Tokyo-based jig.jp has been developing mobile browsers since 2003, claiming its “jig browser (which was downloaded over 4 million times so far) is the world’s first Java-based browser that made it possible to view PC sites on cell phones. And now the company has released an ambitious Android app called SPIDERSS , which combines a browser with an RSS reader and an aggregator for social network updates. Available in English and Japanese, the free app’s main selling point is that all elements are accessible from a single screen: You can either choose to directly type in a URL or search term in the top bar (to then open a full browser window), check your Facebook newsfeed and Twitter timeline in the “Application Deck” under that or scroll through your RSS feeds in the bottom part.

Apple is using its strong patent portfolio to fight iPhone competitors in court. Its latest target is HTC

Plugg , the annual conference organised by my TechCrunch colleague Robin Wauters, is due for next week on Thursday (11 March). I’ll be there along with other European tech industry pundits, bloggers, venture capitalists and many entrepreneurs, to listen to a slew of presentations by executives from Nokia, Opera Software, Index Ventures, Duval Guillaume, eBuddy and many more (full program can be seen here )

Hamburg, Germany based Qype , a Yelp-like site that’s focused on European markets, has recently had long acquisition looks from both Google and Nokia, we’ve heard from multiple sources. A deal with Nokia in particular was looking extremely likely until recently.

At recent the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, mobile app analytics startup Distimo gave a presentation with some other interesting comparisons, such the relative size of the iPhone App Store (150,000 total apps at the time) compared to the Android Market (20,000) and Blackberry (5,000) others. It showed that in January alone, the Apple App store grew by 13,865 apps versus 3,005 new Android apps, 734 new Nokia Ovia apps, and 501 new Blackberry apps.

The rapid evolution of mobile phones, both on a hardware and a software level, combined with a surge in application storefront releases, deployments of higher-capacity network infrastructure and recent developments in positioning technologies could drive revenues from mobile location-based services to more than $12.7 billion by 2014, according to a new report published by Juniper Research . The report found that while MLBS had experienced a number of false dawns from 2000 to 2007, improvements in handset UIs together with easier consumer access to an range of app distribution channels had led to greater interest from service providers in providing mobile location-based applications. While service usage will be highest in Far East China over the next few years, greatest revenues will come from Western Europe, Juniper forecasts.