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T-Mobile announces $79.99 ‘Unlimited’ plan, but it throttles you after 2 GB
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Corporate News,
T-Mobile on Wednesday announced an unlimited talk, text, and data plan for $79.99 per month, though the carrier will throttle data speeds after a user consumes 2GB, so it's not exactly unlimited.
With the plan, dubbed T-Mobile Even More Unlimited, users get unlimited calling and text messages and up to 2GB of data at normal speeds. If a user exceeds 2GB in a one-month period, however, they will experience "reduced speeds until their new billing cycle starts," T-Mobile said.
T-Mobile will alert users via text message if they are approaching 2GB of data usage. This might not be a major issue for the average user, who uses about 1GB per month, but if you have a particularly data-intensive month, plan on some slow-loading Web sites by the end of your billing cycle.
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Verizon 4G LTE is ridiculously fast in Seattle
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Broadband, Smartphones, Wireless / WiFi,
The image above is the result of a speed test using the HTC Thunderbolt on Verizon's 4G LTE network in Seattle. Techinically, Gear Live HQ is about a 20 minute drive north of Seattle, so even well outside the border of the metropolitan area, you still see speeds like this. Now, obviously Verizon isn't able to deliver this kind of speed everywhere that LTE is deployed, and as more devices are sold and the network gets more saturated, things will even out...but it shows the obvious potential that LTE has over other 4G technologies like WiMax. Now you can see why AT&T made the decision to buy T-Mobile. They have no way of competing with what Verizon is rolling out currently.
Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview now available
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Internet, Microsoft, Software,
Perhaps taking a page from Google and Mozilla, Microsoft surprised attendees at the Mix 11 conference Tuesday with the introduction of Internet Explorer 10 platform preview.
The release comes just four weeks after Microsoft unveiled IE9. Microsoft's Dean Hachamovitch (left) said during a keynote at Mix 11 that IE10 builds on the performance breakthroughs and native HTML5 support developed for IE9, which will lead to the adoption of HTML5 with a long-term commitment to the standards process.
IE10 Platform Preview 1 is available for download now on Microsoft's Web site.
"We built IE9 from the ground up for HTML5 and for Windows to deliver the most native HTML5 experience and the best Web experience on Windows," Hachamovitch, corporate vice president for IE, wrote in a blog post. "IE10 continues on IE9's path, directly using what Windows provides and avoiding abstractions, layers, and libraries that slow down your site and your experience."
Click to continue reading Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview now available
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HTC Sensation 4G for T-Mobile: Hands On
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Features, Handhelds,
HTC's beautiful new smartphone for T-Mobile, the HTC Sensation 4G, has a great-looking case, a super-sharp screen, a dual-core processor, and the latest version of Android, dressed up with some terrific HTC enhancements. It's all enough that you can overlook the one big thing it doesn't have: 4G.
As we mentioned earlier, the Sensation is HTC's follow-up to the excellent MyTouch 4G, and it looks like a more professional model than the somewhat cute-and-cuddly MyTouch. It's a gray slab phone with a gray, cosmetic stripe up the middle of the back. The Sensation is comfortable to hold, and it's similar in size to Verizon's HTC Thunderbolt, although it's thinner.
All of the Sensation's specs have been boosted from the previous model, except one. The phone has a super-sharp, super 4.3-inch 960-by-540 LCD screen and a Qualcomm dual-core 1.2-Ghz Snapdragon processor. It runs Android Gingerbread 2.4, and has an 8-megapixel camera on the back capable of recording 1920-by-1080 video at 30 frames per second. There's a VGA front-facing camera for video chat, an HDMI output port, 1GB of built-in storage along with a MicroSD card slot, and a very strong 1520 mAh battery keeping it all running. It will be very interesting to compare this to the somewhat similar LG G2x, another high-end, dual-core Android phone arriving on T-Mobile soon.
Click to continue reading HTC Sensation 4G for T-Mobile: Hands On
Hack uses front-facing camera adds 3D display to iPad 2
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Handhelds, Mods / Hacks,
No, it's not an iPad 3 rumor. Rather, some innovative people from the Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Research Group have rigged the 2D display of the Apple iPad 2 for a glasses-free 3D perspective.
Using a feed from the front-facing camera coupled with some clever software hacks, the group was able to create what it calls the Head-Coupled Perspective (HCP).
"It is based on [an] efficient head-tracker that uses the front-facing camera of the device," said a description on the group's Web site. "We use an off-axis projection in order to adapt the perspective of the 3D scene according to the head's position of the user. Such spatially-aware mobile display [is able] to improve the possibilities of interaction."
