Opera Mini, compresses data by up to 90 percent before sending content to the phone, resulting in significantly improved page loading and speed. Opera Mini offers a desktop-like web browsing experience on a mobile phone.  Features such as Speed Dial, tabbed browsing, password manager and bookmarks. With Opera Mini optimized for Android, more people will be able to get a PC-like browsing experience on their mobile handsets.

"Android users should not have to compromise when it comes to surfing the Web on their phones. Opera Mini will give Android users a fast and cost-efficient access to their favorite Web sites and services," said Dag Olav Norem, Vice President of Products, Opera Software.

Download Opera Mini directly to your Android phone. To download, visit m.opera.com/next with the Android browser or search for Opera Mini 5 in the Android Market.

A native Gowalla app is now available for Android, it's called a place-sharing app that offers special rewards.  The new native application greatly improves the Gowalla experience by providing additional features and more accurate location data through its use of Skyhook Wireless' SDK.

Gowalla for Android is available for free in the Android Market and at Gowalla.com. It gives users way to explore places.

The NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD) premium application offers live streaming video and video highlights of the 2010 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship. Coverage begins with the NCAA Basketball Championship Selection Show on March 14 and continues with every game from the first round of the tournament through the semifinals and championship of the Men's Final Four.

New this year, in collaboration with AT&T, the live video will be delivered over 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi connections. Premium app users can also receive score alerts and listen to live game radio broadcasts from Westwood One throughout the entire tournament, starting with the Opening Round game on March 16.

Getfugu users can search and purchase tickets directly on their mobile phone by simply saying the name of the event into their phone.

For example, a user could ask for events like Lakers (by saying "Lakers Tickets") or concerts (by saying "Bon Jovi tickets"). Getfugu's Get Tickets application will provide dates, times, specify the venue and even tell the consumer how many tickets are available for purchase.

The free Facebook  app for all Palm webOS phones (Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, Palm Pre Plus, Palm Pixi Plus) is now available in the Palm App Catalog with full Facebook features. This is an update to the previously version and has these features:

• You can keep up to date with your Facebook inbox, latest Facebook events, friends' birthdays, and your news feed.
  
• You can now view your friends' Walls, Information, and Photos, and keep tabs on your own Wall.
• Reply to messages in your Facebook inbox or compose new messages, Like and Comment on items in your News Feed, and find friends (old and new) with new Search functionality.
• You can show off your photo albums to friends, as well as view, like, and comment on photos and albums.
  
• You can also quickly upload photos directly from the Facebook application.

In a gesture to make searching on touchscreen Android phones easier, Google Labs has launched Gesture Search.

Gesture Search is a Android 2.0 or above app in the U.S.. Gesture Search lets you  find a contact, an installed application, a bookmark or a music track from hundreds or thousands of items, by  drawing alphabet gestures on the touch screen.

Say you want to call your friend Anne. Just open Gesture Search and draw letter “A”, and Gesture Search returns a list of items that have words starting with “A”. If your handwriting isn’t all that neat, that’s okay. If the “A” you draw looks a bit like an “H”, as seen in the bottom left corner of the screenshot, “H” results will be brought up as well.

You can erase a query by crossing it horizontally: left to right erases the entire query, and right to left removes the last letter or space in the query. Now you can either scroll down the list to find Anne or write more letters to refine the search.

Gesture Search improves search quality by learning from  search history, so Anne’s contact info will jump to the top of the list the next time you write “A”. What do you think does it get an “A” or and “H.”

To download Gesture Search, search for it in Android Market. You can get more information on our Google Labs page.

Directed Electronics' Viper SmartStart, remote auto-started is now available for most BlackBerry smartphones starting today.

Particularly popular in cold weather climates, remote start allows users to start their vehicle by remote control to defrost the windows and pre-warm the cabin in the winter or pre-cool the car in the summer, so they get into a comfortable car that's ready to drive. Most remote start systems use a small remote control on the user's keychain to activate remote start, but these "keyfobs" typically have limited range. Viper SmartStart has virtually unlimited range - an important feature to remote start users.

Slacker Radio 3.0 for BlackBerry updates include :

• Updated interface.
• Faster application startup time.
• Significantly smaller application size.
• Improved touch interface for BlackBerry Storm
• Greatly improved battery life.
• New settings menu options.
• Tabbed info view for lyrics, reviews and biographies.
• Context Aware - click a highlighted artist name in a text message or email to enable direct launch of a related Slacker station.
• Create custom stations based on artists or songs.
• View album art and photos.
• Rate songs as favorites.
• Ban the songs and artists you don't like.

