Verizon’s Turn-By-Turn Driving software for its phones – VZ Navigator – has some tough competition. Several years ago, it seemed like Garmin ran the GPS show. And with the announcement of Google Navigate on Android Phones, which is a FREE service, why would anyone pay for VZ Navigator? I’m sure Verizon could list a billion reasons, but let us share one rather interesting reason with you that is hot off the presses: VZ Navigator VX.
Their “Virtual City Driving” actually looks really cool:
Same goes for their freeway views:
And of COURSE they are demoing the new app on a precious Droid Incredible.
Personally, I’m content with my free Google Navigation and I’ve really grown to like it. As long as I get from point A to point B efficiently, I don’t REALLY care if I’m doing it seeing 2D maps or 3D cartoons. I must admit those freeway signs and other features are tempting in terms of convenience factor, but I won’t likely stray from Google Maps. Plus the crazy kids at Google are always have cool stuff in the works and I’m sure their drafting up Google Nav improvements as we speak (or I type, and you read).
I’m always excited when we can get our advent decorations down from the loft. Our kids have really got into the whole “counting the days” experience and get up early each morning to see what is behind the new window on their calendar.
While they get ever more excited, I like to use the time to try and reflect on the year gone by. This inevitably turns to the various fun gadgets, toys and technology that has passed through out house.
2010 for us has been one punctuated with various LEGO Games (Shave a Sheep is still a regular favorite), a clutch of family friendly Wii titles and a smattering of classic board games. The end of the year has been all about trying new gaming technolgy out as we put MotionPlus, then Move and finally Kinect through their paces. All in all it has been quite a year in our GeekDad household.
Thinking this through, I struck upon the idea of an Advent Countdown Competition to help us remember some of this great technology as well as warm up our expectations for Christmas.
Well, one thing led to another and I ended up creating something of a monster contest with Kinect as our grand prize. I hope you enjoy entering as much as I have enjoyed setting it up.
Well, folks, the tallies are in. It was a long road, with many brutal battles and war scars, but we finally have a winner in the Ultimate Android Throwdown.
The HTC Evo 4G on Sprint has staked its claim as the #1 Android device in the US, not only available now, but of all time. The Evo beat out the Nexus One in the final round, with a face-melting 467 votes, in comparison to the 273 taken for the Nexus One. While we can all agree that the Nexus One was and still is an outstanding phone, the masses have spoken, and it’s the HTC Evo 4G that has risen above all the others to be declared the best Android phone in the United States.
Be sure to hit up the break for the final leaderboard, and see where the votes came from and how the HTC Evo 4G on Sprint was finally declared as the winner. Let us know what you think in the comments!
Qualcomm is now accepting submissions into their Augmented Reality Developer Competition. Contestants simply develop apps using augmented reality to make compelling real-world applications. You can participate in this contest and develop apps for an Android device. Click here to download the SDK and get started.
The deadline for the contest is January 7th, 2011. The first place winner will be announced at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and receive a cash prize of $125,000. Pretty good reward for creativity right?
Official rules and a submission site can be found here.
You guys may have noticed the small banner in our side bar for the MobileAppShowdown to be held at CES 2011 in Las Vegas. What you may not know yet is that yours truly (yes, thats me) will be one of the honored judges of this event along with a number of other respected members of the technology world and the Android community. So please spread the word and let’s make this an amazingly successful event.
As you probably already know, Mobile App Showdown offers 10 developers a chance to showcase their Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Palm OS, or Windows Phone 7 apps live on the CES stage. In addition to show coverage, developers also get vetted and reviewed by a panel of 11 esteemed mobile review publishers. That’s some pretty sweet exposure baby.
Three of you could be entered for FREE:
To kick off the event, three app developers will get their Mobile App Showdown entry fee waived through the Twittersphere.
So what do you have to do to get FREE entry?
Create a blog post with an app description, download link and why they deserve to be in Mobile App Showdown;
Tweet the following: “Pls RT: @netshelter pick [your app] for #mobileshowdown [then add your blog post link]”
Get friends to retweet the above
Is It that simple? …..Almost…..
You must also be available to present the app onstage at CES, and you’re application has to be in the appstore by Q2 2011.
