Virgin Mobile Completes Helio Acquisition

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Pay-as-you-go cellular provider Virgin Mobile has announced that its acquisition of Helio has been completed. Virgin Mobile reports it has now obtained all approvals needed to complete the purchase of Helio.

Virgin Mobile says that shareholders of Helio -- SK Telecom and EarthLink -- will receive limited partnership units limited to 13 million shares of Virgin mobile Class A common stock valued at $38 million. Each of the firms will also invest $25 million in Virgin Mobile for preferred shares. Read more

Posted on Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:33:58 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Virgin Mobile Adds Kyocera TNT Flip Phone

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Virgin Mobile announced today that it is adding a new, cheap flip phone to its prepaid lineup from Kyocera called the TNT. With a name like TNT, you might expect a cool phone, but it's really just a basic flip phone that Virgin says is perfect for those who want simple things in a phone.

The TNT is available now at major retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and RadioShack at a retail price of $20. I am sure there are customers looking for cheap, prepaid phones and, at $20 the TNT fits the bill. Read more

Posted on Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:20:24 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Virgin Galactic unveiled WhiteKnightTwo

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Today, Virgin Founder, Sir Richard Branson and SpaceShipOne designer, Burt Rutan, pulled back the hangar doors on the new WhiteKnightTwo (WK2) carrier aircraft that will ferry SpaceShipTwo and thousands of private astronauts, science packages and payloads on the first stage of the Virgin Galactic sub-orbital space experience.

Christened 'EVE' in honor of Sir Richard’s mother, who performed the official naming ceremony.
It is the world’s largest all carbon composite aircraft and many of its component parts have been built using composite materials for the very first time. At 140 ft, the wing spar is the longest single carbon composite aviation component ever manufactured. Read more

Posted on Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:38:21 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Mobile offers $79.99 Call Plan; Shares fall

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By Ritsuko Ando

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Virgin Mobile USA on Tuesday unveiled an unlimited calling plan for $79.99 a month that undercuts similar offerings from larger rivals like AT&T by $20.
Read more

Posted on Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:54:17 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Mobile USA sees Telecom Consolidation

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The head of Virgin Mobile USA said on Tuesday he expects more consolidation in the U.S. telecommunications industry, including deals among providers who rent space on larger operator's networks.
Read more

Posted on Tue, 20 May 2008 23:03:39 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Mobile Gets Samsung Slash

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Virgin Mobile announced today that it was adding its first Samsung handset to its lineup. The Samsung Slash is a small slider phone that will retail for $79.99. Despite the low price the Slash has lots of features.

Features include a VGA camera phone, Bluetooth, IM, text and email capabilities. The Slash also has games preloaded on the device like Gameloft Jukebox and Superscape demo. The device also has access to multimedia content from Virgin. Read more

Posted on Mon, 19 May 2008 08:27:06 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Virgin Mobile and Helio said to be in Merger Talks

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The WSJ reports that Virgin Mobile and Helio are rumored to be in advanced merger talks.

A deal of Virgin Mobile and Helio could be announced in the coming weeks.
Virgin Mobile has about 5 million subscribers with mostly low-cost and pre-paid plans. Helio only has a couple hundred thousand subscribers, but makes on average a very high $85 revenue from each subscriber. Read more

Posted on Sat, 10 May 2008 23:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgle launched by Google and Virgin

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This year Sir Richard Branson posted a story on the Google Blog announcing Virgle.

Virgle, Inc., a joint venture between the Virgin Group and Google. Virgle's goal the establishment of a permanent human settlement on Mars. Read more

Posted on Tue, 1 Apr 2008 01:43:42 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Hugh Jackman teams with Virgin for new Comic Books

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hugh Jackman, who plays the mutant Wolverine in the "X-Men" action movies, is pairing with Virgin Comics to create a comic book series called "Nowhere Man," Virgin said on Tuesday.
Read more

Posted on Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:16:26 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Mobile Announces New Pre-praid Plans

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Virgin Mobile announced new pre-paid plans today that it says are aimed at helping Americans save money during the current economic crunch. “There is no reason for consumers to lock themselves into the restrictive terms of a postpaid contract plan to get real value," said Dan Schulman, chief executive officer, Virgin Mobile USA, "especially at a time when many people need greater control over their spending and use of credit. We're closing the gap between those features traditionally offered by postpaid carriers and the value available from our plans without annual contracts."

