LEDSAUR Tyrannosaurus Rex desk lamp makes chewing through paperwork less monotonous

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LEDSAUR Tyrannosaurus Rex desk lamp makes chewing through paperwork less monotonous originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FCC Takes On Apple And AT&T Over Google Voice Rejection

My, how the tables have turned. Earlier this week, we learned that Apple had suddenly begun to pull third party iPhone applications for Google Voice, citing the unconvincing rationale that they “duplicated” some of the iPhone’s functionality. We then broke the news that Apple had also rejected Google’s own official Google Voice application submitted six weeks prior, sparking a din of complaints from developers and users alike over the arbitrary and possibly anti-competitive restrictions being imposed by Apple. AT&T, too, has been a target of frequent criticism as many of us believe it may have also played a part in the decision. Of course, nobody really knows who is to blame — AT&T has hinted that it was ultimately Apple’s decision, and Apple continues to remain mute on the issue. But now we may get our answers: the Dow Jones newswire reports that The Federal Communications Commission is looking into Apple’s rejection of Google Voice, and has sent letters to AT&T, Apple, and Google to find out what’s going on. We’ve obtained copies of the letters and reprinted them below.

The newswire report notes that this is part of the FCC’s ongoing investigation into wireless handsets and their exclusive deals with carriers. Of course, this all comes years after Google CEO Eric Schmidt sent a letter to the FCC, urging it to adopt open standards that would gives users the freedom to use whichever applications they’d like on their wireless devices, on whichever network they preferred. At the time the suggestions seemed perhaps a bit idealistic, but now it’s becoming clear just how badly they’re needed.

It has been just over one year since Apple released the App Store, and already we’re beginning to see just what can happen when major companies collude to restrict user choice without fear of recourse. As I’ve written before, Google Voice offers a service that innovates in the telephony space in a way that hasn’t been seen for years. But rather than try to improve and offer a better service, Apple and AT&T are doing what they can do to protect their sacred cash cow. But it looks like the government isn’t going to stand for that any longer. With this move, the FCC is showing that it’s not going to let Apple carry its famed culture of secrecy into the telecom space.

FCC Letter to Apple

                                       July 31, 2009
                                                                             

Catherine A. Novelli, Vice President
Worldwide Government Affairs
Apple Inc.
901 15th Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC  20005

RE: Google Voice and related iPhone applications

Dear Ms. Novelli:

Recent press reports indicate that Apple has declined to approve the Google Voice application for the iPhone and has removed related (and previously approved) third-party applications from the iPhone App Store.   In light of pending FCC proceedings regarding wireless open access (RM-11361) and handset exclusivity (RM-11497), we are interested in a more complete understanding of this situation.

To that end, please provide answers to the following questions by close of business on Friday, August 21, 2009.

1. Why did Apple reject the Google Voice application for iPhone and remove related third-party applications from its App Store?  In addition to Google Voice, which related third-party applications were removed or have been rejected?  Please provide the specific name of each application and the contact information for the developer.
2. Did Apple act alone, or in consultation with AT&T, in deciding to reject the Google Voice application and related applications?  If the latter, please describe the communications between Apple and AT&T in connection with the decision to reject Google Voice.  Are there any contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T that affected Apple’s decision in this matter?
3. Does AT&T have any role in the approval of iPhone applications generally (or in certain cases)?  If so, under what circumstances, and what role does it play?  What roles are specified in the contractual provisions between Apple and AT&T (or any non-contractual understandings) regarding the consideration of particular iPhone applications?
4. Please explain any differences between the Google Voice iPhone application and any Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications that Apple has approved for the iPhone.  Are any of the approved VoIP applications allowed to operate on AT&T’s 3G network?
5. What other applications have been rejected for use on the iPhone and for what reasons?  Is there a list of prohibited applications or of categories of applications that is provided to potential vendors/developers?  If so, is this posted on the iTunes website or otherwise disclosed to consumers?
6. What are the standards for considering and approving iPhone applications?   What is the approval process for such applications (timing, reasons for rejection, appeal process, etc.)?  What is the percentage of applications that are rejected?  What are the major reasons for rejecting an application?

Request for Confidential Treatment.  If Apple requests that any information or documents responsive to this letter be treated in a confidential manner, it shall submit, along with all responsive information and documents, a statement in accordance with section 0.459 of the Commission’s rules.  47 C.F.R. § 0.459.  Requests for confidential treatment must comply with the requirements of section 0.459, including the standards of specificity mandated by section 0.459(b).  Accordingly, “blanket” requests for confidentiality of a large set of documents are unacceptable.  Pursuant to section 0.459(c), the Bureau will not consider requests that do not comply with the requirements of section 0.459.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.

