Mobile Software

Business, finance, and tech worlds are abuzz with news of Microsoft's sudden proposal to Yahoo. It's not the first time Seattle's best has courted the Sunnyvale, Calif., company once touted as Silicon Valley's hottest Internet portal. To many, the buyout offer signals Microsoft's continuing woes in a playing field now dominated by freeware competitors and other rivals that have done Microsoft's end-user businesses longer or better.

See which products and companies are eating into which of Microsoft's potentially profitable businesses in this slide show.

Get to work, iPhone. As far as HyperOffice president Farzin Arsanjani is concerned, you've spent too much time avoiding real work.

If he has his way, your days loafing around in back pockets while the other mobile devices pull their weight are over. That's why HyperOffice (review) recently announced a plan to make its suite of online collaboration tools even better on the iPhone (trial beta).

While the productivity application for rapid-growth companies has already been accessible from mobile browsers, certain functions are limited within a constrained user interface. The iPhone, with its large screen and Safari browser, … Read more

News of the Android SDK (download for Windows) by Google has been quiet for the past few months. However, last week we a found notice that the submission deadline for the Android Developers Challenge has just been extended to April 14, 2008. It appears that the Android team has made "significant updates" to the SDK that might require developers to take extra time to finish up applications they had in the works. There are $10 million worth in prizes at stake, so the updates and deadline extensions are probably much appreciated.

The SDK, released in November, introduced a … Read more

If you've got family and friends sprinkled about the globe, you know that the richness of these contacts loses luster if you can't regularly keep in touch. Though there are excellent solutions out there--local-access calling cards, VoIP on the PC, VoIP phones from Vonage or Skype, and local-number services like Talkster (review)--they require your presence at home, new hardware, or wasting precious seconds with mile-long pin numbers or droning ads.

Challenging the herd is EQO (pronounced "echo"), a communication service that offers a simple, fast, and affordable solution for international outreach on your cell phone. Talk time and texting are free between EQO members, and calls are as cheap as 2 cents per minute for everyone else, about the same rate as VoIP-to-phone calling and competitive calling cards. EQO's international texting costs for 10- or 15 cents, depending on the countries of destination and departure.

User experience

The graphically-appealing application is divided into three sections, each delineated by a small icon along a top strip. Scrolling horizontally among them calls up the phone book, message inbox, or instant message interface. EQO imports phone contacts into the phone book, but be careful of your management--deleting an entry from EQO also deletes it from the phone's database.… Read more

Amid rookie mobile browser Skyfire's bold attempt to take on the market and Opera Software's defensive rebuttal (sent via press release) emerges news from Mozilla developer and project lead, Doug Turner.

A few months ago, Turner told us that the Minimo browser was on its way out (you can still download it here) and that newer projects would take its place.

According to Doug's blog, the replacement efforts have arrived. Well, not quite, but two prototypes have.

The first, called simply "Nontouch screen UI," is dedicated to the broad range of devices. While Turner describes … Read more

Now in its fifth version, Zagat To Go, compatible with the PDA and platform in-crowd, gives locomotive users access to Zagat's sprawling database of cleverly amalgamated dining reviews and ratings for the best spots in town for food, service, and decor.

The mobile version of the gastro-household brand makes good use of cell phone technology to deliver maps and directions, though Zagat strangely passes up some low-hanging functionality that forces users to do extra legwork as a result. Watch the First Look video below or read the hands-on review for more detail.

Try Zagat To Go for free: Zagat To Go for BlackBerry … Read more

There are tons of YouTube video-grabbing downloads out there, but relatively few also convert those FLV files for later viewing on a cell phone, iPhone, or other flavor of mobile device. Since we don't like using two apps when we can use one, here's a hand-picked collection of apps containing the packaged set.

1. Out of all the downloader/converters I tried, nothing felt more honest than CinemaForge, with its homegrown UFO-shaped interface. The freeware app lays down a simple 6-step downloading and conversion trajectory that includes finding a video's "real" URL, as opposed to … Read more

If you've been thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if Yahoo updated its mobile app, and someone made a video to point out the main features?," you're in luck, because they did, and we did. Yahoo announced Yahoo Go 3.0 beta at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in mid-January, which stands out from its predecessor with an improved interface and new capabilities. Read the hands-on review or watch the First Look video below to see what they are.

>>See all First Look videos

Article updated and corrected on January 22, 2008 at 3:10 pm PST.

Microsoft and Zumobi, a content distribution platform for mobile phones, announced on Tuesday a partnership that will preload Zumobi (download here) on select Windows Mobile phones.

Zumobi's downloadable app (available now for Windows Mobile 5 and 6) offers an interface of 16 tiles to help users access key content quickly. Each tile is a widget that's entirely programmed by developers and partners--like Amazon.com, Flickr, and AP Sports--and which is subject to advertising banners. Zumobi's big innovation is the navigation that zooms into tiles … Read more