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EBS Coming To Your Smartphone
May 14, 2011 by admin
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In the event of local and/or nationwide disasters, wireless carriers will soon begin alerting the public by sending emergency SMS text messages to mobile phones.
AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless have all agreed to a participate in this new Emergency Broadcast System alert method. It will initially be rolled out in New York and Washington, D.C., later this year, and nationwide next year, in April at the earliest.
The emergency text messages will cover public safety threats, Amber Alerts for missing children, and messages from the president, the New York Times reports. Messages will be free for customers, who can opt out of them all except the presidential messages.
We don’t expect the alerts to be frequent,” Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, told the Times. “They will be reserved for when they are truly needed, for tornadoes or for disasters like 9/11.”
Genachowski said the emergency texts will look different from ordinary messages, making them more difficult for hackers to infiltrate or fake. They’ll probably appear directly on the screen, along with a special vibration or other signal. No word on how closely they’ll resemble the tone and color bars of the current Emergency Broadcast System for televisions, or whether users can expect “this is a test” messages on a regular basis.
Laptop Users Still Prefer USB Modems
Mobile data users still overwhelmingly prefer USB modems for keeping PCs and other devices connected while on the go, but they may turn more to built-in cellular radios and portable Wi-Fi hotspots over the few years, according to ABI Research.
Despite the growing market for connected tablets and the availability of laptops and netbooks with high-speed cellular modules built in, worldwide shipments of USB modems still surpass embedded 3G and 4G modules by three to one, ABI said in a report Monday. But by 2016, that ratio may change to near an even split, said ABI analyst Jeff Orr.
Mobile operators including AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Clearwire give consumers the option of buying a laptop or netbook with an integrated cellular module. Those computers let subscribers go online almost anywhere without using up a USB port or carrying around a separate piece of hardware that sticks out of the side of the system.
Built-in modems lock buyers into one carrier or network technology for the life of the device, which most consumers and enterprises don’t want, Orr said. They buy USB modems because they can be easily discarded when a better network comes along, he said. Prices are low and often there is no early termination fee for getting out of the carrier data contract. “That device becomes almost disposable,” he said.
One problem with built-in modems is that wireless technology changes faster than most users want to change computers. For example, the past three years — a typical PC lifetime — have seen the construction of both a WiMax and an LTE network in many cities around the U.S., offering 10 times or more the speed of 3G networks.
The market for embedded modems is still fairly small, according to ABI. In 2010, only about 5% of laptops worldwide shipped with built-in cellular modems, Orr said. Among netbooks, 17% came with modems, but overall shipments were much smaller for netbooks than for laptops. Meanwhile, 40% of tablets came with such modems, but the overall tablet market was smaller still.
Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet On Its Way
April 26, 2011 by admin
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It appears that Lenovo is preparing to enter the tablet war over summer. Apparently, the tablet will focus on serious minded business professionals. It appears that the tablet will run Google’s popu;ar tablet OS called Honeycomb and will be equipped with Nvidia’s Tegra 2. To make sure consumers get their monies worth, the tablet will come with a keyboard to turn it into a useable notebook more or less. Sources are also claiming the screen size will be 10 inches and have a 1280×800 IPS and optical stylus.
Samsung Sues Apple
April 25, 2011 by admin
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In the uber competitive world of mobile device development suing is fast becoming a sport engaged in by all of the titans of technology. Add another lawsuit to the pile as Samsung Electronics hits Apple with lawsuits in three countries alleging infringement of patents on smartphone technologies. Last week Apple sued Samsung for allegedly copying the designs of Apple’s iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone in its Galaxy smartphone and Galaxy Tab tablet PC.
On Thursday, the South Korean electronics maker sued Apple in Seoul alleging five patent infringements, in Tokyo over two alleged infringements and in Manheim, Germany, over three.
“Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business,” the company said in a statement.
According to Samsung, the lawsuits say Apple infringed on patents concerning reducing data transmission errors in WCDMA (Wideband CDMA) mobile networks, tethering mobile phones to PCs so the PC can use the phone’s wireless data connection, and reducing power consumption when transmitting data over HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) networks.
Apple’s lawsuit filed on April 15 in the U.S. says Samsung copied external design features on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The lawsuit further alleges that Samsung designed application icons for that come close to icons on Apple’s devices.
Verizon May Not Carry The PlayBook
April 22, 2011 by admin
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Verizon Wireless is still evaluating whether or not it will carry the PlayBook tablet computer from Research In Motion, the biggest U.S. mobile operator stated on Wednesday.
While BlackBerry maker RIM had said it expected Verizon Wireless to be one of its distribution partners for PlayBook, the company said it has yet to make such a determination.
“We’re still evaluating the BlackBerry Playbook and have not made a determination as to whether we’re going to distribute it,” Verizon Wireless Spokeswoman Brenda Raney said.
