AT&T: T-Mobile customers will need new handsets

In a quote from an AT&T statement, it is being reported that T-Mobile users will have to get new phones in order to take part in AT&Ts 4G plans. This could largely be due to AT&T planning to transition all T-Mobile towers to a 4G network. This could be good, it could be bad. Good for middle customers who would like to get a new 4G phone but are stuck with another year or two on their contracts, bad in that it means people will have to lay out more money to pick up an AT&T handset and get locked into yet another two years with Ma Bell.

The spectrum they use for third-generation services, or 3G, will be re-purposed for 4G, which is faster.

That would leave current T-Mobile phones without 3G. They would need to be replaced with phones that use AT&T’s 3G frequencies. Ralph de la Vega, AT&T’s head of wireless and consumer services, said this will happen as part of the normal phone upgrade process.

“There’s nothing for them to worry about … it will be done over time, in a way that’s good for customers and good for AT&T,” de la Vega said in an interview.

So, while AT&T reps assure us that 4G plan will be phased in and customers won’t have to buy a new phone right away, the rather dead end point is, that sooner or later, they will. Course, with FCC approval of the deal expected to take about a year to complete, and the complete 4G transition several years on top of that. So, users in current contracts may be able to run out the clock and transition to a new carrier or phone anyway. But where does this leave current AT&T customers? Will the 4G phase in also mean that AT&T users will have to transition to a mandatory 4G handset as well?

AT&T rocked the wireless world with their surprise announcement yesterday that it would be buying T-Mobile USA from German carrier Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion in cash and stock. It also plans on spending over $8 billion to bring the entire T-Mobile network into the 4G realm. AT&T is working overtime making assurances to customers, and especially to the FCC who has to approve the merger, that the marriage of these two carriers will benefit users as they move to the 4G LTE spectrum. And could the FCC may be looking forward to 3G being vacated sooner, rather than later so another spectrum auction can occur?

“There’s nothing for them to worry about … it will be done over time, in a way that’s good for customers and good for AT&T,” de la Vega said. So, AT&T’s opinion seems to be it’s a win-win proposition.

• [via Yahoo Finance]

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Everyday: An App To Turn Your Face Into A Poignant Work Of Art

Remember that video “Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years.“? You should — it has nearly 19 million views on YouTube. In it, you watch as photographer Noah Kalina’s face evolves over a yes, six year span. It’s a fascinating and oddly beautiful work of art. And now you can easily do it yourself.

Kalina has helped in the production of a new iPhone app called Everyday. Alongside Adam Lisagor (who you might know from his videos on the web as well — like this one and this one) and developers William Wilkinson and Oliver White, the team has created an app that allows you to take a picture of your face every single day.

Okay, big deal, right? But the genius is in the execution and the end result.

When you first load up Everyday, you’re asked to take a picture of your face. Once you do this, you’re asked to align a grid to where you nose, mouth, and eyes are. This means that for each picture you take, your face can be in the same position — a key ingredient in the original Kalina video. And there’s also an overlay photo mask of your original face picture (which can be switched on and off) to help you align your face. And the real key may be the alert system which allows you to set a time each day to get a Push Notification to take the picture of yourself, so you don’t forget.

Once you’ve compiled multiple pictures of your face, you can create your video with one click (including setting the video speed). And once you do that, you can save it to your camera roll, or send it to Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, or Twitter for the world to see your mildly creepy transformation. It’s so simple and so awesome.

The idea for the app actually didn’t start with Kalina, instead it was Wilkinson who realized last July that the then-new iPhone 4 with the front-facing camera would be perfect for something like this. He mocked up the app he envisioned and showed it to Lisagor, who had coincidentally struck up a friendship with Kalina. The app quickly grew from there.


Naturally, Lisagor has made one of his trademark videos to celebrate the launch of the app. Find that below, and find Everyday in the App Store here — it’s $1.99.

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Xperia Play and XPeria Arc pre-order for free on contact from Vodaphone

British hand held gamers rejoice! Vodaphone is offering pre-order of the
Sony-Ericsson Xperia Play for FREE with contract. Users who sign up before April first will also receive a free deckstand and six preloaded games (Crash Bandicoot, Fifa 10, Star Battalion, Tetris, Sims 3, Bruce Lee). In addition to the Xperia Play, users who just want a basic Android experience can also preorder the Xperia Arc for free on contract as well.

