New rival for AT&T, Verizon: Google

Published November 16, 2012

The Wall Street Journal

• 
  AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Google has held talks with satellite-TV provider Dish Network in recent weeks to partner on a new wireless service that would rival the networks of wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The talks between Dish and Google aren't advanced and could amount to nothing, one of the people said.

Google is just one of several companies that Dish has held talks with recently, and the discussions with other potential partners are also at an exploratory stage, said the people familiar with the discussions. It is unclear which other companies are discussing a potential partnership with Dish.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

Dish has said repeatedly over the past year that it wants a partner in building out a wireless network with the wireless spectrum—the airwaves that can be used to provide mobile phone and Internet services—it has acquired since 2008.

In an interview Thursday, Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen declined to comment on Google specifically, but said some of the potential partners he has considered include companies "who would like to be in the industry" and currently don't have a wireless business.

He added that it would be easier for Dish to partner with a company that already has wireless towers and related infrastructure for transmitting data, among other expertise in the business.

For more on this story, see The Wall Street Journal. 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/11/16/new-rival-for-att-verizon-google/#ixzz2CUIbaEji

Big ticket: Americans buying upscale tech gadgets

By Sean Captain

Published November 15, 2012

TechNewsDaily

• 
  Digital SLRs are one of the product types that people are upgrading to. (Nikon)

As sure as the sun rises every day, so does spending on tech products every year. But what people are buying has changed a great deal. 

The current move is toward not only smartphones and tablets but also high-end versions in other product categories, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, which this week gave its annual projection for holiday shopping.

Just as last year, 76 percent of gift buyers plan to purchase a tablet such as the iPad, the CEA said. (In fact, Americans will buy 32 million just in the last three months of this year.) Just two years ago, about the same percentage wanted laptops. In 2009, it was digital cameras, and in 2008 it was game consoles.

While fewer people are buying cameras overall, more people are buying high-end DSLRs. "Consumers have a wealth of experience around digital photography, and now they are looking for something more," said the CEA's chief economist, Shawn DuBravac.

In mobile audio, MP3 players are slowly dying out. But headphones selling for $300 or more, such as those in the Beats by Dr. Dre line, are growing, DuBravac told TechNewsDaily.

[See Also: Best Full-Size Headphones: Sennheiser Momentum]

At home, people are buying more "multi-room" audio systems such as Sonos, which can beam music around the houses over Wi-Fi. For example, a docked smartphone in the living room could play music not only there but on wireless speakers in bedrooms upstairs. Sales are also up for soundbars — long, thin speakers that sit below a flat-screen TV and provide sound that's a step up from the set's built-in audio.

Speaking of TVs, sales are as flat as the screens, but the ones going out the door are ever larger. This year, for the first time ever, people will buy more LCD TVs with screens of 60 inches (diagonally) or larger than with screens measuring 20 inches or less. Ever more of those sets will be smart TVs, too, with the ability to play video and audio from Internet services such as Netflix and Pandora.

Even the next frontier in madly expensive TVs, ultra high-definition, is picking up. These screens, with four times the pixels of the best regular HD TVs, have astronomical dimensions and prices. LG, for example, makes an 84-inch screen model that sells for $20,000 — which might be seen as a bargain next to the $25,000 Sony model of the same size.

The CEA expects these behemoths to make up 9 percent of TVs sold in the U.S. by 2014, in part because prices will plummet. "The average TV price falls 14 percent per year," said DuBravac, but he expects that a new technology like Ultra HD will grow cheaper far faster. "I would not be surprised if prices fell 20 percent a year or 25 percent a year," he said.

• 5 Steps to Cut Cable and Enjoy TV for Half the Price
• Kickstoppers: 5 Tech Flops on Kickstarter
• 5 Top 'Star Wars' Video Games of All Time

Copyright 2012 TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/11/15/big-ticket-americans-buying-upscale-tech-gadgets/#ixzz2CM0tMC4U

iPhone 5S? Rumors hint at what's next for Apple

By Daniel Berg

Published November 13, 2012

Laptopmag.com

• 

Apple may have just launched the iPhone 5, iPad mini and the 4th generation iPad, but there are already rumors about what Apple will be releasing next. 

