Motorola and Intel Enter Into a Multi-year Agreement, Update to Google Maps Improves Battery Life & Motorola RAZR Officially Available at Fido

Motorola and Intel Enter Into a Multi-year, Multi-device Agreement for Intel-based Devices
Motorola and Intel have entered into a multi-year, multi-device strategic partnership to incorporate Intel chips into Motorola’s Android tablets and smartphones. The first Intel-based smartphones will go through carrier validation this summer, with launch shortly after that.
BGR

Motorola RAZR Officially Available at Fido, $525 Outright
The new Motorola RAZR has officially landed at Fido. This Android 2.3 device is still the thinnest smartphone on the market at 7.1mm (at its thinnest point).
MobileSyrup

Update to Google Maps Improves Battery Life, Public Transit Options and More
A new version of Google Maps has hit the Android Market today, which simultaneously brings fresher location tracking within Latitude and better battery life — two welcome improvements that seem contrary to one another. There’s also a couple goodies included for the transit-minded folks.
Engadget

Cellphone Users Like to Be Drunk
If you’re trying to drink less booze in the New Year, you might want to put down your cellphone. A study released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control shows that cellphone users are more likely to binge drink than other groups surveyed.
Mashsable

Fido Giving First Month of Service for Free, Google Has Voice-Recognition Virtual Assistant & Verizon’s $300 Galaxy Nexus Price Tag Too High?

Fido Giving New Customers First Month of Service for Free
Fido just launched the BlackBerry Curve 9360 and it seems they want to possibly entice a few more customers this holiday season. If you sign up with them you’ll be given the first month of service for free.
MobileSyrup

Verizon’s $300 Galaxy Nexus Price Tag Too High? Check Out These Deals
Now if you absolutely have to have a Galaxy Nexus today, Verizon stores are likely to be your first thought, but chances are you won’t be alone in your quest.
TechCrunch

Google Has Voice-Recognition Virtual Assistant to Compete With Siri
Google may be working on a voice-recognition assistant for Android under the codename of Majel, according to an unconfirmed report. AndroidandMe.com claims the company plans to expand its existing Google Voice Actions, already available on most Android phones, by adding a natural language processing feature.
Mashable

Intel Merges Four Mobile Units Into One, Argument Over Parking Spaces Forthcoming
Intel is combining its netbook and tablets, ultra-mobility, mobile communications and mobile wireless divisions into a “Mobile and Communications” super-unit. It’s aiming to catch up with the portable chip big boys like Qualcomm and NVIDIA.
Engadget

No Calls in Cars, Android Leads US Market Share & Nokia Again Rumored to Sell Smartphone Business to Microsoft

Rogers Discontinuing Portable Internet Service March 1st, 2012, Now Only Option for Rural Customers is a 4G HSPA+ Device
Bell and Rogers independently sell various internet products and the roll out has been slow, but certainly needed. Apparently Rogers customers who have signed up for the Portable Internet service have been informed that the service will be discontinued effective March 1st, 2012 – with the only option to switch to Rogers “4G” HSPA+ device, such as a Rocket Hub or internet stick.
MobileSyrup

No Calls in Cars, Even Hands-Free: NTSB Wants U.S.-Wide Cellphone Ban
That was the ruling the NTSB issued Tuesday, in what chairman Deborah A. P. Hersman called “a difficult recommendation, but the right recommendation.” Her five-member board agreed to a new set of guidelines that go far beyond laws that any states have on the books yet.
Mashable

Android Leads US Market Share, iOS May Have Stopped Growing, RIM is Still Falling
NPD just published its latest plotting of the great American smartphone OS rivalry, and although the report covers annual rather than quarterly trends, it’s perhaps more interesting to hold it up against the previous set of figures we saw — those for Q2 2011.
Engadget

Nokia Again Rumored to Sell Smartphone Business to Microsoft
Rumors again surfaced on Wednesday suggesting that Nokia plans to sell its smartphone business to Microsoft. Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest bank, issued a report to clients Wednesday morning that said Nokia will sell its smartphone division to Microsoft during the first half of 2012.
BGR

Nokia Lumia 710 Now Shipping, Rogers Samsung Galaxy S Glide Drops to $0.01 & Which Smartphone Has the Best Camera?

