Items tagged with Cell Phones
Well, there goes our dating prospects. Just when singles had discovered the key to attracting mates – posing for a selfie with a tiger – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law that bans contact between most people and tigers. That’s sure to put a dent in the number of “tiger selfies” that have been appearing on online dating sites. We’re as concerned as you about what this means for the quality of dating profiles: how can one exude sophistication and charm without wrapping one’s arms around a bored tiger? If you live in New York, you'll need to head across state lines to get "tiger selfie." Or, you could find a better way to make your dating profile...
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Score one for the customer. President Barack Obama signed the “Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act,” which Congress recently passed with unusual ease. The bill makes it legal for mobile phone service customers to unlock their phones and move from one service to another. Carriers typically lock phones to their service with software, and (until now), customers generally had to ditch phones when switching to a new service. A bill signed into law today makes it legal to unlock your phone and take it to another carrier. The bill is good news if you’ve been wanting to switch, but don’t expect to jump ship if you’re in the middle of a contract. ...
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Today, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision on data privacy, holding 9-0 that neither police officers nor federal law enforcement have a unilateral right to search cell phones without first procuring a warrant. Prior to today, the government had previously argued that the police could search a cell phone under previous court rulings that extended such rights in limited cases, including incidents where the officers on the scene had reason to believe evidence could be destroyed or that the evidence was on the individual (or within arms' reach). What the Court recognized today is that a cell phone is something unique from a pack of cigarettes or a glove compartment that might contain a firearm....
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Recovery efforts are now in full swing for victims of Hurricane Sandy, which has left at least 55 people dead on the East Coast and knocked out power for millions of others. To make matters worse, many found themselves without cell phone or broadband service, both of which may sound like luxuries, but are capable of relaying critical emergency information in times like this. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Sandy took down 25 percent of the cell towers in 158 counties in 10 states sprawling from Massachusetts to Virginia. "Our assumption is that communications outages could get worse before they get better, particularly for mobile networks because of the flooding and...
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We'd like to say we're surprised by Verizon's latest claims regarding fees, services, and ridiculous pricing, but after the "Share Everything" plans pegged the cost of a gigabyte of data at up to $50, we're immune to much of anything. A recent blog post at NetWorkWorld details one person's request for an explanation as to why having an unlisted phone number costs him $5/month. Verizon's answer: "The cost charged to offer unlisted phone numbers is chiefly systems and IT based." She goes on to claim that unlisted phone numbers require special service to make certain their information isn't stuffed into the details Verizon sells to everyone else. Verizon's online customer service appears to have...
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CTIA, the wireless industry's biggest trade group announced on Friday that it has sued the city of San Francisco over its recently passed ordinance requiring retailers to display the radiation levels emitted from cellphones. The “Cell Phone Right-to-Know” law requires retailers to display the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) next to phones they sell. In the U.S. and Canada, the SAR must be 1.6 watts per kg or less. In Europe, the maximum level is 2.0 kw per kg or less. At the time of passage, the CTIA said then, and emphasizes now, that the law will confuse consumers. It will, the CTIA said, make them believe that certain models will be "safer" to use than others. John Walls, a spokesman...
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Tetris, which last year celebrated 25 years of falling bricks, has hit, and passed, 100 million downloads to various mobile devices. -Blue Planet Software, Inc., the company that manages the exclusive licensing rights to the game, and EA Mobile, a division of Electronic Arts Inc., announced the milestone at a press conference on Thursday.Tetris is, for those not in the know, a simplistic game that involves a player rotating falling geometric shapes made up of bricks to complete and cause rows to vanish. The simplicity makes it an ideal game for mobile devices. It also makes it addicting, as well.Henk Rogers, CEO of Blue Planet Software, said:“Tetris on mobile will never go away. As mobile devices...
