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Posts Tagged “

Congress

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in-fligth calling

Congress Takes First Steps in Banning In-Flight Calling Permanently

Like a gaggle of schoolgirls, Congress traded stories about how they too were annoyed by people using their phones before and after takeoff on flights. Well, I never! One House member relayed the story of how his delicate sensibilities were stomped all over by some woman who talked about her sex life on the phone, shortly to be one-upped by another congressman saying that his wife overheard someone receiving a "Dear John" call before takeoff. Good sir! After the jab-fest portion of this sleepover was concluded, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved, via voice vote, a bill that would make the current FCC ban on in-flight calling permanent. And then one of their dads took them out for ice cream. Best night ever. [Yahoo]

12:30 PM on Fri Aug 1 2008
By Jason Chen
2,614 views, 107 comments

Latest by n/a: wow... reminds me about the old joke, "If con is the opposite of pro, then Congress must be the opposite of progress." They should be passing laws that protect our way of life, personal safety and take care of us. more »

fcc

FCC Asked to Get Carriers to Hurry Up Local Number Portability Already

With all the advances in technology we've had over the last couple of decades, you'd think that something as simple as changing your land line number into a cellular one would take hours at most. At least Congress does, and its now urging the FCC to put rules in place that will speed up local number portability processing. More »

5:30 PM on Sat Jul 19 2008
By Elaine Chow
2,661 views, 14 comments

net neutrality

Dems Launch Net Neutrality Bill, GOP Says "Hands Off the Poor ISPs!"

Yesterday on Capitol Hill, two Democratic representatives introduced a House bill that would require broadband ISPs to "interconnect with the facilities of other network providers on a reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis." It also requires them to treat all content, applications and services as the same, with "equal opportunity to reach consumers," says an IDG story in the New York Times. Any ISPs who start messing around with packets could be subject to antitrust enforcement. Republicans weren't so happy with the bill. More »

1:00 PM on Fri May 9 2008
By Wilson Rothman
5,474 views, 83 comments

Latest by B: You write: "Yes, I cry for you, poor downtrodden multibillion-dollar multinationals with borderline monopoly arrangements for persistent and constantly increasing revenues." But the vast majority of ISPs, and especially the ones we want to promote, are local, small businesses. And the more »

free wireless

Free Wireless Internet For the Masses: Another Dumb Scheme From Washington

A California congresswoman has proposed yet another spectrum auction—the 2,155MHz to 2,180MHz range—with some hefty public-service requirements:
• Within two years of receiving the license, launch an "always-on" broadband with at least 200Kbps downloads
• Service is to be free of subscription, airtime and other usage fees
• "A technology protection measure" that would keep kids from the porn
• Publication of specs and standards, royalty free, so that others can develop for the network
Let me get this straight: You want some well-heeled for-profit corporation to pay potentially billions for the privilege of hastily launching a network that it can't charge money for, and let competitors provide devices for it, again for no extra money? I don't think so. I'm not pro-corporation, so much as I am pro-reality. More »

5:00 PM on Sun Apr 20 2008
By Wilson Rothman
7,482 views, 53 comments

Latest by max crabb: Anyone read that most corporations did not pay income tax between 2000 and 2004? Just saying. The government helps businesses out all the time, how about turning it the other way around? more »

question of the day

Should Congress Ban Cellphone Calls on US Flights?

Europe may be ok with passengers making in-flight calls on their cellphones, but at least a few members of Congress have the foresight to see how this situation could become problematic in the US. A new bill has been introduced that promises to ban cellphone calls on US flights, but not text messaging and web surfing. The bill has yet to be passed, but the question is: Do you support a ban? More »

6:30 PM on Wed Apr 16 2008
By Sean Fallon
8,575 views, 117 comments

spying

House Denies Warrantless Wiretapping Immunity For Telcos

In a textbook display of checks and balances, the House of Representatives defied President Bush and the Senate yesterday by passing their version of a surveillance bill without legal immunity for telcos. The bill passed by only 16 votes, far from the 2/3 majority needed to override Bush's inevitable veto. It looks like this legislative battle could continue until the next president takes office in 2009. As we have seen, an Obama administration would deny immunity, McCain would grant immunity, and Clinton? Who knows. [dslreports]

1:55 PM on Sat Mar 15 2008
By Eric Sheline
2,591 views, 59 comments

Latest by Semiapies: "As we have seen, an Obama administration would deny immunity" Actually, this last time in the Senate, Obama voted for cloture on the immunity (instead of filibustering as promised) and then voted for the bill. Dollars to donuts, immunity will still be more »

do not call

Do Not Call (Ever) Improvement Act Signed Into Law

The bill to make the Do-Not-Call registry everlasting—so you never have to remind the government that you hate telemarketers—has been made into a real live law by President Bush. [Consumerist]

2:00 PM on Wed Feb 20 2008
By matt buchanan
5,307 views, 69 comments

gadgets

Last Chance to Save Our Privacy Rights from Warrantless Domestic Spying

While the Senate passed the bill giving telecoms like AT&T and Verizon a free pass on their collusion with government to warrentlessly wiretap American citizens, there's one last hope we might one day find out the scope and depth of the program. The House's version of the bill does not include a telecom immunity provision, meaning they have to square it up w/ the Senate before sending it off for Bush's rubber stamp, and a bunch of Reps are taking a stand. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has forms and contact info set up for people to sound off to their respective Reps to support the House's version and our privacy rights. [EFF, Image via Digital Blasphemy]

