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Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. adults have tossed their traditional telephone service, opting instead to use their cellular phones exclusively, a research firm said Tuesday.

The trend is expected to continue as 5 percent of adults surveyed in April by Harris Interactive Technology Research said they were "seriously considering" going exclusively wireless within a year. Another 47 percent said they are "somewhat considering" the switch.

"This is a wake up call to traditional landline providers," Joe Porus, chief architect for Harris Interactive's research practice, said. "There are a lot of new threats out there."

The developer of the long-lived and popular computer game Quake has announced that a version of it will be available for mobile-phone handsets later this summer.

Id Software and software publisher Pulse Interactive have ported the game to the mobile platform. It will be released for handsets that have 3D capabilities.

Research In Motion said Tuesday that it will offer a Bluetooth-enabled smart card reader to control access to BlackBerry devices that store secure data.

The company said the reader, which will be available as a beta in July, is aimed at government users. It supports the U.S. Department of Defense's Common Access Card standard as well as S/MIME encryption.

But the service provider, Research In Motion, is releasing only sketchy details of the second major service outage in a week.

Research In Motion Ltd. is offering few details about two major outages in a week with its popular BlackBerry service, which delivers e-mail to wireless devices that many users affectionately call CrackBerries. RIM, which makes the pioneering mobile devices and provides the e-mail service over cellular networks, attributed a June 17 outage lasting nearly four hours to a software upgrade "that did not operate consistent with prior testing."

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Streaming video delivered to cell phones could become an "electronic babysitter," helping parents keep their kids content while they travel, a report released Thursday by IDC predicts. And, the study concludes, it is an excellent example of how new wireless services evolve.
The study notes that Verizon Wireless included video clips from Sesame Street in its V CAST video service that it launched earlier this year. Scott Ellison, an IDC program director, noted in a statement that Verizon has reported higher-than-expected use of that particular bit of programming.

"I have offered my own V CAST phone and service to parents of young children at airports and on airplanes," Ellison said in a statement. "(It resulted in) a near 100 percent success rate at tears and tantrum avoidance."

Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. mobile service, is considering selling a Motorola Inc. cell phone that can play music using Apple Computer Inc.'s (Nasdaq:AAPL - news) iTunes music service, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

"Motorola and Apple have been talking to Cingular about it using the iTunes phone," according to one of the sources, who asked not to be named.

RBC Capital analyst Mark Sue said in a recent research note that Apple and Cingular were working out final details on revenue sharing.

A Norwegian company has developed bridging technology that links cell phones with Skype Technologies' VoIP service in a configuration that enables users to make worldwide calls at local rates.

The solution, developed by Oslo's IPdrum, is scheduled for early deployment in August, the firm said. IPdrum added that its IPdrum Mobile Cable solution has not been endorsed by Skype.

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We explore ten on-the-road scenarios to test your security savvy.

would I leave my data unprotected?

Unfortunately, many people do just that every time they use their mobile devices. The rapidly growing base of mobile users is drawing the attention of hackers, who use a variety of schemes to get at your data and personal information.

We all need to wise up and take measures to safeguard our mobile data. Let's take a look at how to be secure in some common situations that you'll likely encounter when you're on the road.

Top 10 Tips for Mobile Security

The BlackBerry e-mail service suffered a nationwide outage Friday morning, but the nearly four-hour disruption only appeared to affect devices connected to certain types of cellular networks.

Research in Motion Ltd., which makes the popular mobile devices and provides a service connecting them to corporate networks, did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

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New Zealand Outage Shut Down Stock Exchange
-A major outage in Telecom Corp.'s cable network Monday disrupted data services, electronic cash transactions, mobile phone, and Internet services as well as shutting down the nation's stock exchange for hours, the telecommunications provider said.

Widespread disruption to business and private services was caused by two cable breaks on its North Island network.

They were repaired by mid-afternoon Monday--at least five hours after they occurred.

One local government has instituted a tax on cell phones while another enables citizens to use their cell phones to pay for parking meters, according to two news reports posted this week.

The city council in Alexandria, Virginia this week approved a tax on cell phones, according to the Washington Post. And Coral Gables, Florida has launched a system by which residents can use their cell phones to plug parking meters from afar, according to the Associated Press.

The Alexandria tax will be $3 per month on bills of more than $30 or 10 percent on monthly bills that are less than $30, the Washington Post reported.

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Already a device of multiple disguises, from camera to music player and mini-TV, the cell phone's next trick may be the disappearing wallet. After all, since more than a quarter of the people on the planet already carry around cell phones, and hundreds of millions are joining them every year, why should they bring along credit and debit cards when a mobile device can make payments just as well?

At the simplest level, all that's needed is to embed phones with a short-range radio chip to beam credit card information to a terminal at a store register. It's not unlike the wireless system used to pay tolls on many highways or the SpeedPass keychain wand used to buy gas at Exxon Mobile Corp. pumps.

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Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson has teamed up with online music company Napster for a service that will let consumers download music to mobile phones, the two companies said on Wednesday.

They will license the Napster-branded music service to mobile phone carriers, much as Ericsson currently sells services such as text messaging and voice mail.

Yahoo Inc. said Tuesday it had acquired DialPad Communications Inc., a 6-year-old company whose software lets people to place calls over the Internet for a fraction of the cost of regular telephone service.

The companies would not release financial details of the deal, which closed Monday.

Sirius Satellite Radio on Tuesday said it reached a deal to supply music channels to telecommunications company Sprint Corp. in a mobile phone service to be introduced later this year.

The agreement is aimed at getting more listeners for Sirius' subscription radio service and is part of plans at Sprint, the third biggest U.S. mobile provider, to extend entertainment services it has recently begun to deliver to mobile phones.