Sincerely,

James D. Schlichting
Acting Chief
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau
Federal Communications Commission

FCC Letter to Google

July 31, 2009

Richard S. Whitt, Esq.
Washington Telecom and Media Counsel
Google Inc.
1101 New York Avenue, NW, Second Floor
Washington, DC 20005

RE: Apple’s Rejection of the Google Voice for iPhone Application

Dear Mr. Whitt:

Recent press reports indicate that Apple has declined to approve the Google Voice application for the iPhone and has removed related (and previously approved) third-party applications from the iPhone App Store. In light of pending FCC proceedings regarding wireless open access (RM-11361) and handset exclusivity (RM-11497), we are interested in a more complete understanding of this situation.

To that end, please provide answers to the following questions by close of business on Friday, August 21, 2009.

1. Please provide a description of the proposed Google Voice application for iPhone. What are the key features, and how does it operate (over a voice or data network, etc.)?
2. What explanation was given (if any) for Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice application (and for any other Google applications for iPhone that have been rejected, such as Google Latitude)? Please describe any communications between Google and AT&T or Apple on this topic and a summary of any meetings or discussion.
3. Has Apple approved any Google applications for the Apple App Store? If so, what services do they provide, and, in Google’s opinion, are they similar to any Apple/AT&T-provided applications?
4. Does Google have any other proposed applications pending with Apple, and if so, what services do they provide?
5. Are there other mechanisms by which an iPhone user will be able to access either some or all of the features of Google Voice? If so, please explain how and to what extent iPhone users can utilize Google Voice despite the fact that it is not available through Apple’s App Store.
6. Please provide a description of the standards for considering and approving applications with respect to Google’s Android platform. What is the approval process for such applications (timing, reasons for rejection, appeal process, etc.)? What is the percentage of applications that are rejected? What are the major reasons for rejecting an application?

Request for Confidential Treatment. If Google requests that any information or documents responsive to this letter be treated in a confidential manner, it shall submit, along with all responsive information and documents, a statement in accordance with section 0.459 of the Commission’s rules. 47 C.F.R. § 0.459. Requests for confidential treatment must comply with the requirements of section 0.459, including the standards of specificity mandated by section 0.459(b). Accordingly, “blanket” requests for confidentiality of a large set of documents are unacceptable. Pursuant to section 0.459(c), the Bureau will not consider requests that do not comply with the requirements of section 0.459.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.

Sincerely,

James D. Schlichting
Acting Chief
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau
Federal Communications Commission

FCC Letter to AT&T

July 31, 2009

James W. Cicconi
Senior Executive Vice President-External and Legislative Affairs
AT&T Services, Inc.
1120 20th Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20036

RE: Apple’s Rejection of the Google Voice for iPhone Application

Dear Mr. Cicconi:

Recent press reports indicate that Apple has declined to approve the Google Voice application for the iPhone and has removed related (and previously approved) third-party applications from the iPhone App Store. In light of pending FCC proceedings regarding wireless open access (RM-11361) and handset exclusivity (RM-11497), we are interested in a more complete understanding of this situation.

To that end, please provide answers to the following questions by close of business on Friday, August 21, 2009.

1. What role, if any, did AT&T play in Apple’s consideration of the Google Voice and related applications? What role, if any, does AT&T play in consideration of iPhone applications generally? What roles are specified in the contractual provisions between Apple and AT&T (or in any non-contractual understanding between the companies) regarding the consideration of particular iPhone applications?
2. Did Apple consult with AT&T in the process of deciding to reject the Google Voice application? If so, please describe any communications between AT&T and Apple or Google on this topic, including the parties involved and a summary of any meetings or discussions.
3. Please explain AT&T’s understanding of any differences between the Google Voice iPhone application and any Voice over Internet Protocol applications that are currently used on the AT&T network, either via the iPhone or via handsets other than the iPhone.
4. To AT&T’s knowledge, what other applications have been rejected for use on the iPhone? Which of these applications were designed to operate on AT&T’s 3G network? What was AT&T’s role in considering whether such applications would be approved or rejected?
5. Please detail any conditions included in AT&T’s agreements or contracts with Apple for the iPhone related to the certification of applications or any particular application’s ability to use AT&T’s 3G network.
6. Are there any terms in AT&T’s customer agreements that limit customer usage of certain third-party applications? If so, please indicate how consumers are informed of such limitations and whether such limitations are posted on the iTunes website as well. In general, what is AT&T’s role in certifying applications on devices that run over AT&T’s 3G network? What, if any, applications require AT&T’s approval to be added to a device? Are there any differences between AT&T’s treatment of the iPhone and other devices used on its 3G network?
7. Please list the services/applications that AT&T provides for the iPhone, and whether there any similar, competing iPhone applications offered by other providers in Apple’s App Store.
8. Do any devices that operate on AT&T’s network allow use of the Google Voice application? Do any devices that operate on AT&T’s network allow use of other applications that have been rejected for the iPhone?
9. Please explain whether, on AT&T’s network, consumers’ access to and usage of Google Voice is disabled on the iPhone but permitted on other handsets, including Research in Motion’s BlackBerry devices.

