FreedomPop plans to let wireless users trade data usage

The still somewhat mysterious FreedomPop wireless broadband service is slowly revealing more of its plans. The company had previously said it planned to offer free access to its service and now GigaOM has received more information from FreedomPop's marketing head, Tony Miller. According to Miller, users will be able to access up to 1GB of data free of charge each month at 4G speeds, thanks to its new partnership with Clearwire's WiMAX network. Each additional megabyte will cost one cent. However, the interesting thing is that users will be able actually trade data usage with each other. FreedomPop will allow users who are not close to using...

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Ice Cream Sandwich updates for Xperia phones

If you own a Android-based Xperia smartphone from Sony and have been wondering when or even if your phone would get a free Android 4.0 upgrade, wonder no more. Sony posted up a note on its official Xperia blog this week that gives a timeline for when Xperia phones will be receiving the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade. The first Xperia phones to gain access to the Android 4.0 update will be the Arc S, the Neo V and the Ray. Owners of those devices can expect to see ICS start its update cycle sometime in mid-April and continue for the next four to six weeks. As usual, the timing of these updates will be up to your local country and wireless carrier. Other...

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Mac OS Beats Windows 8

Most consumers don't download and install a pre-release version of an OS on their PCs for a variety of reasons. However, a new study claims that among the few people who do take the plunge, Mac users seem to be more willing to try out a preview version of the next OS than those that use Windows PCs. Computerworld.com reports that according to the study, which was organized by the Chitika online ad network, only 0.06 percent of Mac users which accessed the company's network of sites used the beta version of Mountain Lion. The data was taken about one week after Apple first announced its plans for Mountain Lion in February and released the...

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Some Windows 8 laptops to get quad-core Qualcomm CPU

Microsoft is working to bring its ARM port of Windows 8 out at the same time as the x86 processor version. When the ARM version is released, it will likely be inside some thin and light laptops that will have a quad-core processor made by Qualcomm. PCWorld.com reports that the company hopes to have the quad-core version of its Snapdragon S4 processor in Windows 8 laptops that will be both thinner and lighter than notebooks based on Intel's Ultrabook design. The article didn't state which PC laptop makers would offer notebooks with Qualcomm's upcoming processor inside. Qualcomm is also reportedly working on adding 64-bit support to a future...

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HTC One X first test

Earlier on Friday we told you about all of the preparations that went into the shoot for the first series of commercials for the HTC One series. Shot 12,000 feet in the air, the idea behind the video was to show how easy is it to operate the camera on the units. As we mentioned before, the cameras on the HTC One series smartphones from the One series need only 0.7 seconds to boot and 0.2 seconds to lock the focus in place. Sure, the HTC One X is a beast of a handset, but can it take a licking? To test how strong the device is, the flagship model was put into a dryer for one hour. According to HTC, the polycarbonate unibody is so strong and...

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Visa, MasterCard affected by ‘massive’ data breach; NYC gangs being blamed?

Atlanta, Georgia-based credit card processor Global Payments Inc. has revealed that is has suffered a “massive” security breach, affecting US banks as well as the likes of Visa and MasterCard. The breach may involve more than 10 million credit card numbers. Late last week, Visa and MasterCard began alerting banks that certain credit cards had been compromised, though the compromised credit card processor hadn’t been named yet. Enough data had been taken to counterfeit new credit cards. Though its not exactly clear how many accounts have been compromised, at least 482 credit unions have been alerted and early on there was a total of 56,455...

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Microsoft may be set to combat piracy with special chinese edition of windows 8

This is quite interesting. In a potential bid to combat piracy, Microsoft is said to be building a specific Windows 8 SKU, or build, for the Chinese market. This edition of Windows 8 will likely, if built, be cheaper than other versions of the operating system, making it more generally affordable. That affordability is Microsoft’s tool to attack rampant piracy in the country. Precautions will be taken to ensure that the special build is only used in China, NeoWin reports: “The SKU can apparently be installed only with a Chinese ISO. The article adds that if you try to do so with an English ISO, a Blue Screen of Death alert appears with the...

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Control Your iTunes Or Spotify Music Library Using Kinect Like Gestures On Your Mac With Flutter

It would seem that controlling things using gestures is fast becoming the new thing to do. Microsoft have enjoyed great success with their Kinect motion detecting hardware that allows users to use their bodies as the controller for certain games as well as navigating through menus with gestures. An increasing number of iOS apps are starting to include gesture-based user interfaces that allow users to navigate through the various app screens using a number of different gestures including flicks and swipes. The guys over at Bot Square Inc. have recognized the popularity of controlling things with the flick of the hand or finger, which has...

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Apple Hit With Another Lawsuit Citing False Siri Advertising

A couple of weeks back, Apple was dealt a lawsuit from a disgruntled New Yorker who claimed that the Siri voice-recognition software did not work as smoothly in reality as it appeared to on the advertisements. In a week in which the fruit company has been in hot water regarding the misrepresentation of its products, iPhone 4S owner David Jones filed a suit on Tuesday, according to the LA Times. Apple’s new iPad – although 4G LTE compliant from a hardware point of view – has come under fire in countries such as Australia, where it is marketed as an "iPad 4G", despite none of the major carriers Down Under actually supporting 4G. Similarly...

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Another Kelihos based botnet shut down

In September, Microsoft announced it was part of an operation designed to shut down a criminal botnet that was based on the Kelihos malware program. Today another company, the software security firm CrowdStrike, announced it has also worked with other companies to shut down a Kelihos-based botnet that was even larger than the one closed by Microsoft. CrowdStrike stated in their blog post that they worked with Dell SecureWorks, the Honeynet Project and Kaspersky to shut down the botnet. The network used Kelihos.B, which is a a successor of the original Kelihos program. While Microsoft's shut down involved 41,000 PCs, CrowdStrike claims that the botnet it closed down involved over 110,000 infected PCs. 84 percent of those PCs were running Windows XP. CrowdStrike also released an infographic,...

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Apple offers refunds for new iPad owners ?

A controversy over the definition of 4G has proven to be a bit costly for Apple. A few days ago, the new iPad went on sale in Australia with the claim that it had 4G speeds. The problem? The current version of the new iPad cannot actually connect to the only 4G wireless network in that country because the network operates on a frequency of 1800MHz. The new iPad's LTE 4G hardware works on frequencies of 700MHz and 2100MHz. Now PCMag.com reports that Apple has offered in the country's Federal Court to email all of the Australian new iPad owners and offer them a refund if they felt they were in any way misled by the claims of the 4G support....

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Apple hits $613.40 for the First Time

If you are in the States, by this time in the you are probably still working on your coffee and newspaper. Apple, on the other hand, is up, about, and setting records. Apple this morning reached a new, all time stock price high of $613.40 per share. The company’s market cap now exceeds $570,000,000,000. Since hitting the record, Apple has eased slightly to the $612 level. The company is up around 0.8% today. While we won’t be covering every Apple record, we will occasionally highlight something like this to keep the firm’s market capitalization in perspective. Let’s have some fun, it’s early, after all. At a rounded valuation of $570 billion,...

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The Final Gnome 3.4 Arrive Soon !!

Yesterday we got Gnome Shell 3.4, GTK 3.4 and some other parts of this new desktop. Today, the team have announced the availability of the full Gnome 3.4 package. After developing for 6 months, the final release comes with some noticeable improvements, new features, changes and also with some new apps… According to Gnome, the top changes are :     A new virtual machine and remote access application (A replacement for Virtualbox? The interface seems to be cool but I never used it)     Completely revamped web browsing user experience (A clean minimal browser)     Integrated document search     First-class...

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Anonymous is Planning to Take down the Internet on the 31st of March

Supposed members from the hacker group Anonymous are threatening to shut down the internet on March 31st, calling it 'Operation Blackout.' The decentralized group issued a press release on Pastebin announcing the their most ambitious plans yet: to take down the thirteen servers that form the DNS directory. According to the statement, the attack is meant to send a very strong message in protest of "SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun." Even though such an attack would no doubt affect everyone, the statement says that is not the...

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Angry Birds Space HD Is Finally Available In The Play Store For $2.99, But Honestly, Rovio, Why?

Maybe you weren't waiting up til 4am EST, eagerly anticipating the release of Angry Birds Space. That is what you have us for, after all. If you were, though, you might remember that only one version of the app made it to the Play Store that night: the free version. Later, though, Rovio released "Angry Birds Space Premium," which is the ad-free version of the app. Now, Rovio has released Angry Birds Space HD. Sure. Why not? This breaks Rovio's tradition of only having one version of its app on the Play Store. As you can see below, all the other versions of Angry Birds have one app on the Play Store. It's just the free version, but still...

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Intel to release Ivy Bridge processors at the end of April

Intel is expected to officially announce its latest Ivy Bridge processors at the end of April. First-tier notebook brand vendors have been aggressively competing for available capacity from Intel, according to sources from notebook players. Mass shipments of Ivy Bridge processors were originally reported to be delayed by eight weeks, but Intel has recently responded that the company will only postpone the launch by a few weeks and production is on schedule according to its existing plans. However, the sources noted that Intel has adjusted its Ivy Bridge processor capacity deployment and has increased the proportion for ultrabook...

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