Virgin Mobile Triumphs This Summer

Article first published as Virgin Mobile Triumphs This Summer on Technorati.

VirginMobile USA is about to blow their horn on July 20th, 2011, and announce one of the most anticipated phones of the summer, but also new rate plans to use it on.

The Motorola TRIUMPH features a 4.1-inch touchscreen display, a 1GHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, 5-megapixel camera with 720p video capture, VGA front-facing camera, 512MB RAM, 2GB built-in storage, HDMI out, 1400mAh battery, and Android 2.2 (Froyo).

The responsiveness of the Triumph is quite snappy with no lag or delay, plenty of screen real estate for your eyes, and no MotoBlur.


This is arguably the most advanced phone available from any carrier on a PREPAID service basis.

Changes to pricing and data usage costs are a familiar topic in the wireless industry these days, and customers are beginning to understand that the dramatic increase of smartphone usage and mobile internet access, now and in the future, means many carriers are making adjustments to their plans.

According to Nielsen’s May 2011 survey of mobile consumers in the United States, 38 percent now own smartphones. Of those consumers, 38 percent own an Android™-powered device. Further, 55 percent of those who purchased a new handset in the past three months reported buying a smartphone, up from 34 percent just a year ago.

New Beyond Talk plans show that the unlimited option is down by $5, so it really makes a lot of sense to go for the unlimited and not have to count your minute usage.

$35 – 300 anytime minutes / unlimited messaging and data
$45 – 1200 anytime minutes / unlimited messaging and data
$55 – Unlimited anytime minutes / unlimited messaging and data

Virgin Mobile USA, Inc. is a wireless communications services provider based in Warren, New Jersey, United States, founded in 2001 as an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator). This means, unlike AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or Sprint, Virgin Mobile USA did not own their own network. They simply used the Sprint network under a private label of Virgin Mobile, USA.


Virgin Mobile USA, Inc. commenced operations under the Virgin Mobile brand in June, 2002. Virgin Mobile USA was acquired by its network services provider, Sprint Nextel Corporation, in 2009 and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Sprint Nextel Corporation. Virgin Mobile has about 6 million subscribers.

If you are looking for an attractive modern smart phone without getting locked into a contract, this is basically the way to go.

I would love to hear your thoughts and comments, please share this post with your friends.

RIM -v- Nokia: The Loser's Cup - Racing to fail

That explosion you just heard was the sonic boom of two titans in the wireless industry crashing down in flames to their firey demise.

Nokia v Rim (Blackberry) - It isn't a question of who is going to win or lose, the question is who is going to lose fastest, and worst. Shocking isn't it? The perfect storm of bad timing, and poor vision.

Neither Nokia nor Rim are competing against each other, they have much bigger problems to worry about... like Apple iOS and Android.

The feature phone market has imploded, and smart phone markets soar. Nokia is hemorrhaging market share, in both. Once the king of feature phones / phone first devices, Nokia, is in a triple lose situation. No one wants a boring old style flip phone that is mainly just a phone anymore, they want the Apple iPhone type of smartphone.

Nokia does make smartphones, but their phones are based on the very aged and relatively antiquated Symbian operating system. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user interface component based on S60 5th Edition. The latest version, Symbian^3, was officially released in Q4 2010, first used in the Nokia N8. Symbian OS was originally developed by Symbian Ltd. It is a descendant of Psion's EPOC, and runs exclusively on ARM processors, although an unreleased x86 port existed.

Nokia was in the perfect position, massive market share, there were more Symbian devices in use worldwide than any other operating system.


Symbian and Android are both open source operating systems, but due to a lack of savvy marketing, Symbian could have been what Android is today.


Android is signing handset makers at breakneck speed, while Symbian only has Nokia. You can't modify Symbian installed on your Nokia phone, but Android you can. Android is also sleek, easy to use, has a youthful "cool" brand... Symbian... feh.
For these reasons, Android is beating Symbian.


If all that wasn't enough, the recent deal between Nokia and Microsoft puts all the risk in Nokia's lap. If Nokia succeeds, Microsoft succeeds. If Nokia fails, Microsoft just walks away unscathed. Worse yet, the deal is good news for Android.

As Nokia phases out Symbian and moves to Windows Mobile, it will reduce Nokia's market share significantly, adding to the burn.

