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Microsoft Patents Snooping Technology
A newly patented Microsoft technology named Legal Intercept that would allow the company to covertly intercept, monitor and record Skype calls is raising privacy concerns.
Microsoft’s patent application for Legal Intercept was filed in 2009, well before the company’s $8.5 billion purchase of Skype this May. The patent was granted last week.
From Microsoft’s description of the technology in its patent application, Legal Intercept appears similar to tools used by telecommunication companies and equipment makers to comply with government wiretap and surveillance requests.
According to Microsoft, Legal Intercept is designed to silently record communications on VoIP networks such as Skype.
According to Microsoft, Legal Intercept fixes the gaps in current monitoring tools that are designed mainly for intercepting Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS). “With new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other communication technology, the POTS model for recording communications does not work,” Microsoft noted in the patent application.
Michael Froomkin, a professor of law at the University Of Miami School Of Law, said that from the patent description it sounds as if the technology would allow Microsoft to do is make Skype CALEA capable.
Verizon Ending Unlimited Data Plan In July
June 26, 2011 by admin
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We are closer to reaching the end of Verizon Wireless’s limited-time offer of unlimited data, says the Wall Street Journal‘s AllThingsD. The website reports that the wireless carrier plans to introduce new tiered pricing plans next month for new smartphone customers — including those buying Apple’s iPhone 4.
If true, the report hardly comes as a surprise. Back in January, when Verizon became the second carrier in the U.S. to offer iPhone service, the company said it would offer subscribers a $30-a-month unlimited data plan for the iPhone’s launch, but highlighted the fact that the offer was for a limited time only.
Acer Launches Sandy Bridge Notebooks
Acer updated its Timeline notebook series with Intel’s Sandy Bridge family of CPUs. The Timeline X series will come in three sizes, 13.3-inch, 14-inch and 15.6-inch and they are about an inch thick. Furthermore, the notebooks will be equipped with Acer’s PowerSmart Technology that is supposed to provide battery life of up to nine hours on models with integrated graphics and up to eight hours for those models with discrete graphics.
T.I. Blames Nokia For Lower Revenue
Texas Instruments has revised downward its revenue forecast for the second fiscal quarter due to a slackening in demand for its products from Nokia.
TI said its lower revenue projection is directly related to the market performance of Nokia, which has been experiencing its own troubles. The handset maker last week projected lower sales of devices and services due to lower average selling prices and fewer buyers of its phones.
TI is now forecasting revenue of $3.36 billion and $3.50 billion for the second fiscal quarter ending on June 30, down from $3.41 billion to $3.69 billion the company forecast on April 18 when reporting first quarter fiscal results.
“I would say characterizing as the bulk of it being Nokia is probably understating. Probably being closer to say all of the change in our … middle-of-the-range update versus what we were previously [projecting] was associated with that customer,” said Ron Slaymaker, vice president and head of investor relations at TI, during a revenue forecast conference call that was webcast on Wednesday.
Mobile App Locates Cheaper Prescriptions
June 9, 2011 by admin
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Medco Health Solutions and Verizon Wireless teamed up last month to release a mobile application that aids smartphone users in locating places where they can buy the lowest-cost prescription drugs.
Verizon stated the new Medco Pharmacy mobile app can also identify potentially harmful drug interactions based on Medco members’ medication histories.
Medco, which provides pharmacy services to more than 65 million customers, said its pharmacy mobile app is available for BlackBerry and Android smartphone users. It provides information about out-of-pocket costs for any prescription drug and lower-cost options specific to a person’s prescription drug plan, even if a patient is being treated by several doctors or fills prescriptions at many different pharmacies.
Nokia Expects Windows Phone Before EOY
June 3, 2011 by admin
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Nokia has “increased confidence” that the first of its smartphone devices to run on the Windows Phone platform will ship by the fourth quarter, the company said on Tuesday.
Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop is putting his full weight behind getting a Windows Phone-based product out for the important end-of-year holiday shopping season, in order to help turn around the company’s smartphone fortunes. The company’s teams are aligned around that goal, he said in a statement.
The company won’t reveal ship dates until closer to when the first phones arrive, but the pressure is on to deliver the devices this year, Elop said when the company announced its first quarter results.
Nokia will have several more opportunities to divulge more information shortly. On June 21, Elop will give a presentation at the Connection 2011 Conference, which is organized in conjunction with CommunicAsia 2011 in Singapore. He will give an update on the company’s partnership with Microsoft, and set the stage for a number of product and service launches, according to the program.
Verizon To End Unlimited Mobile Data Plan
May 24, 2011 by admin
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If you have a smartphone with an unlimited data plan on the Verizon Wireless network, get ready to mourn the end of those good times.
Verizon will put the kabash on its unlimited smartphone data plan some time this summer, according to comments made by the carrier’s chief financial officer. Speaking at the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Thursday, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo stated the company will soon roll out new tiered pricing plans and altogether eliminate the current $30-a-month unlimited option.
According to Reuters, which reported the news, the move is designed to “force heavy data users to pay more for mobile data.”
HTC To Have Many Tablets
May 21, 2011 by admin
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Smartphone maker HTC plans to introduce a range of different tablet computers to gain a its share in the fast-growing market, a company executive said on Tuesday.
The global market for tablets, started only last year with Apple’s iPad, will likely grow to 108 million devices next year, compared with just 17.6 million in 2010, according to research firm Gartner.
“I really believe that the tablet market is really going to be a big market in the future and this is just the start,” HTC Europe head Florian Seiche told the Reuters Global Technology Summit.
“In five years’ time, schools will have tablets probably instead of physical notebooks. I think that’s going to be such a massive wave of additional penetration in society… I think we can’t even guess the potential.”
Visa Digital Wallet Coming
May 15, 2011 by admin
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Visa Inc, the world’s largest credit and debit card processing network, is designing a digital wallet that people can use to pay for things on the Internet or with their phones instead of with traditional plastic cards.
The network said on Wednesday it is collaborating with several large U.S. and international banks to create the wallet. Its partners include US Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, Regions Financial, BB&T Corp, Toronto Dominion’s TD Bank and the U.S. arm of Barclays PLC.
The “digital wallet” will store the banks’ customers’ credit and debit card account information, both for Visa cards as well as other cards. People can use the wallet to pay for things online or in stores, Visa said.
The network will also have to convince merchants to put a new “one-click” button on their websites, so that potential customers can use their Visa digital wallets to buy things by clicking the button instead of by manually entering all of their account information every time they want to make an online purchase.
Banks, mobile phone operators and networks like Visa are all trying to gain territory in the small, but high-potential market for U.S. mobile payments. Last week Isis, a separate mobile payments venture run by three of the top four U.S. carriers, said it had modified its initial goals and was now open to working with Visa and MasterCard as it introduces its own mobile wallet.
Jim McCarthy, Visa’s head of global products, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that mobile payments in the United States “will more easily take off” from people using their smartphones’ browsers to buy things online.
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.