Hasta La Gadget!

HTC Thunderbolt rumored to be hitting Best Buy February 14th, sans mobile hotspot or Skype video? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 23:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hi, AT&T? Loyal customer here. Really been digging the iPhone the last few years, and was excited to find out I can use it as a hotspot in March. That is, if you let us. And here’s why you should. More »

LAS VEGAS — Samsung climbed aboard the increasingly crowded 4G train with a trio of 4G LTE-enabled devices Thursday afternoon at CES 2011.

Among the devices are a new version of the Galaxy Tab. Along with 4G connectivity capability, the new tablet will have an upgraded 5-megapixel back facing camera, distinguished from the current model’s 3 megapixels.

Samsung didn’t announce when the tablet would be available. It will be exclusive to Verizon’s 4G network in the U.S.

In addition to the new tablet, Samsung also unveiled a new, yet-to-be named smartphone, provisionally called the 4G LTE. It’s yet another launch of a mobile device with a massive super AMOLED screen — it measures in at 4.3-inches — debuting only days after the company had first announced its 4.5-inch Infuse smartphone.

Under the hood, the 4G LTE has a 1 GHz single-core processor. Just like the Infuse, the 4G LTE has an 8-megapixel back facing camera, with a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera for video chat. Both the 4G LTE and the Infuse will run Froyo. Like the tablet, there aren’t any pricing or availability details being made public yet.

And to round out the announcement, Samsung also introduced its aptly named 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot for Verizon’s 4G network. The device will work much like other hotspots do, acting as a wireless access point for up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices at once. It’s also backward compatible with Verizon’s 3G network.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Well, that certainly didn’t last very long, did it? Looks like Clear is already sending its unusual iSpot product to the great WiMAX network in the sky less than five months after its introduction. As a refresher, the iSpot’s claim to fame is that it was designed to work only with iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads — and in exchange for the crazy restriction, Clear would charge you less than $100 for the hotspot itself and just $25 a month for unlimited 4G access capped at 6Mbps down. Of course, it’s easy to understand why Clear would want to forget the iSpot ever existed: its MAC address filtering was easily defeated and plagued with reports that even approved devices were being denied access, suggesting that the concept probably wasn’t a solid one in the first place. For what it’s worth, Clear retail stores are still selling through remaining stock if you’re interested — and the company will maintain a supply of units for warranty replacements — but otherwise, you’re out of luck.

[Thanks, rand]

Clear iSpot discontinued already originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Dec 2010 17:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T has a New Year’s present for any customers planning on spending the evening in New York’s Times Square or San Francisco’s Embarcadero: Huge tracts of free Wi-Fi.

Maybe that will make up for the company’s famously spotty 3G coverage in these busy urban areas.

AT&T announced Tuesday that it planned to expand a “Wi-Fi hotzone” it created in Times Square in May of this year. The “hotzone” is an extra-large area of Wi-Fi coverage, served by multiple routers, which is free for AT&T customers to use with any 802.11b/g–compatible device. The new coverage area now includes the north central part of Times Square, extending along Seventh Avenue, east along 46th Street, and along Broadway.

The company will also add hotzones near New York’s Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the coming days. It also plans to create a hotzone in San Francisco’s Embarcadero Center, an office building complex near the city’s waterfront, although it’s unclear from the announcement when this service area will turn on.

You won’t be able to make calls using Wi-Fi unless you’re using a VoIP app like Skype — so if you’re an iPhone user, don’t expect these hotzones to solve your dropped-calls problem. However, you will be able to browse the web, check e-mail, post Twitter updates, and post increasingly blurry photos of your New Year’s Eve revelries via apps like Instagram.

AT&T customers can connect their phones to the new hotzones simply by selecting the “attwifi” network. For instructions, see AT&T’s Wi-Fi information page.

Photo credit: Will Hines/Flickr