oranges

Yahoo's bid to take a controlling stake in French video-sharing site Dailymotion has reportedly been killed by the French government.

Dailymotion, which is owned by France-Telecom, was in talks to sell a 75 percent stake to Yahoo, according to a report last month by The Wall Street Journal. The deal was expected to give Yahoo a much-needed boost in the overseas video-sharing space, which is mainly dominated by services like Google's YouTube.

While Marissa Mayer purchased a recommendations startup late last year to fortify Yahoo's presence on mobile, Dailymotion would be her first big acquisition since she … Read more

Orange, a French wireless carrier, plans to provide a service that will let Facebook users call friends without needing their phone numbers.

The new feature, called "Party Call," will launch this summer in France and will let friends call each other one-on-one or in a group, TechCrunch reported today.

Orange said the feature is the result of a partnership with Facebook. The mobile provider built the service using Facebook's open API, or application programming interface, for developers. The service uses Facebook's open social graph, letting users invite friends and post messages about each call to walls … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Samsung wove family photos, pieces of fruit, and even a little Bruce Springsteen into its patent offensive against Apple today.

With three Apple feature patents aimed at nearly two dozen of Samsung's products during the past two weeks of trial, Samsung struck back today with a trio of its own.

On the stand for Samsung was Woodward Yang, a patent specialist who went through how some of Apple's iPhone, iPad, and even iPod Touch models allegedly infringed on three of Samsung's patents covering things like e-mail, photo albums, and playing music in the … Read more

People traveling through the Channel Tunnel can now access mobile services 100 meters under the sea -- as long as they are heading to the U.K., rather than crossing over to France.

French operators Bouygues Telecom, Orange and SFR have all started providing 2G and 3G services in the south tunnel -- which runs from France to the U.K. -- enabling passengers and drivers on the Eurostar, Shuttle and Freight service to use their phones under the English Channel.

However, British operators will not begin offering similar services in the north tunnel -- taken when traveling from the … Read more

Sadly the Orange San Diego, the first smartphone powered by Intel's Atom x86 processor, won't make it the U.S. market anytime soon, if ever. Thankfully our colleagues at CNET UK managed to get their hands on the device to put it through its paces.

The phone is well appointed for its low £200 ($313) price, sporting a 4-inch (1,200x600 pixel) LCD screen, pleasing if rather unexciting construction, and 16GB of internal memory. There's even an NFC chip to support mobile payment systems. … Read more

While the debate of what San Diego translates to in German still rages on, what is known for sure is that Orange's new device, named after said sunny California town, is going to hit U.K. stores on June 6.

According to Engadget, the phone will cost about $247 USD on a pay-as-you-go plan. With a two-year agreement, however, the handset will be priced at $20 a month.

We first caught wind of the Intel-powered device at Mobile World Congress, back when it was known as the Orange Santa Clara.

Though I'm sad to see the NorCal moniker … Read more

Nokia and Microsoft are jointly jumping onto the NFC bandwagon with the next version of the Lumia 610.

Slated to debut in Europe sometime this summer, the new version of the 610 will be the first Windows Phone handset to let users pay for goods on the go via NFC. The phone has already been certified for use with both MasterCard's PayPass and Visa PayWave, according to Nokia.

European carrier Orange will be the first provider to offer the NFC-enabled 610, which will be able to read NFC tags at the point of sale and pair with other NFC … Read more

Orange has promised that within three years, it will deliver "ultra-fast" 4G LTE data services in the U.K. and the nine other European Union countries in which it operates.

The mobile operator made the pledge at a meeting with the European Commission in Brussels yesterday, where it made 10 commitments designed to help the EU fulfill its Digital Agenda goals. However, it also stressed the authorities have a part to play in creating an environment in which implementing new technologies is viable.

"[Orange will] roll out 4G/LTE networks in all Orange European Union markets by … Read more

BARCELONA, Spain--Just as Mobile World Congress was set to begin, Orange announced a new Android smartphone powered by an Intel Atom processor.

Code-named the Orange Santa Clara, the handset will launch later this year in France and the United Kingdom. At that time, Orange also will reveal pricing and the phone's official name.

Outside of the processor, which is pretty cool by itself, the Santa Clara brings a lot to the table. The candy bar handset measures 123mm long by 63mm wide by 9.99mm deep and weighs 117 grams. The 4.03-inch display has 600x1024-pixel resolution and shows … Read more