Monthly Archives: July 2010

iPhone Coming To T-Mobile This Fall?

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Cult of Mac has the newest installment of the long-running series of HOLY CRAP IPHONE IS COMING TO SOMEONE THAT DOESN’T SUCK AS BAD AS AT&T rumors. According to them, a high up at T-Mobile said that the chances of the iPhone coming to their service in the fall is 80%. They don’t say who this person is because he wanted to remain anonymous (no doubt because he’d probably be fired on the spot). This is actually a pretty good rumor because there would be no hardware changes needed on the iPhone in order to make it compatible with T-Mobile’s network: both use GSM. Heck, people with jailbroken devices are already using iPhone on T-Mobile.

Apple is reportedly working on a CDMA version of the iPhone, which would make it compatible with Verizon…but I don’t know that it would go to Verizon because they’re so loyal to Android right now. Regardless, I think everyone knows that other carriers will be getting the iPhone in the very near future because AT&T’s exclusivity deal is almost up. I’m sure Apple will do here what they did in other countries when this time comes: add more carriers.

Source: CultOfMac.com

New beta of Microsoft Security Essentials

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Microsoft has released a new beta of my favorite anti-virus program on Windows, Microsoft Security Essentials. The beta makes the already fantastic program even better by adding two big new features. First is that it integrates with Internet Explorer and scans scripts before they’re executed. That’s kind of cool, if you’re an IE user, which I am not. I’d like to see them somehow extend that to Firefox and Chrome, but I don’t know if that would happen. However, the second feature, and in my opinion the biggest addition and what sets it apart from the rest of the anti malware solutions out there is the new network scanning function. This feature scans the traffic coming into your machine in real time and blocks out malicious packets, preventing them from even reaching your machine. The beta is only available to a limited number of people on Microsoft Connect, and as of this writing, all the spots appear to be filled. However, don’t let that stop you from downloading MSE since it’s already a great tool with a very small footprint .

I just wish Microsoft would include it with Windows, however Symantec and other people would complain that it undermines their business and there would be lawsuits, all because MS wants to make their product more secure without having to charge users an arm and a leg for AV software and subscription fees.

Source: Ars Technica

Verizon Kills Kin. RIP Kin April 2010- July 2010

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Sorry for implying that the Kin is a newsworthy item, because it’s not. However, this is pretty noteworthy: Verizon is discontinuing the Kin only a few weeks after Microsoft announced they’re discontinuing the platform. For those keeping track at home, the Kin’s lifespan was a mere 6 weeks, making it one of the biggest failures I’ve seen in the mobile phone scene, right up there with the good ol’ N-Gage and it’s fabulous sidetalkin feature. Turns out namedropping ?uestlove wasn’t enough to save it from the lack of video playback, apps, gps navigation, and everything else you’d expect from a smartphone. At least it helped The Roots perform a show in Canada. On a side note, you can leave you condolences for the fallen Kin at this website: http://kinrip.com/

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/confirmed-verizon-discontinues-kin/

Barnes & Noble adds free ebooks to its store

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Barnes & Noble has added of free ebooks to its Nook store. This is presumably a move to help the store compete with Apple’s iBooks store and Amazon’s Kindle which has lots of free books as well. The books they’re adding are all public domain works from Project Gutenberg like Treasure Island, Little Women, and others. They’ll be adding them as collections with 10 every week. Unfortunately, it pales in comparison to iBooks and Kindle which both have thousands of free books available, but at least it’s a start.

Source: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks/category.asp?PID=34519

Firefox Home Launches in the App Store

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Firefox just launched a neat little app called Firefox Home. It allows you to access your bookmarks, tabs, and history from your desktop on your mobile device. I tried it out, and it works perfectly. In order to use it, you need to first install the Firefox Sync extension on your desktop machines and make an account. Then: grab your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, go to the app store and look up Firefox Home and grab the free app. When you launch the app, just log in and you’ll see all your bookmarks and tabs, right from the cloud! It’s pretty awesome!

