Mignon Clyburn, a member of that FCC committee, wrote a letter with a laundry list of issues she has with Verizon's treatment of its customers and makes it a point to say that she looks "forward to exploring this issue in greater depth with [her] colleagues in the New Year." Yikes. Not such great news for Verizon, but it could lead to some good for consumers. [FCC via Engadget]

Modder WebAcoustics says of the hack:

"Please note that this involves rooting your phone, installing a custom recovery image, and a custom kernel. This is not for the faint of heart"

If that doesn't intimidate you, then hop on over to DroidForums for the details. [DroidForums via The Gadgets via Engadget]

It can't be great, truthfully. Given the bad press and public sentiment toward AT&T, it's easy to see how troops on the ground, the real people who deal with us and our reception problems everyday, maybe aren't feeling so great about the company they work for. Like the guys who work at Goldman or Lehman Bros. who had nothing to do with the risky bets that blew up the economy, they were just doing their job.

I ask because smartphones have contracts, generally and because of that they seem like a complicated thing to gift. And a personal decision! What do you think about it?

Apparently, Gorilla Glass differs from the product you might find in a typical smartphone because it allows "larger ions to penetrate the surface more deeply to increase the compression tolerance and tolerate deeper scratches." This is achieved though a aluminum-composite composition that can be made extremely thin and light because of its strength.

Corning, the company behind the glass, is hoping to expand the reach of their product to other consumer electronics and even vehicles—anything that needs to withstand the elements. And by "elements" I mean clumsy, uncoordinated types...Adam? [Smartplanet and Gorilla Glass]

Motorola's fall from grace started when they couldn't come up with a serious successor to the megapopular original Razr, so it's kind of sad to see that right up until their Android renaissance—and maybe even through it—the Razr, now in version 3, is still a core part of their business. But there's a broader point here, about how people use their phones: there are still plenty of folks lingering in the dull, barely-connected land of the dumbphone, where LG appears to be King, but they're emigrating in droves, because they crave one thing: internet:

Smart, dumb, whatever: today, phones are for going online. Which, if you believe Nielson's scores, means phones—especially smartphone—are pretty much for Google. Now, get your pencils out, and let's draw a straight line between Google's dominance on the mobile web and the mysterious but very real Nexus One. Easy, wasn't it? [Nielson]

Just head on over to the live stream and use the virtual keyboard to play a song, something resembling a song or a random and hideous mashup of notes that ruins the holidays for everyone. The installation will be on display at the Brick Lane Studio in London through January. [Theopane via Switched via TechEBlog]

Uh...yeah sure. That's Peter Gamblin...G. A. M. B. L. I. N.

According to the court, Gamblin gave the victim his name and address as an "act of bravado." It took a jury only 25 minutes to convict him. Needless to say, this guy is either the world's biggest moron (next to this guy) or he has a serious asshole friend that set him up to take the fall. [Telegraph via Fark]

AT&T's network is generally reviled. Users of the iPhone, in particular, loathe it the kind of deep hatred reserved for people who steal from charities or beat up grandmothers. More specifically still, are people in New York and San Francisco, locations where even AT&T Mobility's CEO admits the network is "performing at levels below our standards." AT&T fares the worst in JD Power's call quality ratings overall.

It's no secret that the iPhone isn't merely the embodiment of AT&T's network woes, but it's also, at least in part, the cause. The 3 percent of people responsible for 40 percent of the traffic on AT&T's network de la Vega is so fond of pointing the finger at are most assuredly iPhone users. AT&T notoriously didn't roll out MMS for the iPhone until this fall, not only months behind international carriers, but behind their own schedule, because they needed "to make sure our network is ready to handle what we expect will be a record volume of MMS traffic." And iPhone tethering still isn't offered by AT&T, even though international carriers do, because it "could exponentially increase traffic on the network." Congestion is a very real problem on AT&T's network, even AT&T admits that.

Yet AT&T crushed our 3G tests all over the place, not just in their backyard of Atlanta. The major consideration is that we didn't use phones to test, but 3G sticks, and we only tested data. While coverage is inherently a part of the test—if we hadn't have gotten a signal in the places we tested, or the signal was shitty, it would've affected their placement in the test, obviously (just look at T-Mobile's results in some spots)—we were mainly testing for speed. The iPhone's problem is that it drops calls, frequently, or simply doesn't connect. It has crappy reception. Other phones we've used on AT&T fare noticeably better. So it's easy, and obvious, to blame the iPhone, and its chipset as some have. (We explain why cell reception isn't perfect across the board here.)

