Wireless

Verizon Wireless has fired the workers tied to the breach of records for a cell phone used by Barack Obama, according to CNN.

A source told CNN on Friday about the firings. The source wouldn't say how many people were involved. The workers had been placed on leave earlier this week during Verizon's internal investigation.

"We now consider this matter closed," the source told CNN.

The breach was publicly reported Thursday; President-elect Obama's transition team was informed a day earlier. Obama's spokesman told CNN that the flip phone, which didn't have e-mail, had been inactive for months.

The source told CNN that the employees weren't authorized to view customer records unless the customer requested it. The employees could not have read text messages or listened to voice mail, CNN reported.

Hundreds of people lined up outside some Verizon Wireless stores to buy the new BlackBerry Storm on Friday, but many walked away empty handed.

The Storm, which has been hyped for months, went on sale Friday morning. The device is the first BlackBerry phone to have a touch screen, making it a strong competitor to the Apple iPhone on AT&T's network. Since Verizon Wireless announced it would be the exclusive U.S. carrier for the Storm, the wireless operator has been expecting it to be a hit. In fact, it's the only new phone the company is introducing before the busy holiday season. Last year, Verizon launched four new phones before the holidays.

Reuters reported earlier Friday that more than 200 people lined up outside a Verizon Wireless store in midtown Manhattan, and the store was sold out of the new phone within an hour of opening at 8 a.m. Other stores in Washington, D.C. and New Jersey also had lines of 100 people or more, Reuters said.

And in San Francisco smaller lines of about 20 people waited outside Verizon stores at 8 a.m. Of course, these lines are small compared to the frenzy surrounding launches for the Apple iPhone. For both the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G released in July, people waited in line for days outside Apple stores and AT&T stores around the country to be among the first to get their hands on the gadget.

Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless, said that Verizon Wireless has plenty of BlackBerry Storms in its warehouses around and that customers who weren't able to get a phone on Friday will be able to order the phone and have it delivered to their homes within four to five days.

Raney also said that stores will be getting more shipments of Storms. She knew of three that had already gotten shipments this afternoon. Two stores in Manhattan, the Verizon Store on 34th St. and one at 1095 Avenue of the Americas, and one store in Paramus, NJ received shipments Friday afternoon.

Other stores may be getting shipments on Saturday, so customers may want to check out their local Verizon store over the weekend, she suggested.

Vodafone Group, one of Verizon Wireless's two parent companies, is selling the BlackBerry Storm in Europe. It also said it was struggling to meet demand for the storm when it launched the device, according to Reuters.

Initial reviews of the BlackBerry Storm have been fairly good. The device, which has a touch screen, media player, full browser and comes with 9 Gigabytes of storage (1 GB on the device and an 8 GB microSD card), is seen as a strong alternative to the iPhone for customers who prefer Verizon Wireless's network. But critics also point out the phone's shortcomings in comparison to the iPhone. For example touch screen requires users actually push down on the screen to select a button or click through a link, making typing on the device somewhat slow and cumbersome. And the biggest complaint is the Storm's lack of Wi-Fi, which is supported in the iPhone.

Faced with strong competition from Apple and Research In Motion, as well as economic headwinds, Palm has decided to lay off some workers.

Valleywag reported that the layoffs could involve as many as 10 percent of the company's 1,050 employees. A Palm representative confirmed that layoffs were taking place but did not comment on exactly how many people were affected.

"There have been some layoffs as a result of challenges facing our company and the industry, and we're restructuring our worldwide operations to better position ourselves for profitability and long-term growth," said Lynn Fox, a Palm spokeswoman. She declined to comment on exactly where the cuts would come, but she said Palm has decided to "focus our efforts more effectively."

The layoffs will have no bearing on Palm's plans to release a new operating system next year, Fox said. Palm has been working on a Linux-based mobile operating system with which the company desperately needs to replace the aging Palm OS. The company expects to finalize that operating system this year, and release products featuring the software in the first half of next year.

