Verizon has announced, for immediate availability, the UM150 USB modem. The modem will allow mobile broadband access, with support for Mac OS X and Windows (Vista, XP and 2000). The download speeds will hit a maximum of 600kbps-1.4mbps, with upload speeds ranging from 500kbps-800kbp and the connection will rely on Verizon’s EVDO Rev. A network. More »
I met the head of a faceless corporation today, a little company known as AT&T. You may or may not recognise the name Randall Stephenson. I didn’t know it before a few months ago. He’s the CEO. When a PR rep for AT&T offered me a few minutes with the guy, about 10 or 15 of them, to be exact, I decided to spend the time finding out more about the man than his corporate policies, obviously rehearsed and bottled and available with any sort of lit search. What kind of man does it take to run the Death Star?
The iPhone’s Installer.app has been updated to 3.0, and features a much better organizational system than the previous “everything listed in a flat list that takes forever to scroll through”. Not only are there sections now, you can “Update All”, and the packaging backend is improved as well. You can’t install this directly on your phone, but instead you have to install the older version, then update via installer itself. If you have 1.1.1, you’ll have to jailbreak first, then transfer it on manually. However, it does detect what firmware version you’re running and only displays the apps that run fine on yours. [Installer via PSMXY] More »
Pre-4G WiMax is now officially certified as 3G by the UN’s International Telecommunication Union, making it the sixth 3G standard. To cut through the alphabet soup (sort of), the ITU stamp means WiMax can use airwaves designated for 3G, which changes the game in terms of 3G/WiMax competition—to what extent remains to be seen, obviously. Moreover, it should bring a healthy dose of development and investment to the WiMax scene globally, so there’s a pretty big grin streaking the face of WiMax Forum members right now. For us, it means broader deployment and (hopefully) cheaper prices. [PC World, Yahoo!/AP] More »
Of all the crazy thing’s Thanko’s come up with, this USB charger bracelet’s probably the least crazy. Instead of having a separate charger that you have to keep close to a PSP, DS Lite or a cellphone by putting both onto a table, this wrist charger lets you wear the power on your person and play/talk like you normally would. It charges from USB in approximately 4 hours and gives 22.5-28.5 hours on the DS Lite (lowest brightness) and 3.5-4.5 hours on the PSP. [Thanko] More »
To the delight of Nigerian spammers everywhere, Western Union and the GSM Assocation are cooking up a global money transfer service that’ll let you to send “small money amounts” to your mum or some other soul in need of funds halfway around the world via cellphone. Of the world’s 700+ GSM carriers, 35 are expected to hop aboard, with the first trials starting Q2 2008. Western Union will be hooking the new mobile system up with its extant one, which should be a boon for frequent transferers. The closest thing I’ve actually used to a money transfer service is PayPal, so I’m kind of curious: Do you guys still wire money, or has PayPal/debit cut down on it? [TG Daily, Flickr] More »
The original story’s been pulled, but pocketinfo.nl had an interesting rumour about a possible Windows Mobile 6.1 coming next February at 3GSM. The supposed new features are a “carousel” UI where you scroll left and right for features, as well as other small fixes. There shouldn’t be anything spectacular in a point release, and any mindblowing changes to Windows Mobile will be coming in Windows Mobile 7 sometime possibly late next year. In any case, file this under interesting rumor. [Pocketinfo via WMExperts] More »
Oh, Canada. You already tax MP3 players and blank CDs. Now you want to tax downloads themselves? The Copyright Board of Canada has given the thumbs-up to a tax of at least 2.1 cents for individual tracks and 1.5 cents per track for whole album purchases from online stores. Even subscription services will have taxes tacked on—5.7 to 6.8 percent of the monthly fee. Better still, the tax would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 1996.
The rationale proffered by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada is that it’ll help replenish artists’ wallets raided by piracy and that “the right to copy a song from an online store demands the same sort of levy applied to copying a retail CD,” according to Electronista. (Our eyes started bleeding halfway through the PDF.) Making legal downloads more expensive probably isn’t going to boost sales—pissing people off with more taxes might even drive them right to The Pirate Bay, where artists will get zero compensation.
What would you guys do if your iTunes purchases started being taxed tomorrow? [Electronista] More »
Losing your remote is a daily occurrence, but with this orbit remote from Chloe Fung, you’ll have to lose your arm to misplace this. The remote, worn as a bracelet, has the buttons placed around the edge so you can rotate it to find what you want to do. Interesting design, yes, but ultimately pretty useless when compared with a real remote. It does remind us of playing pranks on the classroom TV with a TV remote wristwatch when we were in school, though. Fun times. [Yanko Design] More »
