Smartphone app developer Shazam will receive $40 million in financing from mexican billionaire, Carlos Slim, one of the world’s richest men. Shazam is a media discovery app which plans to expand to TV.
Source: Reuters
On April 3, 1973 — exactly 40 years from today — Motorola employee Marty Cooper made the first mobile phone call.
Marty used a Motorola DynaTAC to call Bell Labs (then a division of AT&T), reportedly saying “I’m ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end.”
The device that Marty used to place the call was a prototype which would later become the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x. It was the first commercially available mobile phone, and despite its meager specs for today’s standards — it weighed 2.5 pounds and only had a one-line, text-only LED display — it cost a whopping $3,995.
Source: mashable
T-Mobile has done away with cellphone contracts, replacing them with installment plans in an effort to stay competitive in the U.S. market.
Instead of offering its customers a phone with a two-year contract, T-Mobile will offer it for a fixed upfront price plus a monthly fee for unlimited calls and data. That second fee will include the cost of the phone, and when the phone is paid off (typically after two years) the fee will be reduced, in contrast with traditional two-year contracts where monthly payments typically stay the same after two years.
T-Mobile calls its new pricing plans Simple Choice. For example, a Samsung Galaxy S II costs $29.99 today, and $16 per month on top of the monthly data/voice payment, for 24 months.
T-Mobile is the fourth biggest U.S. mobile carrier (behind AT&T, Verizon and Sprint).
T-Mobile is also getting the iPhone 5— the last major carrier to do so. Read More
AT&T on Monday ended its pursuit of T-Mobile, bowing to government opposition to the $39 billion deal that would have created the nation’s biggest mobile provider of phone and Internet service.
The companies agreed to end last-ditch negotiations to restructure their merger and win over leery antitrust officials. As a penalty, AT&T will hand to T-Mobile’s parent, Deutsche Telekom, $4 billion worth of cash and other assets.
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