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Adobe has worked for years on a lightweight version of its Flash technology for mobile phones, but the company has now begun a new effort to bring the full-fledged player to smartphones. Earlier this week at the Adobe MAX 2008 developer conference, the company demonstrated Flash Player 10 on devices running Nokia’s Symbian operating system, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, and Google’s Android. Flash on Blackberries is likely coming as well, but Apple on the other hand seems to have a vested interest in blocking the technology from making its way into the iPhone.

According to Wired, Flash for iPhone will be a victim of Apple’s stringent terms of service, which specifically prohibits the downloading and use of interpreted code in apps unless the APIs and interpreters are already preloaded. But why would the company risk driving away customers by offering an arguably less capable product than their competitors?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has stated before that Flash “performs too slow to be useful” on the iPhone, but that shouldn’t be a problem with the new version, which is said to run on any smartphone with a 200MHz or better processor and 16MB of RAM. So the real reason may have more to do with losing control and not really with performance, as while existing web applications are fairly limited, Flash is powerful enough to draw business away from both the App Store and iTunes’ music and video sections.

The dilution of control is just a part of the problem, though. Running Flash on the device could also lead to reduced battery life and periodic security holes. All said, Flash's inclusion in iPhones looks uncertain for now but Apple may have to allow it eventually – perhaps with some heavy restrictions.

Given the option, would you like to search the web using your voice? Google may be prepping just such an endeavor, with an application for the iPhone that'll let people surf, or at least search, by using voice commands. The application would put them on more equal terms with Microsoft and Yahoo who already have similar tools.

No matter when it appears, it'll probably be only a short time before it makes the migration over to Android-based phones as well. With video email chat already in the works it could be that Google has hopes to change smartphones into much different tools that what they are now in a relatively short time. Then again, there are a lot of search terms that we'd want people to just continue to type in – not all search terms are G-rated, after all.

The percentage of people with mobiles browsing the web is going up sharply, due largely to the rise of feature-rich smartphones. According to ABI Research, around 130 million people now carry phones that have what we'd call “modern” browsing, and within the next 4-5 years that's expected to quadruple.

The research primarily points to phones from the likes of Apple and RIM, along with the expansion of 3G networks that offer speeds worthy of web browsing. Many sites tailoring to mobile users have helped as well, with Google definitely leading the pack for making a vast array of services functional and even easy to use on a mobile.

There are a lot of hurdles to get over. Even the fastest of 3G networks on fast phones pale in comparison when pitted up against the speed advantages of an actual broadband Internet connection, and viewing all your content on a three inch screen can get tiresome after a while. Cellular speeds haven't improved anywhere near as fast as Internet speeds either, which compound some of the issues – but people are still open to it, and manufacturers are still trying.

From my own experience, even a single generation of smartphones can make a night-and-day difference. I wouldn't be surprised to see Netbooks all but supplanted by sufficiently powerful smartphones, with people relying on them for hosts of applications, all types of communication and of course web browsing.

Recently it was announced that the iPhone was going to close a small gap between it and many other devices such as the BlackBerry through the introduction of tethering – a useful feature for many, particularly for those who travel.

With plans for iPhone tethering in the works, AT&T apparently has already set the rates and usage limits for it. On the surface, the rates and limits seem to be in-line with what the industry likes, if not the users. By default iPhone users can expect a 5GB cap on bandwidth every month. Rather than facing overage charges, however, AT&T is apparently planning to simply cut off access once someone hits that 5GB limit – no more data.

The service will cost an additional $30/month to existing plans, which is exactly the price AT&T charges for Blackberry tethering. The biggest issue is probably going to be the bandwidth limit. If you get a standalone cell card for your computer, currently there is no bandwidth limit – why does AT&T care if you are using it through a card or using it through your phone?

Apple is now the second largest smartphone vendor globally, according to figures from research firm Canalys. Being a newcomer to the market, the company managed to ship a total of 6.9 million iPhone devices, grabbing 17.3 percent of the market while vaulting past RIM and Motorola at the same time.

