Noting that Wi-Fi technologies are not “designed or intended to be public,” a California judge has ruled that Google’s packet sniffing could have been wiretapping. It was just a year ago that it was discovered that Google’s Street View cars had been capturing data from people’s networks. This set off a round of panic and outrage—and the lawsuits ensued. READ MORE
For the fourth consecutive year, European Union countries plan to lower roaming charges within their borders. The roaming charge for calls within the EU was set on Friday to decrease from 39 cents a minute to 35 cents a minute. The EU first began capping roaming charges in July of 2007. READ MORE
Here’s one from the rumor mill: Gingerbread (Android 2.3) updates supplied by Motorola for its phones have been buggy and led to user complaints including Wi-Fi issues and random reboots. In response, according to unconfirmed reports, Verizon has begun rejecting these updates from Motorola. READ MORE
Does the back of your desk look anything like ours? We suspect it does: A snake’s nest of cables connecting the printer to the PC to the monitor to the speakers to the docks for various wireless devices. It looks awful, catches easily on anything, gathers dust, and to add insult to esthetic injury, those cables in toto probably cost a couple of hundred bucks. READ MORE
You’re probably at least vaguely aware of the onrushing doom predicted when the Internet runs out of available IPv4 device addresses. That day is coming soon, as the last batch of such addresses was handed out in February, exhausting a supply of 4.3 billion. What this means in the real world is that it’s getting harder for individual devices to have their own identity on the Internet, which could make it difficult to do things from make Skype calls to share files online. READ MORE
As more and more companies look to merge smartphones with wallets, Verizon Wireless has decided to partner up with Payfone, a mobile payments solution, to create a mobile payments solution. READ MORE
Sub-Saharan Africa is booming, writes TechCrunch’s Jon Evans, who has spent nearly a year traveling in the region. One factor, he says, is the revolution Africa is seeing in the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM), which, in some places, has taken communications “straight from talking talking drums to cell phones, leapfrogging land lines entirely.” READ MORE
While Google is attracting attention with promises of robot cars – vehicles that proponents promise will make driving a breeze, but that critics fret will lead to more sprawl and pollution – other companies, like Volvo, say plans for car platoons are more feasible, and could be on the roads of Europe within the decade. READ MORE
Let’s face it. Mobile devices have drastically shifted the online landscape to the point that in 2010 more than 50 percent of all Internet access was being done via handhelds of some sort. About 45 percent of mobile owners are using their devices to download social networking apps. In fact, 35 percent of Android and iPhone owners in the U.S. use apps such as Facebook before getting out of bed, according to a recent survey conducted by telecommunications equipment vendor Ericsson. READ MORE
In an attempt to push the technological edge in favor of dissidents around the world using the Internet and cell phones to topple repressive governments, the Obama administration has approved plans to develop “shadow” telecommunications systems, according to The New York Times. READ MORE