It has been a rough couple of years for Palm, which has been losing money consistently for quite some time, as Apple and RIM have come to dominate the U.S. smartphone market. The mobile-computing pioneer has managed to stay relevant with the public by releasing the Palm Centro, but it doesn't appear to be making very much money on the sale of each $99 Centro.

The Palm Treo 750, Palm's flagship product the last time it was a major player in corporate smartphones almost two years ago.

(Credit: CNET)

Perhaps no one has benefited as much from the downfall of the Treo than Apple.

On Thursday, ChangeWave released the results of an otherwise dismal survey predicting a tough time ahead for anyone who relies on corporate IT spending for their livelihood. But the news was good for those in the smartphone business not named Palm; smartphone shipments to U.S. corporations are expected to grow even as overall IT spending falls.

And Apple's iPhone is seeing the bulk of the growth, according to ChangeWave. Companies still love Research in Motion's BlackBerry, as we covered earlier this month, but the iPhone is picking up ground. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they planned to buy BlackBerrys for their employees in the next quarter, compared with 22 percent who plan on buying iPhones and just 5 percent planning on buying a Palm product. That compares August results that had RIM at 79 percent, Apple at 17 percent, and Palm at 6 percent. The results indicate that some companies are buying smartphones from more than one vendor, as last week's report on the iPhone in business noted as a growing trend.

The survey fails to break out results by operating system, which shafts Windows Mobile to some degree. Microsoft has been losing share to the iPhone overall, but smartphones that use Windows Mobile are still the second-most widely used phones inside corporations, according to J.Gold Associates. However, since that operating system is spread across so many different handset makers, no one handset maker is outpacing the three mentioned in the survey.

Palm has been trying to make a comeback with products like the Centro and Treo Pro, but Centro is a consumer-oriented product and the Treo Pro doesn't seem to have set the world afire.

In February 2007, Palm was on the shopping lists of 22 percent of companies surveyed by ChangeWave. Times have changed.

(Credit: AOL)

It's been a busy two days for AOL Mail. On Wednesday, AOL launched a beefier version of the AOL Mail gadget for iGoogle. On Thursday, AOL won a few more fans with the introduction of its beta feature AOL Sync.

AOL Mail for iGoogle improves upon the previous gadget by replacing the preview-only capability with functionality that lets you compose, reply, and fully manage your in-box from the iGoogle page.

AOL Sync beta, launched today, targets mobile and desktop users with the ability to sync their AOL address book and calendar in real time to Microsoft Outlook, the iPhone, BlackBerry, phones running Windows Mobile, and phones made by Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung.

You'll get started on AOL's Sync site, where you'll sign in to get access to the mobile or Outlook plug-in. On that end, AOL has turned to Funambol, which brings open-source push synchronization to companies like AOL.

It's a little disappointing that AOL Sync beta won't yet sync e-mail, but we're always big fans of two-way syncing and if this beta catches on, message-syncing would be the next logical step.

T-Mobile USA, which is currently rolling out its 3G wireless network across the country, is turning to Yahoo to power its search and mobile Web portal in an effort to boost data usage.

On Thursday T-Mobile said it would use Yahoo's OneSearch as the default search tool on its phones. T-Mobile is rebranding its mobile Web service and calling it Web2go. This service is supposed to provide a better Web browsing experience and easier navigation through a home page on T-Mobile's mobile phones. And it integrates Yahoo's OneSearch tool into it.

Also as part of the deal, Yahoo will offer sponsored search results and in some cases display advertising within the search results presented through T-Mobile's Web2go service. The companies will share the advertising revenue, but further details weren't given.

With close to 3 billion mobile phone users around the world, every major search company is vying for a piece of the action. They're also competing for a piece of the emerging mobile advertising market, which is still in its infancy. As a result, the stakes for the three main search giants--Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo--have never been higher.

Google dominates the search and advertising markets on the traditional Web. And it's already getting a strong foothold in the mobile market. In fact, it also has an important relationship with T-Mobile. Just two months ago, T-Mobile became the first wireless carrier to offer a phone using Google's Android operating system. As part of the deal, the G1, made by phone manufacturer HTC, has several Google applications, such as Gmail, Google search and Google Maps integrated into the device.

