Verizon Confirms $2 Fee for Paying Online and on the Phone

Late yesterday it was revealed in a leak that Verizon would begin charging consumers $2 for each single bill they pay on the phone and online. Users who pay in store or pay online via electronic check or autopay would not be affected.
Verizon confirmed the news today and said that it is indeed to help offset the costs of them having to accept those types of payments. "The fee will help allow us to continue to support these single bill payment options in these channels,” said Verizon.

So there you have it. It’s set to go down on January 15th. We know many of you are wondering about contract options and we’re sure Verizon has thought this one out carefully. Since you can avoid the charge in one way or another it probably doesn’t breach contract.
It’s only two dollars but we can’t imagine many of you hare particularly happy with the change. Electronic checks are quick and easy ways to pay your bill without incurring this charge if you need control over when you actually pay your bill.
Others have suggested that using your bank’s bill pay options will help you bypass the charge since your payment would be mailed off, though there’s not much difference between that and autopay from Verizon. What action will you be taking?
I personally like paying my bills with my credit cards (more convenient to pay one big bill at the end of each month for me) but this change would encourage me to switch it up. Let’s hear it in the comments below!

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Qello for Google TV Now Available

Qello has announced that their Google TV application is now available in the Android market. Qello is a service that brings to you a huge catalog (they claim to have the biggest) of live music performances and they deliver them to your television in HD. The ability to create setlists artist. You can mix and match multiple different artists to keep things varied. Grab the 5.4MB download in the market here. [via GTVSource]

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Amazon Shipped 4 Million Kindle Devices This Holiday, Wouldn’t Show How Much the Kindle Fire Accounted For

Amazon has mentioned today that they have shipped four million Kindle devices this holiday season, a great feat for the company. This includes the e-ink readers they sell in different configurations as well as the Kindle Fire.
Unfortunately Amazon didn’t give us a rundown of which devices did what exactly but we expect the Kindle Fire did well enough. We assume a good chunk of that 4 million were cheap e-ink Kindle models as they start at just $79 and were seen as perfect gifts for first time eReader users. We’re crossing our fingers for some exact figures whenever Amazon releases their financial report sometime early next year. [via Electronista]

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Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime vs LG Optimus Pad

The tablet market is awash with quality devices, all vying to end up in your shopping bag this sales season, but which tablet will give you the most for your money?

Do you choose power before portability? Should you opt for a device with expandable memory? Or should you just cast all research aside and just choose the biggest, fastest, most expensive device on the market?

Well, we're here to help you wade through the myriad statistics on offer, as we take the latest, greatest tablet from Asus, the Eee Pad Transformer Prime, and weigh it up against one of last year's surprise packages, the LG Optimus Pad.

Display

Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime is kitted out with a stunning 10.1-inch Super IPS+ LCD display that is super responsive and glorious to behold.

The screen operates at 1280 x 800 and features a pixel density of 149PPI, which is more than enough to provide some of the crispest visuals around.

The LG Optimus Pad offers up an 8.9-inch LCD touchscreen that holds its own against the mighty Transformer Prime, with a resolution of 768 x 1280 and a thoroughly impressive pixel density of 168PPI.

The extra clarity is certainly not to be sniffed at, but we aren't sure it's enough to make us turn our backs on an inch more screen space and the deeper colours of the Asus.

Winner - Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

Power

LG's Optimus Pad is powered by nVidia's Tegra 2 chipset, with the dual-core CPU clocked at 1GHz. The perennially reliable ULP GeForce GPU takes care of the visuals, and makes gaming an enjoyable experience on the device.

The Optimus Pad also boasts 1GB RAM and 32GB of on-board storage, but offers no support for removable memory.

Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime has yet to be bested in this round though, and it's easy to see why when you take a look at its spec sheet: 1.3GHz quad-core CPU, ULP GeForce GPU, 1GB RAM, 32 or 64GB of storage and support for Micro SD cards up to 32GB capacity.

There really isn't a tablet to touch the Transformer Prime when it comes to horsepower and we expect it will remain that way for a while yet. So if power's what you're looking for you've found the device for you.