But why isn't there an international outcry about the iPhone having garbage reception, then? It's possible, I suppose, that those networks have so much better coverage, even if the iPhone does have an inferior chipset with poor reception, it doesn't matter. It's just wrapped up in a blanket of coverage so comfy it still works fine. (And we have heard, though can't confirm, that the iPhone 3G at least used an inferior, cheaper Infineon chipset because AT&T wouldn't certify the one Apple actually wanted to use.)

So we have two contradictory piece of information. The iPhone does better internationally, and AT&T does better with other devices. So is it the network, or the phone? Probably a little of both. Help us out, engineers.

The features on the device are actually pretty reasonable, and we'd imagine it to sell for a reasonable attractive price-point at release. The Motorola Opus One will run Android 1.5 with iDEN service enhancements, make use of a "Zeus" CPU, and will feature a 3 megapixel autofocus camera.

• 3.1″ hVGA 320×480 capacitative touchscreen display
• 3 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash
• Accelerometer
• Proximity sensor
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
• Bluetooth
• microSD card slot
• 2.5mm headset jack
• Home, Menu, Back, Speaker buttons are capacitive buttons with haptic feedback
• iDEN PTT & PTX
• Android LBS which is integrated into the iDEN GPS engine
• "Enterprise email"
• Plastic-molded housing with some rubberized texture finishes
• 58mm in width, 118mm in length
• 100g weight
• 512MB Flash / 256MB of RAM
• 64k and 128k iDEN SIM card support
• A-GPS
• Motorola dual-mic technology noise-canceling for noisy enviroments
• Flash Lite v3.1.x
• Some of the preloaded apps include: corporate email client with ActiveSync support, MOTONAV navigation app, barcode scanner, and document viewer.

That's what we have for you on the Motorola Opus One at this time. Not the most mind-blowing Android device, but with it being an iDEN device and all, we'lll cut it some slack and even say that it could do reasonably well at launch.

BGR features the latest tech news, mobile-related content and of course, exclusive scoops.

Yes, Verizon has responded to the FCC's inquiry with just what you'd expect: some pretty vague excuses. You see, they need to charge such a crazy ETF.

"The higher (early termination fee) associated with Advanced Devices reflects the higher costs associated with offering those devices to consumers at attractive prices, the costs and risks of investing in the broadband network to support these devices, and other costs and risks."

Costs and risks, costs and risks! What they don't address is why they're justified in charging a fee that ends up being far higher than the difference between the actual cost of a phone and the subsidized price, especially if the contract is cancelled many months in. Isn't that all the ETF is supposed to cover? I mean, if you're relying on contract cancellation fees to pay for your network, well, I don't think you need to have an MBA to figure out why that ain't good business. [WSJ via Silicon Alley Insider]

While she concedes that it's "much nicer looking in person," the lack of multitouch in the browser and Maps is a bummer. Here's what she noticed when having a fondle with the Nexus One:

- It's much nicer looking in person than in pictures
- There's a 4 GB micro-SD card installed
- The battery capacity is 1400 mAh
- The screen appears to be OLED (same size/resolution as the Motorola Droid)
- 3G works on T-Mobile USA :)
- I can confirm that there's no 3G on AT&T (EGDE only)
- It's definitely unlocked
- It's super snappy! Faster than the Droid…
- There's no multitouch support in the browser or in Google Maps
- There's no dedicated camera key, but it's the same camera interface as the Droid
- The trackball can be used to focus (like on other HTC devices)
- Low-light performance is decent, but the flash is weak
- Calls are routed the normal way, not using data (VoIP), and sound fine
- The home screen is divided into 5 panes (like the Sense interface on the HTC Hero)
- It's using a micro-USB connector for data/power
- There are some gold contacts at the bottom edge, for a dock perhaps?
- Did I mention it's fast?