If you want to know more information about this competition and the MobileAppShowdown event including the rules you must abide by, be sure to head over to the mobileappshowdown site.
It is that time of year again, and we here at GeekDad are big fans of pumpkin carving and even bigger fans of pumpkin carving competitions and as GeekDad isn’t running a competition this year you may want to consider entering the App-O’-Lanterns.
App-O’-Lanterns is the brainchild of application development company BabyBinks, who are the designers of Stork Drop and more recently, Zombies Vs. Literacy. The idea came about to have a competition this year, after last year around Halloween they carved their Stork Drop app logo into a pumpkin as way of promotion. Now it is getting out of control!
The aim of the competition is to highlight and promote the independent developers of children’s apps, which is something GeekDad is always happy to do. There are some great small time GeekMom and GeekDad developers out there producing some high quality apps with great educational value. All you have to do is get carving and submit a photo of your “app”ropriately carved pumpkin.
Winners will receive a stack of promo codes for some great children’s apps. GeekDad have also been invited onto the judging panel, so we look forward to seeing your entries roll in and helping make the final decisions. Check out the rules and get carving.
Splash Duel HD is like a hybrid of Breakout and air hockey. In many ways it combines the best of both games and creates a very addicting experience.
Just like Breakout you must bounce balls off of bricks with a paddle. Splash Duel HD is set in an underwater world, so expect a coral background and the steady sound of the deep as background noise. It is fairly easily controlled, however from time to time it seemed like the paddle was not quite keeping up with finger movements. Instead of just racking up points by breaking bricks the ultimate goal is to get balls past your opponent to score points. When time expires the player (human or computer) with the most points wins the game.
There are plenty of ways to up the action during a round. By breaking certain bricks fish with extra powers are released. Included are extra balls, lasers to zap bricks, racket-widening and shields. Not all the aquatic gifts are positive, however. Some will shrink the paddle or wreak other havoc on your gameplay. The game’s information section also displays manually activated bonuses, such as shields or other boosts to your skills.(…) Read the rest of Brick-Breaking Competition Awaits with Splash Duel HD
TmoNews has posted another comparison from T-Mobile of their new G2 stacked against the latest-greatest of the mobile world to date. You can see the main differences from the chart, however, it appears as though they left out one of the most feature packed phones to come out, Yes, I mean the HTC Desire HD.
I can see why it was left out. It makes the G2 look a little under-dressed for the ball.
If you wanted an objective opinion, as posted here yesterday, Droidthing.com doesn’t show the G2 in their list to compare yet, but I’m sure they’re working on it.
If you had any doubts that the HTC Desire HD was going to be fast you can throw them out the window as Quadrant benchmark scores are already in for the newly announced handset. It looks like the next generation of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon pulls its weight in this one with its larger cache and GPU speed optimizations. The Desire HD easily bests an unmodified Nexus One running Froyo and tops out with a score right around 2,000 on Quadrant’s arbitrary scale, making it the fastest stock Android handset we have ever seen.
And why wait to get the Desire HD’s Froyo build on an actual Desire HD when it has already been ported to the HD2? Sure, it won’t be nearly as fast as the actual HD, but you can pretend. The rumblings surrounding the ROM give major props to the new version of HTC Sense. We’re sure you can expect it to start making its way to other rooted handsets as well as those crafty developers have their way with it.
Nokia dials in to competition with revamped smartphones
Finnish cellphone giant Nokia on Tuesday unveiled its latest range of smartphones as it bids to recover lost ground to rivals Apple and Blackberry.
The competition for this is all about protection as we know how important it is We have a number of WrapSol, ZAGG and INCIPIO cased covering the Google Nexus One, HTC EVO and as we have them anyway, Some for the iPhone 3G/3GS. Yes, you heard us right, we are also giving away iPhone covers so hit up your iPhone wielding friends and ask them if the want a case or cover. We have em so why not give em away.
All you have to do to win this device is be living in the USA, have a Twitter Account and be following AndroidSPIN and AndroidBBQ on Twitter to win this prize.
As an added bonus, we will also be giving away 2 Big Android BBQ tickets for you and a friend with each weekly AndroidSPIN Give-Away. No changes to the tweeted message, simply follow the same instructions below.
