Sanyo Electric Co. announced today that it will sell its mobile phone division to Kyocera Corp. The two companies haven’t reached a final price for the deal which is expected to be closed by April 1 of this year. The value of the mobile division is estimated to be worth $374 million (40 billion yen). With occurred debt, the deal should be worth $467 million (50 billion yen).

News of the sale comes months after Goldman Sachs and other investors saved Sanyo in a $2.8 billion (300 billion yen) bailout.

Sanyo said in a statement. “In order to meet the best interest of the business and its stockholders, Sanyo has … concluded that a transfer of the business to Kyocera would be the ideal solution.”

Under the agreement, 2,000 employees in Sanyo’s mobile phone division will go to work for Kyocera. Kyocera plans to continue to use the Sanyo brand on handsets at home and overseas. Sanyo started manufacturing handsets in 1994 and has supplied several mobile phone carriers in and outside the country.

Sanyo builds TVs and other home appliances but plans to focus on its solar and battery divisions. The company hopes restructuring will allow Sanyo to post its first net profit in four years.

Sanyo
Kyocera

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

It seems some mobile phone gurus were talking about mobile games at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. One of the biggest problems that the game industry has is the pace at which new handsets are developed and released to the public. When someone upgrades to a new handset with all its neat features, old game software doesn’t compute. Game companies aren’t willing to give free game upgrades when a customer upgrades to a newer phone, so many people become disillusioned with mobile games. There have been hundreds of game releases but many of the games are so poor consumers don’t want to risk buying a new game after having a few bad experiences. Because of all these problems, sales of mobile games have remained relatively flat when compared to the overall growth of mobile phones. But the wise ones at the CES foresee a good future for mobile gaming based on the growth of smartphones and the public’s becoming used to downloading software to their handsets. Once everyone on Earth plays mobile games we can say that the human race has been truly civilized. There won’t be war or poverty and everyone will just get along ….

Greystripe, a distributor of ad-supported mobile games, announced the early results from its partnership with Opera, a mobile web browsing software company. In the first month since the partnership, Opera users have downloaded over 1,600,000 games and applications. It seems that Greystripe’s catalog of over 900 mobile games is a hit with Opera users. If you don’t mind ignoring a few ads, why not take a look at the Greystripe’s gamejump achieve? Greystripe reaches millions of mobile game players through its online portal GameJump.com , through the mobile web (http://gjmp.tw), and through its 20 AdWRAP Catalog Platform partners.

If you enjoy golf but can’t play because of the winter months, Microforum’s game Arcade Sidegolf may be just what you need to get through those long and cold nights. The game is reminiscent of the old 16-bit console games of the late 80’s and early 90’s. The screen is viewed from the side in 2D as your golfer swings trying to hit the ball. You can choose between a wood, iron or wedge with which to navigate the terrain and avoid obstacles with. A classic golf game device, the power bar, is used to determine the strength of your shot. Arcade Sidegolf won’t improve your real game or keep you warm on cold winter nights like your girlfriend, but it may be the right mobile game for the golf enthusiast.

If you enjoy classic computer RPGs, Gothic 3: The Beginning will keep your thumbs happy for many hours. You play the role of Xardas, a young man who has been chosen to recover a set of magic rune stones. At the start, Xardas can be a fighter, archer or magician. As he fights his way through a myriad of monster, Xardas increases in level and abilities. There are over 50 levels to explore as you search for those pesky runes. Non-player characters can be talked to for clues to the location of the lost stones. Xardas can smash barrels and pick locks looking for lost treasure. There are 28 weapons and 10 types of armor to aid the intrepid Xardas in his quest. As you can see, the game sticks to the fantasy RPG formula so it isn’t for everyone. But if you want to send some time killing monsters and taking their treasure, Gothic 3: The Beginning may be for you.

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.

Smaato, a mobile ad-server technology company, has received $3.5 million in financing from international media, advertising, mobile and financial community investors. Silicon Valley based legal firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati advised on the funding and participated with an investment of its own.

