AT&T might want to consider adjusting its $39 billion offering price for the proposed T-Mobile takeover. While the proposed merger gets dissected under a Justice Department microscope, customers are quickly abandoning the T-Mobile ship. According to a recent company report, 186,000 contract customers left in the third quarter of this year. READ MORE
Pandora’s CTO Tom Conrad just revealed a surprising bit of news: Each year, more than half of the U.S. pays nothing for music. Zip. Zero…you get the picture. Pandora wants to change that. READ MORE
Natural disasters in far-flung places such as Thailand and Japan would seem to have little connection to our digital lives. But in addition to the tragic loss of lives, the severe weather is threatening to bring about a crisis in tech: According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gus Richard, the industry could run out of hard drives by the end of this month. READ MORE
Despite a recent hiccup, Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, is helping to open up a whole new world in mobile payments. Social payments start-up Venmo is taking full advantage of Siri’s capabilities with say-to-pay functionality. READ MORE
When Delicious decided to get a makeover, the online criticism was swift and cutting. Australian start-up Trunk.ly might have been the most vocal in it’s fault-finding—and it seems to have paid off. Delicious’ parent company AVOS has announced that it is buying the company. READ MORE
If you thought the Apple iPad was pricey, get a load of Panasonic’s “Toughpad” line. Scheduled for an early 2012 release, the 10-inch Toughpad A1 will sell for $1,299. A seven-inch B1 will be released shortly thereafter. READ MORE
When Google+ first launched, it was notorious for policing and banning brand pages. After famously shutting down William Shatner’s page, the company has since made it simple for brands to set up pages. But that’s also made it easier for random folks to set up fake pages. READ MORE
We’ve known for a long time now that “Big Brother is watching.” But a GPS-tracking case now being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court could change Big Brother’s role from “watcher” to “tracker.” And it could affect how we view the role of technology in our everyday lives. READ MORE
HP’s on-again, off-again relationship with the PC market might be a lot like a bad celebrity marriage. But when it comes to tablets, the company is making a commitment, launching the Windows 7-based Slate 2. But the launch likely won’t make a big splash in the market. The 8.9-inch capacitive multi-touch screen device features a 3-megapixel camera, a front-facing VGA camera for video calls, and Swype technology; but it is just a “slight upgrade” of the Slate 500, which launched in October 2010, says Mashable’s Stan Schroeder. Pricing on the Slate 2 begins at $699 and will be available this month. Read more at Mashable.
It used to be that mobile adoption was considered the purview of the very young and hip. But a recent Nielsen report shows that adults in the 25-44 age range have the highest adoption rates of any user demographic. And while this might be interesting news, there’s more: despite the high adoption rates, mobile penetration in the U.S. is at 77 percent, lower than it is in many other developed countries. READ MORE
