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Verizon Wireless announces unlimited talk and text plans

Mike Crocker — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 11:30:50 +0000

Like we exclusively reported yesterday, Verizon is overhauling most of their voice, text, and family plans. To start things off, there’s an Unlimited Talk rate plan which will run $69.99/month that can also be upgraded to $89.99 to be all inclusive of text, photo, and video messaging, dubbed the Unlimited Talk & Text plan. Continuting the revamp, we have new Family SharePlan plans like $119.99 which will get you unlimited voice, and $149.99 which will include voice as well as unlimited messaging. Those rates apply for the first 2 lines, and each additional line is $49.99. Our other exclusive scoop on Verizon redoing featurephone data plans also turned out to be spot on, as Big Red will now start requiring a $9.99/month 25MB data plan with select “multimedia” handsets. You can look for these new plans to get into effect starting January 18th. Hit the link for the rest of the details!

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Palm Pre Plus, Pixi Plus get official, Verizon Wireless scoop ‘em up

Beth Woodard — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:45:23 +0000

Not exactly the most surprising news, but in short, the Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus got official moments ago, with Verizon Wireless signing on to carry both devices (at a rumored 200,000 initial units each) starting January 25th. Pricing was not announced. In addition to the two refreshed devices, which add more memory, a refined and refreshed look as well as Wi-Fi on the Pixi, Palm also announced some SDK improvements. First off, there’s a new PDK (plug-in development kit) that will allow game developers to start making great 3D games, and starting today, you’ll see games start appearing in the App Catalog from publishers like EA Mobile.

Switching gears, Palm also said that Flash support via a plugin would be appearing shortly in the App Catalog and there are more goodies like video recording (with Apple-stolen) video editing capabilities, and additional sharing functionality. Thoughts?

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Accessory listing suggests Verizon’s Motorola Calgary is near

Aleksandro Imles — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:49:19 +0000

Now that Droid mania’s starting to calm down just a bit, it’s time to turn our attention back to that rumored second model in Verizon’s Android-powered line from Motorola, the so-called Calgary. We don’t have any details on a release window, but whenever accessories show up on an authorized partner’s site that list the unreleased phone by name, that’s usually a promising sign.

And yes, that rule applies no matter how mundane that accessory may be — in this case, a lowly micro-USB cable that this company has the ludicrous idea of selling for 20 bucks. Of course, Instinct HD accessories showed up months before the phone’s release — back when it was known by an entirely different name, in fact — so we wouldn’t necessarily want to get any hopes up for a 2009 drop date just yet.

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Sprint handed customer GPS data to law enforcement over 8 million times last year

Mark C. Taylor — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 04:16:20 +0000

Privacy advocates and career criminals alike are in a lather over reports that between September 2008 and October 2009, Sprint Nextel ponied up customer location data to various law enforcement agencies more than 8 million times. Speaking at ISS World 2009 (a conference for law enforcement and telecom industry-types responsible for “lawful interception, electronic investigations and network Intelligence gathering”), Sprint Nextel’s very own Paul Taylor, Manager of Electronic Surveillance, lamented on the sheer volume of requests the company’s received in the past year for precise GPS data for Sprint customers. How did the company meet such high demand? Apparently, his team built a special “web interface” which “has just really caught on fire with law enforcement.” We’re glad that Sprint’s plans to streamline the customer service experience don’t stop short of those who serve and protect, but as the EFF points out, plenty of nagging questions remain, including: How many individual customers have been affected? Is Sprint demanding search warrants? How secure is this web interface? Check out an excerpt from Taylor’s speech after the break.

Sprint: 50 million customers, 8 million law enforcement GPS requests in 1 year from Christopher Soghoian on Vimeo.

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SoftBank prepping bid for Willcom?

Martin W. Hagerty — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:52:00 +0000

PHS is in a bit of a pickle right now — the niche wireless standard has no path for technological growth, has just a handful of supporting carriers around the world, and frankly, was never intended for wide-area deployment to boot. That leaves Japan’s PHS-powered network, Willcom , in the lurch, which explains why they’ve recently hooked up with HSPA giant NTT DoCoMo to launch modern data devices. Mooching off someone else’s network isn’t a long-term strategy for survival, though, so what’s next?

