Apple reportedly struck a deal to offer the iPhone on China Mobile

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Apple has struck a deal with China Mobile to officially sell the iPhone on the carrier. The deal is said to have the Apple iPhone devices available on the carrier’s shelves later this month – around December 18.

The agreement between Apple and China Mobile will open for the Cupertino giant the doors to the largest wireless carrier in the world. China Mobile has over 700 million subscribers.

The Apple iPhone 5s and 5c both feature support for China Mobile’s TD-LTE network. The devices have already received regulatory approval.

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Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/apple_reportedly_struck_a_deal_to_offer_the_iphone_on_china_mobile-news-7315.php

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The EU Commission cleared Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia

The European Commission cleared Nokia’s acquisition by Microsoft. According to the EU’s executive body, “the transaction would not raise any competition concerns, in particular because there are only modest overlaps between the parties' activities.”

Microsoft’s official acquisition of Nokia will see Nokia’s former CEO Stephen Elop return to Redmond as a head of an expanded Devices team. It will include Window Phone devices, Microsoft Surface, and Xbox gaming consoles.

The European Commission’s approval of the deal comes a day after the US Department of Justice gave it its own clearance. Nokia’s shareholders agreed to the transaction a couple of week ago – on November 19.

Source | Via

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/the_european_commission_cleared_microsofts_acquisition_of_nokia_-news-7314.php

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The NSA is tracking the location data of hundreds of millions of phones worldwide

Thanks for another one, Ed

The National Security Agency is looking at more than just our Google searches, emails and text messages.

The NSA also tracks the location data from hundreds of millions of mobile phones around the world, largley by tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally, according to the Washington Post.

In all the agency collects and stores five billion call records a day, the Post reported.

This latest leak comes from documents provided by leaker Edward Snowden as well as interviews with US intelligence officials. Clearly, the revelation has some disturbing implications.

Hide your kids, hide your phones, they're tracking everybody out here

The location data that the NSA is said to collect allows the agency to track people's movements and map out their relationships in ways never before seen.

Since phone users' location data is "metadata" that's collected "incidentally," it's not considered to be protected by the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution.

The amendment is meant to guard against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires warrants to be sanctioned by a judge and supported by probable clause.

What's more, officials reportedly claimed that the bulk of location tracking occurs outside the US.

US officials said that the location data collection programs the NSA uses are within the organization's legal rights, and that they're "intended strictly to develop intelligence about foreign targets."

A bigger boat

But the NSA is collecting so much location data that it's reportedly spent the last year and a half upgrading its systems to provide greater storage capacity (its database is rumored to be around 17 terabytes already).

The agency apparently needs to collect data on a planetary scale for its algorithms to be able to accurately track targets' relationships.

The report claimed the data is collected with the help of corporations around the world that are referred to in internal NSA documents by awesome codenames like "ARTIFICE" and "WOLFPOINT."

Did the Washington Post just leak the plot of the next Bond movie, or are things really this bad?

• The NSA said earlier this year that it analyzes only a teeny bit of daily global internet traffic.

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/more-snowden-documents-reveal-the-nsa-s-alleged-phone-location-tracking-1204913

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The NSA is alleging tracking the locations of millions of phone

Thanks for another one, Ed

The National Security Agency is tracking more than just our Google searches, text messages and phone call metadata, according to a new report.

The NSA also tracks the location data from hundreds of millions of mobile phones around the world, according to the Washington Post.

In all the agency collects and stores five billion call records a day, the Post reported.

This latest leak comes from "top-secret documents and interviews with US intelligence officials" provided by leaker Edward Snowden, and it has disturbing implications.

Hide your kids, hide your phones, they're tracking everybody out here

The location data that the NSA is allegedly collecting every day allows it "to track the movements of individuals - and map their relationships - in ways that would have been previously unimaginable," the Post wrote.

Apparently phone users' location data is not considered to be protected by the Fourth Amendment because it's "metadata" that's collected "incidentally."

And officials reportedly claim that the bulk of location tracking occurs outside the US.

US officials said that the location data collection programs the NSA uses are within the organization's legal rights, and that they're "intended strictly to develop intelligence about foreign targets."