All you have to do is re-tweet the following:
Im Following @AndroidSPIN and @AndroidBBQ to win a case for my Nexus, EVO or iPhone #Android #wrapsol #ZAGG #incipio #iPhone
There is no limit to the number of times you can retweet the message. In fact, the more times you retweet, the more entries you have. A random winner will be chosen on September 18th, 2010.
While you’re at it, why don’t you give us a quick “like” on Facebook too? You can never get too much Android news.
So how many of you downloaded Angry Birds (lite) for Android today? If you did and are feeling competitive, then head on over to the forums (Not a member? Register, duh) and take part in our Angry Birds for Android competition thread. There’s no prize, just bragging rights that you’re the angriest, Angry Birds player out there.
You may have seen the review of the Arkon Mobile Mounting Products a couple of weeks ago, well now it’s time for one of you lucky people to get one for yourselves. You must be living in the USA, have a Twitter Account and be Following AndroidSPIN and AndroidBBQ on Twitter to win this prize. We do have a selection of different models to choose from, so the winner will have the choice of Windshield mounts, Dashboard mounts and Vent mounts.
As an added bonus, we will also be giving away 2 Big Android BBQ tickets for you and a friend with each weekly AndroidSPIN Give-A-way. No changes to the tweeted message, simply follow the same instructions below.
All you have to do is re-tweet the following:
Im Following @AndroidSPIN and @AndroidBBQ to win an Arkon Universal Car Mount #Android #Arkon
There is no limit to the number of times you can retweet the message. In fact, the more times you retweet, the more entries you have. A random winner will be chosen on September 5, 2010.
While your at it, why don’t you give us a quick “like” on Facebook too. You can never get too much Android news.
Ross Daly and his winning entry, The Minifridge Beer Dispenser
The GeekDad/Ponoko/Sparkfun competition poll has now closed and there was no need for a recount – the voting public chose the Minifridge Beer Dispenser as the clear winner, picking up 45% of the vote, three times more than the second place entry.
The Minifridge Beer Dispenser is the brainchild of Ross Daly, aka tinyernormous and when we broke the good news to him we took the opportunity to find out more about him and his project.
So Ross, tell our readers a bit more about yourself. I am a visual effects artist during the day, and a geek at night. I blog at blog.tinyenormous.com about all kinds of photography, microcontroller, and robotics hacks. I live in Boulder, CO and I’m 30.
What was your inspiration for designing the beer dispenser? I like to think of (relatively) simple solutions to common problems. In this case it really strikes me how many mini fridges are bought and discarded as waves and waves of kids go to college. Hopefully this will either encourage them to keep them for longer, or to give other people a reason to buy them and keep them out of landfills.
How long did it take to build the prototype? The prototype took a few hours to print and build, but it has taken FOREVER to design. I have been thinking about it for over a year, and trying to keep the electronics part count down while making it reliable has really been a learning process. Along the way I stumbled across 507 mechanical movements, and I have taken a lot of inspiration from that.
What do think will be toughest part of the build? I have been laying out the design in illustrator, and the toughest part will definitely be getting the tolerances for laser cutting figured out correctly. I have been designing it with captive nut joints but I am certain that there will be a bit of duct tape and grinding involved in the final product!
How do you hope to improve on your prototype? I hope to get the fit figured out for the prototype, and to do a test to ensure that the pieces that slide well in foamcore still slide well when they are cut out of 3mm acrylic. The programming aspect should be fairly simple. I have done a lot of projects based on the Arduino platform. I’m far from an efficient coder, but I can make it work most of the time. The beer dispensing side of the machine should be easy, while the internet connectivity and stock levels aspect could be more difficult.
Ross has promised to well-document the build and final product, so keep an eye out for it in the future.
A big thank you from all of us here at GeekDad to everyone who entered the competition and to Ponoko and Sparkfun for supplying Ross with the materials he needs to build his dream beer dispenser!
Consolidation over the past decade has left just four big carriers in control of 90 percent of the wireless market, making it harder for small and regional companies to compete, according to a government report released Thursday.
