Sprint Takes The Axe To Its Premier Program; No More Early Phones

For Sprint subscribers who qualified for membership in the carrier's Sprint Premier program, we've got some bad news for you: the days of all your perks are numbered, with Sprint announcing the discontinuation of the program.

Some members of the Premier program might have been interested in the ability to upgrade their phones more frequently, but we always paid the most attention to the early access members had to some cutting-edge phones. Sprint would occasionally give Premier members the chance to buy a new piece of hardware several days before the rest of its customers. Sure, it was never the week-or-two head start that would give you a chance to rub your new phone in the faces of your friends, but it was a nice perk nonetheless. Now, all Sprint subscribers will be on a level playing field when it comes to new releases.

Sprint will be phasing out the benefits available to Premier members based on their type of membership and when they joined; current benefits will last at least through the end of the year. After that, you could have up to another year to take advantage of an upgrade opportunity, depending on your circumstance; check with Sprint for details.

We're sad to see some of those perks go, but if it lets Sprint keep costs down and offer unlimited data, so be it.

Source: Sprint

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Microsoft Program Manager Teases Nokia Windows Phone, Rates 8/10

The expectations are high when it comes to Nokia and even higher since the strategic alliance with Microsoft. People want excellent software on stellar hardware so Nokia has to deliver. Some probably will get the first Nokia Windows Phone this year while others will need to wait until 2012.

Joe Marini though, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft for Web platform on Windows Phone, has the opportunity to play with a Nokia Windows Phone. He says it's "one of the slickest looking Nokia phones" he has ever seen. Of course, we need to take his word for it as we're not that lucky. He would rate the phone an eight out of ten, the device having a "good camera, responsive UI, and nice little touches on the body construction".

We're quite sure we'd be stricter if we were to review the phone. According to Marini, "the camera was good" but it didn't have optimal lighting. Also, he would have preferred a larger screen. Whether he is referring to the SeaRay or another Windows Phone from Nokia is yet unknown but if a Microsoft Program Manager rates it an eight out of ten, we're sure the phone could have scored a rough 3.5 in our review, which is definitely no flagship from Nokia. It will have to compete with the HTC Titan and Co.

Source: Twitter (1)(2)(3)
Via: WMPU

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Rovi sues Hulu over program guide patents

It’s been a bad week for Hulu. Just a few days after Fox announced it will put up a pay wall around what used to be free broadcast content on the streaming site, Hulu is now being hit by a patent infringement suit from interactive programing guide vendor Rovi.

The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Delaware Thursday, revolves around three patents related to online TV program guides and search products: US Patent #6,396,546, US Patent #7,103,906 and US Patent #7,769,775. The suit seeks unspecified damages (and attorney fees!) for the alleged infringement.

One could say Rovi aggressively defends its intellectual property. Or one could also say that Rovi typically uses the threat of litigation as a starting point of licensing discussions for its IP. That seems to be the case with Hulu: In its complaint, Rovi claims it met with the web video startup as early as August 2008 to initiate licensing discussion. Hulu passed, Rovi sued.

Sometimes the strategy works: Rovi sued Toshiba over three program guide patents late last year. Earlier this year, Toshiba not only agreed to a license, but will use Rovi’s TotalGuide interactive programming guide in its televisions.

Sometimes it doesn’t: A long-running patent infringement suit against Virgin Media ended in a bit of Pyrrhic victory, as Virgin was found to infringe, but the patents in question were ruled invalid.

In any case, Hulu isn’t the only online media company that Rovi has taken to court recently. In January, it sued Amazon, and Amazon’s IMDb property over five program guide patents.

We can probably expect more of these lawsuits, as Rovi claims more than 1,100 patents related to program guides, which it has licensed to a number of distributors and consumer electronics manufacturers such as Apple, Cisco, Comcast, DirecTV, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, Time Warner and Verizon.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

window.fbAsyncInit = function() {FB.init({appId: 180650338636285, status: true, cookie: true, xfbml: true});FB.api({method: 'links.getStats',urls: 'http://gigaom.com/video/hulu-rovi-patent-infringement/'},function(response) {jQuery('#react-fb-count-button').html(response[0].commentsbox_count);});FB.Event.subscribe('comment.create', function(response) {var ajaxurl = 'http://gigaom.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=new_fb_comment&post_id=';jQuery.get(ajaxurl + 385741);});};var e = document.createElement('script');e.type = 'text/javascript';e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';e.async = true;document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e);

var _comscore = _comscore || []; _comscore.push({ c1: "2", c2: "6036014" }); (function() { var s = document.createElement("script"), el = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0]; s.async = true; s.src = (document.location.protocol == "https:" ? "https://sb" : "http://b") + ".scorecardresearch.com/beacon.js"; el.parentNode.insertBefore(s, el); })();

Click to log in with: Not you? Remember me Submitting comment...
;(function($){$.fn.trackClick = function(){// track the clicktry {_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', this.parents('[id!=""]:first').get(0).id, 'clicked', (this.text() || this.children('img:first').attr('alt'))]);}catch (err) {}// wait a moment for the tracking to process, then follow the linksetTimeout('document.location = "' + $(this).attr('href') + '"', 200);};$('#brand-explorer a, #navigation a, .widget-wrap a').click(function () {$(this).trackClick();return false;}); })(jQuery);

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.