Seems the United Arab Emirates wasn't satisfied with the spying agreements that RIM put in place -- now, the government's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority will reportedly restrict BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) services to companies with more than twenty BlackBerry accounts each. Interestingly, the TRA itself denies that any services will be halted to individuals or small firms, even as RIM itself claims that such a ban will indeed take effect, though RIM also claims that it "would be an industrywide policy applying equally to all enterprise solution providers," happily suggesting that competitors would also be affected. The ban is apparently scheduled for May 1st, so there won't be long to wait -- at the very least, we'll see who's telling the truth two weeks from today.

UAE plans enterprise-class messaging ban for individuals and small companies? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Apr 2011 23:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/17/uae-plans-enterprise-class-messaging-ban-for-individuals-and-sma/

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The thin, bright, energy-efficient displays may outclass LCD and plasma TVs -- if manufacturers can scale up.

Source: http://feeds.pcworld.com/click.phdo?i=dad7c6cfa90f8d0dfed8d58813f50eea

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If Google were a literary character, it would be Lenny from John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." Lenny is a mountain of a man and a tireless, impressive worker with a heart of gold. He's always intent on doing the right thing (that is, "doing no evil").

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/t/internet-privacy/stop-acting-startup-google-570?source=rss_infoworld_top_stories_

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What's the most popular camera used in terms of pictures taken that are uploaded to Flickr? Right now, it's the Nikon D90. But in about a month or so, it will be Apple's iPhone 4. What's amazing is that D90 is nearly three years old. The iPhone 4 is not even a year old. Just look at a the chart above. The rise has been spectacular. But it's hardly the first time an iPhone has risen this quickly. Back in 2009, the iPhone overtook the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi as the most popular camera on Flickr. The difference is that at the time, Flickr was counting all the iPhone models together. That meant the original iPhone, the iPhone 3G, and the iPhone 3GS were all clumped together to overtake the Canon model. Now they're split up, and the iPhone 4 alone is still going to be the most popular camera on Flickr in under a year. It's pretty remarkable, really.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/k0N6x5CPtk0/

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With their larger screens, long-lasting batteries, and powerful CPUs, tablets seem well suited for the kinds of rich multimedia applications that confound ordinary smartphones. But Apple famously won't allow Adobe Flash on its iOS mobile devices, including the iPad. This fued creates an ideal opportunity for competing tablet makers to step in and fill the void.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/mobile-technology/flash-android-look-dont-touch-838?source=rss_infoworld_top_stories_

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Start-up, eyeing entry into the concentrating-photovoltaics market, says its multijunction cells have progressed faster than existing high-end solar cells.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20053851-54.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=GreenTech

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For the first time ever, scientists teleport a complex set of quantum information from one point to another.

Source: http://feeds.pcworld.com/click.phdo?i=241d3820e882c9aece026ef6ad932b29

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Official says plans of major carmakers indicate that U.S. is on track to realize President Obama's goal of having 1 million plug-in vehicles on country's roads by 2015.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20053597-54.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=GreenTech

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I've always tried to be environmentally conscious, even when doing so has gotten in the way of convenience: I avoid Styrofoam cups like the plague; I separate my...

Source: http://feeds.pcworld.com/click.phdo?i=8541a0ae376bff87fa3c0c7b2fc4c8ae

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Microsoft has shifted into hardcore damage-control mode over the Windows Phone 7 updates, claiming that "only" 10 percent of users' smartphones have stalled on the new software.

The update, originally described to media as a "smaller infrastructure update that will help future updates," began to enter the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem Feb. 21. Soon afterward, users took to the Windows Phone 7 help forum (among other Websites) to post comments about the update stalling their smartphones, if not bricking them entirely.

In the wake of that, Microsoft decided to pull the update for Samsung smartphones. "We have identified a technical issue with the Windows Phone update process that impacts a small number of phones," a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in a Feb. 23 e-mail to me. "In response to this emerging issue, we have temporarily taken down the latest software update for Samsung phones in order to correct the issue."

But that didn't stop the "gloomy headlines," according to a new corporate blog posting, compelling Microsoft to break out some figures: 90 percent of Windows Phone 7 updates apparently went fine, leaving that aforementioned 10 percent to wrestle with the issue.

"Of the 10 percent who did experience a problem, nearly half failed for two basic reasons--a bad Internet connection or insufficient computer storage space," Michael Stroh, a writer for Microsoft's Windows team, posted Feb. 23 on the Windows Phone Blog. "Luckily, both are easy to fix."

I don't know about you, but a 10-percent failure rate is pretty bad. If Ford or Toyota released a new vehicle, and 10 percent of those vehicles exploded into a gaudy ball of flame when driven faster than 50 mph, the company would probably execute a recall. If Apple released a new tablet with a 10 percent failure rate, you'd have every pundit from New York to San Francisco braying that the company had lost its magic. It's not an insignificant number, or the sort of thing that can be easily dismissed as a statistical aberration.

The rest of the answer ("a bad Internet connection or insufficient computer storage space") sort of boggles my mind, too. I understand that Windows Phone Update needs space to create a backup image on one's PC, on top of actually downloading the update. I also know, from sad personal experience, that sometimes one's Internet connection isn't exactly the speediest or consistent. But I have a hard time believing that either of those two "culprits" could take such a substantial share of the blame for so many Windows Phone 7 devices suddenly deciding to become a paperweight.

And what about the rest of the affected smartphones? What sort of technical issue affected those? Why only Samsung devices? When are those Samsung devices receiving their update?

"Has the update process gone perfectly? No--but few large scale software updates ever do, and the engineering team here was prepared," Stroh wrote. "Of course, when it's your phone that's having a problem--or you're the one waiting--it's still aggravating."

Um, yeah.

As I mentioned yesterday, this is exactly the sort of problem that Microsoft needed to avoid in the early stages of the Windows Phone 7 rollout. I still believe the platform has a lot to like, but its position of relative newness in the smartphone marketplace means every systemic error, if not fatal, certainly has the potential for far greater damage than for a more established platform. Moreover, Stroh's posting--blaming the press for "gloomy headlines," implicitly blaming a subset of users for insufficient hard drive space--comes off as excessively defensive.

Source: http://feeds.ziffdavisenterprise.com/~r/RSS/MicrosoftWatch/~3/jeESiIM9Dvk/windows_phone_7_update_damage_control_fail.html

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