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Is AT&T Overcharging iPhone and iPad Data Users 300%? [Updated]

By Matt Peckham on May 19, 2011

If you're an AT&T iPad or iPhone user, you'll want to double-check your statement, because AT&T may be charging too much for monthly mobile data usage. In fact a new class action lawsuit ostensibly backed by extensive research alleges that's exactly what AT&T's been up to.

Ask AT&T and they'll tell you the charges are “without merit,” but ask a lawyer in the lawsuit targeting the mega-telecom (as MSNBC did) and they'll tell you AT&T's been bilking its customers by using fraudulent data metrics.

MSNBC reports that lawyers said they spent $80,000 and employed an independent computer firm to test various mobiles with different carriers over several months. The results? The lawyers claim that when it comes to iPads and iPhones, AT&T “systematically overstated the amount of data used on virtually every transaction.”

A lawyer in the case told MSNBC that AT&T's methods were comparable to “a rigged gas pump,” where you pay for a gallon of gas but only receive nine-tenths. The lawyers claim the rigging isn't sporadic, either, and that they found AT&T was overcharging on each transaction. In fact they're alleging AT&T engages in “phantom” transactions: a test engineer let an iPhone sit untouched (on, with data-using apps disabled) for 10 days, but when he got the bill, it reportedly included charges for 35 separate transactions.

How much overcharging are we talking here? Routinely 7 to 14%, claim the lawyers, but sometimes as much as 300%. The cost to customers may be a relatively small $10 to $15 a month, but with AT&T's 20 million-strong iPhone and iPad user base, you're looking at millions of dollars in alleged overcharges.

What's really going on? It's hard to say without access to the test data, but I'd wager a lot of this boils down to auto-updates "hidden" from users. And in the “10 days” iPhone scenario, the question's whether the test engineer truly disabled everything, including app “notifications” and “push” data, enabled by default in the settings menu.

Right or wrong, true or false, it'd be nice to see a new iOS feature come out of this: an easy to find "all data" kill-switch that doesn't require powering the phone off. Also: an app-data screen that would illustrate each and every data transaction, so you knew precisely where (and how) to plug each data "leak."

[Update: AT&T's released a statement reacting to the overcharging allegations:]

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Apple triggers 'religious' reaction in fans' brains, report says

By Mark Milian, CNN

May 19, 2011 -- Updated 2233 GMT (0633 HKT) | Filed under: Gaming & Gadgets

At product launches, Apple store employees cheer for the first customers to buy the company's latest gadgets.

(CNN) -- Next time Grandma asks why you're going to the mall on Sunday morning instead of church, tell her you're going to Apple Chapel.

For Apple fans, the brand triggers a reaction in the brain that's not unlike that of religious devotees, according to a BBC documentary series that cites neurological research.

The neuroscientists ran a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test on an Apple fanatic and discovered that images of the technology company's gadgets lit up the same parts of the brain as images of a deity do for religious people, the report says.

The first episode of the documentary shows Apple employees "whipped up into some sort of crazy, evangelical frenzy" at the recent opening of an Apple store in London.

Observers and Apple critics have long accused fans of the tech company of taking their infatuation to an extreme.

People have gone to great lengths to prove their love of Apple with tattoos, bumper stickers and home shrines to outmoded Mac computers. Apple's cult-like following was highlighted in a 2009 documentary called "Macheads."

A blog, aptly titled Cult of Mac, wrote on Thursday about Oakland, California, resident Gary Allen's cross-country pilgrimage to Apple's first store in Virginia to celebrate the retail chain's 10th anniversary this week.

In speeches, Pope Benedict XVI has said technology consumption poses a threat to religion and the Roman Catholic church. The holy leader told a Palm Sunday crowd last month that technology cannot replace God.

However, apparently it may inspire god-like devotion.

