For the past two years I've been lucky enough to earn a year-end bonus, a portion of which has been spent on technology purchases. Last year I put together a PC which has served me very nicely. This year I decided I was going to purchase an Android tablet. While I originally was thinking of getting a Samsung Galaxy Tab, I decided to go with the ASUS Transformer Prime, mainly due to it having the fastest current tablet CPU and a working keyboard dock. I had originally hoped to get the Transformer Prime before Christmas, but due to ASUS production issues I wasn't able to get my hands on one until last Wednesday. Here are my unstructured thoughts about the Transformer Prime and the world of tablets.
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Facing intense regulatory pressure, as well as intense consumer revolt, AT&T announced yesterday that it was not going to proceed in its attempted merger with T-Mobile.
I've provided a fair amount of coverage on the proposed merger but I have to admit I am surprised that the deal did not eventually work its way through the FCC and DOJ hurdles, mainly because of intense lobbying by AT&T. By calling off the merger, AT&T is obliged to compensate T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom to the tune of $4 billion.
I wrote earlier about how Verizon was planning on rolling out its 4G LTE service to southern NH on December 15th. I'm happy to report that, according to my phone at least, Verizon actually started making 4G available on Tuesday 12/13. Since then I've been madly abusing the network and speeding towards the invisible cap where I'll be throttled back. Luckily I'll be out of the country for six days at the end of the month and that will save me from myself.
Enjoy your high speeds.
Christmas is coming a little early for us Verizon customers with 4G-enabled phones in Southern New Hampshire. Verizon recently announced that it would be rolling out its 4G-LTE service to southern New Hampshire and Loudon on December 15th.
The rollout addresses a long-term frustration of mine as I saw Verizon roll out LTE to markets smaller than Southern NH in the past. Now New England residents should be able to enjoy 4G coverage from Boston north to Loudon and west to Worcester MA, covering most of the greater Boston area.
News surfaced over the weekend that HTC phones had a concerning security vulnerability that allowed applications with internet access to view private date on phones. The Android blog Android Police uncovered the vulnerability and explained how users with rooted phones can remove the logging application by removing /system/app/HtcLoggers.apk.
HTC acknowledged the vulnerability and says that it will deliver an over-the-air patch to fix the hole. In the meantime HTC recommends avoiding applications from publishers that you don't trust.
I imagine HTCLoggers is some kind of debugging app that was used on the phone during development to test certain features of SenseUI. It is unfortunate, however, that during the relase phase of a product, developers do not go back in and clean their power tools out of a system in order to prevent these risks.
In the ridiculous world of wireless lawsuits, HTC has gotten a boost from Google in its legal battle against Apple. Google transfered nine patents that it obtained from Palm, Motorola, and Openwave Systems to HTC on September 1st, and HTC is using those patents to sue Apple. This is disappointing considering that HTC's general counsel Grace Lei complained in July "HTC is disappointed in Apple's constant attempts at litigations instead of competing fairly in the market."
Hopefully at some point the various wireless companies will call a truce instead of figuring out new ways to make their lawyers money.
After the Department of Justice filed suit last week seeking to block the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, Sprint waded into the lawsuit pool today.
Citing fears that the merger was "brazenly anticompetitive," and echoing the DOJ's fear that an innovative carrier was being removed from the market, Sprint also stated "The wireless industry is far too important to the U.S. economy to give gate-keeper control over it to the Twin Bells."
It's interesting that Sprint filed suit only after the DOJ did so first. Sprint had been lobbying the FCC to take action as soon as the merger was announced, but was presumably waiting for a federal case to bolster its own claims.
Well this is interesting - Bloomberg reports that the U.S. Department of Justice is suing to block the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, stating that it would "substantially lessen competition" in the wireless market. The DOJ is stating that the deal violates anti-trust regulations.
Most observers assumed, given the relatively lax oversight environment that permitted the merger of Comcast and Universal, that the AT&T-T-Mobile deal was a fait accompli. Should the deal be blocked, AT&T will have to pay T-Mobile $3B in cash and provide wireless spectrum and reduced costs on network calls for a total of $7B in concessions. Given the large amount of money AT&T would have to give up it's likely they will mount a vigorous legal defense.
Update: Here is a link to the DOJ press release. And here's Engadget's report on AT&T's (as well as Sprint's) response.
The mobile world continues to be a hotbed of lawsuits, counter-lawsuits, accusations, counter-accusations, and the like. One of the hottest battles has been between Apple and Samsung, as Apple has accused Samsung of "slavishly copying" the iPhone and iPad's look in their Galaxy series.
Ars Technica has been kind enough to give us a breakdown on the worldwide state of the legal battle between the two companies. It's a complicated story but a fascinated drill-down on the state of the mobile computing world. I hope that in the future mobile makers realize that the only people profiting from this type of activity are lawyers.
Although I have not said too much about it, I have been waiting as patiently as possible for the US release of one of, if not THE, coolest phones out in the mobile world today. I am of course refering to the Samsung Galaxy S II (back in April, Engadget did an excellent review of the device should you be curious). The above add further whets my appitite as I wait for Samsung's big announcement on the 29th. I am fairly confident that my wait is almost over and I will soon be saying farewell to my iPhone 3GS. And when that day comes, I will be sure to let you all know how it goes.
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