White House Confirms: President Keeps His Blackberry

Email

from the now-about-the-IM dept

There were some stories yesterday saying that, despite earlier worries he’d be forced to give it up, President Obama was able to keep his Blackberry — and now the White House has confirmed it. Apparently, some security software has been added, and a very limited number of people will know the email address. Also, it appears that the administration is noting that the Presidential Records Act does allow an exception for strictly personal emails. So, while the President is being told to consider any emails he sends to be public, strictly personal email to friends or family will likely not be kept and revealed. What isn’t entirely clear is who determines what is, and what is not, personal. In the meantime, how long until we hear about the first Obama-email-inspired phishing scam? You know someone’s going to try to use a fake Obama email address to try to scam people… Now, let’s see what they can do about giving instant messaging back to White House staffers.

Filed Under: barack obama, blackberry, email, president

Sprint Wants Its Government Handout, Too

Politics

from the brother-can-you-spare-$2-billion dept

Sprint has sent a letter to the incoming Obama administration making a pitch for a $2 billion emergency communications network (via Phone Scoop) for first responders. Sprint’s plan calls for satellite-equipped trucks (that sound like mobile base stations on wheels) and up to 100,000 handsets and other gear to be stockpiled around the country so that it could be delivered anywhere in the US within four hours. Sprint wants the plan included in the economic stimulus plan working its way through Congress — and it’s just coincidence, of course, that Sprint would be a huge beneficiary of such legislation, and $2 billion would give its struggling business a big boost. Without a doubt, public-safety communications are in need of a serious overhaul, and this is an area that the FCC and other parties have been looking at for some time. It’s a complex situation — one that deserves a more thorough investigation and solution, rather than a piece of government pork.

Filed Under: bailout, handout, telcos
Companies: sprint

Latest Cell Phone-Cancer News: Your Eyes Are Safe

Studies

from the today-you're-fine dept

The debate about the cancer-causing effects of cell phones has been rumbling on for years and years, with contradicting studies coming out every so often. The real answer to the question of whether phones give people cancer, at this point, seems to be “nobody really knows yet”, so any news one way or the other should be taken with a grain of salt (or two). In any case, the latest study to emerge says mobile phones don’t cause eye cancer. Of course, this research contradicts the conclusion of an earlier, smaller study conducted by the same German researchers. So even though they’re calling phones safe — for your eyes, anyway — the contradiction seems par for the course.

Filed Under: cancer, eyes, mobile phones

New FCC, Telecom Committee Chairs: What's In Store?

Predictions

from the predicting-politicians dept

As the new Presidential administration gets settled in, it’s worth taking a look at some of the leadership changes that will affect the technology and communications spaces. First, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has announced he’s stepping down on Jan. 20 (not that we’ll be too upset), and he’ll be replaced by Julius Genachowski, pending confirmation hearings. Genachowski is a long-time friend of Barack Obama, dating back to their time together at Harvard Law School; he was also chief counsel of the FCC during the Clinton administration. But he’s also most recently worked in venture capital, and was also an executive at IAC, giving some hope to the idea that he’s well-tuned to the needs of web startups, entrepreneurship and new media, and will give them a voice in Washington. Many stories have noted that Genachowski’s positions on many issues aren’t widely known, but he did chair the advisory group that delivered Obama’s Technology and Innovation Plan, which he summarized in a blog post as “Open Government. Open Networks. Open Markets.” GigaOM came up with a nice wish list of tasks for Genachowski, and also reports that telcos can expect their influence at the FCC to wane from Martin’s era, that cable companies can expect a slightly better environment, and that wireless companies can expect to see their broadband plans promoted. Like us, they’re optimistic that Genachowski’s leadership will see the FCC adopt policies that benefit consumers, rather than telcos and other providers, but we’ll wait for his confirmation hearings for more details.

Over in the House of Representatives, Congressman Rick Boucher, a Democrat from Virginia and a leading proponent for consumer rights on the House intellectual property subcommittee is taking over the Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee. Boucher’s swapping places on another committee with former chair Rep. Ed Markey, who’s introduced net neutrality legislation in the past. In an interview with the WSJ, Boucher laid out some of his views: he says net neutrality isn’t a top priority for him, but that forcing wireless operators to open their networks and allow consumers to access any type of service could be. He also wants to try and reform the Universal Service Fund, an enormous telco boondoggle that really does little to advance its goal of building out telecom service in rural areas. That all sounds good, generating further optimism that things telecom-wise could be taking a turn for the better under the new administration. Still, it bears repeating: hopefully both Genachowski and Boucher will understand that what’s really needed in the telecom space is real competition, and that they’ll work towards crafting solutions that engender it.

Filed Under: fcc, julius genachowski, obama, rick boucher, telco committee

Police In Mumbai Shutting Down Open WiFi

Wireless

from the blame-the-technology dept

Perhaps it’s no surprise that, following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, people are freaking out and blaming technology, as if that will prevent another terrorist attack. First, there were the calls to ban Google maps and now a large number of police are sweeping through all of Mumbai to find open WiFi networks and get the owners to shut the networks down. Of course, there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons for offering an open WiFi network, but it seems that no one is even considering that. Because such networks were used in the past by terrorists and possibly could be again, they all must go.