Virgin has added features to its pre-paid plans with offerings that offer 500 night and weekend minutes starting at $24.99 and unlimited night and weekend minutes starting at $49.99. Virgin says that it is the only national provider offering night and weekend minutes starting at 7pm. Read more

Posted on Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:02:56 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Buyout Firms not planning Virgin Media Bid: Source

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By Mathieu Robbins and Kate Holton

LONDON (Reuters) - A consortium of private equity groups named in a weekend press report has no current plans to make a bid for cable operator Virgin Media , a source familiar with the matter said on Monday.
Read more

Posted on Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:13:52 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Media adds 24,400 new Subscribers in Quarter

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LONDON (Reuters) - British cable operator Virgin Media added 24,400 customers in its fourth quarter, posted underlying operating income ahead of targets and said it was well placed for continued growth and cash flow generation.
Read more

Posted on Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:54:16 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin's Branson unveils Commercial Spaceship Model

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Entrepreneur Richard Branson on Wednesday unveiled a model of the spaceship he hopes will be the first to take paying passengers into space on a regular basis next year. Read more

Posted on Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:24:47 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Comics gets new Perspective on Multimedia

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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Virgin Comics will partner with CGI-house Perspective Studios to create new intellectual properties for comics, mobile, games platforms and movies. Read more

Posted on Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:00:00 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Mobile and LG auction off Artist-Designed Aloha Phones for RE Generation

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Virgin Mobile USA and LG announced today the debut of six specially commissioned hand-painted Aloha by LG handsets to help bring a voice to the issue of homeless youth.

The unique phones will be auctioned off as part of The RE*Generation Gallery 2007 Auction and Benefit November 7 at the Skylight Gallery in New York City. Read more

Posted on Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Kyocera Wild Card comes from Virgin Mobile

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Virgin Mobile introduced the Wild Card by Kyocera Wireless texting mobile phone.

Kyocera Wild Card clamshell design features a QWERTY thumb keyboard for text messaging.

Other features of the Wild Card include 1.3MP camera, 2 screens, speakerphone, real music ringtones, and Bluetooth. Read more

Posted on Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:51:25 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Atlantic 747 to test Biofuel in early 2008

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By Al Yoon

BOSTON (Reuters) - British billionaire Richard Branson said on Monday his Virgin Group hopes to produce clean biofuels by around the start of the next decade and early next year will test a jet plane on renewable fuel. Read more

Posted on Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:21:43 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Mobile USA Launches their First LG Wireless Phone

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Virgin Mobile USA launched a new handset called the Aloha this week. The Aloha is the first handset from LG to join the pre-paid Virgin Mobile lineup in America. The Aloha by LG is 3.5” long by 1.9” wide and has a thickness of 0.9”.

Weight for the Aloha is 2.7 ounces and it has enough storage to hold 199 personal contacts with five numbers, three email addresses and one url for each contact. The battery gives the phone 180 minutes of talk time and 150 hours standby time. Read more

Posted on Fri, 17 Aug 2007 09:01:07 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Sony, Virgin Comics to launch Video Game based on Hindu Epic

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Reuters) - Sony Online Entertainment said it is teaming up with Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Comics to launch a massively multiplayer online video game, based on comic book series Ramayan 3392 A.D., initially for the PC. Read more

Posted on Thu, 9 Aug 2007 11:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Sir Richard Branson announces $25 Million Virgin Earth Challenge Prize

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Sir Richard Branson is saving our planet by announcing a $25 million prize for the person who comes up with a way to reduce carbon gases in our atmosphere.

There are rules. You need to find a solution that is able to remove one billion tons of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for 10 years.

I like billionaires that do stuff like this. $25 million should be motivation enough to motivate some scientists to try to solve the first planet earth engineering for the good. Read more

Posted on Fri, 9 Feb 2007 08:29:20 CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

Virgin Atlantic Lifts Ban on Dell & Apple Laptops

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News.com says Virgin Atlantic is lifting the complete ban on in-flight use of Dell and Apple laptops. Previously Virgin was preventing passengers from bringing Apple or Dell laptops on-board with the batteries still in place no matter if it was a model covered in a recall or not. With all the footage and hubbub surrounding the exploding Dell batteries, I was not surprised the ban was levied in the first place. I was more surprised that more airlines didn’t follow suit with similar restrictions. Read more

Posted on Mon, 25 Sep 2006 15:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun