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...

Charges have been filed by federal prosecutors in Seattle against a Microsoft employee accused of wire fraud. Robert D. Curry was arrested Tuesday morning and charged with stealing $515,000 from Microsoft using a series of wire transfers sent from Microsoft to Curry’s bank account. According to Curry, the transfers were payments for services rendered but prosecutors contend that Curry provided no such services. According to the charges, Curry created a shell company and used one of Microsoft’s v...

One of the nation’s largest telecommunications companies, Verizon Communications, has announced that it will be providing its customers free text messages, along free with wireless and wireline calls, from the United States to Japan. The company announce its intentions via a short tweet earlier today:We’re about to announce free calls to Japan from wireless and residential landline phones. Free messaging to Japan too.The move comes hours after AT&T announced that it was providing its custom...

In January 2009, legendary singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder went to the Consumer Electronics Show and asked companies to consider the blind when building their wares. At the time, Wonder had the iPhone in mind — and Apple would answer the call. The company made its popular smartphone much more accessible to the blind in its subsequent software release by adding a great VoiceOver feature. According to recent rumors, the iPhone could soon become even more accessible thanks to the introduction of more robust vo...

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that U.S. wireless providers AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless are working on a joint project that aims to bring a mobile-phone payment system Stateside. Purportedly, the effort is being headed by General Electric executive Michael Abbott and will be financed by Barclays PLC and Discover Financial Services.“The rare showing of cooperation between three of the four national carriers creates a potentially large base of users for its mobile-payment system,̶...

Digital Daily has published an interesting report about the profitability of Apple retail stores. The report states that in Apple’s last quarter — Q3 for Apple — the fruit company’s retail arm brought in $2.58 billion, a 72.8% jump from Q2 of 2009. In a retrospective comparison, Digital Daily notes that $2.58 billion is, “greater than the company’s total quarterly revenue from the second quarter of fiscal 1996 through the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004.” The iPad is ...

We are thinking some of you may have entirely forgot about Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X10 Android handset — we know we pretty much have. That’s not stopping it from making an official, carrier appearance in the US, however. We have been told that the Sony Ericsson X10 has finally passed through AT&T’s technical acceptance process and should be available in the “coming weeks.” We don’t have any sort of pricing, but we’d wager a $149-$199 price point with a two ye...

Here’s a list we wouldn’t mind being on. A recent Wall Street Journal study found that Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO, has received over $1.84 billion in compensation over the last decade, making him the highest paid CEO in the world. The WSJ estimates Ellison’s personal worth at roughly $28 billion. Another notable tech persona on the list is Steve Jobs. While Jobs only grosses $1 annually in salary his compensation package is quite lucrative. The study estimates that Jobs has received o...

Sure, this doesn’t exactly fit in with what we normally cover at BGR, but when we saw what the Treasury Department did with the design of the newly unveiled $100 bill we just couldn’t help but whip up this post. To enter into circulation in February 2011, the new $100 bill features a range of new security features that will help the average person discern what’s real from what’s fake. The two features Uncle Sam is most proud about are the 3D Security Ribbon and the Bell in the Inkwell...

Crazy but true… China’s Internet Illegal Information Reporting Center is offering a monetary reward to online surfers who send in information about pornographic websites. The first person to send in information about a particular website will receive a reward of 1,000 ($146) to 10,000 ($1,460) yuan with the award amount being determined by a committee within the Center. Even though citizens can surmise that the data collected in this government sponsored peep show will be used to censor these webs...

Remember back in July when a handful of Nokia’s trademark applications were uncovered, launching unending speculation about tidbits such as “C Series”, “X Series” and “Booklet”? Well Booklet ended up being a netbook, as suspected, and we’re still waiting to see how the C and X series end up materializing. One of the trademarks that didn’t receive much attention however, was “Nokia Money”. We all assumed it had to do with a mobile payment platfo...