Verizon customers are expected to send over 300 million text, picture and video messages this New Year’s Eve between the hours of 12 p.m. and 4a.m. ET New Year’s Day. During the third quarter of 2007, customers exchanged more than 721 million picture and video messages over Verizon Wireless’ nationwide network and sent or received nearly 36.5 billion text messages.

Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless, said, “During holidays such as New Year’s Eve, text, picture and video messages allow our customers to personalize their communications with friends and family. Last New Year’s Eve, our customers sent and received more than 284 million text messages and nearly 4.75 million multimedia messages, so we fully expect to surpass the 300 million mark tonight.”

Other carriers are also expecting an increase in traffic as the clock moves closer to midnight. As more cell phones include cameras and quick editing features, friends and family will be able to celebrate the New Year together even if they are separated by great distances. So hit the party circuit tonight, quaff some spirits and exchange a gaggle of messages you’d rather not remember in the morning.

Internet calling company Vonage announced today that is has settled three patent disputes with telecommunications equipment manufacturer, Nortel. The settlement involves a limited cross license to three Nortel and three Vonage patents and will not call for any monetary payments by any party.

Vonage has settled other patent disputes in the last few months with AT&T, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Communications. The patent lawsuits caused Vonage stock to drop from an initial offering of $17 a share to as low as $0.89 a share in September of this year. As of this morning, Vonage shares sell for $2.16.

Vonage
Nortel

Each week MobileCrunchArcade compiles the biggest news from the world of mobile gaming.

Research from Frank N. Magid associates has found that a majority of cell phone users don’t play mobile games. I know how ridiculous that sounds but the evidence is in. Over 80% of Internet users, ages 12 to 64, own a cell phone or PDA but only a little over 10% of this population played a mobile game at least once a week — even free games! People aged 12 to 24 are the most likely to play mobile games. This means there is great growth potential in mobile games if we can just get the word out how great this pastime can be. Tell Grandma and Grandpa to pickup the handset and thumb thump those keys.

In the near future you may be playing mobile games with Vollee, a new technology that streams PC games to mobile phones. Vollee’s Head of Business Development, Julian Corbett, explains how Vollee’s service works: “Vollee streams console and PC games directly to a mobile handset using 3G networks. We host the games on our servers, and users download a player or thin-client to their handset which gives them access to the titles we have licensed and adapted for mobile.”

If you have an iPhone and hanker for an old PlayStation game, now you can revisit past glories. ZodTDD has revealed its PlayStation/iPhone emulation software. The psx4iphone application is open to anyone with an iPhone and doesn’t require any registration. The emulator divides the iPhone screen in two, with game play on one half and the game’s standard face button controls and directional movement pad placed on the other. The onscreen control works much like a regular PlayStation controller.

India is seeing a video game war. Console and computer games are fighting mobile gaming in India’s growing gaming market. In India mobile phone games are king, constituting around 50% of the gaming industry. “Mobile gaming is for the more casual gamer. For the high-end gamer, the console or online is the answer,” says Smita Jha, principal consultant (Entertainment & Media Practice), PwC. She adds that even five years from now, the mobile base will be much larger, considering the numbers that are swelling by the month. Gandhi may have preached non-violence, but if he were around today he would secretly be pulling for the mobile gamers to win this war.

That is this week’s mobile gaming new roundup. Remember to exercise those thumbs, recharge the battery and never take you eyes off the screen.

Each year the American Film Institute (AFI) votes on “moments of significance”. A 13 member jury (which includes film scholars, artists and critics) vote on seven events that affected “the world of moving image” over the past year. The iPhone made the list this year.

AFI says the iPhone is a “symbol of the exploding on-demand culture.” The device, which sparked a buying frenzy when it was launched this summer in the United States, allows users to stream and download music, movies and TV shows.

At the top of the list was the Writers Guild of America strike, which began on November 5. The dispute between the Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers addresses storytelling in the digital age and “may be a defining event in shaping the future,” the AFI said.

