Mobile

If smartphone users have problems with your site, here's some incentive to fix them: Google said Tuesday it plans to punish problematic sites with lower placement in search results.

"To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain points, we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users," said Yoshikiyo Kato, a mobile search team programmer, and Pierre Far, a Webmaster trends analyst, in a blog post.

The pair gave some examples of common problems:

• Redirecting visitors trying to use assorted PC-optimized … Read more

The march toward a better, voice-controlled future continues, even with Siri, Google Voice Search and newer digital assistants, such as Donna, already on the scene.

The latest entrant is Sherpa, a natural language Android app that's a top app in Spain and Latin America and today is rolling out in the U.S. -- first for Android, eventually for iOS.

Like Siri, Sherpa attempts to help organize your life and perform tasks when you ask the app questions or give it commands. It's the brainchild of Xabier Uribe-Etxebarria, who's based in Bilbao, Spain, and has been working … Read more

They're simple, social, and entirely made for mobile, all of which might explain the explosive growth of standalone messaging apps even as Facebook offers a free way to chat on smartphones.

One of the biggies, Kik says that it now has more than 50 million users and that people -- mostly young people -- are signing up at a rate of 200,000 a day. That's twice the rate that Kik claimed when it last released stats. Just last November, the app claimed 30 million users and said that 100,000 people were signing up each day.

"… Read more

Twitter today invited developers to a platform-focused event at its headquarters early next week, where it plans to show off new features.

The event -- which begins at 6:30 p.m. next Tuesday and is scheduled to run until 9 p.m. -- is not open to the press, the company said.

The company offered no other details as to what will be in store, though noted that it would focus on "mobile oriented" things.

"We've been working on some exciting new features for the Twitter Platform, and we'd like to share those with … Read more

Rumors have been swirling about Apple and Samsung building smartwatches, but they're not the only ones. One Chinese company is reportedly looking to get into the time-keeping game Firefox OS.

Known for its e-readers and an Android-fueled smartwatch released last year, a subdivision of massive Chinese tech outfit Shanda called Guoke plans to sell a smartwatch in June called the Bambook Smart Watch. The Bambook will come in two flavors, according to TechNode. One will run Android, the other Firefox OS. Reportedly, the watch will cost more than $100, and will have an e-ink screen.

Like Samsung, Shanda has … Read more

Pandora has tuned up a Windows Phone 8 app that's both free and ad-free.

Available as of today in the Windows Phone store, the app offers all the standard features for Pandora listeners.

You can create up to 100 different stations based on your tastes in music. You can tell Pandora what you like and don't like by giving each song a thumb's up or thumb's down.

You can filter certain songs that you won't want to hear and flip on a switch for higher-quality audio. Existing Pandora users can log in with their current … Read more

Taking a page from Opera and Amazon playbooks, then writing on it some more, Google is using its own servers to speed up page loading on its mobile version of Chrome.

The feature, called proxy browsing, is enabled in the Chrome 26 beta for Android, though it must be manually activated through the chrome://flags interface by selecting "Enable Data Compression Proxy." With proxy browsing, a server with a fast Internet connection and more processing horsepower than a mobile device loads the Web page on behalf of that mobile device.

The chief advantage of the approach is that … Read more

The first results of Opera's WebKit brain transplant are now available for people to try: a beta version of Opera for Android.

The new version uses Android-native user-interface elements but preserves many Opera features such as Speed Dial. It gets some new features, too, such as Off-road Mode to enable a proxy-browsing technology designed for slow network connections and the Discovery tool for people who want to browse content tailored to their interests.

The Oslo, Norway-based company announced in February that it's scrapped its own Presto engine, except in its TV browser product line, in favor of the … Read more

Sprint now offers small-business customers a way to pool their mobile data usage and trim costs.

Introduced on Friday and available only until June 13, the new plans are geared for businesses with up to 30 mobile devices. The plans cover smartphones, tablets, mobile hot spots, and USB dongles and require the standard two-year contract.

The smartphone plan allocates 20GB of shared data across 10 devices, 40GB across 20 devices, or 60GB across 30 devices. The more data and devices, the higher the cost -- ranging from $139.99 through $349.99 per month. The first device must be a … Read more