Miscellaneous

AT&T has confirmed that it's working on a fix for the software glitch in its Alcatel-Lucent equipment. Reuters reported earlier today that the wireless carrier will issues the fix in the next two to three weeks.

The fix, which AT&T says is relevant for less than two percent of its customers, is expected to significantly boost upload speeds from as low as 100Kbps to as high as 1.7Mbps. Download speeds, which were not affected by the glitch, should not change.

AT&T first admitted the problem on July 7 after customers in select … Read more

Though only a month old, Apple's new iOS 4 has found its way onto 50 percent of a sample 9 million iPhones tracked by ad network Chitika, according to stats released Monday.

Among 9 million iPhone impressions seen across Chitika's network, iOS 4 holds a slight lead over iOS 3, which was found on 49 percent of the phone's traffic. The overwhelming majority of devices included in the sampling were iPhones, according to Chitika, while a handful (just under half a percent) were iPod Touch devices.

On a more granular level, the initial July 21 release of iOS 4.0 … Read more

FARNBOROUGH, U.K.--Most trade shows will fit inside any old convention center big enough to accommodate the vendor booths, sales reps, and keynote speeches. But the Farnborough International Airshow needs a runway, too.

This weeklong show west of London is where the aviation industry goes to buy and sell airplanes, helicopters, and everything needed to build them. By Thursday, $47 billion worth of business had taken place as airlines placed orders for dozens of expensive jets. That may not match 2008's record level of $88.7 billion, but it's nothing to sneeze at.

The show itself, which … Read more

A blogging platform that claimed to service more than 70,000 blogs was mysteriously booted from the Internet by its Web-hosting company, and we are getting a clearer picture of how that happened.

Blogetery.com was shut down after FBI agents informed executives of Burst.net--Blogetery's Web host--that links to al-Qaeda materials were found on Blogetery's servers, Joe Marr, chief technology officer for Burst.net, told CNET. Sources close to the investigation say that included in those materials were the names of American citizens targeted for assassination by al-Qaeda. Messages from Osama bin Laden and other leaders of … Read more

The second quarter saw 60 million smartphones shipped around the world, a 43 percent jump from a year ago, according to a study released Thursday by research firm Strategy Analytics.

Growth was driven by robust subsidies from carriers, strong competition between high-end vendors, and a rising selection of lower-cost phones running systems like Android and Symbian, according to the study. Overall, smartphones accounted for 19 percent of all handsets shipped during the period.

But the dizzying array of smartphones and the increasingly competitive market could pose a challenge to manufacturers trying to ramp up profits.

"The global smartphone industry is growing volume, but the industry's value is beginning to feel the effects of intensifying competition," Neil Mawston, director at Strategy Analytics and the author of the study, said in a statement. "Dozens of vendors from the telecoms, PC and consumer electronics industries are piling into the market and driving down prices. Even established brands such as Nokia, RIM, and Apple are finding it increasingly hard to raise prices and profits in the face of such fierce competition."

Among the three major smartphone players, Nokia's market share dipped slightly to 40.3 percent compared with 40.7 percent in 2009's second quarter. Second-place Research in Motion saw its slice of the market fall to 18.8 percent from 19.3 percent a year-ago. And third-place Apple watched its share grow to 14.1 percent from 12.5 percent in last year's quarter.… Read more

A record 3.2 million iPhone activations helped boost AT&T's second-quarter earnings 26 percent year over year and prompted the company to increase its outlook for the full year.

On Thursday, the carrier reported earnings of $4 billion compared with $3.2 billion in the prior year's quarter. Sales inched up 0.6 percent to $30.8 billion from a year ago.

The company attributed the surge in earnings to the 3.2 million iPhone activations during the quarter, with around 27 percent of those from customers new to AT&T. Preorders of Apple's … Read more

The rumors of the death of Hewlett-Packard's slate computer may be greatly exaggerated, at least if a few HP Web pages are any judge.

One page on HP's Web site provides a few details on the once-thought-to-be-demised tablet device.

Touting the HP Slate 500, the page describes the device as powered by Windows 7 Premium and sporting an 8.9-inch screen with Internet access and two cameras (still and video). Like the iPad, you can adjust the screen either horizontally or vertically. But unlike the iPad, you can also use a pen to write or draw on the display. The page says that headphones are included in the box but is mum on any other details.

That page's parent actually lists six different model numbers for the Slate 500, while a PDF on Energy Star devices dated July 12 on HP's Web site notes the HP Slate 500 as Energy Star compliant.

HP's Slate device was demoed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at January's CES, along with tablets from other vendors. But any buzz about those devices was soon overshadowed by the debut of the iPad in early April.

A scant few days after the iPad hit the stores, details on HP's Slate were leaked. The specs at the time match some of those on the HP's Slate 500 page--an 8.9-inch display, Webcam, and still camera. Other details revealed a 1,024x600 capacitive multitouch display, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor, and a five-hour battery. The Slate was designed to come in two flavors at that point--a $549 model with 32GB of flash storage and 1GB of non-upgradeable RAM, and a $599 edition with 64GB of storage.

Not long after that, HP announced its acquisition of Palm, leading to speculation that its Window 7-based slate was dead and being replaced by a Palm-OS-based tablet.… Read more

AT&T's move to jettison its unlimited mobile data plan and charge more for heavier use puts a roadblock in the plans of media providers trying to push Internet TV, according to a report released Tuesday by iSuppli.

Faced with more people grabbing more data, AT&T recently switched to a tiered pricing plan in hopes of limiting the strain on its 3G networks from devices like the iPhone and iPad. And Verizon is likely to follow suit.

But those caps pose the question of how providers will satisfy the growing demand for streaming media without the … Read more

Symbian, the Nokia smartphone operating system that's been languishing outside the limelight hogged by Apple's iOS and Google's Android, announced a significant move on Monday to try to reclaim some of its lost relevance.

Specifically, the Symbian Foundation has embraced the idea of Web applications--those that bridge the differences among different computing devices by employing standards such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language for Web page description), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets for formatting), and JavaScript for processing.

To accomplish this, Symbian will integrate Nitobi's open-source PhoneGap tool with the Symbian^3 version of the software. This means … Read more