Text content sales grow with 4G

Apps for content are one area where consumers are downloading and continuing to use apps, say researchers at the Yankee Group. A new forecast from Yankee Group predicts that e-book sales will reach $2.7 billion by 2013, an annual growth rate of more than 70 percent.

Researchers believe more than 380 million e-books will be purchased by 2013, four times the amount purchased in 2010. One negative: e-book prices are expected to drop to about $7 on average, a $2 decrease over 2009 prices.

Yankee Group believes that growing 4G mobile penetration is going to help.

Yankee Group: How connectivity, content is changing the game

Isis CEO: Mobile payments making "good progress"

"If you're going to make payments work in the United States on a mobile phone, you're going to need a lot of players to come alive in the ecosystem to make that happen--everything from the merchants to the OEMs to the phone manufacturers," says Isis CEO Michael Abbott.

"The point of why we made the announcement about Isis before we were out there marketing it is to let all of the ecosystem players know, here is the place you can come to talk about the open standards we're developing, what we'd expect people to adopt and that we're bringing the wherewithal of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon and the 200 million subscribers they have and the 100 million who re-up their phones every year," says Abbott.

Isis CEO: Mobile payments making 'good progress,' but no specifics yet

Corning Incorporated to Acquire MobileAccess

These days, if you run a business in the fixed-line business, in any way, and you don't have a mobile play, you have a problem. So it is that Corning has signed an agreement to acquire MobileAccess, a leading provider of wireless network solutions.

With headquarters in Vienna, Va. and a technology center in Tel Aviv, Israel, MobileAccess provides distributed antenna system solutions for flexible wireless coverage in the rapidly growing wireless market.

Corning Incorporated to Acquire MobileAccess

Skype Competitor Viber Hits 10 Million Downloads

An Android version is said to be coming.

Charge Anywhere for Android Updated

Charge Anywhere, a provider of mobile payment solutions and payment gateway services, has released an updated version of "Charge Anywhere for Android," a free payment application for Android smartphones. The application can be downloaded from the Android Market.

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Galaxy Tab Return Rate 15%, Study Finds

The Galaxy Tab, Samsung's answer to the iPad, was found in one study to have a return rate of about 15 percent, compared to a two-percent return rate for the Apple iPad.

'Consumers aren't in love with the device,' said Tony Berkman, a consumer tech analyst with ITG.

Samsung says it has shipped two million Galaxy Tabs, which run Google Android software.

The problem with the Galaxy might be attributed to use of an operating system not originally designed to run a tablet.

Galaxy Tab a dim bulb - NYPOST

Groupon’s Hyperlocal Play

Groupon has a partnerhip with JiWire that provides "hyperlocal" targeted ads.

Ad formatting will roll into the JiWire Compass template, which initially appears as a standard display ad, but when clicked on, opens up into a richer, app-like experience with geo-fencing and mapping capabilities.

JiWire’s network automatically determines a user’s location and then searches for locally-relevant deals. Results show how many local deals were found and their distance from that location.

Social Local Media: Groupon’s Hyperlocal Play – A Next Step for Deals