| Google Nexus 5 gets Bluetooth go-ahead for launch next week Oct 11th 2013, 11:45, by Kate Solomon 
Eagle-eyed Bluetooth fans have spotted the Google Nexus 5 receiving its Bluetooth 4.0 certification, suggesting that it's just about ready for launch. We're thoroughly expecting the new Google phone to get its official unveiling on October 15, alongside Android 4.4 KitKat. The Bluetooth news comes not long after a little bird let the launch date slip at Google Launchpad developer event. SpeculationAt this point, there isn't much we don't know about the Nexus 5: it seems set to come with a 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch HD display and an 8MP rear camera. The handset will be made by LG and while it's expected to be revealed next week, we reckon there may be a few weeks' wait for an actual Google Nexus 5 release date. - Want to know literally everything there is to know about the Nexus 5? We've got you covered.
       |  | Updated: Samsung hasn't bought a fingerprint scanning firm, it was all a lie Oct 11th 2013, 09:42, by Kate Solomon 
Update: The press release announcing Samsung's acquisition of Swedish company Fingerprint Cards AB has been revealed to be completely false. It's not clear how it happened nor who's behind it, but both Samsung and Fingerprint Cards AB have denied having anything to do with each other. Cision, the company that distributed the press release which was then published by Engadget, said, "At 10.30am a press release from Fingerprint Cards AB with the headline "Samsung Electronics to acquire Fingerprint Cards AB" was distributed by Cision. The press release was incorrect." In hindsight, that glowing quote from Samsung's CEO does seem a bit much, even taking translation into account. Original story below: Samsung isn't being coy about its efforts to follow in the iPhone 5S's footsteps as it announces it's purchase of Fingerprint Cards AB, a Swedish company specialising in fingerprint scanning. The Korean company is spending $650 million (cash - the equivalent of around £400m / AU$680m) on the firm as it looks to boost its biometric security on its phones and tablets. "Swipe sensor technology is phenomenal in every way," said Samsung CEO Kwon Oh-hyun, definitely not heaping hyperbole on hyperbole as he added that it is "going to be loved by millions of people around the world." BiometricFingerprint Cards AB specialises in using biometric sensors, processors, algorithms and modules to identify a person using their fingerprints. Its "world leading" fingerprint verification tech boasts low manufacturing costs and power consumption which makes it ideal for use in smartphones - like, say, the Samsung Galaxy S5 perhaps? The purchase seems to support reports in the Korea Herald that reckoned Samsung is "not yet developing the technology" for fingerprint scanning, although we'd suspect there's a modicum of internal research going on in this new smartphone hotbed. Samsung's existing swipe sensor team will work with the AB gang in a new Samsung division called "Samsung Fingerprint Cards Division"; lets hope we see the fruits of its labours soon. - In the meantime: find out what we make of the iPhone 5S and its fingerprint sensor in our full review
       | | Screw secrecy: HTC drops biggest One Max hint yet Oct 11th 2013, 09:19, by John McCann 
HTC is certainly planning something as it takes us on a journey through great trios in history and playfully adding that a new trio is "about to be completed" - to which we say, HTC One Max! We saw the HTC One launched earlier this year, and this was followed a couple of months later by the HTC One Mini giving the Taiwanese firm a tasty looking double act, but its now teasing us with a third. While the lengthy infographic drawn up by HTC doesn't specially mention the One Max, or even that it's subtly referencing a phone, going by the numerous leaks surrounding the handset it's pretty easy to piece this puzzle together. Three's a crowdHopefully we'll find out next week if the One Max exists, as rumours point towards a launch event on either October 15 or October 17. The One Max will apparently rock up with a huge 5.9-inch full HD, quad-core processor, Ultrapixel camera and similar stylings to the HTC One. There might even be a fingerprint scanner on the back - will it have Apple quaking in its stylishly overpriced boots? This isn't the first time HTC has pulled a stunt like this - it released an infographic ahead of the launch of the One Mini of "little things that made a big impact," so all eyes are firmly on next week.        | | Nexus 5 and Android KitKat whispers claim October 15 launch Oct 11th 2013, 09:15, by Hugh Langley 
