0 Raises Early Termination Fee on Smartphones By AT&T

Berita Gadget - AT&T Inc. announced today that its early termination fees for new and renewing smartphone and netbook customers will jump from $175 to $325 on June 1, following similar actions by other carriers.In an open letter to customers, AT&T also said that it will drop the early termination fees for new and renewing customers who use basic and fast messaging rings by $25 to $150 on that date.

Spokesman refused to comment beyond the contents of the letter, which said the early termination fees make it feasible for AT&T to offer industry-leading rings below their full retail prices in exchange for a two-year service dedication. For example, a $199 Apple iPhone would cost $599 without a contract. AT&T has said that iPhone customers pay on average over $90 in service fees each month.

Some bloggers have theorized that AT&T's increase in its smartphone early termination fees is timed to go in to effect prior to Apple's announcement of a next-generation iPhone, and some are speculating that the fees are going up because AT&T could be losing its exclusive right to sell the iPhone in the U.S. within the next year, after years of complaints from users about the AT&T network.

Presumably, higher fees would discourage AT&T iPhone customers from switching to another wireless service if other carriers are allowed to start offering the iPhone. AT&T would not comment on that theory.

AT&T said the new early termination fees, which won't apply to current customers unless they renew after June 1, will decline by $10 a month over the life of a two-year contract for smartphone users & by $4 a month for users of basic & fast messaging rings.

Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst, said carriers are fundamentally offering consumers subsidies or loans when they sell rings at reduced prices to customers who sign long-term service contracts. They noted that early termination fees & subsidies are mostly U.S. traditions.

"Phones are expensive," Kagan said. "In lots of countries without early termination fees, the customers are necessary to pay the full $500 or more for a phone. In the United States, [carriers] started subsidizing & continue doing it today. When a carrier helps a customer buy a phone by giving them a loan of sorts, the customer agrees to repay that loan" -- fundamentally through the early termination fee.

Kagan pointed out that when a customer of any type defaults on any kind of loan, there is a penalty involved. "The reason for the ETF is to protect the carriers from losing funds when they give the customer a loan of sorts," they said.

Early termination fees have been controversial. They have been the subject of lawsuits by customers, & in January the Federal Communications Commission launched an inquiry in to excessively high termination fees.

Verizon Wireless doubled its early termination fee on "advanced devices," chiefly smartphones, to $350 last November. & in January, Google Inc. & T-Mobile USA jointly imposed an early termination fee of $550 on the Nexus One smartphone. In response to criticism, Google lowered its part of the Nexus One fee from $350 to $150 in February. Verizon responded to concerns from the FCC by reducing the number of advanced devices affected by its higher early termination fee.

0 Bing Gains Market Share, But Not Gaining On Google

Berita Gadget - Bing is making tiny gains & capturing the attention of increasingly users & advertisers every day. Despite only being launched last year, they’ve already got a tiny niche of users, but regrettably for them, insiders are saying that there is no way they they can knock off Google in desktop search. But, they do have a chance at winning the mobile search war.Read: Bing Gains Market Share, But Not Gaining On Google [Microsoft's Search Engine Is Gaining Support Of Users & Advertisers, But Insiders Say They Cannot Beat Google In Desktop Search] » TFTS – Know-how, Devices & Curiosities.

Last month, comScore estimated that Bing held a 12% marketshare over the search market, with Google holding dominant with its 64%. This is a 4% improvement since Microsoft’s ailing “Live Search” became branded with the more memorable Bing identity. Microsoft is dropping plenty of money in to Bing, as they try to compete in search. Bloomberg BusinessWeek is reporting that since 2006, Microsoft is about $6 billion (with a b) in the red with their search engine business.

But plenty of online advertisers are now worried that their "under-invested" in Bing. Range Media Online, a promotion firm, tells Bloomberg BusinessWeek that most clients had historicallyin the past spent 2-5% of their commercial dollars on Bing ads. Now, that is increasing to 5-9% of money being spent on Bing.

Google is probably out of reach for Bing, and Bing knows it. In lieu, BBW reports that Bing is turning their eyes to the uncharted wild-west of mobile search. Bing is making a sizable push in mobile search, including plenty of developer and customer incentives. On the iPhone, Bing will pay for you getting a free copy of the Tap Tap Revenge game in case you download the Bing app.

0 Kindle for Android coming

Berita Gadget -  What was hinted at in those leaked Dell Streak flyers is now official: Kindle for Android. Regrettably, it is not prepared to download. Amazon's free Kindle ebook reader. Already out for Mac, PC, BlackBerry, & iDevices. Won't launch until later this summer.

When it does, users of Android 1.6 & above (with SD card) will have the ability to search, browse, & buy (without exiting the app) any of the half million books in the Kindle Store. Like the other apps, Kindle for Android features Whispersync to keep your bookmarks, last page read, notes, & highlights synchronized across all of your Kindle-enabled devices. Expect to see this demonstrated at Google I/O beginning tomorrow.

Source : engadget

0 The Apple iPad

Berita Gadget - It's hard to argue the fact that this week's Apple iPad launch disappointed the tech crowd, because of that inexplicable name. Despite its lovely design, beefier core apps, & new e-book features & store, the iPad is hampered by a well-documented string of missing features: Camera, 16:9 support, Flash support, multitasking, SD card slot, HDMI or high-res video output support, USB ports, GPS, and so on. And, it is exclusive to the AT&T network in this iteration, the pricing technique is excessively complex, & while I am not definite it is genuinely overpriced, it is nevertheless expensive, & you cannot imagine the cost going much lower without crashing in to the 64GB iPod Touch & making the iPad look a lot like a sucker's buy.