Nokia is still the leading vendor by a comfortable margin, holding 38.9 percent of the market – but that margin was even more comfortable last year at over 50 percent. Despite being pushed into second place, BlackBerry shipments still grew by over 80 per cent, with RIM claiming a 15.2 percent share of the market, while Motorola ended a distant fourth at 5.8 percent.

On the software side of things, Canalys predicts that Symbian will remain the dominant platform due to its close association with Nokia. Apple and RIM obviously saw strong gains in that department as well – their OS is proprietary and tied to their hardware – whereas Microsoft increased the number of Windows Mobile handsets shipped by 42 percent.

Earlier this week a security hole was discovered in Android that allowed users to ‘jailbreak’ the G1 and gain root access to the device. This was different to the hack iPhone users are so accustomed to, which enables them to use their phones on different networks and install unofficial applications, but jailbreaking Android did provide some useful advantages, such as enabling users to bypass the G1’s internal storage and install programs on external media.

Unfortunately, this also represents a gaping vulnerability that could enable malicious applications to gain full access to the file system and sensitive user data. Google says they’re going to close the hole with an over-the-air patch in the next few days, followed by an update the open source code base to reflect the changes.

Here is a bit of good news for iPod 3G owners: an official way to use the device as a tethered 3G modem for your laptop is coming soon. There have been rumors that this was in the works for a while, but it was not until today that the head of AT&T Mobility confirmed such at the Web 2.0 internet summit.

Tethering has been a contentious issue ever since the launch of the iPhone 3G, with AT&T reluctant to provide the service perhaps due to the overwhelming influx of traffic it could generate, and Apple notoriously pulling the tethering application NetShare from its store.

It's not clear when AT&T will roll out the service nor is the pricing, though the wireless carrier traditionally charges an additional $30/month for the tethering option on other smartphones. Of course you can also jailbreak your iPhone and get any of a number of tethering applications for free.

Acer has their sights set on becoming the largest netbook manufacturer in the world as soon as next year. The current overall #3 computer manufacturer is expecting to take upwards of a 50% share in netbook shipments next year, which would put them in a prime position for making of 2009 their year in this growing market.

Acer shipped about 2.4 million units of their Aspire One netbook in the third quarter, with a total of 5-6 million Acer netbooks sold in 2008. If their forecast for next year is correct, the global market for netbooks would expand to up to 35 million units, with the Taiwanese manufacturer hoping to grab anything from 40-50% of the pie.

It remains to be seen how this will contribute to the bottom line and image of Acer on a global scale, but for the time being the company seems to be financially healthy with $12.8 billion in revenues so far this year which would represent a 31% increase from 2007.

It’s no secret that Microsoft is working on Windows Mobile 7, but is the company planning to release an interim version of the mobile operating system first? That appears to be the case, with Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha recently revealing plans to launch a phone based on Windows Mobile 6.5 in the second half of 2009 – and an Android-based device in the latter part of 2009.

While no other specific details were mentioned, the 6.5 version number suggests that while not a complete overhaul, this may be a more significant upgrade than what the current Windows Mobile 6.1 represented. Last we heard, though, Windows Mobile 7 was also scheduled for a second half 2009 release, so hopefully Microsoft will come forward with more information on this now that Motorola has let it slip.

Yesterday, after months of giving and taking back free Wi-Fi to iPhone users, AT&T finally made the service official. But apparently the company has deemed it would be elitist to only let iPhone users get free Wi-Fi at its hotspots, and thus today it announced that all BlackBerry users with an unlimited data plan will be privy to the “nation’s largest Wi-Fi network” as well.

