Hasta La Gadget!

Despite some last-minute drama with the government, Canada’s WIND Mobile has launched today, bringing to the table an interesting new low-cost competitor to the nation’s giant incumbents, Rogers, Bell, and Telus. Though its network — based on last year’s AWS auction — lacks the footprint of the bigger guys, the pricing is pretty compelling: its $15 voice plan offers twice the minutes of low-cost competitors Koodo and Fido (which are really just fronts for Telus and Rogers, anyway) and CAD $35 (about $33) wins you unlimited data on your BlackBerry. Speaking of BlackBerrys, WIND is rolling out the Bold 9700 as one of its launch devices alongside the HTC Maple (known as the Dash 3G in the States), the Samsung Gravity, the Huawei U519, and the E181 USB modem. Service is only live in Toronto and Calgary at the moment, but the limited distribution doesn’t seem to be holding people back — WIND’s site has been up and down all morning.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

WIND Mobile launches in Canada, T-Mobile gets a spectrum buddy originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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And it’s all over, folks: The US District Court for the Northern District of California has just permanently forbidden wannbe Mac cloner Psystar from selling modified versions of OS X, providing any tools that enable users to bypass the OS X kernel encryption, and / or intentionally aiding anyone else from infringing Apple’s OS X copyrights in any way. We knew this was coming following Apple’s decisive victory against Psystar last month — the only open questions were whether the court would include Snow Leopard and Psytar’s Rebel EFI software in the ban, since the lawsuit was specifically about Leopard and Rebel EFI wasn’t the subject of any proceedings. Both issues were predictably resolved in favor of Apple: the court specifically included Snow Leopard and any future versions of OS X in the scope of the injunction, and while Judge Alsup couldn’t address Rebel EFI directly, he did expressly forbid Psystar from “manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking” in anything that circumvents Apple’s OS X hardware locks — which we’d say covers Rebel EFI’s functionality pretty thoroughly. Psystar has until December 31 to comply, and the Judge Alsup isn’t kidding around: “Defendant must immediately begin this process, and take the quickest path to compliance; thus, if compliance can be achieved within one hour after this order is filed, defendant shall reasonably see it done.” Psystar can still appeal, obviously, but it’s already got its own hefty legal bills and a $2.67m fine to pay to Apple, so we’ve got a feeling this one might have reached the end of the line.

P.S.- Amusingly, Judge Alsup appears to be pretty sick of Apple’s shenanigans as well: in the section discussing Snow Leopard, he says Apple first tried to block any discovery of Snow Leopard before the OS was released, and then pushed to include the software in the case after it launched. That’s why the Florida case over Snow Leopard wasn’t merged into this case — Alsup thought it was a “slick tactic” that “smacked of trying to ‘have it both ways,’ and offended [his] sense of fair play.” Ouch.

Psystar banned from copying any version of OS X, helping others install it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boost Mobile sweetens its International Connect plan with unlimited calls to Canada and Mexico for one flat charge. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-10416701-85.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Dialed In/a/p

Up until today, Canada has had three national wireless providers: Telus, Bell, and Rogers. Critics have said that these three carriers aren’t particularly competitive. Back in 2008, Canada’s AWS auction opened the playing field for some new entrants. The first of these to launch is Wind Mobile, a company owned by Canadian firm Globalive and funded in part by the Egypt-based Orascom. Later this year, Dave (davewireless.com) and Videotron will join the party.

Meanwhile, Telus, Bell, and Rogers (naturally) have fought the Wind Mobile launch tooth and nail. At one point, it led to the Canadian government barring the launch, only to be overruled by Industry Canada, another part of the government.

The question is, will Wind Mobile provide the shake-up that Canada’s wireless industry desperately needs? It looks shaky. Wind Mobile is only launching in Calgary and Toronto for now, with several store locations and kiosks, and spotty network coverage everywhere else (see map, pictured). Boy Genius Report has an excellent write-up of plan details and pricing for a BlackBerry 9700 on Wind Mobile. Stay tuned for more developments.

Sascha Segan contributed to this report.

Pasadena, Calif.-based SchultzeWorks design studio has created a retro-styled re-imagining of the desktop PC based on an iconic 1950s TV brand.