Request for Confidential Treatment. If AT&T requests that any information or documents responsive to this letter be treated in a confidential manner, it shall submit, along with all responsive information and documents, a statement in accordance with section 0.459 of the Commission’s rules. 47 C.F.R. § 0.459. Requests for confidential treatment must comply with the requirements of section 0.459, including the standards of specificity mandated by section 0.459(b). Accordingly, “blanket” requests for confidentiality of a large set of documents are unacceptable. Pursuant to section 0.459(c), the Bureau will not consider requests that do not comply with the requirements of section 0.459.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation.

Sincerely,

James D. Schlichting
Acting Chief
Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Federal Communications Commission

Photo credit: Billogs.

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PS3 manufacturing costs down 70 percent? Strange, it doesn’t feel that way

We understand that Sony has a long way to go in making up the losses it's incurred by selling the PS3 at a loss -- even if it was commanding the highest price in the industry the whole while -- but if this latest word on manufacturing costs is correct, we'd say Sony has some room to get the console under that dastardly $400 mark. During an overseas call with investors over Sony's Q1 financials, Nobuyuki Oneda, Sony's CFO and Executive VP, apparently stated that manufacturing costs for the PS3 are down 70 percent, which is right "on schedule." While there's no official cost published by Sony, those in the know estimate the console originally cost around $800 to produce, and should be down to roughly $240 at this point. Maybe a holiday price cut is in the cards? Boy, we sure hope so. Either that, or he's already spouting off the PS3 Slim's production cost, which is a win for everybody.

[Via Joystiq]

Filed under: Gaming

PS3 manufacturing costs down 70 percent? Strange, it doesn't feel that way originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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District Court Judge Orders Facebook To Reveal Source Code In Patent Dispute

Facebook’s legal woes just won’t stop coming. Last November a company called Leader Technologies, which makes business communcation tools, filed suit against Facebook alleging that the social network had infringed on a patent that “relates to a method and system for the management and storage of electronic information.” The case is still ongoing, and it sounds like it has some legs — earlier this week Facebook was ordered by a Magistrate Judge from the District of Delaware’s District Court to give Leader Technologies access to its entire source code. As reported at Law360, Facebook has until the end of this week to hand over a hierarchical map of the source, and has until August 21st to share its entire codebase with the company.

Of course, Facebook is going to fight tooth and nail against this, and is sure to appeal the ruling.

Facebook has given us the following statement regarding the case:

While we respect the magistrate judge’s opinion, we disagree with it on this point and plan to appeal. Generally, this suit is without merit and we will continue to fight it aggressively.

This isn’t the only legal battle Facebook is facing. It’s currently being sued by Power.com over issues related to data portability, as well as by multiple advertisers alleging click fraud.

You can view Leader Tech’s request to have Facebook reveal its code below:

Leader-v-FacebookLetterRequestingSourceCode-posted30-Jul-2009_2_ -

Thanks to Aditi Tuteja for the tip.

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Google Adds More Options To Image Search

Image search is an area of intense competition between Google, Yahoo, and now Bing. Today, Google Images added some search options to make it easier to filter a search by color, type (face, photo, clip art, line drawing), and file size.

Most of these filters were available before in advanced search, but now they are available in the left-hand column. (A similar option column was introduced to the main search page in May, 2009). You can choose more than one option to automatically narrow down your search. Another option Google could add is sorting by images with a Creative Commons license. It already does this in its advanced search options, but it is hidden there.

Yahoo and Bing have similar filtering options, Although Google’s color filter is the most advanced. It allows you to sort by 12 different colors, wheras Bing and Yahoo only let you sort by color or black-and-white images. Bing, however, does a better job with related searches, something Google is experimenting with in a slightly different way by actually trying to find And Yahoo has its own set of novel features in image search which Google doesn’t. You can compare the three with a search for “fruit” on Google Images, Yahoo Images, and Bing Images.

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Video: Arduino-based ‘insecure, egotistical’ robot band

Continue reading Video: Arduino-based 'insecure, egotistical' robot band

Filed under: Robots

Video: Arduino-based 'insecure, egotistical' robot band originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Coming This September: Twitpocalypse Now Redux!