“We are convinced Smaato is at the fore front of this new marketing opportunity. Mobile advertising will be in hyper growth mode for the coming years and we believe Smaato is one of the leading pioneers in this field with an experienced management team and an excellent track record in the recent past. We will be actively supporting Smaato to position the company as a leader in the mobile advertising space,” stated Uwe R. Feuersenger, CEO of aeris CAPITAL who also participated in this financing round.

Smaato delivers innovative ways to connect new generation software applications for mobile devices with targeted advertising. The company recently announced a new version of the mobile ad-server platform SOMA (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) that supports mobile Web and WAP advertising delivery.

“Since founding Smaato we are experiencing a growing interest in targeted mobile advertising. With Smaato we are at the forefront for developing innovative advertising solutions to reach the mobile consumer. With the support of our international investors and our advisory board of experienced and globally connected individuals, we will continue to expand our reach within the industry on a global scale”, commented Ragnar Kruse, Co-Founder and CEO of Smaato Inc.

SOMA delivers advertising across all leading mobile operating systems, including JAVA, Symbian, Windows Mobile and Palm OS, as well as on mobile web pages. Smaato is partnering with ad-sales networks worldwide to provide access to mobile inventory on the most personal device with enhanced targeting features for relevant advertising.

Smaato

Sprint Nextel, the third largest mobile phone provider in the United States, reported a net loss of 683,000 post-paid subscribers today. This loss is far greater than those predicted by analysts, which ranged between 350,000 and 500,000 subscribers. The company also reported net losses of 202,000 prepaid subscribers. Sprint’s subscriber base was 53.8 million at the end of 2007, including 40.8 million post-paid and 4.1 million prepaid customers.

In reaction to the loss of subscribers, Sprint said it would cut 4,000 jobs. This news sent the company’s stock into a tailspin as shares dropped to their lowest level in more than five years.

“They’re trying to keep ahead of a business … that seems to be springing new leaks faster than they can plug them,” said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett.

Moffett thinks the subscriber losses were caused by a slowdown in the U.S. economy and Sprint’s own competitive problems within the industry.

Sprint plans to close 125 stores and eliminate over 4,000 sales outlets within other retailers. The company has around 20,000 distribution points, including 1,400 of its own retail stores. Some analysts think now is a bad time to scale back retail presence.

“While that should save expenses, it really puts the company at risk of even slower growth,” said Michael Nelson, analyst at Stanford Group. He said the job cuts could help the company in a period of slower growth, provided the layoffs don’t further hurt its customer service operations.

“What the company really suffers from is an extremely poor marketing message,” Nelson said. “That’s something that can potentially be turned around in a relatively short period of time.”

YouMail, a free voicemail service, launched a new advertising program this week that will connect brands with mobile users through text-based advertising. This new feature will add short, non-intrusive 40-character marketing messages to the text alerts users already receive when a caller leaves a new voicemail.

“Advertisers continue to struggle to find unobtrusive ways to reach consumers on their mobile devices,” said Alex Quilici, CEO of YouMail. “We’ve developed a way to connect brands with mobile users, providing a new revenue stream that will allow YouMail’s service to remain free.”

YouMail users currently receive text messages alerting them to new voicemails which include the name and phone number of the caller, and the length of the voice message. The new program allows brands to sponsor these texts by placing a marketing message, limited to 40 characters, at the end of the alert. It is hoped that the new advertising feature will keep YouMail’s service free and allow the company to develop new features.

YouMail partnered with 4INFO, a text messaging service, to bring the new program to fruition.

“YouMail’s entry into the mobile text advertising space is another great example of an organization utilizing 4INFO’s services to turn a cost center into a revenue opportunity,” said Zaw Thet, CEO of 4INFO. “We have proven success connecting marketers with the tech-savvy mobile user and are excited to be working with YouMail.”

YouMail

If you are an autograph hound, Mobile Fun may have the service for you. Your mobile phone can now be autographed online by famous and historical people like Stalin or Shakespeare without having to go to the trouble and cost of renting a time machine.

