| T-Mobile will soon begin sunsetting grandfathered plans Oct 15th 2013, 15:06, by Robert Nelson Those holding a grandfathered unlimited plan with T-Mobile will soon be in for a change. It looks like those plans will be going away beginning next month. T-Mobile has yet to confirm exactly when these switches would take place, or how long it would take them to transition all users, however a letter shared on Howard Forums points towards this happening in November. 
That being said, there does appear to be a silver lining here. To begin with, T-Mobile has said these changes will “for the vast majority” be able to “provide similar or better features at a comparable price.” Granted, we suspect more than a few will simply hear they are losing their unlimited plan and not want to consider anything further. For that, it looks like you will have an out. That T-Mobile letter also touches on canceling your service. Specifically, it was said that “if you choose to cancel your service, you can do so without penalty until 2/1/2014.” Simply put, it seems you can get out without worry of the dreaded and often expensive early termination fees. This all goes back to the UNcarrier approach where T-Mobile is trying to simplify things. In fact, in a statement provided to Engadget, the carrier said; “Maintaining thousands of rate plans is the norm in the industry, but we think it creates unnecessary complexity. Simple is better, which is why we’re reducing the number of older plans in our systems.”
While this gives users with older plans something to consider moving forward, we recently saw T-Mobile make the latest move in an effort to shake up the mobile industry. This one arrived earlier in the week and saw the carrier announce free global data and texting for those using a Simple Choice plan. VIA: TmoNews |  | HTC One max fingerprint collection policy clarified Oct 15th 2013, 14:24, by Robert Nelson New technology seems to bring new questions. In this case we are looking towards fingerprint technology which has recently been showing up on some smartphones. Apple launched the iPhone 5s and more recently, HTC launched the One max. Similar to what we saw following the Apple launch, some began questioning what HTC was doing with the data. 
That being said, the short answer is that HTC (as well as third-parties) do not have access to the information. The details come by way of HTC who have provided a statement to phoneArena. HTC was asked how they store the fingerprint data and also whether they have access and whether third-parties have access. As we already touched on those final two bits, the first seems key here. HTC said the “fingerprint data is stored in local memory.” Further details here point towards it being “encrypted and stored in the system partition, which can’t be readily accessed or copied.” While that seems to make things pretty clear, HTC did go a bit further and mentioned the “data is not an actual image but fingerprint characteristics that have been identified by a proprietary algorithm.” While the fingerprint technology is a neat feature of the HTC One max, there is more to the handset. The One max is launching with Android 4.3 and Sense 5.5 as well as hardware to include a 5.9-inch Full HD display, Snapdragon 600 processor, 2GB of RAM and an UltraPixel camera on the back. Our full HTC One max review was published yesterday and a video walkthrough is sitting below. Otherwise, touching back on the fingerprint sensor and it seems there may be more to think about than just the security of the data. HTC has said they are using this more for convenience as opposed to security, however those reading the review will note how we felt the process is not as seamless as one would hope and/or expect at the moment. | | Xiaomi MI3 smartphone launch brings 90 second sellout Oct 15th 2013, 13:54, by Robert Nelson Xiaomi is a Chinese brand that up until recently may not have been on the radar of those outside the market. Things changed recently when Hugo Barra announced he was leaving Google and heading to China to take up residence as the global vice president. While we cannot credit Barra for these sales figures, it looks like Xiaomi is doing well with the recently launched MI3. 
The Xiaomi MI3 was originally revealed back in early-September. This announcement came along side the “MiTV” 3D Smart TV, and both devices seem to have sold out rather quickly. Coming by way of the official Xiaomi Twitter account, there was word of 100,000 smartphones and 3,000 televisions being sold. “100,000 Xiaomi MI3s are sold out in one minute and twenty-six seconds, and 3000 MITVs are sold out in one minute and fifty-eight seconds”
Also, just to clarify, that number is for sales within China. At this point in time we have yet to see Xiaomi begin any sales elsewhere. The MI3 is available in a 16GB and 64GB model and they are selling for CNY1999 ($327) and CNY2499 ($410) respectively. Aside from the storage, the specs include a 5.0-inch Full HD display, 2 megapixel front-facing camera and 5 megapixel rear-facing camera with f2.2 aperture, Philips dual LED flash and Sony Exmor RS 28mm lens. The handset is also available with different processor options depending on the carrier. China Mobile has an NVDIA Tegra 4 model and China Unicom and China Telecom have a model powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800. That all being said, while we suspect many manufacturers would be happy with those sales numbers, there may be a bit more to the story. The Next Web is reporting that many of the MI3 smartphones have been picked up by scalpers looking to make a profit, as opposed to average end-users simply looking for a phone. Otherwise, Xiaomi has said they are looking to sell 20 million smartphones this year. They claim to have sold 7.03 during the first six-months of 2013 and 7.19 million for all of 2012. | |
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