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Playboy puts 57 years of articles, nudity online

By Brandon Griggs and Miguel Susana, CNN

May 21, 2011 -- Updated 0033 GMT (0833 HKT) | Filed under: Web

 

(CNN) -- If you've long harbored tender memories of Miss February 1988 but misplaced your dusty old box of Playboys, take heart.
The House that Hef built is putting all its magazines -- from the inaugural December 1953 issue with cover girl Marilyn Monroe, to the current one with rock heiress Lizzy Jagger -- into an online searchable database.
Playboy Enterprises on Thursday announced a subscription service that provides online access to every page of every issue, giving readers everywhere the chance to catch up with those, um, fiction excerpts, interviews and investigative articles.
The service, called iPlayboy, contains every last photo image, news story, interview, work of fiction, advertisement and nude centerfold published in monthly magazines over the span of 57 years, according to a statement released by the Chicago-based Playboy Enterprises.
More than 130,000 pages of content have been rendered viewable, readable and searchable online and optimized for electronic tablets including the Apple iPad, according to the statement.
"Readers can search for a groundbreaking interview they read years ago, find classic fiction, or read about the most recent celebrity cover model, all in one place," the statement added.
Playboy's motivation for creating the service was due in large part to the handful of electronic tablet devices that have hit the market, according to chief content officer Jimmy Jellinek.
"The iPad and the tablet is the most transformative piece of technology since the invention of the personal computer," Jellinek said. "This is changing the way people consume media, so it's really the perfect platform for our consumers to engage with the totality of the Playboy experience."
Subscriptions are available for $8 per month, $60 per year and $100 for two years. The service is optimized for the iPad and will be updated with each monthly issue.
Playboy currently sells an app that abides by Apple's content restrictions and doesn't show nudity. Customers can, however, access uncensored content on iPlayboy through their iPad's web browser.
An Apple media representative declined comment on the matter.
In addition to Playboy's magazine archives, the service offers customers a wide range of exclusive video content that featuring monthly cover models as well as clips handpicked from what Jellinek calls a "treasure trove of video archives" that go back to the inception of the brand.
Vintage footage from inside the old Chicago Playboy mansion of the 1960s and of Playmates donning mermaid costumes and swimming in founder Hugh Hefner's pool are just a few choice examples of footage Jellinek says is intended to give iPlayboy customers unprecedented insight into the brand.
But if you're nostalgic for the classic experience of thumbing through a glossy, you need not worry about the hard copy version of the magazine going anywhere anytime soon. "This is just one offering to the Playboy consumer." Jellinek said.
"The magazine remains central to our business model... it's the engine of our company."
Though the service has only been available for a day, Playboy says its undertaking has gotten an enthusiastic reception from the public, with thousands of subscriptions received so far.
"We've already recouped our investment in the product itself in a single day," Jellinek said. "It's already a resounding success for the company from a commercial standpoint."
The long list of celebrities who have posed nude for Playboy include Bo Derek, Pamela Anderson, Farrah Fawcett and Sharon Stone.
The magazine was founded in 1953 by Hugh Hefner, who built it into an entertainment empire. But circulation of the printed magazine has dipped since Playboy's 1970s heyday, and its Web offerings have struggled to compete with explicit pornography sites.

Playboy.com has about 6 million monthly visitors. Last year Playboy launched The Smoking Jacket, a nudity-free, "safe-for-work" website.

 

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Zuckerberg: Kids under 13 should be allowed on Facebo

By Michal Lev-Ram, writer May 20, 2011: 11:02 AM ET

Facebook's founder sees the social networking site as a tool with educational potential. That of course means getting kids Facebooking at an early age.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

FORTUNE -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg may be a college drop-out, but the billionaire 27-year-old is passionate about education reform. That's why he took time out of his busy schedule to discuss the heated topic (and why he thinks young people can benefit from social networking sites) at a recent summit on innovation in education.

Last year Zuckerberg pledged $100 million to the school system in Newark, New Jersey. At the NewSchools Venture Fund's Summit in Burlingame, Calif. earlier this week, Zuckerberg told interviewer (and venture capitalist) John Doerr that improving education and making the Internet more open are two of his favorite dinnertime topics.