As outlined here on AC, The Xperia Play is Sony’s first PlayStation certified phone. It has Qualcomm’s optimized Snapdragon processor with a 1GHz CPU and embedded Adreno GPU graphics processor. Other specs include a 4″ TFT screen with Sony’s proprietary Bravia display engine, slide up gaming controls, 5 MP rear facing camera, and it comes with six Playstation One games preloaded out of the box. It will also take advantage of the Tegra Game Network thanks to it’s Playstation Suite of up to 60 games being released over the next year.

The Xperia Arc has a similar 4.2-inch capacitive touchscreen with Reality Display and Mobile Bravia Engine. It’ll be powered by a 1 Ghz processor. It has dual cameras including an 8.1 MP rear facing and front facing Webcam. The 8.1MP is loaded as it can record 720p HD video at 30 frames per second and has Sony’s remarkable Face Tracking utility. Both phones will run Android 2.3 Gingerbread out of the box.

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Flash comes to the iPhone via Skyfire, Android gets it for free

Despite Steve Jobs’ insistence that Flash in an unnecessary evil, the inability to view Flash content has remained one of the major inconveniences for iPhone users. It’s true that Flash itself is often slow, buggy, and a drain on the battery. However, faced with degraded performance or the inability to view certain content at all, many users would still opt for the ability to view the content rather than not at all.

 Skyfire became the first iPhone browser capable of delivering Flash-based video to the user and demand for the app was so great back in November 2010 that it was withdrawn from sale within 5 hours of its launch.

What is the reason for that? The web browser, which is also available on other smartphone platforms – including Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile – does not play Flash natively, but still enables iPhone users to view the content on their devices by converting it to the iPhone-compatible H.264 video codec prior to downloading. However, this on-the-fly encoding does not come without serious overheads on the Skyfire servers, and just five hours after the app had shot to number one in the iTunes store, it was withdrawn as the company attempted to increase its bandwidth.

To prove the necessity and demand for Flash support in Apple devices, we will just have to look at the sales revenue of Skyfire back in November 2010 when it was first released. The company earned a whooping US$1 million in its first weekend on sale with a retail price of US$2.99 per download. Looking at the positive side, Android users will not need to go through the same inconveniences to view Flash content and Skyfire is free for Android.

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Android Community at CTIA Wireless 2011

Android Community is hard at work at CTIA Wireless 2011, the annual mobile confab which this year is in Orlando, Florida. We’re expecting a ton of wireless news including stories on Android phones and even more tablets. In fact, news has already been leaked that AT&T is bringing the Nexus S 4G, with it’s pure Google Android experience, to mobile customers this year along with the LG Thrill 4G and HTC HD7S.

Sprint has already teased that they plan to release a wide range of devices including the 4G HTC Flyer tablet. But they’re also going all in with Google Voice services in a move that will certain have ripples as the confab continues this week. T-Mobile, who recently got swallowed up by AT&T, is still here and are bringing the HTC Pyramid and Doubleshot along with them. And it’s even more important now that AT&T has decided that all T-Mobile customers will have to transition to 4G phones after the merger.

Samsung is going to be launching it’s mid-size 8.9 inch Galaxy Tab here in Orlando, as a part of the 78910 marketing campaign we teased here earlier this month. The campaign clearly means marketing of the entire 7, 8.9 and 10.1 inch line of Galaxy Tabs. And then there’s LG, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and it’s new Xperia Play, and we’re sure tons of tablet stories. So stay tuned for all our show coverage with the CTIA 2011 tag, and of course follow along on the Android Community homepage!

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Samsung Galaxy S II Mini leaks out for Three, plus Nokia X7, Flyer and PlayBook release dates

 

No, not the Galaxy Mini, that low-end Android sprout — this is Samsung’s smaller answer to the upcoming Galaxy S II superphone. We just got handed UK carrier Three’s entire spring-summer lineup, and the Android 2.3 handset certainly stands out, pretending to be miniature in spite of a 3.7-inch screen (think Droid), a 1.4GHz processor (think Pre 3) and 21Mbps HSPA+ connectivity. But that’s the tip of the iceberg compared to what’s in store for Three — it looks like the Nokia X7 is alive, well, and tracking for a June release (not to mention the LG Optimus 3D), and tablets will drop too, with May bringing the HTC Flyer and the WiFi-only version of the BlackBerry PlayBook launching in June. See specs and slated release windows in our gallery below, and join us in hoping these documents portend well for stateside launches as well.