The predicted Nexus 5 release date has been moving all over the place, and the last we heard it was plotting to break cover on October 31. Now October 15 is being thrown up as the date of the big arrival, where we'll see both the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 KitKat debut. The source of this rumour comes from whisperings at Google Launchpad, a two-week event for developers and startups, where the date was reportedly overheard. Is the plural of Nexus Nexi?Another nugget of info to pop out at the event was a Nexus 5 price, which was overheard by some developers and said to be not over 300 euros (£253, $406, AU$428). Given that the Nexus 4 launched for $299, we hope the 5 doesn't come in too much higher. It obviously makes sense for KitKat to arrive at the same time, given that we're fully expecting the Nexus 5 to be running the new OS - which we know for a fact is coming in October. So, we could be seeing everything uncovered next Tuesday. We're expecting the phone to have a 2.3GHz quadcore Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor with 2GB of RAM, a 5-inch HD display and 8-megapixel rear camera.        | | The way we were: co-founders considering BlackBerry buy-back Oct 10th 2013, 23:42, by Michelle Fitzsimmons 
Cue the *NSYNC, because BlackBerry's co-founders may want the company back. According to a regulatory filing released today, Mike Lazaridis, co-founder and former co-CEO of BlackBerry, and fellow co-founder Doug Fregin are kicking around the idea of bidding on the struggling firm. Lazaridis and Fregin already own a combined 8% stake but have entered into an agreement "to explore the possibility of submitting a potential joint bid" for the shares owned by everyone else. The company formerly known as RIM already entered into an initial offer agreement with a group led by Fairfax Financial Holdings for about $4.7 billion (about £2.93b, AU$4.98b). Beggars apparently can be choosers. Go it aloneAccording to sources of AllThingsD, the co-founders aren't working with Fairfax Financial on this. The financial holdings firm is still trying to shore-up funding for a buy-out, and meanwhile the BlackBerry 10 maker has reportedly made passes at several tech firms, looking for any taker it can get. Among the list of desired suitors are Cisco, SAP, Samsung and Intel. Bloomberg reported that while none are biting at the idea of picking up all of BlackBerry, some are open to the idea of owning parts of it. The saga continues.        | | In Depth: T-Mobile's latest moves put other carriers on notice, go after whole new market Oct 10th 2013, 21:58, by Michelle Fitzsimmons 
T-Mobile unleashed a number of headline-grabbing announcements yesterday, but now that the pink dust has settled and Shakira's wild mane has faded from view, how do the Un-carrier's latest moves stack up in the light of day? We spoke with a pair of analysts to get their read on T-Mobile's nationwide 4G LTE roll out, free unlimited international data and text offer, new flat global calling rate and $10/month fee for calls outside the US. The consensus between the two was the nation's No. 4 carrier is firing on just about every cylinder. "I was quite impressed with the news that T-Mobile is now reaching more than 200 million subscribers with 4G LTE in basically less than nine months," said Roger Entner, founder and analyst at Recon Analystics, in an interview. "That's attacking both AT&T and especially Verizon on network superiority. T-Mobile is taking a knock at the sweet spot of the two big carriers, which is better service." Watch outIn press materials, T-Mobile claimed to best AT&T in 4G LTE coverage in 10 of the top 20 metropolitan statistical areas as well as beating out Sprint and Verizon network speeds. Weston Henderek, principle analyst for wireless service at Current Analysis, said that while T-Mobile is still a small fish in the 4G pond, it's put at least one competitor against the wall. "AT&T and Verizon still have way more LTE than T-Mobile," he said. "Verizon is almost fully deployed and have had a big lead for a long time. T-Mobile is really playing the catch-up game. "The average customer already understands that AT&T and Verizon have more, but that advantage is dissipating. When you talk about 300 markets compared to 233, some of that advantage is just naturally going to disappear. "The one here that I think is going to have to step up their game is Sprint. They rolled out LTE before T-Mobile, and now they're lagging. This might spur them on to increase their roll out speeds." Roamin', roamin', roamin'As for its new international usage policies, which apply to more than 100 "Simple Global" countries and, both analysts affirmed that this push is principally about grabbing business customers. "T-Mobile didn't really have a lot to lose here," said Henderek. "They don't have a lot of business customers, and the majority of international roaming is done by business customers. The bulk are at AT&T and Verizon, but the risk reward isn't there for those two because they risk losing that revenue stream. T-Mobile isn't really losing anything. "Overall this should really help out on the business side because it's such a big difference in how business works from AT&T and Verizon. T-Mobile could end up poaching customers from them because it allows businesses to control cost and there's no fear of going over." T-Mobile does expect to operate its new data and text plans and $0.20/minute flat calling rate at a loss, at least to start, but the hope is to make up some revenue in boost packages - $15 for one day and 100MB, $25 for one week and 200MB and $50 for two weeks and 500MB. 