Dressed in his signature T-shirt and jeans, Zuckerberg was uncharacteristically unguarded about his private life during the conversation, which lasted about an hour. He referred to his girlfriend of seven years, medical student Priscilla Chan, several times throughout the interview. He also shared anecdotes from his own education and upbringing, gave advice to other entrepreneurs and talked about why he wants kids under 13 to be on Facebook.

"Education is clearly the biggest thing that will drive how the economy improves over the long term," Zuckerberg said. "We spend a lot of time talking about this."

It's no surprise that Zuckerberg thinks the field of education--along with shopping, health, finance and other industries--will become much more social in the coming years.

"In the future, software and technology will enable people to learn a lot from their fellow students," he said. For example, students could see each other studying online in the hopes it would encourage more of them to study for tests.

Zuckerberg said he wants younger kids to be allowed on social networking sites like Facebook. Currently, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) mandates that websites that collect information about users (like Facebook does) aren't allowed to sign on anyone under the age of 13. But Zuckerberg is determined to change this.

"That will be a fight we take on at some point," he said. "My philosophy is that for education you need to start at a really, really young age."

But just how would Facebook's social features be used by younger children?

"Because of the restrictions we haven't even begun this learning process," Zuckerberg said. "If they're lifted then we'd start to learn what works. We'd take a lot of precautions to make sure that they [younger kids] are safe."

Here are a few other opinions and anecdotes Zuckerberg shared at the recent summit:

- Every year Zuckerberg sets a personal challenge for himself. His latest one is learning Chinese (he works with a tutor and regularly holds discussions with Mandarin-speaking employees at Facebook).

- The young CEO gets upset when the media focuses on him instead of the entire Facebook management team. He says he spends 25% of his time recruiting both inside and outside Facebook and never hires someone he wouldn't want to work for himself.

- Zuckerberg started coding in sixth grade, after he got his first computer. His first program? A virtual pet-like game starring Yoda (the goal was to keep Yoda alive).

- The best part of going to Harvard was the other students. According to Zuckerberg: "If I had the chance to go back to Harvard and finish, I just think of how many more awesome people I would meet."

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Intel Steps Into Tablet Market

The Wall Street Journal

By LORRAINE LUK 

TAIPEI—Intel Corp. Wednesday unveiled plans to introduce more than 10 new tablet personal computer models that run on its own chips at the Taiwanese computer trade show later this month, as it seeks to expand beyond its PC stronghold into mobile devices, where designs from ARM Holdings PLC have become the standard.

The microprocessor maker plans to showcase the new tablet computers along with its PC manufacturing partners at Computex, which opens on May 31 in Taiwan. Asian PC makers such as Asustek Computer Inc. are also expected to showcase new tablets at the trade show.

Associated Press

Intel CEO Paul Otellini talks about tablet, smartphone and smart TV devices using Intel chips during Intel's Investor Meeting at Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., Tuesday.

The move comes a day after Intel reaffirmed a bullish view of the personal computer market and announced what it called a third major shift in its chip-development strategy, moving more aggressively to cut power consumption to target smartphone and tablet computers and streamline future designs for laptop computers.

Intel is launching a new set of chips, code-named Oak Trail, designed for tablet-style devices as it seeks to catch up with ARM Holdings, whose technology is offered by a number of licensees--including Qualcomm Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Texa.

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Yahoo Expanding R&D in China

BY LORETTA CHAO

BEIJING—Yahoo Inc. is aggressively expanding its China research and development operation, Chief Product Officer Blake Irving said in Beijing Wednesday, despite worsening tensions between the U.S. Internet company and the operator of its Chinese website, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

Yahoo added more than 100 people last year to its Beijing research and development center, and plans to continue hiring at a similar rate this year, Mr. Irving told reporters on a visit to the Chinese capital. He said the China R&D operation has "hundreds" of employees—he didn't specify a figure—and is Yahoo's third biggest after centers in California and Bangalore

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New 'iPhone 4S' might come to Sprint, T-Mobile

By Doug Gross, CNN May 16, 2011 -- Updated 1843 GMT (0243 HKT) | Filed under: Mobile

A man checks what appears to be an iPhone while attending a Senate privacy hearing with Apple and Google executives

(CNN) -- Maybe the hotly anticipated iPhone 5 won't be an iPhone 5 at all.