Wireless infrastructure vendor Ericsson Monday unveiled equipment that it says will enable in-flight use of cell phones.
The equipment supports only GSM technology, which is used almost universally in Europe and by Cingular and T-Mobile in the U.S. However, it doesn't support CDMA technology used by U.S. wireless operators such as Verizon Wireless and Sprint.

"GSM is the largest mobile communications standard in the world and is used in every country," Ulf Ewaldsson, Ericsson's vice president for GSM product management, said in a statement. "This is why Ericsson now is making mobile telephony available on board aircrafts and ships."

Hundreds of thousands of Norwegians were without cell phone coverage Monday after the country's second largest operator was hit by a network breakdown.

At least 20 percent of Netcom's 1.2 million customers were not able to place calls or send text messages. The network broke down Sunday evening, was fixed over night, but broke down again Monday. Netcom said it was not clear when the network would be back up.

Mobile phone group Sony Ericsson, a venture of Sony Corp (SNE.N). and Ericsson, on Monday introduced five new phones that it hopes will boost its presence in the low and mid-segment market.

The group, the world's fifth largest mobile phone maker, unveiled the W600, a version of its Walkman brand music phone aimed at North American consumers; the S600, aimed at the youth market; and a clamshell-shaped phone, the Z520.

It also presented the J210, for those who want mainly simple functions like making calls and writing messages; and a new third-generation (3G) high-speed data phone, the K608i.

Nokia Corp., the world's leading mobile phone maker, announced Friday that it will join forces with the world's largest chip maker, Intel Corp., to provide handset users faster voice and data services, including high-speed broadband connections to the Internet.

The companies said the cooperation, using WiMAX technology for mobile clients, building network infrastructures and market development, will bring customers new services.

Two companies are combining online-only glossy magazines with mobile short message texting services to link mobile handset users to Internet publications even when they are not online. The companies -- Norwegian publisher Fast Forward Media Group and Belgian technology company Allisblue -- presented their new ways of connecting consumers to publications on Thursday at a conference of European publishers.

Many of the publishers are struggling to find ways to earn money on the Internet, which is luring away readers of their print publications.

With the new combination, consumers on the go will be able to send keywords to a short telephone number from their handsets, after which they will be sent emails with links to magazines they have requested, the two companies said.

The use of electronic devices such as cell phones, including hands-free, precipitated many crashes and near misses, according to a report Thursday.

Using a cell phone behind the wheel is a key cause of traffic accidents and hands-free devices provide little safety benefit, the Detroit News reported, citing federal officials.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration researchers said devices like head sets or voice-activated dialing led to longer dialing times than for hand-held phones. The delays offset the potential benefit of keeping both hands on the wheel, the report said.

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Finnish mobile telephone giant Nokia is being sued for infringing on a patent for technology allowing cellular phone users to answer their phones without touching them, a company backing the patent holder said.

"Nokia is infringing on a patented invention that makes it possible to answer the phone without touching it... controlling it by touching a button in the hands-free device or through voice control," said Antti Kosunen, chief executive of Anadeus, a company that advocates patent-holder rights.
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Ring! Ring! The news that telecom industry analysts have been waiting to hear arrived today in the form of Siemens' (NYSE: SI - News) announcement that it will abandon the cell phone game and sell off its operations in Brazil, Germany, and China for a veritable downloadable song.

According to news reports, Siemens is recording a 350 million-euro loss on the deal, in which it will hand over its cell phone unit to Taiwan's BenQ and buy for itself a 2.5% interest in the unit's new owner. As for the financial terms of the transaction, those aren't entirely clear, but from what is known, they're not at all favorable to Siemens.

Everybody agrees that MP3 technology is going to stay around for a while due to its success and growth. The question is, in what form factor? Will it remain an independent device, generating millions of dollars for Apple and other OEMs? Or will cellular phones swallow the MP3 functionality in the same way they swallowed the "just for fun"-use digital camera, leaving little room for standalone MP3 players? Other than the business consequences for the MP3 manufacturers, what are the technical hurdles?

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MTV said it will begin launching short music and animation videos via mobile phones in Japan, saying the tech-savvy country would be a test on whether telecoms can be a new market for the music channel.

The service, to be called Flux, will begin June 30 by subscriptions on handsets using KDDI, Japan's second-biggest mobile operator.

More than two years after introducing its first chip for cellular phone communications, Intel Corp. finally has a customer.

The world's largest chip maker said on Thursday that mmO2 Plc. (OOM.L) will begin selling a music phone that uses Intel's Manitoba chip, which was originally released in February 2003.

British telecoms operator BT Group Plc (BT.L) has wired up a church in Wales to allow the congregation to hook onto local high-speed Internet connections when they want a break from the sermon. Britain's largest fixed-line telecoms operator said on Tuesday it had installed a Wi-Fi wireless network access point, known as a hotspot, in Reverend Keith Kimber's St John's Rectory church in the city of Cardiff.

"The church has to move with the times and I wanted to make St John's a sanctuary for everyone, including business people with laptops and mobiles," Kimber said in a statement issued by BT.

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Vonage Holdings Corp. will easily cross the 1 million subscriber mark before year-end, the head of the fast-growing Internet phone company said on Tuesday.

The world's top mobile phone maker Nokia launched on Thursday two new low-end handsets, the 1110 and 1600 models, aimed at first-time users in growth markets like Africa.

Men talk more on mobile phones by a wide margin, according to a survey released Tuesday by Cingular Wireless.

According to the wireless operator, men talk on cell phones 35 percent more than women. That is more than double the margin reported in the same survey conducted last year, according to the company. This is the fifth consecutive survey in which men were the biggest wireless talkers, Cingular said.