Henderek explained that even if non-business customers end up spending the same amount as they would on another carrier's international plan by buying boost packages, the perception is they are saving money and don't have to worry about overage charges. Once that $25 data is gone, it's gone. Both he and Entner said the other carriers are going to have to respond to T-Mo's new international policies. "They have to respond somehow ... better network, more marketing, responding price plans ... and in the end the customer wins in this competitive market," Entner said. According to Entner, about one third of what businesses pay for wireless usage is overseas use, "so the savings with T-Mobile can be quite substantial." What's more, the analyst said the offer targets immigrants who might leave the country regularly and more affluent customers who take trips abroad more frequently. While users who don't fall in these camps may not flock to T-Mobile's new offers, there is still plenty of growth potential with these other groups. It's not all rosesNot everything about T-Mobile's new offers are perfectly peachy. International data speeds will top out at about 128 kilobits a second, meaning viewing an email with a large attachment or visiting a graphics-heavy site will be a challenge. Henderek speculated T-Mobile struck deals with international roaming partners to use low-speed data at a cheaper rate. This, he said, creates a win for partners because the data wasn't being used by travelers who may have preferred turning off their phones to incurring enormous roaming fees. Throw in the data speed boost packages and international partners are seeing yet more new revenue. Henderek did call out T-Mobile's new Stateside International Talk & Text plan, which for $10 a month has the same $0.20/minute call rate (including mobile-to-mobile) to qualifying countries plus unlimited texting and unlimited landline calls in more than 70 countries for no extra charge. "Looking at the US market, there are all sorts of VoIP service providers - Skype, Viber, etc. - that offer cheap and free long distance calls," he said. "The package looks really good when compared to other carrier packages, and you can call someone with a regular phone service and not have to worry about that person having the same app as you. There is definitely a convenience factor, but the international long distance side of things is not really a big a deal as it would have been a few years ago." We've asked AT&T, Verizon and Sprint to comment for this story and will update if we hear anything back.        | | Interview: T-Mobile CTO: Expect more Un-carrier moves to come Oct 10th 2013, 20:36, by Kevin Lee 
T-Mobile decided to put the world on the stage for its Un-carrier 3.0 event Oct. 9, and it flipped the mobile script yet again by cutting out roaming charges, introducing $0.20/minute international calls and a larger US 4G network. At the event crowds gathered to see the musical stylings of DJ Swizz Beatz and the magenta carrier's latest celebrity recruit, Shakira. We decided to slink away and catch up with Neville Ray, chief technology officer for T-Mobile US, to see if he could address a few of our unanswered questions. We were curious about the impetus to offering free unlimited data and texting abroad, and Ray was quick to answer that it was yet another way for T-Mobile to be a rebel in the mobile industry. "We have our list of paying points for customers that we look at and everyone of those we believe is an opportunity for us to stand for something different in the marketplace," Ray said. "'Un-carrier' is a great term for how we want to break the mold of the industry standards and stand for something different for customers." International numbersIt's a nice thing to say and looks better on paper, especially when it's a feature being added on to your account free of charge. But we reminded Ray that the data speeds are limited, coming in at about 128 kilobits per second. "It's going to vary by country, so what we're trying to do is called a standard speed that will support browsing, emails, social networking, maybe some light streaming," he said. "But if you want to do a lot of video, the experience is not going to readily support that. We'll offer you, on the phone, to purchase a speed pass for a day, week, or two weeks." 
While Ray wouldn't give exact data speeds as it varies by country (with more than 100 Simple Global nations in all) he said users would get the maximum speeds supported by that country's network. "There is very little LTE roaming available right now," he continued. "[Simple Global] can support speeds that are great for video - so five to eight megabit per second. But it will be whatever the best speeds are available in the country. "We have 500 roaming relationships in existence today and we keep negotiating those arrangements and deals. We haven't done anything extraordinary at the time for this arrangement but we'll see how things go here and keep working with those non-domestic carriers." Back in the StatesIn the last nine months, T-Mo has expanded its LTE service to surpass the old 4G HSPA+ network. Now its 4G LTE network reaches more than 200 million people in 233 metropolitan markets with speeds ranging between between six and 20 Mbps. It's breakneck growth, and we questioned Ray if T-Mobile was finished improving its LTE work in the US. "We're not done with what we achieved in the first nine months of the year," he said. "We have more to deliver in fourth quarter and we will keep moving and growing this network in 2014 and 2015." 
