News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
President Bush has signed into law some improvements to the federal “do not call” list, the most important of which is that list entries are permanent and will no longer expire after 5 years.
Link: http://consumerist.com/…
AT&T has announced its intention to leave the pay phone business by the end of 2008, blaming wireless technology. With 82% of Americans having access to cell phones, and a whopping 3.3 billion mobile phone accounts worldwide, it’s no wonder that the pay phone is going the way of the slide rule.
Link: http://www.att.com/…
(via Consumerist)
Google has a toll-free 800 number that can replace your phone company’s (expensive) 411 service, and it may also turn your Yellow Pages into just so much paper. The number is 1-800-GOOG-411, and the video on the linked web site has more details. Note that it does not look up residential listings, only businesses.
Thanks to Josh for this idea.
Link: http://www.google.com/…
Astute Chad’s News readers already know that iPhones released in the United States will work with only one service provider: AT&T. Many consumers found this to be outrageous, and the hacking community quickly figured out how to unlock the iPhone so it can be used with other carriers. Be warned, however, that Apple is very unhappy about this, and performing the unlock will almost undoubtedly void the iPhone’s warranty. Ars Technica has gone so far as to suggest that Apple may permanently disable any unlocked iPhones, turning them into expensive bricks.
Be sure to check out this picture (via Digg), which I think is hilarious.
Apple has announced a $200 price cut on its iPhones, as well as a revamped line of iPods. If you bought an iPhone within the last two weeks, you can get the price difference refunded. If you’re not eligible for the refund, however, it looks like Apple is giving out a $100 store credit.
Link: http://ap.google.com/…
(via Kim Komando)
Astute Chad’s News readers are already aware that Skype’s VoIP services were down for about two days. Turns out that the indirect cause of the outage was a massive number of near-simultaneous reboots caused by Windows Update.
Link: http://heartbeat.skype.com/…
(via Lifehacker)
This site has some unique cell phone ringtones—they’re the alert/warning messages from the cockpits of various airplanes. My favorite is “Whoop! Whoop! Pull Up!”
Link: http://www.aviationringtones.com/
(via Neatorama)
Here’s a useful tip: save an “ICE” entry in your cellphone address book. Emergency workers know this stands for “In Case of Emergency” and will contact that person if you are unconscious. Alternatively you can add “ICE” to an existing entry, which will accomplish the same thing. Mine says “Mom -ICE-”.
Link: http://lifehacker.com/…
Apple has officially announced the (horrendously overpriced but revolutionary) iPhone. From the article, the iPhone “allows users to listen to music, make phone calls, send text messages and e-mail, surf the Web, and take and upload photos, all using a wide touch screen and a single button.”
Link: http://news.com.com/…
The linked article is primarily about Nokia’s Wibree wireless standard, but there is a section that nicely summarizes five other standards. Look for “The Wireless Zoo,” about a quarter of the way down the page.
Link: http://www.tfot.info/…
I’ve heard various ways of dealing with telemarketers, but this one is definitely the funniest. Warning: some of the language is NSFW.
With the advent of smart phones, we are beginning to see the proliferation of cell phone viruses.