Business Insider is reporting that Apple may be launching an updated iPhone 5, currently being called the iPhone 5S, as well as the long-awaited Apple television set.

The iPhone 5S is expected to bring higher performance but no design changes to the iPhone 5, just like the iPhone 4S compared to the iPhone 4. An Apple television set would be a completely new product, rather than an update to the AppleTV, which is expected to completely revolutionize cable and television.

Apple has adhered to a yearly release schedule in the past, but recently broke this convention with the release of the 4th generation iPad, which hit the shelves just months after the release of the 3rd generation iPad. Additionally, Apple released the newest version of OS X, Mountain Lion, just a year after the release of Lion; previously, Apple released major operating systems on a bi-annual schedule.

While it's possible that Apple may have some surprises for early 2013, we think it's unlikely that this will include an updated iPhone. Despite the rising popularity of prepaid cellphone plans, most iPhone users are locked into bi-annual carrier plans and iPhone sales would be hindered by the additional cost of breaking these contracts. As for an Apple television set, only time will tell.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/11/13/apple-may-launch-its-own-tv-new-iphone-in-early-2013/#ixzz2CEqXEGkT

FTC Inquiry Hinders Google’s Acquisition of AdMob

When Google formally announced their plans to acquire mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million, they didn’t expect any regulatory interference to impede upon the processing of the deal. Unfortunately they were wrong.

Today Google () has released a statement on their Public Policy Blog admitting that they’ve been in ongoing talks with the FTC for weeks. This week the FTC even went so far as to make a “second request” for more detailed information on the deal.

The bottom line is that deal isn’t done, nor is it a sure thing, though Google still anticipates it to be completed eventually.

Google writes:

“This week we received what’s called a “second request,” which means that the FTC is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal.

While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the FTC will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile advertising space will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. And we’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.”

December 23rd, 2009 | by Jennifer Van Grove

Want to Buy a Dual-Screen Laptop? Now You Can

Remember that snazzy dual-screen laptop prototype from Kohjinsha from about a month ago? While we still can’t decide if it’s a productivity boost or an unnecessary toy, things have gotten a bit more serious, because now you can actually buy it.

Looking at the price and the specifications, it actually sounds like a very good deal. The device sports two 10.1-inch TFT displays with a combined resolution of 2048×600 pixels; it’s powered by a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo, 1 GB of memory, ATI Radeon HD 3200, a 160 GB hard disk, and it all weighs 4.09 pounds. If you don’t mind having Linux () as the operating system (you can have it with Windows 7 if you add 58 bucks to the price), the price is about $1,110, which is very cool for a novelty gadget like this.

November 27th, 2009 | by Stan Schroeder

Fishbowl Puts Facebook on Your Desktop

If you’re looking to bring Facebook to the Windows desktop and Twitter-centric update tools like Seesmic or TweetDeck are too limiting for you, you might want to take Fishbowl for a spin.

The app, built on Microsoft Silverlight 4, features photo browsing and zoom, photo slideshows, drag-and-drop image uploads and a completely ad-free way to browse and update the news feed. It works on XP, Vista and Windows 7, and just became available for download.

We’re already more addicted to Facebook () than could be considered healthy, not to mention our affection for the Mac, but for those Windows users looking for a rich desktop experience, our friends at Download Squad are calling Fishbowl a “kick-ass Facebook client for Windows 7” – it’s free and built by Microsoft’s own developers, so it might be worth taking for a spin.
November 21st, 2009 | by Pete Cashmore

Top 10 Twitter Photo Sharing Services Judged by Mashable Readers

Each Friday we choose a Lunchtime Poll topic to get a sense of how Mashable readers feel about the chosen topic of the week. Below are the results from last Friday’s poll, where we asked your favorite Twitter photo-sharing service.

Is your favorite service not represented — or not high enough! — in the list? Let us know in the comments! And to make sure your vote counts next time, be sure to check back tomorrow for the next edition of the Lunchtime Poll.

---

Top 10 Mashable Twitter Photo-Sharing Services

---

10. TwitrPix ()

9. Twitgoo ()

8. yfrog

7. twic.li/

6. Flickr ()

5. Mobypicture

4. Posterous ()

3. SmugMug

2. ow.ly

1. Twitpic (
November 12th, 2009 | by Barb Dybwad