Google’s Siri Competitor to Called ‘Assistant’, Bell to Release the Samsung Galaxy Rugby and Sonim Bolt & Goodbye Android Market, Hello Google Play

Google’s Siri Competitor to Called ‘Assistant,’ Report Claims
In December, it was reported that Google is working on a solution that will boost the capabilities of its Voice Actions on Android-powered devices in an effort to compete with Apple’s Siri voice assistant. The service, which was previously code-named “Majel,” will launch as “Assistant”.
BGR

Bell to Release the Samsung Galaxy Rugby and Sonim XP5520 Bolt
In the next few weeks you can expect to see a couple new rugged devices appear, something that has been missing for well over a year. First to arrive will be the durable looking Sonim XP5520 Bolt, followed by the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Rugby.
MobileSyrup

Goodbye Android Market, Hello Google Play
Google’s Android Market has undergone some tremendous changes over the last year or so. What started as just a standalone app store has quickly grown to encompass e-books, music, videos, and now Google feels like the “Android Market” moniker is getting to be too restrictive, too constraining for what they’re really trying to deliver to their users. That’s why Google is officially putting the Android Market name to rest. Starting today, all of Google’s digital media services have been rebranded to fly under a brand new banner: Google Play.
TechCrunch

9 Mobile Apps That Help You Find Cheap Gas
Gas may finally be leveling off from its nearly month-long rise, but you’re probably not reaping the benefits just yet. While we wait for teleportation apps that allow us to avoid the gas tank, we’ve rounded up nine apps to help you locate the cheapest gas prices and keep track of your mileage and maintenance.
Mashable

Koodo Comes Out With a $50 Data Plan, Samsung Announces Galaxy Pocket & Is the Philadelphia Cell Phone Jammer a Hero or Pest?

Koodo Comes Out With a $50/Month Canada-Wide Data Plan
Not really sure when this happened, but it seems that Koodo has come out with a new plan. For $50/month you can sign yourself up for the Canada-Wide Data Plan. This gives you 1GB of data, 150 minutes, Caller ID, Voicemail and Unlimited Text & Picture messaging.
MobileSyrup

Samsung Announces Cutesy Galaxy Pocket with 2.8-inch Display, Coming ‘Later This Year’
Space will always have room for another galaxy, and your pocket should equally have room for this little piece of Android 2.3 TouchWizadry. The Galaxy Pocket has just been announced in London and will arrive in the UK “later this year,” bearing a 2.8-inch screen with a 240 x 320 (QVGA) resolution, an 800MHz processor, 3GB of expandable storage.
Engadget

SmartSync Releases New Version Of The App That Turns You Into A God
SmartSync, which has been doing good business on the iPhone app store, has released an updated version that is a big improvement on the original app. When someone calls you, SmartSync displays their latest Facebook statuses or photos against the call. Say they said they were tired. When they call you you say “Wow, sorry to hear you’re feeling tired!” even before they’ve said hello. See, suddenly you’re all-knowing.
TechCrunch

Is the Philadelphia Cell Phone Jammer a Hero or Pest?
A Philadelphia man has stirred up controversy after he frequently used a device on a public bus to create a cell phone dead zone. A reporter for NBC10 in Philadelphia recently tracked down the man, who was using a cell phone jammer on the bus to block riders’ cell phone reception. His reason — he didn’t want to listen to other people’s phone conversations. He says he turns on the illegal device whenever other passengers talk too loud and bother him.
Mashable

Apple Acquires Chomp, ZTE to Debut Eight New Smartphones at MWC & Motorola Droid X Gets Massive Bug Fix Update

Texas Instruments Shows Off Dual-Core OMAP 5 SoC, Wipes the Floor with Tegra 3
The Tegra 3 has taken a bit of a hit in recent days as it was negatively compared to the upcoming dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 chipset, and now it’s been paired up with Texas Instrument’s OMAP 5 SoC, to no less of a proverbial slaughter. OMAP 5 is based on Cortex’s new A15 reference design, and as much there are many, many improvements in both speed and power efficiency over previous Cortex A9 chips.
MobileSyrup

Motorola Droid X Gets Massive Bug Fix Update
Motorola Droid X owners may have thought that Verizon had forgotten about them. Not the case at all. Today, the carrier has begun rolling out a massive bug fix update for its aging 3G smartphone that will be bring a number of fixes and enhancements along with it. Exciting stuff, especially when you consider the fact that the Droid X came out in July of 2010.
GottaBeMobile