The first Twitpocalypse was one of those events that you’re going to tell your children about one day. I remember where I was when it hit: On my way to Napa Valley with some friends as we heard sirens race by, likely signaling the end of the Twitter world as we knew it.

Okay, it didn’t end up being that bad. But it still was a pain in the ass for many third-party developers, especially the iPhone Twitter app developers, who had to wait in the App Store line like everyone else for their fixes to go through. And now it’s set to happen all over again!

A tweet today from the TwitterAPI account warned that the second Twitpocalypse was closer than people thought. Okay, most people probably didn’t realize that it could occur again, but it can, and it will, and it’s fast approaching.

The current estimate by the API team is that it will occur sometime in the next 60 days, probably at the end of September. They warn that it could happen sooner though.

So what does it mean, and why is it happening? Well, for those that don’t remember, the first Twitpocalypse occurred when the unique identifier for tweets hit 2,147,483,647 — the 32-bit signed integer limit. That number caused some third-party apps to start counting tweet identifiers as negative, screwing them up. This new Twitpocalpyse is similar, only it’s for the 32-bit unsigned integer value of 4,294,967,295.

In case you didn’t already realize it, the fact that this chasm between the two numbers was crossed so quickly once again shows that Twitter is growing very quickly. Though it’s not a 1 to 1 tweet-to-unique ID ratio, that the number will have doubled (an increase of over 2 billion) in just a few months is huge.

So what can you do to prepare yourself? Well the Twitter API team recommends developing your apps to use 64-bit integers, thus increasingly the number of tweets your app can recognize before it hits these integer walls.

Also, lock up the women and children.

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Movie Gadget Friday: Strange Days

Ariel Waldman contributes Movie Gadget Friday, where she highlights the lovable and lame gadgets from the world of cinema.

On our last episode of Movie Gadget Friday, we rode around the robotics-dependent world of Runaway. Traversing from robots-gone-wrong to "wire-tripping"-technology-junkies, this week jacks-in to the cyberpunk streets of LA in Strange Days. While lacking in computer gadgetry, there is no shortage of leather pants, grunge metal, huge cell phones and random rioting in this 1995 film. Keeping true to the times, we can't get over how even the murderer commits crimes while managing to sport a fanny pack.


SQUID Receptor Rig

Short for Super-conducting Quantum Interference Device, the SQUID receptor rig consists of a two-part system: a lightweight, flexible mesh of electrodes and a recorder. The technology had originally been developed for the feds to replace body wires, but has since leaked onto the black market. The SQUID acts as a magnetic field measurement tool on a micro level. By placing the electrodes over your head and activating the recorder, your first-person audio-visual-sensory experience is recorded wirelessly, direct from the cerebral cortex onto a TDK 60-minute MiniDisc. The rig can also be hacked using a signal splitter and simstim attachment - allowing someone else to experience your experience in real-time. Optional accessories for the rig include a fanny pack for closely storing the recorder and various wigs for concealing your otherwise obvious surveillance of others.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to directly upload these recordings to the net, leaving room for inefficient, in-person, illegal "playback" dealings of MiniDiscs similar to buying and selling drugs. From sex to committing crimes, clients to the self-proclaimed "switchboard of souls" dealers are able to jack-in to a variety of illicit activities without leaving their home. More after the break.

Continue reading Movie Gadget Friday: Strange Days

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Movie Gadget Friday: Strange Days originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take Back the Beep: how to disable voicemail instructions on Sprint (updated!)

While we wait for all the carriers to get on board with nixing their endless, unhelpful voicemail pre-beep messages, we've already got instructions from Sprint on how to disable it for your own particular voicemail box on that network.

It's pretty easy:

1. Call your voicemail
2. At the menu, press 3 for personal options
3. Press 2 for greeting
4. Press 1 to change the greeting
5. To enable / disable the instructions, press 3

Trust us, we did some serious searching for similar instructions on the other major carriers, but had no luck. If you know of anything, let us know!

Update: Thanks to some helpful comments we've got instructions for AT&T and Verizon for lopping off bits of the message, and, in Verizon's case, speeding up the talking. Check 'em out after the break. Consider yourselves upgraded to orange, guys!

Continue reading Take Back the Beep: how to disable voicemail instructions on Sprint (updated!)

Filed under: Cellphones

Take Back the Beep: how to disable voicemail instructions on Sprint (updated!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reminder: vote for your favorite Kindle design by Monday!

Filed under: Announcements

Reminder: vote for your favorite Kindle design by Monday! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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