Click to continue reading Hack uses front-facing camera adds 3D display to iPad 2
HTC Sensation 4G: 1.2 GHz dual-core SnapDragon, qHD display
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Handhelds,
This morning HTC announced the Sensation 4G smartphone. This one sports a 4.3-inch Super LCD display, dual-core 1.2 GHz Snapdragon processor, and ships with Android 2.3 Gingerbread with the HTC Sense 3.0 UI. It's very similar to the HTC EVO 3D, but usurps it with an 8 megapixel rear camera, dual LED flash, and records video at 1080p at 30 frames per second. This is an HSPA+ device that will be coming to T-Mobile, sporting download speeds up to 14.4 Mbps. We'll have hands-on impressions in a few.
Amazon is stealing Android from Google
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Editorial, Features, Google, Software,
I have been watching Amazon's recent moves involving Android with great fascination. Two weeks ago, it launched the Amazon Appstore that focuses on Android apps, and last week it announced a cloud-based music service with a special version just for Android. Although Google has its own Android Marketplace, Amazon is bringing a more structured store to Android with room for users comments and reviews—a key step to vetting the apps it carries.
This is a very strategic move by Amazon, and it could actually bring some sanity and consistency to the Android development community and all Android users. At the moment, Google's approach to creating Android is scattered. There are so many versions of this OS floating around that the OEMs who license Android are increasingly frustrated with Google's lack of discipline in laying out a consistent roadmap for Android that they can follow.
At first, Google said it would have one version of Android for smartphones and another for tablets. Now it says that it will merge both versions into a product codenamed Ice Cream and that it most likely will be the same OS used on Google TVs in the future as well. Initially, vendors could only use one version for devices with up to 7 inch screens and another one for screens larger then 7 inches but less then 11 inches.
Click to continue reading Amazon is stealing Android from Google
Two entries appear for MLB 2K11’s million-dollar “Perfect Game” challenge
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3, Sports, Take2, Xbox 360,
Were only all console games so generous as to award a player $1 million for accomplishing a difficult feat of gaming.
Two entrants have surfaced on YouTube for Take-Two Interactive's million-dollar contest, a challenge that tasks players with throwing a perfect game in the recently released Major League Baseball 2K11 title for the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3—the only two consoles allowed to participate in the challenge, we should note.
So what does it take to win a million bucks? In last year's similarly themed contest, 24-year-old Wade McGilberry was able to take home the prize on his sixth attempt—the same day the game was released, mind you. It's taken a little while longer for gamers to accomplish the same feat in MLB 2K11: The game was released on March 8 of this year, but the contest itself didn't start until April 1, and the two YouTube videos in question were posted on April 7 and 8.
The timing is an important distinction, as Michael Manna—otherwise known as professional wrestler Stevie Richards—already uploaded a video to YouTube of the perfect game he threw on the game's release day. But don't assume that throwing a perfect game is just that easy. Not only did he not fall within the correct timeframe to win the prize, but he also allegedly didn't have the game on the correct settings (like All-Star difficulty) to even qualify for the million-dollar award.
Click to continue reading Two entries appear for MLB 2K11’s million-dollar “Perfect Game” challenge
There are many unauthorized biographies of Steve Jobs and even a TV movie (below), but the Apple chief has agreed to team up with Walter Isaacson for an authorized biography that will hit bookstores (and presumably, iBooks) next year.
Simon & Schuster will publish the book, humbly titled "iSteve: The Book of Jobs," in early 2012, the publisher said in a Sunday statement. It will draw from three years of "exclusive and unprecedented" interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs. Isaacson has also interviewed Jobs's family members, colleagues, and Apple competitors.
"This is the perfect match of subject and author, and it is certain to be a landmark book about one of the world's greatest innovators," Jonathan Karp, publisher of Simon & Schuster, said in a statement. "Just as he did with Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson is telling a unique story of revolutionary genius."
The news was first reported by the AP.
Click to continue reading iSteve, official Steve Jobs biography coming in 2012
Mozilla Firefox switched to 18-week dev cycle; Firefox 5 coming June 21
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Software,
No, you aren't crazy, Firefox 4 did just launch a week ago.
Mozilla is borrowing a page from Google Chrome and speeding up the development cycle for Firefox releases, setting new iterations of the browser for fixed time periods and bulldozing over features that just aren't ready to make it into a new browser release.
And if Mozilla sticks by its newly proposed plan, that means that we'll be seeing Firefox 5 on June 21—following a shortened 13-week development cycle instead of the proposed 18-week cycle for all future Firefox builds.
Within this 18-week cycle comes a new development stage that adds on to Mozilla's three previous update channels: Nightly, or builds created from the mozilla-central-repository that are highly unstable, but incorporate the latest texts and fixes; Beta, which ups the quality demands of features and tweaks added via the nightly builds; and Release, which becomes the version of Firefox that most consumers are used to using.
Mozilla's new stage, Aurora, will be a nightly update that splits the difference between the chaos of the company's Mozilla-central build (or Nightly build), and its Beta build.
Click to continue reading Mozilla Firefox switched to 18-week dev cycle; Firefox 5 coming June 21
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