Hasta La Gadget!

During CES 2014, AT&T announced a new service called Sponsored Data. Basically the idea is that instead of using your own data to view movies or download apps, AT&T will allow companies to sponsor you some data instead. For example if Netflix were to run a promotion where they provide free movies as a trial, instead of you using your own data to download said movies, Netflix will instead sponsor you that amount of data, meaning that the movie you download will not eat into your data allowance. AT&T’s CEO Ralph de la Vega called it a win-win situation for consumers and businesses alike, and while it does have its merits, some are worried about its effects on fair competition.

Well it turns out that the FCC does not seem too eager about AT&T’s recent move as well, and speaking at CES today is the FCC Chairman, Tom Wheeler, in which he revealed that the FCC was closely monitoring AT&T’s new Sponsored Data program and are more than happy to intervene should it interfere with operation of the open internet. “My attitude is: let’s take a look at what this is, let’s take a look at how it operates […] And be sure, that if it interferes with the operation of the internet; that if it develops into an anticompetitive practice; that if it does have some kind of preferential treatment given somewhere, then that is cause for us cause to intervene.” 

This will not be the first time that AT&T has had their plans objected by government bodies. Back n 2011, the US DOJ filed a lawsuit to block the AT&T T-Mobile meger, which ultimately led to their plans falling apart, resulting in AT&T having to pay T-Mobile a breakup fee as well as give them some of their spectrum in the process.

FCC Will Keep An Eye On AT&T’s Sponsored Data Program original content from Ubergizmo.

Back in 2013, Samsung made waves when they announced their Exynos 5-series of octa-core processors, although technically it was still four cores as this relied on the big.LITTLE technology. Later in the year we started hearing about how companies such as MediaTek were looking to develop true octa-core processors, where all eight cores would be used at once, as opposed to two sets of four cores that are swapped around depending on the situation. Interestingly enough as much as it would seem that octa-cores are the way of the future (and 64-bit chipsets), it would seem that leaked documents have suggested that Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 3 Lite will be the first phone in the world to utilize a hexa-core setup.

What does this mean? Does it mean we can expect all six cores to be powered at once? Maybe not as this appears to be still take advantage of ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture. According to the documents obtained by GSMArena, the hexa-core setup will include two 1.7GHz cores, and four 1.3GHz cores, which presumably will be used for less intensive tasks, while the beefier and speedier cores will be used for more demanding activities, such as playing games and so on. Samsung has yet to officially announce the Galaxy Note 3 Lite, but based on the rumors and what we know, the handset could feature a 5.5-inch 720p HD display, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, an 8MP camera, and will most likely be positioned as a lower-cost alternative to the Galaxy Note 3.

Hopefully we will learn more about the device at MWC 2014, so be sure to check back with us then for all the details.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Lite Could Feature A Hexa-Core Chipset original content from Ubergizmo.

Back in 2013 we reported on the rumors that T-Mobile might no longer be interested in carrying BlackBerry devices anymore. The reason? Well apparently disappointing BlackBerry sales have apparently been a pretty compelling reason, and it looks like those rumors could be coming true. The folks at N4BB have recently attempted to purchase a BlackBerry device via T-Mobile’s online store, and a cursory search for BlackBerry phones yielded only one device, the BlackBerry Curve 9315 which was launched about a year ago. Pretty strange as you might think that at the very least the carrier would offer BlackBerry’s latest handsets, right?

Perhaps some of you guys think it could be a glitch in the system or database where the results are only returning a single product, but when they called T-Mobile directly to enquire about this, they were told by the representative that they were no longer selling BlackBerry devices. Of course the person who told them might have only been a customer service rep who might not know the full story, but as it stands T-Mobile has yet to comment on this, but hopefully they will and we will be able to learn more about this soon. T-Mobile has recently launched Uncarrier 4.0 making it incredibly tempting for customers to jump ship, but with the carrier potentially ignoring one platform entirely, BlackBerry fans might have less reasons to make the switch.

Did T-Mobile Stop Selling BlackBerry Devices? original content from Ubergizmo.

Is it a little too early to start discussing iPhone 6 rumors? Well we suppose not, and now thanks to a leaked photo making its rounds on the internet (courtesy of GizChina via C Technology), it seems that we might be looking at what they claim is the metal frame for Apple’s iPhone 6. Upon first glance it would seem that is the case as the frame does look bigger than the iPhone 5/5s which corroborates the rumors that Apple will be bumping the display size of the iPhone this year to possible phablet proportions. However upon taking a closer look, there are certain aspects of it that has us, and many other reputable publications, thinking that what we are looking at might be a fake.

For starters the metal band designed ceased to be used by Apple when they introduced the iPhone 5 where they relied on a unibody enclosure, allowing the overall design of the phone to be thinner, and to a certain extent it would be very un-Apple if they were to go ahead and make their next-gen iPhone thicker than before. Apple had also swapped the headphone jack from the top of the phone to the bottom part of the phone, placing it close to the Lighting port. The photo clearly shows the headphone jack positioned at the top next to either the ambient light sensor or the front-facing camera.

The reason the headphone jack has been positioned at the bottom is because it is more “natural”, not only for slipping and taking out of one’s pocket, but also because it lets the cable fall naturally and does not obscure the view of the user, as opposed to placing it at the top where the cable might fall across the screen. Those are some of the features that has many speculating that the photo isn’t real. So where did this component come from? Could it be an older prototype or could it have been completely fabricated? It’s hard to say but take it with a grain of salt for now.

Alleged (But Possibly Fake) iPhone 6 Metal Band Surfaces In Photos original content from Ubergizmo.

When BlackBerry was looking for a buyer to take it private, there was a lot of speculation about the future of its hardware business. Some analysts expected that whoever bought the company would shut the division down, but that didn’t happen. The new CEO John Chen has reiterated BlackBerry’s commitment to the consumer market and clarified that the hardware business isn’t going away anytime soon. Though significant changes do need to be made, given that the company hasn’t been able to come up with a hit smartphone in quite a long time. It seems BlackBerry is going back to its roots and once again embracing the full QWERTY keyboard.

Die-hard BlackBerry users would still argue that there’s nothing like typing on a full QWERTY keyboard touting device manufactured by the Canadian company. On the other hand, the market is increasingly shifting towards smartphone with large full-screen displays. BlackBerry CEO John Chen says that the company’s future smartphones will “predominantly” tout physical keyboards, “I personally love the keyboards,” said Chen in an interview with Bloomberg Television. It could mean that the high-end devices that BlackBerry will continue to manufacture in-house will tout physical keyboards, whereas the low-end and mid-range devices that Foxconn will be tasked with for emerging markets may come with full-screen displays. The first device to come out of the BB-Foxconn collaboration is said to tout a full-screen display. BlackBerry is expected to release two high-end devices in 2014, so far it hasn’t dropped any major hints about them.

Future BlackBerry Smartphones To ‘Predominantly’ Feature Keyboards original content from Ubergizmo.