at&t – TechVirtuoso

Google announces Nexus S, intros with motion sickness inducing video

December 6th, 2010 at 11:46 AM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

Google has announced their new platform phone, the Nexus S. Based on the Samsung Galaxy S series of phones, it’s the successor to the HTC built Nexus One.

Beyond the typical stuff, the phone specs/features:

1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) processor
16GB of internal storage
512MB of RAM
4″ WVGA (800 x 480) screen with Contour Display (curved glass screen) on Super AMOLED
Dual cameras (Back-facing: 5 megapixels 2560×1920 with auto focus and flash, front-facing: VGA 640×480
Near Field Communication (NFC) hardware
Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

According to Google, starting December 16, Nexus S will be sold unlocked and carrier-independent initially through Best Buy stores in the U.S. and after December 20 at Carphone Warehouse stores in the UK.

Its quad-band GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900) and tri-band HSPA (900, 2100, 1700) which means it will only have 3G service on T-Mobile in the U.S., and EDGE on AT&T.

(BTW, seriously, don’t watch the video above if you get motion sickness. It made me a little sick to my stomach to try and make it all the way though.)

Apple plotting to cut carriers out of the iPhone game?

October 27th, 2010 at 6:31 PM 3 Comments Michael Stanclift

Is it possible Apple is plotting to cut carriers like AT&T out of the iPhone sales process in the next version of the iPhone? GigaOM seems to think so:

Sources inside European carriers have reported that Apple has been working with SIM-card manufacturer Gemalto to create a special SIM card that would allow consumers in Europe to buy a phone via the web or at the Apple Store and get the phones working using Apple’s App Store.

It’s rumored that Apple and Gemalto have created a SIM card, which is typically a chip that carries subscriber identification information for the carriers, that will be integrated into the iPhone itself.

Much like it helped cut operators out of the app store game, Apple could be taking them out of the device retail game. Yes, carriers will still have to allow the phone to operate on their networks, which appears to be why executives from various French carriers have been to Cupertino in recent weeks.

I’m not quite sure I see how this cuts them out, as you’d still need a contract unless everyone is going to start buying an iPhone that costs $700+ again, and the carriers decide to drop the prices of the plans. Yeah, right. Apple is Apple, and they have a lot of power to make people and companies do what they want but I fail to see how this is any kind of huge game changer.

If anything, it creates complications for those who want to unlock their phones. Really, this could be a good thing for the carriers who are locking in customers to their network. Although as exclusivity agreements begin to expire around the world and talk about an iPhone on Verizon in the United States becomes more assured, the market for iPhone unlocking could become less and less popular.

It’s a shame that we’ve come so far towards standardizing things like SIM cards, power chargers, and other technologies for mobile devices yet Apple manages to push everything in a different direction just for the sake of thinking different.

Commitment Issues – Sold the Nexus One, Back to iOS

July 29th, 2010 at 10:54 PM 4 Comments Michael Stanclift

I’ve never been one to have commitment issues. But my decision to move from the iPhone 4 to the Nexus One just couldn’t stick. Last month I wrote about what I saw as the flaws of the iOS platform and specifically the issues I had with the iPhone 4. I also wrote a glowing review of the Nexus One and I stand by (most) of that analysis. But yesterday I sold my Nexus One and will soon be buying an iPhone 4.

When I announced this “news” on Twitter and Facebook last night I think I stunned just about everyone of my friends and followers. I got a lot of questions like “What did Android do wrong?” but did get a few statements like “I knew you’d be back” … when I left last month, I didn’t intend to come back. But there were a few lingering issues that I just couldn’t get past.

Subsidies

The Nexus One I purchased cost me $529 direct from Google. So I take that phone and attach it to my AT&T account and then pay AT&T the same amount of money for my voice, data and TXT messages as I would if I were on a 2-year agreement. AT&T spends nothing upfront and makes a larger profit from me than it does for someone who spends $199 for a iPhone 4. The obvious benefit for me is that I can take my phone and go to another carrier, or cancel my account anytime I want. But here’s the kicker… my only real choice is AT&T.

Beyond the logistical issues of having every friend and family member I know being on AT&T (free mobile to mobile) and the fact that they have one of the better networks in the Kansas City area… Google for some reason designed two different Nexus Ones. One radio optimized for T-Mobile and one for AT&T. So if I decided I was fed up and wanted to move to T-Mobile, I’d basically cripple my phone by relegating it to EDGE network data speeds. And since obviously Verizon and Sprint are on different technologies, they’re not even something to be considered. Google would have been wise to use a radio that would work on both types of GSM networks, if that were possible. Realistically, I’m locked into AT&T, regardless of if I have a 2-year contract or not.

