Hasta La Gadget!

Outside of Samsung’s Wave, we’re having a hard time thinking of a meaningful device that has shipped with Bluetooth 3.0 onboard. Kind of crazy when you think about it, being that the protocol offered some pretty promising stuff when it went official in April of 2009. Fast forward to today, and it looks as if the Bluetooth SIG is storming forward regardless, as the Bluetooth 4.0 core specification has now been adopted with “low energy technology” as the standout feature. This step means that companies can begin to work towards integration of BT 4.0 in actual end-user products, and if the SIG has its way, the tech will begin to show up in minuscule devices that haven’t been able to take advantage of Bluetooth thus far. In fact, they want this stuff in applications “not even possible or imagined today.” Looks like someone better get those imagination gears turning, ’cause Q4 2010 certainly isn’t an eternity from now.

Continue reading Bluetooth 4.0 specification gets official, devices expected by Q4 2010

Bluetooth 4.0 specification gets official, devices expected by Q4 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Skyhook Wireless seems to have located itself yet another major partner in its continued quest to pinpoint every single cellphone owner in the world. Sure, we’re exaggerating a bit just to get you riled up, but there’s no arguing the fact that the company fulfills “hundreds of millions of location requests every day across over 100 million handsets, netbooks and cameras.” Or so it says, anyway. The latest company to buy into Skyhook’s geo-locating promise — which uses a mysterious combination of GPS, cellular and WiFi data to get a darn good lock on your current position in most any environment — is Samsung, with the Bada-equipped Wave (S8500) first to tout it. As time goes on, even more Sammy phones will utilize Skyhook’s technology, though we’re left to wonder what exactly those models will be. Anyone up for educated guessing?

Continue reading Skyhook hones in on another partner, Samsung’s Wave to geo-locate like no other

Filed under: GPS

Skyhook hones in on another partner, Samsung’s Wave to geo-locate like no other originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Jul 2010 19:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wired.com reader Ryan Rhea says he found a way to double the download speed of his new iPhone 4 with nothing more than black electrician’s tape.

Rhea, clearly a graduate of the Home Depot School of Gadget Hacks, simply applied a thin strip of black tape on the lower left corner of the phone’s outer metal band, starting right below the volume buttons and extending down to the edge of the speaker on the bottom of the phone.

That was enough to stop the reception problem reported by many iPhone 4 customers. For those with this problem, touching the lower left corner of their new phone causes signal strength to drop, often cutting off calls and sharply decreasing data download speeds.

Wired.com has not been able to duplicate the problem, although more than 30 readers have reported experiencing it.

That metal band forms the phone’s antenna, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained when announcing the iPhone 4 earlier this month. And while touching a radio or TV antenna can often improve reception, by making the conductive surface of your skin into an extension of the antenna, it seems to have the opposite effect on the iPhone 4.

Several readers have reported that putting the iPhone 4 into a protective case, such as the $30 “bumper” case sold by Apple, solves the problem.

The electrical tape achieves the same result at a much lower cost, by putting an electrical insulator between you and the phone’s antenna. In Rhea’s case, his 3G download speed as reported by Testmyiphone.com went from 0.41 Mbps without the tape to 0.82 Mbps with the tape (in both cases, with the phone gripped firmly in his left hand).

The cost for a roll of electrical tape? About $4 for a 66-foot roll of 3/4″ tape, which should be enough to fix your iPhone — and about 790 others.

As a bonus, electrical tape also works great for fixing nerdy glasses.

See Also:

• Apple’s iPhone 4 Launch Draws Huge Crowds Worldwide
• IPhone 4 Loses Reception When Antenna Band Is Touched
• First iPhone 4 Reviews Mostly Sing Its Praises
• Photo Gallery: Hands-On With the iPhone 4
• iPhone 4 Torn Down and Tested: Slower Than iPad, Faster Than 3G iPhone
• iPhone 4’s ‘Retina’ Display Claims Are False Marketing
• iPhone 4 Has More RAM Than iPad

Photo courtesy Ryan Rhea

A number of customers who pre-ordered Apple’s iPhone 4 have reported receiving the handset — two days before its official release date. Also, those who didn’t pre-order the device will be able to pick one up at an AT&T store on a first-come, first-serve basis as soon as next Tuesday.