Mobile Fun is currently working on a system that allows modern celebrities to sell limited editions of their autographs online so that customers can get them direct to their mobile phone or iPod.

“Modern mobile phones have enough memory for avid Autograph Collectors
to carry up to 10,000 copyright-protected autographs in their back
pocket”, says Simon Aston (”PSYMON”), Premium Autographs System Product
Manager of Mobile Fun.

If you are concerned about your favorite celebrity’s mental health, Mobile Fun’s service may make life easier for that person. At least that’s what Simon thinks. He hopes fans will use the Mobile Fun service so that celebrities won’t be pestered by crowds seeking autographs.

“We constantly hear on the news from ‘famous and therefore rich’ how tired they all are of screaming funs, paparazzi and read carpets.”

“We already have lots of top-famous actors, sportsmen and even politicians, ready and waiting to use our Autographs System to sell their autographs for tenths of thousands pounds” said Mr. Ruslan G Fedorovsky, newly appointed Head of Mobile.

“MobileFun.co.uk is already consistently inside the top 1000 websites and more popular than Jamster or even Vodafone and this new system should take us to even higher level of Internet popularity.”

Mobile Fun

Mobile phone users in Europe are paying high costs to text message or use mobile Internet services outside their own country, the EU’s telecoms chief said today. This word comes just a few months after the EU regulated the cost mobile phone service providers could bill for roaming charges outside a customer’s country of origin.

Last September the European Commission capped roaming fees for foreign travelers and prices dropped by as much as 60%. But there are currently no price limits on text messages and other mobile data transfers. EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding is concerned about the high cost and wide range of prices service providers charge for these applications.

“We will watch developments very closely and respond appropriately by the end of 2008,” she said.

Reding gave a similar statement when she warned phone companies that they need to reduce roaming charges when someone does a voice call outside his or her country of origin. Companies at the time didn’t heed her warning and the EU government stepped in to regulate roaming charges. It is illegal to charge more than 49 euro cents a minute for making a call, and 24 euro cents for receiving calls, outside travelers’ home countries. Before the regulation, a four minute boarder call from France to Germany would cost 4 euros even though a similar call made within France over a longer distance would just cost a few cents.

Text messages and data transfers are good money makers for mobile phone providers. It is estimated that EU members sent 202 billion text messages last year. It is likely that European phone companies will be scrambling to reach some sort of compromise with the EU Telecoms Commission before new price controls are set in place.

A startup called PimpMyNews.com has launched a free news application that converts text news into spoken news for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The Web-based service can be accessed through the iPhone’s or iPod Touch’s Safari browser. PimpMyNews uses the Internet to find the latest news and converts text into audio that can be listened to on the devices. Audio versions of the news can be shared with others by posting the information on social networking sites.

Users are able to create what the company calls “personalized talking newspapers”. A user is able to choose from 59 categories from news sources and blogs for the program to look for and translate. The information is sent to the iPhone or iPod Touch and is constantly updated as news comes in. The PimpMyNews Internet site has over 200,000 talking stories and over 4,000 are added each day.

The news from this service does sound automated. A live person isn’t reading the news like you hear on the radio or television, so inflection and diction sound computerized. (Maybe some day computers will learn to speak with some emotion.) But the service is free so why not give it a try?

PimpMyNews

If you’ve ever traveled abroad, you’ve probably had some experience with pre-paid calling cards. For about $10 you get what you expect, a code that gives you minutes on your mobile phone. However, mobile social network Mig33 is looking to offer a little bit more.

Tomorrow the company will be announcing the sale of pre-paid cards in South Africa that not only make calls but also access a mix of free and inexpensive services like VoIP calls, instant messaging, text messaging, social networking and community features. Naturally these features will be available through signing up with Mig33.

AMF Ventures will be conducting an anonymous on-line poll over the next few weeks. The short survey, it takes about 5 minutes to answer, is aimed to assess how important industry people view some of the current issues around technologies and standards. The survey wants to get an international perspective on a range of mobile standards issues.

