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Mobile Phones Might Not Interfere With Planes, But They Sure Can Interfere With Pilots

You know how we’re not supposed to have our mobile phones on in the air? Right. There may not be very good reasons for that any more from a technology point of view (there used to be concerns about the impact on cell towers, but that can be solved today with picocells on the planes themselves). But, that still doesn’t mean that pilots should be texting while they fly. Is it better or worse than texting while driving? In an age where autopilots do most of the work on landing, perhaps it wouldn’t seem like a huge deal, but a Jetstar pilot landing a 220-seat Airbus A320 in Singapore had to abort the landing after realizing he forgot to lower the landing gear, because he was too busy responding to text messages. For whatever reason, the pilots shut off the autopilot, but then got distracted with text messages.

Somewhere between 2500 feet and 2000 feet, the captain’s mobile phone started beeping with incoming text messages, and the captain twice did not respond to the co-pilot’s requests.

The co-pilot looked over and saw the captain “preoccupied with his mobile phone”, investigators said. The captain told investigators he was trying to unlock the phone to turn it off, after having forgotten to do so before take-off.

At 1000 feet, the co-pilot scanned the instruments and felt “something was not quite right” but could not spot what it was.

There followed a series of errors, with the pilot and the co-pilot not communicating with each other — the pilot trying to drop the wheels as the co-pilot prepared to abort the landing — and then both pilots becoming confused about their actual altitude. Oh, and then there was the fact that the flaps were set incorrectly.

I’m not necessarily one to bemoan the way people get obsessed with text messaging these days, but I generally think that if you’re flying a commercial airplane, and taking it in for landing… it shouldn’t be that hard to know that it’s a good idea to not worry about your phone for five minutes.

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Source: http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20120419/15363418568/mobile-phones-might-not-interfere-with-planes-they-sure-can-interfere-with-pilots.shtml

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Win a New Samsung Galaxy S3 Smartphone from Brando

We’ve told you about countless gadgets offered by Brando, and now we want to tell you about a cool contest at Brando.  Customers who make a purchase at Brando will receive an entry into a random drawing to win a new Samsung Galaxy S3 Android smartphone.  The contest started May 15, but it doesn’t end [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2012/05/29/win-a-new-samsung-galaxy-s3-smartphone-from-brando/

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Denon turns up the volume with 11 new headphone models featuring iOS app integration

If you’re looking for something new to wrap around your noggin this coming season, then put it on your radar that Denon will be bringing 11 new sets of headphones to store shelves this August. That number might seem like quite a lot to digest, but it becomes a lot easier when broken down by category. First is the Exercise Freak lineup, a wrap-around earbud design that sells for $149 and will be available in black, blue and yellow. Beyond that, the company has three additional lineups — the Music Maniac, the Urban Raver and the Globe Cruiser — and each will be available in earbud and over-the-ear form factors. The Music Maniac headphones ($349 and $499) are designed to cater to audio purists with an acoustically flat signature. Most notable about the Music Maniac lineup is the top shelf Artisan model, which rings in at a healthy $1,199 and pits itself against other audiophile mainstays such as the Sennheiser HD800 and Audez’e LCD2. Meanwhile, the Urban Ravers ($249 and $399) place a heavy emphasis on bass, whereas the Globe Cruisers ($179 and $499) feature noise cancellation. As a nice touch, each of the models feature built-in microphones and volume controls.

Denon is supplying iOS apps for each family of headphones, which is a bit of a novel idea, but they vary significantly among lineups. Music Maniac purchasers will be treated to a music app that combines EQ adjustment and integration with TuneIn Radio, while the app for Urban Raver owners focuses on sharing and discovering new music via Facebook and Twitter. Globe Cruiser users will (oddly enough) be treated to a travel app, whereas Exercise Freak owners will find an app that features GPS integration for activity tracking. If it’s any redemption for the fragmented assortment of apps, Denon owners may purchase each individual selection in the App Store for $0.99. If your head isn’t spinning yet, feel free to check out the PR after the break.

Continue reading Denon turns up the volume with 11 new headphone models featuring iOS app integration

Denon turns up the volume with 11 new headphone models featuring iOS app integration originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/01/denon-releases-11-new-headphones-with-ios-apps/

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Auslogics Disk Defrag 3.2 gets smarter, faster

Auslogics Disk Defrag 3.2 gets smarter, faster originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/11/auslogics-disk-defrag-3-2-gets-smarter-faster/

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Sony to sell downloadable content at GameStops in Europe and Australia

Sony isn’t about to let Nintendo and PC games get a leg up on it in the downloadable content (DLC) arena. That’s why the company’s European arm (which also runs the show in Australia and New Zealand) is taking its digital wares to GameStop, where customers will be able to use cash, gift cards or trade credits to purchase activation codes for PlayStation Network games and add-ons. All told, some 1,600 stores in Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria and Switzerland will soon be offering the ability to purchase content usually ordered from the comfort of your couch and Crash Bandicoot boxer shorts. The complete PR awaits you after the break.

Continue reading Sony to sell downloadable content at GameStops in Europe and Australia

Sony to sell downloadable content at GameStops in Europe and Australia originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Jun 2012 07:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/02/sony-to-sell-downloadable-content-at-gamestops-in-europe-and-aus/

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Nano-SIMs Given Official Approval to Replace Micro-SIMs in Cellphones [Guts]

Remember nano-SIM cards? The ones which make micro-SIMs look gargantuan and are so small that it’s almost like what’s the point? Well they’ve just been approved by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, which means at some point in the future, they’ll likely be in your smartphone. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/1sgGNdM29FI/nano+sims-given-official-approval-to-replace-micro+sims-in-cellphones

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Rumored details on iPhone 5 processor chip, GPU, other under-the-hood hardware

Some details about the inner processor workings of the upcoming iPhone 5 have reached the rumor stage, including the next generation processor specs.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/-u7rQLEVonw/story01.htm

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Microsoft releases sexy Bing app for iPad

It’s still a bit odd seeing Microsoft deliver apps for Apple’s mobile platform. And it’s even stranger still to see one as sexy as the new Bing app for iPad, which brings a slick, immersive search experience to Apple’s tablet.