The study by the Government Accountability Office (pdf), the investigative arm of Congress, could help fuel the FCC’s recent efforts to increase oversight of the wireless industry. The FCC is currently considering rules that would require wireless phone companies to alert consumers before they reach roaming or data usage limits. It has also been looking into common industry practices such as charging consumers early termination fees to break a service contract before it expires.
The GAO study found that despite the industry consolidation, consumers are benefiting from better wireless coverage and prices that are half what they were in 1999. The report says the number of cell phone subscribers in the U.S. stood at 285 million at the end of 2009, up from 3.5 million in 1989. It also says that nearly 40 percent of U.S. households rely on a cell phone as a primary phone.
Although the GAO reached no firm conclusion on the causes of limited competition in the wireless sector, it does list a number of factors regularly cited by smaller carriers and consumer groups. Those include early termination fees and handset exclusivity deals such as AT&T Inc.’s contract with Apple Inc. to serve as the sole U.S. carrier for the iPhone.
The average monthly revenue for U.S. cellular service has averaged near $45/month for the last 10 years, as voice revenue decreased and data revenue increased.
The report discusses:
How the wireless industry has changed since 2000 and the implications of those changes on competition and consumers
Stakeholders’ perceptions of the effect of various regulatory policies and industry practices on the wireless industry and consumers
Strategies FCC has employed to monitor and oversee competition in the wireless industry.
Three senior Democratic members of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee — Representatives Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Rick Boucher of Virginia, and Henry Waxman of California — praised the report.
The CTIA responded, “In finding that wireless consumers are seeing ‘lower prices and better coverage,’ today’s GAO report confirms what we’ve been saying for a long time – that the U.S. wireless industry is extremely competitive and continues to respond to increasing consumer demand by delivering real benefits for American consumers.”
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) agreed with the GAO’s report. “All other wireless carriers are critically dependent on the big two carriers (AT&T & Verizon) for wireline broadband access and transport, and their largely deregulated rates are just too high — especially in rural areas,” said Ed Black, president of CCIA.
The GAO report, which was requested by members of the Senate and House Commerce Committees, urges the FCC to collect better data on special access rates and other issues.
Entries are now closed for our design competition in association with Ponoko and Sparkfun, but the competition isn’t over yet! We’ve selected our favourite 10 entries from the GeekDad Flickr pool and the comments left on the post, and now it’s up to you, the readers, to pick the overall winner.
Have a look at the list below and choose who you think should receive all the parts they need to build their winning design!
A big thank you from all of us here at GeekDad to everyone who took the time to enter, we wish you could all win, but in the words of the immortals, “there can be only one!”
Wall Tetris gradion saw Sparkfun’s picture frame Tetris and wanted something bigger, so he came up with Wall Tetris:
“This is a 1.2m (4ft) wall mounted Tetris game board powered by 2 x AVR ATMega168’s (1 for main board, 1 for score) and a bunch of FET’s to turn on the 200 leds. The resolution is a mighty 0.25 pixels per inch (each square is 2×2in) Considering replacing most of the control circuitry with a mondomatrix led matrix or two. Game controller is Sparkfun Nordic FOB or mobile phone running Java program as it has a Sparkfun Blusmirf too.”
Minifridge Dispenser tinyenormous has prototyped a arduino-controlled minifridge beer dispenser:
“The idea behind this is that most college students buy a mini-fridge freshman year and then sell it sophomore or junior year. This way they can turn their freshman mini-fridge into a senior beer vending machine!”
BART Display
San Franciscan’s will love ptterb’s personal BART Transit Display box:
“Anyone who takes pubic transportation – even on occasion – KNOWS what it’s like to miss the train by just seconds! It happens all the time. I’d like to make a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) display to sit at my cubicle (and one at home!) and show me when the next few trains are arriving.”
Micro CNC Mill cruz.m has mocked up a small and cheap CNC machine:
“This is a render in Solidworks of a Desktop-sized, low priced CNC machine, inspired by the Mantis 9. Except for the X and Y stepper motors, the footprint is a 1′ cube.
To be primarily used for milling out circuit boards, but could be also used for engraving other materials.”
Giant Crane Game marc.cryan built a whole room crane game for his daughters and now he wants to improve on it:
“A giant Crane Game style robot that will pick up toys and drop them in the toybin.I’ve built a one-axis version.