The survey is intended for mobile telecommunications insiders. So if you work in the industry take a few minutes to voice your opinion and take a chance to win an iPhone. If you aren’t an insider the survey isn’t for you. A drawing for the iPhone will be held at the end of January.

Survey Site:surveymonkey.com/mobiletelecoms

Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA announced today that it will provide mobile phone and wireless Internet services on flights this year. Passengers will also be able to access travel information, broadband telephone services and mobile banking.

The on-flight services will be provided by a new subsidiary, Call Norwegian AS. The company expects to launch these conveniences in the fourth quarter of this year.

“Call Norwegian will be an Internet-based mobile telephone company, and the products will be focused on primary mobile telephone services (network service),” Norwegian Air Shuttle said in a statement.

A French airliner announced last year that it was experimenting with on-flight mobile calls and services. Some fear that mobile phones may interfere with the communications and electronics of a flying plane so most air providers don’t allow wireless use. Others are concerned that making calls in an airplane is an annoyance for other passengers and should be banned to make flights more comfortable. But as people become more attached to their wireless devices it is inevitable that airlines will make adjustments. Wireless communication will allow business passengers to turn flight time into productive time. Others will be able to distract themselves with their gadgets to make flying less stressful.

Clearwire, a wireless service provider, announced today that it will offer subscribers Google applications in the first half of this year. Clearwire customers who have wireless Internet will be able to
access Google applications like e-mail, calendar and Google Talk instant message service.

Clearwire was founded by Craig McCaw. McCaw said the company also plans to provide Google’s Web search services on future Clearwire Web portal applications but no tentative date was given.

Clearwire stock has fallen from $18 since November of last year after Sprint Nextel announced it was ending a previously announced collaboration with Clearwire. The two companies had planed to let their customers roam on each other’s networks.

Clearwire shares were up $0.25, or 1.8 percent, and sold for $14.24 this morning on the NASDAQ.

The NBA has released a new subscription based mobile downloadable application, NBA 2 Go, for tracking teams and games right on your phone. The application is powered by Hands On Mobile. While the NBA already has a mobile site that provides live scoring, stats, and photos. However, the new application gives you a bit more content and customization that you get from their mobile site. But all of these features are already available on the web.

As is my feeling with most of these paid mobile applications, their added value is just not worth the cost for most of us. While the cost of NBA 2 Go varies by carrier, most of these types of applications cost $2.99 to $9.99 a month. However, buying an unlimited data plan and bookmarking a couple key sites will ensure you get your sports fix until you reach your nearest computer or TV.

If for some reason you don’t have that kind of time, you can get the NBA 2 Go by texting NBA2Go to MYNBA (69622). It will unlock some extra features that you can’t get on your most mobile browsers right now. NBA 2 Go feeds you live game updates and recap videos (although they don’t work on all phones). On the customization side, the app streamlines your browsing experience by letting you track specific teams and players you care about.

The specifications for the phones NBA 2 Go work with are somewhat of a mystery. They don’t specify what phones it works with other than that video won’t necessarily work. After texting MYNBA for the app, I only received a cryptic “NBA 2 Go is coming soon for your phone”, which is a rather commonplace Sprint Katana.

China Mobile announced today that it is no longer negotiating with Apple to provide the world’s most populous nation with the popular iPhone. This opens the door for China’s number two mobile service provider, China Unicom, to talk with Apple.

“We can only say that negotiations have ended for now. We have no other news to report,” said Li Honghui, a spokeswoman for China Mobile Communications Corp., the parent of cell phone carrier China Mobile. She declined to comment further.

Rainie Lei, a spokeswoman for China Mobile, earlier Monday also declined to say why the talks ended.

“We have held talks with Apple to launch the iPhone device in China. However, those talks have ended,” she said

According to Dow Jones Newswires, an unnamed official at China Mobile said that China Mobile and Apple could not agree on revenue-sharing terms in preliminary discussions. The unnamed source said China Mobile was unwilling to pay between 20 and 30 percent of future user fees from the iPhone to Apple for the right to carry the device.

