• FOX Business Network has announced it will distribute news content to select smartphones using the 1Cast platform. 1Cast, a desktop and mobile broadcast news and information service, allows consumers to create personalized video newscasts. 1Cast customers include the BBC, Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.
• AT&T will be offering the BlueAnt Q1 Bluetooth headset on July 19. The noise-cancelling headset allows users to control functions with their voice and is equipped with software that distinguishes the user's voice from other sounds. The headset also allows users to manage calls from two phones at the same time.
• Mobile payments startup Bling Nation has secured $8 million in Series A funding, with $6.3 million coming from lead investor Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company’s mobile payment service allows consumers to pay merchants with the tap of a mobile phone. After tapping the phone at the merchant point-of-sale, the consumer receives an instant text message with the transaction information, an updated account balance and rewards balance. If the rewards balance meets preset thresholds, a customer can pay for their purchase using those rewards.
• Consumer demand for smartphones will push annual worldwide sales from 131 million units in 2008 to over 300 million by 2013, according to a report by international market research company Parks Associates. The firm predicts that smartphone users worldwide will top 1.1 billion in 2013. In addition, the firm is launching a new consumer study that will explore smartphone users' usage patterns, handset feature and function requirements and expectations for new mobile content and services.
• Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs and company CEO Paul Jacobs will deliver a joint keynote address at International CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment in San Diego in October. The father-son speech will cover the ways in which the mobile Internet is bridging the digital and physical worlds, examining how advanced and innovative mobile wireless networks, services, devices and applications are creating a world organized around the user experience.
• Iowa Telecommunications Services has completed its $82 million acquisition of Sherburne Tele Systems. Sherburne serves nine communities adjacent to the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area. Its operations include ILEC services and CLEC services provided through its wholly-owned subsidiary, NorthStar Access. As of March 31, Sherburne served about 15,100 ILEC telephone access lines, 9,900 CLEC lines, 14,400 DSL high-speed Internet customers and 3,700 video subscribers. Sherburne had sales of $29.2 million for its 2008 fiscal year.
• QuickLogic has provided an updated revenue outlook for the second quarter of 2009. Although the company’s new product revenue increased nearly 25 percent in the second quarter, a sharp decrease in demand for legacy products in U.S. and Western European markets is anticipated to bring overall revenue to between $2.8 million and $3.0 million, below the company’s previous guidance issued in April. QuickLogic provides customizable semiconductor solutions for mobile and portable electronics original equipment manufacturers and original design manufacturers.