In a country whose carriers’ phone lineups are dominated by domestic giants like NEC, Sony, Sharp, and Fujitsu, you wouldn’t necessarily think that the road to 4G would begin elsewhere — strangely, though, South Korea’s LG has garnered the honor of becoming the first company to have an LTE device certified by Japan’s TELEC, a necessary, FCC-like step to getting cellular equipment deployed in those parts. NTT DoCoMo, which intends to launch commercial LTE service later this year, is undoubtedly stoked to hear that the LD100 external modem is the lucky recipient of TELEC’s seal of approval (following FCC certification last year, coincidentally), meaning the carrier now has the green light to use it in trials. Considering that TeliaSonera’s already beaten DoCoMo to the punch with a live, customer-facing LTE network, are the days of being shocked and awed by Japan’s mobile tech drawing to a close, or are we just witnessing a little fluke here?
With the announcement that the iPad would continue Apple’s often-rocky relationship with AT&T to serve up wide-area data, we wanted to know: exactly what does an iPad cost you over the course of a couple years? Granted, the iPad doesn’t support voice calling — nor does it require a contract, unlike the iPhone — but for anyone who uses an iPhone primarily for browsing and gaming, this could make for a serviceable alternative that saves money over the long term. Follow the break for the full rundown.
In a direct blow to everyone else with a netbook and an unlimited data plan, AT&T has scored a deal to offer unlimited 3G data on 3G-capable versions of the iPad for $29.99 a month (then again, this is the same as an iPhone plan, and you’re getting iPhone-level capability here). A 250MB plan, meanwhile, will be available for half that at $14.99 a month. Activation can happen right on the device — no store visits or calls are necessary — and there’s no contract involved. The device is fully unlocked, so if you absolutely want to, you’re welcome to take it to any other GSM carrier of your choice (assuming you can find a SIM that works — Apple’s talking up a new “micro SIM” for it). International users, stay tuned: Apple expects to have deals in place for you by June of this year.
We all love a good debate about how the tech giants of today are competing with each other, but rarely do we get a handy reference sheet like this to point people to. Nick Bilton of the New York Times has put together a segment-by-segment comparison between America’s tech heavyweights, which does a fine job of pinpointing who competes with whom and where. We find the gaps in coverage more intriguing than the overlaps, though, with Microsoft’s only unticked box — mobile hardware — raising habitual rumors of a Pink phone. Apple’s absence from the provision of mapping services might also soon be at an end, given the company acquired map maker Placebase in July of last year (see Computerworld). Anyway, there should be plenty more for you to enjoy, so hit the source for the full chart and get analyzin’.
SSDs may be what’s “next,” but seriously — magnetic tape storage is the real heat. This darn near antediluvian storage medium is amazingly still around and kicking, and what’s even more incredible is that real advancements are taking place. Just under four years ago, IBM and Fujifilm were doing the Cha Cha Slide Tango as they introduced 8TB cartridges; today, the two are rolling out (quite literally, actually) a 35TB version into the wild, wild world that we call home. Nah, you won’t find these on any Best Buy shelves, but your great grandchild’s medical records may one day end up on something built in the year 2010. Just think about that. Think about it.
The latest research from Gartner indicates that, for the year 2009, only 16 million app sales were executed on mobile devices not bearing the infamous bitten apple logo. In reporting this data, Ars Technica inadvertently conflates Apple’s latest announcement of three billion apps downloaded with the notion of three billion apps sold and pegs the App Store’s market share at a whopping 99.4 percent — but more realistic calculations still show it to be somewhere in the vicinity of 97.5 percent. Going off estimates (obtained by GigaOM) that a quarter of App Store downloads are paid-for apps, and taking a rough figure of 2.5 billion downloads in 2009, leaves us with around 625 million app sales performed by Apple, which comfortably dwarfs all its competition. Considering the fact 18 months ago there wasn’t even an App Store to speak of — whereas today Cupertino is gobbling up the best part of $4.2 billion in annual mobile apps revenue — maybe you can now understand why we’re covering every tiny drip of info about that mythical tablet.
Sprint’s talking about it, but AT&T’s straight-up doing something about Verizon’s plan adjustments this morning with a series of its own tweaks this afternoon. Starting Monday, January 18 (conveniently the same day that Verizon’s changes go live), unlimited talk will run $69.99 on individual plans, a nice little cut of $30 against the $99.99 the carrier charges today; family unlimited, meanwhile, comes in at $119.99. Unlimited talk and text costs another $20 on top of unlimited talk alone — no change from the current add-on pricing. Similarly, unlimited talk plus smartphone data goes for $99.99, meaning that you’re paying $30 for the data package — exactly the same as you’re paying now, so really, this all boils down to a big adjustment in what carriers across the board are charging for voice. The principles of Econ 101 have us believe that voice isn’t as popular as it used to be — we are now sending billions upon billions of texts, after all — and as we ease off the voice infrastructure, it makes sense that these guys would want to upsell everyone into unlimited plans (remember that we’re living in an “all you can eat” kind of nation) while still banking big on precious kilobytes and characters. Well played, AT&T; you too, Verizon. Well played, indeed.
