July 2008 - Posts
For those that use Google Maps Mobile, version update to 2.2.0.16.
Download Google Maps for mobile to your phone, and never carry a paper map again. Google Maps on your phone makes it easy to:
- Determine your current location with or without GPS
- Get driving and transit directions
- Get phone numbers and addresses for local businesses
New! Transit directions on your phone
google.com/gmm
(use the address on your mobile phone, not your desktop/laptop)
Features
My Location (beta). My Location shows your current location on the map, usually within 1,000 meters, so that you can find out where you are even without GPS. Google Maps for mobile also supports built-in GPS, or can link to a Bluetooth GPS sensor to more accurately pinpoint a user's location. My Location works by recognizing information broadcast from mobile towers near you.
Watch a video to learn more about how My Location works.
Map and satellite views. Google Maps for mobile gives you both map and satellite views of the area you're looking at, using an interface that feels just like it does on the desktop. Scroll in a direction to see more of the map, or zoom in and out using shortcut keys.
Business listings. Google's local search engine allows you to search for businesses by name (e.g. "Starbucks"), or by type (e.g. "coffee"). View store hours and ratings, and then dial the business you're interested in with a single click. Thanks to My Location, it's easy to find nearby businesses without even having to enter your current location.
Driving directions. It's easy to get turn-by-turn driving directions. Thanks to the My Location feature, you don't even have to enter your starting point.
Transit New!. Check bus and subway schedules, determine what transfers you need to make, and plan adventures in more than 50 cities around the world.
Transit functionality is now available for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, S60, and other Java-enabled phones.
Watch a video to see how to get transit directions using Google Maps for mobile.
Traffic. Highways on Google Maps are colored green, yellow or red, based on real-time traffic data.
Favorites. Bookmark your favorite places so that you can easily return to them on the map.
Enterprise installation. IT managers can install Google Maps for mobile on corporate BlackBerry phones through BlackBerry Enterprise Server - learn more.
Watch for it if you have the 800w (why wasn’t it there to begin with…).
So I decided to take the plunge and install Adobe 9. While I’m installing, the install pauses and gives me this screen:
Um…excuse me Adobe…but the application you’re telling me to close is the application used to download your dang program. Who wrote this?
What’s next for Sprint users? Sprint Nextel has plans to sell approximately 3,300 towers to cell phone tower operator TowerCo for an estimated $670 million in cash, and then lease them back. It’s also reported that TowerCo will build the new 4G WiMax network with Clearwire (CTIA should be a real hoot with Sprint Nextel and Clearwire giving keynotes).
What will Sprint do with $670 million in cash? Pay down some debt.
Analysts of course are saying it’s no big deal because it’s standard industry practice. Verizon and AT&T do it to right?
The fall show is almost upon us…a little over a month away and I’ll be heading out to San Francisco. The keynote speakers were just announced. Strangely, I’m not sure at all what kind of a lineup they gave us for day 1. Yahoo? T-Mobile USA? Sprint Nextel? Anyone following the mobile wireless world will know what I’m talking about. Perhaps we’ll learn what NOT to do…
As you may or may not know, Windows Live Mobile (wl.windowsmobile.com) was updated, but this is very strange. They have removed Windows Live Messenger, one of the primary reasons I loaded the app to begin with.
(Windows Live Hotmail, Contacts and Spaces)
This software does not include Windows Live Messenger. Please inquire with your mobile operator about Messenger access.
So let me get this straight. Wireless carriers carry that much weight with Microsoft that they can pull Messenger from the mobile suite and tell us to go contact our carriers, which by the way the carriers will do but give you a pretty lame version that utilizes SMS text instead and charge you for the messages. Does Messenger really generate that much traffic on wireless networks that they had to pull it? Do carriers really need that much additional control over users? Why else would they do that? This makes no sense and I for one will not be upgrading to the new release. I’ll stay right where I am to have the full suite of Windows Live services on my phone.
