The newest version of WebOS (1.3.5) is going to be released today according to Sprint and the new firmware promises to deliver some bug fixes, while removing a big hassle WebOS users have faced up until this point.

According to CEO Jon Rubinstein, the upgrade will remove that annoying app storage limit, while providing better “overall” performance abilities, a better battery output, especially when users are in weak cell coverage areas, and a bunch of other bugfixes.

We don’t know if the OTA upgrade has hit Palm devices at this time, but feel free to leave us a comment if you’ve upgraded and let us know what you think about the new firmware.

While still only a blip on the internet rumor mill, there’s talk that the LG Prada 3 may ditch its current OS and go all Android on us. SlashGear is also reporting that the device may be headed to Sprint Wireless in 2010.

If the rumor is in fact true, it would also mark the first LG Prada device to use CDMA technologies instead of the more popular worldwide GSM option. It would also mark the first time a carrier attached their name to the designer line of cell phones.

Very little else is known about the phone at this time, however if rumors are correct it may debut at CES 2010 with the Sprint name attached, if that’s the case we’ll provide more info live from the event.

These days I’d normally let out a big yawn when it comes to the Blackberry Curve 8530, however at just $50 on the Sprint Network the phone actually proves to be a great “budget friendly” device for business users looking to replace older devices.

The unit, priced at $49.99 comes with a two year contract with voice and data services and a mail-in-rebate, while featuring a full Qwerty keyboard that’s setup superbly as most of us have come to expect from Blackberry, while also providing a yawn inspiring 2MP camera.

Sprint users will also appreciate the devices connectivity options including 3G (EVDO Rev. A), WiFi b/g and Bluetooth 2.1. While navigation via a built-in GPS option will also please many road warriors.

Throw in external multimedia controls, a MicroSDHC card slot that can support up to 32GB and a 3.5mm headphone jack and you’ll be talking and listing to music for hours thanks to the 8530’s 5.4 hour talktime on a 1,150mAh battery.

Verizon charges 50% more for the same device, then again Sprint doesn’t have a fancy map with a bunch of red dots. While I wouldn’t suggest jumping over to Sprint to get your hands on the Blackberry Curve 8530, it’s a great upgrade option if you have no choice. [SlashGear]

A recent report says Sprint Wireless handed over 8 million customer GPS data records to authorities in 2008 alone. While that number may be inflated, it’s a scary amount of personal data.

There are always legitimate reasons for providing this type of data to law enforcement such as tracking missing people, attempting to find fugitives, etc. However, I highly doubt they needed to track eight million records for missing people and criminals last year, which begs the question, what in the hell were they requesting and why did they get it? Luckily we can sort of explain:

[At the Intelligence Support Systems for Lawful Interception, Criminal Investigations and Intelligence Gathering conference] Sprint Nextel’s electronic surveillance manager Paul Taylor described an automated system that law enforcement could use to easily look up subscriber whereabouts.

According to SlipperyBrick it works in the following manner:

Law Enforcement can submit a request for a user’s location up to every three minutes, for a period of 60 days. That’s how you get the 8 million number.

I’d really like to know what requirements must be met in order to obtain this info, I’m assuming they just run in screaming like crazed monkeys and shout “Patriot Act, Patriot Act.”

Sprint has announced that they will be cutting anywhere from 2,000 to 2,500 jobs to improve their bottom line.  The wireless carrier stated on Monday that they will look to trim their workforce both from internal hires and contract workers and that most of those layoffs will occur before the end of 2009.

With the newest set of layoffs Sprint expects to save $350 million annually, they also announced during their notice that they will try to avoid any cuts that will cause their customer service to suffer, an area they have focused on improving over the last several years.
Sprint has been slowly cutting costs over the last year, including various rounds of job cuts. The companies retention rate has also been better than in past years with popular releases, including the Palm Pre.

Even with these cuts, the wireless provider still faces an uphill battle amid tough competition from their U.S. competitors.

Sprint Wireless has always pushed their 3G, even 4G (WiMax) technologies, endlessly trying to convince customers that their data network was better than any other carriers, now in one metaphorical flip of the switch that entire perception has come crashing down.

At this point it’s still just a single poster by the name of ‘kevinapg” on the Sprint Blogs that has mentioned the issue, claiming that their Blackberry stopped tethering via the Sprint Smartview software.