Winner - Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

Software

Both of these tablets are powered by Google's Android OS, specifically version 3.0+, otherwise known as Honeycomb, which was tailored for tablet use.

LG's Optimus Pad ships with version 3.0 of the software, while the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime leaves the factory fitted with version 3.2, which offers support for visually improving apps on larger devices and the odd bugfix thrown in for good measure.

Honeycomb itself is a fast, fun affair, with plenty of apps available, a new, richly designed UI and some neat notification tweaks, as well as updated core applications. It's eminently customisable, offers full flash browsing and largely does anything your netbook can do equally as well (with the help of the right app, naturally).

There a few idiosyncrasies that prevent Honeycomb from keeping up with Apple's iOS though. For example, the lack of Android 3+ applications is hugely detrimental, and you'll also have to contend with the odd crash, which is something we didn't enjoy, but overall it's a decent platform that will continue to improve.

Winner - Draw


Form & Build

Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime - 263 x 180.8 x 8.3mm, 586g
LG Optimus Pad - 243.8 x 150 x 12.7 mm, 621g

There's no denying that both of our contenders here are well built. They feel solid, balanced in the hand and reassuringly heavy, without being overly cumbersome.

The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is arguably the better looking of the two, and at nearly 4mm thinner than the Optimus Pad it's definitely the more comfortable to use, and also the more portable, but the LG's effort is by no means big or unpleasant to look at.

One aspect that we like about both tablets is that they feel, and largely are, durable. There's nothing worse than holding a shiny, expensive device and worrying about it hitting the floor with a smash, but both of these devices give off the 'we can take it' vibe that will make you want to pick them up and play with them (NOTE - We aren't saying that they'll take being bounced on your floor, so don't try!).

Winner - Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

Camera

The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime features the very best camera that we've seen on a tablet to date.

The 8-megapixel primary shooter, which offers geo-tagging, autofocus, LED flash and 1080P video capture, is a great performer which is fully capable of capturing print-worthy images in good light and captured video is of a generally high standard too.

The device's secondary 1.2-megapixel camera is perfect for video chatting and rounds off some very nice photographic capabilities.

The LG Optimus Pad features dual 5-megapixel primary cameras capable of capturing stereoscopic (3D) images and also offers an LED flash, geo-tagging, autofocus and 1080 2D video capture, and 720P in 3D.

LG's contender also has a nice 2-megapixel secondary camera which is great for video calling.

While it's a great performer, the general standard of still images is significantly lower than that of the Transformer Prime, and all the bells and whistles can't make up for a good, standard snapshot, which is largely all a tablet is going to be used for.

Winner - Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime

As we've come to expect, Asus' Eee Pad Transformer Prime has blown another contender out of the water!

We're fast running out of superlatives to describe this little box of tricks. It's as powerful as a netbook, as portable as a notepad and has all the top-tier features of a high-end smartphone; there really isn't anything on the market to touch it, save for Apple's iPad 2.

LG's Optimus Pad is a nice enough device, but it doesn't excel in any single area, while the Transformer Prime excels at nearly everything.

Put simply, if you're in the market for a tablet you should either buy the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime or the Apple iPad 2; and that only holds its own against Asus' device thanks to its killer OS!

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IP expert says Apple could earn $10 for every Android device

Apple’s been pretty ruthless when it comes to Android litigation, even if their success rate has been hit or miss lately. After suing Samsung and HTC in the United States and everywhere else they can send a legal team, they’ve become the bane of many an Android OEM. In an interview with Bloomberg, intellectual property guru Kevin Rivette notes that the licensing fees that Apple earns on its patent lawsuits could be as high as $10 per device – a figure that could seriously impede manufacturers, especially on cheap low-margin phones.

