Personal communications

iPhone users will finally be able to take advantage of Skype 2.0, with 3G calling, according to a report. But after August they'll have to pay for the privilege of Skype-to-Skype calls with the new service.

Gizmodo reported the iPhone-ready service and a "small monthly fee" associated with it (along with operator charges for data). Gizmodo also noted that upgrades include near CD-quality sound for Skype-to-Skype calls, faster start-up time, a better call-quality indicator, and quick access to the dial pad via the iPhone home screen.

AT&T cleared the way for Skype on the … Read more

Symantec has introduced an initiative called Norton Everywhere, designed to expand the company's security technology to safeguard smartphones, handle DNS-based Web filtering, and even protect connected devices such as digital picture frames.

The initial products, announced Thursday, include a beta version of security software for Android and Apple smartphones and a beta of Norton DNS.

The upcoming Norton Everywhere products will draw on Symantec's own consumer security, backup, and infrastructure technologies, as well as those of partners such as smartphone manufacturer HTC, Symantec said in its announcement. The products will be aimed at consumers as well as businesses. … Read more

A film director in Singapore once told me that he sent back a very expensive crane he had just bought because its serial number, according to numerological lore, signified "Will die, must die." (From what I remember, there were too many 4s.)

Bulgaria, however, is not a place, as far as I am aware, that is deeply committed to number-based superstitions. Until now, perhaps. For, according to the Telegraph, three consecutive owners of one single cell phone number have left this life for the next.

Perhaps your first thought was that the number was 0666-666-666. You would be … Read more

Looks like Palm is suffering a bit of post-acquisition talent drain.

Mobile user interface master Matias Duarte has left Palm and evidently hired on at the most obvious of places: Google.

Duarte, who lead development of Palm's WebOS user interface as the company's senior director of human interface and user experience, has jumped ship, Palm confirms. And while the company refuses to tell me where he's going, multiple sources say it's Google, where he's working on the development of Android, the company's open-source platform for mobile devices.

Duarte's departure is a significant loss … Read more

Google and its Android partners can thank customers in North America for the hot growth of smartphones sporting the mobile operating system.

Among all the Android devices owned around the world, 75 percent of them are in North America, according to AdMob's April Mobile Metrics Report, released Wednesday. That's followed by 11 percent owned in Western Europe and 12 percent in Asia. In contrast, 49 percent of devices running Apple's iPhone OS are in North America, with 28 percent owned in Western Europe and 14 percent in Asia.

Though consumer demand for Android has been climbing, the … Read more

Though Yahoo may have wanted to buy Foursquare, the company has found another way to hook into the world of location-based social networking.

Yahoo announced Tuesday that it has bought Koprol, a social network for mobile users. Based in Jakarta, Indonesia, Koprol lets people make friends, share photos, and find popular nearby locations all on the go. The news comes a day after Yahoo and Nokia extended their 5-year-old partnership with an eye toward the rising interest in geo-location offerings, pledging to bring Nokia's Navteq mapping service to Yahoo, and Yahoo's e-mail and instant-messaging technology to Nokia's … Read more

University of Oregon Assistant Professor of Psychology Elliot Berkman recently completed a study for his University of California at Los Angeles doctoral dissertation on smoking cessation.

Like a lot of researchers before him, Berkman asked respondents whether they had smoked--and what mood they were in, when they lit up--in an attempt to better understand compliance with smoking-cessation programs. But the difference between Berkman's study and previous ones is that he was able to repeat the question every two hours by interacting with subjects via text messaging, rather than talking with them on the phone or in person, or having … Read more

Dear Google,

I try not to write too many of these open letters because, well, they're a gimmicky way to hook readers on a Monday after a long week of news. But your relative silence since last Friday's revelation that you collected personal data from unsecured Wi-Fi hot spots all over the globe shows you are underestimating the slow burn this incident has sparked among your user base, otherwise known as basically everybody on the Internet.

This isn't like Facebook exposing the pictures from your 5-year college reunion, the one where you learned that no, you can … Read more

This week, Yahoo sent out an invite for a press conference in New York on Monday with a mysterioso tone:

It read, vaguely:

"Please join Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz for an exciting announcement about providing global consumers with rich online and mobile experiences, and bringing forward a new era in keeping consumers connected."

That's all it took to get BoomTown on the horn to find out what that meant.

And, according to sources, that will be a deal with Finland-based mobile phone giant Nokia to build Yahoo e-mail, search, and other applications and services into a range … Read more