A bigger boat

But the NSA is collecting so much location data that it's reportedly spent the last year and a half upgrading its systems to provide greater storage capacity (its database is rumored to be around 17 terabytes already).

The Agency apparently needs to collect data on a planetary scale for its algorithms to be able to accurately track targets' relationships.

The report claimed the data is collected with the help of corporations around the world that are referred to in internal NSA documents by awesome codenames like "ARTIFICE" and "WOLFPOINT."

Did the Washington Post just leak the plot of the next Bond movie, or are things really this bad?

• The NSA said earlier this year that it analyzes only a teeny bit of daily global internet traffic

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/more-snowden-documents-reveal-the-nsa-s-alleged-phone-location-tracking-1204913

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Xbox One with Nokia Lumia 1020 deal joins PS4 on O2's console contracts

The Microsoft lover's perfect Christmas bundle?

Just last week we brought news that mobile network O2 would be flogging PS4s with new mobile contracts and now those in Microsoft's corner can also take advantage of a console plus smartphone deal.

From Thursday, the bubbly network will be offering an Xbox One and Nokia Lumia 1020 contract bundle, which will net buyers 1GB of data, unlimited texts and a year of Xbox Live and a copy of FIFA 14 to boot.

For that veritable grotto of Microsoft-centric goods, folks will need to fork over £100 up front, plus £52 a month for the next two years. New and current customers can sign up as part of the O2 Refresh plan.

The deal is only available in O2 stores, 65 of them to be precise, rather than online, with the company saying it has limited stock to go around.

Limited stock

The Xbox offer follows O2's decision to hawk the Sony PS4 with the Sony Xperia Z1 phone on a similar deal, with a year of PlayStation Plus and a copy of Killzone: Shadowfall.

"With our new Xbox One and Nokia Lumia 1020 bundle customers will be getting one of the best consoles and one of the best camera phones in time for Christmas," said David Johnson, General Manager Devices for O2.

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/xbox-one-with-nokia-lumia-1020-deal-joins-ps4-on-o2-s-console-contracts-1204883

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Are these the Galaxy S5's specs (or just a specter)?

The Galaxy S4 was a winner, but the world waits for the S5

A new Samsung phone has appeared online in spectral specs form, and it looks like it could definitely be the Galaxy S5.

The handset, model number SM-G900S, popped up in a benchmark test on GFXBench, though it appears it's since been taken down.

According to FoneArena when the listing was live it revealed a Samsung handset with a 2560 x 1440 display, a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, an Adreno 330 GPU, and Android 4.4: KitKat.

Nothing else is known about this mystery Samsung phone, but the site speculated that given the resolution it might have a 5.25-inch screen with pixel density at 560ppi, as rumors last month said.

Then again

Of course there's no guarantee at all that this Samsung device is the Galaxy S5.

Considering Samsung has a total of four or five new phones planned for early 2014 already, this could actually be any number of devices.

But even if it's not the Galaxy S5 that we're seeing, Samsung's unlikely to let its flagship Galaxy S series be beat, so the S5 will probably at least match these specs.

Other rumored Galaxy S5 features include a possible metal frame, a 64-bit chip, and even an eyeball scanner.

• Check TechRadar's Samsung Galaxy S5 release date, news and rumors hub for all your Galaxy S5 questions!

Source : http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/are-these-the-galaxy-s5-s-specs-or-just-a-specter--1204879

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Apple iPads and iPhone 5c were Black Friday's best performers

The sales of Apple's latest tablet, the iPad Air saw a growth of 51% during the past weekend, according to a report from Localytics. The fact that the device has been on sale for just over a month along with Black Friday promotional offers drove the spike in sales of Apple's latest slate.

The second place in the overachieve standings is taken by another Apple device - the first generation iPad mini. Black Friday and the Cyber Monday also saw the a significant growth in the iPhone 5c sales, which and managed to cling on to the third position.

Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire HD and Samsung's Galaxy S4 are the only two Android devices that managed to make it to the top five with 23% and 20% sales boost, respectively.

Other devices that managed to make the most of the promotion is the second-generation iPad Mini, iPhone 5s, iPhone 4s and the 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.

Source

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/black_friday_drives_ipad_air_and_iphone_5c_sales_-news-7313.php

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