Hasta La Gadget!

FreedomPop tempted users with the prospect of free home internet access — free after buying the hardware, that is — back in December. If you’ve been champing at the bit ever since, you’ll be glad to know that the more stationary service is at last live. As promised, you’ll get 1GB of free data per month after picking up the $89 Hub Burst modem and router combo. That allotment won’t be useful for much more than emergency access on the desktop, but customers will have multiple avenues for raising the ceiling, whether it’s agreeing to join in promotions or simply paying for more. A starting $10 per month subscription nets a more reasonable 10GB cap, and additional plans boost the peak speed from a pokey 1.5Mbps to 8Mbps at $19 per month. We’d think carefully about leaping in when FreedomPop hopes to switch to LTE this year, but the price is low enough that the early adopter tax will be low.

Filed under: Wireless, Networking

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Source: FreedomPop

There’s been more than a few Atom-based storage servers. Most of them either have to lean on the same Atom processors you’d usually get with nettops, though, which makes them less than ideal for media tasks than a chip dedicated to the job. Intel has just launched a new platform that might be a better fit for home network storage. New NAS arrays from Asustor, Synology, Thecus and others (none yet pictured here) all revolve around a dual-core Atom CE5300 system-on-chip that’s better-optimized for media processing duties: it can stream video across the network to multiple devices at once, and can automatically downscale video to accommodate smaller screens. The small chip contributes to a relatively small price at the same time, with NAS boxes starting around $299. Not everyone can suddenly justify a dedicated media server in the home just because the CE5300 is an option, but those that do may at least get more for their money.

Filed under: Storage, Networking, HD, Intel

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Source: Intel

You may think that Lixin Cheng, the top banana at ZTE’s USA division since June 2010, has had a tough time facing strong accusations since October regarding its ties with the Chinese government and its lack of transparency, but at MWC yesterday, the CEO told us that the investigation has actually been beneficial for his company. “So far, the report really has no negative impact on our business in the US … it actually helps us build the brand,” said Cheng. “When the report came out, it was such a high profile news and everyone was talking about ZTE. Some of our handset consumers may call the hotline and say, ‘Hey, I have a phone from ZTE, do I have security concerns?’ And of course, most people would find out no, there are no security concerns.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Networking, Mobile

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[WMC 2013] During a keynote at Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm CEO Dr. Paul Jacobs and several high-profile executives like Rob Chandhok were promoting AllJoyn, the company’s open platform for device-to-device proximity communications that allow devices to exchange data over any network protocol, without going through a wide area network.

To shed some context around this new AllJoyn push, you should remember that Qualcomm has been promoting the concept for the past couple of years. We’ve seen demos in previous Qualcomm events and back then, AllJoyn was mainly shown in games, but in theory it works with many types of apps and data. Qualcomm’s idea is that with AllJoyn, smart appliances could be equipped with a low-cost processor and radio that would be sufficient to communicate with a smarter device like a smartphone, tablet or home hub. Today, smart fridges basically integrate an Android tablet: this is not cost-effective and therefore prevents their proliferation.  (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Coinstar Allows Customers To Deposit, Withdraw From PayPal, Kymera Jet Body Board,

NTT is developing technology that faithfully reproduces pictures and sound from distant locations, creating a natural sense of distance and position, as if both people are in the same room.
“Regarding the picture, this system includes technology that uses 3D video. It continually generates pictures from such a viewpoint that, the other person seems to be right in front of you. Regarding the sound, the system uses technology that reproduces the sound wave-front, so you can hear the other …