Tech Industry

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If you are leaving AT&T and heading to Verizon, should you get a Google Voice account?  The number porting fee is $20 but you get so many new features, it isn’t even funny.  If you are making the move to Verizon consider Google’s amazing Voice product.  Here’s how and why at Fortune.
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We’ve gotten a few tips that AT&T is now sending some prospective switchers some last minute love in the form of a free AT&T Microcell.  The only caveat is that you need to stay on AT&T an additional 12 months.  What say you switchers?  Is this Microcell enough to keep you from switching over to Big Red?

Just as an FYI, if you are staying with AT&T for another 12 months, now may be a good time to ask your local AT&T rep for a Microcell of your very own.  We hear they are awfully friendly these days.

Thanks@lethalillness
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COMPUTERWORLD: Angelheaded hipsters, cease your burning, cease your pining for your ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, iPad 2.0 is coming and where v.1 was magical, v. 2 could be poetry, maybe, just believe.

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iPads may be about to take a seat in UK government, with the House of Lords administration committee recommending that iPads, smartphones and other mobile devices are allowed to be used in the Lords chamber and grand committee.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWTxaAj5w-4&fs=1&hl=en_US]

You like violent bunny rabbits, right, right? Want to watch a violent rabbit create a new definition for homicidal? Then do keep an eye on the unfolding drama between the legitimate makers of open source violent rabbit game, Lugaru HD, and the pirate coder who has also introduced an app called Lugaru via the Mac App Store — but using the same code.
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Apple and Verizon have begun offering the iPhone CDMA model for pre-order by existing Verizon customers — if you pre-order the device will arrive “by February 10”, Apple promises. Beginning on Wednesday, February 9, all qualified customers will be able to order an iPhone 4 on Verizon.

Prices of the devices via either carrier remains the same: $199 for the 16GB and $299 for the 32GB models. However, monthly tariffs are very different (see tables after the jump).
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This isn’t a good sign if you are looking to get your hands on a Verizon iPhone.  Verizon is urging its employees to hold off on buying iPhones until its customers’ demand is met.  That means that they anticipate selling a whole lot more than they have initially.  Via TiPB

Hey — recall the iPad 2.0? (Faster processor, better screen, faster graphics, cameras etc., etc.?) Well, it looks like someone brought one along to The Daily (yawn) press launch today….Reuters confirms the front-facing camera and cites a source who says (surprise, surprise) “the final release model could have other features”.  (Editor notes: Hey Reuters, you are a news agency.  Next time you see a prototype iPad, take a picture of it and put it up?  In fact with 100 news orgs there covering the event, no one took a picture?)

Who knew? (We all did, but hey, loving the hyptastic launch of the new beastie). Oh, check the screen of the thing here.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_2aUN4FIys&fs=1&hl=en_US]

COMPUTERWORLD: Electronic Arts revealed today that its mobile game sales revenues have eclipsed its other platform businesses for the first time — net mobile revenues for Q3 hit $59 million. While EA didn’t break this figure out by platform, it is pretty clear that games for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad have become a huge business, a business that’s driving a rapid evolution in terms of quality and game play.

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The UK trade regulator is launching an investigation into alleged anti-competitive price-fixing deals within the nascent digital book publishing industry following a “significant number of complaints.”

The Office of Fair Trading said the investigation is “into whether arrangements that certain publishers have put in place with some retailers for the sale of e-books may breach competition rules”.
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Anyone else out there notice that iOS and OS X new version updates are shipping around once a week now? With this kind of intensity can a release be far off? Don’t think so.

The latest Mac OS X 10.6.7 Build 10J850 is being seeded to developers for testing. Apple wants developers to focus their testing on the Mac App Store, AirPort, Bonjour, SMB, and Graphics Drivers. There’s no known problems.
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Remember when Verizon said they’d have Mac drivers for their 4G modems in February?  *Checks watch* Right on time, Verizon updated their client access software today for its Pantech UML290.  The LG model still is Windows only.

The devices were originally delivered in December, but now I might actually try one.