8:14 AM on Thu Feb 14 2008
By matt buchanan
2,342 views, 66 comments

Latest by -Core-: @benz57us: Just wanted to say, a big thanks, and appreciate you sharing the link to that video. It was indeed a good watch. more »

notes

Notes: Zombie Hotels in Spain

Hello. I'm still in Spain. Between jetlag, posting madness, and some insane hotel reservations, I ended up getting an hour of sleep each of the last two nights, which led to all sorts of vomiting and paranoia in between the blogging. More »

1:50 PM on Wed Feb 13 2008
By Brian Lam
8,855 views, 30 comments

spying

Senate Gives Telcos Free Pass On Warrantless Domestic Spying Program

Joel at BBG writes in five precise words what it means that the Senate has just granted retroactive immunity to telcos (AT&T, Verizon and others) for participating in the government's warrantless wiretapping program that spied on American citizens: "We Lost. The Telcos Won." More »

6:30 PM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By matt buchanan
4,765 views, 78 comments

cellphones

Hands-On the LG KF600: Color Chocolate Touchpad Still Sucks Cocoa

Despite the high sales of the LG Chocolate*, anyone who's actually used it knows that its touch controller is one of the worst UIs to come out in the last several years. The KF600 is LG's new 3MP cellie with a slider keypad. It has the same electrostatic chocopad the Chocolate has, but with an improved 1.5-inch color display underneath. Reader: Avoid this phone at all costs. More »

12:00 PM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By Brian Lam
8,548 views, 16 comments

cellphones

Hands-On LG's KF700: Their Top Touch Phone Actually Pretty Good

Samsung's new F480 full faced touchscreen handset meets a good competitor in LG's KF700, their best phone released at Mobile World Congress. The phone has a 3-inch touchscreen, a slide out alphanumeric pad, and a scrollwheel on the back which pulls up a shortcut menu. Jesús liked the swiping action between widgets, which he shockingly described to me as "iPhone like." Folks, the fanboy has spoken. There's google search, maps, blogs, gmail, and youtube support (!). And non-US spec 3G, as well as a 3MP camera, MPEG4 video recorder, too.

More »

11:00 AM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By Brian Lam
14,383 views, 17 comments

Latest by n/a: So basically what I am seeing from WMC is that no one has a damn nice touchscreen phone that will be able to compete with the freakin iPhone. I want a new phone, preferrably touchscreen, but man i didn't more »

nokia

Nokia N-Gage Video Hands-On

We played a bit with the new Nokia N-Gage service, which will be one of the core services on all the new Nokia phones presented here at the Mobile World Congress 2008. As we already knew, it's a very similar philosophy to Xbox Live, a social-oriented game service with N-Gage points, pictures, reviews, scores and rankings, so you don't have to play against a friend live, but you can still compete. The experience was smooth, the games themselves fast and crispy, all of them playable before purchasing them. Could Nokia make it work this time? More »

Feature

8:26 AM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By Jesus Diaz
26,156 views, 17 comments

Latest by DJTripleRRR: Told ya so :P more »

cellphones

Hands-On Samsung's F480 Prada Phone Knockoff (Verdict: I'll Pass)

Samsung's F700 and F300 are joined by the F480, a pretty clear knockoff of the LG Prada (down to the fake leather case). I find its touchscreen implementation rough, even if it's improved from Samsung's previous handsets. Overall, I'll pass, especially at the proposed European price of 350 to 400 Euros (~$500 to $580 USD.)
More »

7:37 AM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By Brian Lam
24,345 views, 18 comments

cellphones

Nokia N96 Hands-On: Basically a Video Oriented N95

The N95 smartphone just does fine with its video playback. But the N96's 16GB of internal memory, slightly bigger 2.8-inch screen, DVB TV tuner, special video browsing UI and kickstand make it better than its pappy.

More »

6:35 AM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By Brian Lam
16,824 views, 18 comments

Latest by The Full English Please!!: @ARRGH406: the phone does have wifi, its practically standerd in Nokia high-end nowdays. Its a brillient product and its going to sell even more than the 7million sold by the N95. Cant waid till opera 9.6 with flash lite 3 is release: more »

cellphones

Overheard at MWC 2008: Executive Android Chit Chat

This sort of premature talk will either turn out to be unfounded fear or prescience (or neither!) but we overheard this whispering outside of hall 8:
Android is Dead
—One nameless, faceless, exec to another

4:57 AM on Tue Feb 12 2008
By Brian Lam
4,410 views, 36 comments

cellphones

What the Samsung Soul's Haptic OLED Touchscreen Soul Patch Is Like

The Samsung Soul tries, and largely succeeds at making a touchscreen 5 way navpad. Like the Maximus Optimus keyboard, the controller is backlit by an OLED screen (this one is a two color deal) that changes icons depending on the context: More »

4:30 PM on Mon Feb 11 2008
By Brian Lam
10,420 views, 9 comments

cellphones

Nokia 6210 Navigator First Hands-On: It Works Great

We tried the Nokia 6210 Navigator assisted GPS for pedestrians at Nokia's World Mobile Congress booth today. The device itself feels very good and is extremely compact, but the best of all is that it really works great, using its built-in compass and accelerometers to know exactly where you are facing exactly, changing the orientation of the map in real time. You know, like Ultima Underworld, but with finnish blonde valkyries around instead of fugly monsters drooling around. Or better said, both.

4:25 PM on Mon Feb 11 2008
By Jesus Diaz
6,750 views, 6 comments

Latest by holysocks: so does the n82/n96 have that? more »

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