Reports are flying in Japan today that rival may look at scooping up Willcom’s assets in exchange for its debtors waiving some percentage of its $1 billion in IOUs; what SoftBank would ultimately do with that extra spectrum is unclear, but presumably they’d continue to run PHS for some predetermined period of time before transitioning it to HSPA or LTE. Of course, Willcom has a rep for releasing wild devices that avoid the beaten path set by its larger rivals, so here’s a preliminary word to the wise, SoftBank: if you make this happen, keep the product people on board.

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Lenovo reverses course, buys back mobile handset division for $200 million

Patricia Mangum — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:10:45 +0000

Oh Lenovo, does the Chinese launch of Dell’s smartphone leave you feeling left behind? Are you having a bit of seller’s remorse? In an announcement made recently, Lenovo confirmed that it will buy back the mobile handset division that it spun off in January 2008. The world’s 4th largest PC manufacturer will re-purchase Lenovo Mobile for $200 million in cash and stocks from a group of investors who bought it for $100 million. The mobile division, unprofitable when sold, reaped a profit of 30.4 million yuan ($4.45 million USD) last year and now ranks third in China’s highly lucrative mobile phone market. Lenovo hopes to capitalize upon this success and take advantage of key growth opportunities in China’s mobile Internet market. Welcome back, Lenovo. Too bad it took a $200 million cover charge to get you back into the party. Read

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What Would’ve Happened if Hewlett Packard Built R2-D2 [Image Cache]

Aaron Siegel — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:00:00 +0000

Youch. So that’s what would happen if HP built astromech droids. Can’t say I blame Leia, those error messages make me want to break something, too. Though maybe a lightsaber would’ve looked more dignified than the baseball bat. [ Abstruse Goose ]

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Fleshbot Reviews the Real Touch, a Video-Synchronized Masturbator [Sex]

Aaron Siegel — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:20:00 +0000

The Real Touch is like a Fleshlight that moves on its own, pre-synced with the porn you’re currently watching on your computer. It’s one step closer to simulating having sex with the girl on the screen, but should you buy? That answer is unclear. Fleshbot tests it out and says that although it has its downsides—PC-only, lots of setup and cleanup, plus it’s super expensive—the actual sensation (or sensations, for different orifices) is fantastic. Head over to Fleshbot to see their review. We’ll be covering this as well, from a more technical view to explain how it works, how they get the video synced up and how well it performs as a gadget ; albeit a gadget for your penis. [ Fleshbot ]

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First Intercontinental Jetpack Flight Ends With a Wet Crash Landing [Jetpacks]

Aaron Siegel — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:40:00 +0000

50-year-old Swiss adventurer Yves Rossy (known aliases: Fusionman and Jetman), was forced to abort his first attempt at a jetpack flight from Africa to Europe with a dive into the Mediterranean Sea. I guess the nicknames didn’t come with superpowers. Seems like jetpacks aren’t really the best option for longer distances. But then again, this wasn’t Rossy’s first time attempting a long-distance jetpack flight either, in fact, this 23-mile trip would’ve only been one mile longer than his previous (and successful) flight over the English channel. Big difference, of course was that this one ended in failure despite starting with a jump from a plane. Ah well, I’ll cheer for his next attempt around New Year’s and keep hoping that he’ll wear a cape. [ Telegraph via Dvice ]

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Windows Mobile looks to be getting new native keyboard in 6.5.3

Adam Suggs — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:28:00 +0000

It’s not exactly a wild accusation to say that the current native on-screen keyboard in Windows 6.5 is, well, bad , and it looks like Microsoft has now picked up on what HTC and others have been not-so-subtly hinting at. While’s it’s obviously still not official subject to change, that fresh new keyboard you see above has been turned up in Windows Mobile 6.5 build 28002 by the folks at XDA, and is likely similar to what should eventually hit the public in Windows Mobile 6.5.3. They also say that since the source is in a DLL file, the keyboard is prime for some customization — we’ll take ours with the “o” and “p” in their proper place, thanks.

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