Microsoft is also making headway in this market and is believed to be close to signing a deal with Verizon Wireless worth about $550 million to $650 million in guaranteed revenue a year.

Yahoo has worked hard over the past couple of years to make its mark on mobile. The company already has deals with T-Mobile in Europe to power its search in North and Central Europe. O2 in the U.K. is also partnering with Yahoo. In total, Yahoo claims to have about 25 percent market share in Europe and more than 30 percent in the U.K.

Yahoo's OneSearch service is the core of its mobile strategy, and it provides search results that are supposed to be the most useful for someone who is surfing the Web from a mobile phone. Yahoo also provides voice search, allowing users to speak the term they are searching for into their phones instead of typing it into the keypad. Google just announced its voice search for the iPhone this week.

While deals with specific carriers are important today, it's unclear how important they will be in the future. Yahoo's OneSearch can be downloaded from the Web and any mobile user with a browser can search using Google whether it's preloaded on the phone or not. That said, for now, most mobile subscribers using a basic cell phone don't download new applications. And most don't venture beyond the carrier "deck" or menu of choices that it is given to them on their phones.

But that could soon change. As smartphones like Apple's iPhone, all the BlackBerry devices, and new Android phones become increasingly popular among consumers, users are more likely to venture beyond the applications and services preloaded on their phones. Apple has already seen great success with its App Store. More than 3,000 applications are currently available through the App Store, and Apple has said that users downloaded more than 100 million applications between the site's launch on July 11 and the beginning of September.

Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry, and Google are launching application store fronts that will allow subscribers to easily access applications from third party developers.

What this likely means for the mobile market is that mobile users are being conditioned to explore and download content that is not spoon-fed to them by their service provider. And as users get more comfortable exploring the mobile Web on their own, deals such as the one between Yahoo and T-Mobile may become less relevant.

Think of the portal wars of the late 1990s. AOL dominated as a portal provider, but once users realized they could find whatever they wanted or needed on their own, Google emerged as a top destination site providing search, aggregated news, and now a whole slew of new applications.

Still, for the moment, there are millions of basic cell phones on the market. And if carriers want to boost data usage on these devices, they will need a little help from the Microsofts, Yahoos, and Googles of the world.

Verizon Wireless may have found its iPhone killer.

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

On Friday, Verizon will be the first and only wireless carrier in the U.S. to offer Research in Motion's new BlackBerry Storm. The device, which costs $199 with a two-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate, is the first phone that could give Apple's iPhone--offered exclusively on AT&T's network for the same price--a run for its money.

I checked out the new touch-screen phone this week and have been playing around with it for a few days. My first impression is that it's pretty cool. It shares many of the same features that have made the iPhone popular, such as a touch screen, media player, and full HTML browser, making it a strong alternative to the iPhone. (For a full review of the device check out CNET Reviews where editor Bonnie Cha has put the device through its paces.)

But RIM has also been careful to retain the popular features and functionality that have catapulted its BlackBerry devices to iconic status among corporate types.

Take the touch screen as an example, BlackBerry users are accustomed to pushing actual keys. And many people I know who carry both a BlackBerry and an iPhone say they prefer the BlackBerry when it comes to sending text messages or e-mail, because they like the feel of touching buttons.

RIM didn't want to lose this feeling, so the company made sure that users still have to push down on the touch screen as if they were actually hitting a button. As an Apple iPhone user, I have to admit, it took me a little while to get used to the Storm's "push" touch screen. But in some ways I think it's an improvement over the iPhone touch screen. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally called someone or sent a text message before I was ready to hit send, because my finger brushed across that area on the iPhone touch screen.

Another improvement over the iPhone is the fact that the Storm has 1 gigabyte of internal storage and can use a standard microSD storage card to support up to an additional 16 GB of data storage. And because they are standard storage cards, they can be swapped out and replaced. By contrast, the iPhone 3G comes in two versions, an 8GB model and a 16GB model. The storage can't be removed or swapped.

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

Also, the Storm has a removable battery. Again, this appeals to me, because the iPhone's battery can't be removed, which means if it dies, so does my iPhone.

