Hasta La Gadget!

In an effort to update the FCC’s long-running Lifeline program that helps put telephone access in low-income homes, a new piece of legislation has been introduced to the House of Representatives that would aim to give low-income homes the opportunity for unsubsidized broadband internet access.

The bill is backed by Rep. Doris Matsui (D-CA), and it’s being called the Broadband Adoption Act of 2013, which would instruct the FCC to modify the Lifeline program in order to include broadband internet. Matsui says that the Lifeline program is fantastic, but it needs to be updated and modernized to fit within the 21st century.

Lifeline is funded by the “Universal Service” system, which helps low-income Americans pay for their landline phone, but this new bill would see Universal Services also helping pay for broadband internet access. In addition to subsidizing services, the Universal Service also helps pay for telephone service in rural areas around the country.

However, the discussion of whether or not to provide low-income households with cheaper broadband internet has been up and down in Washington for several years now, with a 2010 government report showing up that recommended the addition of broadband internet to the existing Lifeline program. Plus, Matsui introduced similar legislation in 2011, but it quickly faded away.

[via Ars Technica]

New legislation aims for subsidized broadband in low-income homes is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Samsung’s Galaxy Mega 6.3 still doesn’t have an exact launch date, but it has made its way to the FCC. While the Mega was announced with LTE and HSPA+ radios, it appears that this version, model I9200, only has the latter onboard (I9205 is the LTE-equipped variant) — the Galaxy slightly-less Mega, it seems. It’s a safe bet that this particular model won’t officially make it stateside, but the reports seem to indicate that it’ll play nice with AT&T’s HSPA+ bands. In case you’re thinking of importing this 1.7Ghz device down the line, you can have a look at our hands-on here. Otherwise, you can have a look at the filing by heading to the source link.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Samsung

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Source: FCC

It was only a matter of time, we suppose, before OUYA found itself on Uncle Sam’s table, and the day has finally come, as the open source console has made its way through the FCC. As we’ve steadily uncovered all of OUYA’s secrets since its inception, there’s not much new revealed by the government’s testing. That said, the flayed OUYA appears to be a founding backer edition, with the names of the chosen 11 inscribed on one side, but it’s exchanged the opaque power button on top for a clear unit — indicating that perhaps retail OUYA’s will make it easier for owners to tell when the thing’s on. Want to see the full monty for yourself? Theres’s plenty of pictures of the OUYA’s insides at the source link below.

Filed under: Gaming

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Source: FCC

The other we reported that Dish had made a counter-offer to Sprint and offered to acquire the company for more than what Japanese carrier, Softbank, was offering. Softbank seems to be unfazed by the counter-offer and expects the deal to conclude in a timely manner as expected, and if offering Sprint more money wasn’t enough, Dish is now stating that they believe that for them to buy Sprint would be in the interest of national security.

Dish has submitted a filing to the FCC and claimed that allowing Softbank to acquire Sprint would not be good for national security, and according to Reuters, they are asking the FCC to suspend the review of the buyout, stating that “Dish’s merger proposal is better for American consumers, better for Sprint shareholders, and better for national security than the SoftBank proposal.” This is not the first time we’ve heard about concerns over national security as Sprint and Softbank have stated back in March that they promise not to use Chinese equipment. In any case we’re not sure what this filing to the FCC will accomplish and if it will derail Softbank’s plans and schedule.

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Blackberry announced that the Q10 is expected to be available in April, and it looks like the Canadian company might be able to make that date after all. The Blackberry Q10 has recently passed through the FCC, meaning that a launch on US carriers is only a matter of time. So far there has not been any announcement by any of the major four US carriers about the availability of the phone, but over in Canada it has been rumored that the Q10 will launch on the 30^th of April, which hopefully means that s US launch will not be too far behind.

The Blackberry Q10 is the company’s second Blackberry 10 handset and unlike the flagship Z10, the Q10 will be taking after its Blackberry 7 predecessors in the sense that it will feature a QWERTY keyboard layout which is reminiscent of the Blackberry Bold 9900, albeit with a new operating system running things alongside new hardware.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Pixuru Prints Your iPhone Photos Into Works Of Art, Verizon Sells 4M iPhones, 2M iPhone 5s Last Quarter,