FCC hurricane update: 12k lost wireline, 5k lost cable, up to 345 cell sites down
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief Jamie Barnett gave a brief press conference on Saturday afternoon to give a snapshot of Hurricane Irene's effect on communications networks in the Atlantic coastal area. All data presented here was collected from the FCC's Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS).
Wireline: 12,000 are out of service, 8,000 in NC, 4,000 in VA.
Master Chief is not happy: After 10 years as Xbox flagship series, next big Halo title is a rehash
This week, we've been looking back at the legendary Windows XP, which launched on August 24, 2001 ten years ago on Wednesday. But you know what Microsoft launched just three months after XP that was just as massive and impactful on tech culture? Halo: Combat Evolved.
The Halo series of video games turns 10 in November, but is getting an early birthday celebration at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX Prime) in Seattle beginning today. The event, predictably titled Halo Fest is a massive gathering of Halo fans to engage in big multiplayer gaming sessions and contests of skill.
Can Android apps save Google TV?
Google TV, an ambitious project to bring Google's powerful search tools and targeted advertisement to the television screens of America (and eventually the UK), has been something of a commercial dud.
Logitech's Revue set-top box, the first Google TV device to hit the market just short of one year ago has dropped in price by a whopping 60% to try to spur consumer adoption.
During the next natural disaster, don't even bother calling
Earlier this week, the state of Virginia experienced the largest earthquake it had felt since 1944, and the entire Northeastern region of the U.S. shook. This weekend, the same region is expected to be slammed by Hurricane Irene, a category 2 hurricane reaching uncharacteristically far north. Frantic people making voice calls on their mobile devices immediately overloaded the networks after the earthquake, so let's make sure that doesn't happen during the hurricane.
Millions took to posting on social networks in the moments that followed the earthquake this week, and an untold number of people began making mobile phone calls to check in or check up, promptly overloading the networks, forcing many to use the web as their fallback method of communication.
Classmates.com pays $2.5 million settlement for lying to users
All U.S. residents who were registered with, or subscribed to classmates.com at any time between October 30, 2004 and February 23, 2011 now have access to cash from a $2.5 million class action settlement against the original social networking site.
In 2008, San Diego man Anthony Michaels sued Classmates.com for using the names of his former classmates to mislead him into upgrading from a free membership to a paid one. Michaels claimed the site had sent him emails to alert him that his old peers were trying to contact him, and when he upgraded his membership and logged in, he learned that it was all a ruse.
Sony Ericsson adds monoscopic 3D to Android
Earlier this week, Sony Ericsson debuted a new Walkman smartphone powered by Android and I remarked that the joint venture is sort of keeping the feature phone concept alive by integrating key Sony trademarks into Android.
In keeping with this theme, the joint venture on Thursday announced an upcoming software upgrade to the 2011 line of Xperia smartphones will give Android an upgraded camera feature that was a banner feature of Sony's Cyber Shot line of cameras just one year ago.
GameStop steals free games from its customers
Two years ago, I apologized to GameStop and its employees for buying consoles that used web-based app stores to sell games because they would ultimately render the physical video game retail store irrelevant.
Today, I'm withdrawing that apology.
Vizio's Android tablet is the first with Hulu Plus
In August, US LCD TV leader Vizio launched its 8" Android tablet for an agreeable $299 at most common big box retailers. Today, streaming TV provider Hulu announced it has partnered with Vizio to bring Hulu Plus to its new tablet.
Though Hulu Plus is available on many platfoms --video game consoles, TVs, connected media players, set-top boxes, and iOS devices-- it is only available on a dozen Android devices, and until today it was only on select Android smartphones.
Calm down, Android malware makes up a tiny .00024% of the threat landscape
Security researchers and software companies have been warning of the shift to mobile-borne malware for years, and Android seems to be the primary platform of concern.
Over the last two years, we've witnessed the arrival of Android anti-malware applications from Symantec, McAfee, AVG, Softwin (BitDefender), ESET, F-Secure, and Lookout Security, and each time a new product is released, a new warning of the potential destruction a mobile virus, trojan, or botnet has is released.
Apple wins preliminary injunction on Galaxy S phones in Netherlands
A Dutch district court in The Hague has ruled in favor of Apple in one of the many patent infringement lawsuits taking place between Apple and Samsung internationally.
The Judge presiding over the case has banned the sale of Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Ace (S5830) smartphones in the Netherlands and "many European countries."
Virginia earthquake overloads cell networks from North Carolina to New York, Twitter takes over
Earthquakes on the East Coast of the United States are pretty uncommon, especially ones of significant magnitude, so on Tuesday afternoon when a magnitude 5.8-6.0 quake hit central Virginia, sending shocks from New York to North Carolina to Detroit, cellular networks, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless, were knocked out.
Twitter quickly took over as the primary source of communication, as people shared their surprise at the quake -- the biggest on the East Coast since 1886 -- and assured friends and family they were safe. Facebook news feeds were filled with comments from those feeling the quake and checking on those affected.
NY Judge: There's no way to tell if free songs on the Internet are illegal
New York District Court Judge William H. Pauley, III, has determined that MP3tunes falls under the safe harbor provisions in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), protecting it from a four-year old copyright infringement lawsuit from record label EMI and its subsidiaries.
After a multimillion dollar lawsuit by record labels more than ten years ago, MP3.com founder Michael Robertson sold off the site and launched MP3tunes.com, which was designed to help indie artists sell their music. In fall 2005, it added a storage service letting users store files in personal online storage lockers, and songs uploaded to these lockers could be played and downloaded through any web-connected device.
Download.com wraps all software in proprietary installer, irks developers and users
We don't use CNET's Download.com (big surprise), so it took an article from ExtremeTech reporter Lee Matthews to alert us that the long-running download site and competitor to Fileforum will now put all files in a proprietary wrapper unless the uploader pays a Premium subscription fee to have his software available unaltered, without third party "bloatware" such as toolbars and default home page and search engine changes.
CNET said the reason for doing this was: "The same reason you have your applications on Download.com – for the users. The CNET Download.com Installer ensures a safe and improved download experience by making it easier for Download.com users to complete downloads and launch the software’s installer."
Even with drastic price reduction, TouchPads still get 50GB free cloud storage
One of the nice bonuses of the HP TouchPad is that it comes with a lifetime 50GB cloud storage account from Box for free. This is exactly ten times more storage than they offer standard users on their free tier.
With the sudden discontinuation of the TouchPad and the subsequent liquidation of all stock, this little bonus looks a lot sweeter, but we wondered if Box could pull out of the deal due to behind-the-scenes agreements and arrangements.
Microsoft offers free Windows Phone gear to disenfranchised webOS devs
(Alternate title: "From Dead to Dead Last")
Now that webOS has zero official hardware manufacturers supporting it, Microsoft is hoping to lure webOS developers over to Windows Phone by giving them free hardware, training, developer tools, and so forth.
Tim's Bio
Tim Conneally was born into dumpster tech. His father was an ARPANET research pioneer and equipped his kids with discarded tech gear, second-hand musical instruments, and government issue foreign language instruction tapes. After years of building Frankenstein computers from rubbish and playing raucous music in clubs across the country (and briefly on MTV) Tim grew into an adult with deep, twisted roots and an eye on the future. He most passionately covers mobile technology, user interfaces and applications, the science and policy of the wireless world, and watching different technologies shrink and converge.
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