The AFI is concerned about the hyper-tabloidization of traditional television news. Coverage of the antics of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears often eclipsed coverage of the war, the economy and international topics in 2007.

AFI

Incesoft and mInfo announced today that they will collaborate to bring advanced conversational search to Chinese MSN instant messenger (IM) users. The companies will cooperate on both the technical and the marketing side to distribute the XiaoMing IM search robot to the land of dragons.

“Currently there are over 80 million mobile instant messaging users in China. With this number having grown over 400% just in this year, it’s clear to see the promising future of IM on mobile devices and the pending need for search capabilities by these users,” said Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO of mInfo. “One of mInfo’s technical strengths is in supporting natural language search, which coincides well with instant messaging that is
inherently a natural language communications tool. The alliance with Incesoft will provide our joint users with more conveniences and easier access to useful information whether on mobile devices or PCs.”

Incesoft’s Xiao-i and mInfo’s XiaoMing are both IM robots with complementary capabilities. By working together, the two companies hope users will enjoy clear and immediate benefits. XiaoMing’s unique capabilities in rich daily- life and local search content was where Incesoft found the most synergies. Moreover, Xiao-i could distribute its contents to more users through mInfo’s SMS and WAP platforms.

“With the upcoming 3G license issuance in China, the mobile services market will grow dramatically,” said Hui Yuan, CEO of Incesoft. “mInfo is definitely the best partner to choose in bringing a more natural mobile search experience to our users.”

Incesoft
mInfo

A new book by author Seth Shulman entitled “The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell’s Secret” argues that Bell stole ideas for the telephone from rival, Elisha Gray. By hiring clever lawyers and a corrupt patent examiner, Shulman makes the claim that Bell was able to examine patent documents Gray had filed which helped Bell perfect his telephone.

Some of the best evidence supporting Shulman’s claim comes from Bell’s own laboratory notes. The notebook is full of false starts as Bell and assistant Thomas Watson tried to transmit sound electromagnetically over a wire. Then there is a 12 day gap in the notes during the time Bell went to Washington to visit the patent office. On his return, Bell was able to transmit his voice over the new invention. A revolution in telecommunications was born with the first words, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.”

Shulman’s book points out other suspicious activity by Bell. For instance, Bell’s transmitter design appears hastily written in the margin of his patent; Bell was nervous about demonstrating his device with Gray present; Bell resisted testifying in an 1878 lawsuit probing this question; and Bell, as if ashamed, quickly distanced himself from the telephone monopoly bearing his name.

The book also examines why historical memory favors Bell over Gray and German inventor Philipp Reis. Reis invented a telephone in the 1860s that worked on a different principle.

One reason fate shined on Bell may be due to the fact that he demonstrated his invention to other people and was a good promoter. Gray was more interested in solving his era’s communications challenge: how to send multiple messages simultaneously over the same telegraph wire. As Gray told his attorney, “I should like to see Bell do that with his apparatus.”

This is a good historic lesson for our Century. New technology needs to be protected with strong but fair patent laws so that those who put the effort into inventing new ideas are protected. It also shows that we shouldn’t be of a one-track mind. Solving the problems of today may lead to new breakthroughs but it takes a promoters mind to point out revolutionary change.

Internet phone company Vonage settled a patent lawsuit brought against it by AT&T. AT&T claimed that Vonage infringed with its patents by using packet-based telephony products, which allow voice conversations to be carried over the Internet.

Since going public in 2006, Vonage was hit by multiple lawsuits by telephone service providers. It settled a suit with Sprint Nextel and another one with Verizon Communications in October.

Vonage did not disclose the nature of the settlement but in November the company offered to pay AT&T $39 million over five years. (See: Vonage Discusses Settlement). Vonage hopes that by settling it will be able to become profitable and that its stock price will rise. When the company went public in 2006 its stock sold for $17 a share. In September of this year Vonage stock fell to as low as $0.89. Ever since negotiating with the companies that brought the patent infringement lawsuits, Vonage stock has increased. The stock sells for just over $2 as of this morning.

