Reuters is reporting that the US House has passed a bill that would allow mobile phone users to unlock their devices and use them on competitors' wireless networks without repercussions, making the once 'gray-area' practice completely legal.
Before you get too excited, however, there are a few big asterisks. First, for the bill to be written into law it must also be approved by the Senate, which could take years or never happen. And two, the bill contains an exclusion for 'bulk unlocking.'
Both Apple and Google are believed to be working on wearable devices right now with plans to release them before the end of the year. And while we've seen zero physical evidence of Apple's iWatch project, some photos of an alleged Google smartwatch prototype just surfaced.
Android Police has posted photos of what appears to be a Motorola-branded smartwatch in an early development stage. The site says the device would have debuted with the "Google Watch" moniker as part of the Nexus family, but believes Google chose to go a different route...
Apple filed the necessary papers yesterday afternoon to appeal the the 'guilty' verdict from its e-book antitrust case last summer. The company told a federal appeals court in New York that the decision was a "radical departure" from modern antitrust law.
For those that missed it, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote found Apple guilty of colluding with major book publishers to manipulate the prices of e-books. As a result, the iPad-maker faces 100s of millions of dollars and fines and other repercussions...
The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) has just released a new app for iOS devices called FCC Speed Test. As the name suggests, the app is designed to measure data speeds for both cellular and Wi-Fi connections.
The app is part of the FCC's Measuring Broadband America program initiative, which aims to better inform consumers about mobile broadband performance, and it measures download/upload speed, latency and packet loss...
Spin is a just-released jailbreak tweak that adds a new look and feel to the Lock screen music controls and interface. Once you install the tweak, you'll need to head over to the stock Settings app to enable it and respring.
Whenever you play music and go to the Lock screen, you should notice a new remixed music interface. Check out our video walkthrough inside for a deeper look at Spin.
As puzzle games go, the flatter they are, the simpler they are. What I mean by that is, most minimalistic puzzle games are usually fairly simple and don’t require more effort than a bit of logical thinking. They are not traditionally multi-step and don’t usually make your brain turn to mush on the first go.
Perloo is a minimalistic puzzle game that defies logic and reasoning while providing an entertaining series of brainteasers that will keep you on your toes (or, should I say, fingertips)…
Following T-Mobile's lead, AT&T announced today that it is adding unlimited international text messaging to all of its Mobile Share and Mobile Share Value plans. The free package will allow subscribers to send text and multimedia messages from the US to over 100 countries.
Additionally, the carrier introduced a new World Connect Value package for international calling. With it, post-paid AT&T customers can make one cent -per minute calls from the US to more than 35 countries, including Canada, Mexico and the Virgin Islands, for $5 per month...
Imagination Technologies, the fabless British semiconductor maker, yesterday at Mobile World Congress detailed its new PowerVR graphics which outperforms Nvidia's Tegra K1 platform and is a likely candidate for the next iPhone's GPU. And now, another premium silicon vendor has announced a chip that could just as easily find its way into future iOS devices.
I'm talking about Broadcom, whose Wi-Fi chips and other controller components are used in the iPhone 5s and iPad lineup. The Irvine, California based firm announced at Mobile World Congress a new fifth-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi component which doubles data throughput and increases Wi-Fi coverage by up to 30 percent.
Should Apple choose to tap it, the iPhone 6 and the next iPad will adopt Gigabit Wi-Fi aka 802.11ac, the latest and greatest standard in wireless networking for the consumer market...
Although Apple wasn't an exhibitor at this year's Mobile World Congress - currently underway in Barcelona, Spain - its iPad Air has managed to snag the award for the show's Best Mobile Tablet. The annual Global Mobile Awards and Mobile World Congress are both organized by the same party, the GSM Association.
A panel of judges has determined in their ruling that Apple's latest full-size iPad packs "class-leading performance in an attractive and svelte frame", a nice recognition of Jony Ive's design and the iPad Air's speedy A7 chip.
More importantly, the judges singled out Apple's tightly integrated ecosystem as a prime reason why the iPad Air has "an undisputed advantage in the number of format-optimized apps"...
IMDb (abbreviated from Internet Movie Database) is my go-to source for information related to films, television programs and video games. The service is reliable and accurate so I can safely rely on their data.
The Amazon-owned company (they bought IMDb outright in 1998 and attached it to Amazon.com as a subsidiary, private company) has a pretty nice iPhone and iPad application, available free in the App Store.
We haven't seen a major update since last December's refresh brought out iOS 7-friendly look, plus a brand new Road to the Oscars section, among other features. Today, IMDb got bumped to version 4.1. This new edition of the software sports a few cosmetic changes, but that's not what captured my imagination.
My interest was piqued by a cool design choice which makes it possible to use both left and right swiping to navigate through the app. Can we have this in all iOS 7 apps, please?
Since Facebook announced last week that it would be acquiring WhatsApp for $16+ billion, pundits have been trying to make sense of the deal. How can a messaging app startup be worth so much more than say, Motorola Mobility, which has thousands of employees?
According to Mark Zuckerberg, it's not. It's worth more. Speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona yesterday, the CEO said that WhatsApp was a 'great fit' for his company and that it was worth more than the $19B ($16B + $3B in vested shares) they paid for it...
After asking the United States Supreme Court to approve of stiffer penalties for patent trolls who bring frivolous lawsuits against them, Apple and Samsung - along with seventeen other technology companies - have joined forces and issued a letter to the European Union asking for limits on injunctions in patent infringement cases.
As reported by Bloomberg, the companies are asking EU judges to curb patent trolls and introduce anti-trolling changes into Unified Patent Court and the upcoming European Unitary Patent system...