News

Current news items regarding technology, tech companies, the Internet, the government, etc.

Motorola Xoom coming to Verizon Feb 17th at $699

2 Comments / Computers, News, Portable / By /

The CES best-of-show Motorola Xoom Tablet is coming to Verizon Feb 17th according to Engadget and will land at a price of $699, $100 better than the intially rumored $799 price tag.

Sure we were pretty put off by the high price, but a quick comparison with the 3G 32GB iPad ($729) shows that Motorola/Verizon aren’t far off on that price given the huge advantage in feature-list they have on the iPad. Of course, they’d sell a lot more if they push down that cost.

So just a few differentiators with its iPad adversary: 160 dpi vs 132 ppi screen, 1GB vs 256MB RAM, 2MP front camera and 5MP back camera vs no cameras on the iPad, 720p video recording, Flash support, HDMI and USB 2.0 ports and 3G and 4G support vs no 4G on the iPad. Ready to buy one now, aren’t you?

Google Voice testing Number Portability – will be a $20 one-time fee

1 Comment / News, Phones / By /

As promised now for over a year and a half, Google Voice is adding number portability to its service, meaning that instead of some randomly assigned phone number on your G Voice account, you can migrate your existing mobile telephone number over it.

This is great news of course, but before you skip over to your Google Voice account and plop down your $20, keep a few things in mind: for starters, this will cancel your existing cell contract and if you’re like most people, you’re probably right in the middle of a contract and you will probably get penalized. …

Google Voice testing Number Portability – will be a $20 one-time feeRead More »

Apple’s Earnings Released Crushing Estimates and iPad Sales Soar

1 Comment / News, Phones, Portable / By /

iPads, iPods, iPhones, Macs and iTunes oh my Jobs! Apple released first quarter results that surprised and beat the street with profit up $6.43 a share which was up from $3.67 last year and even beat Cramer’s “wild high” estimate of $6. Sales dramatically increased from $15.683B from a year ago to $26.74B this past quarter.

How could this happen? After all my partner mentioned:

This isn’t going to be a device that everyone wants or needs. If you’re already a laptop owner, you’re probably not foaming at the mouth for one of these. Sure a touchscreen is nice, but is it nicer than having Flash support in your Web browser?

…

Apple’s Earnings Released Crushing Estimates and iPad Sales SoarRead More »

Apple iPhone Coming to Verizon – but no 4G LTE

2 Comments / Networking & Internet, News, Phones / By /

iPhone on Verizon The years of speculation and rumors are over, Verizon finally announced that the Apple iPhone will be “coming to America’s most reliable network” at the Verizon press conference this morning. The Apple iPhone will be available on February 10th, 2011 and existing subscribers are able to pre-order on February 3rd on a “first come, first serve” basis via VerizonWireless.com. The pre-orders will only be taken online for both consumer and business. New customers have to wait for the February 10th launch to purchase in select channels.

Pricing for Verizon’s iPhone 4 is similar to AT&Ts pricing starting at $199.99 for the 16GB model and $299.99 for the 32GB model. This pricing requires a 2 year commitment to Verizon. Existing Verizon users are able to redeem their New Every Two credit but there will be no early upgrade promotions like AT&T offered last year. Minimum service requires a nationwide plan with a data package, but pricing has not been released yet.

If you just purchased a phone on Verizon within the past 30 days, you can exchange the phone with a restocking fee to “upgrade” to an iPhone 4.
…

Apple iPhone Coming to Verizon – but no 4G LTERead More »

Internet Enabled TVs Hacked

1 Comment / Audio/Video, Home Theater, News / By /

HDTV Hacked Several security flaws have been discovered in a best-selling brand of Internet-enabled HDTVs and the security researchers that discovered the hole believe it’s likely that similar security flaws exist in other Internet-enabled HDTVs.

Mocana, a technology company offering products for device security frameworks including embedded SSL and SSH as well as IPSEC and alternatives to OpenSSH, discovered that the TV’s Internet interface failed to confirm script integrity prior to running remote scripts resulting in intercepted transmissions using “rogue DNS” or TCP session hijacking techniques. Mocana then demonstrated that JavaScript could be injected allowing attackers to take control of the Internet functionality of the HDTV which could lead to Denial of Service (DoS) or local home network hacking as well s phishing for credit card information.

Mocana was able to recover the manufacturer’s private “third-party developer keys” from the television as this information was transmitted in the clear (funny how Mocana sells embedded SSL technologies to encrypted such transmissions).

Read the further details here.

CES 2011: 2012 Ford Focus Electric

1 Comment / Automotive, CES, News / By /

Ford Focus Electric The new Ford Focus Electric was announced by Ford CEO Alan Mulally in a keynote speech at CES.

With claims that the car will provide better mile-per-gallon equivalent (mpg-e) than the Chevy Volt and a full recharge in three to four hours which is half the time required to recharge the electric Nissan Leaf, the all electric car turned a few heads. According to the EPA, the Volt gets an estimated 93 mpg-e on electricity, 37 mpg on gasoline, and 60 mpg average. The all-electric Leaf gets a 99 mpg-e rating from the EPA.
…

CES 2011: 2012 Ford Focus ElectricRead More »

CES 2011: Green Trends

1 Comment / CES, News / By /

Green Technology at CES Green technologies have been hot for the past four to five years at CES, and 2011 was no exception with everything from energy-efficient gadgets to fully electric cars were on display at CES this year. Below are seven Green trends spotted at the 2011 CES show:

The first green trend includes a rebranding of the home automation industry into home energy management. When times are tough for an industry, you need to adapt are focus on the trends. The typical companies where at CES like Control4 and iControl, but startups including GreenWave Reality (started June 2010 by former Cisco execs) and 4Home (which was acquired recently by Motorola) showed products. 4Home will provide connected home service with energy management in a service that will be piloted through Verizon in New Jersey next month.
…

CES 2011: Green TrendsRead More »

CES 2011: Motorola Xoom Tablet Best CES Gadget

4 Comments / CES, Computers, News / By /

Motorola Xoom Android Tablet
The Motorola Xoom tablet won the coveted top honors at the Best of CES awards in Las Vegas and leads the crowded tablet market introduced at CES as the front-runner to compete against the juggernaut Apple iPad.

Motorola Mobility’s hotly awaited tablet computer, the “Xoom,” will be available in the first quarter of the year with a 10.1-inch (25.6-centimeter) screen, which is about the same size as Apple’s iPad, which hit stores in April and has other leading technology companies around the world scrambling to catch up.

Google built their “Honeycomb” software specifically to power tablet computers and Motorola believes that helps enable the Xoom as the next generation of tablets.

Scroll to Top