• Best Buy will be the exclusive retailer for the Android-based Sprint HTC Hero, which launches Oct. 11. The phone will retail for $179.99 after $150 in rebates and a two-year contract. Best Buy is in the midst of a marketing blitz for its mobile division, which also carries the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and Blackberry Tour.

• Nokia announced that it is incorporating GPS data from its handsets into Navteq's Traffic service in Europe and North America. The service is in its initial stages of integration into Navteq Traffic data feeds, but is expected to provide the service with real-time data by the end of the year. The Nokia GPS data is collected anonymously from handsets to protect consumer privacy. Navteq recently reported that its turn-by-turn navigation service numbered 50 million in the United States and 75 million in Europe this year.

• ABI Research expects sales from location-based services (LBS) to hit $2.6 billion in 2009 thanks to growth in off-deck LBS applications developed for GPS-enabled touchscreen smartphones. However, it is unclear which pricing and business models will emerge successfully. Currently subscription-based models are making way for one-off pricing or free hardware-subsidized offers, but expectations for advertising revenues in the longer term remain high despite privacy and fragmentation issues.

• Verizon Wireless says more than 1,000 developers have registered to become part of the Verizon Developer Community within a month of its first conference. The community aims to speed time to market for mobile applications and address developer demands for speed and transparency.

• The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has extended the nomination deadline for its annual Global Awards. Entrants now have until Sept. 14 to submit their nominations online. The international contest is open to the public.

• ISuppli predicts that cell phones with OLED displays will rise significantly over the next seven years, with global shipments of the displays hitting 178 million units in 2015, from 22.2 million in 2009. However, the firm says that OLEDs will still only account for a small percentage of total main mobile-handset displays in the coming years, rising to 6 percent of total unit shipments in 2013, up from 2 percent in 2009. Factors limiting greater penetration include the AM- OLED market's limited suppliers and factories.  

• The LTE Modem that Samsung announced this week is scheduled to come to the United States, but no date has been set, according to Samsung headquarters. Commercial availability of the LTE Modem internationally is slated for the first half of 2010.