stories filed under: "mobile phones"

Not All Retailers Overreacting To Mobile Phone Wielding Shoppers

from the nice-to-see dept

Wed, Dec 22nd 2010 12:07am — Mike Masnick

The WSJ recently had an article about how shoppers in retail stores are increasingly wielding smartphones which they use to comparison shop on the fly -- sometimes even buying products online for less while standing in the store looking at the products themselves. While some store owners are definitely freaked out about this, the article did point out that some are recognizing this is actually an opportunity to either poach customers from other stores and/or to entice them with more offers directly:

Through a partnership with TheFind, Best Buy now targets personalized advertisements to shoppers when the program detects that they are in stores such as Wal-Mart.

If shoppers use TheFind's free app to compare prices on TVs at Wal-Mart, for example, the phone gleans the particulars from their recent search and shows them ads of similar electronics for sale at Best Buy. The items aren't always identical, and the prices aren't always better, but it is an attempt by Best Buy to enter the competition, similar to the way that marketers now target special offers to consumers based on what they are searching for on home computers.

...

The hard sell doesn't stop there. If a customer inside a Best Buy compares prices through TheFind and discovers a better deal elsewhere, the retailer also makes one last pitch for the sale with ads showing them deals on other products at the store, such as a similar Blu-ray player that comes with a free movie disc.

Elsewhere in the article, it's noted that shoppers with mobile phones often are much more happy to ask questions via their phone and a browser or app, rather than having to talk to someone in the store, which also suggests that stores might not need to staff as many people to help customers.

Of course, some of what's in the article sounds like it may be wishful thinking. I'm not sure that all of those localized offers will really work all that well, but at the very least it's a starting point, and it's nice to see Best Buy at least trying to embrace the new technology rather than just fight it.

Filed Under: mobile phones, shopping
Companies: best buy

26 Comments

Telco Opposition To Anti-Bill Shock Plans Doesn't Pass The Laugh Test

Politics

from the more-confusion? dept

Wed, Oct 13th 2010 12:55pm — Mike Masnick

It's been talked about for ages, but the FCC is finally preparing to take on mobile operator "bill shock," that happens when a user, unknowingly, goes way over their allotted time/data and is charged ridiculous overage fees, leading to the ever popular stories of multi-thousand dollar bills. The FCC plans to require mobile operators to at least alert users when they're nearing the limits on their plan. While I'm often skeptical of FCC actions, I'm having trouble seeing what's wrong with this, and the mobile operators protestations are so silly that it's difficult to take them seriously.

Mobile operator trade association CTIA has warned that these sorts of warnings would "cause customer confusion and frustration." Huh? How? And it's already established that it's the crazy huge bills that are causing customer confusion and frustration (and, um, anger). Then there's Verizon Wireless, quoted as saying that "intense competition has led wireless carriers to provide consumers with usage information." Hmm. Information like the phantom charges that Verizon Wireless denied for nearly two years, until it finally 'fessed up and agreed to pay back to the tune of $50 million to $90 million. Honestly, I can't figure out what the pushback is over actually warning customers before they get insane overage charges?

Filed Under: bill shock, bills, mobile phones, telcos
Companies: ctia, fcc, verizon wireless

27 Comments

Transportation Secretary Wants To Ban All Driver Talking (Except To Other Passengers)

Politics

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

Tue, Oct 12th 2010 7:37am — Mike Masnick

Just after new evidence has come out showing that various driving-while-texting bans have had the opposite effect, by causing people to just keep on texting, but do so by holding their phone lower so cops can't see it (but also so they are paying even less attention to the road), Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood now wants to make our roads even more dangerous by trying to ban pretty much all driver talking in a car, with the exception (so far) of talking to other passengers. He wants to ban all mobile phone talking by drivers, even if it's handsfree, and he wants to extend that to vehicle information systems like OnStar or GPS systems.

Again, we've discussed repeatedly that we agree such things can be quite dangerous, though you can argue if talking to OnStar or to someone on the phone is really that much more dangerous than talking to a passenger. However, it's becoming increasingly clear that these sorts of laws don't actually help. They don't stop people from doing these actions, and seem to only get more people doing them in even more dangerous ways. Continuing down this path, that already doesn't work, is a huge mistake, and you would think that someone in a position like LaHood would actually pay attention to the evidence that this isn't working, and wouldn't suggest making the problem worse.

Of course, if this ban does go into effect, and the reports of accidents continue to rise, how long will it be until LaHood also bans talking to passengers in your car?

