Technewsbuzz.com

Carriers are swapping mobile search partners in an effort to better monetize users looking for content on the wireless web. The latest round of deals could help knock Google, which currently dominates mobile search, off its perch. T-Mobile USA recently bumped Yahoo in favor of Google as the default search engine on its handsets, ending a year-old agreement that saw Yahoo power search on the carrier’s Web2Go service. (Yahoo said that it will continue to deliver content for Web2Go.) The move came just days after AT&T said it had tapped Yahoo for search on its new Motorola Backflip, marking the first time…

Here’s a little spicy rumor for you Palm fans on this tranquil Sunday: according to TopTongueBarry who claims to work for AT&T , his company has just finished certification tests with GSM flavors of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus ahead of a possible April 26th launch — a date not far from what we’ve heard earlier . However, the bigger news from Barry is that the big A will soon be testing a third mysterious webOS device by the name of Palm Elan, which may greet us mere mortals on May 10th (but possibly in Europe first). Another forum member Shadow-360 also dug up some cached pages that claimed to have accessories for the non-…

Not one to mince words, Steve Jobs squashed all hope of the iPad supporting iPhone tethering for wireless internet access with one word — “No.” The succinct answer was communicated by Jobs via email (from his iPhone) to Jezper Söderlund of Sweden who emailed Jobs to ask, “Will the wifi-only version somehow support tethering thru my iPhone?” 9to5Mac has both emails in question, along with email header information, and all indications point to the one word buzz-kill response being legit. You can read the text of the email inquiry and Jobs’ response below: Söderlund’s email: I’ll keep it short. I’m Jezper from Sweden, a long time Apple fan, …

AT&T’s preaching about the mucho dinero it’s dropping into renovating its network to pretty much anyone who’ll listen these days, and a veritable cornucopia of press releases this week start to go into detail on some of the upgrades we’ll be seeing over the course of 2010. We’re counting at least a dozen here, covering everything from New York City to Florida to Oklahoma, but the message is basically the same in every one: more cell sites, more 3G coverage, more backhaul. AT&T liberally pimps its nine-figure investments in most states over the past several years, too — but of course, phones need spectrum to communicate, not blank checks and promises. Let’s see…

Perhaps the biggest surprise I’ve come across in some time is the Nokia 6350 cell phone.  It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but once you spend a little time with it and discover what’s waiting for you in there, you’ll discover that this thing is like a little solution to most any problem you have that can be solved by a mobile phone. The Nokia 6350 is a flip phone that boasts a two inch display, a battery that yields as much as twenty five hours and twenty minutes of activity depending on what you do with it…

Location-based services have finally melted our brains to the point where we’re completely useless without immediate and constant access to Google Maps or a reasonable facsimile — we couldn’t fold a paper map if we tried, and even if we could, we’d spend an hour looking for the pulsing blue dot. That’s why we’re so delighted to hear that AT&T has finally outed its very first GPS-enabled USB modem, the USBConnect Velocity from Option, that includes a so-called Option GPS Control Panel for injecting your whereabouts into popular services like Yahoo and Bing ( Google, curiously, isn’t mentioned ). The other newbie…

Even though AT&T’s already committed both carrier and backhaul upgrades in an effort to buck the butt-of-the-joke trend it’s been experiencing for the last couple years, there’s some evidence that it’s a recent trend in the way phone radios operate — not a lack of overall capacity — that should shoulder at least some of the blame for the issues. An O2 staffer (O2 carries the iPhone and has coincidentally experienced many of the same growing pains AT&T has in recent months) that reached out to Ars Technica says that Apple’s baby was one of the first widely popular phones to immediately drop data connections as soon as transfers …

AT&T is late to the Android games, but they’re making up for lost time with five Android handsets in the first half of the year. First up: the Motorola Backflip , coming March 7th for $100 with contract. Wait… $100? To me that seems a little steep, but I guess that’s because I’m not the biggest fan of Motoblur, Motorola’s social UI. The Backflip also has a touch panel on the back, though that doesn’t function as anything more than a D-pad, along with a 3.1-inch hi-res screen and a 5MP camera (with flash) on board. It’s also compatible with AT&T’s speedier 7.2 HSPA 3G network. Most importantly: if you’ve been stuck in an AT&T contract and worrying that the Android grass is greener, you’ve …

AT&T and Motorola this morning confirmed earlier rumors that the BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR will be available in online and in AT&T stores across the nation, beginning March 7. This is the first Android handset for the carrier. The device will go for $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate. More information, pictures etc. are available here . Also check out our hands-on review of the phone. Full press release : AT&T Announces Availability of First Device on Android Platform With Motorola HSPA 7.2-capable Motorola BACKFLIP Coming Soon to AT&T Stores Nationwide DALLAS and LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., Feb. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — AT&T* and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) today announced that the Motorola BACKFLIP™ with MOTOBLUR™ will be available in AT&T stores nationwide and online at www.wireless.att.com beginning March 7. MOTOBLUR offers …

Topics: Multimedia , Odds and ends , iPhone We all knew it was coming , and it’s here. Yes, Apple has finally approved, with the belated blessing of AT&T, a version of the SlingPlayer Mobile app that now works on the 3G network. The original release of SlingPlayer Mobile [ iTunes link ] was WiFi only, and was one of the great disappointments of the whole iPhone experience. The folks at Sling Media worked hard to get the app approved, and AT&T finally relented, probably because the FCC has been breathing down the necks of the cellular providers who seem a bit, shall we say, arbitrary about what gets on the network. AT&T had no problem with streaming MLB games, but …