| by Andrew Roach on May 24, 2013
|
 |
|
The debates surrounding online privacy have been numerous in recent months with watchdogs and industry experts investigating ways to improve and monitor the issue.
In the latest twist, a report by the Privacy Commissioner has slammed the current privacy laws that are in place to protect individuals.
During the unveiling of the results, Commissioner Jennifer Stoddard felt that the regulations were outdated and weren’t prepared to deal with access to the Internet from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
There has been a lot of talk about refreshing online privacy regulations as more and more Canadians are using whatever device possible to access the Internet in their daily lives. [click to continue…]
| by Matt Klassen on May 24, 2013
|
|  |
|
The rats have officially starting fleeing HTC’s sinking ship, as a torrential exodus of executives has left the Android partner reeling and the tech world asking serious questions about the company’s future. In fact things are apparently so bad at HTC that one fleeing executive took to Twitter, urging his fellow colleagues to likewise depart.
The latest to head for the hills is HTC Asia CEO Lennard Hoornik, who now becomes at least the sixth senior executive to leave the company in the last few weeks. Among the others is product manager Erin Lin, whose fears about the impending self-destruction of HTC motivated him to issue the tweet telling his compatriots to head for the escape pods.
Expectedly, the departure of so much high level leadership has left HTC in a chaotic mess, and it has many in the tech world wondering what sparked the mass exodus. While some point to recent changes instituted by the company’s new CMO Ben Ho, changes that included moving some strategic offices in Seattle back to the company’s headquarters in Taipei, as the reason behind the chaos, the more obvious cause is the spectacular failure of the company’s much ballyhooed HTC One Facebook phone.
[click to continue…]
| by Istvan Fekete on May 24, 2013
|
|
|
The demand for a mobile payment solution is apparently very high on Canadian soil. As two PayPal studies show — one released last year, and the second one recently — Canadians are ready to go cashless. In fact, there is a significant rise in the percentage of mobile users who are losing interest in their wallets.
Last year, a PayPal study found that more than 70% of Canadians are ready to drop cash and use digital payment instead. This number is up from 27% recorded in 2011.
This year, the number of Canadians ready to go cashless rose to 87%, according to the PayPal survey. What’s interesting though, is that it’s mostly the younger generation (aged between 18 and 24) who are ready to go cashless.
The unfortunate news is that Canadian businesses aren’t quite ready to receive payments through mobile phones, as the majority of those surveyed admitted that they couldn’t pay for purchases with their mobile phone.
But how does the mobile payments solutions stack up in Canada?
[click to continue…]
| by Matt Klassen on May 23, 2013
|
|
|
Trying desperately to avoid rejection by Clearwire shareholders, Sprint sweetened its offer to buy the 50 percent of the company it doesn’t already own on Tuesday, representing the company’s “best and final” offer according to CEO Dan Hesse. In an attempt to wrest shareholder interest away from competing offers from Dish Network and Verizon, Sprint raised its bid for full control over Clearwire to $3.40 a share, which values Sprint’s proposed new stake at $2.5 billion. This stands as a substantial increase over its original offer of $2.97 a share and 10 cents more a share than Dish’s competing bid.
This new bid highlights the resistance Sprint has faced over the past several months in its attempts at a full takeover of Clearwire, as while many shareholders were on board with Sprint’s initial offer, approximately half of the investors not named Sprint (24% overall) were unhappy with the deal, this revised bid offered before the Clearwire shareholder vote on Tuesday now serving as a tacit admission that Sprint knew its initial proposal was bound to fail.
While this sweetened deal unequivocally demonstrates Sprint’s commitment to Clearwire, or rather its desire for the latter’s spectrum assets, it still does little to clear up the ongoing Sprint/Dish Network saga, as not only is Dish Network competing with Sprint to purchase Clearwire, its competing with Japan’s Softbank to acquire Sprint as well!
[click to continue…]
| by Jeff Wiener on May 23, 2013
|
| |
|
Looking to boost the wireless signal coming into your home? Forget switching providers or upgrading your router, upgrade the windows in your home instead. Always looking for ways to incorporate our growing technological existence with, well, our real existence, Ericsson has come up with some ideas of how to make our windows do more for us. I mean, transparent rectangles of glass that let in light and offer a glimpse of the outside world…that’s so yesterday’s news.
At this week’s CTIA 2013, the annual trade show hosted by the so named international non-profit trade association representing the wireless industry, we’ve seen several interesting announcements, but to this point none more so in my mind than Ericsson’s prototype ‘smart windows.’
The exhibit, predictably titled “Windows of Opportunity,” showcases several research prototypes for these smart windows, one’s that incorporate antennae and other such signal boosting technology, in the hopes that others will be inspired to take up the mantle of building practical products that support our connected everything existence.
[click to continue…]
| by Istvan Fekete on May 23, 2013
|
|
|
The Telus–Mobilicity deal was an interesting turn of events, but wasn’t unexpected. Reactions were mixed from both consumers and industry players, but WIND Mobile has grabbed the moment to boost the marketing campaign for its own services by attracting confused Mobilicity subscribers to its own network.
“Mobilicity clients, don’t sweat the future of your plans & services. Switch to WIND & receive up to $365 in savings,” posted WIND Mobile on Twitter. The link, inserted at the end of the tweet, opens a page created especially for Mobilicity customers, and it emphasizes the top five reasons to switch to WIND.
Fact is, WIND Mobile has a larger network than Mobilicity, although this argument will have no basis when the deal receives the green light from the Competition Bureau, Industry Canada, and Mobilicity’s debtholders. Also, by switching to WIND, customers will receive a free SIM card (valued at $25) and one month’s plan fees for free, which could mean up to $40 in savings.
[click to continue…]
The debates surrounding online privacy have been numerous in recent months with watchdogs and industry experts investigating ways to improve and monitor the issue.
