Seen as a challenge to Apple's dominance in the app market, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) plans to create an open platform for delivering mobile applications across various mobile handsets.

While mobile apps have been immensely popular - an astounding $4.2 billion market in 2009 alone of which Apple can lay claim to approximately 99.4 percent!

But with many third-party and off-deck application stores emerging, fragmentation in the app industry is an increasing problem and a confusing issue for consumers supporting smartphones and PDAs other than Apple's.

Mobile subscribers are demanding more options and an easy purchasing process when it comes to apps regardless of which brand they support. The answer, at least as far as the WAC is concerned, would be to create a unified worldwide app store- kind of like the AppStore but for all brands.

As carriers, developers and subscribers consider the transition to a worldwide app store, so too does the need arise for a streamlined, consistent payment mechanism that can make the user experience simple and seamless.

For more info or to follow along on this ambitious venture, click here.

For a long time the only way to witness the Olympics was to attend in person. Then television came along and viewers didn't have to leave the comfort of their home to enjoy the show. These days cellphones and the web are offering new alternatives to countless viewers.

According to the organizers, cell and web media has already matched the 20,000 hours from traditional broadcasters, contributing to a total audience estimated at roughly 3.5 billion (half the world's population).

To give some perspective to the magnitude of the Olympics broadcasting situation, consider this: NBC paid a staggering $2.2 billion for U.S. broadcast rights to the Beijing and Vancouver Olympics!

With Apple's iPad on the horizon and competition coming from all angles (Barnes & Nobel, Sony and so on), Amazon is wisely dropping free applications that allow their Kindle digital books to be enjoyed on various devices.

The latest word is that Amazon is launching a free Kindle application to give BlackBerry users access to over 420,000 books on their handsets.

The new program, aptly called "Kindle for Blackberry", will allow customers to buy and read Kindle books, most for $10 or less, directly from their device (including the Bold 9000 and 9700, Curve 8520 and 8900, Storm 9530 and 9550, and Tour 9630).

Just when you accepted the idea that the touch screen was about as high-tech an interface as technology currently allows, NTT DoCoMo has revealed a gadget at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that allows users to navigate by simply looking at the screen!

You read that correct: The new interface will allow users to navigate their cell phones simply by moving their eyes. Make a call, play a song, or check a text message simply by looking to the left or right of the screen.

No, you don't need to wear any special glasses but the device does require earphones interestingly enough that contains electrodes that detect the human eyes' "electrical potential, which fluctuated when you move your eyes. Hence the system would even work when your eyes are shut.

When you think of high tech digital televisions, what's the first brand that comes mind? Is it Sony? What about Panasonic? Would it surprise you to hear that Samsung is leading the market and not only leading it but dominating it?

According to DisplaySearch's research, one in five televisions sold worldwide at the end of 2009 was a Samsung (which totals Samsung having shipped 38 million TVs last year alone).

In case all of these numbers don't sound impressive to you, consider this: Samsung's 17.2 percent (and steadily growing) share of the worldwide TV market is indicative of their approach to quite a record: No company has ever secured a 20 percent share of the television market since the TV was invented.