T-Mobile U.K.’s New Plan is Everything You’ll Ever Need for £36 Per Month

T-Mobile U.K. is set to introduce a new price plan from February 1 that offers British subscribers everything their smartphone will ever need for just £36 (approx. $54.46) per month. It’s called “The Full Monty” plan, a trusted tipster revealed exclusively to TechnoBuffalo, and one of its best features includes truly unlimited data.

It’s a 24-month plan that you should have no concerns about committing to. It includes 2,000 cross-network anytime minutes, which also allow you to call voicemail and 08 numbers for free — something many U.K. carriers do not offer. Everything else is truly unlimited; including unlimited texts, unlimited data, and unlimited calls to other T-Mobile subscribers.

What’s more, the plan is said to be fixed at that price regardless of the handset you take with it, unlike Three’s One Plan, which starts at £25 (approx. $39) per month and fluctuates depending on the handset you choose.

The plan is set to be the cheapest available to pay monthly customers in the U.K., and one of the few that offers truly unlimited data. The only deal we’ve found around that price with similar benefits is a SIM-only plan from Orange which offers 1,200 minutes, unlimited texts, and 1GB of data for £31 (approx. $48.62). And I think that just proves what a bargain the The Full Monty plan will be.

Are you looking forward to T-Mobile’s Full Monty Plan?

Article: RSS via TechnoBuffalo

Tags: Full Monty, T-Mobile UK, The One Plan, Three, Unlimited Data, Unlimited Text

Posted in 3 / Three, Mobile Networks, Other News, T-Mobile | No Comments »

Confirmed: Nintendo Wii U out for Christmas

Nintendo has announced a rough release date for the Nintendo Wii U, reigning in the launch to this side of 2013. But can a holiday launch tip the balance in Ninty’s accountants’ favour?

The Nintendo Wii U has been floating around looking for something resembling a release date ever since it debuted last year at the E3 gaming expo. Now, thanks to Nintendo Japan CEO Satoru Iwata, it has one.

At an earnings conference in Osaka, Japan, Iwata revealed that the Wii U will ship in time for the holidays this year in all major territories, including the UK. The launch is primed to soak up the majority of this year’s Christmas console sales and to help Nintendo return to profitability, after a year that’s seen them dip into the red for the first time ever.

If the Wii U can sell in equally monstrous numbers as the original Nintendo Wii, then the gaming behemoth should be fine… Even if efforts from Sony and Microsoft are just around the corner.

Article: RSS via Electricpig

Tags: Gaming, Gaming Console, Nintendo, Video, Wii U

Posted in Gadget News, Gaming, Videos | No Comments »

Open WebOS 1.0 Coming in September

When HP kinda, sorta killed webOS as a money making endeavor, they promised to keep it alive as an open source project, but offered little in the way of concrete details. According to The Verge they’ve partially pulled back the curtain, revealing that Open webOS 1.0 should arrive in September.

Along with news of the OS’ rebirth, they also released the 1.0 version of their Javascript-based Enyo framework for Javascript app, and it contains parts of what will come in the 2.0 release. The 2.0 components will allow apps developed for webOS to run on other platforms and browsers.

Article: RSS via Gizmodo

Tags: HP, Open Source, webOS

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O2 sharing phone numbers for mobile surfers (but not everyone)

UK carrier O2 finds itself embroiled in data protection controversy today, with allegations that the operator is revealing mobile users cellphone number to each website they visit on their phone. According to Lewis Peckover, buried in among the header data from each O2 visitor is a line revealing their own mobile number; he set up a site to show off just what O2 is including. However, while some O2 users are corroborating the claims, our own tests have failed to do so.

We visited the site on a Galaxy Nexus using an O2 SIM and the carrier’s 3G network, and saw no evidence of the number registered to the account. The screenshot above shows exactly what data is being received by Peckover’s site.

Where his testing identified a line in the headers called “x-up-calling-line-id:” with the mobile number in international format, though, ours did not. A quick check of Twitter indicates we’re not the only one to see it too. O2 says, via Twitter, that “we’re checking this out with our internal teams as we speak. Once we’ve got an update, we’ll let everyone know.”

Some giffgaff subscribers – an MVNO using O2′s network – also report seeing their own number show up in the headers. Even inconsistent across users, though, the issue could be potentially very damaging to O2′s reputation; we’ll update when we know more.

