A California man was awarded $850, or $85 for each month remaining on his contract, in damages against AT&T after he saw that his data was being throttled after he had reached up to 2GB of monthly data, less than the 3GB of data the company currently charges $30 per month for.
Verizon has launched a regional promotion that tries to entice existing or prospective wireless customers to experiment with data. The program, available in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, lets current or new customers add 300MB of data monthly to their voice plan. The limited offer is priced at $20 monthly and automatically charges $20 more for each instance subscribers run over 300MB.
Sandisk on Tuesday introduced the "WORM," or "Write Once Read Many" SD card for professional uses such as storing evidence in police investigations, court testimony, medical records and electronic voting. Sandisk claims original data written to WORM cards are "effectively locked" and there is "no physical way to alter or delete the files." If stored properly, the company claims, WORM SD cards have an archive live of up to 100 years.
VVI has unveiled Least Squares, a math application that computes and displays linear regression. Users can input a variety of data points and the software will compute and draw a line on a graph to fit the data. The company says Least Squares uses a "concise and elegant” interface that can be used to teach linear regression, or as a professional tool for data exploration.
After hitting a steep wall of customer resistance, Telia Sweden is buckling to pressure and is offering an unlimited data plan for the iPhone, as well as allowing customers to choose between its existing voice plans. iLounge reveals that the company received an overwhelming amount of complaints after initially offering customers 100, 250, and 1000 minutes, SMS, and data on plans that ranged as high as 859 SEK per month, in addition to handsets costing as much as 3295 SEK.
Nielsen Online has reported May 2008 data for the Top Sites by Parent Company and Top Brands. Google tops the list with 127 million unique visitors. Microsoft is close behind with 123 million, while Yahoo! comes in third at 115 million. Time Warner pulled 107 million visitors, News Corp. Online 79 million, eBay 66 million and InterActiveCorp 64 million. Wikimedia Foundation, Amazon and New York Times round out the list with between 50 and 60 million unique visitors. The data indicate that, for example, that 51.1 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the New York Times Company-owned sites or launched a New York Times Company-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 17 minutes and 27 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.
As the 3G iPhone is set to be unveiled on Monday, many users will switch out their first edition models, and with concerns about recoverable user data, users should be prepared for how to ensure that their data is gone for good. CNET writes that it is possible to perform a rudimentary multiple-pass wipe of data during the restore process to ensure personal data is eliminated, even when it appears to be missing from the iPhone post-restore.
Fontainebleau resorts has announced that it is putting an iMac in every guest room "inspiring guests to share memories and encourages personal expression." Other resort features include Chef Alfred Portale at Gotham Bar and Grill, a Chinese restaurant featuring Michelin star-rated Cantonese cuisine a 5,000-square-foot "chocolate experience." Fontainebleau currently has locations in Miami Beach and Las Vegas. Room rates range from $200 to $900. Hotel chain City Inn previously announced that it was installing iMacs in every guest room, offering software that deletes any personal data from the machines before the guest leaves.
A Sprint employee has allegedly posted an internal memo on SprintUsers citing that the telecommunications giant is imposing a 5GB bandwidth limit on transfer, or 300MB per month in off-network roaming. According to the employee, the limits would see service on July 13th, and would apply to both PAM and data card plans. The note seems to indicate that Vision and PowerVision packages would still retain their respective limits, unsusceptible to the 5GB limit.
Apple's recent QuickTime 7.4.5 release includes exploit prevention mechanisms designed to block attacks from hackers, according to a recent report from eWeek. QuickTime for Windows Vista now features ASLR (address space layout randomization), technology that randomly arranges key data addresses to prevent developers of malware from predicting targets. ASLR is already used by Mac OS X Leopard to reduce the effectiveness of exploit attempts.
Despite a lack of the of a localized version or solid confirmation of plans to do make one, a recent study indicates that 68-percent of all Chinese surveyed showed knowledge of the iPhone, but also discovered that it might not sell very well with its $500 price point. According to The iPod Observer, the price tag was the most frequently mentioned restriction that would prevent people from buying one, but information regarding how many felt this was not readily available.
Analysis of the first month of March quarter iPod NPD data points to iPod sales of between 9.5-10.3 million, according to research firm Piper Jaffray, which would signal a 6 percent year-over-year decline. "While it is way too early to make a definitive call on March quarter iPod units, we have analyzed the first month of NPD data (Jan.) for the quarter and found that it suggests iPod units of 9.5m-10.3m," said Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster. Wall Street consensus on iPod sales for Apple's March quarter currently stand at 10.8 million units, representing a 2 percent year-over-year increase.
NewTech Infosystems today released NTI Dragon Suite, a collection of three Mac applications to handle disc burning as well as data compression and backup. NTI Dragon Burn features patented multi-burning technology that supports internal as well as external drives for simultaneously creating multiple copies of a CD or DVD. The software includes support for burning the leading video, audio, photo, and data formats onto the latest optical discs -- such as 16x DVD-R drives and 8.5GB DVD+R Double Layer (DL) media. NTI Dragon Suite is priced at $80, and requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.
FileMaker on Tuesday announced the immediate availability of Bento, its easy-to-use personal database application. Designed exclusively for Mac OS X Leopard, Bento leverages a single-window interface and FileMaker database technology to help users organize contacts, calendars, projects, events, and more. Users can easily create databases to manage information with dynamic 'smart' collections as well as expand around Apple's own Address Book and iCal storage engines. Bento is priced at $50, or $100 for a family pack of five licenses. The personal database requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
nova media has announced Fone2Phone for Mac OS X, which will be shipping at Macworld Expo 2008. Fone2Phone is a utility that will copy data from an ordinary cell phone to the Macintosh computer in one streamlined operation. Jan Fuellemann, for nova media, said, "This little jewel takes care of the complete communication process, from connecting the cell phone to saving the files in the appropriate locations on the Mac." The tool has a simple wizard interface for copying contacts, events, tasks, notes, bookmarks, photos, music and movies from the old cell phone to the Mac.
