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New details from the Far East purport to show the full list of supported devices for Apple’s iOS 6 beta, and included among those is the iPhone 3GS, first released in 2009.

New details have emerged regarding Microsoft’s strategy to get its customers to upgrade their operating systems to the long-anticipated Windows 8.

Details of the company’s strategy first surfaced earlier this month, with Microsoft offering a $15 upgrade option that will give any Windows 7 PC buyer the Pro version of Windows 8 (even if they only get Windows 7 Home or Basic versions). And now, we’re hearing a bit more about the perimeters of this deal.

The upgrade deal will be eligible for anyone who purchases a Windows 7 PC from the Microsoft Store after June 2, according to a report from The Verge that cites people with details of the plan. The deal will run through January 31, 2013, which basically helps snare in all the holiday spending associated with Christmas and the gift cards redeemed thereafter.

Also interesting is that Microsoft will be offering a workshop to anyone who takes advantage of the upgrade offer, according to the report. Essentially, this will be similar to what Apple is already offering in its own retail stores, with employees walking customers through the basics of the new OS. Anyone who participate will also get a $20 gift card to the Microsoft retail store — making your upgrade more or less free.

That’s a decent incentive for the “not-computer people” who don’t really care about upgrading their OS the way an average tech geek (or knowledgeable consumer, I should say) would.

It’s nice to see Microsoft stepping up its game on the OS upgrade strategy. In the past, the company’s lack of effort in getting people to switch over resulted in millions of computers still using Windows XP and (groan) Vista.

Photo via Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

Filed under: VentureBeat

One of the greatest things about the epic “Write the future” spot (2010) was that it was so complex that people went on to see it several times, in order to discover new details about the story. Now, because of the 2012 European Championship next summer and featuring all the teens coming from “The Chance”, Nike is releasing another monster piece, and now with a twist. Instead of having a Youtube channel with several videos, you can find them all within the first one, rabbit hole style. A Sonic-style game featuring Neymar, a visit to the barber to have a haircut to be remembered and many other things in a huge piece of storytelling.

You can see the new spot here:

And check all the rabbit holes at http://www.youtube.com/nikefootball

New details that were previously redacted from a class action suit claiming Apple and two publishing houses colluded to falsely inflate e-book prices revealed that Steve Jobs personally persuaded one of the publishers to ink a commitment to the company’s “agency model.”

U.S. gaming retailer GameStop, which already buys and resells iPhones, iPads and iPods, may soon begin buying and selling Apple’s MacBooks, new details suggest.

Just because the first day of BlackBerry World is over doesn’t mean we mobile geeks have run out of BlackBerry-related tidbits to pick apart.

Oh, far from it — in fact, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins took the stage (again) earlier today for a long-running chat with the press, and he has since outed a few juicy new details about the company’s strategy going forward.

First, let’s take a quick look at the things RIM won’t be doing, shall we?

RIM will not be…

Updating your BlackBerry 7 device to BlackBerry 10

I’m really sorry if you ended up buying one of RIM’s BlackBerry 7 phones because Heins confirmed that the company will never bring BlackBerry 10 to those really-not-that-old devices. Instead, BlackBerry 7 — which, if you’ll recall was only launched late last year — will be kept around to power the inexpensive BlackBerry hardware that RIM will continue to pump into emerging markets.

Meanwhile, BlackBerry 10 will be slapped onto the rest of the company’s device portfolio, and maybe even on devices from other companies (more on that later).

Giving up on hardware keyboards:

I’ll admit that I’m a fan of the direction RIM is taking with their touchscreen keyboard, but BlackBerry purists can rest easy knowing that BlackBerry 10 devices with physical keyboards will become a reality at some point. Then again, while RIM has told us that the Dev Alpha device isn’t representative of a final BB10 phone, it would still come as a shock to see the company eschew an all-touch device in favor of a more traditional design when these things launch later in the year.

Abandoning the consumer space in favor of the enterprise market

RIM has said it before (most recently after their Q4 2011 earnings call), and they’ll say it again — it’s absolutely not true. Seriously, were people in the audience not paying attention to the company whose conference they showed up at? In fairness part of the confusion originally stemmed from a comment from Heins’ during said earnings call when he claimed the company would “focus on the enterprise” though representatives eventually chimed in to clarify his statement a bit. That said, RIM is pouring plenty of effort into enterprise offerings like Mobile Fusion, but I have to wonder how well that split focus will serve them down the line.

But RIM will be…

Pushing for a bigger piece of the U.S. Market.

Heins conceded that RIM is facing an uphill battle here in the States, but claimed that RIM wasn’t in the game just for laughs — they’re “here to win.” According to The Verge, Heins went so far as to claim that the company would regain some of its lost market share around these parts. Good luck, Mr. Heins; here’s hoping your plan to pick up domestic steam works better than Microsoft’s.

He also revealed that he was in the process of scouting for a chief marketing officer to help craft and focus RIM’s message going forward, which in polite terms could use a bit of work.

Exploring options for licensing BlackBerry 10

This doesn’t come as a huge shock, considering that the man who said this also candidly mentioned in an earnings call that he’d think about selling the company if it was the right thing to do. Nevertheless, Heins reiterated that he was open to the possibility, and confirmed that RIM was looking into two types of licensing — licensing the OS for other smartphones, and licensing it for “mobile computing” products.

Interestingly, Heins wondered aloud about the segmentation of BlackBerry 10, and specifically how to position the so-called “high performance” OS into those varying market segments. Could we soon see a low-end device from a third-party manufacturer running BlackBerry 10? Possibly, but Heins seems focused on making BlackBerry 10 a platform that’s actually worth using before getting too bogged down in licensing details.