But it might be available on more carriers.

The emerging theory, based on reports from industry analysts, is that the next model of Apple's smartphone will be called the iPhone 4S and be an update of the current model, not a radical advance.

Multiple sites this weekend were citing a report by Peter Misek, an analyst with Jefferies & Co.

"According to our industry checks, the device should be called iPhone 4S and include minor cosmetic changes, better cameras, A5 dual-core processor, and HSPA+ support," Misek wrote in a report Friday.

Other analysts have offered similar predictions.

But Misek also wrote that Sprint, T-Mobile and China Mobile will be added as iPhone carriers, citing more "industry checks."

The A5 dual-core processor is the same one that's in the iPad 2. A dual-core processor is considered faster at running two programs at once than the single-core A4 processor in the iPhone 4.

The term "HSPA+ is a reference to high-speed processing. The phone reportedly will not utilize long-term evolution (LTE) technology, which is frequently marketed as 4G coverage.

The reports, and speculation, come as Apple's traditional iPhone freshen-up approaches.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference begins June 6. That's been used as Apple's launching pad for the latest iPhone the past few years, but Apple has suggested the event will focus almost exclusively on software this year.

The tech-community's hunch is that a new iPhone will be unveiled in the fall and rolled out in time for the holidays.

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Parents name child after Facebook 'Like' button

By Brenna Ehrlich, Mashable

May 16, 2011 -- Updated 2014 GMT (0414 HKT) | Filed under: Social Media

The parents of a baby named 'Like' say they just like
(pun intended) the meaning behind the name.

(Mashable) -- First there was baby "Facebook" and now this: An Israeli couple has named their kid "Like."

Let the Valley Girl jokes ensue.

The Israeli news source Galgalatz reports that Lior and Vardit Adler are the proud parents of a bouncing baby girl named after the Facebook Like button, which recently celebrated its first birthday.

Apparently, the parents were looking to call their daughter something unique. The moniker is not meant to be a gimmick, and they say that they're not shilling for Facebook. They just like (pun intended) the meaning behind the name.

The Adlers are hardly the first people to saddle their kid with a suspect name.

One man offered to name his son Batman if he could get 500,000 people to become fans of his Facebook Page, and another couple named their child Facebook in honor of the role the social network played in the revolution in Egypt.

Granted, naming your child something unusual is not relegated to the realm of social media -- apparently "Brooklyn" is an extremely popular name -- but the name choice certainly is out there.

What do you think? Would you "Like" the name Like?

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Why Apple, Google, Microsoft won't streamline video chat

By Mark Milian, CNN

May 16, 2011 -- Updated 1717 GMT (0117 HKT) | Filed under: Mobile

Apple CEO Steve Jobs pledged to standardize video calling with FaceTime. But the industry has since made little progress

(CNN) -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a bold gesture at the company's annual developers conference last June when he pledged to unite the technology industry under one video-calling standard.

"FaceTime is based on a lot of open standards," Jobs said, referring to Apple's video-chat product. "And we're going to take it all the way. We're going to the standards bodies starting tomorrow. And we're going to make FaceTime an open industry standard."

That statement sparked thunderous applause when it was made 11 months ago. But Apple appears to have made no progress since then, according to experts in the fields of video calling and Web standardization. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

The prospect of tech giants uniting under one protocol for video that would allow, say, a FaceTime user to call someone on Google Talk seems even less likely today than it did when Apple first floated the concept last year.

Microsoft and Skype

Microsoft already had a mature infrastructure for video chat -- through acquisitions and internal development for Windows Live Messenger, Lync and Kinect -- when it bought Skype last week for $8.5 billion.

Skype has about 170 million active users. Microsoft gets access to that network, which Skype had closely guarded from developers looking to circumvent its fences.

The developers for a mobile video application called Fring found a way past the barriers, but Skype eventually locked them out. "We wanted to provide access across islands," said Fring CEO Avi Shechter.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a statement last week that the company would continue to invest in Skype software for non-Windows platforms. But he made no mention of opening the platform to outside developers.

