This blog has suggested for a long time that when prices of handsets are unbundled from the carrier subsidy that the prices would come down. Something that will accelerate that price drop is many players using an open platform to shove down R&D costs.

Well HTC comes back with a vengence right along those lines with a new line aimed at the Nexus. Two of these three phones run Android. All have the iPhone like look and feel of course. All three will be above the $100 mark, but give it time. Eventually we will see capabilities like this in that range of pricing.

Its all for the good. More here.

Well you better hang on to your wallet! AT&T is preparing to readjust its pricing and policies. Oh and it does not apply to just iPhone, but any smartphone data enabled device —

IPhone users who jam the airwaves by watching video on their devices will be put on tighter leashes, an AT&T Inc. executive said Wednesday.

The carrier has had trouble keeping up with wireless data usage, leading to dropped connections and long waits for users trying to run programs on their devices. AT&T is upgrading its network to cope, but its head of consumer services, Ralph de la Vega, told investors at a UBS conference in New York that it will also give high-bandwidth users incentives to “reduce or modify their usage.”

Well this sounds like the knee jerk reaction of a bunch of suits who did not listen to the network engineers. If you sell a device capable of doing full signal video on a 2″ screen, well damn don’t blame the customer wanting to use it. Especially if you and your partners feature such capabilities in your advertisements.

Now in a capitalist system, price adjusting is ‘the’ method for moderating demand. It will work for bandwidth too. So no faults there. But where I would draw the line is — if flows to the shareholders or the executive suite totally then shame. A significant portion of the bounty ought to go to upgrading the network to increase capacity. That is what the engineer in me says.

No data on changes, prices or when this all happens. But do keep this in mind there dear reader. When it happens you can then opt out without an ETF charge if you wish.

Linky.

All I can say is it can’t happen soon enough. I love books. The feel of the printed page, the ability to scribble along the edges. Even sometimes its cheapness buying second hand. But –

The sea change could happen sooner rather than later, beginning as early as the 2010-11 school year.

“This is one of the few times we can do things cheaper, faster and better all at the same time,” said the measures author, state Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston.

The legislation is one of two bills passed this year that allow the Texas Education Agency to create its own repository of digital textbook content.

By switching to online content, schools could save money, customize materials to fit students needs and more easily integrate textbooks with video, software or other technology.

This month, the Texas Education Agency is taking the first step by calling for bids for online material from both traditional publishers and online content providers. Officials there expect to have the first open-source textbooks and other materials online for students next fall.

“We did have a publishers meeting last week, and spent three hours talking through the open-source and electronic textbook concepts with them,” said Anita Givens of the TEA instructional materials division.

The states move toward online content will affect other states too, since publishers tailor their products to conform to the needs of states with the most students.

But the price of a notebook you say!! Well yes if you buy the latest and greatest. But I can put you on a 10″ screen notebook today, new, for $199. Now it is not the fastest thing, but remember what it would be used for — mainly reading, taking notes, etc. That does not require massive compute power.

The State’s aim? More self reliance. Shared, self authored materials are possible with web & ebook technologies. Updates are quick. Teachers can pick the subcomponents they wish to emphasis for their classes. Oh and they can save money.

Linky.

Mike Szczys over at Hack-a-day asks the question — Do we really need phone numbers. I will give you my opinion after the jump. But I’ll let Mike have his say first —

What works better than phone numbers?

How many different phone numbers does your family have? Many households have a home phone, a cell phone for each family member, and a work phone for each adult. What if all of these numbers were addressed similarly to how the Domain Name System works for internet addresses? Something like this:

phone://famiy.johndoe2155.voice/john_at_home

phone://family.johndoe2155.voice/jane_at_home

phone://www.your_company’s_domain.com/customer_service

This can be accomplished in the near future. All cell phones and many land line phones already have the ability to store numbers so that you only have to enter them once. Cell phones can already input web-style addresses and a firmware upgrade would allow for a new system of addressing and storing voice connection information. Service providers like Comcast and Charter are already providing phone service that utilizes VOIP, paving the way for dialing from your computer. For legacy hardware an inexpensive interface box similar to the digital cable converter boxes could be implemented. The new box would have a keyboard and character LCD and be rolled out in the same way that caller ID boxes were.

