T-Mobile Expands 4G Network
T-Mobile is doubling the speed of its 4G network in 56 additional markets. With this announcement, T-Mobile's 4G network will be available to more than 170 million people in 152 markets. In addition to a faster network in select locations on compatible devices, T-Mobile is also increasing its network capacity and reliability.
Not long ago, T-Mobile introduces its first HSPA+ 42-capable device, the T-Mobile Rocket 3.0 laptop stick. With the T-Mobile Rocket 3.0, users can enjoy average download speeds of about 10 Mbps, with peak speeds of 27 Mbps when connected in a HSPA+ 42 coverage area. T-Mobile plans to launch its first HSPA+ 42 smartphone later this year.
In addition to T-Mobile customers experiencing speeds twice as fast as T-Mobile’s current 4G network on compatible devices, customers also will enjoy increased network capacity and reliability. Offering a compelling 4G experience across a broad lineup of devices, America’s Largest 4G Network™ allows customers to stay connected in new and innovative ways in more places than ever before. From downloading files to streaming video or surfing the latest social networking sites, T-Mobile’s faster network provides a richer-than-ever mobile data experience, with anytime high-speed access to the data and information customers need and desire.
“America’s Largest 4G Network is now faster than ever and continues to deliver a fast and reliable broadband experience in more places than any other carrier,” said Neville Ray, chief technology officer, T-Mobile USA. “Video streaming on T-Mobile’s network has more than tripled over the last year, and consumer demand for access to rich mobile content from anywhere continues to grow. T-Mobile is now supplying more than 170 million Americans with lightning-fast HSPA+ 42 speeds to feed that explosive demand.”
T-Mobile’s portfolio of 4G products gives customers ultra-fast access to the content they want at home or on the go. The company recently introduced the T-Mobile Rocket™ 3.0 laptop stick, its first HSPA+ 42-capable device, offering average download speeds on its HSPA+ 42 network approaching 10 Mbps, with peak speeds of 27 Mbps. T-Mobile also continues to expand its 4G device lineup with innovative 4G handsets such as the new HTC Sensation™ 4G and the upcoming T-Mobile myTouch® 4G Slide. In the last year, T-Mobile has launched more than a dozen 4G-capable smartphones, tablets and mobile broadband products, and the company expects to launch its first HSPA+ 42 smartphone later this year.
T-Mobile 4G markets where 42Mbps service is launching today:
Allentown, Pa.; Anderson, S.C.; Asheville, N.C.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Baltimore, Md.; Barnstable, Mass.; Bellingham, Wash.; Bloomington, Ind.; Boise, Idaho; Boston, Mass.; Bremerton, Wash.; Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn.; Brunswick, Ga.; Carson City, Nev.; Charlotte, N.C.; Charlottesville, Va.; Chico, Calif.; Coeur d’Alene, Idaho; Eugene, Ore.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; Flint, Mich.; Greensboro, N.C.; Greenville, S.C.; Harrisburg, Pa.; Hartford, Conn.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Lafayette, Ind.; Lancaster, Pa.; Laredo, Texas; Lynchburg, Va.; Manchester, N.H.; Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn.; New Haven, Conn.; Ogden, Utah; Providence; R.I.; Provo, Utah; Raleigh-Cary, N.C.; Redding, Calif.; Reno-Sparks, Nev.; Richmond, Va.; Roanoke, Va.; Rockford, Ill.; Salem, Ore.; Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; Spartanburg, S.C.; State College, Pa.; Tallahassee, Fla.; Terre Haute, Ind.; Tucson, Ariz.; Washington, D.C.; Wichita Falls, Texas; Winchester, Va.; Winston-Salem, N.C.; Worcester, Mass.; and York, Pa.
*T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G network, including increased speeds, is not available everywhere. See coverage details at T-Mobile.com.
Toshiba's New Fab5 Memories Plant Opens Up In Japan
Memory: can we really ever have enough of it? It's doubtful, and that's why innovative approaches to ReRAM and NAND are making the rounds this week. Toshiba has just announced that they have completed the construction of their Fab5, a new manufacturing wing for NAND flash memories. The plant is located at their Yokkaichi facility in Japan, and operations are functional as of now. The company considers this place their most advanced NAND plant yet, where they'll also product 3D NAND memories defined as "post-NAND flash memory."