We all know what July 11 is, the date iPhone 3G is released. AT&T is helping customers get iReady…
Of course, it only makes sense right? When everyone leaves what do you do?
Yahoo has announced a significant reorganisation after the failure of a Microsoft takeover bid and a subsequent flood of executive departures.
The Silicon Valley company said it was centralising consumer product development in a new division, creating a US region and forming an “insights strategy team”. All three would report to Sue Decker, Yahoo president.
Since Microsoft abandoned a $33-a-share bid for the company on May 3, valuing it at $47.5bn, Yahoo’s shares have plunged and top executives have headed for the exit. Jeff Weiner, head of its Network division, Vish Makhijani, general manager of its search business and Qi Lu, leading engineer for its Panama search marketing platform, are among those leaving.
Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake, founders of the photo-sharing service Flickr, and Joshua Schachter, founder of another acquisition, Del.icio.us, have also quit.
Brad Garlinghouse, a senior vice-president, who wrote the 2006 “peanut-butter manifesto”, accusing Yahoo of spreading itself too thinly, is reported to be leaving the company later this year.
“Yahoo has had a consistent and continuing loss of not just leading executives but also important thought leaders over the past year or two and it seems that the pace and magnitude of those losses has accelerated significantly in recent weeks,” said Scott Kessler, Internet Software & Services analyst at Standard & Poor’s.
via Financial Times
Verizon Communications has stepped up the pressure on Vodafone to sell out of Verizon Wireless, their mobile joint venture, saying that the second largest US telecoms company intends to be “the hunter” in future industry consolidation.
Ivan Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, owner of 55 per cent of Verizon Wireless, told the Financial Times he would like full ownership of the US mobile operator.
It follows almost two years in which both groups have played down the prospect of ownership changes at Verizon Wireless after a failed effort in 2006 by Verizon Communications to buy its UK partner’s 45 per cent stake.
via Financial Times
As I’m reading the news this morning watching the folks gather in line for the iPhone 3G (keep in mind the update is not due until 7/11…would you park for a week just to be one of the first???), I’m once again drawn to the marketing hype that is Apple, and Apple at it’s finest.
Back in June, 2007, Robert Vamosi wrote about the iPhone insecurity. It included, in part,
Which brings us to the iPhone. Again, no one outside of an elite few has actually held an iPhone, yet there's legitimate concern about its security. But Jobs has said that it will be a closed operating system, meaning you cannot write mobile applications for it--directly. The carrot Jobs extended to the WWDC crowd was not a software development kit (SDK) for writing applications (which the developers I spoke to all wanted), but a way to write applets within the Safari browser.
As we have seen, security researchers were able to find fault with Safari 3.0 within days of its beta. Malware today is almost always financially motivated. The crowd that stands in line on June 29 for the 6 p.m. release of the iPhone has at least $500 to spend, more with the two-year contract to AT&T. These early adopters are going to load their iPhone with important contacts--maybe even download songs and movies that have value as well. In the end, the typical iPhone user may have a target on his back.
Even before the Safari announcement, the underlying Mac OS remains vulnerable, although by locking outside vendors to writing code for the iPhone, the overall security risk could be lower than expected. Eric Chen, writing on Symantec's blog site, said back in January 2007 that the iPhone was prone to two types of vulnerability exposure. One, the Mac OS is based on Unix, and Unix has a number of well-known vulnerabilities that could also affect the Mac OS. While the incentive to exploit these exists today (to give Apple a black eye, not to mention wreak havoc on the Apple community), there's much greater financial incentive in waiting to go after the mobile version of Mac OS in July. Second, Chen worries about the rise of nonstandard software on the iPhone. I think that the latter is somewhat removed now that Safari will be the legit platform for ad hoc programmers.
Robert is back with another post, which again includes, in part,
A leading Mac OS X researcher says Apple has not kept the iPhone operating system up to date with patches it has issued for the desktop.
