• Wirefly says it is the first online retailer in the country to sell netbooks with embedded 3G wireless service from both AT&T and Verizon Wireless. Wirefly.com will initially offer the Acer Aspire One with AT&T 3G service and the HP Mini 1151NR from Verizon Wireless, with pricing starting as low as $49.99 with a new two year contract. The company plans to broaden its netbook line-up as AT&T and Verizon Wireless continue to expand theirs.
• Cellular South announced availability of the Samsung Finesse (SCH- r810) touchscreen phone and its advanced touch user interface to its customers. It sells for $199.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and new two-year contract.
• Motorola has had another of its WiMAX access points, the WAP 400 for 3.5 GHz, certified by the WiMAX Forum. Previously certified Motorola products include two 2.5 GHz customer premises equipment products and two 2.5 GHz WiMAX access points.
• The NFC Forum introduced the N-Mark, a stylized letter “N” that indicates the spot where an NFC device can read an NFC tag to establish a connection. By holding an NFC-enabled device close to the N-Mark, consumers can retrieve data stored on embedded NFC tags.
• Useful Networks and 1020 Placecast announced a joint location-based advertising effort. When users click on a banner advertisement on the mobile Internet, that customer’s anonymous location information is sent from Useful Networks to Placecast. Placecast will then return a landing page with a store locator, which could include a map, directions and local phone number for the nearest retail store in real-time.
• The Symbian Foundation announced the addition of two senior executives to its management team: Larry Berkin, former vice president, Mobile Ecosystem & Corporate Business Development at ACCESS (formerly PalmSource), and Dietmar Tallroth, former director of legal for Nokia’s Open Source and Java. Berkin will serve as head of Symbian’s U.S. office and will be charged with expanding its partnership alliances and developer ecosystem. Dietmar will serve as Symbian’s general counsel and will be based in Finland.
• WiSpry, a fabless RF semiconductor company in Irvine, Calif., announced the closing of an additional $10 million of Series C financing, bringing the total of the Series C round to $20 million. The round was led by new investment partners, Chart Venture Partners and Acadia Woods Partners, bringing the number of new investors in WiSpry to four, with Paladin Capital and Murata participating in the first closing.
• China Techfaith Wireless Communication Technology, or TechFaith, announced the launch of its HSUPA data modem card into the U.S. market, with availability in the second half of June. The data card will be sold through one of the major U.S. wireless network operators.
• Retailer Cell2Get.com says it will be offering the new Palm Pre cell phone starting June 6.
• Amdocs announced that Hubei Telecom, a unit of China Telecom Group operating in Hubei province, has selected and deployed Amdocs as part of a comprehensive project to upgrade its business support systems (BSS).
• Mobile messaging volumes continue to shatter records, according to the latest quarterly index of mobile messaging statistics compiled by the Messaging and Mobile Media Division of VeriSign. During the first quarter of 2009, VeriSign, which delivers 60 percent of the text and mobile message traffic in the U.S. inter-carrier market, recorded a new high of nearly 84 billion messages delivered throughout the quarter.
• TechnoCom announced SpotOn GPS, a hosted mobile advertising and marketing content delivery platform that provides turn-by-turn navigation, search and mapping.
• FusionOne, provider of mobile phone content portability services, announced a partnership with Roundbox, provider of mobile broadcast software. FusionOne says it will use Roundbox content delivery and broadcast technology to maximize the delivery of its Handset Transfer Solution and Network Address Book products to mobile handsets.
• Skyworks Solutions acquired Axiom Microdevices, a volume supplier of CMOS-based power amplifiers for mobile phones. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
• Openwave Systems announced the launch of Openwave Mobile Analytics 7.0, which is designed to help carriers better understand mobile data usage, segmented by various subscriber demographics, peak usage times and identify data consumption patterns. The solution is expected to be generally available through Openwave at the beginning of the third quarter.
• Alvarion was selected by Hafslund, one of the largest listed utility companies in the Nordic area, for a turnkey deployment using Alvarion’s WiMAX Forum Certified Mobile WiMAX solution.
• The LiMo Foundation announced the completion of specifications for the second release of the LiMo Platform (R2). R2 will be at the heart of next-generation LiMo handsets that will reach market starting in the fourth quarter.
• Movial will integrate, test and certify Adobe Flash technology in embedded mobile environments that use ARM-based Linux under the Open Screen Project, an initiative to deliver a consistent runtime environment across screens. The announcement reflects Adobe and Movial's close working relationship in enabling Flash technology on a wide variety of Mobile Linux device environments, including netbooks, smartphones and other handheld devices.