Phone Scoop - Latest News

Dish Amplifies Anti-SoftBank Rhetoric

Eric M. Zeman — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:43:01 GMT

Dish Networks came out swinging in response to reports that Japan's SoftBank will allow the U.S. to name a member to Sprint's board of directors in its attempt to diffuse any worry about national security. "A Dish-Sprint will be better for national security by preserving domestic ownership, control and accountability over Sprint's national wireless network and fiber backbone network, which provides classified services to government, law enforcement and military customers," the company said. Dish was sure to point out that if Sprint accepts its offer, the result will be a company that it financed, run, and wholly owned by Americans. It played the fear card by noting, "Dish is not foreign-controlled; Dish does not operate infrastructure dependent on Chinese equipment; Dish does not own nearly a third of the Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba; Dish was not affiliated with a company that admitted bribing Chinese officials for telecommunications contracts." Further, it reiterated that it believes its offer for Sprint is better in that it places a higher value on the company and brings with it additional spectrum and an existing customer base. Beyond its rhetoric, Dish took steps to ascertain financing for its proposed acquisition of Sprint. The Wall Street Journal reports that Dish has received signed commitment letters from five banks. It has now raised $12 billion of the $25.5 billion in funding it needs to purchase Sprint. Sprint is currently negotiating with Dish over its proposal, though Sprint's board of directors still recommends the SoftBank deal over Dish's.

Nokia Hits HTC with Fresh Litigation

Eric M. Zeman — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:24:03 GMT

Nokia has filed new complaints against HTC with the U.S. International Trade Commission and courts in California, alleging that the company is infringing on its intellectual property. Nokia already has claims against HTC in motion that are separate from its latest filings. "We began actions against HTC in 2012 to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies," said Nokia. "Since then, HTC has shown no intention to end its practices; instead it has tried to shift responsibility to its suppliers. We have therefore taken these further steps to hold HTC accountable for its actions." Last month, a court in Germany found that STMicroelectronics, a supplier of microphones, had violated an agreement it had with Nokia when it sold parts to HTC. HTC says it was free of guilt in that case. The nature of Nokia's new complaints were not immediately specified.

ITC Vindicates Microsoft in Case Brought By Motorola

Eric M. Zeman — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:14:28 GMT

The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled that Microsoft did not infringe on a patent held by Motorola. The full commission's decision upheld an earlier ruling by an administrative law judge and puts the matter to rest. The case began in 2010 when Motorola accused Microsoft of violating five of its patents. Four of the patents were eventually dropped from the case, leaving just one pertaining to how Microsoft's XBox gaming system used Wi-Fi. Microsoft declared the ruling a "win" for its customers, adding that it "confirms our view that Google had no grounds to block our products."

Verizon Cloud Now Available to Apple iPhone

Eric M. Zeman — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:05:37 GMT

Verizon Wireless today made Verizon Cloud, its backup and storage service, available to the Apple iPhone. Verizon Cloud lets customers sync their smartphones and tablets to Verizon's servers. It offers 500MB of storage for free, and up to 125GB of storage for $9.99 per month. Verizon says the free option should be enough to backup settings, calls, messages, and contacts. Verizon Cloud was made available to Android devices last month. The application is free to download from the iTunes App Store.

BlackBerry Shares Details About BlackBerry OS 10.2

Eric M. Zeman — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:26:45 GMT

BlackBerry OS 10.2, which is expected to arrive before the end of the year, was recently detailed by BlackBerry Product Manager Michael Clewley. According to Clewley, BB OS 10.2 will add support for unicode emoji, support for multiple alarms, a timer, and support for level 1 notifications. An SDK for BlackBerry OS 10.2 is expected to arrive in June, with the full operating system following several months later.