The company's planning to make extra investments depending on market trends, and a "second-term" clean room should get going in 2012/2014. Hard to say what kind of immediate impact this will have on your gadgets, but rest assured: more memories, and smaller memories, are a good thing.
BlackBerry App World Surpasses 1 Billion Downloads
When you think about apps on phones, you probably think first about Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market. But there's a few other major players. HP has the webOS marketplace, and RIM has the BlackBerry App World. And while RIM's taking a beating lately, that doesn't mean that they're lacking for users. The company just announced that App World 3.0 beta is "coming soon," and there's also some celebrating to do: they just passed their one billionth download!
It's available in over 100 countries, with an average of 3 million downloads per day. Of course, having the PlayBook out definitely helps as well. So, have you contributed to the count? Mind you, this isn't nearly as many apps as Android or Apple has out, but it definitely took even those a good while to hit this mark.
RIM Job Cuts Coming, Company Under Fire
About two weeks ago, BGR.com published a letter allegedly written by a Research In Motion (RIM) executive criticizing the current state of the company and asking the dual CEO team of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis to consider how the company has gotten into the jam it's in, (it announced job cuts last month) and what strategies will best repair the damage. Since then, a number of other employees have come forward. Today, at its annual shareholder meeting, the level expressed concern ratched up several notches, with shareholders variously questioning nearly every aspect of the company's execution strategy.
RIM's market share has fallen significantly in the past three months, from nearly 29 percent to 24.7 percent and the company is no longer seen as the leader it once was. Perhaps most ominious, however, are the rumors of significant structural defects baked in to the company itself, from its approach to product development to internal transfer policies. Reuters had additional information on the meeting today:
"You're letting Apple and Android eat your lunch," one unhappy investor said, referring to the iPhone maker and Google's software, which a number of device makers use. "You're an innovator, but you're not good at selling what you make."
A follow-up article at BGR details some of the issues plaguing the once red-hot company. From that story: “One of the main reasons RIM missed the mark with the browser was because they were always proud of how little data usage a user would use,” a former executive said.
"RIM would be proud of the fact that someone would only use 1MB of data in a month in 2005, and as a result, there wasn’t ever any extensive R&D done within the browser space. Over time, that misstep affected BlackBerry tremendously as competing devices began to deliver desktop-like Web experiences. “Mike Lazaridis couldn’t imagine that consumers would be spending hours watching and streaming video to their devices, he couldn’t understand it,” the former exec continued. This is why we don’t see RIM excelling in spaces like camera technology, or displays — because the company never even attempted to anticipate the smartphone trends we’re seeing today."
Shareholders and critics alike are concerned that RIM's carrier-centric approach to the industry and apparent inability to understand the wants and needs of its customers could make it extremely difficult to reverse BlackBerry's fortunes as compared to Android or Apple. The company withstood calls to abolish its co-CEO / co-chairman method of governance (though promised to create a yearlong committee to study the issue). Some were disappointed with the company's decision not to show more of the upcoming BlackBerry models it claims to have on tap, but there's good reason to ask if this is a problem that can be addressed with anything so simple as a product refresh.
If standing criticism is accurate, RIM's current problems have been created not by an inherent lack of capable platforms, but by the company's inability to leverage those platforms. As important as new devices are, they may not address the real problem in this case.
WiFi Hacking Earns Crazed Neighbor 18 Years In Jail
A federal court handed Barry Ardolf, a Minnesota resident initially accused of sending threatening emails to Vice President Joe Biden, a nearly twenty year prison sentence today based on multiple additional charges of identity theft, trafficking in child pornography, and generally being the kind of psychotic neighbor that only exists in horror films.
In August 2008, Matt and Bethany Kostolnik moved in next door to Ardolf. The next day, their four-year-old son ran next door while in sight of the mother, who was occupied briefly with her 18 month-old child. Ardolf, who was also outside, brought the child home but allegedly kissed him on the lips while doing so. The Kostolnik's reported the incident to the police. Their neighbor, enraged by the incident, decided to get even in spectacular fashion.*
Ardolf hacked the Kostolnik's WEP-secured wireless network, created email accounts purportedly attached to Matt Kostolnik's person, and sent inappropriate emails to the man's co-workers knowing the missives would be traced back his neighbor's ISP. One of the emails contained pornographic images of minors Ardolf claimed were Matt's own children.
