Section: Business News, Communications, Smartphones, Mobile  Research in Motion has announced its purchase of Cellmania, a company that makes software designed to help mobile carriers deliver applications. The company’s products currently power the Sprint and Orange app stores. It’s thought RIM made the move to improve its less than impressive BlackBerry app store. Unlike the Apple and Android app stores, Blackberry App World has not enjoyed widespread popularity with with BlackBerry users due to it’s clunky interface and lackluster offerings. Most users turn to third party app stores like the one run by Crackberry.com. RIM has also annoyed developers with it’s inexcusably slow approval system. Apps submitted to them usually take 1-2 months or longer to appear in App World. It will be interesting to see what Cellmania does with BlackBerry App World. Financial details of the sale were not made public.
Read [CNet] Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Broadband Cards, Mobile  At a time when many mobile carriers are dropping unlimited plans in favor of restricted, tiered plans, Virgin Mobile is bucking the trend and doing the complete opposite. They have announced a new $40 unlimited data plan and will be dropping their current tiered plans. They’ll also offer a 10 days for $10 plan with 100MB of usage. Both plans are contract free and prepaid. There is a slight catch though. To use new plans you have to buy either the MiFi 2200 mobile hotspot for $150 or the Ovation MC760 USB device for $80. If you use a lot of mobile data it’s probably well worth it as no other carrier currently offers unlimited data. Most data plans are capped at 5GB a month ad will run you about $60 a month. Sprint owns Virgin,so I am hoping this is a sign that they won’t be joining the tiered pricing parade!
Read [PCWorld] Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile 850 out of all the Target retail stores across the country will begin to sell T-Mobile USA products and services by the end of 2010. Additionally, by mid 2011 all other Target retail stores will be equipped with T-Mobile goods. Today on T-Mobile’s Facebook account, the nation’s fourth largest carrier announced its partnership with Target, which will hopefully turn out to be a positive move by both companies. For T-Mobile, a giant retail store that targets the general public will begin to sell its products, which should increase T-Mobile customers. Target can gain additional revenue by selling T-Mobile products and hopefully do more business with customers shopping for cell phones. Now that Target is officially in the cell phone business, the question then becomes will other carriers approach Target requesting it, too, carry their products? Via [Facebook] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Web, Web 2.0 / Social Networking  A Facebook group dedicated to campaigning for the legalization of marijuana is accusing Facebook of censorship after the site approved of their use of a marijuana leaf in their advertising and changed course and blocked it. The group, Just Say Now, says the censorship has hurt their campaign. A spokesman for Facebook, Andrew Noyes, said the image was blocked due to the site’s policy of banning ads for smoking products.
“The image in question was no longer acceptable for use in Facebook ads,” Noyes said. “The image of a marijuana leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies.”
The group maintains they weren’t selling anything and the block violates their right to free speech. “We’re trying to have a political discussion about U.S. drug policy. In a 2.0 world of online graphics, banning the use of the subject image is not a mature decision about the boundaries of appropriate political discourse. It’s a decision made to appease somebody’s finger-wagging grandparents.” said directior Jane Hamsher.
What do you think? Is it censorship or is Facebook just following policy? Read [PCWorld] Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Computers, Security  A new wave of spam is hitting the net with headlines announcing the death of various celebrities from Miley Cyrus to Tom Cruise. The fake stories claim the celebrity died in a plane crash or automobile accident and include an attachment said to contain exclusive information. If opened, that attachment downloads the infamous Zbot Trojan, which is distributed by the Zeus botnet.