Apple Acquires Chomp; App Store Search And Discovery To Be Completely Revamped
With the countdown underway to 25 billion total app downloads, there’s no disputing the success of Apple’s App Store. We live in a world of hyperbole, but Apple’s entry into this space really has changed the entire mobile world. But the App Store is far from perfect. And with its immense scale, a few problems have been revealed. The biggest one is app discovery. Right now, it’s hard and getting harder by the day. The strong get stronger while new apps often have trouble breaking in. But with an acquisition that Apple has just made, they hope to change that. Apple has bought the app search and discovery platform Chomp.
TechCrunch

ZTE to Debut Eight New Smartphones at MWC
ZTE is looking to make a big splash at next week’s Mobile World Congress, bringing eight new smartphones powered by Android and Windows Phone to the event. The company had previously announced three Android smartphones, the Mimosa X, PF200 and N910. The Mimosa X comes equipped with a NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, a 4.3-inch qHD display, Ice Cream Sandwich, 4GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, a front facing camera and a 5-megapixel rear camera.
BGR

TELUS Re-Introduces the $30/Month 6GB Data Plan, Sony Ericsson Is Now Sony Mobile Communications & Opera Snaps Up Mobile Theory

TELUS Re-Introduces the $30/Month 6GB Data Plan
“In direct response to Bell and Rogers, TELUS is re-introducing the 6GB data add on, with an incredible 6GB of Data”. That sums it up. The $30/month 6GB plan is back – it’s available to those on a MTM, 1, 2, or 3-year contracts who “meet the $50 minimum spend”.
MobileSyrup

Sony Ericsson Is Now Sony Mobile Communications
Starting today, Sony Ericsson will be officially known as Sony Mobile Communications. Every new phone launched from the company will bear only Sony’s name, and we have seen a couple of them already. However, the existing range of devices out in the market will continue to bear the Sony Ericsson name.
GSMArena

Opera Snaps Up Mobile Theory, 4th Screen For $26M In Mobile Ad Push
Mobile browser company Opera today announced that it has acquired the mobile ad networks Mobile Theory and 4th Screen Advertising. The move is not just another sign of the ongoing consolidation in that space, but also of the need to bulk up to better compete with the likes of Google with more full-service solutions.
TechCrunch

Leaked Windows Phone ‘Tango’ Images Reveal New Details
Images of Microsoft’s next mobile operating system, Windows Phone “Tango,” were published on Wednesday, showing off a number of new features. Tango will reportedly feature the ability to export contacts to a SIM card, handle multiple attachments in a single MMS message and manage roaming both domestically and internationally, according to WP7forum.
BGR

Public Mobile Has 199,000 Subscribers, Nokia Lumia 800 to Launch on February 14th & Mobile Web Usage Doubling Every Year

Public Mobile Has 199,000 Subscribers
Public Mobile launched their wireless service in 2010. According to a report in Reuters, Public Mobile, who operates in 2 core cities, increased their Q4 subscriber base by a stunning 45,000 to reach a total of 199,000 subs. 199k in 2 markets! It’s also been revealed that their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) $25.27 (most likely in Q4).
MobileSyrup

Nokia Lumia 800 to Launch in U.S. on February 14th as Part of $900 Bundle
Microsoft may be planning to launch a special bundle that includes the Nokia Lumia 800 and several accessories for $899. Citing unnamed industry sources, The Verge said the deal will kick off on February 14th and will include a Bluetooth headset, a Purity HD stereo headset and Nokia’s Play 360 wireless speaker.
BGR

StatCounter: Mobile Web Usage Doubling Every Year, Nokia Leads the Way
That’s according to the latest report from StatCounter, which found that Nokia handsets account for about 40 percent of the world’s mobile browsing, followed by Apple, at around 29 percent. Coming in at a relatively distant third is Samsung, with an approximately 14 percent share.
Engadget

‘App Economy’ Has Created Nearly Half a Million Jobs Since 2007 [STUDY]
That app you use to play Words with Friends on your phone or book a reservation using Open Table might be giving the American economy a nice boost, at least according to a new survey by TechNet. The new “app economy” has created about 466,000 jobs in the United States since 2007, according to the survey.
Mashable

TELUS, Bell and Rogers Releasing the Galaxy Note February 14th, Samsung To Announce Its New Mystery Device & What`s The Future of Your Mobile Phone

The Future of Your Mobile Phone
“The mobile operator community is conventional. 99.9 per cent of their turnover, up until about three years ago, was purely consumer handset driven. From a growth point of view, now, they’re lucky if they get maybe 110 per cent but that is it. They can’t grow any further.”
Pocket-lint

