Hurray! Now more people around the globe get to experience the excitement of hearing “Sorry, we don’t have any left!”

During the quarterly conference call with COO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer, Apple announced that the iPhone 3G would be makin’ its way to 20 more countries by August 22nd.

Which countries? Nobody knows - it wasn’t mentioned in the call. Rumor has it they’ll just be jamming the 50 remaining “Coming Soon” countries into one of those ping-pong ball mixer machines and going with whatever comes out.

Oppenheimer also stated that they expected to sell more iPhones in Q3 of 2008 than any quarter since the first iPhone’s launch.

[Via Macworld]

Back in May, Microsoft and RIM announced a partnership to bring Windows Live services to the BlackBerry platform “sometime this summer”.

The first goods from that partnership are on the table, with the release of Windows Live Messenger for BlackBerry. All of back-and-forth communication works through BlackBerry’s push technology, so chat lag should be minimal. The client has just about everything you might expect, with support for chat logs, emoticons, file transfer, buddy pictures, group chats, and customized status messages.

With that, the only thing missing from the package is Windows Live Hotmail. As it was announced under the same “summer” umbrella, we’ll probably see it sometime within the next few weeks.

[Via Ars via Messenger Stuff]

AT&T’s second quarter numbers are in today, and the company has meet Wall Street’s expectations. The company saw its profits increase 30%, despite a slowing down of the U.S. economy. In the past few months AT&T’s stock has been driven down because of a feared recession, but today’s news sent the company’s shares up $1.08, to sell at $32.90 in morning trading.

AT&T has seen a loss of landline subscribers and is having trouble signing up new customers to it broadband service. Only 46,000 new customers were added, a number which disappointed analysts. But the company did add 170,000 new subscribers to its TV service U-verse, which now has a base of 549,000 customers.

The company is expecting big numbers from Apple’s second generation iPhone, which is exclusively carried by AT&T in the United States. Sales of the new iPhone were nearly double those of the first iPhone model in the first 12 days the device was available. Because the iPhone didn’t go on sale until July 11, it isn’t part of the second quarter numbers. But AT&T did say that 40% of the buyers were new to the company, which should help third quarter numbers.

AT&T is still the largest U.S. wireless company, with 72.8 million subscribers but the number two company, Verizon Wireless, is a close second with 68.7 million customers.

The Arena Football League (AFL) has chosen NewTek’s TriCaster technology to produce and web stream this year’s Virgin Mobile ArenaBowl XXII coverage. The event takes place in New Orleans on July 24-27. If you are an AFL fan but don’t like jazz or already have a closet full of beads, you can experience 11 events from seven locations via ArenaFootball.com and ArenaBowl.com. Coverage includes the following:

• LIVE from ArenaBowl XXII Weekend Daily Reports
• ArenaBowl XXII Kids Zone Concert featuring Jordan Pruitt
• Virgin Mobile ArenaBowl XXII Pre-Game Show on SIRIUS
• Virgin Mobile ArenaBowl XXII Post-Game Press Conference
• This Week in the AFL on SIRIUS
• Daily American and National Conference Reports
• The Wolfe’s Den presented by Miller Lite

If baseball is too slow for you and you need to take the edge off before 100 yard football season starts, be sure to follow this year’s Virgin Mobile ArenaBowl XXII weekend in all its detail.

As someone who blogs for a living, I am beyond pumped about this application. Being able to blog on the go is a must. A huge chunk of the time, news breaks at the most inopportune moment. News never breaks while you’re sitting around idly at the computer. It breaks while you’re on the train, or at the grocery store. By the time you’re online, you’re the 53rd blog to cover it, and no one really cares anymore.

While there are solutions out there that aim to make things a bit smoother, you’re still running in Safari - meaning you’re still facing with the limitations you’d face with any WebApp.

Fortunately, WordPress went native on the iPhone (iTunes Link) sometime this morning. It’s got support for images, multiple blog administration, tagging, and Safari-based previews amongst the crucial bits. User reviews seem to be positive thus far, the only notes being that it lacks a landscape keyboard and that it’s being a bit crashy on the iPod Touch.

Check it out, and let everyone know what you think - it’s free!

The Sony Ericsson Walkman cellphones turn 3-years-old this year, so SE is releasing three more such phones, the W902, W595 and W302. They’re all, let’s face it, essentially the same music phone we’ve seen for God knows how long, but there are a few new features that you might enjoy.

