TeleNav Battles Google Over Mobile GPS

New mobile phones sold in Europe as of next year should all work off the same universal chargers, the European Commission said on Friday."It is expected that consumers will be able to use the same, one-size-fits-all charger for mobile phones sold in the EU from the beginning of 2011," spokesman Dennis Abbott said.A deal between major mobile manufacturers was agreed last year but "excludes phones which do not support USB data exchange," Abbott warned."However it is expected that most mobile phones will be data-enabled from 2011," he added.

Taiwan-based mobile handset manufacturer HTC has agreed to pay royalties to Microsoft for HTC phones running Google's Android mobile operating system, the US software giant said.Microsoft, which licenses its own Windows Mobile operating system to handset manufacturers around the world, did not identify any specific patents at issue in the HTC phones or the amount of the royalties it will receive from HTC.It said the patent agreement "provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for HTC's mobile phones running the Android mobile platform."

Microsoft plans to introduce a new line of mobile phones that are expected to emphasize social-networking services targeted at young consumers.

At least 65,000 mobile phones powered by Google's Android operating system are being shipped every day, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said Thursday.Schmidt, speaking at Google's annual shareholder meeting at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California, said the open-source Android system is now being used on 34 mobile devices in 49 countries."It looks like Android is going to be either the number one or number two player" in the mobile phone market, he said at the meeting which was streamed live on Google-owned YouTube.

The battle for leadership in Asia's search engine market will shift from computers to mobile phones as more and more Asians use their handsets to go online, a Google executive said Thursday.Unlike in the United States, Asians have been quick to embrace cell phones as a means to surf the Internet or check e-mails, said corporate development head Charles Rim."The mobile Internet and the proliferation of usage of mobile Internet is becoming very profound," he said in a conference organised by Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in Singapore.

With more than four billion mobile phones worldwide, and a billion sold in 2008 alone, Google is hard at work on grabbing a big piece of that market. CNBC Special Report.

AP - Nokia Corp. said Thursday it will offer free navigation services globally for users of its smart phones, in a drive to counter a similar move by Google Inc.

Microsoft on Monday unveiled a new line of Windows-powered mobile phones called "Kin" aimed at young users which emphasize social networking.The "Kin one" and "Kin two" phones, which feature touchscreens and slideout keyboards, are being manufactured by Japan's Sharp and will be available in the United States through US telecom carrier Verizon Wireless in May.The phones will be available in Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain in the fall in partnership with Vodafone.