Tech News Roundup: Flaming iPhones, Red-Hot Kindles
Sure, iPhones are a hot commodity. But this is pushing things a bit: Wired News reports two cases where iPhones glowed red-hot, smoked, and sparked, including one that took place during an airline flight.
This isn't the first example of an Apple product overheating, and I think the real story here is that such cases are still extremely rare. Assuming they do make headlines when they happen, based on the reports to date it's safe to say there's less than a one-in-a-million chance that your iPhone will burn a hole in your pocket.
By the way, if you're an Android fanboy, better swallow that Schadenfreude: Images of an exploding Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket also popped up in an online forum this week.
Carriers slammed by "rootkit" controversy. The uproar continues over reports that millions of smartphones are running software designed to track and report every user keystroke back to the mobile carriers.
First, Carrier IQ, the company that makes the software, bullied the researcher who broke the story with a lawsuit -- and then promptly backed off when the Electronic Frontier Foundation called its bluff.
Carrier IQ does insist that its software is designed to report legitimate system-performance data, not to snoop on users. Handset makers, including HTC, say it's not their fault because the carriers made them install the software. Carriers like AT&T and Sprint admit they're using the software but deny there's anything illegal or unethical about it.
Some other vendors, including RIM and Nokia, swear they don't use the tracking software, which most users can't detect or uninstall.
Some experts predicted earlier this week that the whole Carrier IQ mess was going to end in a tangle of lawsuits. Guess what? They're right!
Google wants a piece of Prime. Amazon's Prime service has set a new standard for instant gratification when shopping online. A $79 annual fee gets Amazon customers unlimited two-day shipping, in addition to some other perks.
Now Google reportedly wants a piece of the action.
According to a (now paywalled) item in The Wall Street Journal (the Inquirer has the story here), Google is "in talks with major retailers and shippers about creating a service to let consumers shop for goods online and receive their orders within a day for a low fee."
If the report is accurate, it sounds like Google is going to one-up Amazon Prime with a similar (and similarly priced?) next-day service. It'll be great if retailers, and especially smaller retailers, can get on board with Google's service, because there's absolutely no way they can offer shipping on their own for anything like a competitive price.
Some other interesting tech headlines this week:
Kindle's a hit. Amazon's Kindle is already poised to become the second best-selling tablet, with one analyst giving it 14 percent of the market -- behind only the iPad.
T-Mobile merger looking grim. With both the FCC and FTC now dumping on a proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile, it looks like AT&T might have to cough up a $4 billion breakup fee to cover the failed deal. The two companies say they're still committed to fighting for the merger, but even if it happens, getting there is not certain to be a long, ugly, and very expensive process.
'Hack attack' wasn't. Remember the furor over Russian hackers disabling a pump at an Illinois water-treatment plant. It turns out the "attack" wasn't an attack. And the "hacker" was actually an authorized employee vacationing in Russia. And the whole thing was, well, a big misunderstanding. Unfortunately, this is exactly the kind of clown show that discourages businesses from taking IT security seriously -- and that really hurts all of us.
