Hasta La Gadget!

The FCC has announced that ahead of yesterday’s deadline, carriers have instituted an alert system that will give subscribers a heads up when they’re nearing what will be a large bill. This follows many stories about unsuspecting consumers who have gone about their daily mobile usage, only to be faced with a massive bill at the end of the month for exceeding their limits.

Says the Federal Communications Commission, 97-percent of mobile device users in the United States are now covered by the high bill alert system. The remaining 3-percent are using carriers who weren’t part of the voluntary agreement Consumer Code for Wireless Service. That doesn’t mean those carriers won’t send out alerts to their customers, only that they won’t be doing so under the CTIA-sponsored agreement.

Participating carriers include Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular, Clearwire, Cellcome, and a few others, all of which provide voice, data, roaming, and text alerts (if applicable). The high bill alerts will be provided free of charge, so users don’t have to worry about the notifications eating into their text limits, for example.

Obviously, the alerts will only be given to those who have a plan where there’s a limitation in place with penalties for going over it, such as a limited number of minutes. Also, alerts will be provided if someone is roaming and doesn’t have a roaming package, putting them at risk of higher fees. The alerts are automatically generated and delivered. Those who want more info should head over to the CTIA’s website.

[via FCC]

Carriers will now provide high bill alerts, says FCC is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft has just reported its fiscal Q3 2013 quarterly earnings, and things are looking adequate for the company, which reports a revenue of $20.5 billion for the quarter, with a net income of $6.06 billion. The company also posted an operating income of $7.61 billion, which is up from $6.37 billion during this time last year.

Analysts had predicted Microsoft’s revenue to be $20.5 billion, and they were right on the money. The company’s revenue last quarter was $21.46 billion, so they didn’t do as well this quarter, but a positive income in the black is always a good thing. Microsoft’s Windows division did fairly well this quarter, bringing in $5.7 billion, compared to last year’s $4.3 billion.

The company’s Business division raked in $6.32 billion, while they’re Entertainment division brought in $2.53 billion. All three of these divisions saw a revenue increase compared to this time last year. CEO Steve Ballmer says that the company’s big bets were on “cloud services,” and he says those bets are paying off big time.

Overall, year-over-year changes were all in the positives, with Microsoft’s Entertainment division seeing the biggest increase of 56%. Along with today’s quarterly earnings, Microsoft announced that Peter Klein, who served as the company’s CFO for four years, is stepping down from the role. He spent 11 years at Microsoft.

Microsoft posts $20.5 billion revenue in Q3 2013 earnings is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Verizon didn’t do so hot during Q4 2012, but the company is back posting up their Q1 2013 results, and things are looking mighty good for the company. Verizon profited a whopping $4.8 billion during Q1 2013, and that’s mostly thanks to the addition of 677,000 new subscribers throughout the quarter, with 7.2 million smartphone activations.

Verizon is now up to 98.9 million subscribers total, which means it shouldn’t be too long before they reach the 100 million mark. Furthermore, the carrier activated 5.9 million LTE devices out of the 7.2 million total activations. Verizon also claims that 28% of all activations during the quarter were customers who came from other carriers.

As for Verizon’s other services, FiOS internet saw a bump of 188,000 new customers and 169,000 new FiOS Video customers, which rose the revenue of that particular sector of the company up $2.6 billion. And for those who thought that Verizon quit expanding FiOS will be pleased to know that they added fiber optics to 83,000 homes during the past quarter alone, with 217,000 more homes planned for 2013.

Total revenue for the company rang in at $29.4 billion, which is 4.2% increase year-over-year. Operating income grew 19.8% to $6.2 billion in Q1 2013, compared to $5.2 billion during the same time last year. $19.5 billion of that $29.4 billion revenue came from Verizon’s wireless business alone, which is up 6.8% from last year.

Verizon boasts $4.8 billion profit in Q1 2013 results is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The price tag fixed to a car is only part of what you’ll spend for the vehicle, with the sale being followed shortly by licensing fees and taxes. Beyond that, there’s the cost associated with properly maintaining the vehicle and fixing the occassional problem that arises, and then there’s the daily cost, primarily in the form of filling the tank up. Most of these costs were used in AAA’s “Your Driving Costs” report, which pegs the yearly price of owning a car at $9,122.

The study analyzed the costs associated with tires, insurance, fuel, maintenance, and depreciation to make its determination, with maintenance being the largest culprit this time around for sedan owners, having increased to 4.97 cents per mile over 2012. Obviously, smaller cars are said to have lower costs across the board, while bigger vehicles have higher costs in all categories.

Insurance saw the next highest increase, with costs rising 2.76-percent yearly over 2012. Fuel was third at a 1.93-percent increase, and depreciation was a close fourth at .78-percent. The costs associated with tires, meanwhile, didn’t change, with costs at only about a penny per mile, making them pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things.

The yearly cost is based on driving 15,000 miles per year, which means it could be too high for some drivers and not high enough for others. The average cost of driving those miles, when factoring in all the categories, is 60.8 cents/mile, which represents a cost increase over 2012 of about 2-percent. Not monumental, but still a relevant increase.

[via USA Today]

AAA: It costs $9,122 a year to own a car is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook is gearing up to launch video ads on its network come this summer. The ads are expected to arrive in June or July, and Ad Age reports that there will be 4 slots, each slot costing around $1 million daily for advertisers to use. While Facebook has yet to decide on what video ad format it wants to use, sources have told Ad Age that Facebook has conferred with 3 executives about the new product.

Facebook will make these video ads targeted towards specific users. There is a category for women over 30, women under 30, men over 30, and men under 30. Each ad will be about 15 seconds long, and users will only see a maximum of 3 ads per day. The ads will be on auto-play mode, and will either cover the entirety of the user’s Facebook page, be smaller ads located on a corner of your Facebook feed, or be something else entirely. The video ads will also be implemented onto Facebook Mobile.

If Facebook is successful in getting advertisers to pay the elaborate fee, it can generate at least $120 million a month and $1.44 billion a year. It’s speculated that Facebook wants to target those in the TV industry who have a huge budget for advertising. One executive who was briefed on the new product, however, says that the current price tag will most likely deter many advertisers, and would most likely spark outrage among Facebook’s users.

Launching video ad units on its social network, while may generate a massive amount of revenue for Facebook, will not be well-received by its users. Facebook users want to quickly get into their Facebook feed, check out any new status updates, message a few friends, and get out. Having to close out of Facebook’s video ads, or worse, be required to sit through a 15 second ad will anger a lot of people. But as we know, Facebook’s main goal is to generate as much revenue as possible.

[via Ad Age]

Facebook wants advertisers to pay $1m a day to display their video ads is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.