Hasta La Gadget!

The Olympic Games kick off in London in just a few days, and while O2 and Virgin have covered the high and low ground throughout London, the organization behind the games doesn’t want any pesky hotspots infiltrating the stadium. The Olympic Committee has a long list of exactly what is prohibited from being taken into Olympic venues, and now that includes “wireless access points” and “3G hubs.”

Users will be able to bring in their iPhone or Android smartphone and use the 3G connection as they normally would, but apparently enabling hotspot functionality is a no-no: “Personal / private wireless access points and 3G hubs (smart devices such as Android phones, iPhone and tablets are permitted inside venues, but must not be used as wireless points to connect multiple devices).”

There are several explanations we can think of for the ban. Interference is the first and foremost: mobile networks are already going to be packed to the brim thanks to the sheer number of people descending on one location, so adding a couple of hundred (thousand?) hotspots into the mix probably won’t help the limited spectrum availability.

Still, GigaOm believes there may be some funny business going on, as BT is the official hotspot provider for Olympic venues, charging £5.99 for 90 minutes or £9.99 for 24 hours worth of access. Draw your own conclusions. If you and your friends happen to be in the area and ride the information superhighway tgoether, make sure to use an inauspicious hotspot name. Something along the lines of “This is definitely not a hotspot” should do the trick.

[via IntoMobile]

3G hotspots banned at London Olympics is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

For those of you who own a Kindle 3G, it looks like those days of free, unlimited web browsing have come to an end. According to reports online, some users are starting to receive 3G bandwidth cap warnings. Apparently users were just browsing with the e-book reader as normal and were then presented with warnings letting them know that they had hit their 50MB monthly quota. They then received another notification saying that they’d be able to surf for another 24 hours – after that period, they will only be able to use the 3G to access Amazon.com, Wikipedia and the Kindle Store. For anything else they would have to do it over WiFi.

While the limit has been in place before, it seems that it wasn’t enforced until now. Considering how users can still use the 3G to access Wikipedia and shop on Amazon without any problems, it shouldn’t be that huge of an issue. But for those of you who use the Kindle to surf the web a lot, I guess you’ll have to start changing your habits. Any of you experienced these data cap notifications yet?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Amazon Kindle Touch 3G now on pre-order to customers across 175 countries , Amazon Announces Its Attractively-priced Next-generation Kindle,

Apple has unleashed a double attack on Samsung’s purse, insisting it is owed $2.5bn in damages after intellectual property theft, while offering a 3G royalty rate exponentially smaller than Samsung demands. A new trial brief filed by the Cupertino firm reveals the scale of Apple’s damages demands, FOSS Patents reports, accusing Samsung of having “reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds ofmillions of dollars through its violation of Apple’s intellectual property.”

In fact, Apple “conservatively estimates” that it is entitled to a total of $2.525bn in damages based on roughly $500m in lost profits from “Samsung’s infringing sales” and around $2bn that the Korean firm has been “unjustly enriched by” itself. A further $25m is fair play for “reasonable royalty damages” for any loose ends, Apple argues.

Meanwhile, Apple has also done some sums on what it believes its various patents would be worth in royalties if licensed out. That includes $24 for any design patent or trade dress rights, and $2.02 for the bouncing-scroll UI element showing the end of a list.

In fact, Apple has even conducted a survey into how much Samsung customers might be willing to pay to get some of the patented tech from the iPhone or iPad. “Samsung customer’s are willing to pay between $90 and $100 above the base price of a $199 smartphone and a $499 tablet, respectively, to obtain the patented features covered by Apple’s utility patents” the research supposedly surmises.

Meanwhile, as for what Apple believes it’s obligated to pay Samsung for FRAND standards-essential patent royalties, that’s a whole lot less than $2.5bn. In fact, Apple calculates that it owes Samsung, at most, just $0.0049 per unit for each infringed patent, based on the fact that the Samsung patents comprise less than 5.5-percent of essential UMTS patents overall. Critically, Apple also argues that its royalties should be based on the value of the baseband chip at the heart of the iPhone and iPad, rather than – as Samsung suggests – the overall value of the device.

That adds up to a difference of basing a percentage on a $499 phone or a roughly $10 chip, which obviously has a significant impact on how much Samsung might receive. The Korean company wanted 2.4-percent of the entire device value, while Apple says “the royalty should be applied to a base equal to the price of the baseband processor, the smallest priceable unit containing the accused functionality.”

