Are smartphones the fastest-spreading technology that mankind has ever created? The historical data seems to suggest as much. MIT’s Technology Review published three charts (below) showing the U.S. market penetration of nine key technologies since 1876. (You may know that landmark year — it’s when Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.) The data — which was

Do it all, hyper-connected mobile devices just might be as distracting and dangerous as they are useful and utopian.

Taking a look at a year’s worth of smartphone user statistics research firm Nielsen has had some interesting findings. According to their statistics, almost one year ago less than 40 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers had smartphones. Today, that figure has drastically changed, with one out of every two mobile subscribers now owning a smartphone.

A recent study conducted by ABI Research notes that 70 percent of mobile app users spend “either nothing or very little” on mobile applications. ABI’s study suggests that the mobile application market relies heavily on big spenders as opposed to casual consumers. The highest spending three percent of all app users account for about 20

Government-owned Amtrak, which oversees that nation’s railroad services has been training its conductors to use an iPhone ticket scanning application. Amtrak has plans for around 1,700 conductors to use the app across the country by late summer, while it’s currently being used on routes from Boston to Portland and San Jose to Sacramento. Under this new

Samsung has once again taken the lead in the number of devices it ships, but it just can’t seem to catch Apple in the money race. In the ongoing battle for smartphone market dominance, Samsung once again took the lead in the first quarter of the year for shipments with 46.9 million devices going out over

China-based phone maker Huawei is said to be focusing some of its research and development efforts on new motion sensing technology for smartphones and tablets. In a recent interview with Computerworld John Roese, the company’s general manager for its North American research and develop center, said that the company is “focused on disruptive technology and taking interesting

While Huawei’s Ascend P1 S currently holds the title of “world’s thinnest smartphone,” it may very will be a short-lived title reign. Fellow China-based manufacturer Oppo is planning on releasing a 6.65mm thick (or should we say thin?) device that is 0.03mm thinner than Huawei’s lean machine. Is that even measurable? Pictured above is an image

Huawei announced in an annual report Monday that it shipped 55 million phones last year, including 20 million smartphones. “We have made strategic investments, augmented our R&D capabilities and deployed resources globally, and implemented a future-oriented business architecture that puts Huawei in a confident position for sustained growth,” Mr. Ken Hu, Rotating and Acting CEO, Huawei,

Internet security firm Lookout Mobile conducted a study recently, trying to shed light on when and where we typically lose our smartphones. The infographic below offers some interesting tidbits gleaned from the report. Turns out, it tends to happen during major holidays or festivals. That’s not too shocking — a little too much St. Patty’s Day

Experts often warn that texting while driving can cause auto accidents, but what about plane crashes? A distracted Jetstar pilot avoided a major disaster thanks to a system warning that the plane’s landing gear had not been lowered while attempting to land the aircraft. This potentially deadly incident wasn’t due to equipment failure, but instead was due to

Google announced on Friday that it has opened its SMS via Google+ option to a whopping 41 additional countries. Originally available to the U.S. and India, residents in Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Benin, Cambodia, Cameroon, Congo (DRC), Cote D’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Morocco, Mozambique,

While RIM continues to try to reconcile its finances, the troubled mobile manufacturer’s latest strategy may help tip its bankbook in a more favorable direction. By targeting emerging markets with a budget friendly product line, RIM may be able to gain enough momentum to hold things together until the release of its BlackBerry 10 OS and a

Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei announced its global release plans for its Ascend P1 smartphone on Wednesday. It’s currently scheduled to arrive in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia in May, with Latin America, Europe and other markets to follow shortly thereafter. The Huawei Ascend P1 features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED (960 x 540) display, a 1.5GHz dual-core TI OMAP

ARM announced its new quad-core hard macro Cortex-A15 MPCore processor on Tuesday. Designed to run at 2GHz, the Cortex-A15 MP4 hard macro’s performance exceeds that of the Cortex-A9 while maintaining the energy efficiency. We’re already drooling at the thought of the type of performance a quad-core phone or tablet running with a quad-core ARM-15 chip might

Car companies are notorious for coming up with creative names. They love to wax poetic about their products, from making up words — Optima, Jetta and the defunct Integra come to mind — to slapping overly flowerly descriptors on there. (Can any car really be as emotional and soul-soaring as an operatic Sonata?) Then there’s

New data from a Reuters poll of analysts suggests Samsung may have dethroned Nokia as the global cellphone leader. Nokia had previously held the crown for 14 consecutive years. Data culled from a Nokia sales announcement on Wednesday, along with the continued popularity of Samsung, indicates the South Korea-based company has surpassed the Finnish handset

Boeing has made a household name for itself as an airplane manufacturer — chances are you flew on either an Airbus or a Boeing jet the last time you took to the skies — but the company is also well known in the defense, space and security industries. President Roger Krone said Thursday that Boeing

After revealing earlier this week that it expects to see a record loss of $6.2 billion for 2011, Sony is taking some drastic moves in an effort to pull itself out of the red. One of those is called the ‘One Sony’ initiative, which will see the Japanese company shed 10,000 jobs and spend ¥75

What’s more frightening than a teenage girl with a new driver’s license? A teen girl with a license and a smartphone, says the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. In a recent study on new drivers, it found that young women were twice as likely to whip out their devices while driving than the boys. The

LG’s Managing Director of Mobile Communications, Kwon Bong-suk, recently discussed the company’s plans to introduce a “thinking smartphone” that could automatically make adjustments to meet its user’s needs. Bong-suk provided an example where a user might set an alarm on his or her thinking smartphone and then head to bed; in the morning, should the phone

There has been a lot of chatter about Samsung’s Galaxy S III having a ceramic body, but it looks like Pantech has beaten Samsung to the punch with its brand new Vega Racer 2 smartphone. The Vega Racer 2 not only has a full ceramic body, but it also has a massive 4.8-inch 720p HD

Apple’s new iPad has received nearly universal acclaim, but a recent review may have very well singled out what some users feel is one of the biggest iOS gaming flaws: the lack of a hardware gaming controller. Sure, the iPhone put smartphone gaming on the map – and there are third party options available, or

Straight from the “duh” files: Pew Internet & American Life Project released a study a few weeks ago that reveals — surprise! — that teens in the U.S. are crazy for SMS messages. In a survey of American teenagers, Pew found that 63 percent text daily with loved ones, including parents, while a little less

Following the release of another battery fix for its Lumia 800 yesterday, Nokia has launched a new software update tracker that allows users to find out when updates are available to download for their Lumia smartphones. The page breaks down the availability of each update by country, carrier, and product code, allowing users to find