Intel to invest in S.Korea wireless broadband venture

The investment unit of US technology giant Intel said Thursday it would pump 20 million dollars into a South Korean wireless broadband joint venture.
      
       The move is expected to accelerate wireless services in South Korea, amid growing demand for smartphones and other multifunctional devices.
      
       The WiBro joint venture involves South Korean telecoms giant KT Corp, Samsung Electronics and Kookmin Bank Investment.
      
       WiBro, which allows faster data transfer and a higher degree of mobility, is a version of the WiMAX technology offered by South Korean telecoms operators from 2006.
      
       Intel Capital said its money would be used to speed up deployment of leading-edge wireless broadband networks in South Korea.
      
       The investment strengthens "our WiMAX efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, arguably the fastest-growing wireless broadband area," and specifically helps KT expand its offering, Intel Capital president Arvind Sodhani said in a statement.
      
 

Samsung Sells 1 Million Galaxy S Phones in US

Samsung sold more than one million Galaxy S Android smartphones in the U.S., the company announced. In a month and a half, the combined sales of T-Mobile Vibrant and AT&T Captivate topped one million, in a boon for Google Android's fight for supremacy against Apple's iPhone.

Android Partners Post Highest Second-Quarter Growth Rates Among Smartphone Vendors, According to IDC

The worldwide smartphone market grew 50% year over year in the second quarter of 2010 (2Q10), driven in large part by makers of smartphones powered by Google's Android operating system.

Vendors of converged mobile devices, more commonly known as smartphones, shipped a total of 63 million units in 2Q10, compared to 41.9 million units in the same period one year ago, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. For the first half of 2010, vendors shipped a total of 118.3 million units, up 54% from the 76.8 million units shipped during the first half of 2009.

Google's smartphone partners, such as HTC and Samsung, posted the highest year-over-year growth rates in IDC's 2Q10 smartphone Top 10 vendor rankings. In fact, four of the top ten vendors, all of whom predominantly ship Android-powered smartphones, posted year-over-year growth rates greater than 100%. The top supplier of Android devices last quarter, on a unit shipment basis, was HTC.

"Emerging smartphone suppliers, such as HTC, that are allied closely with Google gained share at the expense of the historic top smartphone players last quarter," says Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker program. "This is largely a result of greater consumer interest in smartphones generally and Android devices in particular."

RIM Unleashes BlackBerry 6

Research In Motion (RIM) announced BlackBerry® 6, a new operating system for BlackBerry® smartphones that retains the trusted features that distinguish the BlackBerry brand while delivering a fresh, approachable and engaging experience that is both powerful and easy to use.

BlackBerry 6 features a redesigned interface that seamlessly works with a touch screen and trackpad, expanded messaging capabilities that simplify managing social media and RSS feeds, an advanced multimedia experience that rivals the best in the industry, a convenient new Universal Search tool, and a new and efficient WebKit-based browser that renders web pages quickly and beautifully for a great browsing experience.

"BlackBerry 6 is the outcome of RIM's ongoing passion to deliver a powerful, simplified and optimized user experience for both touch screen and keyboard fans," said Mike Lazaridis, president and co-ceo, Research In Motion. "Following extensive research and development to address consumer needs and wants, we are delivering a communications, browsing and multimedia experience that we think users will love, and we are thrilled to debut BlackBerry 6 on the amazing new BlackBerry Torch smartphone."

Trend Micro Reports Global Rise in Workplace Social Networking

Global survey finds that nearly a quarter of employees surveyed now visit social networking sites while on the corporate network.

Even though more workplaces are regulating social networking sites, employees are finding ways around security roadblocks, making social networking a way of office-life around the world.

Trend Micro's 2010 corporate end user survey, which included 1600 end users in the U.S. , U.K, Germany and Japan , found that globally, social networking at the workplace steadily rose from 19 percent in 2008 to 24 percent in 2010. The highest surge of social networking on the corporate network during the last two years was found among end-users within the U.K. , who tallied a 6 percent increase, and Germany , with a more than 10 percent leap.