Flush with numerous smartphone services that it offers consumers who own its devices, Nokia will soon be better able to serve mobile marketers too. Today the Finnish mobile phone giant said it will purchase Motally, whose mobile analytics service offers in-application tracking and reporting and helps app-creators better develop their products according to the way users engage.

We’ve written about Motally, based in San Francisco, several times this year. Its import APIs allows for the uploading of bulk data directly to Motally for processing, making it especially useful for platform providers who want to send large quantities of data for analysis on behalf of their user base. Its two-way mobile app communications allow developers to make changes in real-time without having to resubmit their app to app stores and go through the strenuous process of re-approval. In short, Motally makes it possible for marketers to create the most effective mobile campaigns possible–and then measure their success.

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Mitek Systems today announced it has received a U.S. patent for technology that makes check deposits possible with just a camera smartphone.

Titled most scientifically as the “Mobile Deposit mobile Remote Deposit Capture (RDC) application,” the technology lets a user snap a photo of the check, using a mobile phone, and then transmit all the deposit information via a secure network. Mitek, which specializes in advanced-image analytics and mobile document capture applications for phones, claims that deposits using its mobile technology are successful on the first try 95 percent of the time.

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Like the opposite of a cloud with a silver lining, the iPhone drew numerous new signups for AT&T but also caused network clogs that has infamously turned off Big Blue customers in major cities. Other cellular companies are in danger of similar woes, especially with the explosion of high-end Android smartphones this year. But according to a new report from ABI Research, mobile service providers are on top of the problem, with various solutions promising a huge rise in the amount of mobile data that will be offloaded within the next five years. This promises faster, more pleasant mobile Internet usage for consumers, ensuring that mobile will remain the most desired way for marketers to reach them.

Think of it as a choice between Liquid-Plumr, Drano, a DIY vinegar-and-baking-soda solution, or an array of drain snakes for plumbing blockages. “Each of these offload and optimization technologies is aimed at solving a particular problem and they will all coexist,” said ABI Research practice director Aditya Kaul.

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It was reported this morning that AT&T may be quietly hindering 3G upload speeds in hopes of curbing network strain, reacting to yet another influx of iPhone devices hitting its network daily.  While nothing has been formally announced, several readers of GigaOM have complained that their upload speeds have decreased substantially- from over 1 Mbps to under 100 Kbps over the last few days.

It would make sense, as the company recently enacted tiered data pricing plans for new and current customers who wanted to make the switch, but is it truly necessary?  Some innovative startups say it’s not, and that the answer lies with data compression instead.  A company called Human Monitoring, which offers “software based video processing solutions based on  algorithmic innovation,” has developed a solution that can cut the data traffic associated with images in half.

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Google announced on Tuesday that mobile phone and some laptop users who use Google applications to get a fix on their position or share their location with friends are helping Google build out a massive database of WiFi hot spots.  Google quietly uses the method to crowdsource location data by matching WiFi hot spot location data with GPS coordinates by transmitting the location of any WiFi access point in wireless range.

Most Google apps, in essence, turn your phone into a Google WiFi sensor, and even laptop owners using browsers that take advantage of HTML5 geolocation technologies are also contributing to the database when they divulge their location to services like Twitter or Foursquare, or use Firefox geolocation services for example.  When that data gets sent back to Firefox, it shares the location of all MAC addresses in range with Google for mapping and other purposes.

When a Google Maps Navigation user, for example, requests a fix on their location, they send Google a list of all the MAC (media access control) addresses associated with wireless hot spots available within range to be checked against a Google database of those addresses gathered through the Street View project, said Steve Lee, group product manager at Google.  WiFi hot spot triangulation is a commonly used method of determining location on modern smartphones, as GPS doesn’t always work in urban locations and cell-tower positioning can be inaccurate.

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Following its report on the fastest growing mobile app and browser content, comScore today published a report detailing U.S. mobile subscriber market share for April, 2010.

The report, which features data pulled from comScore’s MobiLens service, details key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month period ending in April, compared to the preceding three-month period.   The report ranked the leading mobile OEMs and operators in the U.S. according to their share of usage by current mobile subscribers age 13 and older, and reviewed the most popular activities and content accessed via the subscriber’s primary device.

In terms of operator share, Verizon still leads the pack with 31.1% share, with AT&T a close second with 25.3% share.  Verizon has lost market share during the first three months of 2010, while AT&T has gained slightly.

As for OEM device manufacturers, Samsung, LG and Motorola were neck and neck with 21.1%, 21.8% and 21.6% respectively.  RIM came in fourth at just 8.4%.  For the 3 month period ending in April, 234 million Americans age 13 and older were mobile subscribers.

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The Chinese government has blocked access to Foursquare for users located in mainland China following an influx in users “checking in” to Tiananmen Square as a show of solidarity with Chinese dissidents, and to commemorate those who died in the massacre 21 years ago.

Though the true reason for the blockage is still unknown, the issued with Tiananmen Square makes the most sense, as the Chinese government is notorious for stifling discussion about the event, and already blocks internet searches that contain those key terms.

According to this blog post from a news site covering tech news in China, there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of people using Foursquare to ‘visit’ Tiananmen Square.  The blog published a screenshot (posted above) of a user’s Foursquare app on the iPhone, which shows hundreds of people checking in at the site of the massacre.

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