Today that its subsidiary, MI, Inc., has extended the tender offer period in connection with its offer to acquire a controlling interest in Vertex Standard Co., Ltd. (JASDAQ: 6821) (“Vertex Standard”), a global provider of 2-way radio communication solutions. The tender offer period has been extended from December 26, 2007 to January 15, 2008. The extension was required because an amendment to the tender offer disclosure document has been filed announcing that all regulatory approvals required for the completion of the transaction have been granted. The tender offer must remain open at least 10 business days following such an amendment.

As previously announced on November 5, 2007, Motorola will form a joint venture with Tokogiken, a privately held Japanese company, controlled by Jun Hasegawa, current president and CEO of Vertex Standard. Upon successful completion of the tender offer and subsequent restructuring process, Motorola will own 80% of Vertex Standard and Tokogiken will retain 20%. The Board of Directors of Vertex Standard has expressed its support for the tender offer. Vertex Standard is a leader within the Land Mobile Radio segment, where the company continues to demonstrate particular brand strength in high value, entry level solutions. The joint venture will develop and sell Vertex Standard branded products and develop select Motorola branded products.

Motorola, Inc and Metrologic Instruments, Inc. of Blackwood, New Jersey announced today that Motorola together with its subsidiary, Symbol Technologies, Inc., and Metrologic Instruments, Inc. and its subsidiaries have reached an agreement that settles all outstanding patent infringement disputes between the two companies.

Since 2002, Metrologic and Symbol have been engaged in a number of patent disputes involving technology in the fields of barcode scanning and mobile computing. The agreement announced today ends all pending litigation. Under the settlement agreement the parties have entered into a patent cross-license for a limited term in the field of barcode scanning and mobile computing.  The specific terms of the settlement are confidential.

Spice Mobiles, India, has launched a new Music Edition mobile phone that seems quite fully equipped. The S-7 is the latest edition to their range. It’s equipped with a 1.3 megapixel camera that can double up as a web cam for your PC. The S-7 has a 2 inch display with 262k colors and a resolution of 176 x 220 pixels. The good thing about this phone is that the S-7 supports Advanced Bluetooth i.e. A2DP so you can use a wireless Bluetooth headset for your music. It supports external memory with T-Flash cards up to 1GB. The S-7 can also be used as a modem and is Java enabled.

Since it has a handset manager option it’s easy to connect to your PC without a separate software installation. It also supports video and image caller id. The S-7 is priced at Rs. 6,999. The Kit includes a USB data cable, travel charger for the headset and a quick reference guide. Spice Mobiles is also offering the Spice Mono Bluetooth headset worth Rs. 1,799 free. It is a limited offering though.

Nokia’s to the Xpressmusic series are finally here. The 5610 and 5310 Xpressmusic phones have a variety of features to users not including the obvious fact of having an apparently better music player than some of the previous models. Let’s not forget that Nokia has also decided to take on a rather edgy look with these phones with a black finish with either Blue or Red portions.

The 5610 is a slider phone that comes equipped with Aluminum side panels, a 2.2 inch display with 16 million colors and a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The company says that it offers up to 22 hours of music playback. We’ll have to wait and see after the review to confirm that of course. It supports external memory with microSD cards up to 4GB. The 5610 Xpressmusic also features a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus and dual LED flash. The handset uses 3G technology, Bluetooth with A2DP, the new standardized microUSB v2.0 and also has an FM radio with RDS. It supports MP3, MP4, AAC, eAAc, and WMA formats.

The MobileStore, an Essar group initiative, Thursday announced here that it would open over 25 new retail outlets in Rajasthan. The company will create a chain of over 25 retail stores across Jaipur, Udaipur, Kota, Jodhpur and Ajmer in Rajasthan by Feb 20008.It also plans to create a pan-India network of 2,500 telecom retail outlets across 600 cities in the next three years. Currently, the company operates over 335 stores across India, a company official said. MobileStore already has five stories in Jaipur.

Mona Singh, the actor who became famous for her role in TV soap opera “Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin”, Thursday inaugurated a MobileStore outlet in Jaipur. Speaking at the launch, Rajiv Agarwal, CEO and director, MobileStore, said, “Rajasthan is a fast growing telecom market in the north. We will offer telecom customers a shopping experience with our unique all-under-one-roof telecom solutions.”

Internet search leader Google Inc. is testing technology that will find the location of people using its mobile mapping service, even if the phone making the connection isn’t equipped with a GPS receiver. The new tracking feature introduced Wednesday is being touted as an added convenience because it will enable people on the go to skip the task of typing a starting address on a mobile handset’s small keys when they turn to Google’s maps for guidance. Using the technology, dubbed “My Location,” simply requires pressing zero on a mobile handset equipped with the new software. The sender’s location shows up as a blue dot on Google’s mobile maps.

