Mobile

Help! When's the best time to sell my old iPad?

It's that time of year again when Apple releases a new iPad, so what should you do with your old one? And should you get the Wi-Fi only version or one with 3G/4G access?

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I help a reader who is jonesing for the upcoming iPad 3 figure out what to do with his iPad 2. I get some good advice from the CEO of the gadget trade-in site Gazelle. I also help another reader decide whether he should buy a Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad or if he should splurge on the more

Originally posted at Signal Strength

HTC to bless more U.S. phones with Ice Cream Sandwich

HTC today confirmed that five more of its Android-powered smartphone from North American carriers will see a 4.0 update.

Without providing insight as to when each hanset will get the the update, the company has confimed that the HTC Rhyme, HTC Thunderbolt, HTC Rezound, and Droid Incredible 2 will get their just desserts at some point.

While we already expected the recently announced Rezound to pick up Ice Cream Sandwich we werem't so certain about the Thunderbolt. Still, I'll take what I can get.

Feds to automakers: Block drivers' tweets, texts, surfing

Several states around the U.S. have enacted laws limiting what people can do while driving, but for the first time, the federal government is proposing guidelines all drivers would need to live by.

The Department of Transportation yesterday announced a set of auto-technology guidelines, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), that would limit the functionality of electronic devices installed in vehicles.

The organization says car makers should not allow drivers to text message, surf the Web, access social networks, or even manually input an address destination into a GPS device, unless the vehicle is in park. more

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Clearwire to have 5,000 LTE sites running by June 2013

Clearwire said it has the funding it needs to set up TD-LTE sites around the U.S., and it plans to roll out thousands of them in the coming year.

Speaking earlier this week in an earnings call, Clearwire CEO Erik Prusch said that his company plans to have 5,000 LTE sites in operation by June 2013. Shortly thereafter, Clearwire hopes to add 3,000 more sites.

Sprint, which is the majority shareholder in Clearwire, recently signed a deal that could see it hand over $1.6 billion in funding to Clearwire. Under the deal's terms, Sprint has more

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Google files for slide-to-unlock patent as Apple battle heats up

Who would have thought a simple slide-to-unlock gesture would be so important?

Google last week saw a patent it filed for back in 2010 published that describes a manner in which users interact with a smartphone--or PC--to unlock the device and perform at least one command. According to the patent filing, the commands can be anything from placing a phone call to opening an application.

The publication is a key step in Google acquiring the patent, since it establishes full prior art for any other patent applications that might pop up worldwide.

Unlike typical unlocking mechanisms, which bring users back more

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Friday Poll: Is AT&T data throttling reasonable?

You're streaming the entire series of "The Sopranos" on your smartphone. It's the final episode. The screen suddenly goes black! Is it the show or is AT&T throttling your data?

The cellular company has made good on its warning to slow the speeds for the top 5 percent of data users. Impacted users are ones who have unlimited data plans. Smartphone owners with tiered plans aren't subject to the throttling.

Customers have mixed reviews on the policy. Some are outraged at having their data slowed. Some are concerned about the drag that heavy users place on more

Originally posted at Crave

Dish looks to FCC for cues on its spectrum strategy

Dish Network, sitting on an increasingly valuable stash of spectrum vital to powering wireless data traffic, is waiting on a key waiver from the Federal Communications Commission before deciding on its next move.

The waiver, similar to one that the FCC yanked from LightSquared earlier this week, would allow Dish to use its spectrum to build its own high-speed wireless network. If the FCC doesn't grant the conditional waiver to Dish, it would explore several options including the sale of the spectrum or a partnership with another carrier, CNET has learned.

The moves that Dish could make have broader more

Ready or not, here comes mobile on the desktop

The wild, nearly out of control growth of smartphones and tablets has computer makers rethinking what goes into their desktop operating systems.

Notably, Microsoft and Apple are taking significant measures to address the success of mobile on their next desktop operating systems by making them closer to their smaller counterparts.

So how do these early "fusion" OSes hold up?

Let's start with Apple's new version of OS X, which made its debut earlier today in the form of a preview to developers. Apple's calling it Mountain Lion, and as the name would suggest, it's not a more

Originally posted at The Download Blog

'Nomophobia' up as more folks fear being mobileless

We humans seem to have the capacity to fear just about anything these days. From chromophobia (fear of colors) to genuphobia (fear of knees or kneeling), optophobia (fear of opening one's eyes) to selenophobia (fear of the moon), we've been able to identify just about any phobia imaginable.

So it should come as no surprise that nomophobia, the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, exists at all, let alone may afflict as many as two in three adults, according to a new survey out of the U.K.

Commissioned by SecurEnvoy, creator of tokenless two-factor authentication, more

Originally posted at Health Tech