350655
submission
andy1307 writes:
According to this article in the New York Times, "Sprint Nextel has agreed to provide departing customers with the code necessary to unlock their phones' software so the handsets they own can be used on competitors' networks.The agreement is part of the proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought last year by a group of California consumers against the company, which is based in Reston, Va. The settlement, which is awaiting final approval by a Superior Court judge in Alameda County, Calif., would allow the phones to operate on any technically compatible network using code division multiple access technology, or CDMA. Other carriers that use CDMA include Alltel and Verizon. Sprint said it would share the unlocking code with all current and former subscribers once they had completed the terms of their contracts, had their phones deactivated and paid their final bills. The company will also add information about the unlocking codes as part of the terms and conditions of service given to new customers and will instruct its customer service representatives on connecting a non-Sprint phone to the Sprint network.
"We're not admitting guilt," said Matthew Sullivan, a spokesman for Sprint Nextel. "We think what was agreed upon is reasonable based on the claims made by the plaintiffs."" . What does this mean for the iPhone?
327955
submission
andy1307 writes:
According to this article in the San Jose Mercury News, Oracle has made an unsolicited bid to buy BEA Systems for about $6.7 billion. BEA confirmed that it rejected the $17 a share bid as too low in a letter to Oracle's president, Charles Phillips. Oracle's aggressive bid may be an attempt to pre-empt an acquisition by others, Finley said. Those named in the past as potential suitors include IBM, the German software company SAP AG and Hewlett-Packard. Trip Chowdhry of Global Equity Research said he expects a counterbid from SAP, which he said needs BEA to survive. "If they don't get BEA, probably in two years SAP will be on the block to sell itself," Chowdhry predicted. Oracle needs to keep BEA out of competitors' hands, he said.
302055
submission
andy1307 writes:
According to this article in the Washington Post, Internet telephone company Vonage Holdings Corp. was ordered in federal court Tuesday to pay Sprint Nextel $69.5 million in damages for infringing on six telecommunications patents owned by competitor Sprint Nextel Corp. In addition to the $69.5 million damages, jurors awarded Sprint Nextel a 5 percent royalty from Vonage on future revenues. It was the second verdict against the Holmden, N.J.-based company this year. A jury in Virginia determined in March that Vonage had violated three Verizon patents in building its Internet phone system. The jury awarded Verizon $58 million in damages plus 5.5 percent royalties on future revenues. Greg Gorbatenko, a telecommunications and media analyst for Jackson Securities, said the decision "feels like a death knell" for Vonage because future revenue will likely dry up, preventing the company from investing in better technology or improving customer service.
265853
submission
andy1307 writes:
According to this article in the New York Times, a Chinese technology company has expressed interest in buying Seagate, raising concerns among American government officials about the risks to national security in transferring high technology to China. From the article : In recent years, modern disk drives, used to store vast quantities of digital information securely, have become complex computing systems, complete with hundreds of thousands of lines of software that are used to ensure the integrity of data and to offer data encryption.
That could raise the prospect of secret tampering with hardware or software to make it possible to pilfer information via computer networks, intelligence officials have warned. The Chinese company has not been named in the article. According to William D. Watkins of Seagate Technology, "The U.S. government is freaking out,"
97052
submission
andy1307 writes:
According to this article in the Washington Post, Chinese teenagers deemed addicted to the internet are being treated in military run installation. Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks. The state run media blames internet addiction for for a murder over virtual property earned in an online game, for a string of suicides and for the failure of youths in their studies. Located on an army training base, the Internet-addiction clinic is distinct from the other buildings on campus because of the metal grates and padlocks on every door and the bars on every window.From the article "On the first level are 10 locked treatment rooms geared toward treating teen patients suffering from disturbed sleep, lack of motivation, aggression, depression and other problems. Unlike the rest of the building, which is painted in blues and grays and kept cold to keep the teens alert, these rooms are sunny and warm."
96788
submission
andy1307 writes:
According to this article in the New York Times, Cisco and Apple have settled the trademark-infringement lawsuit over the use of the iPhone. The companies said they had reached an agreement that would allow Apple to use the name for the multimedia device in exchange for exploring wide-ranging "interoperability" between the companies' products in the areas of security, consumer and business communications. Before this settlement was reached, the sticking point apparently was Cisco's demand that in return for permission to use the iPhone name, Apple would have to open up its products to communicate with some of Cisco's offerings.
19221
submission
andy1307 writes:
This article in the Washington Post should resolve once and for all the question: Does technology really benefit the masses in poor countries? It's an article about how the spread of cell phones in India has affected the lives of the poor. "The explosive growth in cell phones in India has meant greater access to markets, more information about prices and new customers for tens of millions of Indian farmers and fishermen. It has made market-savvy entrepreneurs out of sheepherders, rickshaw drivers and even the acrobatic men who shinny up palm trees to harvest coconuts here in Kerala state.For less than a penny a minute — the world's cheapest cellphone call rates — farmers in remote areas can check prices for their produce. They call around to local markets to find the best deal. They also track global trends using cellphone-based Internet services that show the price of pumpkins or bananas in London or Chicago. Indian farmers use camera-phones to snap pictures of crop pests, then send the photos by cellphone to biologists who can identify the bug and suggest ways to combat it. In cities, painters, carpenters and plumbers who once begged for work door-to-door say they now have all the work they can handle because customers can reach them instantly by cellphone." The fishermen featured in the article are probably barely literate but they've figured out how to use a cellphone to play one middleman against the other and, in the process, better their own lives.
