In one fell swoop, Judge Bonnie Sabraw of the Alameda County Superior Court has added $72.9 million to Sprint-Nextel’s loss column, and declared early termination fees illegal. Ruling against the service provider in a class-action lawsuit, the judge ordered the company to pay $18.2 million to the plaintiffs, and say goodbye to over $54.7 million, the total amount charged to reportedly over 2 million Californians when they terminated their post-paid plans early.

Next Legal Steps

The ruling provides a precedent for other lawsuits, mostly related to extra fees assessed towards customers, currently ongoing. No doubt, an appeal is forthcoming. The final decision may end up literally changing the relationship between service providers and its customers. Locking-in customers into a two-year contract, ensuring revenue for the same period, allows service providers to subsidize the cost of certain cell phones, selling them at a loss. Service providers also rely on early termination fees to make sure that they will never lose money on these subsidized units.

A Reasonable Compromise

The FCC has stayed on the sidelines, simply coming out with proposals to institute a federal-wide system of regulating extra fees. Of interest is chairman Kevin Martin’s plan to pro-rate the cancellation fee based on how long the contract will last. Near the end of a two-year contract for instance, the fee will be significantly lower.

Personally, this seems like a reasonable compromise. It’s understandable why service providers would want to charge extra termination (not discounting horror stories of customers getting charged for extra fees without merit): it let’s them make money while offering popular models at lower-than-market prices. But we also don’t want to see customers get slapped with steep and unreasonable bills, right? Yet at the same time, people who duck out of a multi-year commitment shouldn’t get away scot-free.

(image courtesy of scotttaylor.wordpress.com)

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So it’s somewhat good news that the Palm Centro has reportedly passed the two million mark. That’s less than a year after the smartphone came out last October, and is comparatively good compared to the diminishing sales of the Treo line. But, is this a real sign of recovery?

On one hand, sales are apparently picking up. Yet on the other, you’ve got a smartphone market growing leads and bounds, while Palm posts only modest gains. This means all those new transactions are coming from somewhere else: Palm’s competitors. What do you think?

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So it’s somewhat good news that the Palm Centro has reportedly passed the two million mark. That’s less than a year after the smartphone came out last October, and is comparatively good compared to the diminishing sales of the Treo line. But, is this a real sign of recovery?

On one hand, sales are apparently picking up. Yet on the other, you’ve got a smartphone market growing leads and bounds, while Palm posts only modest gains. This means all those new transactions are coming from somewhere else: Palm’s competitors. What do you think?

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To summarize:

The results suggest a linkage between cell phone use (both maternal and by the children) and behavioral issues. “Children with exposure to cell phones (prenatally, postnatally, or both),” write the authors, “tended to have higher percentages of borderline or abnormal scores for emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and peer problems.”

The contradictions between the two studies are obvious; better concentration stereotypically leads a better, more well-adjusted life right?

At least the folks of the study, as reported by Ars Technica, did not discount other factors that could’ve affected the results. For some reason, “higher rates of cell phone use correlated with low socioeconomic status and maternal psychological issues”, meaning it’s not necessarily the mobile’s fault after all?

This is where studies can be paralyzing, similar to the carcinogen craze of the early 90s and early 2000s. Don’t eat this, this, or that, because there’s a link between that and a higher rate of a certain kind of cancer. A few months later, another study with a totally opposite view comes out.

For now, it’s probably best to not do anything drastic, while researchers figure out ways to come out with more definite results that show absolutely clear links between cell phone use and any badness it may cause. Admittedly, that may be practically impossible, so can’t we just use the damned things?

Image courtesy of the Shawn Phoenix Reason website

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To summarize:

The results suggest a linkage between cell phone use (both maternal and by the children) and behavioral issues. “Children with exposure to cell phones (prenatally, postnatally, or both),” write the authors, “tended to have higher percentages of borderline or abnormal scores for emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, and peer problems.”

The contradictions between the two studies are obvious; better concentration stereotypically leads a better, more well-adjusted life right?

At least the folks of the study, as reported by Ars Technica, did not discount other factors that could’ve affected the results. For some reason, “higher rates of cell phone use correlated with low socioeconomic status and maternal psychological issues”, meaning it’s not necessarily the mobile’s fault after all?