The break-down in talks leaves the door open for Apple to talk with China’s second largest mobile phone carrier, China Unicom. When the news broke last year that China Mobile was talking to Apple, China Unicom said it was interested in the iPhone but that the two companies hadn’t had any formal negotiations.

Eric Wen, an analyst at BNP Paribas, doesn’t think China Mobile will be hurt by not carrying the iPhone. Its market share in China is too large to have immediate repercussions. But Wen does think that China Unicom may jump at the opportunity to carry the iPhone and pay the large percentage of user fees back to Apple.

SoonR, a 2-year-old company that provides mobile computer files access and management services, received $9.5 million in series B funding led by Cisco. Total SoonR investment has reached $15.5 million.

This new infusion of money is intended to help SoonR expand its mobile platform and advance its partner-driven distribution strategy. Intel Capital and Clearstone Venture Partners also participated in the investment.

SoonR’s technology integrates computer desktops and mobile devices. Users can access, back up and share files on their desktop computer from their mobile phone or Internet-enabled device, whether their computer is turned on or off. Documents created by applications like Microsoft Word, Excel and Power Point can be accessible, along with e-mail.

SoonR will allow Skype calls to be made from cell phones, including Apple’s iPhone. Data on a user’s computer is continuously backed up, allowing it to be restored should the computer be lost or stolen.

SoonR works with Denmark carrier TeliaSonera and has a joint development and marketing partnership with QuickOffice to provide next-generation mobile services. SoonR says it has partnerships with additional international carriers and is in pilot trials with others.

SoonR

If you have used the scanR application to turn your mobile phone camera into a digital scanner, now you can do so in color. In the past all document pages sent to scanR were converted into black and white. Now if you send photos of magazines, newspapers, books or other color pages to scanR, it will convert the images into digital full-color copies.

You can try the new scanR feature for free but you are limited to 5 uploads per month and the images have a scanR logo on processed images. By signing up for scanR Pro you can upload unlimited images without any advertising on processed images. The unlimited version is $2.99 a month or $29.90 for a years worth of image taking. 40 uploads costs $9.99. Both the free and the subscription service allow unlimited storage, online sharing, PDF creation, worldwide fax and synchronization with Facebook, salesforce.com and Plaxo.

If you want to digitalize pages at a place where it is inconvenient to bring a conventional scanner, this service may be what you are looking for. For example, if I want to scan pictures of famous paintings it would be far easier to take my phone to the library and do so than to have to take all the books home and scan them into my computer. There are bound to be many business situations where this service may come in handy. Why carry around bits of paper used for receipts when you can copy them with this service and send a digital copy to where ever the information needs to go?

scanR

Companies like Wake3 and Funambol are starting to use open-source in the development of software for mobile computing devices. Open-source seems to be the perfect conduit to bring iPhone type browsing and e-mail to handheld devices. During a meeting of the Mobile Monday Silicon Valley group associates of Wake3, Funambol and Wind River noted the rise of open-source software on handsets. Wake3 is bringing the open-source WebKit mobile Web browser to Windows Mobile systems.

“WebKit for Windows Mobile really is, in essence, a kind of iPhone browsing for Windows Mobile,” said Daniel Zucker, CTO of Wake3.

He and an official at Wind River stressed the paradigm shift brought on by the iPhone. Instead of persons inquiring about what type of wireless service someone is using, they want to know if they have an iPhone, said Bill O’Such, Wind River director of engineering.

“It’s really changed the balance,” O’Such said.

“The iPhone opened up everyone’s eyes. For the first time, you could really get true desktop browsing on a device,” Zucker said.

“We’re actually seeing a tremendous surge of interest in open source in mobile,” said Hal Steger, vice president of marketing at Funambol. The company has commercial and open-source versions of its software.

Funambol likes to use open-source because it can get its software into the hands of more developers more quickly. The developers can help test, fix and contribute to code changes that make the software better, Steger said.