Qik, which first launched its mobile video app a year ago in a deal with Sprint Nextel, plans to add Skype integration, Qik co-founder Bhaskar Roy said recently. However, Qik is owned by Skype.

Skype's business-exclusivity deals, like the one it has with Verizon Wireless, may be the motivation for its insular behavior, Shechter said.

Skype said last year in response to Jobs' comments that it was not considering using Apple's technology for its video-calling programs. Skype didn't return requests for comment.

"I think that every player has its own motivations," Shechter said. "Overall, they're making a mistake by not opening up."

The challenge of 'bridging islands'

Google is often a proponent of openness and standardization. Andy Rubin, the head of its Android group, promoted that idea in an interview with reporters last Tuesday but declined to say whether Google would open its video-chat protocol, used in Android and Gmail, to outside users.

"You don't want to artificially create islands," Rubin said. "You want to bridge islands."

In the early days of e-mail, an AOL customer could not send a message to a Compuserve user. Similarly, it took some time for cellular carriers to determine how picture or video messages would be delivered to phones on other networks.

AOL created another island last week with the launch of AIM AV, a video-conferencing tool that doesn't require a login name. The company also announced plans last week to block Gmail from connecting to its AIM chat service but says it is working on a way to import buddy lists.

Logitech, another player in video conferencing, welcomes the idea of standardizing video communication.

"We know that openness and collaboration are critical to the adoption of video calling," Joerg Tewes, a vice president for Logitech's consumer video division, wrote in an e-mail to CNN. "Without interoperability, video calling will never reach its full potential and achieve mass consumer adoption."

Apple, Google and others collaborate on some standards, such as with HTML5, the Web programming language. But there are downsides to the procedure.

Developing standards typically takes much longer than when one company takes the reins, because participants debate minute details, said Jim Zemlin, executive director for the Linux Foundation, who has been involved in such negotiations. But for consumers, the benefits of interoperability usually outweigh the extra wait time, Zemlin said.

Tech giants are usually the ones to kick off these talks, several experts say. Apple, Google and Microsoft are the few companies who have the clout to rally the industry, they say.

"If you're a small company, it's very difficult to push your standard yourself," said Eric Setton, a co-founder of Tango, which makes a video-chat app for smartphones. "In terms of communication platforms, it's very important to be ubiquitous."

Apple's change of heart?

Apple may have seen standardization as a way to quickly gain a foothold in the video-calling market, but executives may have had a change of heart once they saw the early success of FaceTime, Zemlin said.

"Maybe even Steve Jobs underestimated just how much he was going to kick ass," Zemlin said. "As their market share increases, they probably have less incentive to open up the standard."

Standardization is a very transparent process. Some of the largest standards groups -- the Internet Engineering Task Force, the International Organization for Standardization, the World Wide Web Consortium and American National Standards Institute -- have no public record of Apple filing for an open FaceTime.

Several people from the IETF started an initiative to ask Apple to disclose parts of FaceTime's inner workings, but nothing appears to have come of that. An IETF spokesman said he was unable to verify Apple's plans with members, and representatives for the other three organizations didn't return requests for comment.

Several of the world's cell carriers, including Verizon, are working together on a voice- and video-calling service to run on 4G networks, called VoLTE. Verizon doesn't plan to sell a product running the service until next year, a spokesman for the company said.

Experts say VoLTE is too complicated for basic video chat on the Web. And Apple's FaceTime still is not sanctioned by carriers to be used on 3G networks.

Apple not opening up FaceTime's infrastructure is consistent with how the company normally operates, despite the surprise and confusion created when Jobs initially pledged to lead standardization efforts, said attorney Andrew Updegrove. He is a partner at the Boston law firm Gesmer Updegrove, which has represented more than 100 standards development organizations.

"Apple has always been a proprietary play and not an open play," Updegrove wrote in an e-mail. "It wants to hold all the cards and get all the benefits, and from an execution point of view, you can't fault them. They've been brilliantly successful."

With Microsoft now at the helm of Skype, people in the industry express even less optimism that an open video-calling discussion will be fruitful any time soon.

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