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New iPad Runs 4G? Not In Australia, Says Consumer Watchdog
Decide.com Expands Beyond Consumer Electronics, Now Tells You When To Buy Home Appliances, Too
The Peek Email Device Goes Open Source
It’s Official: Get Your $99 Nokia Lumia 900 From AT&T On April 8

New iPad Runs 4G? Not In Australia, Says Consumer Watchdog

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 03:55 AM PDT

One of the selling points for the new iPad has been the fact that it supports 4G, but at least in one market, that 4G promise is facing a challenge. In what might be a case of a storm in a teapot, the Competition and Consumer Commission in Australia has said that Apple cannot advertise its newest tablet as 4G-capable because it doesn’t actually work on the 4G network that exists in the country.

The regulator plans to take its argument to federal court this Wednesday, where it will try to order Apple to change its marketing of the product. It also wants Apple to offer refunds to any buyers that feel they have been mislead by the advertising.

Australia currently has one 4G network in operation — offered by the incumbent carrier Telstra — but according to this Reuters story, that network runs on a band of spectrum not supported in the new iPad.

Apple’s Australian website now sports a customized page pointing users to the ultra-fast network availability in the country with a screenshot of one of the leading daily newspapers, the Sydney Morning Herald (pictured above).

There is also a separate link taking users to a page describing how to get data access on the device, including 4G, listing carriers that offer access.

But there is a slightly ridiculous element to this story: Apple on its Australian site has simply replicated much of the marketing material it is using elsewhere. In countries like the UK, it also mentions 4G and LTE, but forget about getting that here: the regulator here hasn’t even started issuing licenses for the spectrum. The question is whether users — not just in Australia but in other countries where the 4G doesn’t work — really buying the devices thinking they are getting 4G when they are not?

Another point to consider is that it appears so far, the tablets and data plans using cellular access are not actually selling as well as those for WiFi-only tablets. A report from Localytics last week found that only about 6 percent of all traffic coming from iPad tablets originated from cellular networks; the rest came via WiFi. Statistics like that make this kind of complaint from the regulator seem like a storm in a teapot.

Australia’s courts have been a friend and foe to Apple in the past year over other issues, specifically around patents. Apple succeeded in getting Samsung to temporarily stop selling its 10-inch Galaxy Tab tablet just as it was trying to launch the product, claiming that it infringed on patents. Ultimately, however, Samsung’s side was upheld in that case and those bans were lifted, in a case that is still ongoing.

Decide.com Expands Beyond Consumer Electronics, Now Tells You When To Buy Home Appliances, Too

Posted: 26 Mar 2012 09:00 AM PDT

Decide.com, the consumer electronics search service launched by several former Farecast engineers, is expanding its focus today to home appliances. Previously, the service told users whether they should buy now or wait to purchase consumer electronics like cell phones, tablets, desktop and laptops.

But according to Decide CEO Mike Fridgen, home appliances share much in common with CE devices, in that their prices are similarly volatile – on any given day prices on appliances change by 12%, he says. These fluctuations – precisely the kind of data that Decide.com likes to crunch – were one of the reasons why it made sense for Decide to attack this new vertical.

For those unfamiliar, Decide.com is a search engine of sorts that tells you whether or not to purchase a gadget, computer, or now, an appliance, that you have your eyes on. Created by Farecast’s former VP of Marketing and Product Development, Mike Fridgen, as well as Farecast co-founder, now Decide CTO, Oren Etzioni, the engine is somewhat reminiscent of their first product Farecast, which told consumers the best time to buy a plane ticket. That company was later acquired by Microsoft for $115 million.

Now at work on tracking pricing and product changes in other industries, the team is using their expertise to develop new techniques for analyzing different sorts of market fluctuations. Decide doesn’t just compare current prices and availability for the products it watches, as a shopping portal would, it also knows of product release cycles, historical trends, company announcements, news and rumors published by the media, and more. All of these items come into play when Decide makes its “buy” or “wait” recommendations.

With home appliances, prices are constantly changing, making them an ideal target for Decide’s algorithms. When prices change on appliances, explains Fridgen, 50% are price increases and 50% are price drops. The average drop is 10% and often goes as high as 25%. For consumers, this could translate into significant savings when shopping for high-dollar items like new refrigerators, washers or dryers, for example.

By targeting the home appliances market, which sees 55 million buyers per year, Decide says it’s increasing its prediction and product coverage threefold.

