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Comment Carriers listen up! (Score 1) 386

by ForestGrump (#25144505) Attached to: Mobile Phone Users Struggle With Hardware Adoption

Carriers listen up! What this means is 50-90% of your paying customers don't care about this "free after 2 year contract" camera phonethat does everything from (mobile intarweb, SMS, MMS, musictones, and roadside assistance).

No, these are crap features that I will NEVER be used by 50-90% of your subscriber base because:
1. The general public that is over 31.4 years of age doesn't care about such frivolous crap.
2. You charge way too much for these services.

Just stop it and go back to being the phone company interested in selling me a phone call without all these additional "fees".

Thank you,
Grump
Google

Submission + - Google's Street View meets resistance in France (thestandard.com)

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "Google has begun to scan the streets of Paris as part of its Street View service, but the company may be hindered from publishing them unedited. The reason? French privacy laws:

... In France, citizens have a "droit à l'image," the right to their own image: pictures identifying them as they go about their private business may not be published without their permission. That could put the brakes on Google's deployment of Street View in France, unless the camera-cars are accompanied by an army of clipboard-wielding legal assistants asking bystanders to sign release forms as they sip their coffee.
The article says Google may be forced to blur faces or use low-resolution versions of the photographs. The Embassy of France in the U.S. has a page devoted to French privacy laws, that says the laws are needed to "avoid infringing the individual's right to privacy and right to his or her picture (photograph or drawing), both of them rights of personality.""
Space

Submission + - New coms satellite abandoned due to orbital patent (space-travel.com)

Submitted by EreIamJH
EreIamJH writes: AMC-14, a commercial geostationary satellite launched last month, failed to reach its intended orbit. The owner wanted to shunt the satellite into a useful orbit by slingshoting it around the moon, but the plan (and the new satellite) was abandoned when Boeing claimed that it had a patent on that orbital manoeuvre.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - In-home wireless vs. mobile broadband

Submitted by
mklickman
mklickman writes: "I've been hearing more and more about mobile wireless broadband offered by the big wireless phone providers, and for the first time came to ask myself a very interesting question. Since my wife and I both have laptops, and we're out a lot (she's a photographer and I'm a graphic design student) would it be wise and/or worth it to do away with the standard cable-internet-plus-modem-plus-router setup and switch over to mobile-broadband-PC-card-only mode, a la AT&T or Sprint? I've looked into pricing and stuff a bit, and I'm not really concerned about the cost of the PC cards themselves; they're not much more expensive than a decent router. Also, the cost of the wireless service per month is only (roughly) ten dollars more than my current ISP is charging me. Is it a good idea?"
Portables

Submission + - HTC refuses to fix defective, misadvertised device (engadgetmobile.com) 6

Submitted by Shadow7789
Shadow7789 writes: After months of complaints by customers, claiming poor video performance on a plethora of recent devices (which were advertised as multimedia devices), HTC has decided to announce that it will not be providing fixes for the affected devices, instead claiming that the "overall value of its devices based on their combination of functionality and connectivity exceeds their ability to play or render high-resolution video."
Handhelds

Submission + - Driver issues plague HTC handhelds (htcclassaction.org)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The latest and greatest HTC SmartPhones and PocketPC's, including the TyTN II, are plagued with driver issues, namely missing or grossly underperforming video, touchscreen and camera drivers. After months of complaining to HTC and them hardly even acknowledging the issue, there is now even talk of a possible lawsuit to get HTC to fix the problems.

Affected devices include the "PDA of the year" HTC TyTN II (Kaiser, AT&T Tilt, T-Mobile MDA Vario III, Vodafone v1615), the "iPhone killers" HTC Touch / Touch Dual / Touch Cruise, the HTC Titan (Sprint Mogul, Verizon XV6800) and several other less known devices.
Graphics

Submission + - HTC TyTN II PDA Phone lacks video performance 3

Submitted by
Anton Nilsson
Anton Nilsson writes: "Taiwaneese PDA giant HTC released their latest flagship PDA phone called HTC TyTN II (also known as Kaiser, Tilt and MDA Vario III) but recent discoveries show that maybe it's not so much a powerhouse after all. Due to lack of proper driver support for the video part of the Qualcomm MSM7200 chipset users are left with a seriously handicapped unit with very poor support for gaming, video and photo. Granted, the phone is mostly intended for business users who will rarely see the effects of these issues but it's still leaving thousands of customers who want to fully utilize the phone with a slightly bitter taste in their mouths.

A petition for driver support has been posted and almost 4000 people have signed it. It has been sent to HTC on numerous occasions yet when contacted HTC still claims to be unaware of any such issues.

You can check out the petition here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/tytn2vid/

Potential buyers of this much hyped set beware until these issues are resolved."