AT&T Adds 61-Cent Admin Fee to All Customers

Eric M. Zeman — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:18:43 GMT

AT&T has added a new administration fee to the monthly bills of all its customers. The fee amounts to 61 cents, which, when multiplied across AT&T's entire customer base, amounts to about $500 million in extra revenue per year for the company. An AT&T spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that the fee is less than that charged by its competitors. It went into effect May 1.

HTC Says One Is First HTCpro Certified Phone for Businesses

Eric M. Zeman — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:33:16 GMT

HTC today announced that the HTC One smartphone is its first HTCpro Certified smartphone. Devices certified as HTCpro meet certain security standards that make it more appealing as a choice for business customers. Chiefly, it meets the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 and offers 256-bit encryption. Further, it includes IPsec VPN for accessing corporate networks securely, and includes mobile device management APIs that can be used by businesses to control the One remotely. The One is available from AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile USA.

Galaxy S 4 Now Available from Verizon

Eric M. Zeman — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:07:46 GMT

Samsung today indicated through one of its official Twitter accounts that the Verizon variant of the Galaxy S 4 is now available. It costs $199.99 for the 16GB model with a new contract.

SoftBank Will Allow U.S. to Name Sprint Board Member

Eric M. Zeman — Thu, 23 May 2013 12:30:16 GMT

SoftBank has signalled to the U.S. government that it will let officials elect a new person to Sprint's board of directors. This person would be responsible for overseeing national security concerns. The move is an unusual concession on SoftBank's part, and is being taken to allay U.S. governmental fears about foreign country ownership of a telecommunications company. The government is also pursuing the right to approve certain telecommunications equipment purchases, and wants Sprint to remove Chinese equipment from its affiliates. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has already approved the deal, but it is still undergoing review within the U.S. Departments of Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security, in addition to the FBI. The deal must also be cleared by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.

Google Updates Chrome and Play Magazines

Eric M. Zeman — Wed, 22 May 2013 21:45:11 GMT

Google continues to make small improvements to its Chrome browser for the Android platform and today it was updated to version 27. The latest stable release changes the search omnibox to show the search terms rather than the search URL, and makes it easier to jump to other searches in the search history. The app now also allows for full-screen browsing. Last, Google says the browser loads pages 5% faster. Google said that a new version of Chrome will soon be available to Apple's iPhone and iPad, and will bring with it voice search tools built into the browser. Google also updated the Google Play Magazines application and gave it a brand new user interface for the magazine library. Both Chrome and Play Magazines for Android are free to download from the Google Play Store.

Microsoft Updates YouTube App to Appease Google

Eric M. Zeman — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:43:44 GMT

Microsoft said that it a new version of its Windows Phone YouTube application will be available later today. Microsoft updated the app after Google asked it to remove the app from the Windows Phone Store for violating Google's terms of use. "Microsoft updated the Windows Phone YouTube app to address the restricted video and offline video access concerns voiced by Google last week," said the company in a statement provided to The Verge. "We have been in contact with Google and continue to believe that our two companies can work together to hone an app that benefits our mutual customers, partners and content providers." Google cited the app's ability to permit video downloads and its lack of advertising as the two main issues.

Twitter Debuts Two-Step Authentication

Eric M. Zeman — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:35:17 GMT

Twitter today increased the security it offers to users of its microblogging platform by adding two-step authentication to the sign-in process. The process requires that users add a mobile phone number to their account. With the two-step authentication enabled, Twitter will send an SMS to that number with a code that must be entered in addition to the username and password in order to gain access to the Twitter account. The code will be sent each time the person logs in via the web, but is not required for subsequent sign-ins through Twitter apps. This new security feature is optional.

Verizon Announces Viva Movil Retail Stores for Latinos

Eric M. Zeman — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:24:19 GMT

Verizon Wireless today announced a new company called Viva Movil, which is meant to help address the Latino population in the U.S. The company was founded by Jennifer Lopez, who serves as its chief marketing officer. Viva Movil is a partnership between Brightstar Solutions, for distribution, and Moorehead Communications, a Verizon Wireless retailer. The company will use social networking and online commerce to connect with the Latino population. The company is a retail chain that sells Verizon phones and tablets on Verizon's network with Verizon service plans. The stores will be designed in a way so that they are appealing to the Latino community, and all staffers will be bilingual. The company's web site is up and taking orders, and the first Viva Movil retail store will open on June 15 in New York City. Other markets, such as Los Angeles and Miami, will follow throughout the year.