The idea of an address space of phone://some_voip_address merits a great deal of consideration. Played the right way it would be a boon to the whole VoIP packet based voice system. But that does not mean it will get rid of numbers. Nor does it have anything to do with legacy systems –

a) The Bell Folks did human factors research before they recommended the NPA/NXXX call plan. One thing was clear, digits only had the least amount of error. Even more important, the average American could remember a 7 digit number with 95% accuracy 30 min after being exposed to it. That saved operator time, during that period dominated by switch boards. The retention numbers still hold true today.

b) Numbers make the interface design for the cell phone dirt simple. Otherwise one must provide a QWERTY keyboard with every unit.

The solution? A DNS like service that would take a xxx.yyy.zzzz number and translate it to a user given phone:// address. Completely doable that could also be queried by the legacy SS7 network for POTS to POTS calls.

Digits only however is here to stay for a very long time.

Linky.

The entrant? A name we are all probably familar with from the LCD TV biz — Handspree. Well they are coming out with a netbook that is very much in the sweet spot both in pricing and features –

Pricing and Availability

MSRP: $379.99
Online: tigerdirect.com and other fine e-tailers
Distribution: D&H
Pearl Black Model Number: SN10E11BUF
Pearl White Model Number: SN10E11WUF

Technical specifications and features:

10″ LCD with LED backlight
Intel(R) Atom(TM) N270 1.6GHz processor
Windows(R) XP Home Edition SP3
1GB RAM (Expandable up to 2GB)
160GB SATA HDD (5400 RPM)
802.11b/g/n, 10/100 LAN
Bluetooth(R) 2.0
1.3MP webcam
Built-in mic/stereo speakers
Full-function keyboard
3-in-1 card reader
6-Cell Li-Ion battery
Protective sleeve and cleaning cloth included
2.9 lbs. with battery attached
10.2″(w) x 1.8″(h) x 7.1″(d) with battery attached
Energy Star and RoHS compliant
1-Year Parts and Labor Warranty / 6-Month Battery and Power Supply
Warranty

From their presser —

IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 20 /PRNewswire/ — Hannspree North America, Inc., a leading developer of lifestyle and design-centric consumer electronic products, today announced its new line of 10″ ultra-mobile laptop PCs to the US market at $379.99 MSRP. The HannsNote is ideal for those that are always on-the-go and is offered in two colors: High-gloss Pearl Black and Pearl White.

With a footprint smaller than a letter-sized sheet of paper, the HannsNote fits easily in a backpack, briefcase, or even a handbag. And with the battery attached, it only weighs 2.9 lbs. The HannsNote includes a 6-Cell Lithum-Ion battery that will last up to 5 hours on a single charge. The HannsNote packs a big performance punch using latest technology, including Intel(R) Atom processor, Windows(R) XP operating system, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0, 1.3MP webcam, 3-in-1 card reader, and full-function keyboard. A protective carrying sleeve and cleaning cloth are included with the HannsNote, providing additional value to the user.

Even with a soft economy, if they have these available for the 4Q Xmas season they should do pretty good. Many will be switching to netbooks from laptops to shave some costs.

Linky.

The blog Boy Genius Report has some input on what appears to be a Dell branded phone headed for the Chinese market initially. Still all rumor at this point. –

• Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE class 12
• Size: 68.6cc
• 103g grams weight
• Dimensions: 58 x 122 x 11.7mm
• Display: 3.5″ nHD 640×360 LCD, 18-bit, 262K colors
• OTA capable
• Microsoft Exchange support
• Google, AIM, Yahoo and MSN IM support
• 3 megapixel auto-focus, flash, 8x digital zoom camera with 30fps video shooting mode, built in photo editor
• USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
• A-GPS
• On-screen QWERTY keyboard, hardwriting recognition, multi touch UI
• MicroSD slot

Yes its Android based. This was tech that was very hot two years ago but is now reaching table stakes to be in the market. Seems to be another candy bar style iPhone knock off. I’ll grant that the form factor and features are favorable, but there will be a dozen entrants with the same handheld for Christmas season.