OK, but all that said, I think all of us need to take a deep breath and keep in mind: it is not that the iPad is a failure. It is a product ahead of its time. No five ought to actually buy this iPad, between its inevitable first-generation bugs, fulfillment issues, and buyer's regret over added features and cost drops, it is heartbreak waiting to happen. Try to think of the iPad as, like, a proof of idea. An idea automobile, even. A work in progress.

Now, I do know tablet PCs are nothing new, and I do know Microsoft's been trying to get the idea off the ground for a decade now. But this is the idea design for the e-reader/media tool we'll all own in two to five years--when every publication is available as a feature-rich, interactive reading experience, when Apple (or anyone else) has introduced the Newsstand app store with some actual newspaper and journal content partners, and when prices are in the $100 to $200 range and 3G wireless is not a $130 add-on, and the idea of consuming 250MB of information a month on a true multimedia tool is recognized as the belly-busting joke that it is.

Right now, the iPad is a product in search of a market. It is kind of poorly implemented, feature-wise, it is been poorly articulated, market-wise, and it is hard to imagine why on earth you'd ever require such a thing at such a cost. But I think there will be a market for a touch-screen, all-in-one tool that is over a Kindle and less than a laptop computer, and it is simple to imagine getting all my media on four slick Internet-connected tool that also works as four heck of a digital picture frame.

Here's what Apple needs to do: cease trying to persuade me that an iPad is better than a Netbook. That is not the point. I have lots of things in my life that can bring me a calendar, music, images, and touch-screen painting. I don't require more of that (no matter how you make it). Don't try to put the iPad between a laptop computer and a clever phone--that positioning doesn't make any sense to somebody, and no four needs that.

Start pitching this thing as the actual replacement for paper. Get some serious content deals with periodicals and papers, and possibly even offer a combined subscription service that lets you select 8 or 10 papers and magazines for a flat fee. Get the bookstore up to Amazon stock levels, put an e-ink/LCD hybrid display in the next version, and get serious about what this is: a multimedia reader. (Also, get your product line and pricing in order and cease trying to act like a 3G chip costs an additional $130.) See you in three to three years! 

0 Sony Vaio P "NEW" series dengan Segudang Kelebihanya.

Sony, Sony .... Siapa yang tidak kenal dengan dia. Dari jaman kita masih kecilpun, namanya sudah familiar terdengar. Pabrikan asal Jepang yang didirikan oleh Akio Morita ini memang sudah terkenal dengan produk-produknya yang handal dan berkwalitas dari dulu. Contoh saja Play Station, Televisi, Camera, Tape Recorder dan masih banyak lagi.

 

Nah, berita kali ini dari Sony, mereka akan mengeluarkan Sony Vaio P Terbarunya. Netbook Vaio P Seriesnya ini rencananya akan dilengkapi dengan Touchpad ( Touchpad Optikal yang dapat berfungsi sebagai mouse ), Akselerometer ( berfungsi membantu penggunanya untuk menggunakan mode berdiri dalam membaca dokumen, dan mode tiduran untuk membuka website ), GPS, dan 3G,  di samping dari segi varian warna yang menarik.

Tidak sampai di situ mereka juga akan menjadikan  Sony Vaio P menjadi perangkat yang " ultra portable" dengan segudang kelebihan dan kehandalanya. Prosesornya akan di upgrade dari Z530 menjadi Z540. Dan rencananya Netbook Sony Vaio P akan di keluarkan di bulan Juni 2010 ini.

 

Berikut spesifikasi dari Netbook Sony Vaio P : 

- Windows 7

- Memori 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM, 64 GB SSD GMA 500

- Prosesor Z 540

- Layar 8 inci dengan Resolusi 1600 X 768

- WiFi N

- Bluetooth 2.1

- Speaker Stereo

- Motion Eye Camera

- 2 port USB

- Batterai sampai 5 jam.

- Berat 632 gr.

Untuk lebih jelasnya, silahkan anda lihat pada press release dari Sony.

0 Tandingan Baru iPad Dari Samsung

Menurut rumor yang berkembang, Samsung sedang mempersiapkan tandingan baru iPad Apple. Kabarnya, PC Tablet mereka nantinya akan di beri nama Samsung S-Pad. 

Tablet Samsung S-pad dikabarkan akan menggunakan layar sentuh Super AMOLED 7 inci dan OS Android, kemungkinan juga dalam OS Bada (OS yang dikembangkan oleh Samsung). Selain itu, tablet ini juga dikatakan akan muncul dalam 2 versi, yaitu WiFi dan WiFi +3G.

0 Unboxing the MSI Wind U135 - Video

The MSI Wind U135 has a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixels, 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, 250 GB hard drive. It runs Windows 7 Starter Edition and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1. The netbook was launched a few months ago, but the people of MSI just sent me a review, so I figured he had put a little unboxing video.



In general I like the design. The keyboard has an island-style design, with flat keys and the spaces between them. The touchpad is quite large, even though just a single button to the left and right click. And the lid has a nice design texture that appears to be fairly resistant to fingerprints and smudges. I'm not a big fan of glossy displays, the wind U135 has, but is more common to find bright screen netbooks out.



You can see the unboxing video below.

Source : liliputing

0 Berita Tentang Windows 7

Angka penjualan Windows 7 sudah mencapai batas 100 juta copy. Ini tentunya menjadi angka penjualan yang fantastis bagi perusahaan yang bermarkas di Redmond ini. Jumlah ini melampaui jumlah penjualan Windows Vista dengan kekurangan - kekuranganya yang sekaligus menjadi pendongkrak penjualan Windows 7. Tetapi, tidak di pungkiri lagi kalau windows XP adalah Legenda sepanjang masa.