Wireless and Mobile News

Apple at its news event, today, revealed the Apple TV for $99, a set top device for streaming media from the Internet, a Mac or PC, iTunes, Netflix, and YouTube.  Apple TV has built-in HDMI, Wi-Fi, Ethernet and an internal power supply, is less than four inches square. Apple TV also has an iPhone app which turns the iPhone into a remote.

Apple TV users can choose from an election of HD movies to rent, including first run movies for $4.99, and  rent HD TV show episodes to rent from ABC, ABC Family, Fox, Disney Channel and BBC America for 99 cents. 

Apple TV also streams content from Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and MobileMe, as well as music, photos and videos from PCs and Macs to your HD TV. 

Apple TV users can watch slideshows of  photos on your HD TV using Apple TV’s selection of built-in slideshows. 

Ping lets you follow your favorite artists to see what they’re up to, check out photos and videos they’ve posted, see their tour dates and read comments about other artists and albums they’re listening to. 

“iTunes is the number one music community in the world, with over 160 million iTunes users in 23 countries, and now we’re adding social networking with Ping,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With Ping you can follow your favorite artists and friends and join a worldwide conversation with music’s most passionate fans.”

Shipments of Internet-enabled living room devices--a range of products including Internet-enabled television sets, video game consoles and set-top boxes--are forecasted to amount to more than 430 million units in 2014, up from 99.3 million in 2009. At a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 34.1 percent from 2009 to 2014, shipments of the digital living room devices will rise faster than those of the other high-volume Internet-access platforms: PCs and smart phones, whose shipments will grow at CAGRs of 12.1 percent and 22.7 percent respectively during the same period.

Rising from just a small base in 2009, Internet-connected living room device shipments will expand to nearly the size of the PC and smart phone markets in 2014, as presented in the attached figure.

Boost Mobile has launched of a $2 daily unlimited plan. Wireless consumers can have daily access to  unlimited nationwide talk, text, picture messaging, e-mail and calls to 411. It also includes walkie-talkie, voicemail, long distance and nationwide access.

With Daily Unlimited there are no extra fees, contracts or credit checks. A daily $2 subscription charge is automatically deducted from the customer's Boost account each day after midnight (based on customer's time zone), regardless of usage, unless the customer cancels the subscription. In order to keep service active, the total daily payment amount must be successfully prepaid each day.

The survey, conducted for Best Buy Mobile by GfK Roper, sheds light on consumers' knowledge and shopping habits around mobile plans, devices, technology and accessories.

Wyse PocketCloud for Android Highlights:

• Custom keyboard with function and short-cut keys.
• International Keyboard support: support for accented characters.
• Newly-designed mouse touch pointer.
• Remote app scrolling (e.g. scroll within Microsoft Word or PowerPoint.)
• Switches to turn on/off wallpapers, themes, window draggin.
• Auto Discovery: Hassle-free access to your environment with minimal setup, no technical know-how needed.
• VNC Support: Connect to Macs, and Home editions of Windows.
• Secure tunneling for VNC (Paid version only)
• Advanced multi-touch gestures with pinch to zoom support (Paid version only.)

MetroPCS Mas Mexico details:

• Available to new and existing customers with tax and regulatory fee-inclusive (tax inclusive) rate plans of $50 and above.
• Available on Family Plans with tax-inclusive rate plans of $50 and above (prior to discount).
• Existing subscribers with tax-exclusive plans must convert to a tax-inclusive plan before purchasing the feature.
• Available at all MetroPCS retail stores and participating authorized dealers.
• Limited-time offer ends December 31, 2010.

Verizon Wireless now offers on V CAST, the premium subscription movie service from Crackle. Crackle Movies provide Verizon Wireless with movie hits from the Sony Pictures library, including "Cable Guy," "Finding Graceland," "Blind Date," "The China Syndrome," "Easy Rider," "Gattaca," "La Bamba," and more to watch on their phones.

A Crackle Movies premium subscription is available to customers for $5.99 per month in addition to the $10 monthly subscription for V CAST Video on Demand. There are no megabyte charges to download, stream or watch V CAST content with any V CAST subscription; however, customers must subscribe to a data package for a data usage allowance.