Not content to keep things private, Ardolf created a MySpace profile under Kostolnik's name, uploaded the same images to it, and edited the 'About Me' section to include the following:
I bet my coworker that since I’m a lawyer and a darn great one that I could get away with putting up porn on my site here. I bet that all I have to do is say that there is plausible deniability since anybody could have put this on my site. Like someone hacked my page and added porn without my knowledge. This is reasonable doubt. I’m a darn good lawyer and I can get away with doing anything!
Other various activities included an attempt to convince Kostolnik's boss that he'd sexually harassed a woman, tire slashing, and the threat against Joe Biden's life that put Ardolf on the Secret Service's radar. Partial text of that enchanting letter included: "This is a terrorist threat! Take this seriously. I hate the way you people are spending money you don’t have.. I’m assigning myself to be judge[,] jury and executioner. Since you folks have spent what you don’t have[,] it’s time to pay the ultimate price. Time for new officials after you all are put to death by us."
The most amazing aspect of the entire case is Ardolf's decision to reject the aforementioned plea agreement that would've seen him cop to the Biden threat in exchange for a two year sentence. Now the man, who justifies his actions based on feeling 'victimized', will have the next decade and a half or so to deal with those feelings in an environment where he can't ruin anyone else's life.
On a practical note, Ardolf's actions are precisely why anyone with an online presence in this day and age should engage in a bit of judicial self-monitoring. We're scarcely advocating that anyone sign up for the dubious reputation-protection services that now exist, but a bit of personal Googling is a necessity.
*- When the police executed their warrant, they found evidence that Barry had perpetrated similar acts against previous neighbors. Other events triggering his rage included a home health care attendant parking across from his house. Once.
Future PS3's Will Require HDMI For HD Video
Sony will release a new PS3 SKU in the near future, but the upcoming console revision will remove a current feature. According to a leaked (but confirmed) memo, the new "K" series PS3 will no longer output Blu-ray HD video over anything but HDMI. All previous PS3 consoles have been capable of outputting all 1080P content over component out.
Sony, meanwhile, is going out of its way to stress that this new SKU brings the PS3 into AACS compliance without impacting the function of other PS3 systems. There will be no firmware update to remove the ability of previous-generation PS3 consoles to display Blu-ray via component out, and Blu-ray output will be the only thing affected. The new "K"-series console will still be capable of displaying games, streaming content, and downloaded material at HD levels.
The problem here is that there are plenty of HDTVs in service and on the market with a limited number of HDMI ports. The standard has been widely adopted across a range of home electronics, such that there's quite a bit of competition for what, on some displays, is just a single jack. Owners of such displays are in no immediate trouble, but may have to watch future purchases carefully--and run the risk of ending up with an incompatible PS3 in the event they require warranty service.
More generally, this continues Sony's years-long trend of removing features that the PlayStation 3 once offered as standard. The current high-end model offers more than 5x the storage of the original PS3, but just half the USB ports, no OtherOS support, no backwards compatibility, no flash reader, and now, no component out support for Blu-ray playback. Sony has justified all of these changes at one point or another, but they remain the only company whose current generation hardware offers fewer options than five year-old models. -->
According to Sony, the new SKU has been released in response to the finalization of the AACS standard. AACS is the content protection system that governs Blu-ray Disc. The finalized standard limits analog output resolution as follows: All new players sold after December 31, 2010 "must limit analog video output of BD content to interlaced standard definition (480i/576i). Then, 2013 is the expiration date for analog video: no player that passes "Decrypted AACS Content" to analog video outputs may be manufactured or sold after December 31, 2013," says Blu-ray.com."
Blu-ray, therefore, will become the first video standard to decisively close the 'analog hole' and prohibit analog output, period. The existing AACS standard allows companies to release content that can only be played back on HDCP-supported digital players immediately, but notes that use of the restriction is expected to be limited--at least, for the time being. If there's an upside, it's that Mandatory Managed Copy also made it into the final definition. MMC states that consumers must be able to make a copy of the disc for use in a home theater system or a digital player. Use of said copy can still be restricted, but its existence is mandatory.
