Hi there. You look great this evening. What are you up to? 53 comments
by Revcb Friday 29-Mar-2013 comments?
The Supreme Court this week ruled for Comcast in a case that was levied against the company alleging they'd intentionally created a monopoly in the Philadelphia area -- then jacked up prices to punitive levels (we've been talking about the case since it was filed in 2003). According to the decision (pdf), the ruling fell along the usual 5-4 partisan lines.  story continues..32 comments
Antennas manufacturer Antennas Direct is angry at Charter Communications because it claims Charter has banned the company from advertising to Charter's customers. According to the company, Charter refused to run a sixty second ad in the St. story continues..78 comments
Sprint and Softbank are promising lawmakers that they won't use network gear from Chinese vendor Huawei as apparent conditions for SoftBank's acquisition of Sprint. According to the New York Times, the companies are promising they'll also avoid using Huawei gear in Clearwire's network as well. 39 comments
Despite the fact that Google Glass isn't even launched yet, West Virginia lawmakers are getting ready to pass a law banning people from using Glass while driving. State lawmakers have already been working on new laws that ban texting while driving, so Gary Howell (R-Mineral) is updating the law so that it also covers "a computing device which is worn on the head and projects visual information into the field of vision of the wearer." Google, for its part, is trying to argue that Google Glass could make drivers safer: "We are putting a lot of thought into the design of Glass because new technologies always raise new issues," a Google spokesperson wrote to Ars. "We actually believe there is tremendous potential to improve safety on our roads and reduce accidents. As always, feedback is welcome." While the potential for driver distraction might be significant, West Virginia probably has more important things to worry about than passing regulations governing a niche product few people will actually be able to afford at $1,500 a pop. This is the state currently investigating its own incompetence and corruption after state leaders wasted $126.3-million in broadband funding on un-used, overpriced routers and redundant, overpaid consultants, in the process lining Cisco and Verizon's pockets with no-bid contracts. 41 comments
AT&T this week was forced to pay $27.5 million in damages for violating a Colorado company’s patents for streaming online video and audio. According to Bloomberg, AT&T’s U-verse TV services infringed two patents owned by Two-Way Media LLC -- one of which covered content streaming, and the other of which allows for the tracking of consumer use of those streams. "While the verdict was a small fraction of what the plaintiff sought in this case, we will challenge the amount that was awarded," AT&T said in a prepared statement. AT&T's battle with Two-Way has been ongoing since 2008, when Two-Way sued AT&T, Akamai, and Limelight Networks (the latter two companies settled). 2 comments
by Revcb Friday 29-Mar-2013 2 comments
by Revcb Thursday 28-Mar-2013 2 comments
Intel is currently conducting trials of its new Internet TV platform with employees in three West Coast markets ahead of a launch later this year. The chipmaker has repeatedly stated that they believe they will succeed in Internet video where numerous other companies have failed. Those ever-busy "people with knowledge of the situation" also claim that Intel is making headway hashing out licensing agreements with content companies. That's obviously the major hurdle to Intel's success, and the primary reason why significantly better and more innovative companies than Intel have watched their Internet TV ambitions repeatedly do mudpuddle face plants. 10 comments
Researchers at the University of Southampton in England say they've developed a new type of optical fiber that smashes all previously held bandwidth transmission records. The fibers are more hollow than traditional fiber, yet significantly faster at transmitting data; specifically they can transmit bandwidth at 73.7 terabits per second — roughly 1,000 times faster than today’s 40-gigabit fiber optic links -- and at lower latency: The researchers overcame these issues by fundamentally improving the hollow core design, using an ultra-thin photonic-bandgap rim. This new design enables low loss (3.5 dB/km), wide bandwidth (160nm), and latency that blows the doors off normal optic fiber — light, and thus the data, really is travelling 31% faster down this new hollow fiber. To achieve the transmission rate of 73.7 terabits per second, the researchers used wave division multiplexing (WDM) to transmit 37 40-gigabit signals down the hollow fiber. The downside? The cable's still see 3.5 dB/km loss and are only really ideal for shorter range runs. 53 comments
Earlier this month CenturyLink confirmed to us that the company now imposes usage caps of 150 GB for 1.5 Mbps lines, and caps of 300 GB for anything faster. Users who exceed those caps get on-screen warnings and are urged to upgrade to faster tiers or business-class service. 38 comments
UK's marketing regulator, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) – has censured Virgin Media for claiming that their broadband is unlimited. The ASA's ruling, the first to use new guidance on use of the term 'unlimited', prevents the fastest of the UK's main ISPs from using the line: Unlimited downloads: Download and browse as much as you like with no caps and no hidden charges. story continues..7 comments
AT&T West employees in California and Nevada are currently reporting to work, but have threatened to strike if they can't strike a new deal with AT&T. According to Southern California Public Radio, the 18,000 workers and CWA members rejected a new contract proposal from AT&T last week over wages and benefits. As is usually the case, AT&T says they have a "contingency workforce of well-trained managers and vendors" to handle the workload disruption if a strike happens, though a strike will of course mean major delays in DSL and U-Verse installs and repairs. 15 comments
Comcast's new X1 set top box will soon arrive in its eighth market: Washington DC, and Comcast says the box will arrive in " every major city" in 2013. The Pace made device is a QAM/IP hybrid set top that brings a lot of IP-based functionality to users already seen in set tops deployed by telcoTV competitors (widgets ahoy). First launched in Boston in mid-2012, the device is also being marketed primarily to new triple play customers in Colorado Springs; Atlanta and Augusta, Ga.; Chattanooga, Tenn.; San Francisco; and the Philadelphia area. The company is also cooking up an "X2" upgrade that will featured a revamped GUI, as well as potentially cloud-based storage. 30 comments
by Revcb Thursday 28-Mar-2013 comments?
