …

I didn’t expect much from games on the iPhone. I had visions of casual games, perhaps a fancy take on solitaire or a version of poker that takes advantage of the handset’s touchscreen. Surely not a true mobile gaming experience.

Gameloft offered a surprisingly upbeat outlook for mobile gaming as it posted $34.1 million in third-quarter revenues.The Paris-based game maker reported an 8% increase from last year’s revenues during the same period, and generated $99.6 million during the first nine …

Within days of buying his iPhone, John Furrier discovered that his 13-year-old son, Alec, was sneaking off with the device and downloading games. To reclaim his phone, Furrier had to buy his son an iPod Touch, which Alec quickly filled …

There are several reasons why consumers may not take to slotMusic albums. For instance, you can’t plug the cards into the most popular digital music players around, Apple’s iPods. Nor can you fit them into most car and home stereos …

EA Mobile said it will expand its support for Nokia Corp.’s N-Gage platform with nearly a dozen new, high-profile titles over the next year.EA Sports FIFA 09, Spore Origins and Monopoly Here & Now: The World Edition will launch in …

Thumbplay Inc. bulked up its library off-deck goodies with a full-track mobile download service.The New York-based wireless content company launched a beta version of the offering, which delivers DRM-free tunes directly to MP3-enabled phones as well as PCs. The songs …

How Verizon Wireless learned to stop worrying and love open access. Step one: Realizing it’s a way to add low-cost customers

Similar to Google Earth for desktop computers, the free software’s animated world rotates and zooms in on a map of one’s location.

PlayPhone Inc. notched its fourth and final major record label, securing a deal to distribute mastertones from Universal Music Group.A division of Vivendi, UMG claims nearly 20 subsidiary labels and artists such as 50 Cent, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, The …

MySpace jumped aboard the Android bandwagon with a free, downloadable application customized for the new platform.MySpace Android allows users to upload photos, access band profiles and tour schedules, view comments on profiles and connect with other users. Members of the …

FOR NOW, AT LEAST, Verizon Wireless has stepped away from plans to tack on a drastic 3-cent fee to each vendor-generated message on its network. But there’s little doubt that some significant changes are in store for nearly every player …

Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly feature, Analyst Angle. We’ve collected a group of the industry’s leading analysts to give their outlook on the hot topics in the wireless industry.The last few years have seen significant growth in the U.S. …

Some of the most vicious Internet predators are hackers who infect thousands of PCs with special viruses and lash the machines together into “botnets” to pump out spam or attack other computers.

Simon & Schuster unveiled a deal to make more than 500 of its titles available through the Macmillan Publishing Solutions’ MPS Mobile.The effort launched with books such as the best-seller “The Secret” as well as titles from the “Star Trek” …

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) – Making music just got easier. A Japanese game maker has teamed up with the nation’s leading cellphone network carrier to enable users to play an orchestra with their fingertips.

Social networking is exploding in mobile, according to figures released by ABI Research. And Frank Meehan thinks he knows how to capitalize.ABI polled 500 users of online social networks and found that 46% of respondents had used such services from …

Like the song in a YouTube video? Now you can “click to buy” it on iTunes or Amazon.

Streaming-music service providers bought some time last week when Congress approved legislation that will allow them to renegotiate royalty rates some claim may otherwise drive them out of business. But nobody’s celebrating yet.Legislators approved the Webcaster Settlement Act, which grants …

In the same way that mobile access to Wikipedia has transformed stupid arguments, mobile song recognition apps are truly neat when you need to name that tune.

Shares of Glu Mobile Inc. continued to slide after the company lowered its third-quarter forecast. The San Mateo, Calif.-based mobile game publisher said it expects revenues “slightly below” its August forecast of $24 million to $24.7 million. The company also …

NBC Universal deemed its coverage of the Beijing Olympics a “ringing success,” with its games-dedicated mobile Web site drawing more than 6.5 million unique visitors and 36 million page views, according to Omniture data.The broadcaster, which had described the event …

Sprint Nextel Corp. is set to ax the download of songs from its Sprint Music Store to desktop computers beginning Oct. 15.The service’s home page includes a link titled “PC Downloads Update,” that includes the following explanation: “Beginning October 15, …

Mobile games have never been a big money maker for wireless operators or the game developers themselves.