The gloomier forecast
But the Storm isn't a perfect device either. And there are a few things that I prefer on the iPhone. For one, the Storm lacks Wi-Fi. Verizon Wireless' representatives told me they opted not to include Wi-Fi because it adds "bulk, cost, and is a drain on the battery."

But truth be told, I think Verizon didn't want Wi-Fi because the company would rather have customers surf its 3G wireless network. While 3G speeds are a huge improvement over 2.5G speeds, they simply don't hold a candle to Wi-Fi. I can download e-mails and Web pages on my iPhone when using Wi-Fi much faster than when I am using AT&T's 3G network. And I can't imagine it would be much different on Verizon's 3G network.

Beyond its lack of Wi-Fi, I'd say that I prefer the touch screen navigation and Web browsing experience on the iPhone to the Storm. This of course, is a matter of personal taste. The new BlackBerry browser is slick and it works well. It's definitely a huge improvement over its older browsers. But zooming in on pages on the Storm requires clicking a button or actually clicking the screen. And I prefer the iPhone's pinching and brushing movements. But that's just me.

Overall, I think RIM has come out with a device that will give any consumer seriously considering a new touch screen smartphone an alternative to the iPhone. As a result, I think it could help Verizon retain customers ,who have been tempted to leave the carrier for the iPhone.

Let's face it, Verizon's previous attempts at introducing a so-called iPhone kliller have been lackluster. The LG Voyager and the LG Dare, looked cool and sleek, but they weren't true smartphones. RIM's other BlackBerry models have lacked the touch screen and cool factor.

Even though Verizon has not seen huge numbers of its subscribers leave its network since the iPhone was first introduced a year and a half ago, it has lost some as a result. But now, customers who are satisfied with Verizon Wireless's coverage and network reliability, won't have to leave to get a really cool device.

Mesh Wi-Fi provider Meraki is going green with a new solar-powered repeater.

(Credit: Meraki)

The company, which builds low-cost and easy-to-manage Wi-Fi gear, said the Meraki Solar Wi-Fi repeater will ship starting December 4. The price of the solar repeater costs between $749 and $1,499.

Sanjit Biswas, co-founder and CEO of Meraki, said he expects customers in developing markets, where power infrastructure is not reliable or nonexistent, to be especially interested in the product. But he said that there has also been interest among customers here in the U.S. and other developed markets.

"Some people might want to set up a Wi-Fi on their roof or somewhere else they don't have power," he said. "And then they realize how much it will cost them to get an electrician to wire that area."

For this reason, Biswas said that the Meraki Solar repeater is ideal for installations in places like city parks. Even the higher initial cost of the solar equipment will still be cheaper than running power to bay stations and radios throughout a large area like Central Park in New York, he said.

Meraki had announced its solar-powered product last year. But the product was delayed when the company decided to change battery types after receiving feedback that the batteries ran out of power too quickly. The company now uses lithium iron-phosphate, which gives it greater capacity. Biswas says the new battery can store enough energy to power the Wi-Fi radios 24 hours a day seven days a week even during times of limited sunlight.

In addition to its solar-powered repeater, Meraki introduced a new Wi-Fi radio wall plug, which features a hole to screw the unit to an outlet. The design is part of Meraki's push to sell its gear to apartment buildings and complexes. The company has been experimenting with product designs and ideas for better coverage in multiple dwelling units as part of the free network it offers to San Francisco.

Earlier this year, Meraki announced it would help the city provide free Internet access to low-income housing projects as part of its plan to unwire every neighborhood in San Francisco. Meraki, which is based in the Bay Area, sees the San Francisco Wi-Fi network as an important test bed for its products and services.

Virgin America is teaming up with YouTube for its big coming-out party for its Wi-Fi in the sky service.

The California-based airline will launch its Gogo Inflight Internet service on November 22 in a flight over San Francisco. To show off how robust the in-flight Internet service is, the company is planning to stream a live video feed from the plane down to the ground to an audience attending the YouTube Live concert in San Francisco.

