Is Sprint going to the Bank or are they being Soft?

Well it looks like news is spreading that Sprint is planning to sell out to Japanese mobile company SoftBank for $12 Billion+. Who is to say what will become of this transaction if it actually goes through with Sprint’s unfinished LTE network and heartbreakingly slow 3G network, will SoftBank benefit from these flaws or will they loose $12 Billion+ in the end. SoftBank would gain roughly 70% of Sprint with the other part being sold publicly.

SoftBank might be trying to enter the US market but why? Especially when you see Deutsche Telekom AG desperately trying to get out by frist attempting a AT&TMobile merger and now merging T-Mobile with MetroPCS. There is a lot of talk about this and a lot of speculation. So what each company will gain from this remains to be seen. Wall Street speculates that Sprint is looking to cut debt and SoftBank is looking to use Clearwire’s plans to start a next-generation network using TDD LTE in which SoftBank itself is planning a similar network.

I personally welcome the idea of being associated with a Japanese network. It might open up the doors to travel in Japan without getting a new cellphone and plan. Free international calls from Japant to the US? I’m down.

(Source: The Wall Street Journal)

Android may get a Cydia-like market app soon

A developer named Koushik Dutta creator of ClockworkMod, which is a custom recovery console for Android, proposed the idea to make a market place on Android that houses all the banned apps that Google decided should not be in the official Android Market. This includes custom ROMs, classic gaming emulators, tethering apps, Visual Voicemail apps, one-click rooting, etc. The picture above is an early version of the store which is currently being built. Cyanogenmod app store may not be the final name so don’t get your hopes up, maybe the community will be asked to come up with a name. Bandroid Market seems to be appropriate, don’t you think? It’s about time someone stepped up to offer Android a store like Cydia on iOS it’s long over due. Keep a watchful eye on this if you like those banned Google apps.   

(Source: TechCrunch)

How about some G+ with that fresh Gmail account?

Okay we like G+ for lots of reasons and we had an account while it was in beta but now Google is getting a little forceful with it. When you sign up for a new Gmail account you will be forced to setup a new G+ account as well. The issue with this is that some people don’t want one, they are Facebook junkies and using a new service by force is something they my not be interested in. They already get tons of Facebook and maybe Twitter notifications on their computer and now they have to add unwanted G+ notices especially if they use Google Chrome. So be warned if you want to sign up for a Gmail account Google will force some unwanted G+ on you. Is this the beginning of social sexual harassment and are we protected by OSHA in this situation. 

(Source: TechCrunch)

PIPA and SOPA voting pushed back again

The overwhelming opposition from just about every major technology company and the general public, has caused the  US senate and House to postpone their decision on their separate anti-piracy bills. Due to a huge amount of resistance from Google and Wikipedia plus the shear amount of phone calls and emails that flooded the offices on Wednesday played a role in this delay. Let’s hope this is the demise of these to nightmarish bills.

(Source: cbsnews.com)