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| 91 | | | 92 | Sometimes, a word of support is all you need to make things happen. The most difficult of plans and projects can be completed if you just have someone by your side, encouraging you not to give up when the chips are down. And finding people who are supportive is really easy when you can use a service like Gonnasphere. Read more Learn more about Gonnasphere.com in Dataopedia.com Find out how much Gonnasphere.com is worth with Stimator.com killerstartups.com » | | 93 |  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Social-networking site Facebook is halting the sale of its shares on secondary markets effective next week as the company prepares to hold its initial public offering in May, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 94 | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc CEO Scott Thompson will outline his long-term strategy and vision for the struggling Internet company at an all-hands meeting for staff next Tuesday, a source at the company told Reuters, days after Thompson announced the deepest round of job cuts in years.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 95 | SHANGHAI (Reuters) - The activist hacker group Anonymous plans to launch further attacks on Chinese government websites in a bid to uncover corruption and lobby for human rights, a member of the group said on Monday.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 96 | With Apple's iPhone drawing new customers to the third-largest carrier, Sprint Nextel is committed to a key differentiator in the market: unlimited data.
The data-hungry iPhone, with nearly a half-million available apps, is likely a key reason AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless have phased out unlimited data plans for new customers in favor of metered plans. Sprint, which gained the iPhone with the introduction of the 4S last October, is the only iPhone carrier to offer so-called "all-you-can-eat" data.
Match Made in Heaven
And that's not likely to change any time soon. The company announced that it expects to keep unlimited data plans even if the next iPhone model is equipped for long-term evolution 4G high-speed data, as is widely expected.
"I'm not anticipating the unlimited plan would change by that point," Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told CNET. "That's our distinctive differentiator. Frankly, [the iPhone and unlimited plans are] a marriage made in heaven. We're clearly attracting customers from our competitors."
Sprint sold 1.5 million iPhones in the first quarter, the company reported this week, which is far less than the 4.3 million sold by AT&T and 3.2 million sold by Verizon Wireless; but 44 percent of Sprint's iPhone sales were to new customers. Overall the carrier added 1.1 million newcomers, for a net gain of 263,000.
Phones using LTE do not necessarily consume more data than 3G phones, but users are likely to download more and to download content such as HD video, which could eat away at data allowances.
"LTE phones encourage people to use more data because the network's high bandwidth and low latency delivers a better consumer experience," wireless expert Alex Spektor of Strategy Analytics told us Wednesday.
AT&T and Verizon customers who signed up for unlimited data plans before the change can still use them, but newer customers choose from plans starting from... newsfactor.com » | | 97 | (Reuters) - Google Inc projected in 2010 it would get more than 35 percent of its 2013 revenue from outside its flagship search operation, anticipating three non-search businesses, including commerce, would generate more than $5 billion each, according to internal company documents filed in court.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 98 | In a sign that it is expanding its portfolio of prepaid devices and plans, the nation's leading mobile carrier will begin offering a no-contract smartphone tomorrow for $80 including unlimited talk, text and data. And it is also offering prepaid for a 4G LTE data hotspot.
The new plan is cheaper than the current prepaid plan for smartphones, which does not include unlimited talk and text. Those customers pay $64.99 up front for 450 minutes plus $30 for unlimited data. The average device cost of $199 is also higher than the Samsung Illusion announced today at $169.99.
'Plans Evolve'
The news comes shortly after Verizon released first-quarter figures showing that its 93 million customers now include 5 million prepaid connections, having risen sharply from a net loss of 27,000 in the first quarter of last year to a gain of 233,000 in the first quarter of 2012. Postpaid subscribers, meanwhile, fell by 44.7 percent.
"We have always had prepaid plans but they evolve because the kinds of people who use them evolve," Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney told us. She said that while in the past prepaid was only for value-conscious customers, today they are being used by people who operate cash businesses, by exchange students or by families that want to teach teenagers how to manage their monthly usage. (When prepaid limited voice plans run out the phone won't make calls until additional minutes are purchased for the interim until the next billing cycle.)
Verizon also has a $50 flat-fee prepaid plan for basic phones and in some areas, as a promotion, offers that rate for a limited number of smartphones.
The 3G, touchscreen Samsung Illusion is a modest offering compared with recent releases by the South Korean tech giant, now the leading handset supplier in the world. The Illusion has a 3.5-inch screen, currently... newsfactor.com » | | 99 | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc plans to raise as much as $12 billion in Silicon Valley's largest IPO, dwarfing the coming-out parties of tech companies like Google Inc and granting the world's largest social network a market value close to Amazon.com's.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 100 | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc aims to raise about $10.6 billion in Silicon Valley's largest IPO, dwarfing the coming-out parties of tech companies like Google Inc and granting the world's largest social network a market value close to Amazon.com's.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 101 | It looks just like iRobot's Roomba vacuuming machine, except the new circular roaming vacuum cleaner from Sharp Corp. is trilingual, and even knows a hip humorous dialect.
Cocorobo, which can also send photos taken from your home to your cell phone, says 36 phrases including "Long time no see" and "Hello," in Japanese, English and Chinese.
The Japanese electronics maker said Tuesday that the robot also speaks the Kansai dialect of southwestern Japan widely viewed as more comical and witty than standard Japanese.
But its linguistic abilities are designed for fun, not for following complex orders or lengthy dialogue.
The machine, whose name is a play on the word for "heart," or "kokoro," answers, "So good," when asked "How's it going?" In the Kansai dialect, it replies the equivalent of, "I'm cool and feeling good."
