A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Mobile

Five years ago, the Motorola Razr was the "hot device." The BlackBerry was carried mostly by business users. While smartphones existed, the devices were really more like PDAs with a phone built-in rather than mobile computing devices as we know them today.

There were mobile phone apps, but the app store concept as we know it now was still years away. And while many mobile phones had the ability to access the web, the experience was slow and painful.

A Look Back at the Last 5 Years in Mobile

Not Your Imagination: The World is Younger

It isn't your imagination: more people are younger these days, and they all use mobile phones. Nearly half of the world's population is under the age of 25 and over 85 percent live in developing countries, according to the World Population Foundation.

Globally, a majority of people in the 15- to 25-year segment have a mobile device of some sort.

Why Mobile Technology Is Still Going to Save the World

Blockbuster Express Plans 10,000 U.S. Locations by End of 2010

Blockbuster Express, the self-service movie rental service, is supposed to be available at 10,000 U.S. locations in 2010. The service competes with Redbox.

Unemployment Above 9% Until 2012

The White House’s annual Mid-Session Budget Review assumes unemployment will not fall below nine percent until 2012. In other words, the White House believes we will continue to be in a virtual "jobless recovery."  In fact, the White House expects unemployment to remain at seven percent until the start of 2014.


The unemployment rate is projected to aver­age 9.7 percent in 2010. This is the average level of unemployment that has prevailed dur­ing the first six months of the year. Despite the growth in output, unemployment is projected to decline slowly because, as labor market condi­tions improve, discouraged workers rejoin the labor force, adding temporarily to unemploy­ment, while part-time workers increase their hours of work.

Even with continued healthy growth in 2011 and beyond, the unemployment rate is projected to fall, but it is not projected to fall below six percent until 2015. Traditionally, an unemployment rate around four percent has been considered a sign of "full employment" conditions.

That is going to put pressure on every business selling products and services to consumers or business customers, and will increase pressure on firms to grow by acquisition, as internal customer growth and average revenue per user will be tough to come by.

read the full report here

Apple Claims Droid X Suffers From Signal Fade When Held

Apple claims the new Droid X also suffers from signal attenuation when held in the hand.

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State of Social Gaming Business

Tim Chang, principal at Norwest Venture Partners,talks about the social game market, reviewing 2009 and 2010 trends. 

Verizon Wireless Gains Outpace AT&T

Despite the undeniable success the Apple iPhone has been for AT&T, Verizon might be finding ways to compete even without ability to sell the popular device. In the second quarter of 2010, Verizon Wireless added a net 665,000 contract customers, boosted from the increased demand for its line of Droid smartphones, which run on Google Inc.'s Android software.

AT&T added a net 496,000 contract customers in the same quarter. The impact of iPhone 4 sales will not be reflected in AT&T's performance until the third quarter, though, as sales started at the tail end of the second quarter. That should help AT&T post strong net adds numbers in a quarter that typically is one of the weaker quarters of the year for net adds.

Verizon Wireless Gains Outpace AT&T