Kevin also claims that Sprint reps told him he could downgrade to the 900 minute plan and tethering would be turned back on or that he could buy a broadband plan and a modem.

If tethering has been blocked on the Sprint Everything Plan it may take away some of the high priced plans appeal, while placing Sprint in a similar position to AT&T where tether capable devices (iPhone on AT&T) are barred from tethering.

In the meantime Sprint has stated that the feature has never been supported by their software and customers were simply taking advantage of a free loophole that has now been closed.

While I agree that the TOS never offered this service, to suddenly remove the feature, especially when your own software was supporting it up until a certain point doesn’t seem like the best customer service, then again Sprint has NEVER had good customer service. [Sprint]

The latest Samsung handset for Sprint Wireless was announced today. The Samsung Moment is a Google Android based device that will come equipped with Google mobile services including Google Maps, Google Search, Gmail and YouTube.

The Moment also includes a large 3.2″ AMOLED touchscreen display, while powered by a powerful 800MHz Processor, WiFi and 3G data support. It also features a sliding qwerty keyboard, built-in GPS navigation and includes a 3.2MP camera with built-in flash and autofocus alongside camcorder capabilities.

The Samsung Moment also features a 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth 2.0 + A2DP for all your stereo bluetooth needs.

The Smartphone will be available on November 1st for $179.99 with a two year contract and  $50 instant savings plus a $100 mail in rebate.

Sprint C.E.O. Dan Hesse stated a month ago that Android technology was finally ready for Sprint, now we get to find out if Sprint customers are ready for Android. [Ubergizmo]

The Palm Pixi has officially been announced by Palm today and the WebOS based device will once again be heading to North American CDMA provider Sprint Wireless.

The Pixi offers a full sized qwerty keyboard which unlike the Pre is not hidden behind a sliding mechanism. The unit also supports 3G EVDO Rev A, while offering a 2.63-inch display with 18-bit color and a resolution output of 320 x 400 pixels.

The smartphone also offers Microsoft Exchange support with direct push email, IM capabilities and your standard SMS and MMS options. It also offers an integrated GPS, a rather mediocre 2MP camera (although it does offer an LED flash) and comes with accelerometer, proximity and ambient light features.

Finally the Palm Pixi offers an 8GB drive, although only 7GB of that memory is available for everyday use. While a 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and A2DP are also thrown in for good measure.

There’s no official word on pricing, but assuming Palm wants to compete with the iPhone 3GS we’re guessing it won’t cost more than $199 with a two year contract [via Palm]

Thomas Murphy, 45, and his family were driving through Colorado when a boulder crashed through the windshield of the vehicle he was driving. The boulder, the size of a briefcase according to the Colorado State Patrol, knocked Murphy unconscious and cause moderate injuries to his eleven year old son.

Jennifer Murphy, Thomas’ wife, placed the SUV into neutral hoping that it would come to a halt while on a steep downgrade but unfortunately it took more than a mile the authorities said for her to bring it under control from the front passenger seat.

Murphy was transported to Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where he was pronounced dead. Their son, Ethan Murphy was reported to be in stable condition.

The Colorado State Patrol is investigating. Sgt. Rich Armstrong, public information officer for the patrol in Garfield, Pitkin and Eagle counties, said this is the first fatality involving a rock striking a vehicle for his troop this year. But he said such accidents happen fairly regularly.

“Unfortunately, in my opinion, it’s too common,” Armstrong said. “It’s one of the hazards of driving in Colorado.”

Source: Kansas City.com :: Sprint executive killed by a boulder

image credit: KansasCity.com

If you were reading the headline for this post and scratching your head don’t worry you weren’t alone, so was I at first. It turns out that Sprint Wireless has agreed to purchase Virgin Mobile USA at a cost of $483 million. While the purchase will not give full control of America’s largest MVNO (prepaid wireless) company to Dan Hesse and his brood, it should help strengthen the companies prepaid positions.

Under the terms of the agreement Sprint will pay the $248m dollars of debt incurred by Virgin Mobile USA, while paying the remaining amount to satisfy Sprint’s current 13.1% fully diluted ownership interest in the company plus any other outstanding expenses.

Currently Virgin Mobile USA already operates under the Sprint CDMA network and will join Sprint’s own offering Boost Mobile.  After Virgin Mobile’s acquisition of Helio in June 2008 this purchase by Sprint significantly shrinks the oft failing MVNO market.

