Mobile video always seems to call for the same characterization: small but fast growing. According to Nielsen's latest cross-platform (formerly "Third Screen") report released today, the mobile video audience in the first quarter reached 28.5 million, up 41% from a year ago, and about 20% from the prior quarter.

Is "Angry Birds" too much of a good thing for Android? The version of the blockbuster app for the Google platform is placing far greater strain on wireless networks than the game does on the iPhone and other smartphones, according to a study by Nokia Siemens Network's Smart Labs covered by Light Mobile Reading.

Pandora is poised to be the latest company swept up in the rejuvenated bull market for Internet IPOs. Wall Street analysts and other observers, however, have been quick to note that Pandora's costs are rising fast along with its revenues and user base, as a result of paying licensing fees to the major record labels. The company itself points to another potential problem on the revenue side, in the form of mobile advertising.

New Yorkers were greeted with the welcome news Thursday that free Wi-Fi will roll out in 20 city parks across all five boroughs in the coming months, courtesy of AT&T in partnership with city government. The carrier even aims to make that urban wilderness known as Central Park safe for Internet access (or at least parts of it).

Bill Gates was one of the earliest and most ardent proponents of tablet PCs. Back in 2000, the Microsoft co-founder showed off the company's first tablet prototype at the now-defunct Comdex conference in Las Vegas. Of course, it wouldn't be until a decade later that the tablet actually became a reality for mass-market consumers with the arrival of the iPad. But now comes word via Taiwanese tech site DigiTimes this week that Microsoft is readying an iPad competitor that would run Windows 8 and hit the market by the end of 2012.

New data released by comScore yesterday showed the number of mobile display advertisers in the last two years has more than doubled, to 689, as of April. And even more striking were comScore's findings underscoring the gap between feature phones and smartphones when it comes to mobile content and advertising.

One of the themes emerging from the OMMA Mobile conference Tuesday, amid all the discussion about apps, 2D codes, geo-fencing and mobile payments, was the human factor. That is, the importance of focusing on the end user -- from the start of the mobile development process through to the consumer's response to mobile projects.

With Apple making its long-awaited iCloud announcement today, one of the things I found most striking about the new service is that Apple won't charge for the basic offering. That's an uncharacteristic move for a company that's historically eschewed the let's-make-everything-free business model of the Internet.

In April, comScore announced its new "Total Universe" report promising tracking for a publisher's entire audience across mobile phones, apps, tablets and shared computers, as at Internet cafes. Today, the Web measurement firm released its first Total Universe data set in beta, offering a few examples of how adding mobile to the mix provides a more complete audience picture.

Ambitious plans for municipal Wi-Fi networks from earlier in the decade promised free or cheap ubiquitous Internet access in cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco and Chicago. Those efforts foundered when the economics and logistics proved too challenging in the midst of recession.New York has been no exception, with a hodgepodge of public Wi-Fi hotspots in parks, plazas and other smaller areas around the city. But today's announcement of a Wi-Fi network covering Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood is a step toward providing public Internet access on a bit of a larger scale.