Sony, meanwhile, is going out of its way to stress that this new SKU brings the PS3 into AACS compliance without impacting the function of other PS3 systems. There will be no firmware update to remove the ability of previous-generation PS3 consoles to display Blu-ray via component out, and Blu-ray output will be the only thing affected. The new "K"-series console will still be capable of displaying games, streaming content, and downloaded material at HD levels.
The problem here is that there are plenty of HDTVs in service and on the market with a limited number of HDMI ports. The standard has been widely adopted across a range of home electronics, such that there's quite a bit of competition for what, on some displays, is just a single jack. Owners of such displays are in no immediate trouble, but may have to watch future purchases carefully--and run the risk of ending up with an incompatible PS3 in the event they require warranty service.
More generally, this continues Sony's years-long trend of removing features that the PlayStation 3 once offered as standard. The current high-end model offers more than 5x the storage of the original PS3, but just half the USB ports, no OtherOS support, no backwards compatibility, no flash reader, and now, no component out support for Blu-ray playback. Sony has justified all of these changes at one point or another, but they remain the only company whose current
According to Sony, the new SKU has been released in response to the finalization of the AACS standard. AACS is the content protection system that governs Blu-ray Disc. The finalized standard limits analog output resolution as follows: All new players sold after December 31, 2010 "must limit analog video output of BD content to interlaced standard definition (480i/576i). Then, 2013 is the expiration date for analog video: no player that passes "Decrypted AACS Content" to analog video outputs may be manufactured or sold after December 31, 2013," says Blu-ray.com."
Blu-ray, therefore, will become the first video standard to decisively close the 'analog hole' and prohibit analog output, period. The existing AACS standard allows companies to release content that can only be played back on HDCP-supported digital players immediately, but notes that use of the restriction is expected to be limited--at least, for the time being. If there's an upside, it's that Mandatory Managed Copy also made it into the final definition. MMC states that consumers must be able to make a copy of the disc for use in a home theater system or a digital player. Use of said copy can still be restricted, but its existence is mandatory.
Sony, meanwhile, is going out of its way to stress that this new SKU brings the PS3 into AACS compliance without impacting the function of other PS3 systems. There will be no firmware update to remove the ability of previous-generation PS3 consoles to display Blu-ray via component out, and Blu-ray output will be the only thing affected. The new "K"-series console will still be capable of displaying games, streaming content, and downloaded material at HD levels.
The problem here is that there are plenty of HDTVs in service and on the market with a limited number of HDMI ports. The standard has been widely adopted across a range of home electronics, such that there's quite a bit of competition for what, on some displays, is just a single jack. Owners of such displays are in no immediate trouble, but may have to watch future purchases carefully--and run the risk of ending up with an incompatible PS3 in the event they require warranty service.
More generally, this continues Sony's years-long trend of removing features that the PlayStation 3 once offered as standard. The current high-end model offers more than 5x the storage of the original PS3, but just half the USB ports, no OtherOS support, no backwards compatibility, no flash reader, and now, no component out support for Blu-ray playback. Sony has justified all of these changes at one point or another, but they remain the only company whose current
LinkedIn Shoves Past MySpace as No. 2 Social Network in the U.S.
The sexiest social network on the block right now has got to be Google+, and you probably spent the last several days either trying to secure an invite, or tossing friends and family into Circles. Facebook is still the most popular social hangout, and MySpace recently made headlines for changing hands for a much lower price than News Corp. originally paid for it. But why isn't anyone talking about LinkedIn?
Perhaps they should be. According to new data from comScore, LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique U.S. visitors in June, an increase of around 500,000 from one month prior. That was enough for LinkedIn to leapfrog MySpace and become the second most popular social hangout on the Web in the U.S.
If there's a silver lining here for MySpace, it's that the social network has around 130 million active users, which is 15 million more than LinkedIn. Still. MySpace's monthly unique visitors in the U.S. dropped to less than 33.5 million in June, down from about 35 million a month prior.
Facebook is the still the king, of course (at least until everyone flocks to Google+), and attracted 160.8 million unique visitors in June, which is more than double that of LinkedIn and MySpace combined.
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