Sharp is based in Osaka, where the Kansai dialect is spoken.
Cocorobo sells for 130,000 yen ($1,600) and goes on sale next month in Japan, and later in China and other Asian nations. Specific launch dates and other overseas sales plans were undecided.
The dinner-plate size robot also purifies the air while moving about a room, and is handy in finding lost items under furniture because of its built-in camera, according to Sharp.
Japan is known for its prowess in robotics, widely used in manufacturing such as auto plants. The most intelligent robots look almost human.
Sharp, whose flat-panel TV business has been battered by competition from cheaper Asian rivals, plans to produce 4,000 Cocorobo robots a month. It also plans to produce 6,000 per month of a version that only vacuums and can't talk, which will sell for 90,000 yen ($1,100). newsfactor.com » | | 102 | (Reuters) - AOL Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly results and said it intends to hand over to shareholders 100 percent of the proceeds from its patent sales to Microsoft.
Reuters: Internet News » | | 103 | U.S. consumers have had their fill of expensive, contract-based phone plans. Figures from T-Mobile USA on Thursday, added to earlier reports from other companies, indicate that the U.S. wireless industry lost subscribers from contract-based plans for the first time in the first quarter. Contract-based plans are the most lucrative ones for phone companies. The industry default over the past several decades, they account for the vast majority of revenue at the big phone companies.
The seven largest U.S. phone companies, representing more than 95 percent of the market, lost a combined 52,000 subscribers from contract-based plans in the January to March period, according to a tally by the Associated Press. The companies have a combined 220 million devices on such plans, accounting for about two-thirds of the total number of devices.
Since nearly every adult, and many children and teenagers, already have phones, there's little room for growth anymore. But subscribers are also flowing to cheaper, no-contract plans, which showed an increase of at least 2 million. That figure, however, is down from more than 5 million in the same quarter a year ago.
The industry is also adding millions of non-phone devices, like smart energy meters. These so-called "machine-to-machine" connections usually carry very low monthly fees, on the order of a few dollars per month.
For example, AT&T subscribers on contract-based plans pay an average of $64.46 per month, while other AT&T customers pay an average of $11.52 per month.
T-Mobile's report comes on the last day of the U.S. cellphone industry's annual trade show in New Orleans. At the show, companies talked about various ways of boosting their business outside phones. For instance, AT&T launched a home security and automation business, and the head of its wireless business, Ralph de la Vega, said the company is getting closer to launching family data plans,... newsfactor.com » | | 104 | Verizon Wireless customers are up in arms about an apparent move to end unlimited data plans. Some are even taking to Twitter to express their disgust over a plan to force users who were grandfathered in to the unlimited package for 3G to subscribe to tiered plans when they upgrade to the faster 4G LTE network.
CFO Fran Shammo, speaking at the J.P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom conference Wednesday, said Verizon would offer tiered family plans allowing shared data usage for 4G LTE this summer, and current unlimited package subscribers with 3G would have to change to one of those plans to get LTE service.
Now, in an official statement, Verizon seems to be backpedaling a bit.
"As we have stated publicly, Verizon Wireless has been evaluating its data pricing structure for some time," Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Brenda Raney said in a published statement. "Customers have told us that they want to share data, similar to how they share minutes today. We are working on plans to provide customers with that option later this year."
Tweeters Still Angry
Are Verizon Wireless customers satisfied? No, at least not yet. It seems that bad news travels faster than updates, especially ambiguous ones. Customers are still on Twitter talking about the end to unlimited data packages.
"Switch to the network with unlimited data...or not...there's always that," tweeted a user named Garrett. Others, like Liza Sabater, are taking to Twitter to call Verizon Wireless "evil." It seems Verizon will have to work a little harder to undo the ill will its CFO inadvertently created.
"We will share specific details of the plans and any related policy changes well in advance of their introduction, so customers will have time to evaluate their choices and make the best decisions for their wireless service," Raney said. "It is our goal and... newsfactor.com » | | 105 | Brace yourself, parents: You may have to share your monthly wireless data allotment with your Netflix-loving kid.
In a bid to sell and connect more devices to their wireless networks -- and generate more money per subscriber -- major carriers are preparing to introduce "data share" plans.
In such plans, customers get a fixed bucket of monthly data and share it among family members or among multiple wireless-enabled devices such as tablets, smartphones and security monitors. For example, a plan could have 5 gigabytes for two devices, instead of 3 GB for one.
A typical current wireless family plan allows you to share voice minutes, but any data allotment has to be assigned to individual devices.
The changes come as wireless companies are trying to improve profit margins even as they invest heavily in the next new generation of fast wireless networks, called 4G LTE. The carriers are tinkering with their data plans to maximize revenue and also to try to bring in new waves of users still using call- and text-only phones.
Fran Shammo, CFO of Verizon Communications, which controls Verizon Wireless, told analysts Wednesday that it will introduce a data-share plan and phase out unlimited data plans.
"Customers have told us that they want to share data, similar to how they share minutes today," Verizon Wireless said in a statement Thursday, confirming Shammo's comments. "We are working on plans to provide customers with that option later this year."
Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility, has said in recent days it will have a similar plan.
Sprint declined to comment.
Verizon and AT&T didn't give pricing or details of their data-share plans. But analysts say they'll be structured to make it easier for users to add new devices and to expose more people to the Web or streaming a movie while on the move.
"Now, if you... newsfactor.com » |
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