September 29 - 10:15am EDT   Motorola's investment in phones based on Google's Android will be a heavy one, says a reported source for TechCrunch. The American company has just 50 staffers refining Android for future phones but is said by a potential recruit to be swelling its ranks to include a full 350 team members and thus making a serious commitment to the open-source platform, which only just got its start this month with formal news of HTC's T-Mobile G1. [full story]

April 21 - 5:05pm EDT   Market research company ABI Research says in a new report that a Linux-based mobile operating system will find its way into in almost one out of every five mid- to high-end cellular phones by 2013. The study cites efforts by the LiMo Foundation, Google's marketing of its Android OS, as well as Nokia's Maemo and Trolltech purchases as some of the reasons the open-source OS system will grow. ABI's findings also conclude that despite the added cost of hardware necessary to support open-source operating systems, the move will offer better value because of the greater number of supported applications. [full story]

March 27 - 5:10pm EDT   UIQ on Thursday announced the latest version of its user interface, v3.3, which the company hopes will appeal to the mass market of mobile phone users. One way UIQ hopes to accomplish this is by making v3.3 able to run on slower processors than before, bringing it to lower-priced phones. The default browser for v3.3 will be Opera Mobile 9.5, providing users with desktop-like web browsing, Opera Widgets and UIQ Widget Dashboard support. [full story]

March 27 - 2:25pm EDT   Sling Media on Thursday said it would expand SlingPlayer Mobile to add support for phones running the UIQ operating system. The new version will allow some Sony-Ericsson and Motorola phones to stream and remotely control Slingbox devices at home whenever the device is connected to either a 3G or Wi-Fi network. The initial lineup will include the P1i (pictured) and P990i smartphones, the M600i, as well as the W950i and W960i Walkman phones. Motorola's RIZR Z8 is also included, Sling said. The updated version of the software will be available in the summer and will sell for $30 to first-time users but will also be downloadable for free for existing owners. [full story]