Macrovision Responds to Steve Jobs on DRM 221

Posted by Zonk from the thinking-out-loud dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Macrovision Corporation, best known for its long history of DRM implementations, (everything from VCRs to software copy protection), has responded to Steve Jobs open letter regarding DRM. With ample experience and despite the obvious vested interests, it's great to hear their point of view. In the letter they acknowledge the 'difficult challenges' of implementing DRM that is truly 'interoperable and open'. At the same time they also feel that DRM 'will increase electronic distribution', if implemented properly, because 'DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership, and lowering risks for content producers. While I'm impressed they responded, I can't say I'm impressed by lofty goals that might not be reached for years. The reality is, current DRM implementations often leave users with the bad end of the deal. What do you think? Should people give DRM manufacturers more time to overcome the challenges and get it right?"
Music

Submission + - Free, legal music for college students

Submitted by
theundergroundjazzman
theundergroundjazzman writes: "A former Napster executive intends to set up a new music provider in a bid to challenge iTunes: "Mike Bebel has a plan for inducing young people to pay for downloaded music: Give them all the songs they want for free while they're still in college, then start charging them a fee when they're out of school and gainfully employed...""
Google

Submission + - Google Responds to criticism - by deleting it

Submitted by Matt423
Matt423 writes: Information week reports about changes to Google Groups: Google Groups users, however, detest the changes, at least those who have gone to the effort of posting. While there's probably a silent majority that ranges from neutral to enthusiastic about the new interface and features, the users posting their opinions online have few nice things to say. A person posting as "Matty F" wrote, "This new version of Google Groups is almost completely unusable. Can we have the old one back please?" Such sentiment reflects a common theme among the disgruntled users. Another poster identifying himself as "Rich Jordan" wrote, "I'll have to add my dismay over this change. The new interface is ugly and slow compared to the previous one, and much, much less intuitive." "The new interface is really awful," a person with the user name Gabriele complained. Google apparently rushed into action today and apparently deleted or scattered hundred of posts that were critical including one thread that had almost 100 posts. http://www.informationweek.com/industries/showArti cle.jhtml?articleID=197000377 http://groups.google.com/group/Google%20Groups-Bas ics/browse_thread/thread/12b929f18ed762a7
Google

Submission + - GoogleTV LEAKED?

Submitted by Greg Denton
Greg Denton writes: I found this video, which features somebody accessing GoogleTV. It looks like an on-demand television service from Google which is surprising given their recent press-statement positioning of YouTube, but I guess they're going after NewsCorp. Exciting! GoogleTV Beta Video on YouTube
Power

Running Your Electric Meter Backwards 526

Posted by kdawson from the power-to-the-peeps dept.
kog777 writes to note a story in International Business Times about "net metering," or generating your own power without disconnecting from the grid. Forty states have laws allowing individuals to do this, and many of them offer subsidies and tax breaks for people who do. From the article: "When the sun shines bright on their home in New York's Hudson Valley, John and Anna Bagnall live out a homeowner's fantasy. Their electricity meter runs backward. Solar panels on their barn roof can often provide enough for all their electricity needs. Sometimes — and this is the best part — their solar setup actually pushes power back into the system."
Power

MIT-Led Study Says Geothermal Energy Is Viable 291

Posted by kdawson from the hot-rocks dept.
amigoro writes to tell us about a study for the US Department of Energy, led by MIT, indicating that geothermal energy could account for 10% of energy production in the US by 2050. The study concludes that geothermal is proven, could impose markedly lower environmental impacts than fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants, and is likely to be cost-competitive with the alternatives. This coverage in LiveScience points out how big a player geothermal already is in the US: "The United States is the world's biggest producer of geothermal energy. Nafi Toksöz, a geophysicist at MIT, noted that the electricity produced annually by geothermal plants now in use in California, Hawaii, Utah, and Nevada is comparable to that produced by solar and wind power combined."
United States

FCC Nixes Satellite Radio Merger 277

Posted by kdawson from the Howard-meet-Oprah dept.
a_nonamiss writes "Doesn't look like Sirius and XM are going to merge any time soon. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Logically, I know that competition is a good thing for consumers, and monopolies are generally only good for companies. Still, I don't like having to choose a car based on which satellite radio service comes pre-installed, or considering whether I'd rather have Howard Stern or Oprah, because there is no practical way to get both. Frankly, it's probably all this exclusivity that has caused me not to purchase either system." From the article: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told reporters after an FCC meeting that the Commission would not approve a merger between satellite radio rivals Sirius and XM Radio... When the FCC initially licensed the two satellite radio companies in 1997, there was language in the licensing barring one from acquiring control of the other... Even if the FCC were to have a change of heart..., it would still have to pass antitrust scrutiny by the Department of Justice."

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