Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Time to Cut AT&T Some Slack, iPhone Users?
Since 2008, AT&T’s network in and around San Francisco has experienced an increase in 3G data traffic of 2,000 percent. If you find this metric as astonishing as I do, consider this: The increase in Bay Area data traffic is actually below the national average–significantly below. According to AT&T CTO John Donovan, 3G data traffic on the company’s wireless network has risen nearly 5,000 percent nationally in the past 12 quarters.
Some 740 billion text messages were sent in the first half of 2009 in the U.S. This according to the CTIA’s semiannual wireless industry survey, which helpfully breaks down that astonishing figure to an even more astonishing 4.1 billion texts per day. That’s about double the number sent during the same period last year. 
Approximately 12 percent of all computer-using U.S. households own an Apple machine, and nearly 85 percent of those also own a Windows-based PC. That’s the conclusion of an NPD survey that suggests that Mac households favor multiplatform environments, buy more gadgets and have the higher income needed to afford them. 
Microsoft COO Kevin Turner must be so disappointed. Remarking on the company’s “PC Hunter” ad campaign last week, Turner said he’d been ebullient when attorneys for Apple called to complain. But now the company has quietly modified the ad in question to address Apple’s complaints.
Consumers may have trouble distinguishing netbooks from notebooks, but that’s clearly not preventing people from buying them. DisplaySearch, an NPD Group subsidiary, estimates that netbooks will claim a 20 percent share of the world-wide market in 2009. 
What’s the difference between a netbook and a notebook? If you know the answer, you’re in the minority…of netbook owners. According to a survey by market research outfit The NPD Group,
If you’re reading this on an HP Pavilion or Compaq Presario laptop, you might want to switch from battery to AC power before reading the remainder of this post. Fearing they might burst into flame, Hewlett-Packard is recalling 70,000 lithium-ion batteries that shipped with several types of its portable machines.
What propitious timing. At a press conference in New York City later this morning, Amazon is expected to announce a new large-screen Kindle designed for reading periodicals and textbooks. And yesterday, on the eve of that announcement, came word that the company had been awarded a patent on the original Kindle design. The patent, #D591,741, is entitled “Electronic media reader” and it makes just a single claim.
American Airlines domestic passenger jets are fast becoming a fleet of airborne Wi-Fi hotspots. After a successful six-month pilot program on 15 planes, the airline will expand its in-flight Wi-Fi service to 300 more over the next two years.
It can survive a three-foot drop and withstand water sprayed from a fire hose. It’s sea fog-resistant. It meets military specifications for thermal shock and explosive environments. And if you hit someone with it hard enough, you’d probably kill him. What is it? A Dell laptop, believe it or not.
Sony’s battery brouhaha certainly holds its charge well. Two years after initiating the largest battery recall ever in the electronics industry, Sony announced another after customers reported more than a dozen incidents of faulty lithium-ion notebook batteries bursting into flame.