The iPhone runs a stripped-down version of Mac OS 10.5 and automatically checks for security updates. The last update for the phone, 1.1.4, was issued in February.
That means iPhone users are still vulnerable to a flaw discovered by Charlie Miller in March.
And concludes…
Meanwhile, ZDNet's Ryan Naraine points out that there's another upcoming iPhone exploit expected soon from Aviv Raff.
Speculation within the security community is that Apple is currently focused on the 3G version of the iPhone. Upgrades to current iPhones may be pushed out in advance or concurrent with the July 11 release of iPhone 2.0.
Apple does not respond to requests for comment on its software security policies.
You can draw your own conclusions. Keep in mind Apple and others also brags that the iPhone has reinvigorated browsing on the mobile phone. As I’ve mentioned before, the iPhone is the greatest thing to happen to the mobile phone market. Windows Mobile 6 and above however have now implemented Windows Update so that patches can be applied to the phone should vulnerabilities be found. In Apple’s mind, you should have to cradle your mobile device and use iTunes to potentially find your updates. Is that the right answer?
Just a few days after hitting store shelves, Samsung Instinct has become the fastest-selling EVDO handset in Sprint history. Instinct was first available exclusively to current Sprint customers on June 19 breaking records for the initial launch of any Sprint product. Instinct became available to all customers on June 20; sales continued to be brisk with Instinct breaking Sprint's record for the first week of sales for any device.
We had high expectations going into the launch so our initial order to Samsung was the largest for any Sprint EVDO handset to date, said John Garcia, President of Sprint's Wireless Division. The strong early response tells us that wireless customers recognize Instinct as a highly-innovative and convenient touch-screen device combined with the fast speeds available on the largest national mobile broadband network. In the first few days of availability, many Instinct devices were purchased by existing customers upgrading their wireless device - we thank our customers for their endorsement of this device, our Simply Everything pricing plan and our company.
The record pace of Instinct sales has led to temporary shortages of the device at some locations across the United States. Sprint and Samsung are diligently working around the clock to increase inventory in all sales channels. Samsung has increased efforts to deliver new supplies of Instinct on a daily basis and manufacturing plants are operating at full capacity to keep up with the demand.
Windows Mobile Total Access…remains to be seen whether the content will actually get better.
A couple of general comments/rants before the article that appeared on TimesOnLine. One, in general, at least in the corporate world, email on a Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, or other Smartphone typically mirrors the backend servers of your organization. Whatever filters, spam blocking, etc., you have on the backend will prevent making it to the handheld. So, if you have antivirus or spam blockers on the backend, how in the world will those make it to the handheld? The only risk there will be email that is set up from personal email accounts. By default, attachments are not downloaded, meaning the owner of the handheld has one additional step to get “viruses” on to their handheld. Second, there’s a comment in this article about the cost of “text” versus the cost of “email”. Is it me or does this fall in to the “duh” factor. If I sit at my computer and crank out messages to cell phones (i.e. all wireless carriers have email addresses such as xxxxxxxxxx@txt.att.net), who pays for those messages? Me, or the person receiving the message? Why would the cost be higher to send text, unless of course I’m dumb enough to actually use my own cell phone to send the messages. Do I receive a bill for sending the messages? If not, why in the world is it more expensive to send text messages than it is to send email? Read the info below and decide for yourself. I also notice its companies who sell products to “protect you” that always get quoted about how bad it’s going to get.
The rising popularity of smartphones such as the BlackBerry and the iPhone will make them targets for viruses and spam, security experts believe.
In the past few years the internet has experienced a huge rise in security problems, led by criminal gangs who have used spam and viruses for financial scams. Mobile phones have remained relatively unscathed, but that is set to change as sales of smartphones surge.
In the first three months of this year 32.2 million smartphones were sold - 11 per cent of all handset sales and a 29 per cent increase on the same period last year.