The tracking system isn’t set up to collect a user’s phone number or any other personal information that would reveal a person’s identity, said Steve Lee, product manager for Google’s mobile maps. As a safeguard, the feature can be turned off at any time by simply clicking on a link in the help menu. Those assurances probably will alleviate privacy concerns raised about the new service, said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. After trying out “My Location” on a Blackberry device, Sterling predicted people will embrace it. He called it “an incremental improvement but still meaningful.” Unlike GPS, Google’s tracking feature works while handsets are indoors. “My Location” also drains less power from a phone’s battery than a GPS receiver does.

On the downside, Google’s service isn’t as precise as GPS. In most instances, Google hopes to get within one-quarter to three miles of a user’s location - close enough to provide helpful “neighborhood-level” information, Lee said. The database that identifies the location of a mobile phone is still under construction, so the service still sometimes draw a blank. The company expects to fill in the holes as more people use the service, Lee said.

Apple Inc. is negotiating with Japan’s top mobile phone carrier to launch the iPhone in Japan, though the cut of subscriber revenue that Apple wants has been a sticking point, according to a report published Tuesday. NTT DoCoMo spokesman Shuichiro Ichikoshi said company President Masao Nakamura met recently with Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs. Shuichiro declined to comment further. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, reported Tuesday that Jobs and Nakamura discussed launching the iPhone in Japan. Apple has said it plans to launch the device in Asia in 2008 but has not provided details.

NTT DoCoMo had nearly 53 million subscribers and commanded more than half of Japan’s mobile phone market at the end of September, but has struggled to add new users in recent months amid fierce competition from KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp., which have slashed rates and launched aggressive sales promotions. Apple and NTT DoCoMo are still negotiating the terms of a deal, with one stumbling block being Apple’s demands to receive the same percentage of subscriber revenue from NTT DoCoMo that it receives from other carriers, according to the Journal. If a deal with NTT DoCoMo falls through, Apple is also talking with Softbank, according to the report.

The HTC Touch Dual is finally out in the market, following closely the launch of its predecessor, the HTC Touch. The phone comes with 3.5G wireless/HSDPA connectivity, sliding keypad and touchFLO. This feature, seen earlier in the Touch, enables finger-touch scrolling, panning and photo zooming, and also gives easy access to the music player.

The HTC Touch Dual features a Qualcomm MSM7200 chip running at 400MHz with Windows Mobile software that allows users to stay connected with people and access information and entertainment by a single, personalized device. The phone also comes equipped with a 2MP camera, a second camera for video calls, Worldwide connectivity (HSDPA, 3G, and GPRS/EDGE/GSM), Direct Push Outlook e-mail, Live HTC Home featuring time and weather display, quick launcher, and one-touch ring tone settings.

Steering India towards a new level of wireless telephony, the government on Monday announced immediate release of spectrum for ‘third generation’ (3G) mobile services and allowed users to switch operators while retaining the cell phone numbers. “The government has decided to release 3G spectrum in 2.1 GHz band with immediate effect,” Communications Minister A Raja told reporters in New Delhi. Number portability, which would allow users to change their service provider while keeping the numbers, will be introduced in the four metropolitan cities at the earliest. Department of Telecommunications Secretary D S Mathur said about 30 MHz spectrum can be released to accommodate three players in the first phase. Asked whether only existing 2G players will be allowed to offer 3G services, Raja said “No.

I want healthy competition; I want all the players to bid for it. As far as foreign players are concerned, they will be allowed subject to security clearances by Ministry of Home Affairs. “The 3G licenses will be granted through a controlled, simultaneous ascending e-auction, by a specialized agency to ensure transparency in selection process,” the minister said.3G services will give users a better multimedia experience, with faster data transfer rates. At present, cellular operators offer only 2G services.

It’s been a week of major profits and the occasional loss in the cellular world, with and Apple both announcing strong Q4 2007 performance and celebrating with a new bevy of for the iPhone (although some are pointing out that their figures for the Jesus phone. Meanwhile, LG celebrated 550,000 European sales of their 5-megapixel-toting Viewty with a new that packs not only the fresh suit but UI improvements too. Sadly not everyone has been celebrating; Palm announced on Wednesday that, by the end of January.

Critics are blaming the frankly uninspiring range of handsets they’ve got on offer, and looking at the- apparently hitting the shelves in April - you can’t really disagree. Biggest industry news, however, was the FCC’s 700MHz wireless spectrum auction with the first round of bidding clocking up $2.4bn. So far bidders identities have been kept secret, so there’s no telling whether Google have opened their wallet or left the open-access Block C to mainstream rivals AT&T and Verizon Wireless.