To be blunt, that seems extremely unlikely. Apple has proven that it’s unwilling to negotiate with just about anyone, instead taking the all-or-nothing approach and going for a sales ban, as in cases with Samsung in Germany and Australia. In the latter Apple flat-out denied a settlement that surely involved patent licensing, a decision they probably regret now that their case against the design patents in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 have been dismissed. Samsung and HTC have already found ways around Apple’s legal eagles in the other cases: in Germany, Samsung released a revised Galaxy Tab 10.1N that the German court recognized as significantly different than the original, and HTC says it already has a work-around to Apple’s software patents in their United States case.
The simple fact is that Apple’s been too hard-headed to accept any sort of compromise thus far, to its detriment. This position probably stems from the late Steve Jobs, who vowed to “destroy” Android, which he saw as a stolen product. (“We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” -Steve Jobs, 1996.) Now that they’ve been handed defeat in Australia and the US and companies have found ways around their overly vague patents, they may be more amenable to licensing, as Microsoft already is. Microsoft is reputedly making more than $400 million a year in Android licensing fees, and earns $5 from every HTC sale, though that’s the only company whose specific deal with Redmond is publicly known.

Will Apple settle for licensing? Probably not. If they had tried the standard sue-then-settle tactic a year ago they might have been successful, but at this point every major manufacturer has been preparing work-around to their patent trolling. We’ll see what they can cook up in 2012 – and how many Ice Cream Sandwich features magically make their way into iOS 6.

[via Ubergizmo]

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CyanogenMod 9 Alpha Now Available for the Motorola DROID 2 Global is Now Available

Who says older phones (in tech time) can’t handle Ice Cream Sandwich? It’s the latest device to get an early taste of CyanogenMod 9. As it’s an alpha build you shouldn’t yet consider this to be your daily driver but if you want a quick preview of things to come down the road feel free to get your feet wet. Instructions and download links are over at XDA and be warned that anything that may happen to your device as a result of flashing it is your own fault. [XDA via PocketNow]

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Your Verizon Data Should Be Up and Running Now

Verizon experienced another data outage yesterday and it was a lengthy one – half a day, give or take a half an hour. On their Twitter account, Verizon said that 3G was unaffected even though users had trouble connecting to the 3G network even when switching to CDMA-only mode.

They claimed the same thing during last week’s outage when 3G was, in fact, affected for 4G device users. 3G-only device users didn’t see any outages but that’s because their phones use a different authentication service to get onto the network. For 4G users, they use an entirely separate service for both 3G and 4G and many were without data at all (1xRTT included for most).
We’re not sure what’s been going on with Verizon’s “fast and most reliable” network as of late but we hope they’ll be taking a look at this month’s outages and work on preventing them in the future. We know they’re bound to happen but it’s quite troubling when outages happen this frequently. Long story short: all is well and you can go back to drinking up that fast LTE juice. [via VZBuzz, thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

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Samsung Ships 1 Million Galaxy Notes Globally – Promises US Release Coming Soon

With all the complaints I’ve seen in our comments sections about devices being too large, who knew there would be such a huge market for tabletphones/phoneblets like Samsung’s Galaxy Note.
The Korean phone maker announced today that they have shipped over 1 million units globally of the device since its October launch (not to be confused with actual sales) to countries in Europe and Asia but the device is still nowhere to be found here in the US where we tend to like our phones the same way we like our cars and women — BIG.
Samsung did confirm that a US launch is coming soon but didn’t give any specifics on a carrier or launch date. Although, current rumors and leaked FCC docs place the device on AT&T sometime next year. Anyone looking to make this beast their next purchase?

[Via SammyHub]

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Motorola Droid Bionic Is Yet Another Device To Receive Ice Cream Sandwich Port

Yes, just about every device under the sun that has been graced with root most likely has someone attempting to port an Ice Cream Sandwich build to it. Whether beta, alpha or pre-alpha alpha. The Motorola Droid Bionic is no different. Even though Motorola officially announced the device would see an upgrade to Android 4.0 in the coming months, some users may not want to wait that long and who could blame you?
Thankfully, those tireless Android dev’ers have been hard at work getting Ice Cream Sandwich ported to the Bionic in the form of an early alpha release. Based off of CM9, pretty much everything is working smooth and swiftly — well, aside from 3G/4G data but who uses data on Verizon anyway? (Rimshot) Curious to try it out or keep up on the progress of the ROM, hit up DroidForums to see it for yourself.

[Via DroidDog]

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