Aug 12

Bay Area transit operator cuts cell service to thwart protest, activists abandon cause for Angry Birds

Posted in: cellphone, cellphones, Today's Chili
It looks like not even good old civil disobedience can survive without decent reception these days. In a seemingly successful attempt to shut down a protest of BART — the Bay Area’s answer to a subway system — operators pulled the plug on cell service to multiple train stations, leaving would-be activists without a major organizing tool. The demonstration would have been the second in as many months in response to the shooting of a man by transit police. Officials had this to say in defense of the disruption:

A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees and demonstrators. BART temporarily interrupted service at select BART stations as one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform.

That didn’t seem to sit well with some, as the cutoff has lead to a campaign by hackers, comparing the system to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who disconnected the country’s internet during its recent revolution. It may have a ring to it, but muBARTek does seem a little much, don’t you think?

Bay Area transit operator cuts cell service to thwart protest, activists abandon cause for Angry Birds originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  sourceBART  | Email this | Comments

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Aug 09

myTouch 4G Slide Review: An Actually Awesome Camera Phone

Posted in: Android, cellphones, HTC, Phones, review, Smartphones, t-mobile, Today's Chili, top

The problem with Android phones—a problem, anyway—is that for all the talk of choice, they can be remarkably undifferent. They lack a reason to exist. The myTouch 4G Slide has one, though: to be the best cameraphone you can buy. More »

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Aug 05

Motorola Droid 3 Lightning Review: Another Summer Sequel

Posted in: Android, cellphones, droid, motorola, Phones, review, Smartphones, Today's Chili, top, verizon

The original Droid was the phone that put Android on the map. Two sequels later, here we are with the Droid 3. But is it more The Dark Knight Rises or Spiderman 3? More »

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Aug 01

Wireless snooping WASP drone knows you want extra jalapeños, no sliced tomato

Posted in: cellphone, cellphones, hacking, military, Today's Chili

This fearsome contraption is the handiwork of a couple of amateur DEFCON-types who reckoned that any self-respecting spy plane ought to be able to impersonate cellphone towers. And that’s exactly what the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform does — it tricks AT&T and T-Mobile handsets into connecting to it, then re-routes the incoming calls via VOIP so they don’t drop, while simultaneously recording all conversations to 32GB of onboard storage. It can also handle a bit of WiFi snooping on the side, thanks to a Linux-based hacking toolkit and a 340 million word dictionary for guessing passwords. What’s more, the WASP apparently achieves all of this without breaking a single FCC regulation. So, er, that’s fine then. Oh yeah, and we don’t want any of that stuffed crust nonsense, you hear?

Wireless snooping WASP drone knows you want extra jalapeños, no sliced tomato originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Aug 2011 05:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceDigital Trends  | Email this | Comments

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Jul 29

AT&T Chokes Unlimited Data Dead. Dead Dead Dead.

Posted in: 4G, Apple, att, cellphones, iPhone, Phones, Smartphones, t-mobile, Today's Chili, top, verizon, Wireless

If you’ve still got an unlimited AT&T data plan that you’re holding onto for dear life to stream gigs and gigs of Spotify and Netflix and god knows what else, your life is about to suck a lot more. More »

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Jul 26

Mozilla Is Making an Android-Based Mobile OS

Posted in: Android, cellphones, Mozilla, Phones, Smartphones, Today's Chili, top

Choice is a wonderful thing, but successful restaurants have smaller menus for a reason. If you’ve been grappling with making a decision on phone platforms as is, Mozilla’s about to chuck their hat into the ring with their Boot to Gecko mobile platform. More »

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Jul 05

Act Now to Keep Gorging Yourself With Unlimited Data Forever (Well, Close Enough)

Posted in: Android, att, cellphones, iPhone, Smartphones, Sprint, t-mobile, Today's Chili, top, verizon

In two days, the unlimited data tap at Verizon is officially going to run dry, essentially ending the all-too-brief era of all-you-can-eat data at the nation’s two largest carriers. More »

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Jul 05

Samsung Galaxy S II: A First Draft of Your Next Android Phone

Posted in: Android, cellphones, galaxy s ii, gingerbread, review, samsung, Smartphones, Today's Chili, top

At this point, Android phones are officially being created faster than human babies. Samsung’s Galaxy phones have been the blueprint for the last year, literally. The Galaxy S II is the new blueprint—and it’s a very nice one. More »

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Jul 04

SleepWell forces WiFi to wait its turn, keeps gadgets well-rested (update)

Posted in: cellphones, Laptops, Microsoft, nokia, Today's Chili, verizon, wifi

SleepWellEver feel like your WiFi devices’ battery-lives are better off when not surrounded by peers and passersby? According to Duke University grad student Justin Manweiler and assistant professor Romit Roy Choudhury, this phenomenon is due to gadgets constantly fighting to retrieve the same data. Their Systems Networking Research Group has created a program dubbed SleepWell to alleviate the congestion; it puts WiFi to rest until the path is clear for accessing the specific data it needs, and provides improved power management all the while. The tech was shown off at MobiSys 2011 this past week and reportedly works well “across a number of device types and situations.” Notably, Microsoft and Nokia (amongst others like Verizon) are backing up the project, which makes us cautiously optimistic that it could be headed for WP7 (or Windows 8, for that matter) in due time. There’s no info on whether SleepWell will ever be distributed commercially, but may we suggest an LTE version to help out big V’s poor ol’ T-Bolt?

Update: We’d like to clarify that this software currently works from the accesss point side rather than the individual devices. You’ll a find an additional PDF about the project in the source links below.

[Thanks, Daiwei Li]

SleepWell forces WiFi to wait its turn, keeps gadgets well-rested (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jul 2011 08:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Textually, Yahoo News  |  sourceDuke Today, (PDF)  | Email this | Comments

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Jul 04

SleepWell forces WiFi to wait its turn, keeps gadgets well-rested

Posted in: cellphones, Laptops, Microsoft, nokia, Today's Chili, verizon, wifi

SleepWellEver feel like your WiFi devices’ battery-lives are better off when not surrounded by peers and passersby? According to Duke University grad student Justin Manweiler and assistant professor Romit Roy Choudhury, this phenomenon is due to gadgets constantly fighting to retrieve the same data. Their Systems Networking Research Group has created a program dubbed SleepWell to alleviate the congestion; it puts WiFi to rest until the path is clear for accessing the specific data it needs, and provides improved power management all the while. The tech was shown off at MobiSys 2011 this past week and reportedly works well “across a number of device types and situations.” Notably, Microsoft and Nokia (amongst others like Verizon) are backing up the project, which makes us cautiously optimistic that it could be headed for WP7 (or Windows 8, for that matter) in due time. There’s no info on whether SleepWell will ever be distributed commercially, but may we suggest an LTE version to help out big V’s poor ol’ T-Bolt?

SleepWell forces WiFi to wait its turn, keeps gadgets well-rested originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jul 2011 08:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Textually, Yahoo News  |  sourceDuke Today  | Email this | Comments

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