4G

During a 90-minute presentation on Wednesday at Apple headquarters, Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s latest thinner MacBook Air 11-inch and 13-inch models, along with the new operating system. The redesigned Mac notebook combines features from the iPhone and iPad with those of a MacBook. The new MacBook Air features a multi-touch that offers you an iPad/iPhone-like experience. Instead of a hard drive, the new thinner, lighter and expensive Mac laptop uses flash storage. Jobs said that all notebooks will be like this someday and added that the Air is the future of the MacBook and all laptops. ...

One unique security feature of Android is the permission check when installing 3rd party apps. The system lists all permissions that an app requires and asks the user to check if that’s alright. Such permissions are the ability to receive your location, send or receive text messages, internet access, phone calls and many more. The user can be sure that the app is not doing any of such activities without the appropriate permission. In case the developer forgets to add a particular permission then the operating system will simply block the corresponding function which leads to a “Force Close”, which means the app will be terminated. ...

Video chatting is on the rise. Yesterday, we got to take a look at Qik’s mobile video chat client for the Sprint EVO 4G, and today, we get to take a look at Skype’s latest development: five-way video chat. Today, popular VoIP and chat client Skype launched a beta of Skype 5.0 for Windows, which includes a free trial of group video calling, a re-designed call view window, improved video snapshots gallery, and improved browser plugin performance. ...

With Clearwire and Sprint pushing for mobile WiMAX coverage in 80 U.S. markets by the end of 2010, and promising three new WiMAX-powered smartphones in the near future, it’s easy to lose sight of the wireless technology as a solution for rural residential broadband. Today, Kansas Broadband Internet (KBI) announced it is moving ahead with the construction of its own WiMAX network with PureWave as the exclusive hardware provider. The finished network will cover 18 counties, and more than 12,000 square miles. With only 33 residents per square mile, Kansas is one of the United States’ ten least densely populated states. ...

Although Google announced only last month that Sprint would carry its Nexus One phone, the carrier has since retracted from that plan. Gizmodo reports that the carrier will instead focus its efforts on the upcoming HTC EVO 4G it will be launching this summer. Both devices are Android phones, but the EVO is arguably more full-featured and will take advantage of Sprint’s 4G network — the next-generation cellular service that will be more akin to true mobile broadband with faster speeds than current 3G networks. ...

With Congress’ dance card already overflowing with major social and policy reforms, including in the financial sector, the likelihood that it could pass a major reform to the Telecommunications Act for Internet regulation during the Obama Administration (however long it lasts) is quite low. Faced with a pair of no-win scenarios, the FCC last week opted to propose a “Third Way” for broadband regulation that could at least get its foot back in the door — a way that literally asks judges and attorneys-general to substitute “telephone” for “broadband” in various clauses of existing law, except for those sections where doing so wouldn’t make any sense. ...

Many bloggers and commentators are making much of the fact that San Mateo police served a search warrant on the home of Gizmodo blogger Jason Chen and confiscated computers, servers and other equipment, probably as a result of his postings about the capabilities of the lost prototype Apple 4G iPhone. Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo, made public the fact that it paid $5,000 for the prototype iPhone which was accidentally left in a bar by one of Apple’s software engineers last month. ...