I used salvaged parts and I took the whole thing apart when I was done with it. Since then my girls have been asking “Daddy can we play with the robot arm?”
I would like to build a more permanent version with some improvements. Mainly – 3 Axis movement, Wireless control, position sensing, RF ID’d toys, and re-chargable batteries with a charging station in the ‘home’ position.”
Braille Embosser Wumpus McGrue’s entry is a very useful Braille embossing machine:
Giant Periscope marc.cryan gets a second place in the Top 10 with his solar-powered rooftop periscope:
“Roof mounted camera with pan and tilt, the display is inside the house…
Also it should have a button to turn down the volume on the TV…
Everything should have a button to turn down the volume on the TV…”
Train LED Nameplate dalucero wants to make a light up nameplate for his son’s bedroom:
“My son loves trains. I love making things. Inside this box are two engraved sheets of acrylic plexiglass. Around the edges of the glass (inside the box) are strips of LEDs. As the LEDs shine into the edge of the glass, the light passes through to the engraving and is reflected outward lighting it up.”
Pizza Leveller exastify needed away to keep his pizza level on the way back from the takeaway, and this is what he came up with:
“My brother and I love our local pizza place, Tony’s New York Pizza! We go there at least once a month, but there always has been a problem… sliding cheese.
You see, when you have great pizza like this, you can’t just throw it in the back seat where the pizza sit tilted, as all the cheese will smoosh to one side. That’s why I’m the official pizza-leveler, accompanying my brother to the pizza place, just to keep the pizza level on the drive home. Well now I have a solution!”
Wirewords patrickandrews came up with a simple way to make light up lettering:
“Units such as those on the left of the diagram can be attached to a pegboard-type background in a variety of layouts (including that of the seven-segment arrangement shown on the right).
A wire, light-up cable or tube is looped around these units, either through the hidden or visible side of each.”
Now you’ve seen the Top 10, it’s time to pick your favorite using the poll below, you’ve got until midnight on Sunday 22nd to vote and we’ll announce the winner shortly after that.
We’ve had some great entries in so far for our geeky design competition with Ponoko and Sparkfun, but don’t worry, there are still a few days left for you to add yours and be in with the chance of winning the materials you’ll need to make it.
The basic idea of the competition is for you to come up with a great geeky concept that utilizes the laser cut sheet materials from Ponoko’s range, combined with electronic gadgetry from the Sparkfun catalog. It can be anything you like; a toy, a piece of furniture, a work of art, or whatever else you can think of!
Legturn by patrickandrews
Submit a photo, render, sketch or scribble on a napkin to the GeekDad pool on Flickr (and tag it ‘ponoko’) or leave a description of it in a comment below before the end of the weekend, and a panel of judges will then select a Top 10 to go before a public vote to choose the winner.
The winner will then receive all the parts they need to build their creation for free!
So, get your propeller caps on and start scribbling!
Remember, to get something made on Ponoko, you’ll need to be able to submit your design in an EPS or SVG format. There’s plenty of ‘how to‘ information on the site to guide you, but if you get really stuck, we can help out with the winning entry.
As BlackBerry users, we’re on the edge of our seat waiting for Research In Motion to deliver us all BlackBerry 6. Over at Android Central however, there has been a constant flow of new devices pouring in. Android Central has given us a Samsung Captivate review as well as a Samsung Vibrant review to look over. Now since this is CrackBerry, we like to take a look at what else is out there from time and time and consider what other platforms are doing. Given the sheer amount of Android devices turning up these days, it’s rather hard to ignore.
Some BlackBerry users have turned former BlackBerry users because the Android platform does offer a lot. BlackBerry still maintains a great market share as well as a huge core audience. So, we’re putting this out there for those of you considering the possibility of taking on Android.
If there were things that you could take from Android, what would it be? Would it be the super AMOLED screens? Maybe even just larger screen sizes? What about the customization options or does BlackBerry do fine in that are? Let us know what you all think in the comments folks. It’ll be interesting to see what some of you would like to see. And of course, if you need to learn more about Android, check out Android Central.
