• Yahoo launches stand-alone mobile search app

  Yahoo beefed up its search offerings on Wednesday when it launched Axis, an HTML5-based browser app that delivers search results as page previews rather than as links.

• Facebook buys mobile e-commerce app Karma

  The mobile gift-giving app Karma has announced it has been acquired by Facebook. The announcement came shortly after the markets closed on Facebook's first day as a publicly traded company.

• Appsbar gives small businesses a simple (and free!) template for app building

  If you've ever wanted to build a mobile app for your small business but have been intimidated by the cost of hiring developers, Appsbar has a proposition for you.

• SAP rolls out new mobile apps, boosts HTML5, iOS, Android support

  SAP on Monday unveiled a series of mobile applications covering areas such as expense management and e-learning, as well as improved support for iOS and Android devices. The announcements came at the start of the vendor's Sapphire conference in Orlando.

• MediaTek and Gameloft team up to put more games on phones

  Semiconductor company MediaTek and Gameloft have joined forces to develop games for phones based on MediaTek's chipsets, they announced on Friday.

• Guide: The new rules for enterprise apps

  An insurance company decided to roll out an application for its sales reps. The new app would give them a wider selection of products to offer customers when out in the field. Information on those products was stored in a legacy mainframe system, so the company created a Web interface that let reps query the database to get details on offerings.

• Stupid mobile tricks: 7 stories of smartphone horror

  For a device with "smart" in its name, a smartphone sure can help you do a lot of stupid things. Whether it's racking up thousands of dollars in international roaming fees or encouraging dozens of eye rolls with your misrouted voice dialing -- I'm looking at you, guy who calls Ben O'Lynn in accounting every time he means to call Bennigan's for lunch -- our modern-day mobile devices provide plenty of opportunities for tech-tinged embarrassment.

• Augmented reality: pure hype or next big thing in mobile?

  Augmented reality technology is getting a lot of attention these days -- particularly the use of AR with smartphones. The idea is that by using certain software, you can turn your iPhone, Droid or other smartphone into a virtual heads-up display. Aim your phone's camera at a shop, restaurant or landmark, and information about the place, such as hours of operation, reviews or directions, appears on the device's screen as graphics floating over the image of the place.

• Is Apple's iPhone App Store growing unwieldy?

  Research firm IDC says Apple's App Store could stock in excess of a quarter million iPhone and iPod Touch applications, tripling current levels by the end of 2010. That's some number. Contrast with an estimated 10,000 Windows 7-compatible apps, over 700 (released as well as announced) Xbox 360 games, nearly 600 PS3 games, over 1,000 Wii games, over 600 DS games (from September 2008), and over 700 PSP games.

• Android, iPhone, BlackBerry: Which OS is best for app development?

  Let's say that you're a software developer who has created a hot new application for smartphones that you're certain is about to take the world by storm. Your work isn't quite done and here's the problem: not only will your brilliant and innovative application have to compete with several other applications that have similar ambitions, but it will have to compete with them over multiple platforms.

Whitepapers about mobile applications

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  5 Common Mobile Web Mistakes…and How to Fix Them

  This paper will address the top five mobile web experience mistakes you may face on the road to success – and a model for ensuring performance to keep your business in the running.