But apparently they did not remind Sprint, who according to a Forbes article are considering going in after T-Mobile themselves. T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom AG is still vying to sell the thorn in their side, and Sprint is desperate to climb up from dominating only 17% of the American mobile market. Not only that, but Sprint has billions of dollars to make up for after buying the rights from Apple to sell the iPhone. There are plenty of incentives to go around for such a merger to take place, yet how could it succeed if AT&T couldn't get their merger attempt to work?

The answer lies in what makes a monopoly. If Sprint joined forces with T-Mobile, then the new company produced as a result would not take up enough of a percentage of the mobile carrier market to constitute a charge of being a monopoly. Sprint is just too small, and so is T-Mobile. AT&T, however, has far too much control over the American carrier market as they exist today. Add in T-Mobile's share, and they go overboard. In less troublesome, more booming times, the federal government may have presented lax enough regulations regarding the merge. But in an era when big business is held in contempt by the majority of Americans, DOJ officials wasted no time in warning AT&T to back off.

While a potential merger between Sprint and T-Mobile would not be as big as a resulting company between AT&T and T-Mobile, it's not as though such a move would be any easier for them. The DOJ may object to this plan as well, while the Federal Communications Commission may make their own objections as well on account of public outcry at a recurring merger attempt. It's not as though the government wouldn't have the evidence it needed to suggest there's corporate shadiness at play: Sprint sent a legion of lobbyists to Washington DC to fight against the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.
It makes sense then that Sprint is keeping their cards conspicuously close to their chest during the holiday season. Don't expect their opening move to be made until sometime after the start of the New Year. In the meantime, do your research before getting any family member a phone contract this Christmas.

Several court cases are in motion regarding mobile privacy. Senator Patrick Leahy is trying to modernize the Electronic Communications Privacy Bill to prevent the government from accessing electronic information without probable cause. Leahy also wants privacy protections applied to cloud computing and location-based messaging. It will be interesting to see how these cases affect how Rackspace.com cloud computing and others at the forefront of this technology.

Another more recent case in involves a class action lawsuit against Carrier IQ, Apple, Motorola, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Samsung, and HTC. The plaintives contend that the Carrier IQ software, which is embedded on most smartphones, collects user data related to location, application use, browser history, videos and texts, and even keystrokes. The plaintives are alleging this form of data mining violates a number of statutes, including the Shared Communications Act and the Federal Wiretap Act.

Carrier IQ claims that their software performs mere diagnostic checks and that the more sensitive user data is not retained.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been actively researching what kind of information cell phone providers hold on to and the results may surprise you. According to a 2010 Department of Justice document, your text message details may be held on to for up to seven years, as can the contact information of the people you have spoken to. Where privacy is concerned, Verizon and T-Mobile are considered fairly innocuous, dumping many record archives after a year and not holding onto IP information. On the other hand, AT&T holds on to your information for up to five years.

Don't expect issues related to Internet privacy to get any more cogent. Even in surprisingly candid recent testimony, giants like Google and Apple have been less than forthcoming with information about what sort of data is provided to marketers. Apple copped to its mobile iAd divisions, while Google omitted reference to its Admob and Doubleclick divisions. All three of these services essentially pitch themselves to clients as high-tech ways to track the movements of consumers across the web, including the locations of visitors and how long they spend on a page.

One would hope that with all this attention drawn to the subject more emphasis will be placed on mobile privacy. With the speeds that mobile providers claim will be available soon on LTE networks, we can only hope that top companies in the industry won't think they can distract us with shiny new offerings while selling our personal data.

Apple is expected to launch the new device on October 14, just two days after the launch of iOS 5, the company's mobile operating system that will be available for the iPhone 4, 3GS, iPod Touch and the iPad. The main attraction of iOS 5 will be iCloud, a service that will sync documents, pictures and other data across iOS devices without needing a PC.

Hardware-wise, the iPhone 4S includes a new A5 dual-core processor, which was also launched on the iPad 2 earlier this year. The new chip delivers two times more power and up to seven times faster graphics. The 4S also includes a new 8 megapixel camera with autofocus, face detection, LED flash, 1080p HD 30 fps video recording, front camera VGA camera, Bluetooth 4.0, UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA, GSM/EDGE and CDMA EV-DO Rev A.

Battery life has also been improved to 8 hours of talk time on 3G, 14 hours on 2G, 200 hours standby, 6 hours of internet use on 3G, 9 hours on Wifi, 10 hours of video playback and 40 hours of audio.

