Latest phones and cell review

Nuance today announced that it has acquired SpinVox. Nuance will bring its advanced voice recognition technology to SpinVox's voicemail transcription services. SpinVox brings to the table significant carrier-grade global infrastructure.

The unannounced Pantech P9020 appeared on the FCC web site today. This small touch-screen phone sports a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and HSDPA 3G data suitable for AT&T's network. Other features appear to include Bluetooth, GPS navigation, memory card slot, ...

Samsung announced the winners of the Samsung Application Store Developer Challenge 2009, which was launched in October. The selection of winners was based on a review across various criteria including creativity, Samsung’s specialized application programming interface (API), and user-friendliness.

The two joint Platinum Award winners, who receive US$100,000 each, are:

• Ompass World Cities, an app produced by Korea-based developer HyongaSoft. Ompass World Cities is a digital compass application that provides global cities’ location coordinates using Augmented Reality.
• Cinetrailer, developed by Italy-based DDM Srl. Cinetrailer offers users the latest movie information such as What’s New, Now in Cinema, and Home Video through regular updates.

A total of thirty-six prizes including Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards will also be presented. In addition to prize money, developers will be offered a continuous partnership with the Samsung Application Store and will enjoy the opportunity to get new models SDK in advance.

“Through the Samsung Application Store Developer Challenge 2009, we were able to provide a venue to promote mobile applications among general developers as well as the opportunity for developers to generate profits,” said Dr. Hosoo Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of the Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics. “Consumers can also experience a variety of useful applications. In the future, we will continue to promote the Samsung Application Store through various developer-friendly events.”

Users of the Omnia II (model I8000) in the UK, France and Italy, where the Application Store has launched, can download all winning applications for free during a special promotion period through April.

Palm today released a system software update for the Palm Pre and Pixi for Sprint. The new version of webOS significantly improves the downloading and storage of apps, supporting multiple simultaneous app downloads, downloads in the background, and control ...

We wrap up 2009 with a look back at some of the major events in the mobile industry in the past year, and try to determine what might happen in 2010.