As BlackBerry users, we’re on the edge of our seat waiting for Research In Motion to deliver us all BlackBerry 6. Over at Android Central however, there has been a constant flow of new devices pouring in. Android Central has given us a Samsung Captivate review as well as a Samsung Vibrant review to look over. Now since this is CrackBerry, we like to take a look at what else is out there from time and time and consider what other platforms are doing. Given the sheer amount of Android devices turning up these days, it’s rather hard to ignore.
Some BlackBerry users have turned former BlackBerry users because the Android platform does offer a lot. BlackBerry still maintains a great market share as well as a huge core audience. So, we’re putting this out there for those of you considering the possibility of taking on Android.
If there were things that you could take from Android, what would it be? Would it be the super AMOLED screens? Maybe even just larger screen sizes? What about the customization options or does BlackBerry do fine in that are? Let us know what you all think in the comments folks. It’ll be interesting to see what some of you would like to see. And of course, if you need to learn more about Android, check out Android Central.
If you’re looking for something to do this this summer with your kids, and you want to appeal to their gamer sides, consider entering them in the HASTAC Digital Media and Learning Game Changers Kids Competition. Working together with Sony and EA, the games selected for the competition are Spore and Little Big Planet.
According to Ruby Sinreich, Director of New Media Strategy at HASTAC, “The competition is ideal for kids who love games or computers or code and are looking for something exciting and new to do for the summer.”
The deadline for the competition has been extended until 5pm EDT August 31. Entrants must be 18 years or younger. Winners will get a shiny new PSP-3000!
Our Ponoko/SparkFun design competition has only been running for a week and already we’ve got some great looking entries in the GeekDad Flickr pool, and we’ve picked out a few here to share with everyone.
In case you missed the announcement, the idea of the competition is for you to design a geeky gadget, kids toy, piece of furniture, work of art or anything else you can come up, using the range of sheet materials that Ponoko offer combined with electronic components from Sparkfun.
Dalucero wants to make a train-based light up door sign for his son
How to enter
All you have to do is add your sketches, product photos, or final design images to our Flickr pool (or leave a comment on this page if all you have are words) before the closing date of the 31st of July.
Judging
Then a panel of judges from GeekDad and Ponoko will pick a Top 10 from all the entries and we’ll post a poll for everyone to vote for the winner on. So get ready to vote for your favorite!
To be considered for the Top 10, your idea needs to be able to be made on Ponoko. This means your idea needs to be able to be uploaded and made from Ponoko sheet materials, and include SparkFun components. To upload your design to Ponoko, it needs to be in an EPS or SVG format. There’s plenty of ‘how to’ information to guide you, but if you get really stuck, we can help out with the winning entry.
Patrick has built a complete chess playing robot!
The prize
The winner will receive all of the parts made by Ponoko and the components from SparkFun needed to build their creation, for free. And take the crown of the best geeky gadget!
So, that’s what we’ve seen so far. Think you can do better? Then get your entries in pronto!
We’ve mentioned Ponoko.com (the world’s easiest making system) here on GeekDad a few times over the last few months, so imagine how excited we were when they contacted us with an offer of a fantastic prize for a design competition?
The competition ties in with the launch of a new extended materials catalog that includes electronic gadgetry from SparkFun, as well as their usual timbers, plastics, fabrics, metals and other sheet materials.
Pepe Chair by Stuff
Have you got a bright idea for an electronic masterpiece, a gadget, a gizmo or even a work of art? Maybe you love the idea of getting one of your kids doodles made into a 3D toy? Maybe you want to make them a unique piece of furniture? Or, maybe, just maybe, your favourite cat just needs a special shelf all to himself.
Whatever your thinking is, submit your best idea for a product to be made using Ponoko and electronics from SparkFun and you could get it made for free.
To enter the competition, post your idea to the GeekDad flickr pool and tag it ‘ponoko’. You can post sketches, product photos, or final design images to flickr. Or, if all you have is a description of your concept, leave it in a comment below. A Top 10 will be chosen by a panel of judges from Geekdad and Ponoko, and then we’ll set up a poll so that all you readers out there can vote for the overall winner.
