iPhone will be coming to Verizon in 2010 - Rumor

Brandon Davenport Nov 7, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Apple, Mobile, News, iPhone

First off lets get some things understood, this is still a pretty messy rumor and yes, you should be jumping for joy right about now! Looking forward, Apple has signed confirmed deals with Bell and Telus in Canada so the former exclusive iPhone carrier Rogers will no longer be top-dog. In the past, Non-Exclusivity has proved to be a very smart move by alot of smartphones, and Apple has gotten its feet wet with the Bell/Telus deal and they like the waters. All the Details after the break!

Apple has contracted to produce a UMTS/CDMA hybrid iPhone due in the third quarter of next year that will enable the company to sell a single global handset to all carriers, and specifically to Verizon Wireless in the US

According to a report obtained by Apple Insider

That is very interesting because CDMA is the standard that Verizon’s network uses, versus AT&T’s GSM. As any human could figure out there have been no comments from Apple or Verizon, but it’s not the first time the two companies have been linked, is that a bad thing? They are not swatting the rumors out of the way, and that is what companies do when they are bored (and not doing the said rumor). They are obviously working on something, and Steve is twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the praise.

A look at Blog World Expo and The new Dial tone

Ricardo Trejo Nov 7, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Videos

I just recently moved back to my hometown of Las Vegas, and to be honest it's been a pretty hectic move. So in all the commotion I was completely unaware of the Blog World Expo happening right in my own backyard last month. The expo is all about bloggers, hence its name, and what it's really done to quote unquote "journalism" in the past few years. 

The video is a short documentary by Marc Ostrick and Michael Sean Wright about this movement but within the confines of the expo itself. It's an interesting look at how we perceive audience and getting a voice, since everyone has that chance, but at the the end of the day only a few are actually heard. Blogging is still a "right place at the right time" sorta thing, but as mentioned in the video it's become more effective than having to go through a middleman to get your ideas out into the world. And rather than having it all just be a blip on the radar on the internet, or on communications as a whole, it's situating itself in our daily lives and paving the road for what we know as communication - hence the new dial tone reference.

So anyway, now that I know where the expo is at and when it's going on you can guarantee T3chH3lp will be there next year, blogging with our fellow brethren in the social media world. 

Video - Zune HD 4.3 firmware out now | What's new?

Since the buzz of Zune HD in September, there hasn't been much news to report on. Well, those crafty guys at Microsoft have chugged through what needs to be improved in the Zune HD software and they have handed us the new 4.3 Firmware update. The 4.3 update is available right now by selecting "Player Update" from within the Zune itself, and with it will come "support for upcoming 3d games and applications, as well as an auto-suggest feature for better text input, and other minor improvements." The cool part is they threw in stuff like a new snappier browser and also fixes the horrid playcount syncing issue. There is a video of the new update in action after the break.

the Best free social networking icon packs

Here are some of the best free Social networking icon packs. They are all T3ch H3lp approved and we use them in some shape or form. They are all Mac and PC compatible and include icons for all the most popular social networks, like Facebook, Vimeo, Youtube, Twitter and Digg. Tell us what you think in the comments!

List after the break!

Video - PS3 Netflix instant streaming Demo

After months of sulking in the corner, Sony has come back with a 1-2 punch to the 360 with Instant Netflix Streaming on your PS3 or PS3 Slim. It comes on a disk, seems a little old fashioned, but hey it works and it works very well. We would expect nothing less than awesome from two huge companies and that's what you get. Its very sleek and functional. Any jitters you see in the video (after the break) can be blamed on the janky TV capture device. Did any others get their disc today?

Video after the break!

iPhone 3GS VS Droid - Ultimate smartphone showdown

Brandon Davenport Nov 6, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Gadgets, Mobile, Reviews, iPhone

The iPhone is one of the most recognized and praised phones ever created and we even dubbed it as "the Jesus phone". But is this the best phone? Sure it is the most popular thing since the watch calculator but again, is it the best? Ever since DROID mania, the iPhone has been a little skiddish. With the 5 megapixle camera, real keyboard and bigger screen, the DROID looks to be the only plausible iPhone killer. Greg Kumparak takes a look at the iPhone 3GS and Motorola Droid head-to-head in a brutal teardown of every feature, aspect and weakness of each phone. Its broken up into 2 parts so enjoy, and don't be surprised, err-hmm, if you are surprised.

Part one | Part two

Facebook and Twitter disabled for Underage Xbox Live users

Ricardo Trejo Nov 6, 2009 Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Me Follow Us Gaming, Internet, Microsoft, News, Websites

If you're not totally into gaming news then you might not know that, currently, there is a public preview (beta) of a couple new updates coming soon to Xbox Live. The most important of these updates include apps for Facebook, Last.Fm, and Twitter. Yes, they're bringing social media to a video game console. Once again, if this is the first you've heard about this then you may not be too big on gaming news.

Anyway, we all know that there are millions of Live users out there, and some are, believe it or not, under the age of 18. That being said Xbox has decided to disable the use of the social networking apps for those not of age - lack of parental controls has been cited as the main issue for this.

To explain this decision Xbox's own Major Nelson wrote this on his blog earlier:

As some of you might be aware, those under the age of 18 are not able to access Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm in our public preview. I want to you let you know that this will remain the case when it launches to the world soon. We made this decision because as it stands now, parents aren’t able to use Family Settings to customize which of these applications their children can access. In order to offer an age-appropriate environment for everyone, we decided to turn off these applications for those Gold members under the age of 18. As expected, this has been a hot topic with the preview users. We want to make sure everyone was aware, however, that the development team is working on an update that gives parents the choice of which social applications their children can access. This means that Xbox LIVE members between the ages of 13 and 17 will be able to use Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm as long as their parents approve. The team hope to roll this out several weeks after launch and I will update you on the exact date as it gets closer. 

                                                                                   -Major Nelson

To sum it up: if you're between 13 and 17 then you're going to need parental controls to allow Facebook,  Twitter, etc. once the actual system update has launched entirely. And even then you're going to have to wait a little bit longer for the patch to give you the option to do so.  As of now, in the beta, there is no way to do this, so those who got it and have a minor's Xbox Live account can't taste the full flavor of the preview. Sorry about that kids. 

[Major Nelson]