Bringing a 4G PlayBook to market:

But you already knew that.

It’s the first week of March, and that means it’s time for another Apple event. Ars is gearing up to cover the event live on Wednesday, March 7, with Senior Apple Editor Jacqui Cheng (that’s me!) on the ground in San Francisco getting ready to liveblog and hopefully get some hands-on time with whatever is announced.

Apple hinted heavily in its invitation that some new iPad news is on the way, and it’s all but certain the company plans to release an updated version of its tablet. What might be tweaked with that update? We recently published an iPad 3 rumor roundup detailing the latest rumors: the most highly anticipated new features include a high-resolution “retina” display like that of the iPhone 4 and 4S, a faster processor (but how much faster?), upgraded cameras, and possibly even 4G/LTE support. 

This is the time of year Apple usually gives the press a sneak peek into the next major version of iOS, so we’re keeping our fingers crossed for new details on the software front.

Whatever ends up happening, Ars will be on the scene to bring you the updates as they happen. The event is set to take place at 10am PST (GMT-0800) on Wednesday March 7, 2011 (see it in your timezone).

Unlike past liveblogs where the liveblog itself is embedded in the post, we’re trying a new strategy by directing users over to our separate page for the event. Please bookmark it and come back when the event starts. Thanks, and we’ll see you on Wednesday morning!

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It’s been a difficult month for Google, and the company is bound to take another hit in the morning as a Wall Street Journal article makes the rounds — an article that offers new details about the government sting that led Google to pay $500 million after acknowledging that it both…



Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Microsoft released new details of its Windows 8 plans on Tuesday, differentiating its upcoming Windows Store from Apple’s own App Store and Mac App Store by offering a 20/80 revenue split to developers after their first $25,000 in sales and allowing third-party in-app purchase and subscription options.

Last week we broke the news on a previously-stealthy mobile carrier called Republic Wireless, which I’ve been tracking closely since. The story so far: Bandwidth.com, which provides the VoIP backbone for services including Google Voice and Twilio, is launching an alternative mobile carrier called Republic Wireless.

As GigaOm reported last week, it will cost only $19 a month for unlimited text, data, and voice. It can offer these low rates because its phones use a special ‘Hybrid Calling’ system that relies on Wifi whenever possible, falling back to cellular connections when Wifi isn’t available. The initial cellular partner is Sprint, but Republic is working to use other carriers as fallback options as well.

Now the company has officially announced additional details about the service, which is launching November 8 (i.e., later today).

The key new details:

The first phone being offered by Republic Wireless — which users will need to buy in order to use the service — is a modified version of The LG Optimus, running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). This phone is offered by other carriers and is generally regarded as a solid low-end device (it’s not going to look great next to a Galaxy S II, but it’ll more than suffice for a lot of people). The device will be sold for $199 with no contract, and it will be available at a discounted rate of $99 through November 27. Again, that’s with no contract — there are no termination fees.

Here are additional details from the press release:

The first month of service bundled with the start up fee
An LG Optimus smartphone running Android 2.3 (“Gingerbread”)
Month-to-month freedom from contracts and termination fees
Unlimited voice minutes
Unlimited text messages
Unlimited data megabytes
Automatic default to Wi-Fi when in range
Automatic Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calling over Wi-Fi
Internet protocol texting over Wi-Fi
Nationwide cellular coverage when Wi-Fi isn’t available
No overages or roaming fees, ever
No-risk, 30-day money back guarantee

So why is this a big deal?

There are other plans out there that are relatively inexpensive compared to the ridiculous smartphone bills we’re used to — notably Virgin Mobile, which offers $35 no-contract plans with unlimited data and texting. But this is cheaper than Virgin, and I think it has far more disruptive potential down the line (after all, Virgin Mobile is owned by Sprint).

There’s also the Wifi-based calling, which I think is a killer feature on its own (I recently wished aloud that Google Voice would offer VoIP calling via an Android app). The fact that I’m constantly surrounded by Wifi networks and still have to deal with dropped calls and bad cell coverage is maddening at times — having a phone that can automatically switch to Wifi whenever possible would go a long way toward solving that.

Yes, there are other phones with Wifi calling that are already available (T-Mobile offers an app on some Android devices that can do this), but you still need to buy a full-fledged T-Mobile plan to get them to work. Republic Wireless is less than half the price of a T-Mobile plan.

I still have plenty of questions that won’t be answered until I have a device in my hands (I’ll be buying one the moment they go on sale). Does the phone seamlessly take care of the handoff between Wifi and the cellular network? What kind of data speeds will I get on Sprint? And are there any other unforeseen gotchas?

But I’m — dare I say it — excited. This really could be disruptive, and while I think it might take some time to pick up steam, the $20 monthly price point has a very broad appeal.

Update: Sounds like we have some more exciting handsets in the pipe, too. In a comment below, Bandwidth.com SVP and General Manager of the Mobile Division Brian Dally writes:

“Arron, we like the Galaxy too (pun intended). We’re launching our beta with just one, but more phones are on the way….”

Here’s a quote from David Morken, CEO and cofounder of Bandwidth.com. (I rarely include these press release quotes, but this is a good one):

“We hold this to be self-evident: that the best, fastest, and highest-value network is the Wi-Fi you already have in your home and office” said David Morken, co-founder and CEO of republic wireless’ parent company, Bandwidth.com. “We believe that most smartphones should be communicating over Wi-Fi natively, and only using cellular spectrum if needed, not all the time,” said Morken. “The cellular emperor has no clothes – smart consumers have been clamoring for someone to unlock the value of our home and office networks for years. republic wireless uniquely delivers what they’ve been asking for. Our beta, launched today, ushers in a new era in wireless and is the beginning of our mission to bring customers unprecedented value.”