• Device charger manufacturer Comarco posted widening losses in its first fiscal quarter. The company lost $2.8 million after sales fell 47 percent to $2 million. The losses included a $0.9 million severance cost related to the departure of former senior management. Comarco CEO Sam Inman expects new products to drive revenue growth in the second half of the company’s fiscal year.
• Today, LG Mobile Phones will crown the winner of the third-annual LG U.S. National Texting Championship. The contest starts out with the 22 finalists of its “Text Titans” challenge in May. The national champion will receive $50,000. Last year’s winner, 20-year-old Nathan Schwartz, won with the phrase, “Does everybody here know the alphabet? Let's text. Here it goes... AbcDeFghiJKlmNoPQrStuvWXy & Z! Now I know my A-B-C's, next time won't you text with me?"
• NetMotion Wireless has released version 8.51 of its mobile virtual private network (VPN) software. The new version of MobilityXE supports character sets commonly used in most European languages, including French, German, Italian and Spanish. Version 8.51 also provides support for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and 2005 SP3.
• MPS has announced the creation of a mobile phone skin that enables contactless mobile payments. The product, dubbed PHOOLAH, is a customizable vinyl skin embedded with a contactless payment chip. With it, consumers will be able to conduct transactions at contactless point-of-sale readers.
• Insight Research reports that music, television and movies streamed over wireless networks and IP networks will generate $78 billion over the next six years. The company reports that the streaming media content market will grow at a compound annual rate of 27 percent over the next five years, driven by advertising revenue, on-demand video and on-demand audio.
• Leap Wireless subsidiary Cricket Communications is now carrying the Samsung MyShot II SCH-r460, the next generation of the Samsung MyShot. The new phone features an MP3 music player with a microSD slot for removable memory, stereo Bluetooth, a large display, a 1.3 megapixel camera and mobile Internet. It also will be the first Cricket phone to offer MyHomeScreen, a customizable home page.