Clearwire snags WiMAX leftovers
WiMAX operator Clearwire
has acquired the remaining WiMAX licenses from Oneida Communications for an undisclosed amount. Last year, Oneida sold the majority of its licenses to Sprint, but held onto an unspecified number, which now belong to Clearwire. The company did not divulge how many licenses each company obtained or which markets will benefit from the acquisitions.
In 2005, Oneida Communications Group was formed with the purposes of acquiring licenses in the 2.5 GHz spectrum, known as Broadband Radio Service (BRS) licenses, which are crucial to the implementation of point to multi-point WiMAX networks. That spectrum range has been found ideal for high-bandwidth, non-line of sight installations, and has been dominated by Sprint and Clearwire.
There's now a Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate 3
Download Mozilla Firefox 3.5 Release Candidate 3 for Windows from Fileforum now.
Early Betanews tests indicate some noticeable changes in the performance profile of a Release Candidate for Mozilla Firefox 3.5 that was posted to the organization's servers this morning. Overall, performance has improved by 1.7% in RC3 over RC2, released Monday, although underneath the surface, there appear to be some big gains and some setbacks.
A wish list for Office 2010
Attn. Steve Ballmer (the real one, not the fake one):
Hi, Steve. I know you don't know me from Adam, but I've never been one to let a little thing like complete strangerhood stop me from sharing a thought or six. So here goes.
Swedish court declares Pirate Bay judge unbiased
Stockholm District Court Judge Tomas Norström, whose impartiality was called into question after his guilty judgment in the Pirate Bay trial, has been found bias-free by Swedish courts.
Judge Norström is a member of two Swedish copyright reform groups, the SFU and the SFIR, which include some highly outspoken members of the Anti-Piracy Bureau and IFPI. It was thought Norström's link to these individuals could be grounds for a bias against the Pirate Bay.
Lenovo launches ThinkPad T400s with a thinner design, new keyboard
CORRECTION FROM THE M.E.: Here's a correction Betanews is happy to make. Although information Angela Gunn and I received last month appeared to verify that the big blue ThinkVantage button that was one of IBM's original signature ThinkPad features would be discontinued starting with the T400s unveiled earlier this week, Betanews was told by Lenovo today that not only does the T400s include the ThinkVantage button, but that the feature is not being discontinued after all.
What's more, the feature will do what it has done in the past, including give users the ability to recover their systems starting with the single button click. Though there will be changes to the feature over time, Betanews was told that the plan now is for those changes not to be nearly as drastic as had been indicated last month.
Upgrade to Apple TV adds gestural control
Yesterday, Apple began to push out the Apple TV version 2.4 software update, which adds several usability improvements, including one tied into the iPhone 3.0 software update.
It's by no means a monumental update, and its minor improvements now allow users to view movies by genre, title, or unwatched status. TV shows and podcasts may also now be viewed according to date, show title, or unwatched status. A Flickr tag search has also been added, which allows the user to find new photos or use them as Apple TV screensavers.
Semanti Firefox plug-in ties up with Facebook
Semanti, formerly known as Semantifind, is a Firefox 3 plug-in that works with a user's chosen search engine to assign context to queries, preview results in line, save good search results, and provide suggestions derived from community use.
This week, Semanti v. 2.0 was released, with features that now include "Social Search," or search results based upon your Facebook friends' search behavior. For example, when Semanti provides an answer to your query that you find particularly effective, you can save that result so that when your Facebook friends search for the same terms, the results that you approved of appear as the top answers to their query. It's something like "starring" the highest quality answer so your friends don't waste time poking around less pertinent results.
New Vista buyers can expect to pay more for Windows 7
After considerable confusion over whether Microsoft will offer free upgrades to Windows 7 for new PC buyers who find Windows Vista pre-installed, in an announcement this morning that required clarification, some confirmations, and a bit of editing, the company stated that it is leaving it up to PC manufacturers to determine how customers will get Windows 7 upgrades, and how much they'll cost.