Update: TNW is reporting that its own testing – using an iPhone on O2 – showed the account’s phone number in the header data.

Article: RSS via SlashGear

Tags: 3G, 3G Network, Data Protection, Giffgaff, Mobile Broadband, MVNO, O2, Twitter, UK

Posted in 3G, Mobile Broadband, Mobile Networks, O2 | No Comments »

Is this an image of the LG Optimus 3D 2?

What you see before you is either the deranged rantings of a lunatic, or the second generation of LG’s Optimus 3D, erm, 3D smartphone. Currently codenamed “CX2,” the handset’s packing a new NOVA autostereoscopic display for better brightness, an unnamed 1.2GHz dual-core TI CPU and an NFC module. What isn’t changing is the dual five-megapixel cameras, the 8GB storage or the display’s size or resolution. Our biggest gripe with the device was its heft, but if the rumors are true, it’s slimmed down from 12mm to 10mm: making it significantly more pocket-friendly. Our palms are sweating in anticipation as Mobile World Congress inches ever closer to revealing the truth.

Article: RSS via Engadget Mobile

Tags: 3D, Android, LG, Optimus 3D, Smartphones

Posted in Android, LG, Smartphones | No Comments »

Unlocked HTC EVO 3D now just 249 GBP from ASDA

Let’s say you live in the UK and want the HTC EVO 3D – you can check out that cool deal with a two-year carrier contract we talked about 10 days ago. Or you may want an unlocked device, sans any commitments toward mobile operators? Good news – now you can get the glasses-free 3D screen-equipped smartphone from the online wing of ASDA, which is selling it for 249 GBP (about $388).

It’s a true bargain, considering the European version of the EVO 3D was announced only 6 months ago. Actually it’s amazing how quickly smartphone prices drop these days, something all of us love.

Aside from the mentioned 4.3-inch 3D display, HTC’s baby also comes with two 5-megapixel cameras on the back (for recording 3D video), front-facing camera (for video calls), HSPA and Wi-Fi connectivity, GPS, Bluetooth, an array of sensors and a microSD memory card slot.

So what do you say? Like the deal? If so proceed to this page where you’ll get all the details.

Article: RSS via IntoMobile

Tags: 3D, Android, Asda, EVO 3D, HTC, SIM Free, Smartphones, Unlocked

Posted in Android, HTC, Smartphones | No Comments »

YouTube Users Watch 4 Billion Videos a Day, But Don’t Stick Around Long

YouTube streams 4 billion online videos each day, more than one for every other person on Earth and a 25% jump over eight months ago.

YouTube, a unit of Google, attributed the growth to iterations of the website on smartphones and TVs that have encouraged more use, according to Reuters. The number of uploads on the platform is also staggering: about 60 hours of video is now added to the site every minute, compared to 48 hours a minute in May.

It’s unclear how much Google is benefiting by such growth. In its fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts last week, Google didn’t break out revenue figures for YouTube. However, the company disclosed that its display ads are generating $5 billion in revenue on an annualized run rate basis. Despite that encouraging sign of growth for Google — such advertising was only a $2.5 billion business in October 2010 — Google’s stock price fell 9.2% on Jan. 19, the day it disclosed those earnings.

One avenue Google is pursuing to monetize YouTube is a $100 million program featuring celebrity channels from the likes of Ashton Kutcher, Amy Poehler and Shaquille O’Neal. YouTube announced those channels last October. Many of them are expected to go live this year.

The program illustrates a problem that YouTube is trying to address. As outlined in a New Yorker article last week, despite impressive stats such as the 4 billion figure, the average YouTuber spends 15 minutes each day viewing videos on the site, but the average American spends four or five hours watching TV every day. “If YouTube could get people to stay on the site longer, it could sell more advertising, and raise the rates it charges advertisers for each thousand views,” the article states, adding that U.S. advertisers still spend about $60 billion a year on TV commercials compared to only $3 billion for online video.