To date, Decide has provided consumers with millions of recommendations, saving people roughly $54 on average, says Fridgen. The company also has mobile applications on iPhone and Android, an plans to release an iPad app early next month. The iPhone app was recently featured by Apple, and received over 100,000 downloads within its first 90 days of availability (Metrics for Android were not given, however.)

A couple of weeks ago, the company also released another feature which could soon have increasing importance: a “what to buy” feature. As the “what” is often subjective (just ask iPhone or Android users about that), the company is starting in just one area – camera recommendations based on product specs, but that also factor in price stability among other things.

With today’s expansion to appliances, Decide.com has refreshed its website to feature both categories of consumer goods right on the homepage.

Decide raised $6 million in Series B funding a year ago, bringing its total raised to $8.5 million. Investors in the most recent round included Maveron, Madrona Venture Group, Google founding board member Ram Shriram, and former Expedia CEO Erik Blachford.

The Peek Email Device Goes Open Source

Posted: 26 Mar 2012 07:06 AM PDT

If at first you don’t succeed, open source the sucker. Peek has released an open source version of their Peek Mobile operating system, allowing hackers to use the all-but-obsolete little email device as a hacker platform. The Linux release is available the PeekLinux wiki and hackers are already adding new apps and functionality to the tiny device.

Peek itself has pivoted out of the hardware space to become a cloud services provider for so-called dumb phones, allowing for push email, social media check-ins, and other interesting applications. They recently scored HTC as a client and the founder Amol Sarva is now aiming squarely at developing markets in their push to add improved features to less advanced phones.

Programmer Chris Wade is leading the Peek open source charge and has built a tool chain and methodology for installing homebrew software. The biggest problem? Trying to find a Peek to test it on. Radio Shack and Target are out of them, apparently, and there are three on eBay right now (Note: do not search for just “peek” on eBay while at work unless you want to see bras with the fronts cut out.)

It’s nice to see a former hardware company give back to its long-time supporters, even if it’s in a postmortem sort of way.

It’s Official: Get Your $99 Nokia Lumia 900 From AT&T On April 8

Posted: 26 Mar 2012 07:05 AM PDT

Nokia’s first Windows Phone landed here in the States late last year, but part of me was hoping for something a bit… flashier than the Lumia 710. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop fulfilled that desire when he showed off the LTE-friendly Lumia 900 at this year’s CES, and now we have an officially release date to go with it.

AT&T has confirmed to CNET that their new flagship Windows Phone, the Lumia 900, will officially hit the company’s sales channels on April 8.

At $99 with a two-year contract, the Lumia 900 is a hell of a deal — it features a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display, a 1.4GHz single core processor, 512MB of RAM, and an impressive 8-megapixel rear camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Oh, and expect it to come in black and blue at launch (no word on that striking magenta, unfortunately).

OK, so the spec sheet may look a little underwhelming compared to the sort of hardware you see paired with Android. That’s not really the point though — the thing about Windows Phone is that it really doesn’t require the latest and greatest hardware in order to give users a buttery-smooth use experience. Even on relatively low-powered devices like Nokia’s budget-conscious Lumia 610, Windows Phone doesn’t feel dramatically less responsive than it does on more robust hardware (though there are a few limitations in place).

Though we haven’t had too much hands-on time with the thing, Nokia and AT&T seem to have have struck quite a balance between performance and price. I expect you’ll hear quite a bit about it too, especially if you’re an AT&T customer. Given the device’s reported status as a “Hero” device, you’ll also have to deal with the fruits of a very pricy advertising and promotions campaign. Nokia has reportedly shelled out $25 million to get their new flagship in the hands of AT&T’s front line forces, so prepare to get an earful from your salesperson if you’re planning to pick out a new smartphone some time soon.

Nokia’s clearly attempting to tackle their long-standing visibility problems — they’ve been puttering away in the U.S. market for quite a while now, with none of their devices ever reaching critical mass. Sure, part of that is due to some questionable choices when it came to device releases, but by then they were already flying under just about everyone’s radar anyway.

Of course, this isn’t the only big launch that Nokia has to deal with — the Finnish phone giant is preparing to debut a trio of Windows Phones in China in just a few days. Only time will tell whether or not this aggressive push will play out the way they hope, but a combination of solid hardware and low prices are bound to get more than a few people tempted to take the plunge.

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