Free Republic

While rumors of a possible Verizon-compatible iPhone in 2010 persist, one analyst has predicted that Apple will instead bring the iPhone to another GSM-based carrier in the U.S.: T-Mobile. In a note to investors released this week, Doug Reid of Thomas Weisel Partners said his firm believes that T-Mobile, and not Verizon, will be the beneficiary when Apple's exclusive agreement with AT&T expires next year... AT&T's exclusive contract with Apple for the iPhone is due to expire in 2010... While the iPhone in its current iteration is compatible with T-Mobile's network, it is not capable of connecting to its high-speed...

If you own a T-Mobile/Microsoft Sidekick smartphone I don’t have to tell you this. But if you are among the millions who don’t: on October 1st literally every user of the Sidekick data service lost the private personal records – emails, notes, calendar entries, contacts, etc. — they had stored on the system. Initially, it was believed that information was now lost forever. The official statement from Microsoft/Danger (the latter being the company that builds the Sidekick) and T-Mobile is that the data “almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger.”

Twice a year, the organization representing the wireless industry puts out a bunch of facts and figures on how much we're using our phones in the U.S., and each time, I can't help but marvel at the results. The big number this time around, according to the CTIA: In the past six months alone, Americans sent an estimated 740 billion text messages, which comes out to about 4.1 billion messages each day. Put another way: That's 11.7 text messages a day for every man, woman, and child in the country. (Of course, the average American teen can fire off 11...

A server meltdown over the weekend wiped out the master copies of personal data -- including address books, calendars, to-do lists and photos -- accumulated by users of T-Mobile's formerly popular Sidekick smartphone. This computing calamity allows Sidekick owners only a faint hope of backing up the information currently on their devices, and none of recovering anything they'd trusted to online storage. And it leaves T-Mobile and the operator of the Sidekick's data service, a Microsoft subsidiary formerly known as Danger Inc. -- oh, the irony! -- with serious explaining to do. A statement on T-Mobile's site phrased things a...

Don't like the idea of your neighbors rudely snooping on the wireless signal you slaved to pay for from the lazy comfort of their living room? It's not just about slowing down your connection; while they're downloading Mad Men via bittorrent, you could be on the hook for their actions. Wireless security and encryption systems are fraught with problems and insecurity, and other methods to restrict your signal to a small area are cumbersome at best. Enter a new solution: Anti-Wi-Fi paint. The idea is simple: Use a special paint on walls where you don't want wireless to pass through...

When Dolly Parton speaks people listen. At least that's what opponents to an upcoming Federal Communications Commission vote on opening up "white space" spectrum hope. Earlier this week, country western star Dolly Parton sent a letter to the FCC asking the agency to delay its vote to open up the unused spectrum for unlicensed use. "As someone who uses the white spaces and knows the value of them for the work that I and many of my friends around the country, I ask the FCC to recognize the entertainment industry's valuable contribution to the cultural life," Parton wrote in her...

She was considered one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, but Hedy Lamarr never wanted to be known as just a pretty face. . . . . . She is credited for patenting a technology that is used every day. Hers is a story that is something right out of … well … Hollywood. A Kept Woman Finds Freedom Upon the insistence of her parents, Hedy wed a prominent Austrian munitions tycoon by the name of Fritz Mandl. Mandl took his teenage bride everywhere, including prominent business meetings with his biggest client, the Nazi Party....