These e-mail and internet-enabled handsets are moving out of the corporate market into consumers' hands, and the recent launch of the 3G iPhone is expected to fuel sales further. Credit Suisse analysts predict that 275 million smartphones will be sold next year, boosting penetration to 19 per cent and making the mobile world attractive to criminals.
Neil Cook, vice-president of technology services for Cloudmark, a messaging security company, estimates that penetration of smartphones needs to reach 20 per cent to 30 per cent before it becomes worthwhile for hackers to spread viruses. Spam is a problem in India and China, and North America and Europe are expected to follow.
Mr Cook said that the rise in spamming and scams boils down to economics. “Spammers are really very good businessmen,” he said. “They see new opportunities and new markets. As new media becomes attractive to spammers, they move in there. They will move anywhere if they can make a return on investment.”
Another attraction for spammers is that mobiles are quickly outgrowing the number of computers. Gartner, the industry analyst, forecasts that there will be four billion mobiles compared with 1.3 billion computers by 2010. Mobile spam is rampant in China, where it is much cheaper to send texts and fewer people have computers, Mr Cook said. Others are more sceptical. Sending 100,000 spam e-mails costs only a few dollars, which is significantly cheaper than texting, Carole Theriault, senior security consultant for Sophos, a computer security company, said.
Go Boingo
Check it out…
http://ditu.live.com/
Just in time for the Olympics, or those that may be heading over there soon.
Digitimes is reporting that 42.1 million handsets were sold in the FIRST QUARTER of 2008 in China alone. Is that a typo? 42 million handsets in ONE QUARTER?
42.1 million GSM and CDMA handsets were sold in the China market in the first quarter of 2008. Nokia, Samsung and Motorola were the top-three vendors with a combined market share of 60.1%, according to China-based consulting company Analysys International.
For CDMA models alone, Samsung was the largest vendor with a market share of 28.9%, followed by China-based Huawei Technologies with 25% and LG Electronics with 14.2%, Analysys indicated.
Apple has posted a KB article on how to replace that old 2G iPhone…
This article explains how to replace an original iPhone with an iPhone 3G using the same carrier. If you follow these steps to backup your original iPhone first, and then restore the backup to your iPhone 3G, your saved SMS messages, email accounts, photos, notes, and other personal settings will be present on your iPhone 3G.
To replace an original iPhone with an iPhone 3G, follow these steps:
- Purchase iPhone 3G from an Apple Store or from a carrier. For more info, choose your country then click on where to buy.
In the US, iPhone 3G includes a SIM and your original iPhone's SIM is not needed. Your original iPhone account information will be transferred to iPhone 3G's included SIM when you purchase iPhone 3G. To dispose of your original iPhone SIM, contact your carrier.
In other countries where the original iPhone was sold1, you can use your original iPhone's SIM with iPhone 3G. Contact your carrier for additional information. - Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes and iPhone OS. Click to download the latest version of iTunes.
Note that when you start using iPhone 3G, you will need iTunes 7.7 or later. - Connect your original iPhone to iTunes and sync it. Verify that your original iPhone is backed up. For more information on how to do this, see iPhone: About backups.
- Connect iPhone 3G to iTunes (on the same computer you used to back up your original iPhone), and then iTunes will ask you if you want to restore from a backup or set up iPhone 3G as a new phone. When prompted, select the backup of your original iPhone2.
- After iTunes finishes restoring the backup you selected to iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G will restart. When iPhone 3G appears again in the iTunes window, select it. Then click the tabs (Music, Photos, and so on) and verify or change the items you want to sync. Then click Apply to sync iPhone 3G with iTunes.
- Verify that your saved SMS messages, email accounts and passwords, photos, notes, and other personal settings are present on your iPhone 3G.
