AT&T (NYSE:T) Opens 4G LTE Doors

AT&T (NYSE:T) has announced it will be releasing its 1st 4G LTE Smartphone, the HTC Vivid, and the Samsung Galaxy S II for buyers crossed the United States in a week.

The phones feature 4G LTE, which anticipates data speeds up to 10 times that of 3G.

The HTC Vivid is a 1.2-GHz dual-core phone running the gingerbread edition of Android, with a 4.5-inch q HD (540-pixel-by-960-pixel) display. The Samsung device has a slightly beefier dual-core processor 1.5 GHz albeit a smaller displays (800 pixels by four hundred pixels).

Both phones sport 8MP cameras capable of shooting 1080p HD video, and come with 16GB of aboard memory expandable to 32GB.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) stocks were at 29.31 at the end of the last day’s trading. There is comprised a 1.6% movement in the stock price over the past 3 months. emoneydaily.com

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LCD panel firms in South Korea fined a total of $176M

slashgear.com

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission have fined 10 LCD panel makers controlling inside the country a total of $176 million or 195 billion won. The fines were for allegedly holding meetings with the goal of keeping the prices of LCD screens artificially high. This is not the first time the LCD industry has been broke holding meetings over price fixing in the industry.

Together the ten firms that were fined hold 80% of the market contribution for LCD screens. According to reports, the firms held more than 200 secret meetings dubbed “crystal meetings” between 2001 and 2006 according to an investigator for the commission. Samsung comprised the firm hardest hit in the investigation with its fine alone totaling 97.2 billion won.

LG was the next biggest loser with a fine for three of its units totaling 65.5 billion won. AU Optronics was fined 28.5 billion won. The European Commission also penalized some of these same firms in a similar case last year for price fixing occurring between 2002 and 2006. That EU case also mentioned the “crystal meetings.” I wonder whenever this has anything to do with Sony looking to pull out of the Samsung joint LCD venture. slashgear.com

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October auto sales rate seen at 8-month high

41 economists polled by Reuters expect Oct seasonally adjusted annualized rate to be around 13.2 million vehicles, up about 9 percent from the year earlier. In September, the sales rate was 13.1 million.

Analysts said October's likely stronger sales comprised also driven by the greater availability of vehicles arrived at by Honda Motor Co (7267.T) and Toyota Motor Co (7203.T), after the industry recovered from Japan's March earthquake which triggered a shortage of auto parts.

"We think there was some pent-up ask held over from Honda and Toyota die-hards who waited to buy those and in October there was growing armory," Edmunds.com analyst Michelle Krebs said. Auto sales are an early indicator each month of U.S. consumer demand.

But Krebs added that Honda's rebound could be short-lived after severe flooding in Thailand activated a shortage of crucial electronic parts.

The flooding will not hit October sales, but it may affect Nov and Dec U.S. auto sales, particularly at Honda, analysts said.

Honda withdrew its 2011 financial outlook and cut North American output by half from November 2 to November 10. Honda also pushed back the sales date for its 2012 CR-V crossover, the company's entry in the hot-selling compact SUV market.

"It does seem more severe than we initially believed," Jesse Toprak, Truecar.com analyst, said of the impact of the floods. "Honda has a lot riding on the CR-V and it is a potential constraint in Honda sales for the next several months."

Last week, Ford Motor Co (F.N) said it expected its product to fall by 30,000 vehicles due to supply shortages linked to the floods.

Still, overall U.S. sales over the remainder of the year will benefit from both rising applied car prices and the increased need to replace aging vehicles, analysts said.

U.S. auto sales have been trending higher since June when the annualized sales rate dipped to eleven.6 million vehicles. Better offerings from the likes of General Motors Co (GM.N), Chrysler Group LLC (FIA.MI) and Ford are also boosting sales.

The average vehicle on U.S. roads is almost 11 years old, two years older today than the average in 2007, and at a few point those cars will break down and spur new car sales, analysts said.

Used car prices in September were also at their highest level in more than 5 years, according to a J.P. Morgan October 25 research note.

The fourth quarter of the year is also typically the hardest for pickup truck sales, because of purchases by businesses, Krebs said.

"Everyone's trying to extend the life (of their vehicles), but you can just extend it so far," said Mirko Mikelic, senior portfolio manager with Fifth Third Asset Management. "People are almost forced to swap in for a new vehicle." reuters.com

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Novatel ships three millionth MiFi hotspot

slashgear.com

Novatel Wireless has annunciated that it is celebrating a milestone this week. Novatel is celebrating the fact that it has shipped three million of the MiFi portable intelligent hotspots so far. The device was introduced in 2009. It is a small box that allows the 3G or 4G connection it has to be shared among double devices using WiFi connectivity.

The MiFi was the first of that sort of product and there are others on the commercialise nowadays that jumped on the mobile hotspot train. Novatel does hold some important patents that have to do with the tech needed for the MiFi to operate. The MiFi is in use on 25 another carrier networks around the world.

In June of this year, Novatel added DLNA to the MiFi to give the hotspot even more capability. Before that DLNA feature, the MiFi also offered the ability to share storage on a microSD card placed into the memory card slot on some models. We can expect to see more features added over time since Novatel is known to update the devices regularly.