Taiwan’s production of handsets is up nearly 82% over last year’s numbers. Many of the 6.2 million devices manufactured in Taiwan are made for Apple and its iPhone brand. It is believed that similar numbers will be achieved in next year’s first quarter. This will be a jump of 150% over this year’s first quarter numbers, Market Intelligence Centre said in a forecast.

“This growth is being driven by several factors, one being the introduction of several new mass-produced models by High Tech Computer Corporation,” the centre said in a report, referring to the island’s leading smart phone maker.

“Another factor is the rise in procurements by North American and European operators to satisfy traditional peak season demand in the fourth quarter,” it said.

Shipment value over the period broke the one-billion-US-dollar mark for the first time to 1.46 billion dollars, it added.

“Major growth momentum for the Taiwanese smart handheld device industry in the third quarter came from increased contract production of the Apple iPhone,” it said.

If Taiwan keeps the iPhone contract there may be even more dramatic increases in production numbers. Apple is currently in negotiations with various Asian phone companies to release the iPhone in those markets.

Each week MobileCrunchArcade compiles the biggest news from the world of mobile gaming.

A little news has leaked out about the upcoming mobile game Final Fantasy IV: Return to the Moon. The game is a direct sequel of Final Fantasy IV. But you could probably guess that from the title. The DNA results are in and it is confirmed that Theodore is Cecil’s and Rosa’s son. The divorce petition has been withdrawn. All of the original characters in Final Fantasy IV will be returning to the mobile sequel, go figure. The mobile version will have episodic chapters to master and a story update every month. A free demo will be distributed as the story’s prologue so there is no good reason to pass up a little fantasy when the game is released.

The first game for Google’s mobile operating system Android is in development. Wi-Fi Army is a game where you try and track down other players with you phone and take their picture. The earth is your battlefield and your phone is your weapon. You have to search for other players while you are out and about. Your phone can detect anyone else who is running Wi-Fi Army within a 300-foot radius. Once you shoot a picture of them it is compared to photos in a data base and if a match is made you get one hit. The beta version only supports 500 players per city so if it is to become popular in large cities the number will have to increase. Power-ups and weapon upgrades will be available for a nominal fee. I’m not sure what they mean by weapon upgrades but if it is legal why not do it?

Earlier this week, Verizon in partnership with Hand-On Mobile and Activision released Guitar Hero III Mobile. Much like the console game players must hit keys in sync with colored notes that appear on a scrolling board. Verizon Wireless customers get 15 song tracks from the Guitar Hero console series and can add new tracks as they become available each month. The game can be purchased monthly for $4.49 or can be bought for a onetime price of $12. The game won’t teach you to read music but it will help you irritate people while you wait for a connecting bus.

N-Gage was supposed to be softly launched this week with little fanfare. It was so soft that nothing went into the air. N-Gage has been postponed again and is now rescheduled for next year. Space Shuttle launches haven’t been aborted this many times. Here’s what a post on the official N-Gage blog reads: “Unfortunately, as can sometimes happen in software development, unexpected difficulties can occur. We have been doing an internal run with more than 1,000 global testers this week, and during this process we uncovered an issue we feel we need to address. Overall, the games and service are working smoothly, but because of this issue, we feel we could not release N-Gage First Access before the holidays as planned.”

If you are in for a little nostalgia, or you want to know what gaming was like in ancient times, Atari is releasing Atari Legends Volumes 1, 2 and 3. The graphics and game play are right out of the 1980’s and can be played in the palm of your hand. You don’t have to lug a big 25” screen television around to play pong or asteroids and you don’t have to fight everybody for the joystick that isn’t broken.

That is this week’s Mobile Gaming News Roundup. Remember to exercise those thumbs, recharge the battery and never take your eyes off the screen.

Air France is experimenting with cell phone calls on a limited number of European routs. Passengers can send and receive short messages and send and receive e-mails if the phone supports Internet access. At first, travelers won’t be able to make or receive voice calls because of issues with other passengers. Air France hopes to allow voice calls within three months in a way that won’t interfere with other passengers’ comfort and well-being.