The year has been busy for T-Mobile, but does it have what it takes to implement any future Un-carrier plans, if any? "We have plenty left in the tank, but I can't tell you what it is," Ray said. "But it won't be too long. We keep building on stripping away the paying points for the customer; contracts, upgrades and all these different things that have been out there for the industry for a long time."        | | Aereo to invade Android as biggest battle yet looms Oct 10th 2013, 19:36, by Michael Rougeau 
Aereo announced today that its first ever Android app will be out on Oct. 22. The app will let users on Android 4.2 and above who live in areas with access to Aereo's streaming TV services to access that content on their Android devices. Aereo has been fighting hard to stay legal as broadcast and TV companies formed a legal dogpile over the last two years, but so far it's won every battle. Android "phones, phablets and tablets" join the long list of Aereo-compatible devices, which also includes iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Chrome, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Apple TV (via Airplay) and Roku devices. Ride that waveAereo captures free, over-the-air broadcast TV content and re-transmits it to subscribing customers' computer and device screens. The company has been riding a wave of success, winning case after case, but for every victory another appeal or plaintiff has sprung up to further muddle the company's future. Most recently, it was announced this morning that Aereo came out ahead in a legal battle with a Boston TV station that was seeking a preliminary injunction against its services. The station, WCVB, plans to appeal, according to CNET. But another, even more important battle could be on Aereo's horizon. All the way to the topA coalition of broadcasters will reportedly soon petition the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Aereo case once and for all. Variety reported yesterday that the companies, which include Fox and others (likely CBS, NBC, ABC, and various regional stations) will file a writ of certoriari by Oct. 15. They'll ask the highest court in the land to review the decisions of the lower courts that have sided with Aereo. The Supreme Court doesn't have to take the case, but it may choose to do so anyway. It's definitely a gamble; depending where the justices land it could either put a stop to Aereo's unauthorized broadcasts once and for all, or give it leave to continue its practices in peace. Meanwhile, none of its myriad troubles have stopped Aereo from expanding to all kinds of places.        | | Nokia Amber update arrives for AT&T Windows Phone 8 handsets Oct 10th 2013, 17:32, by JR Bookwalter 
U.S. carriers can be notoriously slow on the draw with smartphone manufacturer software updates, but all is likely to be forgiven as Nokia's so-called Amber update has finally arrived for AT&T subscribers. Nokia Care US (1, 2) announced today that AT&T has released new software updates for the carrier's Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 handsets. An AT&T community manager first confirmed the release, incorporating updates from both Nokia as well as Microsoft's General Distribution Release 2 (GDR2), which the carrier delayed due to software testing. "AT&T has completed testing the Nokia Lumia 820/920 Windows Phone software update on our network. We expect Microsoft to make the update available beginning 10/10," the representative announced on the company's Community Support forum Wednesday. More on the wayNokia's so-called "Amber" update introduces Glance, a new feature that displays a clock on the lockscreen, while allowing the device to be awakened with a double tap, as well as Flip to Silence, which mutes incoming calls. More enticing for Lumia 920 owners is Amber's ability to unlock the Pro Camera app, while Microsoft's team enables FM radio support and implementing CardDAV/CalDAV for Google's Gmail. The Amber update rolled out to international Lumia 920 and 820 handsets nearly two months ago, during which time AT&T customers were left twiddling their thumbs in anticipation. Meanwhile, Microsoft's General Distribution Release 3 (GDR3) has already been finalized and is waiting in the wings - assuming AT&T doesn't delay that release as well. - Find out if Apple's latest iPhone 5S is truly gold in our review!
       | | Blip: Best Buy trade-in promotion basically gives you a free iPhone 5C Oct 10th 2013, 17:15, by Michelle Fitzsimmons 
Best Buy has concocted quite the offer in an effort to lure would-be iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C buyers to its blue-and-yellow storefronts. With the trade-in of any working phone, the retailer will guarantee at least $100 credit towards a new handset. Since the 16GB iPhone 5C costs $99, customers are basically getting a free phone, though they are subject to sales tax and activation charges. A basic iPhone 5S would cost a bargain-bin $99. The retailer confirmed the deal to AllThingsD, noting that customers can take advantage of the iPhone 5C offer at Best Buy Mobile stores starting today. Beginning Oct. 13, the promotion kicks into full gear. It all ends Oct. 19, so time is of the essence. The biggest catch is that customers must be eligible for an upgrade, so don't go sauntering into a store looking for a free phone if you just bought one. Nice try though. More blips!No upgrade requirement needed to read our blips.        | |
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