Filed Under: driving distractions, hands-free, mobile phones, ray lahood

71 Comments

Ontario Premier Says Cellphones In Class Could Be Useful

Wireless

from the smart-comments-from-politicians? dept

Thu, Sep 23rd 2010 1:02am — Blaise Alleyne

With schools, cell phones and a politician in the same headline, you'd think the story would be about another attempt to ban technology, but in Ontario, Premier Dalton McGuinty is telling schools to be open to uses for cellphones in the classroom.

McGuinty, who won't even let his ministers keep the devices during cabinet meetings, said he understands they can be a major distraction, but there is a "right way" to use them in class.

"Telephones and BlackBerrys and the like are conduits for information today, and one of the things we want to do is to be well-informed," he said. "And it's something that we should be looking at in our schools.

The issue came up in light of the Toronto District School Board rethinking its blanket ban, and "exploring ways to make [mobile devices] more acceptable."

Political opponents are already mocking McGuinty, and his government does have a really mixed track record on technology... but the comments here are actually quite reasonable. There's room between the "discipline theater" approach of a total ban and the teacher's nightmare scenario of a total free-for-all. A good acceptable use policy would attempt to reduce distractions while not precluding ways in which mobile technology can be helpful in the classroom.

I attended a strict private high school in Toronto from 2001-2005, and we had a blanket ban on electronic devices... but teachers were smart enough to know when it made sense to ignore the ban. I used my PDA to take notes and manage homework in every class, and another student in my year often used a tablet computer. The ban was eventually lifted after I graduated, acknowledging the fact that more and more students were using laptops and mobile devices in ways that helped them learn, while I'm sure they still have a no nonsense policy for students goofing off or distracting others. Rules are needed to minimize bad uses, but that shouldn't prevent people from exploring good uses.

So, good for McGuinty for recognizing that we're better off exploring applications for mobile technology in the classroom than simply trying to ban it.

Filed Under: canada, classroom, education, mobile phones, ontario

16 Comments

People Aren't Buying Blank CDs Any More, So Collection Agency Demands Media Levy Expanded To Mobile Phones

Music Industry

from the well,-if-you-bet-on-obsolete-technologies dept

Wed, Jul 21st 2010 9:09am — Mike Masnick

We've always found the concept of blank media "levies" to be strange. They're a kind of "you must be a criminal" tax, that aims to shoehorn in an unworkable business model in a way that highly distorts an actual market. But, of course, then people become reliant on that distorted market as well. So I find it somewhat amusing to see an article pointing out that content creators in Sweden are now "losing out" on revenue from blank CD levies, because people no longer buy blank CDs and DVDs (who needs 'em any more?). The article, of course, was pushed by the organization that collects and distributes the levy, Copyswede, as part of its effort to expand the levy to internet connections and hard drives and such:

We don't currently receive any revenue from hard drives or telephones despite legislation decreeing that fees should apply to any products that are particularly suitable for piracy. The pattern we think we're seeing is one of piracy moving to external hard drives and USB flash drives while telephones are being used for storage...

And what makes you think you should automatically get free money from people using these technologies when the content creators you represent fail to adjust or adapt at all? But rather than adapt, Copyswede is just taking the position that more technologies should be taxed and the market should be distorted further. The plan is to tax mobile phones 100 kronor (about $14), because having the government step in and force people to give you money is, you know, a lot easier than actually having to work for a living.

Filed Under: blank media, levies, mobile phones, sweden

49 Comments

NTP Keeps On Making The Case For Patent Reform As It Sues More Companies

Patents

from the milking-it dept

Fri, Jul 9th 2010 1:02pm — Mike Masnick

NTP, a patent holding firm that is really just a bunch of lawyers with incredibly broad and questionable patents, is at it again. As you probably know, NTP was locked in a long and contentious patent fight with RIM over NTP's claimed patents covering the concept of mobile email. Even as the US Patent Office was telling the world that NTP's patents almost certainly weren't valid, pressure from investors (and the judge in the case who refused to wait for the Patent Office's final rejection of the patents) resulted in RIM settling the case for $612.5 million. For RIM, it became something of a no brainer. Even though its legal position was strong, its investors were killing the company over the uncertainty (there were threats that the judge could issue an injunction shutting down the entire Blackberry network). Settling the case helped RIM's stock price jump up (increasing its market cap more than the cost of the settlement).