A small cellular base station inside the plane routs onboard calls and messages. Messages are sent to a satellite and then to the ground and the phone’s network. The service is supplied by OnAir, a company partially owned by airplane maker Airbus.

Cell phone users must dial as if they are making an international call. Air France hasn’t said how much a call will cost but said it is comparable to traditional mobile rates. Signs are posted telling passengers when to keep their phones off. Messages can’t be sent until the plane rises above 10,000 feet.

Airlines and regulators have been debating cell phone use for years. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has banned mobile phone service on flights. The European Union has taken the opposite line and has approved of cell phone flights. Airlines in other regions, like the Australian operator Qantas, are conducting limited tests of the service.

Attorney Black Horwitz has filed a class action lawsuit against the city of Chicago, Mayor Richard Daley and several police officers over the city’s ban of talking or texting over a cell phone while driving. Thousands of drivers have been ticketed since the law went into effect in 2005. Drivers are typically fined $75 if caught talking on their cell phones and up to $200 if they are involved in an accident.

Horwitz’s firm specializes in police misconduct and has sued Chicago over 100 times. The law which bans driving and talking on a phone includes a clause that requires the city to put up signs telling drivers not to talk on the phone and drive at the same time. The city hasn’t posted these signs across the city and therefore the fines and arrests are illegal, Horwitz said.

The city of Chicago has collected nearly $2 million in fines from cell
phone ordinance violators. Horwitz is asking the city to stop all enforcement of the law and that people who have paid the fine be reimbursed.

Motorists caught talking or text messaging in Britain face hefty fines and jail time under guidelines due to be published today. In the most serious cases drivers caught using a cell phone can be charged with dangerous driving which carries a maximum punishment of two years in prison and an unlimited fine to be determined by a court. Using a hand-held mobile phone while driving was banned in 2003 but thousands of drivers violate the law every day.

Currently, drivers face an automatic fine and three points against their license if caught driving and using a handset. Department of Transport statistics show that drivers are four times more likely to crash if they are holding a mobile phone to talk or text message while at the wheel.

Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald said earlier this year that drivers who flout the law and drive dangerously should face tougher penalties.

“There is widespread public concern about the use of mobile phones and other hand-held electronic equipment while driving,” he said.

One reason why people ignore the law is because police are lax in enforcing the law. Sheila Granger, campaigns manager at the RAC, told the BBC: “We’d like to see police on the streets taking action. The best deterrent is for a motorist to be either pulled over themselves or know someone else who has been stopped.”

Hands-free phones aren’t covered by the law but a driver can still be charged if the police think a driver isn’t in control of the automobile.

Yahoo has cemented a deal with Latin America’s top mobile phone company America Movil today to provide mobile Web services to 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Yahoo’s oneSearch service will be the default on America Movil’s wireless carriers’ portals. Localized versions of oneSearch will be created for each region. This is the largest of 21 search deals Yahoo has entered into this year.

America Movil has 143 million wireless subscribers across Latin America. Yahoo’s second largest deal of this type involved Spain’s Telefonica SA and covers 100 million subscribers in European and Latin American markets. Yahoo is hammering out deals to attract subscribers to Internet services delivered over mobile phones and is spending less time trying to attract computer users. The service lets users search the Web on the first screen they call up, unlike browsers designed for computer users, which force users to navigate through several screens.

Yahoo is taking a different path in the mobile realm than its rival Google. Google recently unveiled plans to build a mobile phone operating system called Android. Instead of getting into operating systems and software design, Yahoo is focusing on mobile advertising deals.

Yahoo
America Movil

Intuit, the world’s largest provider of personal and small business finance software, is going to offer Quicken for iPhone users. The service will cost $3 a month and launches on January 8 of next year. Intuit hopes this will expand Quicken’s 14 million user base and boost the market penetration of a brand that already generates around 1.7 million new copies of software a year.

The new Intuit product is geared to appeal to younger people who aren’t leery of online banking. The software will help users track where and how their money is being spent.

“Our first mission is to make sure we are solving the needs of people who are not currently using a personal finance solution,” Intuit senior vice president Rick Jensen said.

