Todd R. Weiss

Net neutrality, the idea that the Internet should be accessible to everyone equally without provisions for fast lanes for those willing to pay extra, has been a stated policy of President Barack Obama since he ran for the presidency and was elected to his first term in 2008. Now, following a Republican takeover of the […]

European consumers now have a 14-day window to seek refunds from Apple for any digital app or content purchases that are downloaded and paid for instantly without giving them a chance to change their minds before the purchase is finalized. The new rules only affect purchases made by Apple customers through Apple’s iTunes or App […]

Apple apparently won the Christmas shopping season mobile device sales war, as it collected some three times the mobile device activations by consumers on Christmas Day as its closest competitor, Samsung. The figures, which have Apple capturing 51.3 percent of the Christmas day activations compared with 17.7 percent for Samsung, were announced in a Dec. […]

The 3-D printer being used by astronauts on the International Space Station recently reached its second big milestone—it was employed to print a usable tool after a data file was uploaded from Earth that gave the printer the specifications and directions for how to produce the tool. The astronauts created a working ratchet wrench using […]

Samsung has just announced its fastest-ever smartphone, the new Galaxy Note 4 phablet with built-in 4G LTE Advanced capabilities that can allow users to get download speeds up to 300M bps, which is four times the speed potential of existing LTE smartphones. The new Galaxy Note 4, unveiled by Samsung on Dec. 28, comes just […]

Xiaomi is a smartphone company that you may not know very well, but if the company has anything to say about it, you will be hearing about them much, much more in the future. The Chinese company just brought in another $1.1 billion in investment funding, according to a Dec. 29 story by Forbes, as […]

T-Mobile USA will have to pay at least $90 million in refunds, fines and penalties to consumers and state and federal government agencies for “cramming” customer phone bills with unauthorized charges for years and then ignoring complaints and requests for refunds. The settlement with T-Mobile, which was announced Dec. 19 by officials from the Federal […]

BlackBerry reported a mixed bag of financial results in its fiscal third-quarter 2015 earnings report on Dec. 19, with a continuing drop in GAAP revenue to $793 million, down 13.43 percent from the prior quarter, while also posting a welcome 28.5 percent reduction in GAAP losses, which totaled $148 million for the quarter. The third […]

Coolpad smartphones sold in China and Taiwan have been found to include a factory-installed backdoor software application that can be used to download unwanted software or perform a wide range of tasks without permission from users. The built-in security vulnerability was revealed Dec. 17 by the Unit 42 threat research team at Palo Alto Networks […]

When I first heard the news on Dec. 17 that the United States will finally begin working to normalize relations with Cuba after more than 50 years of an American embargo, I began thinking about the story I’ve been looking forward to writing since I visited that amazing country for 10 days in October 1992. […]

Sprint is about to be fined $105 million by the Federal Communications Commission to penalize the company for allegedly “cramming” customer wireless telephone bills with unauthorized charges that engorged the company’s earnings. The pending fine against Sprint was reported in a Dec. 15 article by The National Journal, based on interviews with officials who requested […]

The Microsoft Lumia 635 smartphone will be available to customers of Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile on Dec. 23, while postpaid customers of parent company Sprint will be able to obtain the phones starting Jan.16. The Lumia 635 is the first Windows 8.1 phone to be launched on Sprint’s network and the first to be […]