There’s TrackID, which attempts to recognize the name of a song “listening” to it. (Have similar services ever worked for you?) Also, there’s a Shake control mechanism that lets you change the playing song with the flick of your wrist. I don’t know how useful that’d be when your scrunched between 30 people on the subway during your morning commute, but it’s certainly one of those “hey, check out what this can do” features.

If you’re into reading action-verby press releases, be my guest.

Read more…

As you may have noticed, the TechCrunch Network kinda has a thing for Qik. Sure, its gone a bit awry on us in the past - and sure, its certainly got some competition. Challengers and occasional quirks aside, however, Qik rocks faces. When it works, it works damn well. Not to mention, it’s almost stupidly easy to use.

Don’t believe me? Check it out yourself. Now in public beta, anyone with a supported device is good to go.

In addition to opening the doors, they’ve unveiled a handful of new features:

• Groups: Sub-communities, to allow for easier sharing amongst multiple people. Groups can be public, restricted, or private.
• Events: Like groups, but less permanent. Know a bunch of people are going to be Qikking from Mac World? Create/join an event, and get organized.
• Shiny new video player
• Reduced latency (Less time between whats being recorded and whats showing up on screen)

To sign up, head over here.

The Associated Press (AP) announced today that 728 AP newspapers have joined its Mobile News Network. The service was first launched in May of this year, and the additions account for a 580% jump in media participation. If you want to be a well informed citizen of the world on-the-go, AP Mobile News Network is a must. This application will give you breaking news, sports, entertainment, politics, business and wacky content in the palm of your hand.

“It is an exciting time for the Mobile News Network as we realize our goal of becoming the news portal for mobile devices,” said Jeffrey Litvack, AP global director for new media markets. “With over 700 news content providers, the Mobile News Network is now the first national footprint for local news on the mobile phone. Leveraging this network, marketers can build integrated campaigns at the neighborhood level both in mobile and print, and mobile users can access their local trusted sources of information wherever and whenever they want.”

The Mobile News Network Web application can be found at apnews.com and apnews.com/mobile . The Mobile News Network’s iPhone application is available for free download at the Apple App Store on iPhone and iPod Touch or via iTunes at itunes.com/appstore.

The Game Show Network (GSN) and Cellufun have partnered to bring you the game CATCH 21 to your mobile phone. CATCH 21 is a game that blends brain teasing pop culture trivia with the strategy of the card game 21. To do well, you must be a master of both.

Like other Cellufun games, CATCH 21 is free. GSN is promoting its game show through the Web and on mobile devices. The online version of CATCH 21 already has hundreds of thousands of casual games engaging their brains online. Hopefully, many more will join the fun through their mobile phones.

“This deal represents the cutting edge of TV promotion,” said Arthur Goikhman, CEO and co-founder of Cellufun. “Integrating our mobile game into CATCH 21’s coverage on gsn.com and WorldWinner.com really rounds out a fully integrated marketing campaign for the show.”

Free versions of CATCH 21 can be found at GSN.com and AOL’s Games.com. If you are interested in competing for cash, go to WorldWinner.com. To get the mobile version of the game, go to gsn.cellufun.com or text Catch to 95495 to have instructions sent to your mobile device. You must have a data plan to play so some data charges may apply, depending on your service contract.

CATCH 21 premiers tonight at 7:30 pm Eastern on GSN.

Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (MTS), the largest mobile phone operator in Russia and the CIS, published its 2007 Annual Review online today. Together with its subsidiaries, MTS has nearly 87 million subscribers. It provides service in Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, giving MTS a population base of more than 230 million.

The Annual Review describes the operational, financial and strategic achievements of MTS during 2007 and provides an overview of the Company, its management and Board of Directors. Since June 2000, MTS’s Level 3 ADRs have been listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MBT.

Mikhail Shamolin, President & Chief Executive Officer of MTS, noted: “As we have been at the forefront of delivering new and exciting products to the largest customer base across Russia and the CIS, we are also leading the way in financial communications by moving to a completely online Annual Review. By providing greater interactivity and easier access to key
financial and operational data, we are certain to set the pace as Russia’s most transparent company and give all of our stakeholders a greater sense of MTS and our brand values.”

The review can be found at: annualreview2007

MTSGSM