This is where studies can be paralyzing, similar to the carcinogen craze of the early 90s and early 2000s. Don’t eat this, this, or that, because there’s a link between that and a higher rate of a certain kind of cancer. A few months later, another study with a totally opposite view comes out.

For now, it’s probably best to not do anything drastic, while researchers figure out ways to come out with more definite results that show absolutely clear links between cell phone use and any badness it may cause. Admittedly, that may be practically impossible, so can’t we just use the damned things?

Image courtesy of the Shawn Phoenix Reason website

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A realistic artificiality that consumer-friendly budget-wise (the Femisapien costs $99), and follows your every command (robotsrule.com claims the robot can memorize dance moves and act out skits). We just can’t wait for someone to make this baby human-sized and put on some realistic skin. Imagine all the happy men once fem-bots become reality! Oh la la la.

Enough words, check out this “review”—a thinly-disguised but comprehensive video advertisment for the Femisapien.

What do you think?

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A realistic artificiality that consumer-friendly budget-wise (the Femisapien costs $99), and follows your every command (robotsrule.com claims the robot can memorize dance moves and act out skits). We just can’t wait for someone to make this baby human-sized and put on some realistic skin. Imagine all the happy men once fem-bots become reality! Oh la la la.

Enough words, check out this “review”—a thinly-disguised but comprehensive video advertisment for the Femisapien.

What do you think?

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Chris Morris speculates about next-generation gaming systems, conveniently throwing around terms like “PlayStation 4″ and “XBox 720″ even years before they’ve bene concepualized. While it seems like a cynical ploy to attract visitors from search engines, Chris does have something to say about the gaming gadgets we’ll be seeing in the near or not-so-near future. Continue reading for a summary.

Next-gen gaming is about hardware and software. “Work on Epic’s ‘Unreal Engine 4,’ a graphics engine for next-gen games, has been under way for almost two years now under the guidance of founder Tim Sweeney. ‘It’s not like there’s anything to show today,’ notes Epic Vice President Mark Rein.”

Intel’s planning to usurp NVidia. “Intel , meanwhile, is pushing its Larrabee graphics processing unit, which it believes will unseat Nvidia from its leadership position.” Er, these are the same people responsible for all those damned “integreated graphics” right?

Next-gen gaming will take some time. “…it could be closer to eight years before we see the PlayStation 4, Xbox 720 and Nintendo ‘Us’–or whatever they end up being called.” Yet another joke on the Nintendo Wii!

It’s probably to early to say anything about future gaming. In any case, Chris missed out portables like the PSP and DS Lite. Besides, everyone’s probably too busy enjoying their Wiis, XBox 360s, and PS3s to actually care.

image courtesy of techeblog.com

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Chris Morris speculates about next-generation gaming systems, conveniently throwing around terms like “PlayStation 4″ and “XBox 720″ even years before they’ve bene concepualized. While it seems like a cynical ploy to attract visitors from search engines, Chris does have something to say about the gaming gadgets we’ll be seeing in the near or not-so-near future. Continue reading for a summary.

Next-gen gaming is about hardware and software. “Work on Epic’s ‘Unreal Engine 4,’ a graphics engine for next-gen games, has been under way for almost two years now under the guidance of founder Tim Sweeney. ‘It’s not like there’s anything to show today,’ notes Epic Vice President Mark Rein.”

Intel’s planning to usurp NVidia. “Intel , meanwhile, is pushing its Larrabee graphics processing unit, which it believes will unseat Nvidia from its leadership position.” Er, these are the same people responsible for all those damned “integreated graphics” right?

Next-gen gaming will take some time. “…it could be closer to eight years before we see the PlayStation 4, Xbox 720 and Nintendo ‘Us’–or whatever they end up being called.” Yet another joke on the Nintendo Wii!

It’s probably to early to say anything about future gaming. In any case, Chris missed out portables like the PSP and DS Lite. Besides, everyone’s probably too busy enjoying their Wiis, XBox 360s, and PS3s to actually care.

image courtesy of techeblog.com

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Eventually though, he saw no point in putting them back on. It’s easy to see the use of rubber joystick covers; they preserve the most used parts of a gadget from wear and tear, keeping them in pristine condition for a high resale value. But do you really buy a gaming console to keep it mint? No, you buy it to play games! Besides, by the time you want to sell it, value won’t matter as much, especially when everyone’s paying attention to the next-gen consoles.

So again, why would you buy joystick covers?

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