Owen by kyle koch
It’s the first time Ponoko has offered non-sheet materials. And what’s more, they’re adding the entire SparkFun inventory list to their catalog at the same prices as buying direct from SparkFun. This means you can now source all of the parts you need to make your geeky products, all from one place. There’s no change to the way Ponoko works, you upload your design and select flat sheet materials. Then you have the new option to select SparkFun components to add to your order. You’ll get a total price, you check out your order, and all of the items will be delivered to directly to you.
More than 50,000 user generated goods have been made so far using the Ponoko system. See what others have made and get inspired in the showroom.
Bandit ruler by Spunique
One thing you need to know. To get something made on Ponoko, you’ll need to be able to submit your design in an EPS or SVG format. There’s plenty of ‘how to‘ information on the site to guide you, but if you get really stuck, we can help out with the winning entry.
You’ve got four weeks to get creative. Just make sure you post your idea the end of July, the closing date it the 31st.
No surprise, but Sprint is gearing up for the launch of the aptly named Samsung Epic 4G, and they want all of their employees to know how truly apt that name is. The above comparison chart touts some of the major features of America’s second 4G phone, and it can certainly handle itself against it’s big brother Evo 4G, as well as the iPhone 4, Droid Incredible, and Droid X. It’s Super AMOLED screen will be a spectacular blend of size and quality and the slide-out QWERTY will be great for those types that need the soothing touch of an all-natural keyboard. An interesting feature is the DLNA support rather than the HDMI, good for those with compliant technology but not so great for those that don’t. Still, as this market still hasn’t blossomed quite yet, either way isn’t really a deal breaker.The observant reader will also notice it mentions the same $10 Premium Data charge associated with the Evo, sure to be a mandatory add on for all 4G phones.
Innovation in and around devices and applications: Handset manufacturers have introduced a growing number of new smartphones — 67 in 2008 and 2009.
Transition to a data-centric market: Data traffic has grown significantly, with the increased adoption of smartphones.
Role of spectrum for mobile broadband: Especially as mobile wireless broadband usage grows, access to spectrum becomes increasingly important for competition. Most of the spectrum below 1 GHz, in both the cellular band and the 700 MHz band, is not widely held.
Maturation of the mobile voice segment: As of the end of 2008, 90 percent of Americans had a mobile wireless device.
Continued industry concentration: There appears to be increasing concentration in the mobile wireless market. One widely-used measure of industry concentration indicates that concentration has increased 32 percent since 2003 and 6.5 percent in 2008.
Robust capital investment but declining relative to industry size: Providers continue to invest significant capital in networks, despite the recent economic downturn. One source reports capital investment at around $25 billion in both 2005 and 2008, while another shows that capital investment declined from around $25 billion to around $20 billion during the same period.
Competition in the U.S. wireless industry has eroded and is worsening due to continuing consolidation and concentration among companies, said the report.
In a written statement (pdf), Michael Copps, one of three Democrats on the five-member panel, said some findings are worrying.
“Specifically, the report confirms something I have been warning about for years — that competition has been dramatically eroded and is seriously endangered by continuing consolidation and concentration in our wireless markets,” he said.
Verizon was ready with a statement:
“The U.S. has the most intensely competitive wireless market on the planet, and it’s becoming more competitive by the day. New devices and new apps hit the market constantly. Prices keep falling and usage keeps rising.
Competition is bringing enormous benefits to consumers, as reflected in the American Consumer Satisfaction Index’s new report showing wireless customer satisfaction is at an all-time high. The facts and the record establish conclusively that the wireless marketplace is ‘effectively competitive,’ as the FCC has found in the previous six wireless competition reports.
We look forward to reading the report and hope that it accurately reflects the dynamism and competitiveness of this evolving industry.”
The CTIA said:
“We believe the Commission missed an opportunity today to truly highlight one of the few glowing examples of investment, innovation and consumer choice in the U.S. economy. While we understand that the Commission is not making any conclusion about the state of competition in the market, nor are they suggesting that the marketplace has changed to the detriment of consumers during 2008, we nonetheless are disappointed and confused as to why they’ve chosen not to make a finding of ‘effective competition’ for that year.
The report, (summary), reflects market conditions existing in 2008 and much of 2009.
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