News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
Google has a toll-free 800 number that can replace your phone company’s (expensive) 411 service, and it may also turn your Yellow Pages into just so much paper. The number is 1-800-GOOG-411, and the video on the linked web site has more details. Note that it does not look up residential listings, only businesses.
Thanks to Josh for this idea.
Link: http://www.google.com/…
Astute Chad’s News readers already know that iPhones released in the United States will work with only one service provider: AT&T. Many consumers found this to be outrageous, and the hacking community quickly figured out how to unlock the iPhone so it can be used with other carriers. Be warned, however, that Apple is very unhappy about this, and performing the unlock will almost undoubtedly void the iPhone’s warranty. Ars Technica has gone so far as to suggest that Apple may permanently disable any unlocked iPhones, turning them into expensive bricks.
Be sure to check out this picture (via Digg), which I think is hilarious.
Apple has announced a $200 price cut on its iPhones, as well as a revamped line of iPods. If you bought an iPhone within the last two weeks, you can get the price difference refunded. If you’re not eligible for the refund, however, it looks like Apple is giving out a $100 store credit.
Link: http://ap.google.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Astute Chad’s News readers are already aware that Skype’s VoIP services were down for about two days. Turns out that the indirect cause of the outage was a massive number of near-simultaneous reboots caused by Windows Update.
Link: http://heartbeat.skype.com/…
(via Lifehacker)
This site has some unique cell phone ringtones—they’re the alert/warning messages from the cockpits of various airplanes. My favorite is “Whoop! Whoop! Pull Up!”
Link: http://www.aviationringtones.com/
(via Neatorama)
Here’s a useful tip: save an “ICE” entry in your cellphone address book. Emergency workers know this stands for “In Case of Emergency” and will contact that person if you are unconscious. Alternatively you can add “ICE” to an existing entry, which will accomplish the same thing. Mine says “Mom -ICE-“.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
Apple has officially announced the (horrendously overpriced but revolutionary) iPhone. From the article, the iPhone “allows users to listen to music, make phone calls, send text messages and e-mail, surf the Web, and take and upload photos, all using a wide touch screen and a single button.”
Link: http://news.com.com/…
The linked article is primarily about Nokia’s Wibree wireless standard, but there is a section that nicely summarizes five other standards. Look for “The Wireless Zoo,” about a quarter of the way down the page.
Link: http://www.tfot.info/…
I’ve heard various ways of dealing with telemarketers, but this one is definitely the funniest. Warning: some of the language is NSFW.
With the advent of smart phones, we are beginning to see the proliferation of cell phone viruses.
This woman had a very bad experience after she recycled her cell phone prior to the end of the calling plan. It would also be a good idea to wipe the saved numbers and any personal information. I wonder if that can be done all at once via some sort of reset function?
This topic has been popping up in quite a few of my news sources, and it just makes sense. A large number of people don’t want complicated cell phones, and this attitude seems to be more true of older people. The problem is that the cell phone market is saturated, and the cell providers are looking to extra features as their way of increasing revenue. (Remember, as a publicly traded company, it’s never sufficient to maintain the status quo—you must continue to grow and increase revenue in order to increase shareholder value). The net result of this conflict between the customer’s desires and the company’s desires is a renewed focus on usability. The iPod is an over-hyped, too-expensive MP3 player. But, as the article states, it took over the market due (in part) to its simplicity and ease of use. It’s good to see that other companies are finally figuring this out as well.
