Hasta La Gadget!

The FTC held a workshop on mobile payments last year, and it’s now followed that up with a full report that raises a few concerns and offers some recommendations for the industry. Those include the expected issues of privacy and security, which the FTC encourages companies to step up their efforts on, as well as the issue of billing disputes. On that latter front, the FTC draws attention to one problem in particular known as “cramming,” in which companies or individuals place fraudulent charges on a user’s cellphone bill. As the FTC notes in the report, “there are no federal statutory protections governing consumer disputes about fraudulent or unauthorized charges placed on mobile carrier bills,” and it further adds in a blog post that “the way mobile carrier billing works makes this a challenging problem to solve.” It goes on to outline some consumer protection measures it says all carriers should adopt, and notes that it will further address the issue at a roundtable on May 8th. You can find the full report at the source link.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: FTC report (PDF), FTC, FTC Business Center Blog

Microsoft isn’t acknowledging the development, or even the existence, of the Xbox 360’s successor (codenamed “Durango“), but that isn’t stopping potential details from leaking out of Redmond. The latest report comes via console overview documents (known as “white papers”) provided to Kotaku by the same source who provided information on the next PlayStation (codenamed “Orbis“), and it spells out some things we’ve yet to hear. Namely, the console will ship with a new version of Microsoft’s motion-sensing camera controller, Kinect, and that the device, “must be plugged in and calibrated for the console to even function,” the piece says. The new Kinect — which we’ve heard of in the past — is said to capture up to six people at once, and an alleged image demonstrating the difference between new and old versions of the camera puts much higher specs on said device (1920×1080 color resolution, more trackable joints, improved depth resolution, etc.).

The new console is also reported to employ multitasking, enabling multiple games or apps to run concurrently, similar to mobile phones and tablets; how many apps that could mean is unclear, if true. Sony’s PlayStation Vita already employs such functionality, making the claim all the less far-fetched.

The piece also states supposedly final retail hardware specs for Microsoft’s next game console, including a 64-bit D3D11.x 800MHz GPU, an 8-core x64 1.6GHz 4MB L2 CPU, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB of on-board memory, USB 3.0, HDMI-out, and an optical drive for 50GB discs. For its part, Microsoft’s staying mum — “We do not comment on rumors or speculation. We are always thinking about what is next for our platform, but we don’t have anything further to share at this time,” a Microsoft spokesperson told us — and Sony’s the only game in town with even an event scheduled in the near future.

[Photo credit: Kotaku]

Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft

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Source: Kotaku

Last year, the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) told us there were five billion mobile subscriptions worldwide at the close of 2010, and now it’s reporting that at the end of 2011, that figure hit a staggering six billion. China and India account for one billion a piece, and it brings us ever closer to having the equivalent of one subscription for every person on the planet. (According to the CTIA, there are already more cellular plans in the US — around 322 million — than there are inhabitants.) In a stat-heavy release from the ITU, it also ranked the most advanced telecoms countries, with South Korea placing first, Japan eighth and countries in Europe filling the remaining spots.

Interestingly, the number of global mobile broadband subscriptions now outnumbers fixed ones by two to one, and mobile internet services showed the biggest growth rates in 2011: 40% worldwide and 78% in developing markets. The ITU attributes the latter figure to the relatively high price of fixed access in these countries, and the increasing availability of mobile alternatives. The CTIA also commented on mobile broadband use, reporting that from July 2011 to June this year, Americans consumed 104 percent more data — no doubt due, in part, to people taking advantage of expanding 4G coverage. As usual, we’ve given you the cheat sheet, so if you’d like the full reports and have got a thing for statistics, there’s plenty more in the source links below.

[Image credit: Chris Jordan]

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Wireless, Internet, Mobile

International Telecommunication Union: worldwide mobile subscriptions hit six billion in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Oct 2012 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Ars Technica  |  ITU, CTIA  | Email this | Comments

As the initial wave of iPhone 5 reviews hit, it looked as if Apple’s dual-core A6 processor was sporting a clock speed of around 1GHz. We saw reports (and confirmed with our own handset) ranging between 1.00 and 1.02GHz, but a new Geekbench build (v2.3.6) has today revealed a horse of a different color. According to Primate Labs’ own John Poole, the latest version of the app — which landed on the App Store today — “features a dramatically improved processor frequency detection algorithm, which consistently reports the A6’s frequency as 1.3GHz.” In speaking with us, he affirmed that “earlier versions of Geekbench had trouble determining the A6’s frequency, which lead to people claiming the A6’s frequency as 1.0GHz as it was the most common value Geekbench reported.”

When we asked if he felt that the A6 was capable of dynamically overclocking itself for more demanding tasks, he added: “I don’t believe the A6 has any form of processor boost. In our testing, we found the 1.3GHz was constant regardless of whether one core or both cores were busy.” Our own in-house iPhone 5 is regularly displaying 1.29GHz, while a tipster’s screenshot (hosted after the break) clearly display 1.30GHz. Oh, and if anyone wants to dip their iPhone 5 in a vat of liquid nitrogen while trying to push things well over the 2GHz level, we certainly wouldn’t try to dissuade your efforts.

[Thanks, Bruno]

Continue reading Apple’s A6 CPU actually clocked at around 1.3GHz, per new Geekbench report

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Apple’s A6 CPU actually clocked at around 1.3GHz, per new Geekbench report originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 19:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Primate Labs, Geekbench (App Store)  | Email this | Comments

Back in March, the Fair Labor Association issued the results of its investigation of Foxconn’s Chinese plants, spurring a joint effort between Apple and the manufacturer to make working conditions better for employees. The non-profit has since followed up to investigate the fruits of the companies’ promise, visiting three Foxconn facilities for a visual inspection of the factories and review of documentation like payroll records and policies. The FLA discovered a fair amount of progress being made on its visits, noting,

Many physical changes to improve worker health and safety have been made since the investigation, including the enforcement of ergonomic breaks, changing the design of workers’ equipment to guard against repetitive stress injuries, updating of maintenance policies to ensure equipment is working properly, and testing of emergency protective equipment like eyewashes and sprinklers. Foxconn has also engaged consultants to provide health and safety training for all employees.

Also on the list is the election of unions, extension of insurance coverage and the reduction of the work week down to (a still over-the-limit) 60 hours. The organization has promised to continue to monitor progress as Foxconn and Apple work to meet all of its goals. Check out the source link below for a more complete look at the findings.

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Laptops, Tablet PCs

Fair Labor Association’s Foxconn investigation notes improved factory conditions originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink MacRumors  |  Fair Labor Association  | Email this | Comments