Article: RSS via Mashable

Tags: Google, Videos, YouTube

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FileSonic and others cease file sharing amid MegaUpload fallout

MegaUpload shut-down fallout continues, with rival file-sharing sites FileSonic and Uploaded.to each dramatically slimming their services to avoid allegations of copyright infringement. FileSonic has ceased any new sharing functionality whatsoever, the site now saying that “our services can only be used to upload and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally,” while Uploaded.to has blocked US traffic though remains accessible elsewhere in the world.

If you attempt to access Uploaded.to from a US IP address, however, you’re greeted with the message that “Our service is currently unavailable in your country. Sorry about that.” Neither site has made any public announcement of the change in services, leading to speculation that the decision to curtail file sharing was a sudden reaction to the shock arrest of MegaUpload CEO Kim Dotcom and other employees of the site.

MegaUpload’s demise last week was promptly followed by an all-out attack by Anonymous, with the Department of Justice, RIAA, MPAA and other sites all taken down in a combined retaliatory DDoS. It’s unclear what reaction there might be to the voluntary takedown of these two new sites, though one complaint about how MegaUpload was handled – that innocent users storing non-copyright files were unable to access their cloud-based content – would seemingly also apply to Uploaded.to as well.

FileSonic, meanwhile, had been operating an affiliates program, which allowed users to get paid the more times that their files were downloaded. That too has been shut down, presumably to avoid complaints that it encouraged tempting copyrighted content to be illegally shared and promoted.

Article: RSS via SlashGear

Tags: Copyright Infringement, FileSonic, Illegal File Sharing, Megaupload, Uploaded.to

Posted in Internet, Other News | No Comments »

An Unofficial Android Store Will Provide All The Apps Banned By Google

Unlike getting hold of iOS apps, it’s always been possible to trawl the web for software that doesn’t appear in the Android Market. But that process is about to get even easier, because soon there will be an unofficial store for banned Android apps.

Koushik Dutta, a member of the team behind CyanogenMod and the creator of ClockworkMod, announced that he is in the process of creating an app store that will be home to apps that have been banned from Google’s official Android Market. That will include customs ROMs, retro gaming emulators pulled due to copyright complaints, unofficial tethering apps, Visual Voicemail apps, one-click rooting apps, and, well, whatever else Google says can’t feature in their store.

This will, I’m sure, be of most interest to those who have already rooted their Android handset, as it will provide a one-stop shop for the customs ROMs and apps those devices can make use of. There’s no denying that having all that stuff in one place will be more useful than having to trawl the web. Those who haven’t rooted their handset will still be able to make use of the store though, as there are plenty of normal apps that have to be banned from Google’s store, especially if they violate copyright or a mobile operator’s need to generate revenue from value-added services, like tethering.

I just wonder if it can completely avoid being shut down. One of the reasons that such a wide range of unofficial ROMs and apps continue to survive is that they’re so broadly distributed that it’s difficult to hunt them all down. Put them all in one place and that’s no longer the case.

Article: RSS via Gizmodo

Tags: Android, Android Market, Apps, Google, Hacks, ROMs

Posted in Android, Apps, Google, Internet | No Comments »

Google+ passes 90,000,000 users

Google‘s social network, Google+, may only have been operational for little over a year, but it has already accrued over 90,000,000 users according to CEO Larry Page. Announced as part of Google’s Q4 2011 financial results today, the milestone comes just four months after Google+ was opened up to general public registrations. However, it’s still in the shadow of the Facebook behemoth.

Facebook was believed to have 800m active users back in September 2011, and has been aggressively promoting site changes since then in an attempt to increase popularity and engagement. Earlier this week, Facebook launched Timeline Apps, part of its Open Graph promotion to increase the amount of personal data shared on each users’ wall.

Still, Google’s achievement is a credible one, given it came significantly later to the social market than rivals. The search giant has boasted that it added at least one new feature to Google+ each day since July 2011, most recently the ability to initiate YouTube video recording directly from the service itself.

“Four months ago, when we opened to the public, we were not sure what kind of reception we would receive. Your feedback has helped us build this service, and we can’t thank you enough for your enthusiastic support” Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Social at Google, said today, unsurprisingly taking to Google+ to celebrate the milestone. Gundotra also quoted anthropologist Margaret Mead, likening her famous quote “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has” to the early-adopters of the social network.

Article: RSS via SlashGear

Tags: Google, Social Networks

Posted in Google, Internet, Social Networks News | No Comments »