“If you’ve ever developed a mobile phone application and you’re trying to address the mass market, there’s a fundamental problem,” he said. Half the world owns a cell phone but there are more than 1,000 models and many operating systems to support. But developers via open source can test the software and try it on their own phones.

“What we like to say is open source enables the largest mobile developer community to make any device work on any network. That’s probably the biggest single advantage at least from our experience of open source to mobile,” said Steger.

A fake software upgrade may have infected an iPhone near you with the first known Trojan that targets the popular mobile phone. The Trojan appears to be timed to rumors that claim new features in an upcoming iPhone firmware upgrade. A number of news sites and blogs cited a report published by CNET France that claimed an imminent iPhone update would feature a disk mode, which would allow the iPhone to be used as a portable flash drive and voice recorder.

“This Trojan claims to be a tool used to prepare the device for an upgrade to firmware version 1.1.3,” the US-CERT advisory said. “When a user installs the Trojan, other application components are altered. If the Trojan is uninstalled, the affected applications may also be removed.”

It isn’t unusual for malware authors to write their programs with a current events touch. The Storm worm initially spread through an e-mail message that talked about a recent January 2007 winter storm. With the Consumer Electronics show this week and the Macworld Conference & Expo next week, a Trojan is more likely to fool more people because new innovations are expected to be released to the public.

Symantec identified the Trojan as “iPhone firmware 1.1.3 prep.” Symantec security researcher Orla Cox thinks that installing the software doesn’t appear to have much of an effect on the iPhone, but warns that uninstalling it could overwrite other iPhone applications.

“This is technically the first Trojan horse seen for the iPhone, however it does appear to be more of a prank than an actual threat,” said Cox. “The impact of uninstalling the ‘Trojan’ would appear to be an unintended side effect. The risk to users is minimal as they would have to choose to install the bogus package and the site which was hosting it has now been taken offline. Nevertheless, iPhone users should exercise caution regarding the packages they choose to install on their phones.”

Break.com, following in the footsteps of YouTube, is coming to Verizon’s V-Cast. Break.com is social video site targeted at men who like funny videos, games, and apparently inane banter in long comment threads.

Although web standards are making a push onto your mobile phone (i.e. Safari, Android), V Cast, MobiTV, and SlingBox remain the few reliable ways to get video on your mobile phone. Yet they’re all still pretty costly. V CAST costs $3.00 for 24-hour use or $15.00 for a monthly subscription. MobiTV costs $9.99. SlingBox will set you back the cost of hardware and a cable subscription.

The Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) launched a $175,000 campaign today to remind people to recycle their old handsets. The initiative, entitled “Recycle Your Cellphone. It’s an Easy Call.”, will relay on public service announcements that target 18-to-34-year-olds, the population that trade up to new cellphones the most often. The announcements will explain why recycling old handsets is good for the environment. The E.P.A. will also release a pod cast in which experts explain the whys and hows of mobile phone recycling.

The E.P.A estimates that 150 million cellphones a year are taken out of service. The United States alone has over 240 million wireless subscriptions. While an individual phone doesn’t have much environmental impact, taken all together, disposal could create problems in the future. Handheld devices contain metals, plastics and chemicals that could become hazardous if they end up in a landfill and leach into the ground. Part of the program includes donating old mobile phones to charities and poor people for reuse.

“There are significant environmental and energy benefits to getting these phones back into the product stream,” the director of the agency’s office of solid waste, Matt Hale, said.

“Our key role is to get the message out, that recycling cellphones is easy and convenient,” said Mr. Hale, who estimates that 20 percent of unwanted cellphones are recycled or reused each year.

Eleven companies — AT&T, Best Buy, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Office Depot, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Sprint, Staples and T-Mobile — are partners in the campaign. Each has promised to collect phones and hold recycling events.

“Each partner will still have its own program,” Mr. Buckley said, “but E.P.A. is providing a standardized message to consumers.”

The E.P.A. will create a list of cellphone drop-off centers on various Web sites, including epa.gov. Some companies have plans to offer credit and other financial incentives for recycling mobile phones.

EPA.gov