Filed Under: attacks, india, mumbai, wifi

The Ceiling For Mobile Voice and Text Falling Towards $50 Per Month

Wireless

from the not-quite-free-yet dept

The cost of basic fixed-line voice telephony is quickly falling towards zero. Plenty of companies offer free voice calls (with various hoops to jump through), and the cost of VoIP service continues to drop. This is trickling over to mobile voice service, too, as three of the top four US operators now offer unlimited voice and text plans for about $100 per month. But even that price ceiling is under pressure: Cricket and MetroPCS, two smaller operators that focus on the low end of the market (and don’t offer the footprint of bigger operators), have been offering unlimited plans for under $50 per month, and today, Sprint’s Boost Mobile brand joined them. It’s unlikely that the major operators will enthusiastically fall into line, but in the current economic environment, it’s hard to imagine these cheaper unlimited offerings won’t pull some customers away and put pressure on the bigger operators’ prices. The bigger operators still have a number of competitive advantages, including bigger coverage areas and a wider choice of handsets, but they may find those appeal to fewer consumers if the price gap remains.

Filed Under: price, text, voice

AT&T Text Spams Customers Promoting American Idol; Insists It's Not Spam

Email

from the redefining-spam dept

For the most part, mobile operators have been good about trying to prevent SMS text spam, but it appears that AT&T has gone in the other direction. It’s actually spamming people. Apparently it sent a text message promoting the TV show American Idol to anyone who had voted in past American Idol contests or anyone that AT&T considered to be a “heavy texter.” I can almost (but not quite) understand contacting former voters. But randomly targeting other “heavy texters” is simply pure spam.

But that’s not the way AT&T sees it. In a statement that entirely redefines spam, a spokesperson said that it wasn’t spam because they didn’t charge people to receive the message. He also claimed it was no problem because people could opt-out of future messages. This shows an incredible (but all too typical for AT&T) tone deafness to the issue. Email spam is already quite annoying. But text messaging spam takes it to an entirely more ridiculous level by proactively interrupting what a person is doing, no matter where they are. At least email spam can be compartmentalized to when you’re actually checking your email (and, these days, can be pretty effectively filtered). Text messaging is a lot more intrusive, and for AT&T to claim that this is somehow “okay” because the TV show is “built on texting,” is simply ridiculous.

Filed Under: american idol, sms, spam, text messages
Companies: at&t

First Pretexting Charges Filed, But What About The Companies Giving Out The Info?

Scams

from the looking-in-the-wrong-place dept

The first charges under the federal pretexting law have been filed by authorities in Ohio. The law came about after the 2006 scandal in which HP spied on some of its board members and reporters, in part by calling their mobile operators and posing as the members to access their calling records (a method referred to as “pretexting”). After the high-profile case, politicians responded to calls to “do something” by putting the law into place. This worked out well for the mobile operators, which were able to avoid much scrutiny over how or why they released the info in the first place. The operators spun pretexting as a governmental problem, and sought to play down the fact that they were actually the ones giving out info to people they shouldn’t. So kudos to the operators for being able to continue to so deftly stay out of the spotlight of scrutiny for what are, essentially, data leaks.

Filed Under: carriers, pretexting

Motorola's Handset Business On The Brink?

Rumors, Conspiracies, etc.

from the going,-going... dept

Anybody that’s followed the fortunes of Motorola’s mobile-phone unit over the years knows it’s been a story of ups and downs. The company has had a number of blockbuster hits over the years, like the StarTAC and the RAZR, but hasn’t been able to fill in the gaps between them with other successes. Now, Phone Scoop is reporting that the company is preparing to lay off up to half its staff. In addition, the company will only release a dozen devices this year, and it’s dropping the Windows Mobile platform, favoring Android instead for its smartphones. The writing has been on the wall for Motorola for a while, as it struggled to follow up the iconic RAZR with another hit. Coupled with the current economic slowdown, it looks like Motorola’s handset business could be headed for the deadpool, unless a buyer emerges for it. Perhaps that should be “buyer” — there’s been a lot of talk that Moto would have to pay somebody to take the business off its hands.

Filed Under: handsets
Companies: motorola

It's Like Bluetooth, But Without All The Pain

Wireless

from the all-hail-progress dept

The Bluetooth wireless communications technology has become commonplace these days — almost in spite of itself. While Bluetooth can be exceptionally useful for short-range communications, it can also be an enormous pain to use, in particular because of the pairing process users must go through to connect devices for the first time. Enter the new TransferJet standard, which is being backed by a number of digital camera makers who want to simplify the transfer of images and video. TransferJet can operate at speeds up to 357Mbps, 100 times faster than Bluetooth, and it doesn’t require any pairing, it simply kicks in automatically and begins transfers when a compatible device is placed within 2 millimeters of the “transfer area” of a receiving device, like a PC. The cumbersome pairing process from Bluetooth has been replaced simply by proximity — the thinking is that if a device like a camera can be placed within 2mm of a receiving device, the owner is okay with the transfer. While obviously this sort of security doesn’t work in every scenario, it’s good to see engineers learning from the usability foibles of previous technologies.

Filed Under: bluetooth, transferjet