Yo Intel, when your 2008 fourth quarter was one of the worst you ever recorded, it’s slightly, just slightly, facetious to go trumpeting an 875 percent improvement in your 2009 fortunes. The self-appointed chipmaking rock star has clocked up $10.6 billion in revenues for the last quarter, which filters down to $2.3 billion in pure, unadulterated, mother-loving profit. That’s good and indeed technically nearly nine times what the company achieved in the same period the previous year — we’d just appreciate this to be represented as the recovery it is, rather than some major leap forward in the face of a global financial meltdown. Either way, the Santa Clara checkbook is now well and truly balanced, even if it would’ve looked fatter still but for the small matter of a $1.25 billion settlement reflected in last quarter’s results.
Verizon’s not known for simplicity when it comes to plan selection (actually, most carriers aren’t) — currently, individuals can choose from Basic, Select, Connect, and Premium plans in a variety of voice bucket sizes, each featuring different text message and data allowances. It looks like that’s about to change, though, on leaked slides showing that the current postpaid individual plan structure will be completely wiped out and replaced with just six options on the 18th of this month, down from 16 prior. Overall, the move is a trade-off — unlimited voice pricing will come down a whopping 30 percent, while data packages will now be required on all but the most basic handsets. Comparing all-you-can-eat packages from all the major carriers, this slots Verizon $10 below AT&T but still well above Sprint and T-Mobile, same as always. Prepaid is getting tweaked, too, with all postpaid plans magically turning into prepaid for $5 more per month minus Friends & Family numbers. It’s a thorough restructuring from a company that doesn’t move very fast or very often, and it’ll be interesting to see if (and how) the other guys respond.
There are three ways to tether your Android handset and get sweet internet love even where there’s no Wi-Fi in sight: the risky-but-free rooting method, the still-geeky-but-not-as-bad free route, and the $30 easy way. Here are the pros and cons of each.
Method 1: Tether Android with Apps that Need Root (Free, heavy configuration)
The Android Wi-Fi Tether application turns your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot—essentially a MiFi—in one tap. The catch? You have to gain root access to your phone, a multi-step process that uses an unofficial Android add-on which can brick your phone if applied incorrectly. Rooting Android is doable for geeks and hackers with experience soft-modding hardware, but it’s not something most users could (or should!) do.
If you’re up for getting root access in Android, the Android and Me blog runs down how to do it. It’s a multi-step process that involves unlocking your phone’s bootloader, flashing a recovery image, and flashing an add-on to the default Nexus One firmware. Not for the faint of heart, but definitely doable if you’ve ever upgraded your router’s firmware or hacked your Xbox. Here’s a video of the process from Android and Me:
The pros of this method: it’s free and it makes your phone act as a Wi-Fi hotspot that any computer can connect to without extra software or messing with your computer’s setting. The cons: you can seriously screw up your phone if something goes wrong, and you may be sacrificing over-the-air automatic Android updates in the future. (If OTA updates cease, you can always flash your recovery image—but this just means your rooted phone requires maintenance a non-rooted phone does not.)
Method 2: Tether Android with Proxoid (Free, no root required, some configuration)
If you don’t want to gain root but know enough to get around the command line and use proxy servers, the Proxoid Android app can tether your phone for free. Proxoid turns your Android device into a proxy server that your computer uses to make internet requests. Proxoid is free in the Android market, but to get it working you have to install the Android SDK or device drivers onto your computer, tweak some of the settings, and then configure your browser to use a proxy server whenever you want to tether. Here are the installation instructions.
To connect to the internet via Proxoid, on the phone you tap a button to start the proxy server. On your Mac you enter a command in the Terminal and on Windows you run a batch file to start the tunnel, then you set your web browser to use that proxy.
The pros of this method are that it’s free and you don’t need to gain root, so it’s less risky. The cons are that you’ve got to install the Android SDK (something really only developers should have to do), and set your browser to use the proxy server each time you want to tether.
Method 3: Tether Android with PDAnet ($30, no root required, minimal configuration)
Finally, the PDAnet Android application lets you tether Android using an app on the phone plus simple software you install on your computer.
PDAnet costs $30 if you want to access https ports (which the free version blocks). To connect to the internet via the phone, you tap a button to start PDAnet on the phone, and click “Connect” in the PDAnet on your computer.
The pros of PDAnet are that it’s risk-free, easy to use, and requires minimal setup. (You do have to enable USB debugging on your phone, which is the geekiest step it involves, but that’s just a checkbox in your phone’s settings.) The cons of PDAnet is that it requires the PDAnet software on your computer and that it costs $30.
What I’m Doing
Either I’m getting old and worn-out, or Jarvis is getting to me, because right now I’m with Chris: rooting Android isn’t a process I want to go through again or have to maintain. In that spirit of laziness, I also don’t want to have to mess with proxy servers or the command line when I tether; I want to click “Connect” and get online. So, I went with PDAnet, which was the simplest but not free option of the bunch.
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There are three ways to tether your Android handset and get sweet internet love even where there’s no Wi-Fi in sight: the risky-but-free rooting method, the still-geeky-but-not-as-bad free route, and the $30 easy way. Here are the pros and cons of each.
If you don’t want to gain root but know enough to get around the command line and use proxy servers, the 
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