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Iphone

Submission + - Android OS adoption rate surges past competition (informationweek.com)

__aaelyr464 writes: During the six months ending in August, the number of people who bought Android smartphones increased steadily, culminating in 32% buying the devices in August, according to Nielsen. Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone in the last month of the period were at a statistical tie at 26% and 25%, respectively. Of course, overall market penetration shows a different story: looking at the overall share for each OS in the total market, BlackBerry OS still leads with 31%, with iOS in a close second at 28%. However, BlackBerry's market share has decreased from 36% in January, with iOS remaining steady. In that same time period, Android's market share has more than doubled, climbing from 8% to 19%.

Now for the zany predictions: researcher Gartner predicts Symbian and Android to dominate the smartphone market by 2014, taking around 30% of the market share each, with Apple's iOS taking half that. Rival research group IDC paints a similar picture, with Symbian taking the lead at 33%, and Android at 25%.

So I ask you fellow slashdotters: Do you believe these predictions? How will Apple respond to the threat of Android? Will Microsoft actually get back into the smartphone game with Windows 7?

Image

Verizon Charged Marine's Widow an Early Termination Fee 489

In a decision that was reversed as soon as someone with half a brain in their PR department learned about it, Verizon charged a widow a $350 early termination fee. After the death of her marine husband, Michaela Brummund decided to move back to her home town to be with her family. Verizon doesn't offer any coverage in the small town so Michaela tried to cancel her contract, only to be hit with an early termination fee. From the article: "'I called them to cancel. I told them the situation with my husband. I even said I would provide a death certificate,' Michaela said."
Privacy

Federal Judge Limits DHS Laptop Border Searches 359

Declan McCullogh is reporting at CNET that a federal district court judge has rebuked the Department of Homeland Security, "which had claimed it can seize a traveler's laptop and search it six months later without warrant." As described in the article, DHS policies have been stacked against travelers entering the US, including citizens returning from abroad: "There's no requirement that they be returned to their owners after even six months or a year has passed, though supervisory approval is required if they're held for more than 15 days. The complete contents of a hard drive or memory card can be perused at length for evidence of lawbreaking of any kind, even if it's underpaying taxes or not paying parking tickets." This ruling does not address immediate searches at the border, but says that DHS cannot hold computers for indefinite searching, as in the case to hand, concerning a US citizen returning from a trip to Korea, whose laptop was seized and held for months before a search was even conducted on it.
Displays

For Normals, Jobs' "Retina Display" Claim May Be Fair After All 386

The Bad Astronomer writes "AT WWDC, Steve Jobs claimed that the iPhone 4's display has about the same resolution as the human eye — held at one foot away, the iPhone 4's pixels are too small to see. After reading an earlier Slashdot post about an expert disputing Jobs' claim, I decided to run the numbers myself. I found that Jobs is correct for people with normal vision, and the expert was using numbers for theoretically perfect vision. So to most people, the iPhone 4 display will look unpixellated."

Submission + - Hopes For Non-AT&T iPhone Get Disconnected (cnn.com) 1

GeekZilla writes: In court documents filed in a California court reveal that AT&T has iPhone exclusivity until 2012.

"It was speculative before given the lack of independent confirmation, but now apparently Apple has gone on record to confirm that the original deal signed with AT&T for iPhone exclusivity back in 2007 was a five-year deal."

Endgadget also has the story.

OS X

Submission + - Steam and Portal avail on Mac on May the 12th (steampowered.com)

sebvajda writes: The official press release is out, starting tomorrow May the 12th, 2010, the Steam platform will be available for download on Mac OS/X.
The fist game that will have native port will be Valve's Portal and Runic Games' Torchlight.
In addition, the native OS/X port of the Source engine is made available to licensees as well as the Steamworks development and publishing tools.

Submission + - Hidden Digital Recorder Reveals NYPD Manipulating

mliu writes: The New York Police Dept has long denied the existence of quotas in arrests. However, as making a recording in NY only requires a single party's consent, a Brooklyn cop carried a digital voice recorder with him and surreptitiously recorded his superior and fellow cops as he went about his job. The recordings reveal that in addition to quotas backed by threat of discipline, the cops also were pressured to suppress attempts to report crimes in order to make crime statistics appear more favorable for the department and the mayor. As the article describes, this perfectly dovetails a survey released earlier this year wherein retired NYPD supervisors described "intense pressure" to show declines in crime by manipulating statistics. After his whistle blowing, his commander had him forcibly committed to a mental ward.
Games

Submission + - Infinity Ward Working on Call of Duty-related Game (g4tv.com)

Scoop Snookems writes: Activision confirmed that Infinity Ward will be working on another Call of Duty title due in the future. Whether or not that is Modern Warfare 3 is unknown. The information came to light during a conference call where Activision CEO Bobby Kotick shared plans on their upcoming games for 2010/2011 as well as reading a statement about the situation at Infinity Ward.

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I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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