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Taser, which has already started to expand out from its ubiquitous Taser line of stun guns, announced they are have entered the realm of cell phone software. The cellphone software, called Protector, is designed to give parents control over their children's cell phones, including monitoring and limiting texting and phone calls.This type of software is not new, but Taser claims that "nobody's put the whole thing together" as they have.In addition, although there are other products like this around, the name Taser carries a lot of weight. Naturally, not all of Taser's notoriety is positive, but the brand, at least, is well-known. The service, however, will not launch until mid-2010.When it launches,...
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New data from Nielsen shows that the iPhone is the top phone among U.S. cell phones. However, if one looks at market share in terms of manufacturers, not handsets, both RIM and LG top Apple, based on having several different handsets. In fact, the iPhone (i.e., Apple) has 4.0 percent, while RIM has 6.3 percent and LG 6.4 percent.The data is for mobile phones in use from January to October 2009. The sheer quantity of handsets available for users leads to what is obviously very fragmented market share. The top 10 phones account for just over 20 percent of the total devices in use.The Nielsen data also ranks the top sites visited by mobile devices. In that category, the top 3 sites are Google...
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The risk has been confirmed, right down the the number of times your crash vulnerability is increased. Matching an earlier study by the Michigan State Medical Society, a new study says that accident risk is increased by 6 times by texting drivers. The only issue is that people don't seem to be willing to change their behavior, sans legislation.The study, released Monday in the journal "Human Factors," was done by researchers at the University of Utah, used driving simulators. The study, titled "Text Messaging During Simulated Driving" (.PDF), studied 40 young adults ranging in age from 19 to 23 years with an average of 21 years of age. Among the participants, 20 were women and 20 were men. The...
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Knowing a massive untapped market when it sees it, Microsoft on Monday launched OneApp, a software application that enables feature phones (think Motorola Razr, for a good example), which are commonly found in emerging markets to have access to mobile apps that people like you and I have on our iPhones, Palm Pres, and BlackBerrys. Think Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, and those sorts of things. In order to run these apps on underpowered feature phones, Microsoft is leveraging the cloud to do much of the processing. OneApp will launch first with Blue Label Telecoms in South Africa. Here's how Microsoft describes OneApp: OneApp was designed from the ground up to enable mobile apps to...
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Kids and cell phones. You can't live with 'em, and you can't live without 'em. We're speaking of the kids, actually, as cell phones, most teens would say they can't live without, period. A new Pew Internet & Life Project survey (.PDF) shows that, unsurprisingly, cell phone use is continuing to rise among teens. Specifically, the first Pew survey in 2004 showed that 45% of teens had a cell phone. As of 2008, that number had risen to 71%. The survey had 914 respondents in 2004, vs. 2,134 respondents in 2008. Data was collected from those 12 - 17 years of age.A new Pew Internet & Life Project survey (.PDF) shows that, unsurprisingly, cell phone use is continuing to rise among teens. Age...
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Small chunks of change can add up to a lot. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile know just how true this is. Recently, the carriers banned together and agreed to raise a monthly fee that’s tacked on to your monthly wireless bill. This higher fee is suppose to help carriers recoup business costs and will add up to millions of dollars. Since the beginning of this year, the four leading wireless carriers have quietly raised a monthly fee that each carrier charges in order to help recoup some of their business costs. Taken individually, the fee doesn’t sound like a lot—AT&T’s fee in California, for example, has increased by 40 cents per month. Sprint’s fee is only 24 cents higher. When multiplied...
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It was great when number portability came to cell phones. It was great when Google Voice (nee GrandCentral), promising one number to ring multiple phones emerged as a service. What if you could port your number to Google Voice, though? That's what TechCrunch says is coming. While the fact that Google Voice is supposed to be a number you can keep forever, if you could port the cell phone number or some business number you have currently plastered all over your business cards to it, think of how much more useful it could be. Besides that, it seems that Google is also preparing to launch new mobile applications that will automatically route outbound calls through Google Voice, which would mean that...