The BlackBerry Bold, which is set to launch November 4, will be getting it first while users of the BlackBerry Pearl 8120 and the BlackBerry 8820 will be able to take advantage of this offer later this year. What about Windows Mobile smartphones? Well, AT&T says it plans to open the offer to more mobile devices in the future, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Update: The $14.99 price on Handango was a mistake made by the publisher and has since been changed the intended $7.99.

There’s been plenty of hype around Android and the Android Market, but games haven't been quite as high-profile as they were for the iPhone when the iTunes App Store launched. This should come as no real surprise, given that no one is allowed to charge for their apps on the Android Market until sometime in Q1 2009, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be sold elsewhere – and that’s exactly what publisher EA Mobile is doing.

The company today released two of their most popular mobile games for Android, Tetris and Monopoly Here & Now, with the monster hit Bejeweled scheduled for a roll out next month. You can access eamobile.com from your G1 to grab the games for $7.99 each, or swing over to Handango if for some reason you want to pay nearly twice as much.

EA’s move to bring games to Android is sure to be a boost for the platform. Other publishers such as Glu and Namco have also announced their first Android titles, though they are offering them for free hoping to build early market share and profit from it in 2009.

Asustek will be joining T-Mobile and others who have Android handsets in the market, with a planned introduction of an Android device in the first half of 2009. The initial market for the device is likely to be Taiwan, with the company phasing out older EMP hardware in favor of hardware from Qualcomm and Marvell.

Asustek's smartphone deployments have gone relatively unnoticed so far, with only minor sales. As Android is seen as a platform intended to compete with the iPhone and Blackberry devices, getting on the wagon early could be a good move by Asustek to change those figures. With the openness of the Android platform, it's likely that many other vendors will start to adopt it over the next year as well.

Little information is revealed about the hardware for their first Android handset, other than it will be at least a 3G model.

Qik is increasingly targeting the mass market with its mobile live video streaming technology. The company has already launched clients for a range of platforms including Symbian, Windows Mobile, and some Java-enabled phones. Now, Qik is making its way onto the BlackBerry, with an alpha version of Qik available for the BlackBerry Bold, Pearl 8120 / 8130 and Curve 8320 / 8330.

For those not familiar with the free app, Qik lets mobile phone users embed live video streams on Qik.com, social networks like MySpace, Orkut, and Facebook, and to any personal blog – users need only to download the app, create an account, and they’re good to go.

The release of an alpha client for the BlackBerry is a significant move for Qik, as it enables the company to tap a much broader platform. Unfortunately there's no word on when Qik will make its way to Android devices or the iPhone – it runs well under jailbroken iPhones but Apple is yet to allow the app on its store.

The Android Market has formally launched today, coinciding with the arrival of the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1. The store is currently limited to about 50 applications, but that number should go up considerably next week when Google opens the Android Market to developers… or not. For now, applications can only be offered for free, so the real wave of games and other premium-level apps will probably arrive sometime in the first quarter of 2009, when developers are allowed to charge for them.

The search giant is taking a much more hands-off approach than Apple has taken with its iTunes App Store for iPhone / iPod touch software, seeing as there will be no quality control in the Android Market other than the community, which will be able to rate and review the apps.

Terms for developers are fairly decent, too. They need only to register and pay a onetime $25 application fee, after which they will be able to sell their applications and get 70 percent of the revenue from each purchase. This is similar to Apple's revenue model, though it should be noted that it is the carriers, not Google, who will be taking the remainder.

Google's Android platform was long ago promised as an open-source one that anyone could customize, play with or just stare at if they wish. While the actual release of the code was significantly delayed, Google has finally delivered on what they claimed and made the Android source available to all.

The code is available as part of Google's new Android open source project, which not only offers the code Google has built already but encourages developers to build applications based around the platform. On top of the code, Google is providing several APIs for development. From this move we could easily see Android being pushed far beyond the handsets Google officially endorses. It'll be interesting to see how the world reacts to this code being made available.

Just days before T-Mobile officially starts offering the G1 smartphone from HTC, Motorola has been doing the rounds with mobile operators showing them spec sheets and images of a new Android-based handset, which it may be releasing in the second quarter of 2009.

