News

• Sidecar app for iOS, Android seeks to give smartphone voice calls overdue respect

  Sidecar, a born-again startup whose founders hail from Internet media services company Real Networks, Tuesday is launching an eponymous app for iPhones and Android smartphones that's designed to make it easier for people to share videos, photos and more while talking on those devices.

• Mozilla readies app marketplace for public beta

  Mozilla Marketplace, which is Mozilla's entrant in the online application store arena, is set to move to a public beta stage in a few weeks, a company official said on Tuesday.

• 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.

• Angry Birds tops companies' app blacklist

  It seems that your boss doesn't want you to launch digital birds at evil green pigs during office hours.

• SMS a killer app at 20; irrelevant at 25?

  The first SMS-capable mobile phones were approved for sale in Europe 20 years ago this month. By any measure, SMS has become a huge success, at least for the telephone companies, with more than 6 trillion SMS messages sent worldwide in 2010, generating more than $110 billion in revenue. But the future may not be anywhere near as bright because of increasing use of "free" Internet-based services such as Facebook, Apple's iMessage and WhatsApp.com.

• Review: Quickoffice Connect is a poor iCloud clone

  Quickoffice rivals Apple's iWork suite as the best office productivity app for the iPad and iPhone, and it is unquestionably the best office app for Android devices. It makes sense to choose Quickoffice as the standard mobile office app in workplaces that have a mix of iOS and Android devices. It also makes sense that you'd want access to your documents from any device you happen to have in front of you, whether it runs iOS, Android, Mac OS X, or Windows. A cloud-savvy office app that lets you continue to work on your projects as you move from one device to another is a no-brainer.

• IEEE Fellow: Don't expect NFC payments to have a major mobile impact

  Mobile payments enabled by Near Field Communications (NFC) won't have as big an impact as vendors such as Google are hoping for, according to IEEE fellow Jack Winters.

• How Boston's MBTA is turning your smartphone into a personal ticket machine

  The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority this fall will become the first American railway system in the United States to allow riders to preorder and display their train tickets entirely through their smartphones.

• AT&T Watson vs. Apple Siri: Talkin' about a smackdown?

  AT&T Labs says its Watson speech recognition technologies have been around for more than 20 years, and come this June, it will put APIs and SDKs in the hands of developers who want to give users a way to interact with smartphones, TVs and other devices using their voices.

• How Arqball met Cinsay: Startups merge products at DEMO 2012

  As mentioned earlier this week, one particularly impressive mobile app showcased at the DEMO Spring 2012 conference in Santa Clara seemed like a good potential partner for other apps. Less than 24 hours later, that's exactly what it became.

• Yes, IT departments should worry about Google Drive

  Google Drive is poised to give IT departments yet another headache to deal with.

• Top mobile apps showcased at DEMO 2012

  As is generally the case at trade shows today, mobile technology has been top of mind at the DEMO conference in Santa Clara, taking up the first half of the event's first day. Here are some of the mobile apps that stood out.

• Enterprise iOS, Android apps can be outfitted with tighter security

  Mocana will offer its "injectable" app security features for existing and new enterprise iOS apps as well as for Android. Developers don't need to access the source code or write new code to protect mobile apps.

• DEMO 2012 products that cater to the enterprise

  While much of the draw to the 2012 DEMO Conference in Santa Clara surrounds consumer technology, such as the fantasy politics game or the electric skateboard, the conference still has plenty to offer those with a mind toward work productivity (see the slideshow for a closer look at the show's hottest products).

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  Mobile apps can feature ready-to-use cloud services

  Cloud-based app features and services now can quickly be included in mobile apps, with an improved toolset from Appcelerator.