This week Chinese officials set off an online storm over a new web filter, and Hong Kong operators laid their hands on fresh spectrum.
China’s MIIT said Green Dam web filtering software, aimed at blocking pornography and violence material, would be compulsory on all PCs sold from July 1.
After an angry reaction from net users it said they would be free to uninstall the software.
Independent tests showed the software contained keywords of sensitive political topics. and a backdoor that could make it vulnerable to a hacker attack.
Hong Kong operators SmarTone, China Mobile and PCCW paid $6 million for fresh 1800MHz spectrum for 2G expansion and future LTE deployment.
Apple cut the price of the iPhone to $99 and launched the speedy new 3GS phone. iPhone titles now account for 10% of the US mobile games market.
France Telecom and Telstra were said to be in talks with Maxis to buy a 20-25% stake in Aircel.
Maxis owns 74% of the Indian cellco, which is worth between $7 billion-$8 billion.
Maxis owns 74% of the Indian cellco, which is worth between $7 billion-$8 billion.
Tata and NTT DoCoMo announced plans for an India-wide GSM service.
NTT DoCoMo will spend $4 billion rolling out LTE around Japan over the next five years.
Verizon told manufacturers that only IPv6-compatible devices would work on its LTE network.
Taiwanese cellcos took an interest in TD-SCDMA after ITRI, the state research arm, signed an MoU with Datang Telecom.
France’s highest legal body struck down a new anti-piracy law, declaring that access to the net was a human right. The Pirate Party took 7% of the vote in European parliament elections in Sweden.
Qualcomm and TI raised their forecasts after a hike in demand for 3G device and network chips.
Cisco said the world’s networks will deliver two-thirds of a zetabyte of IP data in 2013, 90% of it video.
Microsoft will offer Windows 7 in the EU without the Explorer browser, which it once argued was inseparable from the operating system. It is considering a price cut of the new OS.
Nokia introduced new tools to help developers quickly transform web content into mobile apps.
Twitter will trial a “verified account” service to aid celebrities who are “at risk of impersonation”. Hewlett Packard tested
out an intelligent, mobile-phone-based social network.
out an intelligent, mobile-phone-based social network.
Telecom aid group TSF pulled out of Pakistan after a staff member was injured in a hotel bombing.
China may set up a moon base by 2030 and travel to Mars by 2050, experts said.
And US researchers found a 732% rise in “acute computer-related injuries'” in 1994-2006, including a large number of head injuries due to toppling monitors.