A bill that allows consumers to unlock their mobile phones for use on other carriers passed its last hurdle in Congress last week, opening the way for it to become law once it is signed by President Barack Obama. Senate Bill 517 overturns a January 2013 decision by the Library of Congress that ruled the unlocking of phones by consumers fell afoul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It had previously been permitted under an exception to the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA, which... 

Headphone maker Bose has filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against rival Beats Electronics, which Apple recently agreed to purchase in a US$3 billion deal. In its complaint, Bose alleges that the “active noise cancellation” system in Beats Studio and Studio Wireless headphones infringes on five of its patents that relate to digital audio processing, compression and noise cancellation technology. They are U.S. patents 6,717,537; 8,073,150; 8,073,151; 8,054,992; and 8,345,888. In addition... 

Amazon.com Inc will offer 3D printing services that allow customers to customize and build earrings, bobble head toys and other items from third-party vendors using a new personalization option on its website. Most of the more than 200 items available on the company’s new 3D printed products store, which was rolled out on Monday, can be customized using a new feature that allows users to rotate and change the item they are viewing. Before it is printed by one of Amazon’s sellers, users... 

Hynix has reported a slowing down of growth in the memory chip profits as it posted its first drop in quarterly profit in two years, casting doubt on medium-term revenue growth. SK Hynix President Kim Joon-ho told analysts that the problem was a change in product mix and a transition to more complex production technology will crimp third-quarter shipments growth for the key DRAM business. Analysts are concerned that DRAM shipments growth will be increasingly limited in the latter half of the year,... 

Oracle has announced the release of its Linux distribution Oracle Linux 7. Oracle Linux 7 is the latest release of the company’s version of its enterprise grade Linux flavour that is a fork of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This latest release adds a range of features including XFS, Btrfs, Linux Containers (LXC), Dtrace, Ksplice, Xen enhancements and the Oracle’s Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 3. “Oracle Linux continues to provide the most flexible options for customers and partners,... 

A new test could determine once and for all whether NASA’s Voyager 1 probe has indeed entered interstellar space, some researchers say. While mission team members declared last year that Voyager 1 reached interstellar space in August 2012, not all scientists are sold. Two researchers working with Voyager 1 have drawn up a test to show whether the spacecraft is inside or outside of the heliosphere — the bubble of solar particles and magnetic fields that the sun puffs around itself. The scientists... 

A Brooklyn-based startup called goTenna has developed a portable antenna that will come to the rescue when cellular service is unavailable. The portable antenna connects to a smartphone via a Bluetooth Low Energy link. Once connected, users with either an iOS or Android app can then send text messages through the antenna. (The recipient must also have a goTenna, and consequently the product is sold in pairs.) The device uses the 151MHz-154MHz frequencies, with range depending on location. In a densely... 

Verizon Communication Inc’s high speed wireless customers who have the company’s legacy unlimited data plans may begin experiencing slower speeds starting Oct. 1, the company said on Friday. The announcement comes as wireless carriers attempt to shift data-hungry subscribers onto tiered plans, which charge customers for individual data packages. Verizon will slow services for the top 5 percent of data users who are on unlimited plans in places where the network is experiencing high demand,... 

IBM Corp’s recent move to team up with Apple Inc to sell iPhones and iPads loaded with corporate applications has excited investors in both companies, but two rivals say they are unfazed for now. Top executives at Dell and BlackBerry Ltd scoffed at the threat posed by the alliance, arguing the tie-up is unlikely to derail the efforts of their own companies to re-invent themselves. “I do not think that we take the Apple-IBM tie-up terribly seriously. I think it just made a good press... 

Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) might arrive for Playstation 4 (PS4), Xbox One and PC gamers on 7 November, if a UK retailer is to be believed. Rockstar is still yet to cough on a release date for GTA 5 for PCs and next-gen consoles, but said at this year’s E3 conference that the titles will tip up “this fall.” However, UK retailer Gameseek is claiming that the PC version, along with PS4 and Xbox One versions, will start shipping on 7 November. It is so confident that it has even started... 

A new survey commissioned by IHS in partnership with Gamer Network has shown that E3 gave a huge boost to the number of people interested in buying a Wii U, with purchasing intent growing by 50 per cent over the course of the event. Around one thousand core gamers were surveyed on various purchase intentions before and after the LA show, revealing that, whilst Nintendo’s platform started out with the lowest number of people looking at buying it, it saw the biggest benefit from the show’s... 

Oracle has launched a service to deliver data from the cloud collected from multiple sources in order to drive business intelligence and decision-making. Initially the firm is delivering products using data from marketing and social media, letting enterprise customers use this information for business benefit without having to worry about its source or management. Oracle’s Data as a Service (DaaS) is a suite of offerings that are intended to provide data that can simply be plugged into any... 

Ultra high-definition televisions (UHD TVs) have made minor gains in the flat-panel market because prices remain too high, according to a new report from IHS Technology. Among the top 13 LCD display brands worldwide, the share of UHD TV shipments reached just 5% in May, up from 4% in April, 3% in March and 2% in February, according to IHS. While UHD TV share has grown by 1 percentage point for each of the last three months, growth hasn’t budged much since September, when the market was already... 

Sprint announced a partnership with Google to offer the Google Apps for Business cloud service, noting that customers of the service won’t have to use Sprint’s wireless network or Android devices. The partnership helps move Sprint well beyond it’s role as a basic wireless carrier for businesses to one that will bolster basic Google cloud service and access to Google apps with Sprint’s own hands-on professional consulting, much of it free. The announcement comes amid widespread... 

AT&T Inc’s quarterly revenue rose a weaker than expected 1.6 percent as cheaper service plans offered to customers who forgo subsidized cellular phones made a dent in profit margins. Faced with mounting pressure from competitors, AT&T has unbundled service and device charges, and cut its family data plan and shared value plan prices as it tries to attract customers in a nearly saturated market. “What we saw happen throughout the second quarter were very aggressive promotions...