by Revcb Wednesday 27-Mar-2013 17 comments
Like the company did with "House and Cards" and "Arrested Development," Netflix continues to push into original programming with the announcement that they'll be producing a new series by Matrix creators the Wachowskis and Babylon 5 creator Joe Straczynski. According to a company statement, "Sense8" is a new sci-fi program and "a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted" scheduled to premiere in late 2014. Amazon has also been making a push into more original series, also announcing this week that they've signed off on "Zombieland," a TV adaptation of the 2009 film. Both companies are looking to draw in more subscribers while performing an end-around of skyrocketing content licensing costs. 31 comments
A dispute between Spamhaus and and a Dutch hosting provider has resulted in one of the largest DDoS attacks in Internet history. According to somewhat hyperbolic bits at the BBC and BBC and New York Times, Spamhaus is being attacked in retaliation for the company's decision to add Cyberbunker to the SBL. 49 comments
In addition to T-Mobile's "uncarrier" moves announced yesterday, the company says they're also considering an " anytime upgrade club" which, after a "very small" fee, would allow users to upgrade their handset twice a year. Details were scarce, and it's unclear if this would even be worth it for users under T-Mobile's new contract-free pricing. For example, T-Mobile will now be offering users the iPhone 5 for $99 plus monthly payments of $20 for the next 24 months (the phone remains locked until you pay it off). If you're already locked into those payments, it's unclear how a "very small" fee would magically get you out of the balance owed unless you're willing to pay off multiple phones simultaneously, and T-Mobile has yet to offer more detail. 9 comments
While carriers already now give real-time access to all network data, the FBI says that real-time wiretapping of Gmail is their top priority in 2013. Speaking last week at the American Bar Association, FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann argued once again that the agency wants to revamp the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act to allow for real-time surveillance of e-mail, cloud storage services, and social networking websites. 53 comments
A new report by OpenSignal investigates just how much bigger screens (increasingly the rage as Android phones get continually larger) impact data usage. According to the firm, each additional square inch of screen area leads to 75 MB of additional data downloaded per month over a cellular connection. Over Wi-Fi, each additional square inch of screen area leads to 288 MB of additional data consumed per month. Specifically, the firm found that the bigger the screen is -- the more likely you are to use it for entertainment or your primary computing device, leading to more data consumption. The study was based on 9,962 data usage patterns collected from 9,962 mobile devices. 13 comments
story continues..20 comments
by Revcb Wednesday 27-Mar-2013 16 comments
by Revcb Tuesday 26-Mar-2013 5 comments
Despite being BFFs just a year ago, T-Mobile and AT&T have grown increasingly chirpy toward one another over the last few months as they've started competing more intensely. That competition is precisely why regulators blocked the deal, and at T-Mobile's LTE network launch presentation today much of the company's PR ire was directed at AT&T. T-Mobile CEO John Legere pointed out repeatedly that T-Mobile's new plans will save users $1,000 over AT&T during the year, also going so far as to call competitor pricing a "crock of shit," singling out AT&T in particular as a company that is "vaguely sinister." AT&T's unified response to media outlets like CNET and AllThingsD looking for a quote on T-Mobile's new plans? "Whatever." 53 comments
As expected, T-Mobile today took the wraps off of their LTE network and new no-contract pricing, even though most of the details were already leaked yesterday. At an event in New York City, T-Mobile formally announced that their shiny new LTE network has gone live in Baltimore; Houston; Kansas City; Las Vegas; Phoenix; San Jose, Calif.; and Washington, D.C. 75 comments
BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has been trying to monetize his creation for the better part of the decade, and while the man may have somewhat revolutionized file delivery, efforts to build a legal business model around the technology have seen mixed results (yet a seventeen year old this week sold a news reading app to Yahoo for $30 million). Cohen's initial efforts at monetization of his creation began with the now-defunct BitTorrent store, which floundered in 2007 due to a clunky GUI, DRM, and games that came with complimentary spyware. 11 comments