Fortunately, this new wave of malware isn’t easy to fall for thanks to the scammers’ sloppy work. For one thing, the subject line on the messages mentions one celebrity while the message itself mentions another, and they are hitting inboxes so hard that users are finding dozens of messages all announcing the death of different celebrity. There’s no way someone is going to believe that a dozen famous people all died in one day! Still, it’s important to stay cautious. If you get an email telling you a celebrity has died, Google it. If it’s legit it will be there. Never open attachments or click on links sent to you from people you don’t know! Read [PCWorld] Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile And just like that, we have images of yet another Android smartphone coming by way of Motorola. The latest device is the Motorola KB520 Kobe, which has also been known as the Diablo. Sadly, though while the word of images is exciting, these appear to have been taken by none other than Mr. Blurrycam himself. That aside though, the Motorola Kobe is going to be heading to AT&T here in the US and will arrive with Android 2.1 with Motoblur. In the meantime, check out the images above and below and then hit the read link for a few more. Read [Engadget] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile Every phone is going to go away at some point, however given two of these three are fairly new and the third has only been available for a few months this seems ahead of schedule. That said, the dates are still far off into the future, but it looks like the end of life dates have been set for three of the top Verizon branded Android smartphones. According to a recently leaked document, the Droid X, Droid 2 and Droid Incredible will be killed off on March 31, 2011. And while I would normally be slightly disappointed to get word of an EOL, the way Android smartphones are coming and going at this rate—we are likely to have a cycle or two of new releases before the end of March. That said, bring on the new Android offerings. But at the same time, enjoy the current ones because the three phones mentioned in this post are more than capable devices. Read [PhoneDog] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Business News, Video, Content, Video Providers, Web, Online Music/Video  A little bit of useless, albeit interesting information has come available about Netflix and the cost of streaming movies as compared to mailing movies. It is less expansive to stream movies than it is to mail them. Granted, that alone may not be all that surprising for some, however that even applies to HD quality movies. According to details coming from Business Week, Netflix pays about 3 cents to stream a standard definition movie and about 5 cents for an HD movie. And that should give you a good idea as to why Netflix is pushing streaming so much. That also makes sense as to why those Wii and Playstation discs went out so quickly (and went out for free). The other nice part, which will hopefully lead studios to stop complaining and embrace movie streaming a little more is that some of that savings reportedly goes back to the studio. Now, given these numbers I can no longer feel like I am getting a great deal for Netflix, at that, my 9 dollar and some change monthly price seems more than fair. Read [Business Week] and [HackingNetflix] Via [Gizmodo] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile Assuming we can believe this latest leaked document which is coming out of Verizon, then it looks like the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are going to be given the end-of-life treatment. Of course, every phone gets EOL’d at some point, but as a Palm hopeful it slightly disappointing to see the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus hit this list without any solid information as to a follow up device. With that, they both still have a little bit of life left with the Pixi Plus looking at an EOL date of March 31, 2011 and the Pre Plus looking at a date of October 21, 2010. At least the Pixi has a little more time. That said, the little bit of Pre Plus follow up device rumors did suggest an October timeframe for release, so maybe there is something there. Read [PhoneDog] Via [PreCentral] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile  Stop me if you heard this before, oh wait, we all have. But once again it looks like the Droid Incredible has a new (and rumored) date of when Android 2.2 Froyo is expected to arrive. The latest date—September 1st. We can hope, or at least any Droid Incredible users can hope. That said, we will see come September 1st, or maybe before if another rumored date pops up. But at least for now, September 1st seems to be the day to be hopeful for.
Via [Droid-Life] [UPDATE] According to an update on the Droid-Life posting; “Our sources are now backing off of their original report. Delays people. No word on what those may be, but the 1st is likely out. And that was the quickest rumor in Droid history. We're sorry that we've wasted you time. I hate Froyo.”
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Section: Apple, Audio, Portable Audio, Video, Portable Video, Communications, Smartphones, Mobile Netflix has rolled out the long awaited updated. The Netflix app, that was once available only for the iPad has been updated to version 1.1.0 and with that came support for the iPhone and iPod touch. “Netflix app now supports iPhone and iPod Touch in addition to iPad!”
The app was and remains free to download, however you will (aside from a free trial) need to be a Netflix subscriber in order to use the app. As expected, the app can be downloaded from the App Store. Download [Netflix for iPhone & iPod touch (App Store link)] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
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