Just as a regular search on bing.com will, the Bing app for iPad tailors the results it displays based on what you’re searching for. There are loads of custom views, covering everything from movies and maps to weather and shopping. The app also offers a heads-up display of currently trending searches, complete with related images, which is an iPad-exclusive feature.

Navigation is a breeze thanks to multitouch controls, allowing users to flick or swipe through results. And while the development team refers to the app as “touch and decide,” Bing Voice Search is also built in — making it easy to start a query without using the iPad’s on-screen keyboard.

The Bing app for iPad is available for download now from the App Store.

Microsoft releases sexy Bing app for iPad originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/07/microsoft-releases-sexy-bing-app-for-ipad/

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Who Steals a Cigarette the Size of a Telephone Pole? [WTFriday]

Missing: 10-foot long, 150-pound wooden cigarette. Last Seen: the front yard of Silver Spring, MD resident Jeannie Roule. If you have any information: contact local authorities right away. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/x6Llkw47ANM/who-steals-a-cigarette-the-size-of-a-telephone-pole

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Tell The UN To Keep Its Hands Off The People’s Internet

Back in February, we wrote up a warning to “the internet as we know it” as the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) was looking to take over control of the internet, mainly at the behest of countries like Russia and China who were seeking a “more controlled” internet, rather than the very open internet we have today. The major concern was that almost no one in the US seemed to care about this or be paying much attention to it. The February call to action may not have done much, but the situation has certainly changed in the last couple of weeks.

Last week, the father of the internet, Vint Cerf, once again raised the alarm in both a NY Times op-ed and in a keynote speech at the Freedom to Connect (F2C) conference:

Last June, then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated the goal of Russia and its allies as “establishing international control over the Internet” through the I.T.U. And in September 2011, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan submitted a proposal for an “International Code of Conduct for Information Security” to the U.N. General Assembly, with the goal of establishing government-led “international norms and rules standardizing the behavior of countries concerning information and cyberspace.”

Word of a few other proposals from inside the I.T.U. have surfaced. Several authoritarian regimes reportedly would ban anonymity from the Web, which would make it easier to find and arrest dissidents. Others have suggested moving the privately run system that manages domain names and Internet addresses to the United Nations.

Such proposals raise the prospect of policies that enable government controls but greatly diminish the “permissionless innovation” that underlies extraordinary Internet-based economic growth to say nothing of trampling human rights.

Since then, the story has been getting much more attention in a variety of arenas, with plenty of other mainstream publications warning people about how bad this could be. Congress got into the act too (in a good way), holding hearings on the matter this week, with a near unanimous position that a UN/ITU takeover of the internet would be a very, very bad thing.

It would guarantee moving the internet towards a model of top-down control, rather than bottom up innovation. It would give governments much more say in controlling the internet, unlike the hands-off system we have now, where no government truly has full regulatory control over the internet. It would almost certainly lead to more global restriction on the internet, including serious potential impact on aspects of free expression and anonymous speech. It might also make the internet much more expensive, as the whole ITU setup is about protecting old national telco monopolies, and many would see this as an opportunity to try to put tollbooths on internet data.

The ITU is holding a meeting in December in Dubai about all of this, and it appears that US officials are finally waking up to why this is a true threat to the open internet.

But it needs to go beyond that. The positioning of this discussion from ITU supporters is that the US government has “too much control” over the internet today. And one could argue that’s true at the margins, though it’s an exaggeration. For the most part the US government does not have much ability to control the internet directly. Now, I think plenty of people agree that the setup of ICANN and IETF are hardly ideal. In fact, they’ve got significant problems. But moving from that setup to one where the ITU is in charge would be a massive step backwards.

And, certainly, there is significant irony in the fact that Congress is suddenly acting so concerned about fundamental attacks on an open internet — when many of the same officials were more than happy to toss out key principles of an open and free internet in the past few months with SOPA/PIPA/CISPA/etc. But, in this case, worrying about political consistency is a lot less important than stopping the ITU proposal from going forward.

When the US government started seizing domains, there was significant criticism of ICANN and calls for a more decentralized solution that no one could control. The move towards ITU oversight is a move in the opposite direction. It would make things significantly worse and not better.

For those in the US, we need to speak up and keep the pressure on our elected officials to fight this move in the ITU. While they’re saying the right things now, we need to be vigilant and ensure it continues. Trust me, the “irony” of their own attacks on internet freedom and openness have not gone unnoticed by supporters of this ITU takeover plan. Expect them to offer “deals” to the US, by which the ITU gets control over the internet, in exchange for allowing the US to use that process to move forward with efforts to censor the internet for copyright reasons, as well as to get better backdoors to data for snooping.

For those outside of the US, it’s also time to speak up. Don’t fall for the easy story that this is just about wresting the control from US interests. If you believe in the value of a free and open internet, the ITU is not the answer. You, too, will inevitably be significantly worse off with what results.

The folks over at Access have put together a petition to tell the UN that the internet belongs to us, the people, not to the UN or the governments of the world. While the UN is not as subject to public opinion, if the world speaks out loudly enough against this effort to capture and control the internet, it won’t be able to move forward. But people have to speak out to make this happen.

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Source: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120601/10182719172/tell-un-to-keep-its-hands-off-peoples-internet.shtml

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