Everyone in the mobile ecosystem, from app developers to your carrier, is now collecting every shred of mobile location data that isn't nailed down and are busily selling that data to whoever wants to buy it, from civil engineers to marketing agencies. Consumer privacy protections here are virtually nonexistent, and the companies making billions off of your daily life have been busy arguing that there are no need for new protections because the data they collect is anonymized. However, a new study by MIT and the Catholic University of Louvain studied fifteen months' worth of "anonymized" collected data from 1.5 million people, and found that people's routines are unique and predictable enough that ferreting out their identity is incredibly easy using just for location logs: In fact, in a dataset where the location of an individual is specified hourly, and with a spatial resolution equal to that given by the carrier's antennas, four spatio-temporal points are enough to uniquely identify 95% of the individuals. We coarsen the data spatially and temporally to find a formula for the uniqueness of human mobility traces given their resolution and the available outside information. If that location data is poorly secured, combining it with other databases creates unique and new privacy violation possibilities the researchers say we haven't really even fully started to fathom yet. The scientists tell the BBC they're not advocating that we stop collecting this data, though they do suggest we need to stop pretending it's truly anonymous, and consider additional privacy protections. 16 comments
The FCC's sixteenth annual report on the wireless industry (pdf) provides a myriad of data (as required by Congress), but once again refuses to directly state whether or not the wireless industry is actually competitive. That's becoming a sort of annual tradition, as the FCC tries not to offend the wireless industry. 19 comments
Google today announced that the company is conducting a new trial of white space broadband technology in Cape Town, South Africa. The trial will use three base stations to ten local schools, in the process both proving that interference concerns have been dramatically over-stated by opponents of the technology (read: carriers, broadcasters), while also testing Google's new white spaces database. Google is one of several companies tasked with maintaining a database that will allow white space broadband powered devices to detect and avoid nearby potential unlicensed spectrum interference. Microsoft is currently conducting a similar trial in Kenya we discussed at length last month. 7 comments
by Revcb Tuesday 26-Mar-2013 3 comments
by Revcb Monday 25-Mar-2013 3 comments
Two anonymous sources tell Business Insider that Spotify plans to take on Netflix (and Hulu, and Amazon, and Redbox Verizon, and HBO, and every other "me too" video service under the sun) with a new streaming video service. Details about the new service are virtually nonexistent, outside of the fact that Spotify is currently looking for partners to help it fund and create original content. Netflix has also been focusing on exclusive content like their series "House of Cards" (or resurrected series like "Arrested Development") to offset soaring content licensing costs. Spotify of refuses to comment on the rumor. 4 comments
Reports continue to emerge that suggest Vodafone is getting very close to selling its 45% ownership stake in Verizon Wireless. A report earlier this month claimed that talks between the two companies concerning a full merger stalled last December, and Vodafone has been looking to sell their stake ever since. Now the UK's Sunday Times confirms those stalled merger talks and the fact that Vodafone is looking to make a very profitable exit from the United States wireless industry as quickly as possible. The report claims that Vodafone could stand to make as much as $135 billion from a sale of their share of Verizon Wireless. 52 comments
Sony's new Xperia ZL smartphone is coming to the United States -- but at a steep unsubsidized price since the company has yet to partner with a wireless carrier to sell the device. Pre-orders began today via the Sony store in two flavors. 21 comments
A new report from research firm OpenSignal found that T-Mobile LTE is currently live in nine United States cities ahead of the company's official network launch expected tomorrow. Only Kansas City and Las Vegas were specifically mentioned as launch markets, though the firm notes they've also seen significant LTE presence in Seattle, Denver, New Orleans, New York, San Diego, and the Bay Area. 30 comments
As expected, T-Mobile over the weekend launched the company's new contract-free pricing plans that are part of the company's aggressive new "uncarrier" disruption strategy. T-Mobile's getting rid of contracts entirely, and their new base pricing offers users an new unlimited talk, text, and 500MB of data for $50 a month. An additional $20 nets users unlimited data, or users who want to use their phone as a mobile hotspot or modem can add $10 for every extra 2 GB of data. The company is expected to formally announce the new plans on Tuesday. As part of T-Mobile's strategy, they're also getting rid of phone subsidies, letting users either pay full price for a device, or pay in installment plans tacked onto their monthly bill. 78 comments
The Federal Aviation Administration says they expect to weaken rules prohibiting the use of electronics in-flight before the end of the year. According to the New York Times, those new rules would not allow the use of cellphone voice calls in flight. 36 comments
by Revcb Monday 25-Mar-2013 17 comments
| 