But, from a legal perspective, the lawsuit and the end result became the centerpiece of attention for efforts at patent reform. While I still think that the patent reform process in Congress has been misguided and the end result probably a lot more damaging than helpful, many of the politicians involved will point to the RIM-NTP case as evidence of the problems with the patent system. You might think, then, that NTP's investors might sit back and enjoy the spoils of the RIM settlement, but the company quickly went back out and sued all the major mobile operators in the US for violating its patents. However, judges in those other suits said (unlike the judge in the RIM case) that those trials should wait until the Patent Office has made a final decision on the validity of NTP's ridiculously overbroad patents.

However, NTP is not waiting around. It's now suing again. This time, rather than the mobile operators, it's going after device makers and platform vendors, suing Apple, Google, Microsoft, HTC, LG and Motorola. Basically, it appears that NTP has decided that if anyone does email on a phone, they have to pay NTP.

There might not be a better example of how incredibly screwed up the patent system is than this. NTP was involved in an attempt to do mobile email ages ago (and it wasn't the first actually... but NTP paid off some folks who had prior art). The idea itself wasn't new or all that innovative, and the timing was off, so NTP failed. In a functioning free market, that's a good thing. If a company can't execute, it should fail. Unfortunately, thanks to a ridiculously overbroad patent award, NTP has been able to live on as a bunch of lawyers suing any company that does figure out how to execute.

Perhaps the only good thing coming out of this is that it may help draw more attention to just how broken the patent system is.

Filed Under: email, mobile phones, patent reform, patents
Companies: apple, google, htc, lg, microsoft, motorola, ntp, rim

39 Comments

Student Sues School For Privacy Invasion After School Found Nude Photos On Her Phone

Privacy

from the the-case-that-keeps-on-giving dept

Mon, May 24th 2010 1:40pm — Mike Masnick

You may recall the news story from last year about some teenaged girls in Pennsylvania who were being threatened with child porn charges, after taking "nude and semi-nude" photos of themselves on a mobile phone during a party, and sending them to others. The judge halted the potential lawsuit, noting that the nude photos didn't appear to depict any sexual acts (as per the law), but the local prosecutor still wanted to file charges. As more and more details came out, the whole thing got increasingly ridiculous. Apparently, the girls in question were given a choice to either take a "re-education" class, or face charges.

And now, reader Pickle Monger points out that one of the girls, along with the ACLU, is suing the school district itself, claiming that it violated the girl's privacy. Apparently, the way the school found out about the photos was that it had confiscated her mobile phone, after she was caught making a phone call on school grounds, against school rules. There's no problem with confiscating the phone, of course, but then the school searched through the phone and found those photos. It's the search that the ACLU and the student are questioning. The school had no reason to search through the phone, or to look at the photos stored on the phone after it had confiscated it.

Filed Under: mobile phones, privacy, schools

55 Comments

Feds Look At Jamming Mobile Phones In Prison

Wireless

from the hope-you're-not-a-guard-during-a-riot... dept

Thu, May 13th 2010 3:57pm — Mike Masnick

Discussions over mobile phone jamming seems to get pretty controversial pretty fast. The technology is technically illegal in the US (except for the government), but that hasn't stopped some from using the tech anyway. Plenty of businesses have tried to get exceptions to the law. Movie theaters, in particular, have petitioned the government in the past for the right to jam mobile phones and a maker of jamming equipment has claimed that banning the technology is unconstitutional. Of course, the problem is that there may be legitimate reasons to use a mobile phone (emergencies, anyone?) and jammers don't discriminate. The collateral damage of mobile phone jamming could be a big deal.

However, there's one other area that has pushed for jammers for a long time: prisons. Mobile phones have become popular contraband equipment in prison, and there are frequent stories of prisoners regularly using mobile phones to communicate with the outside world. So, now, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is apparently planning to investigate if it makes sense to jam mobile phones in prison. I'm not sure why this isn't coming from the FCC, though it sounds like a bit of a political football, where a bill that would grant the FCC that power stalled out in Congress. I can understand the desire to block mobile phone usage in prisons, but jamming seems like a sledge hammer type of solution, that could cause problems for others (guards?) who might need mobile phones to work.

