Nothing provokes ridiculous whining from major carriers more than being told that they can’t completely buy up every last piece of valuable spectrum. Re/code points out that Verizon has decided to follow in AT&T’s footsteps and stamp its feet about the restrictions that the Federal Communications Commission has put in place to reserve some chunks of spectrum for smaller operators.
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The effects of the disastrous tsunami in Japan that caused a catastrophic failure at the Fukushima nuclear power plant are still being felt to this very day. Recovery efforts began immediately after the plant was hit, but the damage to surrounding areas will take many years to repair. In fact, the nearly 16,000 residents of the town Tomioka, Fukushima, the home of the plant, has been abandoned for over three years. Employing the use of flying drones, HEXa Media, a Japan-based company has returned to the ghost town to explore the ongoing cleanup. It’s a fascinating look at a beautiful city, missing the thousands of families that once called Tomioka home. Take a look at the footage below.
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Earlier this year, Google announced that it was looking at expanding its Fiber service to new markets and that it was looking at 34 new cities in 9 metropolitan areas, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Phoenix, Portland, Raleigh-Durham, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, and San Jose. It’s been nearly three months since the announcement and news on the possible expansion has been virtually non-existent, which is why Google’s update on Thursday was notable. According to the Google Fiber Blog, the cities have been busy working through a checklist to prepare for Google Fiber, and “for the most part,” they’re nearly finished.
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Being a mobile app developer is tough. It’s entirely possible to create a mind-blowing app that will change the world and yet not have anyone notice. Even more infuriating is the fact that tons of useless Flappy Bird-style apps seemingly pop up as overnight sensations for reasons that are completely inexplicable.
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Sony is still struggling when it comes to establishing a fruitful relationship with U.S. carriers, but it looks like the Japanese giant has scored a major deal with Verizon, which will apparently soon launch Sony’s newest flagship Android handset. While Verizon has yet to officially announce the Xperia Z2, Sony jumped the gun and mistakenly published a press image of the device, complete with a Verizon logo, on its Sony Xperia Google+ page. The picture was quickly deleted, but not before being picked up by Droid Life.
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Your smartphone is a totally adequate replacement for a standard point-and-shoot camera, but there are still plenty of limitations holding you back from advanced photography and videography. The designers of the most ubiquitous smartphone camera of all, that of the iPhone, are aware of those limitations, yet want their latest creation to be as portable as a smartphone. Their new invention is called CENTR and it’s a portable, affordable 360-degree video camera that could change the way you record your family vacations, your trips abroad or even your next feature film.
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The “old” Galaxy S3 may not be the hottest Samsung Android handset in town anymore, but there still are millions of these devices in use around the world. One of the phone’s main “flaws” is the fact that it’s still stuck in a Jelly Bean universe, six months after Google released the Android 4.4 KitKat update. Luckily, Sprint’s Galaxy S3 version is finally going to receive its KitKat build, making the phone a lot more exciting for users and bringing hope that other versions will follow the same path soon.
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AT&T has been billing its potential “sponsored data” initiative as a big win for its subscribers, since it will let them consume data from their favorite websites and apps on an unlimited basis as long as those apps and websites “sponsor” their data by paying AT&T a fee. However, GigaOM’s Antonios Drossos makes a compelling case that schemes such as this are even more of a threat to the open Internet than even the Federal Communications Commission’s heavily criticized plan to allow ISPs to create Internet “fast lanes” where big companies can pay to have their data delivered more quickly than over the standard Internet.
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AirSquirrels, creator of popular apps AirParrot and Reflector, on Thursday launched an interesting new application that works on a variety of platforms and lets users share their app screens, but also other documents and files, with others. Called Slingshot, the app will make it very easy for iPhone and iPad users to share apps and documents with iOS, Mac, Windows and Android users.
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While increased automation will make our economy much more productive, it will also put a lot of people out of work. With this in mind, Quartz has taken data from a recent study conducted by the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University and has made it into a handy chart that will show you exactly how likely you are to lose your job to a robot in the coming years.
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