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AT&T agrees to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom for $39 billion

Wowzers! AT&T and Deutsche Telekom have entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in cash and stocks. The combined customer base of this upcoming behemoth will be 130 million humans, though the agreed deal will have to pass the usual regulatory and closing hurdles before becoming complete. The two companies estimate it’ll take them 12 months to get through all the bureaucracy — if they get through, the proposed network merger will create a de facto GSM monopoly within the United States — but we don’t have to wait that long to start discussing life with only three major US carriers. AT&T envisions it as a rosy garden of “straightforward synergies” thanks to a set of “complementary network technologies, spectrum positions and operations.”

One of the other big benefits AT&T is claiming here is a significantly expanded LTE footprint — 95 percent of Americans, or 294 million pops — which works out to 46.5 million more than AT&T was claiming had it gone LTE alone. Of course, T-Mobile has never put forth a clear strategy for migrating to LTE, suggesting that AT&T plans on using the company’s AWS spectrum to complement its own 700MHz licenses as it moves to 4G. You might be groaning at the thought of yet another LTE band, but it’s not as bad as you might think: MetroPCS already has a live LTE network functioning on AWS, so there’s precedent for it. For further details, hit up the gallery below, the Mobilize Everything site, or the official press release after the break.

In the event of the deal failing to receive regulatory approval, AT&T will be on the hook for $3 billion to T-Mobile — a breakup fee, they call it — along with transferring over some AWS spectrum it doesn’t need for its LTE rollout, and granting T-Mo a roaming agreement at a value agreeable to both parties.

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In The Race For More Spectrum, AT&T Is Acquiring T-Mobile For $39 Billion

As anyone who has read a tech blog in the past few years will know, AT&T has been under attack for not being able to match the network capacity of larger rival Verizon. And when they won the majority of the bids for the open spectrum in 2008, Verizon also had a clear path to the future. Now AT&T is taking another path: buying T-Mobile.

Here’s the release with the details of the deal. AT&T will pay roughly $39 billion to Deutsche Telekom for T-Mobile USA. The agreement has already been approved by both Boards, but obviously will have to pass government scrutiny.

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Intel promises next-gen Atom chips at IDF Beijing

We’ve yet to get more than a whiff of Intel’s Oak Trail chips, but the Cedar Trail CPUs are nearly here — in fact, it’s looking like Chipzilla intends to introduce its latest Atom processor at IDF Bejing this year. UMPC Portal noticed that Intel’s got a session titled “Designing a New Generation of Netbooks with the Intel Atom Processor Based Platform” at the April event, which promises to give attendees a glimpse at the “next generation Intel Atom processor based platform.” Details are scarce, but there are a couple of bullet points that might grab your attention. First, Intel will be talking about “WiFi solutions that deliver new netbook usage models,” which sounds kind of like WiDi, and second, the company will be talking up “fanless netbook designs.” Our overactive imaginations are already at work — we’re on a comfy couch, surfing the internet on a big-screen TV, without a hot, bulky laptop to weight us down and nary a tether to worry about. Or maybe a boat.

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Androidify Demo [March 2011] [Female Hair Update]

The brand newest version of Androidify is out and it’s hairtastic! Last time we spoke about this app it was back in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2011. We were hanging out in the Google Pod [take a peek at that here]. Now there’s a bit of an update out there for you, again for free, this one containing a few unnamed bug fixes and a whole lock of additional hairs for your Android avatar’s head.

Now the hair additions are what they’re calling “female hair” but you know and I know that any self-respecting hippie this side of the midwest would love to have blaster hair like the likes seen in this new set. Thusly, you must update. To grab the new update, if you’ve not got the app set to update automatically, head over to the Androidify app in the Android Market and hit the update button.

This newest version was uploaded yesterday (March 18, 2011) and is version 1.01 – Take a peek at the video demo here! And yes, feel free to submit your own Androidify avatar to the [ANDROIDIFY YOURSELF NOOOW] thread in the discussion forums!

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