Derek Kessler is Special Projects Manager for Mobile Nations. He's been writing about tech since 2009, has far more phones than is considered humane, still carries a torch for Palm (but BlackBerry's alright, too), and got a Tesla because it was the biggest gadget he could find. You can follow him on Twitter at @derekakessler.
AT&T has a new set of international plans, and while they'll still hit your wallet hard, they're an improvement of what came before. AT&T's new plans, dubbed Passport, Passport Plus, and Passport Pro (not to be confused with plans for the new BlackBerry Passport), bring the same data allotments, but at least offer easier billing international data packages than we've seen before...
When the BlackBerry Passport launches with a US carrier partner, it will be AT&T. So said BlackBerry CEO John Chen at today's Passport launch event, along with the expectation that the newest and squarest BlackBerry smartphone will cost around $250 with a contract, presumably the same from AT&T as well. We don't yet know when the Passport will come to AT&T, but we've been...
Today's the launch of the BlackBerry Passport, and the new square BlackBerry now has pricing for its international launch markets. BlackBerry already already revealed that the phone will launch at $599, and it is indeed available from the BlackBerry Store at that price (which is stated to be a $100 discount). But how much outside of the US, where the Passport doesn't even have a carrier...
AT&T has plans to start offering Wi-Fi calling support by 2015. The system would allow subscribers to place calls using their phone's Wi-Fi connection instead of the cellular network. If that sounds familiar, it should, as T-Mobile has offered Wi-Fi calling for years now, and even dedicated their Uncarrier 7.0 press event to expanding on the concept. AT&T Mobile and Business...
Sprint's not leaving the single-line users out of the party — they're offering a new $60/month unlimited talk, text, and data plan. There's just one catch: You have to bring your own device, pay for one up front, or sign up for Sprint's Easy Pay monthly payments and upgrade plan. That said, if you're a Sprint customer (or are considering being one), that's still some substantial...
There's something to be said for convenience and fashion in one, though we might have to question just how convenient the battery-as-a-bracelet QBracelet really is. The band splits in the middle, with a hinge on one side and your choice of a microUSB plug or Apple Lightning connector on the other. Simply pop it off your wrist and plug into the charge port on your phone to juice up. But...
Update: It seems that Facebook is back online both in web browser and the BlackBerry app. You are free to carry on with your day. It appears that Facebook's newest feature is "being offline". Attempts to visit the social network right now are being thwarted by a lack of stuff to load, from a "network error" alert with no new content in the iPhone and iPad apps to an apology of "Sorry,...
Another day, another apocalyptic prognostication of computer security doom, this time focusing on the omnipresent USB connection. It's called 'BadUSB', and it's a malware proof-of-concept created by security researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell that exploits a flaw in and resides in the firmware that controls the basic function of USB devices. The researchers claim that it's not a...
Transcend MicroSD cards are on sale today only at Amazon. You can grab a Transcend 32GB MicroSDHC Class 10 (with adapter) for $13.99 (that's 63% off) or a Transcend 64GB MicroSDXC card (also with adapter) for $28.99 (42% off). If you've been wanting to increase the storage space of your smartphone, today might be a good day to make that purchase. Added bonus: they both come in "...
It's not easy to make it as an app developer. That's the key takeaway from the latest State of the Developer Nation report from Vision Mobile, pulling together data from more than 10,000 mobile developers (including some of you) across 137 countries. With that many developers they were able to get a broad view of what's popular and (more importantly) what's successful in making great...
Crushed by a flood of commenters, the FCC has extended the open comment period for their Open Internet proceedings until Friday. When we wrote about the importance of net neutrality back in May, the FCC had opened the door for open comment, and that window was due to close today. But after having been smashed yesterday and today by people like you registering their thoughts with the FCC...
Sprint has signed agreements with 12 carriers to expand the LTE footprint of everybody involved. The dozen carriers, all smaller regional and rural networks, cover 34 million Americans not touched by Sprint's fledgling LTE network. The roaming agreements will expand Sprint's LTE coverage into those areas, as well as giving those carriers access to Sprint's network. The carriers...
![Feedly RSS service crippled by ongoing DDoS attack [update]](https://d-cb.jc-cdn.com/sites/crackberry.com/files/styles/w250h188crop/public/article_images/2014/06/greader_broken_feedly_q10_hero.JPG)
Update: It looks like Feedly was able to neutralize the DDoS attack that crippled the news reader service for hours today. "We have neutralized DDoS attack that began at 2:04am PST last night," the company wrote in a blog post, noting that "it might take a few hours for some of the 40 millions feeds we poll to be fully updated." Feedly should work now on the website and through various...
Normally the offer is off the table the instant you walk out the door with your new phone, but for the month of June any customer on Sprint will be able walk back in that door of no return and purchase insurance for their device. The offer doesn't change the price or service at all — it's still $11-a-month for the Ausurion-provided loss/theft/damage replacement, or $13/month for Total...
Softbank is making an end-run around concerns about a merger of Sprint and T-Mobile US by instead hitting up T-Mobile's parent company Deutsche Telekom. As reported by Japanese news agency Kyodo, Japan-based Softbank has entered into an agreement with Germany-based Deutsche Telekom to buy the latter's ownership stake in US carrier T-Mobile. The US Federal Communications Commission and...
Verizon's XLTE is official and it is bringing double the bandwidth to dozens of cities across the United Sates. The enhanced-LTE service uses Verizon's AWS spectrum to double the speeds available more than two-dozen devices available on Big Red's network, including the Samsung Galaxy S5, HTC One M8, iPhone 5s, Samsung ATIV SE, and BlackBerry Q10. XLTE isn't a "5G", so much as an...
Sprint has a new protection plan for both your phone and the data on it. Dubbed "Sprint Total Equipment Protection Plus", the plan costs $13-a-month-per-device and adds data security, automatic media backups, and personalized tech support on top of the existing damage, loss, and theft insurance that is part of the standard $11-a-month Total Equipment Protection package. The Sprint...
Mexican electronics/banking/television conglomerate Grupo Salinas has made the jump to BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10. With 68,000 employees (most of whom are not be getting corporate smartphones, but still, that's a lot) spread across the company and more than US$57 billion in annual revenue, Grupo Salinas represents a big get for BlackBerry. The big news here is...
BlackBerry's announcement today that they are opening BB10 to outside MDM platforms came as something of a surprise, so John Sims, President of Global Enterprise Services, took to explaining why BlackBerry is taking this route, and it all comes down to getting more customers who use mobile device management systems other than BES. MDM is no longer a meaningful point of...
The BBM Channel on BBM Channels (how meta is that?) has crossed the one million subscriber count. Now, you might have been expecting that when the million subscriber mark was crossed that the counter would merely tack on an extra digit and a comma. Well you are so very wrong. Nope, BBM Channels switches to using scientific notation once you reach this point. Because why not?...