There has been a workaround for awhile but below are links to the legit official version of the software…

Data Devices	Windows (Vista/XP)	Windows 7	Mac (10.4.x/10.5.x) 32-bit only	Mac (10.6.x) 32-bit only
LG VL600	7.6.3 (2642c)1,7	7.6.3 (2642c)1,7	Please check back for availability	Please check back for availability
Pantech UML290	7.6.3 (2642d) 1,7 Vista SP2	7.6.3 (2642d) 1,7	7.2.4 (2534b)	7.2.4 (2534b)

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You know all that AT&T moaning where the company said it had a great network but accused iPhone users of being “data hogs” as an explanation for network patchiness? Well, it seems the company may have been telling some fibs, and there’s a new lawsuit in town that seeks to prove it.

“AT&T has ‘systematically’ overcharged iPhone and iPad owners with capped data plans by inflating the amount of data they download and adding ‘phantom traffic,’
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Apple’s iPad and iPhone have transformed the fortunes of chip designer, ARM, but the company is keeping quiet on the extent and significance of Apple’s business on its overall profit explosion.

Ask anyone involved in Apple’s mobile device supply chain how their business is performing and they’ll smile broadly. Ask any of them just how much of a contribution their AAPL business makes, and the smile will weaken and your source will clam-up.

Apple’s partners know that if they want to keep on sucking on the Cupertino money machine they need to keep the details quiet. So ARM’s news of a record-breaking quarter this morning is no surprise — though details are scant on the iDevice front — as we also know AAPL is prepping for a huge rise in sales this year.
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Mobile device users are acquiring ever more discretion about the Apps they use, with 26 percent of Apps only ever getting used once after being downloaded.

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The Beeb is reporting that Russian Movie copyright holders aren’t fairly being compensated for their their wares on iTunes.

Films available via iTunes include old favourites such as Gentlemen of Fortune, Assa, The Diamond Arm, Kin-dza-dza and Cheburashka.

Despite their age, the films and cartoons are still protected by copyright.

The owners of the copyright on the films, – Russian film studio Mosfilm and the Joint State Film Collection (Obyedinennaya Gosudarstvennaya Kinocollectsia) – have told the BBC they have not given consent for their films to be sold in the app stores.

Apple, for its part said that it took copyright complaints seriously and took action as soon as it received a complaint.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8&w=640&h=505]

Some fun facts on the 1984 commercial from Steve Hayden (via DF).

• The brief for “1984” was simple: Steve Jobs said, “I want to stop the world in its tracks.”
• We ran a 30- second version of “1984” in the top 10 U.S. markets, plus, in an admittedly childish move, in an 11th market—Boca Raton, Fla., headquarters for IBMʼs PC division.
• “1984” also ran in theaters through ScreenVision. One theater owner was so enamored with it, he ran it for a month after the buy was over.
• Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak saw the spot and offered to pay half the cost of running it out of his personal checking account.

In this light (or without it), it is dizzyingly uncouth that Motorola is going to even attempt to acknowledge that ad in their’s this week.

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Android sales, they say, are skyrocketing, taking marketshare away from the iPad. Except — for all the Android-powered slates you see around the electronics retailers, how many of your friends have one? One, a couple, none? I’m betting none based on statements today from a senior Samsung suit who said that while sales to retail channels are pretty good, actual sales to, you know, consumers — they’re small, “quite small“.
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COMPUTERWORLD: The iPhone ‘iWallet’ becomes even more real today as Visa Europe launches the first commercial deployment of its own iPhone payments App today. This news as NFC-capable iPhones should show later this year, with AAPL apparently pondering ways to offer a merchants cheap and easy set-up for payment kiosks — mobile payments are nothing without the infrastructure to accept them.

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If you can’t build an ecosystem, then buy one — that at least looks like the deal as it seems Google’s hiring in Android developers in its attempt to put apps up for sale in its Market; in related news Android tablets have grabbed a slice of the iPad market even while Android has become the world’s leading smartphone maker, according to Canalsys.
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Listen up folks, ActiveStorage has introduced ActiveSAN, a metadata controller appliance that incorporates ‘stunning’ Active Storage product design and the rock-solid performance, and as we said it is good for XSAN and StorNext networks…and it won’t clash with your ‘legacy’ Xserve array.
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