Customers who already have Windows Vista on their PCs, Microsoft confirmed to Betanews this morning, can order upgrades to Windows 7 through Microsoft, but will pay full price to do so. Upgrading to Win7 Home Premium will cost about $10 less than upgrading to Vista Home Premium, however -- a difference between $129.95 for Vista and $119.99 for Win7. Upgrades to the Professional and Ultimate SKUs of Win7 will cost 4¢ more than did the corresponding upgrades to the Business and Ultimate SKUs of Vista -- $199.99 and $219.99, respectively. And the full retail prices for Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate will be in alignment with the existing prices for Vista Home Basic (not Premium), Business, and Ultimate SKUs, except their MSRPs will now end in ".99" rather than ".95."
Up Front: At Hohm with Microsoft's power management, and Facebook's privacy push
Hohm, Hohm for your range (and your fridge and your laptops and all)
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 • Sometimes it's good to live in Seattle -- like when Microsoft announces its Hohm power-management beta and both your utility companies are part of the team. The announcement was accompanied by all the Web 2.0 trimmings -- the signup page, yes, and also the Twitter account and the blog and the Facebook page and -- say, a person starts to wonder how much power all this is taking to do.
Good riddance to the Clear 'frequent flyer' program
Those who subscribed to the Clear (formerly Verified Identity Pass) program, paying $199 to allegedly speed up the TSA checkpoint process, are dismayed that they're out that money now that Verified Identity Pass has abruptly folded. Amazing that they're not as concerned about all that personal data they provided the system, but were they ever?
After a considerable amount of nudging, Verified Identity Pass has confirmed that yes, they're securing the data as required by the TSA's privacy standards for Registered Traveler programs, which a security pal of mine sums up with a snort as, "We decide who gets to buy it." That's a little mean, though as you may remember it took TSA from 2005, when the Registered Traveler pilot program was launched, until July 2008 to notice that Verified Identity Pass was keeping data on thousands of passengers on unencrypted laptops. It's that laser-like focus on detail, you know, that makes TSA what it is today.
Some Web TV streams will be delayed until Comcast users get first crack
In a deal announced today that could spawn a replication of the multi-tiered pay TV network scheme (first run, second run, rerun) on the Internet, cable service provider Comcast will be partnering with cable network parent company Time Warner (no longer related to Time Warner Cable) to make replays of shows seen on TNT, TBS, and potentially other Turner networks down the road available online first to paying Comcast customers.
The deal will lead to Comcast extending its "On Demand" brand to the Web, using a platform that will not only enable advertising but also provide a ratings service to advertisers. Most likely, this will be an analytics service provided by the Nielsen Company, which Comcast endorsed in January 2008.
Is Verizon next with an Android phone? See previous remarks
A report in yesterday's Wall Street Journal cited "people familiar with the matter," who said a new Android Phone from Motorola would be coming to Verizon before the end of the year. The report gathered most of the commonly-known evidence, such as Motorola Co-CEO Sanjay Jha's statements from last year that the company would have Android devices out by the end of 2009, to portray the certainty of this new, unnamed device.
The device that everyone is expecting to hit Verizon is what is currently known as the Motorola "Morrison," a blue and white slider which was first leaked last week in unauthorized spy shots.
Analysts: iPhone 3G S materials cost only 2% more than 3G
Apple's new iPhone 3GS proved to be a hit last weekend, according to Apple, selling over a million units in its first weekend; and if hardware analysis firm iSuppli's latest analysis is accurate, the 3G S costs 28% less to make than the first generation iPhone did two years ago, and only about 2% more than the iPhone 3G last year.
ISuppli delivers reliable bill of materials reports for consumer electronics products, in which it tears down a device, adds up the cost of each of its components and then estimates the manufacturer's total expense in making the device.
Microsoft calls omission of IE8 CSS rendering in Office 2010 a 'powerful' feature
4:00 pm EDT June 24, 2009 · In a marketing driven response that looks a lot more like the old Microsoft than the new Microsoft in terms of explaining away its design decisions, a Microsoft corporate vice president characterized Outlook 2010's reliance upon Word instead of Internet Explorer 8 for rendering HTML text symbolic of what he called "The Power of Word."
Corporate Vice President William Kennedy confirmed that the component of the company's new Office 2010 software -- whose technical preview is currently next month will be limited to select testers -- will rely upon Word rather than IE for reasons that include system security. "For e-mail viewing, Word also provides security benefits that are not available in a browser: Word cannot run web script or other active content that may threaten the security and safety of our customers," he wrote.