The company isn’t saying much about the handset, but it is reported to be a ‘social smartphone’, with integrated mobile-networking features for sites that may include Facebook and MySpace. The yet-to-be-named Android device is also expected to feature an iPhone-like touch screen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Overall, the Motorola Android smartphone is expected to be a higher-end version of the G1 but priced in the $150 range. So while the T-Mobile G1 by HTC will hit the market first, Motorola’s debut in the Android market is expected to be much fancier.

Hot on the heels of the first alpha build for Fennec being released – Mozilla’s Firefox browser for mobile devices – Opera has announced a new version of their mobile browser today. The release marks the second Opera Mobile 9.5 beta for Windows Mobile and the first-ever beta compatible with the Symbian UIQ platform.

The changes found in this latest beta are few but noteworthy, including support for widgets to add extra functionality to the browser, faster page loading, and a package of developer tools that includes the Opera Dragonfly debugger. Some Opera Widgets will come pre-installed in the beta to get you started – there’s Twitter, AccuWeather, a clock, Shopping List, and a Tetris-like game called Bubbles – but you can download several others from Opera’s website.

There is no date for a final version yet, which is expected to include Google Gears and Opera Link support. Hopefully we’ll see it before the end of the year, but in the meantime you can grab latest beta here.

As promised earlier this month, Mozilla has formally released the alpha version of its Firefox Mobile browser, though its platform availability is extremely limited. Dubbed Fennec, the mobile browser only works on Nokia N810 Internet Tablets for now, but the company is also offering it in versions for desktop PCs to collect feedback from users and entice developers to write add-ons.

A version of Fennec suitable for Windows Mobile is also in the works, but isn't quite ready for public testing yet. The mobile browser is built from the same Gecko code base that drives the also-under-construction Firefox 3.1, which hit Beta 1 earlier this week. It includes touch-screen support, a password manager and pop-up blocker, offers a tab-browsing interface, and the same “awesome bar” functionality found on its desktop counterpart.

Mozilla is pitching the alpha as an early developer release suitable for testing purposes only, but if you are the adventurous type when it comes to new software, head over to Mozilla's web site to grab a copy of Fennec Alpha 1. Full release notes are available here, along with a wiki on the mobile project.

As it has been with PCs, the more complex a machine becomes the more prone it is to abuse. Such is the case, apparently, with smartphones, particularly those capable of running programs we formerly thought of as existing solely on computers, like web browsers, instant messaging programs, et cetera – and viruses. Cell phone viruses have been very rare to date and limited in their scope. Analysts are concerned, though, and claim that in the near future we could see a large rise in the number of cell phones becoming infected by bots.

The danger is pretty clear. An infected cell phone is a mobile, typically always-on device. While Internet-connected ones often have a limited amount of bandwidth available, if you had millions infected it could add up to cell phone botnets becoming a problem. For the end user, it's even more of a problem than it is for those who become victim of botnet attacks. Not only would it be hard to tell if your phone was infected, but odds are the phone company would be more than willing to pass massive charges for data consumption on to you.

Back in August there was somewhat of an uproar online after Apple admitted to a previously undisclosed feature that allowed them to remotely remove rogue applications from the iPhone. Well, now that reviews of the G1 are hitting the web, it’s been revealed that a similar feature has been implemented by Google – only this time it wasn't discovered by some curious developer.

Google owns up to it from right inside the Android Market terms of service, claiming it reserves the right to remotely remove applications from your device at its sole discretion should it discover a product that violates the developer distribution agreement. Considering Google will not screen Android apps before they're released, the remote kill feature seems reasonable enough, as it is meant to help with security and privacy in the event that some malicious application finds its way onto your mobile device.

Google also says that if it does end up remotely killing a paid application from your Android phone, it will make a “reasonable” effort to get your money back from wherever you bought it from.