Windows Mobile 6.5 was announced at the Mobile World Congress recently and promises to be a big step forward in usability over the current 6.1. At a conference call, Steve Ballmer spoke about Windows Mobile as one of its 7 core businesses.

Windows Mobile 7 according to Steve Ballmer will be coming out next year as Microsoft ramps up on the mobile operating system which some 2,000 dedicated employees are working on it with nearly a billion dollars in yearly operating expenses. Somewhat unprofitable, Microsoft hopes to turn the tables around with the new OS as they face stiff competition with Android and Apple as they take up the momentum in the market share.

Source: VM Poweruser

Net Applications, a research firm takes a look at the web market share for mobile browsing for cellphones in February and showed that the iPhone operating system is trouncing its competitors with a 66.6% share. Java ME came in second with 9.06%, Windows Mobile third with 6.91% while Android and Symbian settles for a 6.15%.

iPhone is literally without competition in the smartphone traffic in the US, however it was noted that the achievements of Android and BlackBerry was praise worthy since they were only available at a later date and Android even manage to tie in with Symbian.

Source: Hits Link

If you can’t live without Google search on Windows Mobile phones, the good news is that you can now download the Google Mobile App for Windows Mobile at m.google.com/search.

The Google Mobile App allows history to be stored for previous query searches, as well as access to other Google properties such as Google Maps, Calendar and Docs.

Check out the demo of Google Mobile App for the HTC Touch after the jump.

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Pwn2Own, the annual hacker competition held for the 3rd year running will be held at the CanSecWest Security Conference on Marth 16-20th in Vancouver BC. Sponsored by 3Com’s TippingPoint unit, the contest will target two sets of technologies: mobile devices and web browsers.

For the first track, it will present contestants with fully patched iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian and Windows Mobile phones in their default configuration and they would have to submit exploits that uses general actions a normal user would take while using the device. Cash prizes amounted to $10,000 for those who can break into the mobile devices.

For the second track, contestants would have to take a shot at web browsers (IE8, Firefox, Chrome) installed on a Sony Vaio running Windows 7 as well as Safari and Firefox installed on a Macbook runnig Mac OS X. All browsers will also be fully patched. Cash prizes amounted to $5,000 for those who can track a malicious bug.

So if you are good in hacking and wants to take a chance in participating in this competition, you can choose any of the track or both and must generally prove successful code execution. A rule though states that each contestant can only win one prize. For more details head over to TippingPoint website for rules, regulations and details.

Source: TippingPoint