 As for RIM (Blackberry), they have some real problems, but not as serious as Nokia. The main problems for RIM, is of course Android, but more so, Apple, as well as another surprise, RIM.


Apple is Rim's biggest threat, that's no surprise to anyone, but what may be overlooked, RIM is RIM's own problem. They can't seem to get out of their own way. Another year has passed, the current Blackberry product lineup is getting very stale, and RIM has failed to produce a breakthrough touchscreen device that can compete.

RIM is several quarters late in introducing its new handsets based on its 7.0 operating system. For every day that passes until the new BlackBerry models become available, RIM is losing sales. This is all quite troubling because RIM doesn't seem to be in any hurry to correct things. They don't seem realize the threats are as great as they are.


I would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

HDMI CONnection Scam Hits Consumers Hard

Article first published as HDMI CONnection Scam Hits Consumers Hard on Technorati.

When it comes to HDMI cables, retailers and salesmen have had a roarin' good ol time at the expense of the consumer. It's time to put the facts where they are and show them up for what the are, CON MEN.

I call it, the CONnection Scam.


Scenario: Joe Consumer is excited, he got his paycheck and finally has enough to get himself that flatscreen TV he's had his eye on for months now. The salesman starts telling him he needs special HDMI cable to connect his Blu-Ray, PS3, etc (this is true), now here comes the CONnection SCAM.


The salesman tries to sell Joe Consumer a 4 foot long $200 HDMI cable, confident that Joe Consumer has no idea that a $20 HDMI cable will do the exact same thing.

That's right, let me restate a fact in big bold red print to make sure this is clear:


A 4 foot long HDMI v1.4 cable costing $20 will perform the same as a HDMI v1.4 cable costing $200.


Let's see why: An HDMI or DVI video signal is a small signal and it is digital. It is either good or not good. As long as the length is under 8 feet, there is NO signal degredation.

Another CONnection Scam

You will see HDMI packages in the store, screaming "120 Hz," "240Hz" and "480 Hz".

HDMI cables can no more be manufactured for specific refresh-rate HDTVs than a garden hose can be manufactured specifically to water seeded lawns and sod lawns. The same water flows through either one.

The same HDTV signal flows through all HDMI cables, whether labeled "120Hz" or "480Hz" — or not labeled at all.

FACT: A TV's refresh rate has nothing whatsoever to do with the signal flowing to that set. The refresh rate is determined by the set's circuitry once the signal gets there, so how can different HDMI cables be manufactured for different refresh-rate sets?


HDMI Licensing LLC licenses the design, specifications and requires labeling of cables as either "Standard" or "High Speed." Only two types of HDMI cables are included in the HDMI licensing spec: "Standard" (aka category 1) or "High Speed" (aka category 2). Category 2 is required to insure the cable passes 1080P HD signals, (which includes 3-D), and is the highest bandwidth video signal available now and the forseable future. (The most current spec is Category 2, Version 1.4).

HDMI cable makers are intentionally misleading consumers by hyping their cables with the various refresh rates used by set makers to improve picture quality. Despite the fact that some labels indicate signals of 480Hz, the signal fed by an HDMI cable to a set never exceeds 60Hz.


Any "High Speed" HDMI v1.3 cable should handle any display and any video signal you can throw at it. Period. Full Stop. The next version is 1.4 which is intended for "4K" video, which only exists in extreme high end commercial applications.

As an extreme example of the CONnection scam,  AudioQuest has a line of  "High Speed" HDMI cables; its packaging states that it "delivers 100 percent of the data required for 120Hz, 240Hz, 600Hz  displays." It costs up to a whopping $299.99 for its 9-8-foot Carbon model (sold online from Bestbuy.com).

What this means to you is that there really is no such thing as a "better" HDMI cable. Either an HDMI cable works or it does not. If it doesn't work, you will immediately know it. Your screen will freeze, or it will skip frames, or it will show big square blocks instead of a picture. It will be completely obvious that there is a problem. In that case you need to throw the cable away.

How much have YOU thrown out on HDMI cables? I would love to hear your comments! Link this article to your friends and see what they say!

Why AT&T desperately needs T-Mobile.

Article first published as AT&T: Desperate and Out of Time? on Technorati.

When AT&T announced it was acquiring T-Mobile In March, 2011, it made quite a few people unhappy. After getting past the grumbling of T-Mobile customers who like T-Mobile, not AT&T, the grousing of Sprint who vehemently objects, and the grumpy media in general., and several other companies hate the takeover.

