In this week’s FT techtalk, we discussed how the dotcom world is bubbling along again, the tech industry is rebounding and the video game sector is about to be lifted by a rocket-propelled grenade or two.

We also took a peek at a new Twitter device, looked at the newest phones and brought you the breaking news on the resolution to the Skype dispute. Read our multimedia transcript below and join us next time live for FT Techtalk. Continue reading "FT techtalk - the boys in the bubbles"

The growth of the smartphone category is causing intense competition among operating systems, handset makers and the chipmakers that supply them.

Paul Jacobs, chief executive of Qualcomm, the biggest wireless chipmaker, sees that competition intensifying over the next year in smartphones and other handsets, which will translate into lower prices. Continue reading "Qualcomm sees falling phone prices in 2010"

Backers of the Android mobile operating system today acknowledged they needed to do more to promote applications, as Apple extended its lead with the iPhone to more than 100,000 apps now available in its App Store.

That’s 15,000 more than the last update of 85,000…and the growth is more than the total number of Android apps - 12,000 - created in the past year.

At the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco today, Cole Brodman, T-Mobile chief technology officer, said discoverability of apps on Android represented a challenge for consumers. Continue reading "Android Market remains baffling bazaar"

Ribbit, the software-based Silicon Valley phone company, has launched Ribbit Mobile, a Google Voice-type service with some useful extras thrown in.

The start-up,  which was bought by BT of the UK last year, adds “social address book” features to its service and allows users to keep their own mobile number. Continue reading "Ribbit Mobile offers Google Voice alternative"

From this week’s Digital Business edition:

The arrival of a giant chocolate eclair on the front lawn at Google last month had an extra significance, other than as the latest example of outlandish artwork installed at the headquarters of the world’s biggest internet company.

It joined a huge cupcake and a well-rounded doughnut, both sitting under the watchful eye of a large green robot.

Continue reading View from the Valley

It’s been apparent for some time that the spate of touch-screen smartphones now hitting the market will dent profit margins in the hottest part of the mobile business, but Wall Street seems only now to be digesting that fact.

The slumping share prices of Research in Motion and Palm over the past fortnight make this case eloquently. Two weeks ago, not coincidentally, was the weekend that Verizon began its guerrilla marketing campaign for Motorola’s Droid (see Chris Nuttall’s first impressions last week). Since then, Palm’s stock is off 35 per cent and RIM is down 20 per cent, while Motorola is up.

It’s clearly ridiculous to think that one handset can cause this much damage: what is sinking in are the implications of the much bigger wave of competition that is about to hit.

Continue reading "More smartphones, lower margins"

Sometimes it feels like every news story you read is about Apple. If it’s not the iPhone or the phantom tablet, then it’s Steve Jobs’ health.

So to make up for it, today’s headlines are being hogged by Google. There was the first appearance of the much-hyped Android 2.0 on the Droid handset, not to mention what Techcrunch called a “killer app” for the new mobile software platform: a navigation service (see item below).

But that’s not all. In other Google news: the launch of Music Search, and efforts to appease the FCC.

Continue reading "From today’s Daily Google…"

Two years ago, navigation devices of the kind that you find mounted on car dashboards were one of the hot gifts of the holiday season and the stocks of Garmin and TomTom were riding high.

Not any more. Wednesday brought a double-whammy that knocked 21 per cent off shares in TomTom and 16 per cent off Garmin. Of the two pieces of news, it was the second that sounded the more ominous.

First was a warning from TomTom that prices for these devices, which not so long ago commanded a hefty premium, are likely to continue to slide. They dropped 27 per cent in the company’s latest quarter to an average of under 100 euros, and that erosion shows no sign of slowing. Continue reading "Latest victims of Google: Garmin and TomTom?"