An AT&T spokesman said iPhone 4 will begin arriving this week for customers who preordered. Those who preordered an iPhone 4 for home delivery will receive an e-mail when their order is shipped. The company will also begin phoning customers this week who placed reservations to notify them when their iPhone 4 is available for in-store pickups. Last, customers who did not preorder the device will be able to line up for an iPhone 4 at an AT&T store next Tuesday.

“iPhone 4 pre-order sales on June 15 were 10 times higher than the first day of pre-ordering for the iPhone 3GS last year,” AT&T said in a statement Tuesday. “Demand is simply unprecedented.  We’re thrilled to see the excitement around iPhone 4 and are committed to helping as many customers as quickly as we can. As we said last week, we’re committed to fulfilling preorders first – and are on track to do so.”

AT&T’s announcement followed individual reports from pre-order customers who claimed their iPhone 4 had already arrived in the mail.

The release of the iPhone 4 has been bumpy, to say the least. When Apple and AT&T opened preorders for the iPhone 4 last week, their servers were overwhelmed by the gigantic number of preorders, and in some instances AT&T’s website even sprung a security leak. Later, Apple and AT&T said the problems were due to an unprecedented number of preorders — 600,000 on day one.

UPDATED: The first version of this story incorrectly stated that AT&T would start delivering iPhones this week.

See Also:

• iPhone 4 + Glitchy Launch = Huge Demand Anyway
• iPhone 4 Has More RAM Than iPad
• Photo Gallery: Hands-On With the iPhone 4

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The unlimited data plan party could end soon. Verizon Wireless has hinted it is likely to follow AT&T and restrict the amount of data consumers can suck in through their phones.

“We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate,” Verizon’s chief financial officer John Killian told Bloomberg.

For nearly 90 percent of smartphone users, new pricing plans are unlikely to make a big difference in how they use their phones, says Chetan Sharma, who runs a consulting firm focusing on telecom issues. But for super-users, this could signal a change in how smartphones and apps are designed.

It could force developers and entrepreneurs to take a second look at how data is delivered and optimized.

“So far,  the ecosystem hasn’t paid attention to delivery efficiency,” says Sharma. “Content developers rarely care how much data is being transferred over their app. Now there’s room for technology that can help change that.”

Wireless service providers’ decision to do away with unlimited data plans plans runs orthogonal to what smartphones makers are doing. Smartphones today are in a race to offer more storage, along with the ability to shoot high-definition videos and photos. And they encourage you to share, uploading those files to YouTube and Flickr. Add to that video chat capability, especially over cellular networks, and there’s more stress than ever on the network.

“It was unsustainable,” says Sharma. “It couldn’t have gone on forever.”

After Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, it unlocked a world where users spend more time surfing on the phones, playing with apps and watching YouTube clips than talking on their phone. A Consumer Reports study found that the average iPhone user consumes 273 MB of data per month. About 4 percent users in that study gobbled an average of 1 GB per month.

Sharma estimates an average iPhone consumer uses about 600 MB a month, while a smartphone user who’s not on the iPhone or using an Android device takes in about 300 MB of data monthly. Unless, something changes, that data consumption will only go up, especially with the introduction of more powerful smartphones, straining the network’s capacity, he says.

With the iPhone, AT&T has been the first to feel the pain. In response, earlier this month, AT&T introduced a tiered pricing structure for data. Instead of a flat monthly fee of about $30 for unlimited data, AT&T users will now pay $15 a month for 200 MB, or $25 a month for $2GB. (See what AT&T’s limited data plans mean for you.)

Verizon is not changing the status quo just yet. The company has hinted it will introduce tiered data pricing plans as it opens up its LTE or 4G network. 4G data cards on the Verizon’s network could be launched later this year, followed by the first 4G smartphone next year, estimates Sharma.

A Verizon spokesperson declined to comment on when the company plans to introduce new data pricing plans.

“Unlimited pricing works well when you are trying to create demand,” says Sharma. “But now carriers are facing the reality that while their data revenue is fixed, their costs keep going up.”

Last year, approximately 70 percent of data traffic on wireless networks came from data cards. This year, smartphones will pretty much account for all data requests, says Sharma.

“The iPhone has catapulted the whole data issue to the forefront.”

See Also:

• 3G iPad’s ‘Unlimited’ Data Plan Survives Torture Test
• AT&T Adds iPhone Tethering, Kills Unlimited Data for iPad
• O2 Cuts Unlimited iPhone Data to Just 1GB in UK
• What AT&T’s Limited Data Plans Mean for You
• Cap My iPhone? Try This Instead, AT&T

Photo: (DJOtaku/Flickr)