Details of Samsung’s response to Apple’s arguments are yet to have surfaced. Meanwhile, in Australian courts Apple has argued that it has worked around several of Samsung’s 3G patents and thus should not be beholden to licensing, while a German appeals court granted a Europe-wide injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 based on it infringing Apple design patents.

Apple: Samsung owes us $2.5bn, we owe them a pittance is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Call the Power Pwn the champion of white hat hacking. Underneath that Clark Kent power strip exterior, there’s a Superman of full-scale breach testing that can push the limits of just about any company network, whether it takes 3G, Ethernet or WiFi to get there. Pwnie Express’ stealthy sequel to the Pwn Plug ships with a Debian 6 instance of Linux whose handy hacking tools are as easy to launch as they are tough to detect. There’s just one step needed to create a snoop-friendly Evil AP WiFi hotspot, and the box dodges around low-level NAC/802.1x/RADIUS network authentication without any help; in the same breath, it can easily leap into stealth mode and keeps an ongoing encrypted link to give do-gooders a real challenge. The hacker doesn’t even need to be in the same ZIP code to crack a firewall or VPN — the 3G link lets the Power Pwn take bash command-line instructions through SMS messages and doles out some of its feedback the same way. While the $1,295 device can theoretically be used for nefarious purposes, DARPA’s blessing (and funding) should help keep the Power Pwn safely in the hands of security pros and thwart more than a few dastardly villains looking for weak networks.

Filed under: Networking, Internet

DARPA-backed Power Pwn is power strip by day, superhero hack machine by night originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Jul 2012 07:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Wired  |  Pwnie Express  | Email this | Comments

AT&T has done itself no favors with its fudged response to rumors of an extra fee in order to use FaceTime over 3G connections on devices running iOS 6. Talk that the carrier would levy extra data charges if users wanted to take advantage of Apple’s increased FaceTime flexibility – so far limited to WiFi connections – prompted an uproar of pre-emptive complaints that AT&T might put a financial block in the way of iPhone and iPad functionality. But are we really on the precipice of a groundswell of video calling, or are we simply taking this opportunity to be angry at a carrier for daring to charge us money?

Apple’s handling of FaceTime has been shoddy, it has to be said. The company originally promised to open the system up to third-parties, making it a cross-platform service rather than limiting it solely to its own iOS and Mac clients. That hasn’t happened, and beyond revealing 3G support in the upcoming iOS 6 back at WWDC 2012, Apple has been quiet on where, exactly, FaceTime is going.

Leaving out carrier-specific details at the WWDC keynote is a good example of that, though Apple isn’t done any favors by AT&T’s famed reluctance to commit to anything until the last minute. Going by the error messages popping up on devices already running the iOS 6 beta, it’s looking very likely that AT&T will be demanding another tithe for those wanting to use the data they’ve already paid for to make FaceTime 3G calls – on top of mandatory data package fees and, if required, tethering add-ons.

Exactly how much that will cost – if, indeed, it happens at all – remains to be seen. AT&T could go for a pay-per-use fee, either on a per-call basis (say, $0.50 per FaceTime 3G call you make, regardless of length) or based on data consumption. Or, it could opt for a set fee each month for blanket FaceTime 3G calling; say, $10 more on top of your existing data package.

“How much is “too much”?”

Is $10 too much to ask for the convenience of not using, say, Skype and instead relying on Apple’s streamlined alternative? Would $5 be acceptable? What if AT&T said you could make as many FaceTime calls over 3G as you like, as long as you also upgrade to a tethering package? How much is “too much”?

Listen to the current crop of complaints, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Apple gadget users have been crying out for a video calling, but that the prospect of AT&T fees is going to yank the rug out from under it. Apple hasn’t released usage figures for FaceTime – perhaps indicative that it hasn’t exactly set the world alight, given Apple loves nothing more than loudly proclaiming the numerical evidence of its successes – but is the current lack of 3G support really the blockade, or is it the fact that video calling really just doesn’t rate highly on the priority list of most?

What does rate strongly is the suspicion that fat-cat carriers are preparing to squeeze yet more fees out of us every month. Even if we don’t want to use a feature, nothing enrages us like the possibility that someone might want to charge us for it. So, don’t conflate anger over the possibility of AT&T plan changes with a real appetite for video calling services. Sometimes, subscribers just like an opportunity to blow off steam.

Do we really want FaceTime 3G or do we just resent paying for things? is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.