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We doubt this will do much to close the budget deficit, but who knows? The Internal Revenue Service is considering taxing the use of work-issued mobile phones, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. According to the report, the IRS has proposed that employers assign 25% of an employee's annual phone expenses as a taxable benefit. In other words, take the service plan costs for an employee, and use 25% of that as taxable income. As many of these workplace-issued devices have data plans, the cost per year could be high. The WSJ estimated that a worker in the 28% tax bracket with wireless device costs of $1,500 a year would see $105 in additional federal income tax. Not a huge amount,...
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As part of its Christmas line-up of products, Sony Ericsson introduced a new phone that will allow consumers to connect to their PS3 gaming consoles remotely. The new phone, known as Aino, will let users access media content such as music, videos, and photos from the PS3 while on the go. Sadly, Aino will not allow users to play games or access high-definition video from the phone. Aino can also synchronize with media files on your PC using Sony Ericsson’s Media Go multimedia manager. As for the phone itself, Aino features an 8.1-megapixel camera with geotagging capability; 3G, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi connectivity; a physical keypad; and a three-inch touchscreen. Sony Ericsson, the world’s fifth...
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Perhaps a couple of decades ago, someone like Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt would have been urging college graduates at their commencement to turn on computers, learn the latest technology, spur us forward.This being now, Schmidt instead suggested to graduates at University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University that they turn off their computers and experience real life every now and again.You read that right, the CEO of the biggest company in, well, ever, which makes its money off the Internet, told a bunch of 20-somethings that they should get away from that glowing screen — even the small ones on their cell phones — every now and again. At Carnegie Mellon, he said: You should...
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It appears Acer isn’t the only company who’s hard at work on Android devices. During an investors’ conference call yesterday, Motorola’s chief executive Sanjay Jha said Motorola plans to launch “a few” Google Android smartphones at several different price points in the fourth quarter of this year. Interestingly, Jha didn’t even mention a word about Windows Mobile, the other smartphone platform Motorola has pledged to support. "With Android we believe we can enable differentiated consumer experience and applications, with enhanced integration of messaging and social networking applications," Jha said during the conference call announcing the company's second-quarter earnings. "We also intend to...
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The good news is the U.K. has decided against a government database tracking all Internet and phone use. The bad news is, they still want it done, but by the private sector. Cost is the issue with the government doing it itself; why bother when you can simply require the private sector to do so, right? Research from Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's department estimated that the proposal would have cost the government £2 billion to implement. That said, Smith said that doing nothing was not an option. The data stored, according to Smith, would not include the content of such communication, but instead the "who, when, where and how" of the communication. She added:"Communications data is an essential...
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According to a new poll published by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, American families are just as, if not more, tight-knit than in previous generations. Part of the reason for this? Technology.Instead of weakening family ties as was feared, technology has brought us closer together by letting us chat, email, and text family even when we’re away from home."There had been some fears that the Internet had been taking people away from each other," said Barry Wellman, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto and one of the authors of the report. "We found just the opposite."In the poll, 60% of the adults surveyed did not feel that new technologies had any effect on the closeness...
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Here's an idea that - well, read it, then you decide.Indian manufacturer Spice Mobile on Tuesday introduced a phone with a built-in optical disc player, the first of its kind, here at the Mobile World Congress trade show.VMedia produces a 1.2", blue laser optical disk that holds one gigabyte per layer. Current discs have one layer, which is good enough to hold a 3.5-hour Bollywood movie in H.264 format at 720x576 resolution, Packman said. The company is working on a 2GB disk for next year, he said. In an era when everyone's talking about moving to online media, physical media still has a commanding presence in sales, Packman said.About that online media - while streaming to a cell phone isn't...
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Well, Jack Bauer would like us to believe that nuclear terror is just around the corner, and with this system, we could just possibly prove it.Researchers at Purdue University are working with the state of Indiana to develop a system that would use a network of cell phones to detect and track radiation to help prevent terrorist attacks with radiological "dirty bombs" and nuclear weapons.Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim...
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