Filed Under: jamming, mobile phones, prison

30 Comments

Oh Look, Another Completely Ridiculous Wireless Broadband Bill

Wireless

from the ripping-off-retirees-is-our-business-model dept

Thu, May 6th 2010 1:53pm — Karl Bode

Last week we highlighted the highly-flammable combination of users who don't read their contract fine print or know what a gigabyte is -- and carriers that seem incapable of properly alerting customers before their 3G bill requires a second mortgage. This week the Boston Globe has yet another story of this kind -- exploring how a Dover, Massachusetts man has been fighting Verizon Wireless over an $18,000 phone bill since 2006. The man (obviously annoyed about the impact this has on his credit report) missed the fact that his two-year contract with Verizon expired, and his new contract began billing him by the kilobyte. His son, who had tethered his phone to his laptop, quickly racked up thousands of dollars in overage charges after downloading 1,119,000 kilobytes. Verizon, for their part, were not particularly helpful according to state regulators:

"Kevin Brannelly, an official at the state Department of Public Utilities, tried to help the St. Germain family fight the bill because it did not seem right. "Never in my 25 years here have I seen such stubborn and senseless resistance to what is obviously a mistake," he wrote in an e-mail to St. Germain."

As with all these stories, Verizon justifies this absolutely insane markup over cost on their data service by insisting they at least made their ridiculously-constrictive pricing clear to consumers. Apparently not, given we've been watching a steady parade of these stories for years now. What has been made clear is that the cap and overage billing model isn't working for many customers. It also continues to be clear that carriers are doing a miserable job educating their users, and an even worse job implementing effective systems that alert a user before their bill goes utterly apocalyptic. While carriers often do reduce these charges after they're exposed in the press (though in this case half-off is still obnoxious) -- you have to wonder how many of these over-billing stories aren't being told.

Some carriers appear to be realizing that the millions to be made from ripping off retirees and the kilobyte confused isn't worth the endless bad press, and that helping your customers understand their bills might just help you differentiate your services. T-Mobile for instance is moving away from this cap and overage model, and last week announced they'd simply start throttling users back to slower (usually around 128 kbps) speeds should they cross their monthly cap. It seems like wireless carriers can either continue to rip people off until regulators get involved (or customers flee to more user-friendly carriers) -- or they can provide users with the tools necessary to help them adequately understand and control their monthly bill -- before it requires loan shark intervention.

Filed Under: bills, mobile data, mobile phones
Companies: verizon

30 Comments

Finally, A Definitive Answer On Whether Cell Phones Cause Cancer -- In 20 Or 30 Years

Studies

from the long-wait dept

Thu, Apr 22nd 2010 11:13pm — Carlo Longino

For years, there's been conflicting research on the health risks posed by mobile phones. For every study that found a link between the radiation from phones and cancer, there was another that didn't. Part of the problem is that the health issues that could be caused by phones can take years to emerge, and since mobile phones are relatively new -- and have changed significantly over the past 10 or 15 years -- so definitive research is a long and difficult task. But now, some researchers in Europe are embarking on a large-scale, 20- to 30-year study to examine just how phones affect people's health. They're looking at cancer, but also other issues commonly tied to phones, such as brain diseases, headaches, tinnitus, depression and sleep disorders, and will also be examining radiation emitted by other devices, like baby monitors and cordless phones. It will be great to have some more definitive answers as to exactly what risks we're subjecting ourselves to by putting mobile phones up against our heads, so be sure to check back in a few decades.

Filed Under: cancer, health risks, mobile phones

25 Comments

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Not All Retailers Overreacting To Mobile Phone Wielding Shoppers

from the nice-to-see dept

Telco Opposition To Anti-Bill Shock Plans Doesn't Pass The Laugh Test

from the more-confusion? dept

Transportation Secretary Wants To Ban All Driver Talking (Except To Other Passengers)

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

Ontario Premier Says Cellphones In Class Could Be Useful

from the smart-comments-from-politicians? dept

People Aren't Buying Blank CDs Any More, So Collection Agency Demands Media Levy Expanded To Mobile Phones

from the well,-if-you-bet-on-obsolete-technologies dept

NTP Keeps On Making The Case For Patent Reform As It Sues More Companies

from the milking-it dept

Student Sues School For Privacy Invasion After School Found Nude Photos On Her Phone

from the the-case-that-keeps-on-giving dept

Feds Look At Jamming Mobile Phones In Prison

from the hope-you're-not-a-guard-during-a-riot... dept

Oh Look, Another Completely Ridiculous Wireless Broadband Bill

from the ripping-off-retirees-is-our-business-model dept

Finally, A Definitive Answer On Whether Cell Phones Cause Cancer -- In 20 Or 30 Years

from the long-wait dept

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