Linky.

The asshats at ASCAP are now making waves that ringtones are derivative works of commercial art and therefore due an payable. Why this is a scam after the jump –

Internet watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation has hit out at a US music royalties collector, accusing it of making “outlandish copyright claims” about mobile phone ringtones.

The American Society of Composer, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) filed a lawsuit against telecoms giant AT&T, in which it told a federal court that ringtones fell under the public perfomance Copyright Act.

ASCAP collects royalties and licences on behalf of 350,000 members in the US.

In effect, the organisation is gunning for additional payments from mobile firms, and if they don’t cough up the royalties ASCAP could claim copyright infringement against mobile users, according to the EFF.

The lobby group responded by filing an amicus brief* for the case earlier this week in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The brief, which was also joined by the Center for Democracy and Technology and Public Knowledge, urged the federal court to reject what the EFF described as “bogus copyright claims… that could raise costs for consumers, jeopardise consumer rights, and curtail new technological innovation”.

Here’s the clue this is a con job. The threat that ASCAP is throwing around is that they will go after the carriers customers. BUT, they won’t if the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Sprint pay up for them. This is the typical lawyer trick. Don’t go after the violator, go after the peripheral player in the affair that possess deep pockets. Always go after the deep pockets is the lawyers choice. That is the tip off this is a legal scam.

Linky.

Well if you are taking snapshots with a cellphone camera you might want to take a look at this little article from The Register —

My findings can be summarized as follows:

• Upgrading an iPhone 3G from iPhone Software 2.2.1 to 3.0 provides a welcome improvement in image quality. Essentially, image quality takes a step up from “sucks” to “sucks less.”
• The iPhone 3GS’s three-megapixel camera is a noticeable improvement over the two megapixel camera in the iPhone 3G - and the differences are much more than mere megapixelage.
• The Palm Pre’s three-megapixel camera takes crisp, well-focused images, but it’s a finicky little fellow with maddeningly inconsistent white balance.
• And here’s my “Well duh!” finding: even a five-year-old six-megapixel DSLR could easily out-image any of its phone-based competition, not only in detail but also in overall exposure and color balance.

Doubtful that the camera function in a cell phone will ever improve too much. There is an upper limit that the carriers would want to see a burst of pixel traffic on their network. Especially if someone was downloading a lot of pictures. They just don’t want the hold times even if they would like the cash the traffic represents. The little screen makes framing an issue. Finally the fixed focal length lens makes cropping impossible.

That being said if I was in an auto accident I would whip out the cell and start taking snaps in an instant. The true camera buff has gone to packing a slim Nikon Coolpix with them where ever they go.

Read the whole article here.

For those that are of a geeky sort and want to play with the code that is the base for the Palm it is now available. –

To comply with the GPL, Palm has released the source code packages for its Linux-based WebOS used by the new Palm Pre, which has been on sale in the US since the beginning of June. The company has also set up its own open source site.

For its WebOS, Palm uses version 2.6.24 of the Linux kernel with nearly 1,000 patches, most of which relate either to the Pre’s ARM processor architecture or to platform-specific drivers. Some Palm developed new drivers are also included in the source code, such as a driver for the acceleration sensor in the Pre.

The Pre is already in the stores and seems to have developed a decent following. With but a few exceptions (eg no X11) any linux developer would feel right at home with the Pre.

Linky.

Code named Rosie, this variant of the Android platform is being developed to run on all of the HTC based products as a common baseline. What is also interesting is the fluid look of the widgets.

Android is live and kicking.

Linky.