The feature that stole the show yesterday was a voice assistant called Siri, which was demoed on stage. It is capable of answering complex queries and questions in real time. You can ask about the weather, stock, dictate emails, reply to messages, set timers, define words and much more. It is still in beta, and it will be really interesting to see how it will evolve in the near future.

Preorders for the iPhone 4S will start on October 7 and the official launch will happen on October 14 in seven countries: United States, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany and Japan. The 4S will be available in black and white versions. The 16GB version will be priced at $199, the 32GB for $299 and the 64GB for $399.

Perhaps the best news about iOS 5 is that it will be backwards compatible not only with the iPhone 4 but with the iPhone 3GS which is now more than 2 years old. This means once it arrives it will not only be accessible to those who splash out on Apple`s latest handsets but to loyal customers who have stuck with their existing iPhone for several years.

The second vital component of iOS 5 is that it will not require a dedicated cable connection to your PC or Mac for synchronisation and updates. A by-product of this is that it will be necessary for Apple to create smaller updates with increased regularity rather than saving major changes for one large download which in the past necessitated connecting the iPhone to your computer.

The iOS 5 PC-free ethos is facilitated via the new iCloud service which will be accessible to anyone who has an existing Apple ID. This cloud-based service will remotely store your apps, music, calendar and everything else so that the information and media is consistent across every device that you own, provided it is either made by Apple or is compatible with Apple software.

Apple is taking on rivals like BlackBerry with the new iMessage service which will be exclusive to iOS 5. This is an instant messaging program which allows anyone with an iPod, iPad, iPhone or Mac to chat in real time rather than relying on text message-based back and forth conversations. Using either Wi-Fi or 3G it will not be an original idea given the prevalence of such services on computers and other mobiles but for the large iPhone user base it will become a vital, cohesive feature.

Social media fans will be pleased to hear about the deep Twitter integration which is promised for iOS 5. This will not only make it easier to send and receive tweets but it will also allow other apps to access your Twitter account without any complex setup procedure, which is convenient if you want to share info with ease.

One of the simplest features, but one which could become the most frequently used, is the addition of a camera button to the iOS 5 lock screen. This will allow users of the Apple iPhone to kickstart the camera app as soon as they unlock their phone, making on-the-fly photography possible with no delays. You need never miss an important moment while fiddling with the home screen to find the camera app.

To make things even worse, RIM only managed to ship 200,000 PlayBook tablets last quarter, which is less than half of what they sold in the previous quarter. RIM saw a 15% drop in quarter to quarter revenue, from $4.9 to $4.2 billion and a 10% drop from last year.

RIM warned that they will continue to cut additional jobs in the third quarter of this year and they're estimating a revenue of $5.3 - $5.6 billion and BlackBerry shipments between 13.5 and 14.5 million.

"We successfully launched a range of BlackBerry 7 smartphones around the world during the latter part of the second quarter and we are seeing strong sell-through and customer interest for these new products. Overall unit shipments in the quarter were slightly below our forecast due to lower than expected demand for older models. We will continue to build on the success of the BlackBerry 7 launch to drive the business as we focus our development efforts on delivering the next generation, QNX-based mobile platform next year," said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of RIM.

The smartphone is running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and it features a 1Ghz processor, a 5 megapixel camera with autofocus, 720p HD video recording, front facing camera for video calls, 3.2-inch (480 x 320 pixels) capacitive touchscreen with multi-touch, 320MB of internal memory, microSD card slot for up to 32GB (2GB included).

The Sony Ericsson Live will also come with deep Facebook integration that will allow users to access Facebook from almost anywhere on the device, such as the picture gallery, music player, phonebook and calendar. Connectivity wise, the device includes a 3.5mm headphone jack. aGPS, Bluetooth, DLNA, USB 2.0 and Wi-fi.

The Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman doesn't have a price yet, but it will become available in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The board members of both companies unanimously approved the transaction, which will enable Google to enhance competition in the smartphone market.

"Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers. I look forward to welcoming Motorolans to our family of Googlers," said Google CEO, Larry Page.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of this year or early 2012, so a new phone from the joint companies is still far away. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals in the US, the European Union and other jurisdictions, and the approval of Motorola Mobility's stockholders.

A new feature also lets users set different notifications for each label. So if you have a more important label you can have Gmail set a ringtone to notify you whenever a new email pops up.

Other improvements include

• Remember 'Show Pictures' for senders


• Turn off sticky message actions in landscape or all orientations


• Better TalkBalk support for accessibility


• Performance improvements

Gmail for Android 2.3.5 is available for free to Android 2.2 and 2.3 users and is not available on the Android Market.

