‘iPhone’ Most Searched Term On Internet

Apple’s iPhone edged past major news events, celebrities and pop stars as the most searched term on the Internet in 2011, according to Yahoo!

The digital media company said the smartphone proved more popular than reality television celebrity Kim Kardashian, pop star Katy Perry and singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who placed in the top five.

American Casey Anthony, the woman acquitted of the murder of her young daughter after a highly publicized trial, was No. 2.

“This is the first time since 2002 that we have had a gadget at No.1, which is an iPhone.” Vera Chan, a Web trend analyst at Yahoo!, said in a conference call announcing the results of the review now in its 10th year.

“Even though the product has been around for four years it just became such a major news story,” she added.

Source…

at&t Partners With China Telecom

AT&T Inc and China Telecom have agreed to broaden the range of their partnership in China and the United States and will look into supporting each other in other regions.

AT&T said the agreement would expand its services for business customers in China and that the companies would consider jointly developing services, including video conferencing and managed hosting.

Source…

Hackers Attempt To Access AT&T Mobile

AT&T Inc, the No. 2 U.S. wireless carrier, said it is investigating an “organized and systemic attempt” to access mobile customers’ information but that it did not believe any accounts were breached.

The company, which had 100 million subscribers at the end of the third quarter, said it is advising less than 1 percent of its wireless customers that there was an attempt to obtain information about their accounts.

It said that the parties involved appeared to have used “auto script” technology to see if AT&T telephone numbers were linked to online AT&T accounts.

Spokesman Mark Siegel said AT&T’s “investigation is ongoing to determine the source or intent of the attempt to gather this information.”

.

Source…

at&t iPhone 4S Has Fastest Speeds

A study measuring the performance of the iPhone 4S on the three major U.S. wireless carriers found AT&T to be the best in Web browsing and data downloads and uploads when compared to Apple’s latest smartphone on either the Verizon Wireless or Sprint networks.

iPhone newcomer Sprint was found to be superior with its iPhone 4S for network voice quality on the uplink (when the user is speaking), but Sprint was also about five times slower in Web browsing and data downloads than AT&T, according to the study released Friday by Metrico Wireless, a mobile performance measurement company. Verizon finished in the middle on those data tests, but trailed the other two carriers in voice quality.

Metrico measured five performance factors shortly after the iPhone 4S was launched on all three carriers in October: whether calls could be connected and held; voice quality; data performance; Web browsing by page load speeds and video performance.

.

.

Source…

Apple’s Patent Hints At Tablet-Macbook Hybrid

Apple has received approval from the U.S. Patent Office this week for a patent for a MacBook with a cellular antenna and a rotating display. Such a MacBook could have the super thin qualities of the MacBook Air and the cellular connectivity and touchscreen versatility of the iPad.

It could also strengthen Apple against the onslaught of Ultrabooks that PC makers are gearing up to unleash. “This officially announces to the Wintel camp that Apple now has the ability to match or beat the Ultrabook design that is to come to market in 2013 with the [Intel] Haswell processor,” declared Jack Purcher, of Patently Apple.

Intel announced the Ultrabook category of PC laptops in May. The line is squarely aimed at the MacBook Air. The first wave of Ultrabooks, based on existing Intel processors, has already begun to hit the market. The units are supposed to be priced under $1000 and be super thin–0.78 inches–or in the case of the HP Folio announced today, even less–0.70 inches.

Next year, the platform is expected to be advanced further with the introduction of units based on Intel’s Ivy Bridge processor. A third wave of Ultrabooks is planned for 2013. They would be based on the Haswell processor and consume half the power of today’s laptops. Some of them also will sport Windows 8 with its touchscreen-enabled Metro interface.

Source….

Intel Gives Details On Their Xeon E5 Processors

Intel finally gave more details at the supercomputing conference SC2011 about its upcoming Xeon E5 processors and been showing off its Knights Corner many integrated core (MIC) solution.