Hands On with the Samsung Admire 2 and Discover for Cricket

Rich Brome — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:38:35 GMT

Cricket today showed a sneak peek of two Samsung phones coming this summer. The Admire 2 sports a 4-inch screen and 4G LTE, while the Galaxy Discover is more basic with its 3.5-inch screen and stock Android interface. We checked them out. Read on for our first impressions.

Google Drive for Android Adopts Card User Interface

Eric M. Zeman — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:31:48 GMT

Google today announced the availability of a new version of its Drive app for Android devices. Google Drive has been updated with a number of user interface tweaks to make it easier and faster to access files and documents. Documents are now laid out in cards that offer large previews of the content within the document. Users can swipe from card to card and document to document, viewing previews as they go. The app now also lets users download and store copies of files to their Android device. Another new feature of Google Drive lets Android device users snap photos of documents, which are then converted into PDFs and automatically uploaded to Drive for safe keeping. Google says that Drive's optical character recognition feature will allow the text of those documents to be searchable. Last, Google Drive for Android updates the editing tools for spreadsheets, making it less cumbersome to make changes from mobile devices. The new version of Google Drive for Android is free to download from the Google Play Store.

Samsung Buys 10% Stake in Pantech for $48 Million

Eric M. Zeman — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:09:08 GMT

Samsung today confirmed that it has made a $48 million investment in competitor Pantech, which gives it 10% ownership of the company. "The investment is aimed at solidifying our relationship with Pantech, a key component customer of Samsung," said the company in a statement. "Samsung will have no involvement in Pantech’s business management in any way or form." The two competitors already collaborate on semiconductor and display technologies. Pantech sells a mix of feature phones and smartphones in the U.S. through AT&T.

Clearwire Approves Upped Sprint Bid

Eric M. Zeman — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:01:35 GMT

Clearwire's board of directors has approved Sprint's increased bid for the company. It is recommending that shareholders vote in favor of accepting the bid and allowing Sprint to purchase the remaining portion of Clearwire that it does not already own. Sprint increased its offer for Clearwire from $2 billion to $2.5 billion to win over investors unhappy with the original offer.

Cricket, Sprint To Enable LTE Roaming

Rich Brome — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:28:52 GMT

At a press briefing this morning, Cricket revealed that it plans to enable LTE roaming later this year on bands 4 (1700) and 25 (1900). Band 25 LTE is used exclusively by Sprint in the U.S. Band 4 (AWS) is used by many carriers, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and soon, Verizon. The Samsung Galaxy S 4 will be Cricket's first phone to support band 25 roaming.

Cricket To Carry Samsung Admire 2, Galaxy Discover

Rich Brome — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:23:38 GMT

Cricket today announced plans to offer two new Samsung Android phones this summer: the Admire 2 and the Galaxy Discover (already offered in a GSM variant by Net10.) The Admire 2 is a new, mid-range Android phone with 4G LTE, 4-inch display, 5-megapixel camera, memory card slot, and Samsung's TouchWiz interface and camera features on top of Android 4.1. U.S. Cellular carries it as the Axiom. The Galaxy Discover is a basic Android phone with a 3.5-inch display, 3-megapixel camera, memory card slot, and stock Android 4.0 interface. Further specs, pricing, and launch dates will be announced at a later date.

Cricket Announces Galaxy S 4 Launch Details

Rich Brome — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:15:30 GMT

Cricket today announced that it will start selling the Samsung Galaxy S 4 on June 7 for $599.99. A financing option starts with a $59.99 down payment, plus monthly payments.