RIM's official Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones was released through limited invite code.  Reviewers have called it prettier than other Twitter clients. Another reviewer suggested more keyboard shortcuts. TechCrunch called it average at best. This is all for an app that is still in private Beta!

BlackBerry for Twitter has these features:

• The Twitter for BlackBerry looks and feels like BlackBerry.
• You get notifed you of your direct messages as soon as they arrive.
• Bit.ly URL shortening to share your favorite BlackBerry App World applications, interesting websites or a random picture from your camera with your Twitter followers.
  
• Send BlackBerry camera photos traight to TwitPic.
• Reply to tweets, re-tweet and send direct messages.
• Post a link from your BlackBerry Browser.

Hollywood's awards season is in the home stretch with moviemakers' most anticipated night happening in just a few weeks. As the nominees write their stirring acceptance speeches and prepare to walk the red carpet on March 7, Verizon Wireless phones can get you caught up with box office hits with a slew of entertainment-themed applications.

The Droid by Motorola has received excellent reviews and Verizon heavily promotes the smartphone with deals. Previously their channeled highlighted sports, useful tips and many of their Verizon app-picks had appeared on our favs. This time Verizon's picks did appear in the Wireless and Mobile News Top Ten (Plus) Best Coolest Free Android an' Droid Apps Review of Reviews.

Verizon Wireless customers can find these Tinseltown apps and other helpful, cool and popular apps in the Verizon Channel in Android Market on their DROID by Motorola smartphones. This week's highlighted apps include:

• Fandango Movies - Get to the theater to see all of the nominated work. Fandango Movies is free and makes going to the movies simple by allowing you to watch trailers of new movies, view fun ratings, and use GPS to find the closest theaters and the movies playing at them - even purchase your tickets quickly and drama-free. It  Fandango will be waiving all service fees for ticket purchases on Android through March 7, 2010.
• E! Online - Now you can get the very best of E! Online, including the latest entertainment news, photos and videos of your favorite celebrities while on the go. This free app allows you to watch clips of your favorite E! shows, including "The Soup," "The Girls Next Door" and "Chelsea Lately." The exclusive My Celebs feature lets you create a personalized experience.

Winter Sports Live is available to download free now in the App Store for iPhone and iPod touch users and BlackBerry App World for BlackBerry smartphone users.

The Winter Sports Live application, developed by Handmark, features trusted news content from the AFP organized into the following categories:

• Live from Vancouver - top stories, updated in real-time.
• Competition News - covering news on individual events.
• Word on the Street - general news, scores and analysis.
• Picture of the Day - the day's top moment in pictures.
• Photo Gallery - a collection of the best photos from the Games.
• Olympic Champions - features on past and present Olympic champs.
• Quotes of the Day - top comments from participants and spectators.

Apple formerly did not let other browsers in its app store.  Analysts think that the iPhone Opera Mini reveal is a play to pressure Apple to let Opera Mini into the App store. Other believes that AT&T will help Opera sing on iPhones.

While Opera Mini for iPhone will not be publicly available, Opera will unveil a host of other Opera-powered devices at Mobile World Congress.

The AT&T FamilyMap app brings a streamlined approach to helping families stay up to speed on each other's whereabouts by locating wireless devices within a shared family account. The app provides iPhone users with access to FamilyMap's features which until now, were only accessible through a computer

The Seesmic for Android mobile app has been updated with new features. The Seesmic app now allows you to manage multiple accounts as well as remember your scroll position.

You can now add multiple Twitter accounts in the application, and cross-post messages at the same time. This means that you can easily navigate through multiple Twitter communication channels and stay in touch with all your followers simultaneously. Moreover, the notifications you will be receiving will announce you of the online activity of your default Twitter user.

New tweets are now loaded on the top of the current ones and your position in the timeline is remembered. There is also the option to turn off this feature and always remain on top.

Apart from increasing the usability and advantages of Seesmic, Seesmic Android has updated:

• Adding an Extra Large text size option.
• Your profile information (avatar, number of following and followers,…) will now be updated automatically.
• Changing your Twitter account password will now be handled by the application.
• Composer now auto-corrects and auto-capitalize your words and sentences.
• Notifications are now cleared when the application is accessed from Launcher.
• Easily changing default account from the application’s Settings.
• Can remove a Twitter account simply by pressing on it.