So the real question for me was, in order to make the value of owning the Nexus One “worth it” … was my experience with it more than 2.5x better than the iPhone 4?

Basically. No. (more…)

TV Guide for March 30

March 30th, 2010 at 11:01 AM 1 Comment Michael Stanclift

This is the introduction post to the TechVirtuoso Guide, what we hope will become a daily breakdown of important IT tidbits from the previous day, and what we expect to happen that day.

Yet again, someone has come forward with another rumor that a CDMA iPhone is coming this summer. This time, it comes from the Wall Street Journal. The new iPhone would work on Verizon Wireless, as well as Sprint Nextel in the United States and a handful of carriers in other countries including South Korea and Japan. The current iPhone is designed to work on the vast majority of carriers world-wide, including AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, using a signaling technology called GSM.

It would seem that SSL isn’t as secure as once thought. The problem isn’t the encryption, but the certificate providers. Ars has a breakdown of how governments are working with the CAs to “subvert the entire system to allow them to spy on anyone they wish to keep tabs on.”

Apple has released a major update to OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” — fixes in version 10.6.3 include enhancements to USB, OpenGL, DNS, QuickTime X, AirPort, iCal, Mail, MobileMe, Time Machine, and numerous other areas of the operating system. Choose Software Update from the Apple menu to check for the latest Apple software via the Internet, including this update.

Future versions of the Ubuntu Linux operating system will change the way units are measured in the operating system and enforced throughout applications used in the OS. Starting in Ubuntu 10.10, coming this October, SI prefixes (base-10) will denote 1 kB as 1000 bytes, 1 MB as 1000 kB, 1 GB as 1000 MB, and so on. This is similar to the way OS X started measuring data in Snow Leopard. Neowin has a full breakdown of the measuring guidelines.

You will soon be able to jailbreak an iPhone over the air, instead of having it tethered to a computer. Your move Apple.

Need help running Linux as a guest OS in Microsoft Hyper-V? Sounds strange, but Microsoft has released a best practices guide to do just that. Download it off their website. Don’t blame us if you create a black hole in your datacenter though. In related news, Hypervizor.net has a great article on anti-virus exemptions in Hyper-V. Proper configuration of your antivirus can prevent performance issues, but also keep your VMs from being eaten alive by an aggressive scanning engine.

Microsoft CES keynote fails to excite

January 7th, 2010 at 8:28 AM No Comments Michael Stanclift

If you couldn’t get a chance to watch the Microsoft CES pre-show keynote last night, you didn’t miss much. If you were actually at the event, I feel sorry for you, it must have been hard to stay awake.

After starting late due to power issues (which fried one of the Microsoft demo units on stage) the keynote got off to a rather boring start with Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, giving various statistics about how well recently released products like Windows 7 and Bing are doing. For the first half hour, the audio stream for the webcast was so bad, it kept cutting out and then required constant volume adjustment. Note to Microsoft, hire a decent sound engineer next time.

If you’d like to watch the keynote for yourself, you can see the saved version on the Microsoft website.

It was all pretty much downhill from there. The much discussed “Courier” tablet that many in the tech press was excited they would announce never came, and there were no details about Windows Mobile 7… at all. Only “we’ll have more about mobile at Mobile World Congress.” So overall, the keynote failed to deliver much of anything that we didn’t know or have not seen already. But, here is a breakdown of what was covered, after the break.

(more…)

AT&T, Intel collaborate to strengthen remote PC support for SMB

September 17th, 2009 at 9:53 PM No Comments Don Smith

Intel_logo AT&T and Intel have announced a collaboration which will see the former introduce AT&T Tech Support 360SM, an affordable IT virtual helpdesk that provides live, permission-based remote technical service for small and midsize businesses.

The upcoming option will enable them to simply enter a keystroke sequence on a failed computer – even if its operating system is down – to directly connect the system with technicians over the Internet via an encrypted connection. The Tech Support 360 technicians will then address the PC remotely, even when it has become inoperable due to problems such as hardware or operating system failure, or corruption by a virus or malware. This is made possible by the use of the Intel Remote PC Assist Technology (Intel RPAT), a feature of Intel’s vPro.

“As a result of the current economic conditions, small businesses are even more focused on controlling costs,” said David Tuhy, a general manager in the Intel Business Client Group. “AT&T’s Tech Support 360 in conjunction with Intel vPro technology opens the door for new managed services to address these concerns. By adding support for Intel Remote PC Assist Technology, AT&T will be able to deliver a higher level of service to customers by improving PC troubleshooting and reducing support costs using an encrypted connection over the Internet.”

Those interested can get more info about AT&T’s Tech Support 360 service via tech360.att.com.

« Newer Posts