Source: http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/07/15/get-firefox-home-on-your-iphone/

Unlicensed Public Performance of Music Fines are Less than Sharing

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Interesting piece from Ars Technica. This article points out that fines for a bar or something like that playing unlicensed music for commercial gain are actually less than what the fine of sharing music is on a P2P network. Massachusetts federal judge Nancy Gertner asks why:

“I cannot conceive of any plausible rationale for the discrepancy between the level of damages imposed in public-performance cases and the damages awarded in this case,” she wrote. “The disparity strongly suggests that the jury’s $675,000 award is arbitrary and grossly excessive.”

For example: A resort in Pennsylvania, was sued for not having a public performance license for playing music at their business, the fines: $6,750. Whereas Joel Tenenbaum was sued $675,000 for sharing 30 songs, AND he didn’t make any money off of it. Very interesting point. I’ve never thought of it that way. I can’t wait for lawyers and RIAA reps to say playing our music in bars is killing music.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/double-standard-unlicensed-bar-music-vs-p2p-users.ars

Windows 7 SP 1 Public Beta is now out!

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For those of you more adventurous and wanting to give new things a try, Microsoft has just released the public beta of the first service pack for its latest operating system, Windows 7. Click on over here to give it a download. It doesn’t offer up a ton of new features, but there are two interesting things that are added. First is RemoteFX, which allows your machine to render 3d effects and video locally when you’re connected to a remote machine. Second is Dynamic Memory, which pools memory on a server and dynamically assigns it to virtual machines based on load. It also has the normal hotfixes and other tweaks you’d expect from a Microsoft Service Pack.

Source: pcworld.com

Senators Question FCC’s Nationwide Broadband Plan

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Pretty interesting little read here from Ars Technica. So, the FCC wants 4mbps broadband to be available nationwide by 2020 and have 100 million homes subscribed to 100mbps broadband. However, senators like Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) are wondering why the FCC isn’t being more ambitious with the plan’s minimum speed requirements. As Senator Inouye said:

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) proposes a goal of having 100 million homes subscribed at 100Mbps by 2020,” “while the leading nations already have 100Mbps fiber-based services at costs of $30 to $40 per month and beginning rollout of 1Gbps residential services, which the FCC suggests is required only for a single anchor institution in each community by 2020. This appears to suggest that the US should accept a 10- to 12-year lag behind the leading nations.”

“What is the FCC’s rationale for a vision that appears to be firmly rooted in the second tier of countries?”

I agree with the senator. The situation for internet in the US has really lagged behind the rest of the world in the past few years. For example: the fastest internet I can get where I live is 60mbps for like $120 or something per month. That’s good speed, but my biggest problem is the price of it. Why is it that internet access is so expensive in the US compared to the rest of the world? The US pays $8 per mpbs of bandwidth vs $1.98 in the UK or even $2.33 in Japan. Why is this? I maintain it’s the telcos and them lobbying congress to keep things the way they are so that they can raise prices while keeping the infrastructure shoddy and not reaching rural areas, all at the expense of consumers. And don’t even get me started on the telcos and their ridiculous opposition to net neutrality.

What I think should be done with broadband in the US is something similiar to the Interstate Highway System. The government would create the vision and the specs for the project and contract companies to make it. If we let the AT&Ts, Verizons, and Comcasts of this country build the backbone, you know they’ll cut corners where ever they can to save money. That can’t happen.

Apple and AT&T Sued For iPhone 4 Antenna Woes

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Remember what I mentioned in my last post about how there have been people with antenna problems on iPhone 4? Well, those people are banding together and filing a lawsuit against Apple for the iPhone 4′s apparently shoddy antenna. I haven’t used one, so I can’t comment on how bad this issue is, but even then: would the problems actually be the antenna or AT&T’s horrible network? Don’t count out the latter.