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Siri isn't ruining your cellphone service

Siri settings

The Washington Post's Peter Farhi posted an opinion piece this week entitled "How Siri is ruining your cellphone service," in which he says that Apple's voice-powered assistant — a staple of the iPhone 4S, and presumably every iDevice going forward — is a "bandwidth guzzler" that's "flooding" our mobile networks with unprecedented data utilization, a trend that will ultimately saturate available spectrum. We should "prepare for higher cellphone bills," he says, or — perhaps looking to rile the defenders of net neutrality — "we could put some traffic cops on the beat to regulate our data demands and limit the traffic snarls and bottlenecks."

GigaOM's Stacey Higginbotham does an excellent job of debunking the piece, noting that Siri itself does not consume a lot of data — in fact, Ars Technica took a look at it a couple months...

Spectrum exhaustion is a concern, but Siri has nothing to do with it
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Samsung's next-gen Galaxy Tab headed to MWC with 2GHz processor, 2560 x 1600 screen?

Gallery Photo: Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 for Verizon hands-on pictures

Now that Samsung sells slates in nearly every screen size imaginable — 4.65, 5.3, 7.0, 7.7, 8.9 and 10.1-inches across — what's the next frontier? A rumor at Android and Me (perhaps corroborating an earlier rumor at BGR) claims that the company will double-down on pixels, pushing out an even larger tablet with a giant 2560 x 1600 (WXQGA) resolution screen and a 2GHz Exynos 5250 chip...

We'd like that screen resolution on our laptops too, please

Apple dreams of security, safety, and haptics through advanced magnets

Magsafe Connector 2011

Some of Apple's recently published patent applications detail a world where magnets can be used to do more than just stick things together. Coded magnets (diagrammed below) could create a unique magnetic signature that sensors could detect to unlock doors or identify users through keycards. In addition, subtle changes in a coded magnetic field could be used for detecting movement and swelling...

T-Mobile to offer customer support to unlocked iPhone users

iphone 4s

T-Mobile may have no knowledge of Apple's future iPhone plans, but one thing it does have knowledge of is how to support any customers on its network who are using unlocked iPhones. Yes, except for a strangely lucky few, the vast majority of them are stuck on EDGE speeds, but that doesn't mean that T-Mobile can't explain why and perhaps make sure those customers are able to get their APNs set up correctly. According to a document leaked to TmoNews, the carrier intends to provide basic support beginning on January 30th, including providing "information about feature [sic] and specifications,...

F-BOMB spy machine is made from $50 in off-the-shelf computer parts

via blogs-images.forbes.com

The military may spend billions on research and development, but not all spy technology needs to be specialized or expensive. By adding flash memory, antennas, and some plastic casing to a PogoPlug mini computer, security researcher Brendan O’Connor has created a tiny computer capable of being dropped out of a drone, thrown over a wall, or abandoned in the field without compromising security or incurring a loss of anything but $46 worth of parts. The Linux-based F-BOMB, or Falling or Ballistically-launched Object that Makes Backdoors, is designed to be highly configurable, capable of connecting to anything from a barometer to a GPS. It...

Aneesh Chopra, first US Chief Technology Officer, resigns

Aneesh Chopra US CTO stock press 640

Two and a half years after being sworn in as the nation's first Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra is stepping down. Politco first reported a rumor, which was confirmed by the White House this afternoon. Chopra's last day will be February 8th. No reason was given for his departure, but the Washington Post reports that he's heading back to Virginia (where he served as Secretary of Technology) to possibly run for Lieutenant Governor and...

Rapid job changes are another facet of the technology industry, of course

EU approves Sony buyout of Ericsson

via cdn0.sbnation.com

The European Union has officially approved Sony's buyout of Ericsson for ownership of the Sony Ericsson joint venture. The deal, which was announced in late October, will give Sony control of the company's phone development, and — perhaps more importantly — full rights to the company's patent...

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The Vergecast, live at 3:30PM ET / 8:30PM GMT!

Vergecast? On a Friday? What's that like? Well, you're about to find out. Everything is about to get real less than an hour from now. Real in the sort of way that you can only be real when you're about to head into the weekend, and you're feeling ready to talk about technology with zero regrets...

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Public text box is a phone booth for Twitter

@publictextbox

The promise of social media is that your profile will aggregate information about you wherever you go — think check-ins and Facebook's Open Graph. But what if a single location could have its own stream of content, created by many people? The Broadcaster Project is a group working to create cheap, ubiquitous devices that allow just that. The Project recently demonstrated its public text box, a computer set to...

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Jon Rubinstein, former Palm CEO, leaves HP

Jon Rubinstein (image credit: Robert Scoble)

Jon Rubinstein, once a prominent voice in the mobile community as he sought to reinvent Palm, has gone quiet in recent months at HP — and that's not often a good sign for any top-level executive's future prospects. Indeed, Rubinstein has...


Rage HD 2.0 for iOS includes HDMI output and in-app purchases

Rage HD for iOS

Id Software's Rage for iOS set a new benchmark for smartphone games in 2010, with graphics performance that belied its low asking price. The game's HD variant has now been upgraded to version 2.0, adding HDMI output via Apple's breakout cable and an assortment of new features and bug fixes. Higher-resolution models for players and weapons should...


Asus working on prototype Kinect-equipped Windows 8 laptops?

Kinect PC Hookup

We know Microsoft will launch Kinect for Windows hardware next month, but a new report claims that the software giant could be working with Asus to build that support directly into laptops. The Daily says it has "checked out" a pair of official prototype Asus laptops that include a Kinect sensor built-in. The sensor, running on a Windows 8 laptop, reportedly stretches across the top of the screen, and includes a set of LEDs at the bottom of the display.

Asus released its own WAVI Xtion hardware last year, based on the same PrimeSense technology used in Kinect, so it's clear the company has experience with motion-controlled devices....

Amazon merchant caught offering refunds in exchange for five-star reviews

5 star

VIP Deals, an Amazon merchant, has been caught offering customers a refund in exchange for five-star reviews. A report in The New York Times yesterday detailed how customers that purchased a $9.99 (reduced from $59.99) leather case for the Kindle Fire received a letter with their case. The letter offered to refund the cost of the order in return for the customer writing a review. The merchant also dropped a subtle hint on which score was expected, stating "we strive to earn 100 percent...


Asus hopeful it will fix Transformer Prime ICS 'lockups' in February

Asus Transformer Prime Android Honeycomb Update Logo

A number of Transformer Prime owners are experiencing random lockups on their devices following the recent Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update. Gary Key, an Asus technical marketing manager, has confirmed that the company "hope[s] to have a fix available in early February." The issues follow no clear trend, and 400 replies at XDA Developers suggests that it's reasonably widespread. We saw no evidence of lockups during our week-long preview...

Google Earth 6.2 removes 'patchwork quilt' effect

google earth

The latest release of Google Earth is here, and it's a pretty significant one — a new rendering technique in version 6.2 allows you to smoothly pan and zoom around the world without running into the "patchwork quilt" effect. Earlier releases had the problem of matching images that were taken at different times or in different weather, but the effect is fairly seamless. It's not quite perfect everywhere — for example, close-ups of the North...