(Credit: Virgin America)

The Gogo service will be available to all passengers on a single Wi-Fi enabled plane starting November 24. And by the second quarter of 2009, the company expects to offer Wi-Fi on its entire fleet of planes.

As part of the YouTube live video feed demonstration, 30 Rock's Keith Powell will be part of the show. He'll be filming a segment in-flight for his Web mini-series with co-star Katrina Bowden. After the flight, guests will then go to the YouTube Live event.

CNET Reviews editor Kent German and CNET TV correspondent Kara Tsuboi are planning to be on hand for the event, so check out their blog posts and video of the event. It should be cool.

Virgin America isn't the only U.S. airline to launch in-flight Wi-Fi. American Airlines debuted its in-flight Internet access service in August on 15 of its 767-200 airplanes. Delta Air Lines has said that it will outfit its planes by the middle of next year with Wi-Fi.

American and Delta area also using the Gogo service from Aircell. The cost of the Gogo service is $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours.

Other airlines, such as JetBlue Airways, has been testing its Wi-Fi service on routes between San Francisco and New York. Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines are also testing in-flight Wi-Fi. And others such as United Airlines are considering offering Wi-Fi, but it hasn't announced tests or a commercial launch.

NEW YORK--GPS map maker Navteq is teaming with its parent company Nokia to help drivers get more accurate information about traffic conditions.

Before Nokia bought Navteq last year, the two began working on a project in conjunction with the University of California at Berkeley called Mobile Millennium that uses GPS-enabled cell phones as traffic monitors or "probes" to collect real-time traffic data.

A Nokia GPS-enabled phone acts as a traffic "probe" to provide real-time traffic information to drivers.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET News)

A pilot program using more than 10,000 handsets has already launched in the San Francisco Bay Area. And on Tuesday the companies were showing off the technology at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress here in New York.

As part of the pilot program, researchers are collecting data via GPS and tracking usage patterns to provide real-time traffic reports for individual drivers. All the information is collected anonymously and aggregated statistically to provide the most up-to-date and accurate information.

"The beauty of this approach is that the users also become contributors and the more data that is collected the better the accuracy and range of the service," said Quinn Jacobson, a research leader at the Nokia Research Center in Palo Alto, Calif.

Navteq is a leader in the mapping and navigation market. Its maps have been used by Google and others to fuel their navigation services. And its technology is already being used for cell phone services, such as Verizon Wireless' VZ Navigator. In addition to turn-by-turn navigation, VZ Navigator also provides up-to-date traffic information.

But the problem is that most of the traffic information available through Navteq's technology is collected using government deployed sensors. While these sensors, which sit on the roads and monitor car speeds and traffic volume, do a good job, they are too expensive to be deployed everywhere. This means that traffic information is usually only available for busy highways in large metropolitan areas, but it's missing on arterial roads feeding into these highways or on rural secondary roads.

The application being developed in the Mobile Millennium project will solve this problem, Jacobson said.

Currently, the Mobile Millennium application is only being used in the pilot testing program, but Jacobson said he expects a commercial offering to be available within the next two years. It's not clear yet if Nokia will make the application available to phones other than ones made by Nokia. It's likely that the application could be made available as part of a service offered through a wireless operator. This would likely mean that it would be available on a wide range of handsets from other manufacturers.

Jacobson said those business details haven't been worked out, but it's technically possible to offer the application on any GPS device. Jacobson also emphasized that the application performs better with more users, which means it might be in Nokia's best interest to open it up to other devices.

"The application works really well with 2 percent of the drivers on the road using it," he said. "But 4 percent is even better and so on."

Jacobson said the application will become really useful when it allows users to input specific routes and is integrated with other applications. For example, a daily commuter could program into the phone several routes he drives to work. The traffic application would be able to choose the best route depending on the current traffic conditions. If something changes en route, the application would be smart enough to alter the route.

And for people who never leave themselves enough time to get to the airport or an important meeting, the traffic application could help. Once the application is integrated into the calendar, it could calculate how long it will take, based on current traffic conditions, to get to that appointment. And it could alert the user when he or she should leave in order to get there on time.