Sprint Offers Cheaper WiMAX 4G in Samsung Conquer 4G Android Smartphone

Sprint has made the availability of WiMAX 4G connectivity cheaper, teaming up with Samsung to launch Conquer 4G Android smartphone at $99 only.

The Samsung Conquer 4G will join the growing list of mobile devices that support Sprint’s WiMAX 4G

network, which started with the HTC EVO 4G, the best-selling smartphone in Sprint history.

Nearly one and a half years have passed since Sprint offered its first WiMAX 4G-capable Android smartphone, and including the Samsung Conquer 4G, the roster increased to seven smartphones, excluding 15 other devices that include hotspots, netbooks, USB modules, and tablets during the one year anniversary of EVO 4G’s launch.

However, the previous Sprint offerings, including EVO, EVO Shift, EVO 3D, Photon, Epic, and Nexus S, launched at hefty prices, considering 4G connectivity is an expensive feature and the smartphones had high-end specs.

The Samsung Conquer 4G is set to change that though, launching at only $99, with a new two-year Sprint contract and $50 rebate.

The $99 offer is also the current price for Samsung Nexus S, which launched at $200 last May.

The Samsung Conquer 4G touts a 3.5″ 320 x 480 HVGA touchscreen display, 1 GHz processor, Android 2.3 Gingerbread, 3.2-Megapixel camera with flash and a 1.3 megapixel front camera for video calling, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity, stereo Bluetooth support, and WiMAX hotspot capability for up to five devices.

The Samsung Conquer 4G will hit the shelves of Sprint retailers on August 21.

Google Expected to Introduce a Wireless Payment System

Google is expected to introduce on Thursday a mobile payment system that will let shoppers wave their phones to pay instead of pulling out a credit card, according to people briefed on the announcement.

Google will offer mobile payments with MasterCard and Citibank, according to one of the people, as well as with cellphone carriers, hardware manufacturers and retailers.

Initially, the mobile wallets will be available only on Google’s Nexus S phone and will use a Citibank-issued MasterCard credit card number and a virtual Google MasterCard prepaid card. Consumers will be able to make payments at any of the 124,000 merchants that have MasterCard’s PayPass terminals, which accept contactless payments, a person briefed on the deal said.

The people familiar with the deal were not authorized to speak until the deal was publicly announced. The news of the announcement was first reported by Bloomberg News.

The three companies have also teamed up with a few retailers — Macy’s, American Eagle Outfitters and Subway, a person familiar with the deal said. After these retailers upgrade their terminals — at first, only retailers in New York and San Francisco will participate — consumers will also be able to redeem discounts and participate in loyalty programs.

While several companies have been working on mobile wallets for years, they have not yet been widely adopted because all of those involved need to agree on how the wallets will take shape and how the various stakeholders will get paid. Mobile phone carriers, banks, credit card issuers payment networks and technology companies have been battling over their roles.

“Google is dipping their toe into the water and it will accelerate other efforts from other providers,” said Rick Oglesby, a senior analyst at the Aite Group, a research and advisory firm focused on the financial services industry.

Google plans to use a technology called near-field communication, or N.F.C., which is incorporated into a chip in mobile phones to make payments, redeem coupons, earn loyalty points and receive special offers. When a phone is waved in front of a credit card reader, it wirelessly sends an encrypted signal with a person’s credit card information. After that, the transaction is processed like a normal credit card transaction at a store.

Google’s announcement has been expected since it introduced the latest version of its Android mobile phone software, which has the capacity for N.F.C., and its Nexus S phone, which includes an N.F.C. chip.

Representatives for Google, MasterCard, Citigroup and Sprint, a carrier for Google’s Nexus phones, declined to comment.

Apple iPhone 5 Will Feature Curved Glass Display: Report

Apple’s iPhone 5 will feature a curved-glass touch-screen display, according to a new DigiTimes report.

“Cover glass makers are reluctant to commit investment to the purchase of glass cutting equipment due to the high capital involved,” according to the May 23 report, citing unnamed sources. “Apple reportedly has purchased 200-300 glass cutting machines to be used by glass cutters.”

Those machines are supposedly stored at various assembly plants in anticipation

of covered-glass production ramping to acceptable levels. DigiTimes also hints that Apple is partnering with its suppliers over manufacturing processes such as glass-cutting and lamination.One of the iPhone’s recent rivals, the Google Nexus S, debuted in December 2010 with a screen curved ever-so-slightly inwards. At the time, Google claimed the display “fits comfortably in the palm of your hand and along the side of your face.” The Dell Venue Pro, a smartphone running Windows Phone 7, also features a curved display—albeit slightly outwards, perhaps in a bid to broaden its range of visibility.

Other rumors have suggested Apple is prepping an edge-to-edge screen for the next iPhone. Those reports stem from an “iPhone 5G” case offered on Chinese manufacturer Kulcase’s Alibaba.com Website, which was noticed by Electronista and subsequently picked up by Apple-centric blogs such as Apple Insider.

Still more scuttlebutt suggests that, no, the next iPhone will feature only incremental upgrades, even as it appears on a broader set of carriers.

“We believe the likelihood of the iPhone 5 launch in September including LTE [Long-Term Evolution] is now remote,” Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek wrote in a May 13 research note. “According to our industry checks, the device should be called iPhone 4S and include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ [Evolved High-Speed Packet Access] support.”

That note also claimed that, based on “industry checks,” Sprint, T-Mobile and China Mobile will be announced as new iPhone carriers in time for the holiday season: “On Apple’s last earnings call, management responded to a question about launching the CDMA [Code Division Multiple Access] iPhone at other carriers as ‘we are constantly looking and adding where it makes sense, and you can keep confidence that we’ll continue to do that.’”

AT&T and Verizon remain the only two U.S. carriers of the iPhone at the moment. Despite AT&T’s plans to acquire T-Mobile for $39 billion in cash and stock, the smaller carrier has denied it will carry the iPhone in the short term.”

As always, Apple’s tight in-house secrecy creates a vacuum in which even the most fanciful rumors can flourish to full live. That being said, the latest surrounding the iPhone 5 should probably be taken with a dump-truck-sized grain of salt until the company makes an official announcement.