The lack of a camera button disturbs me, but other than that, it sounds like a fairly ho-hum Android phone. [Tnkgrl via Engadget]

UPDATE: Alright commenters, you have your wish. Tnkgrl only said there's no multitouch support "in the browser or in Google Maps," which still doesn't eliminate the option of multitouch in other areas of the phone. And of course, it's still just early days yet—there's no reason to believe that Tnkgrl got her hands on a final production unit.

The Ares app development program will of course mean thousands more apps will be available for download, and the 1.3.5 update will help with installing them. As well as talking about the webOS update, Rubinstein also gave hope to non-Sprint fans everywhere, commenting:

"We don't believe in building large portfolios of products. Our focus is around having a small family of really great products. Right now we have two great products in Pre and Pixi and our objective right now is to expand with more carriers and more regions."

They'll probably hold off on releasing update 1.3.5 until CES, where they're expected to announce something big. [PreCentral]

It works! I've never designed an app in my life, but that didn't stop me from creating a masterpiece in, like, four minutes.

As far as I can tell this is something like a full development SDK, insofar as the regular MojoSDK can be considered a full developement SDK. That is to say, while anyone with any development experience will have no problem creating apps with it—in fact, a layperson with a few spare afternoons could probably make something—they're still going to be of the same web-app-like caliber we've gotten used to in the App Catalog. Games, modal UIs, and a lot of the advanced features that make Android and iPhone apps shine are a little beyond Ares' reach, I think. Still, pretty cool stuff. [Palm]

Just in case this KINGK tickles your fancy, you can import it from—where else—China for $159.99 now. Do let us know if it "caters to the taste of male friends" like it says on the website. [SZPrice via UberGizmo]

They already had the January 5th date a few days ago, so this second confirmation of the same date might make it a bit more legit.

"In the long term Google will become a seller and get commission from operators," the source said, adding that other operators are expected to follow T-Mobile's lead eventually and agree to Google's terms.

Reuters also quotes Baird Research analyst Will Power on how Google's choice to market their own phone shakes up the smartphone market, but mostly screws other Android makers:

"We expect the launch of a new competitive device to be directionally negative for most of the existing smart phone markers, including Apple, Research in Motion, Nokia Oyg, HTC, Motorola Inc, Palm Inc, Samsung and others, while perhaps most negative for the existing Android partners."

If Google's choice to go the traditional route with carriers is true, it would, of course, dash any possibility that they might be giving this thing away for free. Let's just hope the unlocked version comes cheap. [Reuters]

While I'm ranting, let me ask you something, Randall. At the risk of sounding like Glenn Beck Jr. - what the fuck has gone wrong with our country? Used to be, we were innovators. We were leaders. We were builders. We were engineers. We were the best and brightest. We were the kind of guys who, if they were running the biggest mobile network in the U.S., would say it's not enough to be the biggest, we also want to be the best, and once they got to be the best, they'd say, How can we get even better? What can we do to be the best in the whole fucking world? What can we do that would blow people's fucking minds? They wouldn't have sat around wondering about ways to fuck over people who loved their product. But then something happened. Guys like you took over the phone company and all you cared about was milking profit and paying off assholes in Congress to fuck over anyone who came along with a better idea, because even though it might be great for consumers it would mean you and your lazy pals would have to get off your asses and start working again in order to keep up.

Yes, this is in the arrogant, blustery Fake Steve voice, but make no mistake: there's nothing sarcastic about the message or the content here. [Fake Steve Jobs]

In all seriousness though, contraband cellphones are becoming a major problem in prisons throughout the country. One solution, cellphone signal jamming, has already been passed by the Senate. Bloodhound is intended to be an alternative to jamming—a device that sniffs out cellphone RF signals using a high speed scanning multi-band receiver harnessed to a DF-Direction Finding Antenna.

The problem with all of this is that prison guards would each need a detector, and they could only get results when the cellphones are actually in use. So, it seems like the best solution is still jamming cellphones en masse. In that scenario, the FCC would be required to lay out rules and ensure that legitimate communications are not blocked, which negates Bloodhound's one major advantage. [BVS and PR Newswire via Coolest Gadgets]

To help satisfy our curiosity (and maybe your own), head over to the poll corresponding to the continent you spend most of your time on and tell us which phone you use:

• Africa
• Antarctica
• Asia
• Australia
• Europe
• South America
• North America

Photo by James Nash (aka Cirrus)