Who knew “jailbreak” could be considered a dirty word? Apparently someone at Apple thought so, which is why the word was censored from the iTunes Store for the better part of Wednesday night and Thursday. Everything is back to normal now, but the hacker community sure got a kick out of it while the fun lasted. So what else is making news today? Glad you asked. Read on for everything else this Thursday, May 17, 2012 has to offer.
One can only imagine that the word “jailbreak” is spoken in hushed tones up in Cupertino, given that Apple has made it clear it doesn’t appreciate users hacking their iOS devices. But would they go so far as to censor the word from iTunes? According to MacRumors, that’s exactly what happened earlier today, at least in the U.S. iTunes Store. Everywhere the word “jailbreak” appeared — whether it was in songs or TV shows or apps — Apple replaced with “j*******k” instead. While the censoring appears to have kicked in late Wednesday and persisted throughout much of the day, Apple appears to have finally caught on and has since corrected the gaffe, much to the glee of Thin Lizzy fans everywhere, we’re sure.
There’s little doubt that the iPad is a formidable opponent, but most of its competitors on the Android have pockets deep enough to keep fighting the uphill battle. The same cannot be said for Plastic Logic, the U.K. company infamous for ditching its QUE proReader tablet before it even shipped to stores. According to Engadget, the whole dream has now died, with the company closing its U.S. office in Mountain View, California and axing around 40 jobs there, while also pruning staff at offices in merry old England, Germany and Russia. While Plastic Logic has killed its hopes of launching tablets and e-readers of its own, the company appears to be ready to continue supplying screens to other companies, including their new flexible color e-reader display that sounds awfully cool.
It’s kind of sad that in 2012, contract-free mobile broadband still seems so hard to come by. The big U.S. carriers would rather bait you with cheap hardware and a two-year commitment, but leave it to T-Mobile to mix things up a bit. The fourth-placed U.S. carrier announced today four new “No Annual Contract” mobile broadband passes which offer “a pay-in-advance, overage-free solution” with an allotment of data to fit most every user. For the occasional user, will buy you a one-week pass with up to 300MB, while one-month passes are available in , and amounts which nets you 1.5GB, 3.5GB and 5GB, respectively. The new plans roll out Sunday, May 20 at T-Mobile retail stores, select dealers, national retailers and online, but you’ll need to grab your own device to take advantage of it — which includes a variety of 4G Mobile Hotspots, laptop sticks and connected tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
According to Business Insider, Hewlett-Packard appears ready to jettison up to 32,000 employees from its workforce next week in what one source calls a “massive” layoff. The news isn’t exactly a secret, with CEO Meg Whitman having already gone on record that such layoffs were under consideration. A source claims the HP cuts could trim between 10 to 15 percent of its workforce, which currently stands at 320,000 strong worldwide. At the lower end of that spectrum, 10 percent would amount to 32,000 jobs lost, although it’s unlikely that HP would make such a huge cut in one fell swoop, but rather make smaller cuts to bleed out over time. Employees in manufacturing appear to have less to worry about than their co-workers, but any way you slice, this could be quite ugly for the tech world.
Speaking of getting the axe, Verizon Wireless issued a statement to The New York Times on yesterday’s story about grandfathered unlimited data plans going away this sunny summer. Seems as if there’s a bit more to it than that: “Customers will not be automatically moved to new shared data plans,” the carrier notes. “If a 3G or 4G smartphone customer is on an unlimited plan now and they do not want to change their plan, they will not have to do so.” That said, when the new shared data plans arrive, “Unlimited Data will no longer be available to customers when purchasing handsets at discounted pricing” — although customers who purchase phones at full retail price and “are on an unlimited smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan.” Translation: Unlimited data is still going to die, but it’s going to take some time for Verizon to cleanse its junkies of that bad habit.
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If you’re not a fan of Apple’s built-in Mail app, you’ve no doubt discovered Sparrow for iPhone, which just got a little better with version 1.2 on Monday — and there’s some good news and bad news about push being added to the app as well.
The creators of the Sparrow email app have released version 1.2 for the iPhone on Monday, which adds four very welcome features to the third-party email app that has quickly found a loyal base of iOS users.
Let’s get the good news/bad news scenario out of the way first. Push is not included with version 1.2, but it’s coming as a paid in-app upgrade. Unfortunately, Apple continues to refuse to budge on Sparrow tapping into the iOS VoIP API to offer push email from within the app, so the developers now have to resort to offering it as a paid option.
“You were more than 16,000 helping us on our Apple quest to get the VoIP privilege,” the Sparrow blog notes, referring to the number of users who signed the company’s online petition. “We can’t thank you enough for your support. Unfortunately, Apple has confirmed that they are not willing to do any exception to the rule and that Sparrow will NOT be granted with the privilege. This means we’ll have to do Push on our side and that it will be integrated as a yearly subscription into Sparrow’s future update.”
No word on when push will make it into Sparrow for iPhone or what it will cost, but at least it is indeed coming. Meanwhile, the developers have beefed up the existing app with four new features users can get their hands on today.