The deal will allow Sprint to strengthen their market share in terms of prepaid phone usage, while also allowing them to cross sell their own products to Virgin Mobile USA customers. Combined with Boost Mobile the company now has a grasp on different demographics targeted by each of their prepaid offerings.

Under the current deal the Virgin Group will retain ownership rights for $12.7 million until December 31st 2021. [thanks Slashgear]

The mobile computing industry is a landscape segmented by corporate thinking that they are the end all, be all and that the carriers in the business need to be the ones controlling everything from the platforms used and the content that is available. Everyone from AT&T through to Qwest treat the mobile marketplace as their own individual private fiefdoms to lock users into and extort as much money from them as possible.

As Tom Conrad, chief technology officer for Pandora, said at the recent VentureBeat conference on the mobile world

Pandora chief technology officer Tom Conrad said some wireless carriers are still grappling with the question of whether to think of themselves as media companies or as more of a utility.

“Will carriers become pipes or will they continue to be media companies?” he said. “They’re realizing it’s not the worst end game if they are disintermediated of their desire to become giant media companies and instead become the best wireless backbone,” he said.

This is something that is obviously on the mind’s of the people at Sprint as they have seen the explosion surround the iPhone and the Google Android. Amidst the lackluster sales of Sprint’s mobile partner Palm and their Pre handset a possible re-evaluation of where their best efforts business wise is apparently underway in Sprint’s boardroom.

Our first clue to this re-evaluation comes from the company’s vice president of strategy, Russ McGuire, when he admitted that the carriers themselves might be causing an impediment to growth and innovation. He suggests that the carriers need to “let go” and allow the industry to move at a natural pace.

“We need to let go of demanding permission,” said Russ McGuire, Sprint’s vice president of strategy. “You don’t want to move at carrier speed. You want to move at Valley speed.”

[….]

“It’s a fundamental change in our nature, but we need to keep pushing that and riding that and not be an impediment to the growth of the industry,” McGuire said.

While I wouldn’t hold my breath that we will see any concrete changes coming any time soon to the way that carriers like Sprint, Verizon or AT&T do business it is encouraging to see comments like these because it shows that the companies are realizing that a change is coming. Hopefully a change that will see a more ubiquitous user experience when it comes to the consumer experience and the mobile computing world.

The Journal report suggests significant delays in Android’s launch that could result in many carriers not getting their models out until next year. Focus on a fourth quarter T-Mobile release, it says, is taking up such a large amount of Google’s resources that Sprint will be forced to miss its targeted 2008 launch. Google, however, maintains everything is going smoothly.

“We remain on schedule to deliver the first Android-based handset in the second half of 2008,” a spokesperson told me in the company’s first comment since the story broke. “We’re very excited to see the momentum continuing to build behind the Android platform among carriers, handset manufacturers, developers and consumers.”

Delay or not, Google has its hands full convincing the mobile industry to adopt its platform. Sprint, according to the Journal, wants to use its own branded data services and is even now looking at pulling away and developing its own original system. Other carriers, such as China Mobile, are said to be having issues bringing their branded services into the platform as well.

Only time will tell whether the mobile industry will open its arms to open source phone systems. In the meantime, it’s a game of wait and see — or, in the case of Apple, a game of getting its next-generation iPhone on store shelves first.

The companies officially let the cat out of the bag this morning. As suspected, the deal will operate under the name Clearwire, even though Sprint is putting the most money into the investment (51 percent of the total). Comcast, Intel, Google, and Bright House Networks are all contributing money as well.

Clearwire’s shares climbed 12 percent with word of the news in pre-market trading this morning. Sprint’s went up 5.5 percent.

Once finished, the WiMax network should be able to cover entire cities with high-speed access. Engineers say it’ll end up being about five times faster than the short-range WiFi currently available.

USA Today is reporting Sprint and Clearwire will join forces to create a nationwide “Wi-Max” network — a concept basically like Wi-Fi, except reaching across much bigger areas. The report claims Google, Intel, Comcast, and Time Warner are all in on the deal.

The new company would start building the giant network under the name Clearwire, according to USA Today. Altogether, the six companies’ investments are said to add up to a cool $3 billion, $500 million of which is from Google.

An announcement could come as soon as tomorrow.