Internet Telephony Comes to the iPhone. Apple has approved an app intended to provide a virtual second line for business that allows consumers to make calls using Wi-Fi when available instead of AT&T’s cellular network.  The Line2 app may allow iPhone users to downgrade their AT&T cell plans, though contracts and lack of universal Wi-Fi […]

The NY Times recently published two stories on opposite sides of the ubicomp — distributed human computing — spectrum. On the one hand, there’s the tale of the “human-flesh search engines” in China. The term was apparently meant to refer to the fact that humans are the searchers, but it increasingly means that humans are […]

Recently, the Electronic Freedom Foundation posted the previously secret iPhone Developer Program License Agreement – a contract that apparently all iPhone app developers are required to click-sign before using Apple’s iPhone Software Development Kit.  Though a provision of the Agreement prohibits disclosure of its contents, EFF gained access by requesting it under the Freedom of […]

First things first: yes, I’m in the hospital, but I’m OK.  (I’m blogging, right?) The details: I found myself in the hospital last Thursday thanks to unexplained fevers that spiked at night and were gone by day.  After a bunch of tests my unfailingly conscientious doctor recommended (well, insisted) I get to the hospital for […]

We’ve previously covered the drawn-out battle between EchoStar and TiVo over EchoStar’s DVR technology, which TiVo claims infringes its patents. The merits of the patent dispute are, as with most, Byzantine, but a jury has found that EchoStar has indeed infringed TiVo’s patents, and appeals courts have affirmed that finding. The key point from an […]