Nokia announced on Wednesday that it has officially sold its 1.5 billionth S40-powered cell phone since the first S40 device — the Nokia 7110 — was released in 1999. A 21-year old Brazilian woman made the historic purchase in São Paulo, the company said, noting that the woman purchased a Nokia Asha 303 from a Magazine Luiza store. “We are incredibly proud to reach this milestone,” said Mary McDowell, Executive Vice President for Mobile Phones at Nokia. “Having 1.5 billion Series 40 de...

According to CNBC, Facebook may go public during the first quarter of next year, and sources expect the company could be valued at more than $100 billion. Facebook could find an IPO more attractive once it surpasses a total of 500 investors, because after that milestone it will be required to file financial information with the SEC each quarter — otherwise known as the “500 rule” of the 1934 Securities and Exchange Act. CNBC said that Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, re...

It’s more like a pre-prenuptial agreement, but you get the idea. T-Mobile’s parent company, Deutsche Telecom, has confirmed that it stands to receive a $6 billion settlement from AT&T should the companies’ proposed merger fall through. According to DT, a $3 billion cash payment would be made along with additional spectrum and a national roaming agreement. While the exact valuation of the spectrum and roaming agreement was not disclosed, Reuters appraises the two intangibles at close...

Analytics company Flurry has published an interesting study involving Android, iOS, and the U.S. video game market. Following up on a report from 2009, the company notes that the two mobile operating systems accounted for 8% of all U.S. video game sales in 2010 when calculated by revenue. What’s even more interesting is where both Android and iOS are taking their share from: portable gaming players. Console software revenues grew by 5% from 2009 to 2010 — 71% to 75% respectively — with portable ga...

Apple’s mysterious new billion-dollar data center in North Carolina has been a recurring topic of interest among tech sites for quite some time now. The massive facility is thought to be a hub that will power Apple’s next generation of cloud-based services, which may or may not include a subscription streaming music service tied to iTunes and a personal digital locker product. With future core Apple services relying on the new facility, the company had to ensure it found a seasoned veteran to ru...

Social networking giant Facebook may be looking to conquer another market, Wall Street. After news spread of a $500 million investment — $450 million from Goldman Sachs and $50 million from Russia’s Sky Technologies — Facebook was given a valuation of $50 billion by market analysts and firms. The eleven figure price tag was placed upon the privately held company even as the government’s Securities and Exchange Commission has, purportedly, launched a formal inquiry into Facebook’...

Microsoft has issued a statement describing Steve Ballmer’s plans to sell up to 75 million shares in order “to gain financial diversification and to assist in tax planning”. A sale this large is bound to ring alarm bells with shareholders, however Ballmer has cleared the air of any brewing conspiracy theories. “Even though this is a personal financial matter, I want to be clear about this to avoid any confusion. I am excited about our new products and the potential for our technology t...

South Korean electronics powerhouse Samsung has announced its Q3 financials via a press release. The outfit raked in an impressive $35.8 billion in revenue and $3.98 billion in operating profits, and about 25% of that profit came by way of its thriving telecommunications business. Samsung chiefs were quick to credit their mobile communications wing, which shipped 71.4 million phones during Q3 — a 19% increase on last year’s figures. Samsung claims to have sold 7 million Galaxy S phones during the qua...

What, you thought McDonald’s and Chuck Norris were the only two entities that could make claims of “billions and billions served”? Today, via a tweet, Google announced that its mobile advertising agency, AdMob, had eclipsed the 300 billion adverts-served mark; the company accomplished this in just under three years. We would like to extend our congratulations to Google on their success. With the proliferation of smartphones, we’re sure it will take AdMob far fewer than three years to...

Today, Intel announced that it would purchase antivirus maker McAfee for $7.68 billion in cash. The deal will see McAfee shareholders paid out at $48 per share, a 60% premium on the stocks current $30 price tag.  Intel CEO Paul Otellini had this to say: “In the past, energy-efficient performance and connectivity have defined computing requirements. Looking forward, security will join those as a third pillar of what people demand from all computing experiences.” Intel and McAfee were advised by Goldma...

We jumped the gun on this one the other day, but it’s finally official, so break out the noise makers, throw up the confetti, and let the parties begin. Apple iTunes has reached its ten billion song download milestone today. For those that are counting, that is an astounding ten billion songs downloaded in a mere seven years of operation; nine billion of which have been downloaded since February 23, 2006, the date iTunes reached its one billionth song milestone and almost four years ago to the date. Wit...

Well holy crap. Exactly 287 days after the iTunes App Store opened its virtual doors and made its first sale, Apple has served up its billionth App Store download. It’s an impressive feat no doubt, but at the moment we’re more interested in finding out exactly who it was that pushed the counter into ten digits because they’ve won a 17-inch MacBook Pro, a 32GB iPod touch, a $10,000 iTunes gift card and a Time Capsule. That’s right — one lucky S.O.B. has $13,746 worth of Apple good...