Tech Industry

Breaking up is hard to do. Even if you were never officially together in the first place. Earlier today, T-Mobile announced a new promotion specifically targeting Sprint customers and in turn the Kansas-based carrier has announced a new plan for individual accounts and guess who it’s being directed towards? Starting tomorrow, August 22nd, new and existing Sprint customers can sign up for unlimited talk, text and data for just $60 per month.

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After an unsuccessful union with Sprint, T-Mobile is going after its former suitor’s customers, as well as its other competitors’ subcribers in the wireless world. Today, the magenta-colored carrier announced an aggressive promotional campaign that offers a free year of LTE data to castaways from AT&T, Verizon and of course Sprint.

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The internet is crawling with piracy. So much in fact that Google’s is now receiving over 1 million takedown requests per day for links related to pirated content. A recent transparency report from the company revealed that the search juggernaut was asked to clear around 8 million results from its search engine last week alone.

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What a difference a decade makes. Google’s head of search Amit Singhal recently reflected on the search giant’s last ten years, starting with its IPO, where Larry Page and Sergey Brin shared their vision with the rest of the world. In an open letter, Page and Brin boldly informed would-be shareholders that Google was not a conventional company and that their intentions were for it to never become one.

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Have you been wondering what makes Google’s 3D mapping Project Tango tablet tick? The tinkerers at iFixit have managed to get their hands on the device and performed a little exploratory surgery on the device in the name of science. According to the DIY repair site, some of Project Tango’s entrails resemble Microsoft’s Kinect motion tracker, which kind of makes sense.

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After several rumors, HTC has finally announced the release of a Windows Phone version of its highly successful HTC One M8. With the exception of its Microsoft-made operating system, this revamped handset’s hardware is a complete carbon copy of its Android-powered predecessor.

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Sprint has unveiled its newest family data plans in an attempt to win back customers that have fled to rivals AT&T and Verizon. The new plans offer twice as much data as the competition at about the same prices. It’s the latest move by the floundering carrier following the less-than-stellar reception of its recently-announced “Framily” plans.

The new plans allow up to ten lines with a shared data pool of 20 GB—paired an additional 2 GB per device as part of a limited-time offer—for a grand total of up to $40 GB of shared data through 2015. A pricing chart (below) breaks down how all of the charges in the new plans work, including an additional $10 per tablet and shared data packs of up to 60 GB.

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Verizon announced a new promotion today that offers an additional gigabyte of sharable data when customers activate a new smartphone or upgrade a new smartphone on one of the carrier’s MORE Everything plans. In order to take advantage of this deal, you’ll need to be on a MORE Everything plan that uses at least 1GB of data.

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Microsoft appears to be gearing up to challenge Google’s Chrome OS by partnering with companies to release affordable Windows-based alternative notebooks. Pictured above is the HP Stream 14, a $200 laptop that feels a lot like Redmond’s answer to the Chromebook. From its 14-inch 1,366 x 768 display, to its modest AMD processor, all the way down to its 2GB of RAM, 32GB of flash memory (optional 32GB) and two years of cloud storage from Microsoft’s OneDrive — sound familiar?

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Here’s a nice surprise for Shark Week! During a Cloud Roadshow in Boston, Google product manager Dan Belcher revealed some of the search giant’s extreme measures to protect its underwater infrastructure. The company will reportedly wrap its new subaquatic trans-Pacific high-speed internet cables with a Kevlar cover to keep them safe from shark attacks.

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About a month ago, word broke that Samsung was interested in acquiring home automation firm SmartThings and today the two companies have made things official. A blog post by the company’s founder and CEO, Alex Hawkinson acknowledged the deal and stated that SmartThings will continue to act as an independent company under Samsung’s Open Innovation Center group.

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In the world of wireless, words like “unlimited data” have their restrictions if you take the time to read the fine print of a carrier’s service agreement and it appears that T-Mobile is not exempt from such practices. An alleged internal memo obtained by TmoNews details how the company will address customers suspected of using its network to access peer-to-peer file sharing services.

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Google’s Street View has been around for a little more than seven years and while Mountain View’s touring software has made a lot of progress since its launch, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Aware of this, a hearing aid manufacturer named Amplifon is looking to update Street View’s silent movie feel by introducing a new concept called “Sounds of Street View.”

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Eight months after announcing the 192-core Tegra K1 “super chip,” graphics chip maker NVIDIA has provided details about a new “Denver” edition that will be the first 64-bit ARM processor for Android devices. 
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Following an announcement back in December and some renders that popped up a few months back, today the USB 3.0 Promoter Group announced the next-generation USB “Type-C” connector is now ready for production. That means that PC and smartphone manufacturers can now adopt the standard, which the Promoter Group describes as “the final piece in developing a single-cable solution” for the industry.
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After stepping in last year to help save the highly troubled HealthCare.gov website, former Google site reliability engineer Mikey Dickerson is taking a job with the US government. Dickerson will lead a new team that will be tasked with identifying and repairing the government’s troubled websites and computer systems.

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Google is contributing to a $300 million project to develop and operate a Trans-Pacific high-speed internet cable system called “FASTER.” Other companies involved in the venture include China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, KDDI and SingTel, with NEC acting as the system supplier. This group effort will utilize a high-quality 6-fiber-pair cable and optical transmission technologies.

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In the company’s first transparency report, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has revealed some information regarding the site’s censorship under infamous European “right to be forgotten” laws — and it’s clear that he’s not very happy with the people who take advantage of them. This isn’t the first time Wales has spoken out against censorship, but now he’s making it very clear that he feels governments are going just a bit too far.

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Today, Google announced the 15 global finalists for its 2014 science fair and with participants ranging from 13-18 years old, this next generation of geniuses give a glimpse of just how bright the future might be. Useful entries like 15-year-old Kenneth Shinozuka’s wearable sensors that help healthcare providers keep track of Alzheimer’s patients who may unknowingly wander away demonstrate the type of forward-thinking being applied to this showcase.

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Photo: http://www.corporateofficeheadquarters.com

Google recently helped police in Houston, Texas catch a sex offender after tipping the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) that it had located explicit pictures of children in a man’s email. Although the search giant’s efforts helped catch a criminal, they’ve also made some people wonder if the company regularly monitors its subscribers’ email accounts.

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