We don’t expect to see the new Xeons until the first half of 2012, but Intel has has been shipping the new chips to “a small number of cloud and HPC customers” since September. The E5 family has the same core as the 3960X which Intel launched this week. So far though Intel does not seem to be keen to ramp up any mass production. Some of this might have something to do with problems in production which were rumoured earlier this year. However early benchmarks indicate that it could be a winner.

.

.

Source….

Qualcomm Releases New S4 Processors

Qualcomm has announced a slew of Krait-based Snapdragon system-on-chips (SoC) processors to fit in its S1 and S4 performance classes.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon range of SoC chips have proven to be extremely popular in smartphones and tablets, however the firm is facing a growing challenge from Texas Instruments and Nvidia. Coming little over a week after Nvidia revealed its quad-core Tegra 3 processor, Qualcomm has announced eight Snapdragon S4 processors and four Snapdragon S1 processors.

Since Qualcomm showed off the Krait architecture in February with three chips, the firm has not extended its headline S4 range of processors. Now it has added eight SKUs, with models including the MSM8660A, MSM8260A, MSM8630, MSM8230, MSM8627, MSM8227, APQ8060A and APQ8030. Qualcomm was cagey about when devices sporting these chips will appear, only mentioning an early 2012 timeframe.

Perhaps more important for Qualcomm’s sales figures are its entry level Snapdragon S1 chips. The four new chips in this category are the MSM7225A, MSM7625A, MSM7227A and MSM7627A models, with the firm claiming that they have been optimised for those OEM customers that are making the transition from 2G to 3G devices.

Source….

Google, which last week created a bit of chaos with the launch of a Gmail application for Apple iOS devices, has decided to put out discontinue its Gmail application for the BlackBerry.

As of Nov. 22, Google will no longer offer technical support to users of the application, nor will it allow people to download it anymore, the company wrote in a blog post.

However, people will be able to continue using it, although Google will put its development efforts on the version of the application for mobile browsers, available at gmail.com.

Source…

Want A $19/Month Mobile Plan?

A new wireless operator is gearing up to launch next week with plans offering unlimited data, voice and texting for $19 a month and no contract.

Republic Wireless, a division of Bandwith.com, will provide the service through Voice over IP using the nearest available Wi-Fi hotspot starting Tuesday, Nov. 8, a spokesman confirmed via email.

When a wireless phone user is traveling, the service will be provided through traditional cellular connections, initially over the Sprint network.

One important catch: Republic will require that its users have a new Android-based smartphone equipped with hardware and software that supports automatic switching from Wi-Fi to cellular. The device must have single phone number that works on both networks.

Republic hasn’t disclosed further details on phones the network will support. The company said more details will be made available on the launch date.

Republic calls its Wi-Fi and cellular mixture “Hybrid Calling,” a strategy it said reduces the costs for network services and makes the $19 flat monthly “membership” rate possible.

Republic estimates that smartphone users are within reach of Wi-Fi over 60% of the time, said the spokesman, Kevin LaHaise.

Source….

Judge Oks Sprint’s Lawsuit Against AT&T

A judge in the U.S. on Wednesday gave the go ahead to parts of C Spire Wireless and Sprint Nextel’s lawsuits against AT&T’s proposed US$39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA.

AT&T and T-Mobile had moved for dismissal of the lawsuits arguing that the complaints by Sprint and C Spire, formerly Cellular South, failed to adequately substantiate that the merger would cause them “antitrust injury”.

The decision by District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia could complicate AT&T’s defense of the deal which has been already opposed by the U.S. government.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in August to block AT&T from acquiring T-Mobile, saying that the deal would significantly reduce competition, increase prices and stifle innovation. Seven state attorneys general have joined the lawsuit. That case goes on trial in February before Judge Huvelle.

Where private plaintiffs have successfully pleaded antitrust injury, the fact that they are defendants’ competitors is no bar, Judge Huvelle said before allowing Sprint and C Spire to proceed with their claim that the merger would make it difficult for them to acquire wireless devices. The companies had claimed that after the merger AT&T and Verizon would be in a better position to get exclusive handset deals, while foreclosing their access to the most innovative handsets and raise their costs.

Source…

« Previous Page — Next Page »