    “Three years ago we introduced the MiFi Intelligent Mobile Hotspot and revolutionised the way people accession the Internet, fro

m anywhere, anytime,” says Peter Leparulo, chief executive officer of Novatel Wireless. “The MiFi system architecture brought a new user-experience to mobile broadband consumers, with one click connect and no software to install. It also allows carriers to accomplish a wider, more diverse subscriber base with advanced service opportunities. We are very pleased to have achieved this milestone — illustrating our significant market and product leaders for mobile hotspots.”  slashgear.com

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Ubuntu 14.04 to Run on Smartphones, Tablets and TVs

maximumpc.com

"Now it is no longer just about the desktop but really a broader vision.” This remark was part of Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer’s CES 2009 keynote address, in which he talked about the impending transformation of Windows into “an experience that spans the PC, the phone, the TV and the cloud." Fast forward to the present and Canonical is ready with a similar strategy for Ubuntu.

Canonical is describing this new strategy at the ongoing Ubuntu Developer Summit in Orlando and hopes to realize its vision for the future of popular Linux distro, which spans multiple screen, in a couple of years time.

“By 14.04 LTS Ubuntu will power tablets, phones, TVs and smart screens from the car to the agency kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server and the cloud,” wrote Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth in a blog post Monday.

Can you guess what is going be the key to this whole scheme? The answer is Unity. Yes, the oft-maligned Unity graphical user interface (GUI) that was introduced as the default GUI with release of Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) earlier this year.

“Unity, the desktop interface in today’s Ubuntu 11.10, was designed with this specific vision in mind. Although the interface for each form factor is shaped appropriately, Unity’s core elements are arranged in exactly the way we need to create coherence crossed all of those devices. This was the origin of the name Unity – a single core interface framework, that scales across all screens, and supports all toolkits.”

In his blog, Shuttleworth underlined the importance of the company’s partnerships with major “silicon vendors that are drive this converging market are critical.” Earlier this month, Canonical rolled out support for chips based on Arm’s architecture inside Ubuntu 11.10. This is, of course, an important development, as support for Arm chips is like a passport to the mobile world.

Further Shuttleworth believes, Ubuntu One and the Ubuntu Software Centre leave do a great job across a different hardware environments: “They deliver the required storage, syncing and sharing capabilities that are not just a convenience but a requirement as we act to a world where content is increasingly shared but the devices that accession them become more diverse. Ubuntu One’s support for other OSes show the ability of Ubuntu to play nice with others, recognising that the divergence is strength.  It admits users to choose the devices they choose but still delivering the benefits of Ubuntu-centred strategy.” maximumpc.com

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Cut price Touchpads appear at Best Buy USA

MORE CUT PRICE Touchpads are going on sale at Best Buy in the US this week, but this time you have to buy a PC to get a cheap one.

Best Buy's bundle allows consumers to get a 32GB HP Touchpad for $149.99 when they buy a PC, but the 16BG version is not available. The deal starts today for online purchases and will launch in stores on 4 November.

The option to buy a discount priced Touchpad is accessible to anybody who buys a Compaq laptop, desktop or all-in-one computer, but the offer excludes netbooks.

HP and Best Buy have already planned for those trying to be canny, also. Although the retailer will accept Touchpad returns for up to 14 days after purchase, if you return the computer and not the Touchpad, Best Buy will charge you $599.99, the full price of the tablet.

HP has said that it is out of stock of Touchpads and it is online inventory is "depleted".

"At HP, we try very hard to provide a positive experience to every client who purchases an HP product. In some cases, like the HP TouchPad where supply has been extremely limited from the start, we simply cannot meet demand," HP said in a statement.

"We are now announcing that while some retailers will have determined stock available, HP's online inventory is depleted."

HP's Touchpad firesale attracted a purchasing frenzy when the devices were reduced to as little as $100 during August. Then at the end of August, the company announced that it would release more of the sold out devices to meet demand.

The INQUIRER has contacted Best Buy in the Britain to see if the deal will be available here, but we're still waiting to hear back.

So if you really, really want a cut price Touchpad and live in the America, you'll need to fork out for a computer too. Surely a small price to pay. theinquirer.net

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Teachers favoring iPads as educational tools

A Study of technology managers at educational institutions has revealed that many schools are testing or deploying Apple iPad tablets in their classrooms to use as educational tools. Apple has been quick to point out that iPads are in use in schools across the country, and that every state has a pilot program in place to put the tablet in the hands of K-12 students.

Altho the review, conducted by Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, was small in size, numbering only 25 educational technology directors, it shows the general trend that educators are moving towards. All of those that participated in the survey said they were already deploying or were planning to implement iPads in the schoolroom. None of them said that they had planned on testing or using other tablet platforms, such as Android or RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook. Apple has said that nearly 1,000 K-12 schools already have a one-to-one iPad program in place, which allows each student with their own iPad to use while at school.

According to Munster, the schools in his survey currently have about ten students per computer in the schoolroom. It is expected in the next five years that the number will shift to 6 students per tablet, which, if the trend continues, will likely mean 6 students per iPad, and not additional tablets. [via All Things D]  mobileburn.com

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