Quicken online will be accessible through regular Web browsers and most mobile devices with browsers, protecting the data with the same technologies that banks use to secure online transactions. The version that Intuit has developed for the iPhone offers fewer features than the regular version for Web browsers.

The new online product will allow users to download banking information, credit card charges and electronic bills. It will automatically download new information from those companies as it is made available. In the case of credit card charges, transaction details will be pushed out to Quicken online users as they are accrued, rather than requiring customers to wait until the end of the month to see all charges for the billion period.

Intuit

Apple is talking with Japan’s mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo to launch the iPhone in Japan. According to a report published yesterday, Apple’s share of subscriber revenue is a point of contention between the two companies.

NTT DoCoMo spokesman Shuichiro Ichikoshi said company President Masao Nakamura met recently with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs. Shuichiro declined to comment further.

Apple plans to launch the iPhone in other Asian markets in 2008. Last month China Mobile, China’s biggest service provider with over 350 million subscribers, revealed it was negotiating with Apple to bring the iPhone to China.

NTT DoCoMo has nearly 53 million subscribers and controls over half of the mobile phone market in Japan. But in recent months price slicing competition from KDDI and Softbank has made it difficult for NTT DoCoMo to add new subscribers.

Apple is sticking to its policy of restricting the iPhone to one service provider in each country the device is launched. There have been legal attempts to break the exclusivity of the iPhone but courts have upheld Apple’s right to restrict the iPhone to one carrier. To date the iPhone is available on: AT&T Inc. in the United States, O2 in Britain, T-Mobile in Germany and France Telecom's Orange wireless arm in France.

Look who’s bidding for 700mhz spectrum!

Yesterday, the FCC announced the list of applicants to the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction. Of the 266 applications submitted, only 96 were accepted, and another 170 were deemed incomplete (but these will be given a chance to provide the required information and participate). You can download both lists, along with the announcement here at the FCC’s Website. Some interesting names popped up in both lists, not least of which is Paul Allen’s Vulcan Ventures and (as expected) Google Airwaves, both accepted bidders. Most of the names are obscure holding companies or regional telecom companies.

Alltel Corporation
AT&T Mobility Spectrum
Chevron
Cox Wireless
Frontier Wireless
Qualcomm

via TC

For the first time, U.S. households are expected to spend more money on cell phone services than on land line services. In 2006 an average of $524 was spend on cell phone bills as compared to $542 for land line and pay-phone services. But government and telecom analysts predict 2007 will see mobile phones surpassing land line numbers.

“What we’re finding is there’s a huge move of people giving up their land line service altogether and using cell phones exclusively,” said Allyn Hall, consumer research director for market research firm In-Stat.

In 2001 U.S. households spent three times as much on land line communication as they did on cell phones. But expanded wireless networks, mobile convenience and added features like text messaging have convinced many Americans to cut the land line.

“Frankly, I’d be shocked if (households) don’t spend more on cell phones at this point,” said Andrew Arthur, vice president of market solutions at Mediamark Research & Intelligence.

If corporate use of cell phones is put into the equation, spending on mobile service surpassed land line spending several years ago. It is estimated that the country has 250 million cell phones as compared to 170 million land lines. Traditional telecommunications growth has been flat for years whereas wireless has seen 15% to 20% growth in the last five years.

Eric Rabe, senior vice president for media relations at Verizon Communications says much of the cell phone growth is due to the popularity of text messaging and other services.

“As a company that once made the vast, vast majority of its revenue on phone calls, for 10 years we’ve been moving away from that and trying to re-establish ourselves in other businesses because we could see the traditional telephone was a mature business, it was not going to grow and indeed might even shrink,” he said

This doesn’t mean the death of the land line. Services like Internet and cable television are going to keep land line phones in business for awhile. But it is clear that wireless is the dominate way people in America are communicating on the phone.

Zipit Wireless announced today that it will launch a text-messaging plan for its Zipit Wireless Messenger 2 in February of next year. The Zipit 2 is a small device that allows users in a Wi-Fi hotspot to do free instant messaging with AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.