Most people assume that it's just another mega merger, big AT&T wants to take over a smaller T-Mobile to expand their customer base by almost 60 million to compete with Verizon, etc. Sure, that doesn't hurt, but that isn't the real reason.

The real reason is one simple word:   SPECTRUM.


AT&T has run out of it, they are in very serious trouble, and are desperate for T-Mobile. How desperate? A deal fact sheet says:

“In the event the transaction does not receive regulatory approval satisfactory to AT&T and the transaction does not close, AT&T will be required to pay a breakup fee of $3 (billion), transfer to T-Mobile certain AWS spectrum that is not needed by AT&T for its initial LTE roll out, and provide a roaming agreement to T-Mobile on terms favorable to both parties”.

That's right. AT&T loses $3 Billion, and additional spectrum. 

Think of wireless spectrum like a pipe. If the amount of water you need to flow is more than you can fit through the pipe, you have problems.

Problems for AT&T started with the iPhone. Wireless data / web usage on the AT&T network went up 8000% in 4 years. Unfortunately, unlike other carriers, AT&T has considerably lagged in the expansion and development of their network, (pipe), and they were not prepared for the ravenous data usage of iPhone users. The problem has only gotten worse.

In short, they need more pipe.

It was painfully evident during Apple's 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference. Steve Jobs was embarrassed when the WiFi network he had planned to use as the primary access wasn't working as planned... he then tried using AT&T as a backup option, he got "CANNOT ACTIVATE CELLULAR NETWORK . Steve Jobs has also considered dropping AT&T six times in the past.

Carriers can get more spectrum, (pipe) in 2 ways.

#1. They can buy it from the FCC in bidding auctions with other carriers bidding on it as well. If the carrier wins and gets more spectrum, they then have to pay more money to build out their network with more towers, upgrades, etc. This takes alot of time, and this is one commodity AT&T doesn't have.


#2. You can buy out another carrier (T-Mobile) with a compatible network, and combine network resources. This is what AT&T is trying to do.

By taking over T-Mobile, it gives them the time they need to focus on further expansion of their LTE network.

Please leave comments, I would love to hear from you.

Steampunk Gadgets - Turn Art Deco Into Art Techno

Article first published as Steampunk Gadgets - Turn Art Deco Into Art Techno on Technorati.

What do the movies: Time After Time,  Wild Wild West,  The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Skycaptain and the World of Tomorrow, Around The World In 80 Days, Young Sherlock Holmes, and Kate & Leopold have in common?


How about the Gnomes in World Of Warcraft, the most successful MMORPG game ever created, boasting 20 million players worldwide?


They are all
STEAMPUNK THEMED.

Audiences are captivated by the unique romance of the steampunk genre, and marvel at the quirky gadgetry. What if you could own real life working gadgets like that?

They do exist, you just have to look. For example:

Looking for a unique cell phone? Ask your carrier if they have this little Steampunk themed little number!

Richard "Doc" Nagy, steampunk contraptor, technical artist, and self proclaimed jackass-of-all-trades, is the genius behind the website Datamancer. He says "I don't just build products. I create heirlooms."

That's an understatement. Just one look at the "New Yorker" keyboard will make you gasp, and you will find yourself staring in amazement at the one of a kind steampunk laptop.

Another website, Gadgetsin has an 8GB steampunk USB Flash Drive with glowing quartz crystal, while another site ETSY sells their version of a 2GB Steampunk copper USB flash drive.


Steampunk goes beyond flash drives. How about a mouse? A Russian "hardware modder" created this one of a kind hand made steampunk mouse.


PopGive has quite unique Steampunk Jewelry.


How about some music? Rock out playing this steampunk themed stratocaster.

Remodeling your home? How about some Steampunk designed switchplates?



What exactly IS "Steampunk"? It's a sub-genre of science fiction, alternate history, and speculative fiction that came into prominence during the 1980s and early 1990s. Specifically, steampunk involves an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century and often Victorian era Britain—that incorporates prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy. Works of steampunk often feature anachronistic technology or futuristic innovations as Victorians may have envisioned them; in other words, based on a Victorian perspective on fashion, culture, architectural style, art, etc. This technology may include such fictional machines as those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne or real technologies like the computer but developed earlier in an alternate history.

Leave comments and feedback, I would love to see your opinions!