If saved SMS messages, email accounts and passwords, photos, notes, or other personal settings are not present on your new iPhone 3G, the restore from backup may not have been successful. In that case, verify your original iPhone is properly backed up (see step 3), then use iTunes to restore iPhone OS on iPhone 3G and continue following these instructions at step 4.
To erase your original iPhone so someone else can use it, tap Setting > General > Reset > Erase all contents and settings on your original iPhone.
1Requires an original iPhone used with O2 UK, O2 IRL, T-Mobile Germany, T-Mobile Austria, or Orange France. Original iPhone was not sold in other countries, except for the US.
2 If iTunes does not prompt you to select a backup to restore when you connect iPhone 3G, use iTunes to restore iPhone OS on your iPhone 3G and try this step again.
Additional Information
If you are using original iPhone and want to upgrade to iPhone 3G using a different carrier, you can use these steps as well. In addition:
- Purchase iPhone 3G from the new carrier which you intend to use.
- Contact your carrier for information on how to port your original iPhone's mobile phone number from your existing carrier to your new account with the new carrier.
I hadn’t noticed, but the NY Times is reporting that Google has changed it’s home page to include a link to it’s privacy policy:
The word “privacy” now appears on Google’s home page, with a link to the company’s privacy policy.
With that one word, the Web search giant heads off the growing controversy over whether its previous practice ran afoul of a California law, the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, which requires the operator of a commercial Web site that collects personal information to link to its privacy policy from its home page.
I usually take the NY Times with a grain of salt, but Google appears to admit it here. And sure enough…
Rumor on the street is that the Motorola Napoleon Q9 is on it’s way to Verizon, giving Verizon a third Moto product (in addition to the Moto Q9c and Moto Q9m). The claim to fame? It’s a world phone that will not only do EVDO Rev. A but will connect to GSM networks as well.
The Q9 Napoleon will apparently be running Windows Mobile 6.1 and feature a 320 x 240 display, 2-megapixel camera with flash, Wi-Fi, stereo speakers and ship with a 1500mAh battery.
Did you catch this in the news? I’m sure most of you have, but CNN has a pretty interesting read.
Dismissing privacy concerns, a federal judge overseeing a $1 billion copyright-infringement lawsuit against YouTube has ordered the popular online video-sharing service to disclose who watches which video clips and when.
U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton authorized full access to the YouTube logs after Viacom Inc. and other copyright holders argued that they needed the data to show whether their copyright-protected videos are more heavily watched than amateur clips.
The data would not be publicly released but disclosed only to the plaintiffs, and it would include less specific identifiers than a user's real name or e-mail address.
Here’s the “money quote”:
Lawyers for Google Inc., which owns YouTube, said producing 12 terabytes of data -- equivalent to the text of roughly 12 million books -- would be expensive, time-consuming and a threat to users' privacy.
The database includes information on when each video gets played, which can be used to determine how often a clip is viewed. Attached to each entry is each viewer's unique login ID and the Internet Protocol, or IP, address for that viewer's computer.
Right. 12 terabytes of data that Google says is a “threat to users’ privacy”. So, why in the world would you keep that much data if it’s a threat? Doesn’t Google have a better data retention policy than that?
All I can say is thank goodness my email lists had problems…I’m unplugging from Google.
This according to their chief…
Two months into his new job as chief executive of the troubled wireless operator Sprint Nextel (S), Hesse oversaw his first quarterly earnings report and analyst call. His message was as blunt and depressing as a Sylvia Plath poem: A turnaround of the No. 3 U.S. wireless operator is not going to happen any time soon. "I now have had two full months at the helm, and to be perfectly frank, the issues we face are more difficult than what I had expected to find," Hesse said on a Feb. 28 conference call following yet another dismal quarter. "This turnaround will not happen for many quarters." Sprint shares fell more than 10%, to close at 8.03, a new 52-week low. The last time Sprint touched $8 was in February, 1989.