Nokia Lumia 710 Now Shipping, Global Rollout Slated for ‘Coming Weeks’
It’s been a few months coming, but today, Nokia announced that its Lumia 710 handset has finally hit store shelves in Taiwan, ahead of its broader international release.
Engadget

Rogers Samsung Galaxy S Glide Drops to $0.01 on a 3-year
Like touchscreens? Like slider QWERTY keyboards? Like Android? Like 3-year contracts? Rogers has dropped the price of the Samsung Galaxy S Glide to $0.01 today.
MobileSyrup

Which Smartphone Has the Best Camera?
Top of the line smartphone cameras now boast specs that rival compacts. The difference is that you get a phone thrown in for good measure and making the decision which one to buy is a difficult one, particularly for those not quite persuaded by the supposed 1080p and 8-megapixel goodness that all the top handsets declaim. As such it’s about time to pick the best of the bunch with a cameraphone shootout.
Pocket-lint

App Store Rewind: Apple’s Top Apps of 2011
Apple released the list of its best and most popular apps on Thursday. The App Store Rewind features 20 categories from Travel to Games, and names the top five apps of each category. This year the Rewind separated iPhone and iPad apps, with some of the apps overlapping.
Mashable

Developer Of ‘Social Keyboard’ Android App SwiftKey Raises $2.4 Million

TouchType, the London-based company behind the popular SwiftKey Android applications, has raise $2.4 million (1.5 million) in Series A funding in a round led by Octopus Investments.

SwiftKey is a keyboard app that leverages TouchType’s natural language engine technology (dubbed Fluency) to learn a user’s writing style and try to accurately correct and even predict their text input. The idea is for the app to reduce the number of keystrokes and speed up text entry on smartphones and tablet computers.

To date, SwiftKey has been downloaded more than 3.5 million times, TouchType says.

The company will use the capital to enhance its products, strengthen its executive, commercial and technical teams and to increase its worldwide presence, particularly in the US and Asia.

Octopus co-invested in TouchType with Cambridge Capital Group, Jon Craton (founder of Cramer Systems), Nick Hynes and Carl Uminski (CEO and COO of Somo, respectively),;Richard Brennan (former CMO of Orange) and Andrew Thornton (barrister with Erskine Chambers).

TechCrunch Cribs: Iovox Is Rocking The Voice World, Literally [TCTV]

Iovox is a startup specialising in something known as VaaS (Voice as a Service). Their telephony platform allows companies to build services on the telephone network that do real-world, heavy-lifting style jobs which normally require call centres. Companies which have taken on the service include News International and many others.

I went over to their West London offices (yes, not all startups in London are in the East, incredibly), to check out the legendary guitar playing skills of CEO Ryan Gallagher in our TechCrunch Europe version of TC Cribs. Maybe next time we should do a duet.

Iovox’s latest product is an identity verification product CallSign. This is quite current, given the recent controversy with AirBnB being among those companies that failed to screen users very throughly.

CallSign contacts an account holder via an automated call and records the confirmation of any transaction or request. During the call, the user is identified by a set of security questions and can accept or reject the transaction, either with a simple 1 to confirm or even entering a full passport number. It’s ended up being used by the likes of Ebay, Livebookings and others.

Iovox is in Notting Hill, thusly henceforth this shall be known as “Silicon Hill”. Here endeth the lesson.

CrunchBase Information

iovox

Information provided by CrunchBase

CrunchBase Information

Ryan Gallagher

Information provided by CrunchBase

Motorola Droid 4 Specs Leak Out, More LG Phones Will Receive Android 4 Upgrade & Apple Had A Better Black Friday Than It Expected

Quietly Brilliant Story of HTC Shows off Innovations Through the Years
While HTC has often been overshadowed by its competition, and has recently been overtaken by Samsung for overall Android market share, it had its most successful quarter ever in Q3 ’11, buoyed by the succes of the Sensation and EVO 3D. And with stunning devices like the Ville arriving in early 2012, its success should only be more pronounced in the quarters to come.
MobileSyrup

Motorola Droid 4 Specifications Leak Out
The official specifications and pictures of the upcoming Motorola Droid 4 have been unearthed by Droid Life, revealing a device very similar to the Droid Razr, with the addition of a physical QWERTY keyboard.
Mashable

More Optimus Handsets Will Receive Ice Cream Sandwich Upgrade, LG Confirms
LG’s list of Android 4.0 phones is about to get a little longer, now that the manufacturer has confirmed the arrival of Ice Cream Sandwich for even more handsets.
Engadget

Apple Had A Better Black Friday Than It Expected
According to a 9to5Mac source inside Apple, the company had originally expected to do four times the sales it usually does. By 7pm on Friday, however, Apple had blasted past its original goal and had its biggest sales day to date.
TechCrunch