The comment came the day after PlayBook debuted at North American electronics retailers.
iPhone 5 May Debut In September
April 21, 2011 by admin
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Apple’s next-generation iPhone will have a faster processor and will start shipping in September, several sources with direct knowledge of the company’s supply chain said.
The production of the new iPhone will start in July/August and the smartphone will look very similar to the current iPhone 4, one of the sources said on Wednesday.
The iPhone -debuted in 2007 with the touchscreen, on-demand application template now adopted by its rivals- remains the gold standard in the booming smartphone market.
Reports on the timeline of the new iPhone launch vary, though it is largely expected that Apple will likely refresh its iPhone 4 later this year.
The sources declined to be identified because the plans for the new iPhone were not yet public. An Apple spokeswoman in Hong Kong was not available for comment.
The iPhone is one of Apple’s most successful products, with more than 16 million sold in the last quarter of 2010 and the product accounted for more than a third of the company’s sales in the quarter.
The current iPhone 4 was launched by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs in June last year and began shipping the same month in 2010.
NFC Support Coming to Windows Phone 7
April 3, 2011 by admin
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Microsoft is adding support for NFC (near field communication) to its Windows Phone mobile operating system, according to a report on Bloomberg Businessweek. NFC technology is a key component to the upcoming mobile payment and mobile wallet systems now reportedly under development at Google, RIM and Apple as well as the new carrier-led initiative Isis, a coalition of three of the four major cellular providers here in the U.S.
Support for NFC technology in Windows Phone 7 will be pushed out in an update to Microsoft’s mobile operating system, sources told Bloomberg reporters. Those updates may arrive sometime this year.
Bloomberg says that the addition of NFC is an effort to close the gap between Microsoft and Google, the latter which is currently the leading smartphone platform here in the U.S., and, according to at least one analyst firm, worldwide.
Google’s Android mobile operating system added in NFC support in the release code-named Gingerbread (Android 2.3) and has incrementally added new capabilities since then to broaden its feature set. In February 2011, for example, an update delivered the ability to both read and write to standard NFC tags, whereas before the NFC support was read-only.
Android To Control Smartphone Market By 2016
April 1, 2011 by admin
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Android will be the operating system of choice for 45% of smartphones shipped by the year 2016. It will take up most of the market share vacated by the soon-to-be exiting of Nokia’s Symbian operating system, according to figures released today by ABI Research.
Although Android will come to be the dominant player in the smartphone market, this doesn’t mean that OSes will necessarily see a big cut in their own market shares, ABI said.
In fact, the firm projects that Apple’s iOS will see its market share rise from 16% in 2010 to 19% in 2016, while Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS is expected to fall slightly from 16% in 2010 to 14% in 2016. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Samsung’s Bada will also be players in the 2016 smartphone market, as ABI projects those two operating systems to take 10% and 7%, respectively.
ABI vice president Kevin Burden says that although RIM stands to lose a bit between now and 2016, the company will carve a comfortable niche for itself in the enterprise market, as enterprise users will still need the security provided by RIM’s network operations center.
“RIM’s slight loss of share doesn’t mean falling shipments,” he says. “RIM has found its niche, but the consumer market will grow faster than its portion of it.”
NY To Investigate AT&T’s T-Mobile Acquisition
March 30, 2011 by admin
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The state of New York has indicated that it will investigate AT&T’s proposed take over of T-Mobile USA for anti-competitive effects, including possible increases in mobile broadband costs for New York residents and businesses, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.
New York is the first state that has committed itself to probing the $39 billion deal, which was announced on March 20 but is expected to take 12 months to close. At their current sizes, the combined telecom companies would have 130 million subscribers, dwarfing the next-biggest operator, Verizon Wireless, with 93 million. In a press release on Tuesday, the attorney general’s office raised the possibility of Verizon responding with an acquisition of Sprint Nextel, which has about 58 million subscribers.
“The proposed merger could start a process of consolidation that would lead to two firms -AT&T and Verizon – controlling nearly 80% of wireless subscribers nationwide,” Schneiderman stated.
Schneiderman said mobile service has changed from a luxury to a basic necessity and T-Mobile currently is a low-cost option for many New York residents. People in some areas, including Albany, Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse, already have limited wireless choices, he said.
Playbook Set To Launch April 19th
March 22, 2011 by admin
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This is shaping up to be quite the season for the tablet wars as Research In Motion’s long-awaited device, the BlackBerry PlayBook, is set to go on sale in the United States and Canada on April 19 at a base price of $499.
RIM said on Tuesday it plans to sell the PlayBook through retailers and wireless carriers including Best Buy, AT&T, Verizon, Radioshack, Sears Canada and Wal-Mart. ReadMore….
