mobiles

This is a British study, which may be why the Register's headline "Teenagers prefer mobiles to sex" made me spit coffee all over my monitor. Either times have really REALLY changed, or that's a somewhat geocentric result.

I occasionally use my cell phone to talk, and on still rarer occasions, to snap a photo.  It mostly serves as a pocket-born paperweight.  But for those of you who are a little more in touch with the mobile market, Google has just the thing: Google Checkout for mobile.

People are keeping their cell phones longer. The average amount of time a person owns a cell phone has increased by 5 percent since fall of 2006, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2007 U.S. Wireless Mobile Phone Evaluation Study. The study found that people are keeping their mobile handsets for an average of 17.5 months, which is an increase from 16.6 since November of 2006. The increase in ownership is about equal among major hand set brands.

When Google invited a group of British tech reporters to a briefing, those journalists got pretty excited.  The event involved “a product for mobiles,” you see, and the reporters were hoping to find out about the Google phone.  They didn’t.  But Google did release a full, UK-specific version of Google Mobile Maps, which is kinda nifty, too. Google Maps For Mobiles Finds Way Into UK

LG Electronics and Google have entered into an agreement that will allow Google software to be installed on LG mobile phones, giving users access to Google's services on their mobile handsets.

A survey from online wireless retailer LetsTalk found that over 83 percent of music phone purchasers are over the age of 25, and that 55 percent of those 35 and older listen to music on their cell phones. The music option on cell phones has gained in popularity with users of all ages with 63 percent of multimedia cell phone users having listened to music on their phones. More than 50 percent have downloaded 20 or more songs, and 89 percent have downloaded four songs or more to their phones.

Phones from Google in partnership with wireless provider Orange may hit the United Kingdom starting in 2008, with the devices optimized to deliver geo-targeted Google ads from local businesses.

The Japanese testing of AdWords on mobiles proved successful enough that Google has quietly debuted the service in the US. Do a mobile search using Google and something completely unexpected may appear.