Author Archive | Ed Oswald

Will Over-the-Air iOS Updates Render iTunes Irrelevant?

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 5, 2011 at 11:55 am

Yesterday, there was news that Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” may be delivered through the Mac App Store. That may not be the only delivery method for updates that Apple may soon be changing. 9to5Mac reports that Verizon and Apple are working to bring over-the-air updates to iOS 5 after its release this fall.

The site’s sources could not confirm if the Cupertino company was working on a similar deal with AT&T.

Given that Android already does updates in this manner, the basic idea is nothing new. But it does take iTunes further out of the equation, long a necessary evil for iPhone owners (and now, iPadders too). Once updates come over-the-air, there’s almost no reason anymore to sync.

Continue Reading →

12 comments

Google TV Will Get a Reboot

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 4, 2011 at 5:31 pm

Harry’s hopes that Google TV may be salvageable might be realized: Mobilized’s Ina Fried reports that the search company has learned from its mistakes, and will make some changes. The second incarnation of the product will be targeted as an “add-on” to TV in its traditional form, not as a replacement as some thought it was intended to be.

Of course, this whole Internet-television convergence thing is still in its infancy, and there’s a lot of work to be done before somebody gets it right. New apps are on the way, as well as more powerful hardware — with a focus on what TV won’t or can’t provide.

Continue Reading →

No comments

Carriers Pull Back on Mobile Wallet Plans

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 4, 2011 at 1:35 pm

It appears that T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon’s ambitious plans to create a mobile payment service may not happen, at least the way they’re hoping. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the carriers may now decide to partner with credit card companies instead to make the network happen.

Originally, the service (called “Isis”) was to bypass the traditional credit card companies altogether: charges would appear directly on consumer’s cellular phone bills. The abrupt 180 may be due to ensuring Isis has any chance of success — leveraging the power of Visa and MasterCard could go a long way.

Continue Reading →

No comments

Apple Updates iMacs With Thunderbolt, HD FaceTime

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 3, 2011 at 4:29 pm

Apple has updated its iMac line of desktops, adding in Thunderbolt support, new quad-core chips, and an HD-ready built in camera. The moves indicate that while consumers as a whole seem to be moving to portables, the Cupertino company itself still is committed to its iconic desktop line.

Pricing will remain the same for the base model at $1,199. It claims the iMac is the first desktop with Thunderbolt support, and the 21.5-inch model includes one port and the 27-inch model two. Engadget put this to the test, showing off two 30-inch displays being powered off these ports in a video posted to its side. Pretty darn cool.

The HD camera now will support high-definition FaceTime calls between other capable iMacs, and standard definition calls with all other enabled devices. The iMac now comes with the option to order the Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad at no extra cost. If for some reason you still want the old wired version, you can get that too.

Another new option is the solid state drive on both models. The desktop would also include the traditional hard drive, however Apple would install the operating system on the faster flash-based SSD.

Will you be picking up one of these nice shiny new iMacs?

2 comments

DOJ Wants More Time for AT&T-Mobile Review

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 3, 2011 at 4:26 pm

The Justice Department has sent a second round of questions on the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile to the two companies, sources told Bloomberg on Tuesday. In addition, so-called “civil investigative demands” have also been sent to the companies’ competitors, in an attempt to measure the mergers possible effects.

With these actions, the merger review now has no timetable for completion — which means AT&T and T-Mobile’s stated goal to get the review completed within a year could be in serious jeopardy. It also highlights the complexity of the situation, and how difficult it might be for the deal to win approval.

Continue Reading →

One comment

Surprise! Microsoft <3 RIM

Posted by Ed Oswald on May 3, 2011 at 4:10 pm

I don’t think anyone saw this one coming. This week is the BlackBerry World conference, probably something a lot of us didn’t know (except for Harry maybe?). Well, Steve Ballmer — yes, the CEO of Microsoft — made news at the conference.

The surprise guest of a talk starring president and co-CEO Mike Lazardis, Ballmer was on hand to announce Microsoft has signed a deal with RIM to become the exclusive provider of search and mapping functions on BlackBerry devices. Even more surprising? Bing and Microsoft would find itself deeply integrated into BlackBerry OS 7, coming later this year.

“This goes way beyond search box,” Ballmer was quoted by ReadWriteWeb as saying to attendees. “It’s about real tools that help real people get things done.” All in all, it really looks like RIM just handed the keys to the services component of the OS right over to the Redmond company.

Continue Reading →

4 comments

Is Netflix The Solution To Movie Piracy?

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 28, 2011 at 6:46 pm

Ernesto over at TorrentFreak has an interesting premise: the meteoric rise of Netflix, and especially its streaming movie service, are having the surprising effect of tamping down on movie piracy here in the US. Impossible you say? Not so fast, it may actually make sense.

You could argue that movie piracy is much more popular for those movie watchers who don’t feel like paying an arm and a leg for a movie they’ve already seen, or is a couple years old. Just like an old car, these films lose their value. Thus piracy seems an attractive option since you don’t have to pay for it.

Enter Netflix. Its streaming movie service offers a lot of these films that these folks are looking for, and its price — only $7.99 a month — makes it quite attractive. Add to this the quality is likely much, much better in most cases than you’d ever get from a ripped movie, and more on-demand than downloading, and you’ve got a winner.

Ernesto says the site does have some evidence that the number of pirates out there in the US has decreased. With Netflix’s growth, one could easily argue that the site could be a contributor.

8 comments

Verizon’s LTE Network Goes Down For The Count

Posted by Ed Oswald on April 27, 2011 at 8:37 pm

Your “blazing fast” LTE connection with Verizon seem a whole lot less speedy? There was a reason for it — for an as yet undisclosed reason there was some type of failure that affected connections nationwide. The issues were first reported by Engadget’s Vlad Savov early this morning, and were later confirmed by the company in its official Twitter account.

Specifically, users of the company’s recently released Thunderbolt 4G device seemed to have the most issues. Data connectivity wasn’t completely out: instead the phones were connecting at slower 3G speeds, and voice calls were not affected. The issues mark the first time there has been any serious disruptions with Verizon Wireless’ high-speed network.

The issue appears pretty widespread, and there are a significant amount of tweets complaining about issues, as well as posts from customers nationwide to Verizon’s support forums.

Ina Fried over at All Things Digital mentions the ironic timing of the outage: it came just two days after Verizon vice president Nicola Palmer boasted how smoothly the rollout has gone so far. Oops.

No comments

← Previous 1 … 8 9 10 … 82 Next →