Resembling a BlackBerry, the HTC Status features an 800MHz processor running Android 2.3, a physical QWERTY keyboard a 2.6-inch (480x320 pixels) touchscreen, a 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus and a secondary front-facing VGA camera for video chat.

The Status also features a Facebook button below the keyboard, which provides instant access to Facebook for easier sharing.

Neither AT&T nor Telus have announced any pricing information for the HTC Status.

Transform the way you work with att mobile applications. Find new was to increase your productivity at home and especially at the office.

The myTouch 4G Slide features an 8-megapixel camera with dual LED flash, 1080p video recording and other advanced digital camera features, such as:

• wide aperture lens (f/2.2) and backside illuminated sensor for improved low-light performance
• zero shutter lag for faster pictures
• SweepShot for capturing panoramic shots in a single motion
• ClearShot HDR for capturing objects in bright settings so your photos are not affected by high-contrast lighting
• BurstShot for capturing multiple photos in a quick burst

Manufactured by HTC, the myTouch 4G Slide uses a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor and it features a 3.7-inch WVGA (480 x 800 pixels) super LCD display, a slide-out 4 row QWERTY keyboard, Sense 3.0, Android 2.3, Microsoft Exchange support, DNLA, built-in 3.5mm headphone jack, 8GB microSD card, expandable up to 32GB, Wi-Fi and stereo Bluetooth with A2DP.

T-Mobile will be launching the myTouch 4G Slide in July for an undisclosed price.

The first one is the Sony Ericsson Mix Walkman, a music phone featuring a 3-inch (400 x 240 pixels) TFT capacitive single-touch display with 262k colors, 3.2 megapixel camera with Video recording, auto rotation, four corner home screen, on-screen keyboard, Walkman player, 3.5 mm audio jack, stereo Bluetooth with A2DP, Micro USB support and up to 100MB of memory with support for up to 32GB via microSD.

The second device they introduced is the Sony Ericsson txt pro, which combines a 3-inch touch display with a physical QWERTY keyboard. Other features of the txt pro are pretty much identical to the Mix Walkman.

Sony Ericsson is planning to launch the Mix Walkman and the txt pro in the third quarter of this year. Price was not revealed.

In addition, iOS 5 will come with iCloud integrations, allowing users to store contacts, mails, calendars, photos and music in the cloud and syncing between devices.

Notification Center

iMessage

Twitter Integration

The new iOS 5 will be available starting this fall on the iPhone 3GS and 4, iPod Touch 3 and 4 and iPad and iPad 2.

Running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, the Xperia Play will come equipped with a 1GHz Scorpion ARMv7 processor, a 4-inch capacitive multi-touch FWVGA (480 x 854 pixels) display, a 5.1 megapixel camera with flash, autofocus and image stabiliser, 400 MB of internal memory, 8GB microSD card, 3.5 mm audio jack, aGPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Gaming wise, the Play will come pre-loaded with seven games including Madden NFL 11, Bruce Lee Dragon Warrior, Asphalt 6: Adrenaline, The Sims 3, Star Battalion, Crash Bandicoot and Tetris. At launch, there will be more than 50 games available for download through V CAST Apps.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY will be available for pre-order online starting May 19, and in stores on May 26 for $199.99 with a 2-year contract. Xperia Play customers will need a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan and a smartphone data package. The Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 for monthly access and an unlimited smartphone data plan is $29.99 for monthly access.

Once the transfer has been made, the funds are available for pickup generally within minutes at more than 400,000 Western Union Agent locations in 200 countries and territories. The app also can direct the user to the nearest Western Union Agent location.

In addition to sending a money transfer for cash payout, users can also use their phones to send money transfers to mobile "wallets".

The Western Union app is available for free for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The company is expected to offer the app in additional markets and also plans on a BlackBerry and Android version of the application in the near future.

According to multiple sources, the new feature will make its debut this fall, after the launch of iOS 5, meaning that the newest iOS version will not come over-the-air. The sources also indicate that Apple and Verizon have been in talks over this subject since early 2011. They could not confirm whether or not there are other carriers involved.

Also, there are other concerns to consider. Apple releases full OS downloads whenever you update your iPhone, so they'll need to come up with a way to only release incremental patches. No carrier will push 600MB updates over the air. The other problem is that in case of a failed update, the iPhone won't be able to restore itself from a backup, so Apple will need to come up with a cloud-based backup system.