Message navigation allows users to navigate all mailbox messages simply by swiping up or down, with a special separator that pops up to clearly indicate you’re swiping to a new conversation. Labels and folders can now be renamed, created or deleted right from within the app as well.
Sparrow now allows composing messages in landscape mode, and the app is now fluent in nine languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, and Chinese.
Sparrow for iPhone 1.2 is now available from the App Store as a free update for existing users and a .99 purchase for everyone else; the app works with all devices running iOS 5.0 or later, but is not universal for native iPad support.
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Enjoying all that free content on Hulu.com? Quite happy to watch network TV shows the day after they air on your HDTV via Hulu Plus? Well, enjoy it while it lasts, because the content providers appear hellbent on ruining a good thing.
The New York Post is reporting that Hulu’s ad-supported free ride may eventually sputter and run out of gas, at least if the television networks have anything to say about it. That’s because the streaming company may one day require viewers to authenticate a cable or satellite TV account in order to let the good times roll on.
You may have already heard about this authentication scheme, referred to as “TV Everywhere” — it’s currently in use by HBO for the pay cable channel’s HBO Go app on various platforms, and the Fox network is scheming to introduce the model to Comcast viewers as well.
“The move toward authentication is fueled by cable companies and networks looking to protect and profit from their content,” the report notes. “The effort comes as entertainment companies continue to face drastic shifts in home viewing habits. Overall spending on home entertainment edged up 2.5 percent to .45 billion in the first quarter as a surge in digital streaming — which rose more than fivefold to 9 million — offset a continuing collapse in video rentals, according to Digital Entertainment Group.”
Hulu is jointly owned by News Corp. (Fox), Disney, Comcast and Providence Equity Partners, the latter of which is eager to “cash out of Hulu after five years,” according to sources. The proposed authentication scheme could see Hulu’s fortunes shrink, even as the company rang up 0 million in ad sales last year and is expected to do even better in 2012.
The only good news in this mess is that Hulu’s attempts to move toward authentication “could take years to complete” — so let’s hope that executives can come to their senses before then.
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Portal 2 players will soon have a whole lot of additional puzzle options starting May 8, when Valve releases a free DLC called “Perpetual Testing Initiative,” allowing gamers to create, share and play new puzzles.
Value has announced the release of a new Portal 2 DLC called “Perpetual Testing Initiative” for the Mac and PC, arriving on May 8. With a Metacritic score of 95 percent and numerous Game of the Year awards under its belt, Portal 2 is about to expand its horizons with a new way to create and share puzzles with other players.
“The ‘Perpetual Testing Initiative’ allows players to easily create, share, and play Portal 2 puzzles,” the company announced on Thursday. “The Initiative comes with a simplified puzzle maker that allows that creation of mind-bending puzzles without ever leaving the game.
“The puzzle maker can directly publish maps to the Steam Workshop where users can browse, vote on, and select to play them,” Valve adds. “Selected puzzles will automatically be downloaded and installed inside Portal 2.”
New Portal 2 puzzles will add a new dimension to the already expansive single and cooperative multiplayer game modes offered by Valve — now the only thing you’ll have to do is wait a week or so for the calendar to turn over to May 8.
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Early adopters who got their hands on the Lumia 900 Windows Phone over the last week have two pleasant surprises coming from Nokia: The first is a software fix for data connectivity issues arriving next Monday, and the second is cold, hard cash (or rather, a 0 credit to their AT&T bill).
The Conversations by Nokia blog announced on Tuesday night that the company’s new Lumia 900 Windows Phone is off to “a successful sales start” with “a very positive response on day one.” Unfortunately, the good news made way for the less pleasant news — addressing data connectivity issues that many users have been having with AT&T.
“Soon after this flagship device began selling, we identified a software issue,” the blog explains. “In short, a memory management issue was discovered that could, in some cases, lead to loss of data connectivity. This issue is purely in the phone software, and is not related to either phone hardware or the network itself. As a proactive and prudent measure, we decided to take immediate action. We have identified the issue, and have developed a solution.”
Nokia is offering users two options: Update their current device with this new patch via the Windows-only Zune software “on or around Monday, April 16th,” or swap out the handset for one that has already been updated at any A&T or Microsoft retail store.
But Nokia isn’t stopping there — the company is extending the olive branch even further. In an impressive move, “ every individual who has already purchased a Nokia Lumia 900 — or who will purchase one between now and April 21st — will receive a 0 credit to their AT&T bill from Nokia.” Considering that the handset is only .99 with a two-year agreement — and can be had for less through Amazon, Walmart and other outlets — many users may actually wind up profiting from this act of kindness.
We’ve had our hands on a Lumia 900 since last week and chalked up some of our own issues to using our iPhone 4S micro-SIM with the device, but noticed last night that we can no longer maintain a solid connection to Visual Voicemail — so there’s definitely something afoot that even a reboot of the handset won’t cure.
At any rate, it’s good to hear that Nokia is standing behind their new flagship device and doing right by the customers who will likely make or break its future.
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