TELUS, Bell and Rogers Releasing the Galaxy Note February 14th for $249.99 on a 3-year
First out of the gate with the official release date and pricing is big box retailer Best Buy showing the Note will be available to the masses on Tuesday, February 14th for the 3-year contract price of $249.99. Best Buy also notes the Rogers logo on their info page, but doesn’t have any pricing info.
MobileSyrup

Motorola Announces New RAZR With an Unlockable Bootloader
On Monday, Motorola announced the RAZR Developer Edition on the company’s community blog. The device is essentially the same as the current RAZR, but with one special feature: an unlockable bootloader.
BGR

Samsung Is Spending Millions To Announce Its New Mystery Device During The Super Bowl
Samsung has a special promoted tweet running today that teases its upcoming Super Bowl ad. We’ve known the ad was coming for several weeks now, but today we learned that it will be used to unveil a new Samsung device.
Business Insider

Symbian Belle Coming Soon, Sony Ericsson Swallows $317 Million Pre-tax Loss & Official Wikipedia App Comes to Android

Symbian Belle Coming Soon
It has been a long time in the making, but Nokia has finally confirmed the arrival of their latest and greatest OS in regards to Symbian. Nokia took to their twitter page and said “Nokia Belle will be on the way next week”.
SmartPhoneEnvy

Another Nokia Lumia 800 Battery Update Coming in Two Weeks
Nokia said on Twitter Wednesday that a second software update will roll out to Lumia 800 devices over the next two weeks. It is largely expected that the update will help fix the poor battery life that has plagued some, but not all, Lumia 800 users.
BGR

Sony Ericsson Swallows $317 Million Pre-tax Loss as End Draws Near
Sony Ericsson’s tearful breakup continues with more woe as as the venture had to eat a pre-tax loss of €247 million (roughly $317 million). Bosses cited “unfavorable macro-economic conditions” and the Thai flooding as the reasons for the loss.
Engadget

Official Wikipedia App Comes to Android
In addition to being able to view every article in mobile-friendly format, you can save them for offline use later. You can also use your GPS to search for nearby articles (like we saw in Wikitude). You can also share articles through the official Android channels, which is convenient.
MobileSyrup

Blippar Raises Seed Funding From Qualcomm For Mobile Augmented Reality Technology

Blippar, the UK startup behind an eponymous mobile image recognition and augmented reality platform, has landed seed funding – the size of the investment was not disclosed – from Qualcomm Ventures.

The startup, which is based in London, says the seed funding serves as a springboard for a bigger Series A funding round it expects to close in early 2012.

Like other augmented reality startups like Layar and metaio, Blippar’s technology turns a smartphone’s camera into a ‘lens’ that shows virtual information on top of real-life objects, be it a link to a website, a digital coupon, a video or another type of promotion.

Blippar says it has seen hundreds of thousands of consumer downloads in the first 7 months since its debut in the UK, and that major brands like Tesco, Nestle, Samsung and Unilever have already orchestrated campaign ‘blipps’.

CrunchBase Information

blippar

Qualcomm Ventures

Information provided by CrunchBase

iOS Closes Out The Year With 52% Mobile Web Market Share, Canadians Downloaded 41 Million Apps Between Christmas and New Years Eve & Are Text Messages Declining Worldwide?

iOS Closes Out The Year With 52% Mobile Web Market Share
According to end-of-the-month data from statistics provider NetMarketShare, iOS users ended up with a 52% market share of mobile web browsing in December 2011. More simply put, that means that over half of the mobile web browsing last month took place on an iOS device. Android, meanwhile, had a 16.2% share, behind Java ME at 21.27%, which fell into second place.
TechCrunch

DROID 3, LG Revolution, and All of Verizon’s 4G LTE Hotspots to Be Discontinued in January, Report Claims
In 2011, carriers and manufacturers were releasing smartphones at such short intervals that within weeks, your once new and high-end device would most likely already be outdated. Unfortunately, it looks like things won’t be slowing down in 2012. After a mere six months on the market, Verizon Wireless has issued an end-of-life discontinuation for the Motorola DROID 3.
BGR

Canadians Downloaded 41 Million Apps Between Christmas and New Years Eve
Overall, amongst all tallied countries, there were 1.2 billion apps downloaded in the iOS and Android app stores, the US taking the lions’ share with 509 million downloads. Still, considering our tiny population, 41 million apps is a metric tonne, and shows how app-addicted we all are. Total app downloads were 60% above the December weekly average.
MobileSyrup

Are Text Messages Declining Worldwide?
It may seem like everyone, everywhere is sending text messages these days. But according to a Forbes report, texting may be on the decline across various countries.
Mashable