cellular network

Verizon Wireless will let customers use the Internet phone service Skype to make free calls on some phones, an application that wireless carriers have been slow to allow.

Creating IT hardware on your own can be real chore. All that time and money spent researching and prototyping, and there's no guarantee it will do the job. But what if getting a custom-built device were as easy as making pizza? Start with a crust of a base module to run an operating system. Add a few toppings -- a GPS unit, an accelerometer, a motion detector, or a 3G connection -- and you've got just what your company needs.

Netbooks have been in a race to offer the lowest price, and Sprint Nextel is currently the winner in the U.S. On Monday, the carrier announced it will offer a Compaq-branded HP Mini 110c-1040DX for 99 cents with a two-year data contract.

The Compaq netbook has a 1.6-GHz Atom processor, one gigabyte of memory, an EVDO 3G modem, a 10-inch screen, a 160GB hard drive, Windows XP, and Wi-Fi. Sold separately, the Compaq model costs about $390.

It certainly didn't take long for a few storm clouds to appear over the otherwise glittering launch of the Palm Pre. At a press conference Friday, Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse took issue with media suggestions that the much-anticipated smartphone would be available from Verizon Wireless in six months or so.

"They need to check their facts," Hesse said. "That just is not the case. Both Palm and Sprint have agreed not to discuss the length of the exclusivity deal. But I can tell you it's not six months."

At the University of British Columbia (UBC), the wireless network spans 100 hectares with multiple campuses -- and it continues to grow to support more than 55,000 students, professors and staff for learning and research.

Like most major universities, UBC relies on technology to help it deliver educational services to its students and keep its faculty on the cutting edge of research and development. When UBC needed a solution that would scale with its growth and allow mobile workspaces anywhere on campus, it turned to Cisco.

Cisco is making its move in the mobile work space world. Last week, at the Interop show in Las Vegas, the networking giant announced a new initiative called Collaboration in Motion, that draws from a number of its product lines to facilitate collaboration in the mobile work space. Products and services tied to the initiative include Cisco WebEx, Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco Unified Wireless Network, and Cisco Advanced Services.

Cisco is making its move in the mobile-workspace world. Last week, at the Interop show in Las Vegas, the networking giant announced a new initiative called Collaboration in Motion, that draws from a number of its product lines to facilitate collaboration in the mobile workspace. Products and services tied to the initiative include Cisco WebEx, Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco Unified Wireless Network, and Cisco Advanced Services.

Sprint Nextel Corp., the nation's third-largest wireless service provider, on Monday reported a larger first-quarter loss on declining revenue and a charge for job cuts announced in January.

But its adjusted results narrowly beat estimates and its shares climbed 14 percent in morning trading.

Sprint continued to lose subscribers but far fewer than it did in the last three months of 2008. The improvement, however, reflected a sharp increase in prepaid customers while the number of subscribers who sign up for annual contracts and are more valuable to Sprint fell.

If Mae West were alive today, the blond bombshell might be asking her dates, "Is that a PC in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?" With each new generation of smartphones, that question is getting harder to answer.

When David Teater's 12-year-old son, Joe, was killed in 2004 by a driver who was talking on a cell phone, he tried to cut back on his own habit of driving and talking. It turned out to be very difficult.

"You have to remember to turn the phone off ... which you never remember to do. Or you have to ignore a ringing phone, which is incredibly hard," Teater said. "We've been conditioned our entire lives to answer ringing phones."

Teater became an advocate for curbing what he calls "driving while distracted," and now, he's part of a company with a technology that can help.