There was so much bad news it's hard to know where to begin. Customers, fed up with horrible customer service, continue to flee Sprint in droves. The company confirmed a staggering $29.7 billion writedown, wiping out nearly all of the value of its $35 billion merger with Nextel Communications. And dividend payments were suspended "for the foreseeable future."
But that's not all. Among premium subscribers, churn -- a key metric measuring the percentage of customers who leave the company -- was flat at 2.3%, despite intense efforts by Sprint to reduce the figure. Interim Chief Financial Officer William Arendt said the company expects churn to increase 0.2% to 0.3% in the first quarter "due to competitive pressures" and rising defections among lower-credit customers. Customers that are staying with Sprint are spending less money, with the average revenue per customer declining 4% over the year-ago quarter. And, to top it all off, Sprint announced it has borrowed $2.5 billion from its revolving credit facility to help pay off $2.25 billion in bonds that will mature in 2008 and 2009.
The HTC Touch DiamondTM is the sexy smartphone that can do it all, thanks to its super sleek design and high resolution display with TouchFLOTM 3D interface.Browse the Web and with one-touch access, check out videos on YouTube and make plans on Facebook. Store and listen to thousands of songs with the media player and 4 GB internal memory. Plus, snap and send the perfect pics to your friends with the 3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus. With all its savvy features, the HTC Touch DiamondTM will be your new best friend.
I blogged yesterday about HP’s addition to the market. Take a look at the specs on the HTC Touch Diamond and compare them to what is in HP’s latest addition and you’ll see what I mean. Everything from processor (528 vs 416) to RAM (4GB internal storage) to camera (3.2 vs 3.0). If you’re going to come to market with a phone, why come with something everyone else had 6 months ago (or longer)?
Fun-packed 'Burn Notice' rekindles summer romance
In Thursday's season two debut, the coolly brainy Jeffrey Donovan is back as Michael Westen, a spy who has been unceremoniously “burned” (as in dumped, fired and blacklisted) by the CIA. Unable to get a job, open a checking account or do anything requiring an actual identity, Michael spent last season stuck in Miami, where he worked small private-detective jobs while trying to figure out who burned him.
When we see Michael again, he is speeding down the highway in a cargo truck on his way to meet the person responsible for wiping him off the face of the Earth. Since closure isn't really an option, however, creator Matt Nix has figured out a way to keep Michael in Miami and up to his old scuffling tricks.
Once again, Michael is using his superior spying skills and knack for improvising low-tech weapons to solve crimes that are mostly beneath him. Once again, he is getting plenty of help and a ration of grief from Fiona (the slinky Gabrielle Anwar), a trigger-happy former girlfriend who keeps wanting to talk about their relationship while they are mixing plastic explosives in Michael's kitchen.
Further assistance comes from Sam (“Evil Dead” icon Bruce Campbell), a former military operative whose friendship with Michael was only slightly compromised by the fact that the Feds had hired Sam to inform on him. Further grief comes from Michael's mother (the devilish Sharon Gless), a chain-smoking bundle of needs who is the mistress of the badly timed phone call.
Except for the addition of “Battlestar Galactica” babe Tricia Helfer as Michael's mystery handler, the new season of “Burn Notice” looks pretty much like the old season. And just as returning to the same vacation spot year after year can be a real source of relief, returning to the land of silly cases and makeshift weapons is just as much fun as it ever was.
So Thursday's episode finds Michael helping out a nebbishy computer programmer while trying to deduce what the mysterious Carla (Helfer) wants from him. Swap “nebbishy computer programmer” for “vulnerable restaurant hostess,” and you have the outline for the second episode.
Coming soon from HP. Is this too little too late? What’s strange is that the HP handhelds once ruled the marketplace. Remember the HP Jornada? I think that was really my first Windows handled. And now look at HP. What happened?
Integrated wireless
Integrated Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and Tri Band UMTS/HSDPA at up to 3.6/7.2 Mbps; Integrated WiFi - 802.11 b/g with WPA2 security; Integrated Bluetooth v2.0 with EDR; Integrated multi-mode GPS navigation with Google Maps.
