Faster Forward - Technology News, Observations and Occasional Rants by The Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro - October 4, 2009

AT&T, Sprint Phones: Hope for Android, None for Windows Mobile

My latest column describes one phone that feels like a new beginning and another that looks like a closing act. And in this blog post, I'm going to talk about a big factor behind how each phone fared in my evaluation: its software. First, the device I hated -- AT&T's...

J.D. Power Ranks TV Services

J.D. Power, the market-research firm whose surveys some car companies seem inordinately fond of quoting, released its latest findings about television services yesterday. And although the Westlake Village, Calif., company touted its survey results as good news for that industry, that's not necessarily the case for all the companies its...

IPhone Users, Start Your Internet Phone Calls

AT&T Wireless backed down on one of its more puzzling restrictions on the iPhone yesterday, saying that it would allow users of Apple's popular smartphone (perhaps you've heard of it?) to make Internet phone calls on its own airwaves and not just on WiFi connections. To judge from the Dallas-based...

Microsoft Launches Windows Mobile 6.5

This morning, Microsoft launched the first major upgrade to its mobile-phone software since 2007's mediocre Windows Mobile 6, which offered few upgrades from 2005's Windows Mobile 5. In that time, the smartphone universe has been upended by such gadgets as Apple's iPhone, Google Android-powered devices, and Palm's Pre - -and...

Tuesday Tidbits: Little Things That Could Count

Not all of the important news in technology is heralded by 32-point headlines. Three developments over the past few days didn't land on any front pages, but each amounts to a significant -- and in one case, not necessarily pleasant -- change to the tech business. Bloggers Must Cite Ties...

Adobe Pushes for a Flash-ier Mobile Web