Tech News December 29, 2012
Dish seeks more time to oppose Sprint – Softbank deal While racking up $1.5bn in Christmas debt
Dish has asked the US regulator for more time to oppose Softbank’s takeover of Sprint. Meanwhile it’s stacking up the cash to fund its own network plans – which remain shrouded in mystery.…
Tech News December 28, 2012
Israel plots gigabit fibre-to-home rollout Seven years, 25,000 km of fibre
The Israeli government, via state-owned electricity utility Israel Electric Corp (IEC), is taking tentative steps towards deploying a gigabit-capable fibre-to-the-home network it hopes will cover two-thirds of the country.…
Tech News December 22, 2012
iPhone tops US market, but trounced by Android in world+dog UK smartphoners prefer Android, but not as much as their EU brethren
Apple’s iPhone now accounts for over half of US smartphone sales, but in the UK and the rest of Europe – and the rest of the world, for that matter – Android phones still hold a healthy lead.…
‘Shake to charge’, similar crapps foul up Amazon Android store Thrown out of Google Play, now back in another bazaar
Security researchers have sniffed out dodgy apps floating around the Amazon App Store for Android-powered devices.…
BT ordered to pay £95m to rivals it overcharged for FIVE years Backhaul rates unjustified, rules Ofcom
BT overcharged its rivals £95m between 2006 and …
Tech News December 21, 2012
Take a number, says new social network Anonymous colonises ‘Social Number’, where you’re a number not a name
If you’re tired of old schoolmates looking you up on Facebook and then bombarding you with endless inspirational junk and/or heart-tugging slactivism but still crave online interaction, a new social network on which you are just a number might be for you.…
Samsung still faces EU antitrust charges, says official Dropping its anti-Apple injunction requests didn’t distract regulators
Samsung may have dropped its injunction requests against Apple in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, but that move won’t stop the EU from pursuing antitrust charges against the South Korean electronics giant.…
Aussies in ‘don’t understand location services, just use them’ shock! What, …
Tech News December 20, 2012
Japanese firm lifts lid on Android-controlled toilet iOS fanbois must cross their legs and wait
Vid Japan has been at the cutting edge of toilet design for decades and has one of the highest rates of smartphone penetration on the planet, so it’s perhaps fitting that it has now combined the two by introducing a hi-tech Android-powered loo which enables hands-free toilet action.…
Yahoo! China! kills! music! search! service! Plans to sink pirates’ deep links
Yahoo! China has finally decided to follow the lead of rival Google and shut its online music service, ostensibly as part of an overall strategy change but in a move which will also remove a service known for deep linking to pirated content.…
Tech News December 19, 2012
Report: US telcos cashing in on data caps and poor competition Internet development hurt by artificial scarcity
The increasing use of data-capping and high data charges on US networks is less about easing network congestion or funding investment and more about increasing profits, according to a new analysis by the non-partisan New America Foundation think tank.…
Samsung drops six European anti-Apple injunction requests Legal maneuvers circle $346bn pie
Samsung has withdrawn its request for injunctions to ban sales of Apple’s iDevices in six European countries.…
Facebook: ‘No merit’ to claim we broke German privacy law You don’t like our real-names rule? Tough cookies, bitch
Facebook has hit back at a watchdog that claimed the website broke German law by requiring users to reveal …
Tech News December 18, 2012
DARPA planning 100 Gbps wireless Seeks interest in development and demonstrations
DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has decided that the 200-276 Mbps wireless technology currently used for military communications, known as the Common Data Link, is not going to live forever, and is inviting companies to submit proposals to boost battlefield wireless to an impressive-if-achieved 100 Gbps.…
Sorry, Apple – China’s just not that into your iPhone 5 Still, 2 million sales in 3 days nothing to sneer at
Apple sold 2 million iPhone 5s in the three days in China after the device went on official sale on Friday. It’s a sales figure that is solid, but will not see buyers in the east Asian country replacing Apple’s lucrative markets of Europe …
Tech News December 15, 2012
Dutch script kiddie pwns 20,000 Twitter profiles How much do you have in common with the other lusers?
A Dutch teenager successfully hijacked 20,000 Twitter profiles to post a message dissing their owners for being slack with security.…
UK.gov backs away from ISP level filtering plan to protect kids Parents, keeping your broadband clean is up to you
The government has decided to stop short of forcing telcos to filter websites at a network level, after discovering that there wasn’t a major “appetite” for such a system among parents who want to prevent their kids from accessing supposedly inappropriate material online.…
UN telecoms talks FOUNDER as US, UK, Canada and Aussies quit Let’s not talk about the internet – but we had to
WCIT2012 …
Tech News December 14, 2012
Google gives fat fingers the flick before they click Mobile ads are often a mistake
Google has admitted what an awful lot of people have learned first-hand (or perhaps first-finger): in the cramped environs of a smartphone’s screen, it’s easy to mistakenly click on an ad.…
US Immigration service won’t drop BlackBerry after all BlackBerry 10 pilot program could save RIM jobs
In a surprising about-face, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced that it will test-drive Research in Motion’s new BlackBerry 10 operating system in January, having earlier said that it planned to drop RIM‘s platform in favor of iOS.…
Yet another eavesdrop vulnerability in Cisco phones Security groundhog day
A university student presenting at the Amphion Forum has …