Region-specific and IP-locked? Holy crap, Microsoft is really going to great lengths to position the Xbox One as a media/entertainment center first and a gaming console second.
Maybe I’m in the minority here and a little to blasé about this, but I always subscribe to the thought of not putting or doing anything online that may end up incriminating yourself. This was taught to me at length the first time I was granted permission to create my AOL screen name on the family computer all those years ago and continues to be my prevailing pretense to social media, email, and anything else of my life that’s online. That doesn’t mean to say I agree with the NSA’s actions, but I also didn’t need a report leaked by a publication to let me know this was going on. C’mon y’all, even if you didn’t know, you “knew” it. Be cool and cautious, and live your life.
If these two flagships with stock Android succeed well in the States, I believe we’ll see more of this in the latter half of 2013. The American public, albeit VERY slowly, are coming to the realization of unlocked, unsubsidized, off-contract devices. Once the veil of subsidization is removed, it is shown that owning your own device and picking a carrier to suit your needs is the best course of action. I see this becoming another subset of the Nexus program, although called Google Editions – that year’s flagships from Samsung, HTC, Moto, LG, and Sony hemming up in the Google Play store next to the Nexii.
Well, this is actually the FIRST time (at least to me) that AT&T has indirectly, yet explicitly, admitted that their network is unable to handle the load of streaming, real-time chat video, and has given a timeframe in which work that will see successful transmissions of said chat video will be completed. In previous statements and decisions, AT&T has shown it merely a business decision with the aid of data rationing. Today, they’ve changed it up to point to a network load capability, so as to show they’re doing diligent work to improve the network for the betterment of their customers. Regardless of what AT&T’s customers buy, why didn’t they go with this PR plan to begin with?! Yeah, there’s some egg on the face regardless, but much less of so if consumers hear if not see network improvement work being done rather than just hearing and seeing their specific data plan grants or dismisses features regardless of network capability. Someone at AT&T finally smartened up, albeit way late…
