First News Briefs December 21, 2010
Apple expects sales of its new Apple TV to top one million units later this week. The device allows users to stream content to their television from their computers or iOS devices with the AirPlay app, available on iOS 4.2. The company also said its iTunes users are now renting and purchasing over 400,000 TV episodes and over 150,000 movies per day.
Lenco Mobile has acquired assets from Angelos Gateway Limited which will improve the company’s mobile messaging platform. Angelos’ signaling gateway platform complements Lenco’s existing platform, which now offers SMS, MMS, instant messaging and location based solutions.
The global handset market will grow roughly 8 percent in total handset unit sell-through in 2011, resulting in more than 1.4 billion devices sold, reports Pyramid Research. Basic ultra-low cost handsets, inexpensive smartphones, and Android-based devices will see the most demand in 2011, the research firm says.
Qiao Xing Mobile Communication Co., a manufacturer of cell phones in the China, says its board of directors has approved the removal of David Li as the CEO and the appointment of Zhiyang Wuas as a replacement, effective immediately. Li will continue to serve as the general manager of Research & Development Department of CEC Telecom, a subsidiary of the company.
The9 Limited, an online game operator and developer in China, announced today that it has, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, entered into a five-year license to use OpenFeint’s mobile social gaming network software in China. The OpenFeint software is successful mobile social gaming network software for iOS and Android devices, The9 Limited says. OpenFeint’s developer SDK is a toolkit that can be integrated in any iOS and Android based game. More than 13,000 mobile game developers are registered to integrate OpenFeint’s SDK into their games and there are over 50 million registered users and approximately 4,000 games in the Apple App Store and Google Market running on OpenFeint’s platform.
Vonage has released version 1.2 of its Facebook app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The upgrade let users invite their friends by e-mail or SMS. The Vonage Mobile application for Facebook allows users to make free mobile calls to all of their Facebook friends who have the app, anywhere in the world, directly from their friends list, with a single touch. The service works over Wi-Fi and 3G networks in most countries.