Zipit users who register for the text-messaging plan will now be able to send and receive information over cell-phone networks, as well as communicate by instant message. For $4.99 users will be able to send 3,000 messages a month. Before February, people who signup for the service can text message for free.

The Zipit 2 costs just under $150 and has a keyboard and color screen. The device also hosts a 2GB hard drive for the storage of music and video files but isn’t able to connect to the Internet.

One nice feature about the text messaging service is that only messages sent from user approved numbers are accepted. Spam is eliminated. On the downside, a message can only be sent to one person at a time.

I don’t think the cell phone business is going to get much competition from Zipit. Messaging is restricted to Wi-Fi zones so the user isn’t very mobile. The text messaging service only allows the user to send a message to one person at a time. And a user can’t peruse the in Internet. The text messages are cheaper than most cell phone carrier plans but the downsides of Zipit outweigh the upsides. I suppose it might be good for pesky teens who can’t be trusted with a cell phone but anyone else should stay with mobile phones.

Zipit

The three leading Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are trying to reach younger voters by sending SMS (short message service) updates to supporters. No Republican candidate has yet used this technology to whip up support.

Political observers say that text messaging has been used in other countries to rally support for political causes. Text messages helped to fuel rallies that led to the ouster of Philippine president Joseph Estrada in 2001 and may have tipped the balance in the 2004 elections in Spain. Cell Phone technology has yet to be tapped in American elections.

In 2006 Americans sent over 158 billion text messages in a country with more than 243 million mobile phones. Around 43 percent of 18 to 24 year-olds in the United States text daily, according to Insight Express. About 10 percent of 55 to 64 year-olds also text daily.

“It could be an incredibly useful mobilization tool,” says Julie Germany, deputy director of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University.

The use of text messaging “is catching on little bit in the US but text messaging in this country is nowhere near as big as it is in places like Europe, Latin America and Asia.”

Princeton University graduate student Aaron Strauss has researched technology and elections and said candidates are looking to use SMS to reach younger voters.

Strauss said his study showed that persons who received a text message reminder ahead of an election were about four percent more likely to vote than those who did not.

“The newest generation of voters is starting to use text messaging and as they become politically active I think you’ll see text messaging become more important in campaigns,” he said.

Mobile phone users can text for updates to Obama (62262), Clinton (77007) or Edwards (30644).

“By harnessing the power of text messaging, we can engage voters in the political process using the latest technology and provide personalized, local campaign updates to our supporters nationwide,” Clinton said in a statement on the launch of her service.

Republicans may not think younger voters are likely to support them, or their conservatism may make them leery of new technology. But the 21 Century is here and cell phones are an important part of it. If the GOP was willing to submit itself to the ridiculous YouTube debate, its candidates should be willing to spend a little money on text messaging supporters with updates and voting reminders.

Alltel’s new Voice2TXT service uses voice-recognition software that allows mobile phone customers to read their voicemail messages as text messages. Voice2TXT costs $4.99 a month and still has the option to listen to messages as usual.

“It’ll appeal to a broad customer base … people who are in meetings quite regularly and can’t take a phone call — it’s very useful in those settings,” said Wade McGill, Alltel’s senior vice president of product management.

The technology was developed by the British company SpinVox. It works on any Alltel cell phone that can receive text messages.

“It was one of those services that once you get it, you don’t want to give it up,” McGill said, describing the reaction of a test group.

SpinVox said its Voice Message Conversion System, which converts messages in English, French, Spanish and German, eliminates the need to search for a pen to write down the details of a message or navigate through a voicemail service.

“Voice2TXT as delivered by SpinVox eliminates the frustrations with dialing into voicemail by offering a discreet, efficient alternative,” said Christina Domecq, co-founder and chief executive of SpinVox.

I don’t think this service is for everybody but if you get a lot of voicemails with detailed information it might be worth the $4.99 fee. I find myself having to listen to messages more than once when there is a phone number or other specific information that needs to be written down.

Alltel
SpinVox