Mobile | featured news

Four years ago, then-Sen. Barack Obama got a head start on Arizona Sen. John McCain when it came to reaching voters online, on their mobile phones and on social media. Young voters, the group most likely to tune in digitally to the presidential campaign, broke overwhelmingly for Obama, giving him the biggest margin of victory among that age group ever recorded....

A bevy of big-name retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best-Buy Co. and Target Corp., are teaming up to create a company that will give customers another way to make purchases: with their cellphones.

More details about the presumably imminent release of the next iPhone have emerged, if the typically anonymous spate of Internet sources are to be believed.

Nokia agreed to sell its software-development business Qt to information-technology firm Digia, as the ailing Finnish handset maker continues to divest assets in a bid to return to profitability.

Kevin Systrom's smartest move was to sell Instagram to Facebook early, before having to deliver even an iota of revenue. My prediction is that we’ll look back on Facebook's acquisition of Instagram as a bust—much in the same way we now view News Corp.’s purchase of Myspace, AOL’s purchase of Bebo, and Excite@Home’s purchase of Blue Mountain Arts.

It looks like one of the iPhone's signature default applicaitons is about to dissapear, with Apple telling the press Monday that its "license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended," after developers found the video app had vanished from the beta version of Apple's latest mobile operating system. [...]

AT&T is shutting down its second-generation, or 2G, wireless networks by 2017 as it continues to upgrade its systems to faster technology and better use its limited airwaves.

...There’s also the issue that these mobile ads are completely new. Users don’t know any better and happen to click on them. However, over time (and probably pretty quickly), they will learn to avoid these new ads. When banner ads began in the 1990s, CTRs over 5% were common. They are currently 0.2 – 0.3%.

California Friday legalized hands-free texting and email while driving using voice-operated technology, with Governor Jerry Brown signing Assembly Bill 1536 into law. It takes effect Jan. 1.

Since clinching the Republican nomination two months ago, Romney advisers have significantly stepped up their digital campaign, hoping to catch up with President Obama in an arena he dominated in 2008. Romney has hired data analysts and mobile-app developers from places including Google and Apple, unwilling to concede the traditionally liberal-leaning Silicon Valley talent pool.