Check out the rest of the comic here – funny stuff! No, there’s no Windows Phone user yet, but that’s not surprising right?

Another 2010 Q1 market share report has been released, this time focusing exclusively on smartphones. While the report we wrote about yesterday was interesting for showing that smartphones barely crack the top 5 in terms of usage, this new report from the NDP group shows a slight shuffle in the top smartphone sellers.

Android seems to be taking over – although their growth is slowing a bit – thanks to heavy marketing on Droid and some hot HTC Android devices. Android officially passed the iPhone and is on its way to catching RIM’s still-sliding BlackBerry. Meanwhile, Windows Mobile continued it’s slow death and is now approaching Symbian territory.

Palm’s line just looks funny.

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A recent report published by comScore shows the top five mobile manufacturers for mobile subscribers and not only is there no sign of Windows Mobile devices or Windows Phones, but Apple, HTC and other Android device makers are nowhere to be found. Moreover, feature phones have 4 of the top 5 spots, with BlackBerry being the only smartphone maker to crack that list.

Samsung, Motorola, LG, RIM and Nokia round out the top 5 OEMs for the first quarter of 2010.

The report found that SMS still reigns supreme in mobile content, with 63.7 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers using text messaging on their mobile device, up a hair from last quarter. Mobile web browsing was used by 30.1% of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 2.6 percent), while subscribers who used downloaded applications made up 28.6% of the mobile audience (also up 2.6 percentage points).

Access of social networking sites or blogs continued to increase, posting gains of 2.8 percentage points to 18.7 percent of mobile subscribers, showing the most improvement over any other type of mobile content.

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Bell’s launched new data plans for BlackBerry and WinMo devices — 1GB of data ($6/MB for roaming in the US and 3 cents per extra MB). Strangely enough is Bell’s next tier offering: 8MB of data for $40. What? That’s right, for $5 less you can opt for only 8MB of data (versus 1GB, remember). The big sell on this one is that it allows tethering with no additional fee.

Sure, it’s pricey at a whopping $45, but show me a better option for those of us who absolutely need to tether.

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Rhomobile has announced details around the ‘Mobile Application Development Challenge’ they are hosting, including an extension on the deadline. The contest promotes Rhomobile’s Rhodes framework, which allows developers to write once to create native apps for all leading smartphones including iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android, and features a $10,000 grand prize.

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The Mobile Application Development Challenge submission deadline date has been extended to May 24, 2009, enabling developers to use the latest release of Rhodes 1.0, with a first prize of $10,000 to the individual or company building the best mobile application. Additional prize packages will include iPhone 3G 16GB, AT&T (HTC) Fuze with Windows Mobile, BlackBerry Storm smartphones, Nokia N97 and G2 Google Android phones. The grand prize of $10,000 will be announced on June 1, 2009 and additional prizes will be announced at a later date.

Contest Requirements
-Registration deadline: April 15, 2009
-Application submission deadline: May 24, 2009
-Applications must run on at least two device operating systems
-Downloads of the build versions for all of these applications must be made available for Windows Mobile, RIM and Symbian
-Applications must operate upon synchronized local data via RhoSync

Criteria for Judging
Rhomobile will evaluate submissions in the following areas:
-Application Originality: value proposition to end users and usefulness of the application
-User Experience: overall usability of the application
-Device Leverage: demonstration of device capabilities
-Code Quality: documentation and maintainability of the code

Availability
Register for the Mobile Application Development Challenge by April 15, 2009.

The Rhodes framework is now available free for download.

Pwn2Own is currently running both desktop browser hacking challenges as well as mobile operating system hacking challenges. The big five platforms – Windows Mobile, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and Symbian – are all represented and willing to shell out $10,000 to the hacker that successfully breaks through their security barriers… in exchange for the code, of course.

We don’t know yet how good these mobile OS hackers are, but I’m betting several people will walk away swingin’ a big ol’ bag of cash. The browser hacking challenge has already seen one galant programmer break into Safari in 10 seconds! Nice work!

Phones (and associated test platform)
* Blackberry(TBA)
* Android(Dev G1)
* iPhone(locked 2.0)
* Nokia (NYSE: NOK)/Symbian(N95-1)
* Windows Mobile (HTC Touch)

Day 1 (Raw functionality out of the box, users configured for service) post phone, post email
* SMS
* MMS
* Email (arrival only)
* wifi on if default
* bluetooth on if default
* Radio stack

Day 2
* All of Day 1
* Email/SMS/MMS (reading only – no secondary actions)
* wifi on
* bluetooth on (not accept pairing by default. Paired with a headset. pairing process not visible)

Day 3
* All of Day 1 and 2
* one level of user interaction with default applications
* bluetooth on (not accept pairing by default. Paired with a headset/other devices upon request. pairing process visible)

What is owned? Must demonstrate…
* loss of information (user data)
* incur financial cost

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Intelligent Designs Group, LLC developer of cellular software has just announced the initial launch of their Total Control suite of software solutions covering Android, BlackBerry, iPhone – iPod Touch, and Windows Mobile.

With their Windows Mobile video surveillance software you can enjoy the ability to view & control live video streams from supported IP cameras and video encoders. Over 15 manufacturers and 170+ models are supported as well as direct connections with your device. No 3rd party servers are involved and there are no monthly or annual subscriptions.

Check out the above video for more information or head on over to their site for a free trial version!

Google Sync (beta) has been released for iPhone and Windows Mobile phones! While Symbian and BlackBerry devices have been supported for some time, it’s good to see Windows Mobile now gets to benefit from this awesome application.

Google Sync lets you sync your Google services (Gmail and Google Calendar) with your phone. And the best part? It runs silently in the background backing up your contacts and saving all of your email information. Never lose your contact info again!

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Love to ski? Popular outdoor outfitter REI has just teamed up with our good friends at Zumobi to bring you the latest skiing conditions right on your Windows Mobile device (or BlackBerry or iPhone, too).

It’ll deliver reports on new snow, lift status, and weather forecasts from 1800 different ski resorts! The best part? It’s absolutely free! What are you waiting for?

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It’s blurry and hard to make out, but nevertheless – it’s a video and it’s the only one out there. What you’re seeing is the BlackBerry OS running on top of Windows Mobile.

BGR is saying that it doesn’t do wifi… or GPS… or even calling(!) but I’m not really surprised as it is just in Alpha or Beta, I’m sure. The fact that it’s missing such key features only tells me that it’s not finished yet, not that it has been left undone.

It does, however, look like it runs quite slowly, but the novelty is far too cool to not try out. When I get my hands on it, you’ll be the first to know.

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