Google is notorious for tracking people’s activities online. In fact, the search giant probably knows more about your own habits than you do yourself. Google stepped it recently up when they allowed users the ability to explore their location data with Latitude. But now that data will be available on Android devices too, along with a few more upgrades. A recent Google Maps update (to version 5.3) has enabled a few new interesting bits of functionality for users of Google Latitude, a location service that enables users to check in and share their location data with friends. The first is the location…

Microsoft and Nokia have one thing in common: they like to do things extraordinarily slow. It appears that their newfound relationship which makes Nokia the future hope for Windows Phone 7 is also going to take it slow. Any hope for a WP7-powered Nokia device this year is fading fast. The managing director at Nokia revealed that the company has a 12-month plan to integrate WP7 with Nokia devices. This would put a release date around the first quarter of 2012 if all things go according to plan. Only then will we learn if WP7 and Nokia was a wise decision. Until then, Nokia has around 20 Symbian-powered…

You know things are getting pretty ridiculous in the tech world when you can test drive a car directly from a print magazine advertisement. But that is exactly what is happening. There’s a catch: you have to use an iOS app to interact with the ad, but once you install it, you can reach a new level of interactivity with a print ad that has rarely been seen before. The technology isn’t new, but it is amazing to see. Take a peek, and let us know what you think!…

In the age of the pervasion of mobile devices, it would seem traditional wrist-mounted chronometers have fallen by the wayside. Citizens itching for the time tend to check their phones more than their watches, and even iPod Nano wrist straps aren’t catching on like the wildfire one would have expected. So the big question is this: what’s a wrist for, now that the mobile scene has laid claim to time itself? Core77 asked Lunchbreath this very question, and he had a few ideas of his own. I fully expect for mobile devices to corner the market on some of these concepts eventually, too. Come to think of it,…

Rumors by an anonymous source reported by BusinessWeek are revealing that two of the top four U.S. wireless providers are considering a merger. This would combine the third- and fourth-place wireless carriers into one entity and could give both companies a fighting chance against the likes of AT&T and Verizon. It would impact consumers heavily and reduce competition in the States further. If true, the first question is over the value of T-Mobile USA. While Deutsche Telekom might be interested in selling the entity, getting what they believe it is worth might prove to be difficult: T-Mobile…

While Microsoft was preoccupied with its conquest for desktop supremacy, something crazy happened. They called it the mobile revolution. This was when the notion that an iPod was only a music player and a computer was only only something used at a desk quickly faded away. It was a time when devices were getting smaller, smarter, and sexier. Microsoft, unfortunately, didn’t get the memo. Apple did. Apple took control of mobile with the iPod Touch and the iPhone, notebooks with with Macbook/Macbook Pros, digital distribution with iTunes, third-party developers with the iOS ecosystem. Everything…

There is a shift happening in the automotive industry when it comes to marketing from the dealers up to the OEMs. New Media (which includes social media, mobile, local marketing, search, etc) has witnessed hesitant adoption over recent years in the industry, but the last 12 months has seen a tremendous spike. It’s almost a complete turnaround and in some cases, traditional marketing has been completely abandoned. “Over the last 3 years the Kelly Automotive Group (10 Franchises) has shifted our advertising budget from 95% traditional marketing and 5% online media marketing to a 55%/45% split,”…

Gemalto has released the first SIM card with built-in Facebook functionality – meaning pretty soon, every GSM handset, regardless of its base functionality, will have the ability to connect one to Facebook. Said a spokesperson for the social network: We worked closely with Gemalto on their Facebook for SIM product and believe it will be another easy and affordable way for people to stay connected through Facebook on the mobile phone of their choice. Facebook for SIM creatively combines technologies from some of our existing mobile solutions that especially are attractive for people with…

Technology can amaze, inspire, and shock us all. In this story, though, technology helps one quadriplegic do all three. Hank Torres is paralyzed from the shoulders down, but that didn’t stop him from setting a new Guinness world record in “Fastest Hands-Free Typing.” The amazing thing, though, was that he did this with his mouth, along with the help of some amazing technology. By combining TrackerPro, a Sip-Puff mouth switch, and SWYPE on-screen keyboard on Windows 7, Mr. Torres completed a complicated sentence used to judge typing speed at an impressive 83.09 seconds. But don’t take our word…

Flip phones were hot in the first half of the millennium. If you weren’t a stuffy business type with a Blackberry or Palm, you probably carried a flip phone. Then, the iPhone came and changed our world. Smart phones took over. The flip phone died. It’s back. Sort of. With three flexible AMOLED touchscreens, a smart triangular design, and sporting a custom Android interface, this artistic and functional design by Kristian Ulrich Larsen gives us a glimpse of how the smart phone generation can be flipped again. …