Processor
Marvell PXA270 Processor, 416 MHz
Operating system
Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional; Mobile Microsoft programs included: Office Mobile, Office Outlook Mobile, Internet Explorer Mobile
Display
2.46-inch transmissive TFT 65,000 color 320 x 240 pixel touch panel display with LED backlight
Built-in camera
3 Megapixel, autofocus, 4X digital zoom, codec supports .jpg image file format, Image resolution support: 88x72, QCIF (176x144), CIF (352x288), 160x120, QVGA (320x240), 400x300, VGA (640x480), SVGA (800x600), XGA (1024x768), 1280x960, SXGA (1280x1024), UXGA (1600x1200), QXGA (2048x1536), Video resolution: 176x144 (QCIF)
Memory
128 MB SDRAM main memory for running applications, 256 MB flash ROM
Weight
154g (5.4 oz)
Battery
1940 mAh Lithium Ion rechargeable, user changeable battery
Expansion
USB 2.0 client for sync/data/charge, Micro SD card slot
Audio
Integrated microphone, receiver, speaker and mini-USB wired stereo headset
Included accessories
Standard battery, AC Adapter, USB synchronization cable, stylus, wired stereo headphones, Getting Started guide, HP iPAQ Companion CD
Dimensions
114 x 64 x 15 mm (4. 5" x 2.5" x 0.6")
T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced a groundbreaking new home phone service that enables customers to make unlimited nationwide calls from their home phone for just $10 per month*. Beginning July 2, T-Mobile will breathe new life and value into the home phone by launching nationwide T-Mobile @Home®. The service allows customers to keep their home phone number, ditch their high phone bill and save money by adding their home phone line to their T-Mobile service.
According to a 2007 Scarborough Research1 report, families spend an average of $65 per month on home phone service. However, for just $10 per month, T-Mobile customers can add T-Mobile @Home service to a qualifying T-Mobile wireless plan2 and get unlimited nationwide long-distance calling, plus call waiting, caller ID, three-way conferencing, voicemail, call forwarding and other features. In addition, customers will have the opportunity to use features typically associated with wireless services—for instance, CallerTunes™ (ringback tones)—and port their existing home phone number so family and friends can continue to call them at the same familiar number.
“For years, the traditional landline companies have been great at consistently delivering one thing to their customers—a high monthly bill,” said Robert Dotson, president and CEO, T-Mobile USA. “T-Mobile is now delivering the best priced home phone service in America for our existing and future customers. In addition, we are not only delivering the traditional features of a landline service, we are also including the innovative features consumers love in their more widely used mobile phones.”
T-Mobile recently announced a new home phone plan that will eliminate the age-old attachment we have to landlines.
The new T-Mobile@Home plan will use a wireless router to send and receive calls: "calls are transmitted from a handset to the Internet through the T-Mobile router; then, the call is completed through the use of voice-over-Internet-protocol technology."
(Source: enews20.com)
Is this the first of many to go down this path?
Starting next month, it will be "TGIT" for Utah state employees. As in: "Thank God It's Thursday."
In a yearlong experiment aimed at reducing the state's energy costs and commuters' gasoline expenses, Utah is about to become the first state to switch to a four-day workweek for thousands of government employees.
They will put in 10-hour days, Monday through Thursday, and have Fridays off, freeing them to golf, shop, spend time with the kids or do anything else that strikes their fancy. They will get paid the same as before.
"One of the jokes is that one of the biggest benefits will be for golf courses," said Ryan Walker, 49, an information technology director. He said he is looking forward to tackling items on his long-neglected "honey-do" list (As in: "Honey, do this" and "Honey, do that"); camping; and traveling more around the state.
CNN Money
Interesting breakdown of the various parts of Yahoo. Where is the value?
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