T-Mobile has just solidified its name with budget-minded folks by offering its prepaid and monthly 4G no-contract plans in over 6,000 Dollar General stores. With low pricing comes less choice, and only Samsung‘s t139 flip phone will be available, no Android in sight. Click past the break for the full press release if you care.

Dollar General and T-Mobile Introduce No Annual Contract and Device Offering
Partnership brings T-Mobile device and service to more than 6,400 Dollar General stores

Bellevue, Wash. and Goodlettsville, Tenn. – Jun. 25, 2012
2012-06-25 14:52:42

Today, T‑Mobile USA, Inc. and Dollar General Corporation announced a new distribution arrangement, bringing an affordable phone and convenient access to T‑Mobile’s prepaid and Monthly4GTM No Annual Contract service to Dollar General customers. Beginning in July, more than 6,400 Dollar General stores will offer numerous T-Mobile prepaid plan options and the Samsung t139 phone, which features messaging, Web browsing, a camera and Bluetooth connectivity.

“Dollar General is dedicated to making shopping for everyday needs simple, hassle-free and convenient,” said Todd Vasos, executive vice president and chief merchandising officer, Dollar General. “Since 2004, our customers have had access to great T-Mobile plans, and we know that our customers will appreciate more communications options that are affordable and flexible.”

The T‑Mobile Monthly4G No Annual Contract $50 unlimited plan offers unlimited talk, text and Web with no overage charges, and the first 100 MB of data at up to 4G speeds all on America’s Largest 4G Network®. In addition, Dollar General offers T‑Mobile’s Pay As You Go plans, and other Monthly4G No Annual Contract plans, giving customers a flexible option at any price point.

“Dollar General is the nation’s largest small-box retailer and a well-respected company that customers go to when looking to get the most for their money,” said Amy McCune, senior vice president of national accounts, T-Mobile USA. “This is a natural partnership to help bring Dollar General customers to America’s Largest 4G Network at an incredible value.”

T-Mobile product and plan offerings will be displayed in a bright end cap at the front of the store, featuring a variety of units and services to make selection simple for customers.

Monthly4G plans provide access to wireless service for 30 days; capable device required to achieve 4G speeds. After high-speed allotment is used, speeds slowed to up to 2G speeds for remainder of month. T-Mobile’s HSPA+ 4G network not available everywhere. See coverage details at T-Mobile.com.

Come comment on this article: T-Mobile To Offer Prepaid And Monthly 4G Plans In 6,000+ Dollar General Stores

With Google‘s latest boast of over 900,000 daily activations and sales of Apple’s iPhone proving to be a worthy runner up, it stands to reason that there are quite a few smartphones in circulation. The US Census Bureau for 2011 told us that there were 311,591,917 people living in the United States. Digital marketing and design company Steadyrain estimate that 232,000,000 Americans are equipped with a mobile communication device, an incredible two thirds of the population.

There’s plenty of other fascinating information covering everything from web browsing to video streaming however you don’t need to take it from me. Check out the full infographic below and be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Source: Steadyrain

Come comment on this article: [Infographic] U.S. mobile phone usage statistics

How would you like your future smartphone screen to be completely glare-free, water-repellent, and self-cleaning? Researchers at MIT published a paper describing how they selectively removed parts of the glass to create microscopic cones, which apparently gives the glass the ability to resist fogging and glare. The MIT news site states the following:

“The new ‘multifunctional’ glass, based on surface nanotextures that produce an array of conical features, is self-cleaning and resists fogging and glare, the researchers say. Ultimately, they hope it can be made using an inexpensive manufacturing process that could be applied to optical devices, the screens of smartphones and televisions, solar panels, car windshields and even windows in buildings.”

The lack of glare or fog would make the glass nearly invisible. Also, water would literally just bead and bounce right off, taking any dust along with it, making it super easy to keep dust-free. Check out the video of water droplets  rolling off the glass after the break.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If and when this type of technology comes to smartphones, the experience could be more immersive since you’d essentially be interacting with elements on a screen you can’t see. The cost of creating glass with these microscopic cones shouldn’t break the bank, either. According to MIT:

“In the future glass or transparent polymer films might be manufactured with such surface features simply by passing them through a pair of textured rollers while still partially molten; such a process would add minimally to the cost of manufacture.”

This is all just research right now, so we have no idea when a commercial application of this technology will become available. Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later!

source: gigaom

Come comment on this article: Glare-Free, Self-Cleaning, Water-Repellent Glass Of The Future From The Minds At MIT

More bad news for PC makers. Business Insider Intelligence released their latest forecast of global smartphone sales, and the numbers are staggering. Recently, smartphone sales surpassed PC sales for the first time, and this year smartphone sales will nearly double PC sales. More amazing, however, is that BI Intelligence predicts that by the year 2016, smartphones will exceed 1.5 billion units sold worldwide.

For comparison, last year there were only 350 million PCs sold, and the total number of mobile phone handsets sold (smart AND dumb) totaled 1.7 billion. Right now, smartphones make up only 10% of all handsets sold. As prices decline, nearly 5 billion existing dumb phones will be getting replaced by smartphones.

The following chart speaks for itself.

The report goes on to say that smartphones will represent almost two-thirds of all mobile phone purchases by 2016, and it will be a $320 billion market by that time. Other analysts are a little more conservative, predicting smartphone unit sales to reach 1 billion by 2015.

Still, any way you slice it, the world is going mobile, and going smart. This bodes well for the future of Android.

source: businessinsider
via: androidauthority

Come comment on this article: Smartphone Sales Will Nearly Double PCs This Year and Reach 1.5 Billion in 2016

Here at TalkAndroid, it would be an understatement to say we’re excited about the forthcoming World Mobile Congress in Barcelona. We’re also extremely jealous of you lucky people who will be over in Spain enjoying the event as it unfolds. We do however have one word advice before you hit the road for Barcelona, you might want to pack a map with your sun-cream.

The main public transportation operator in Barcelona, the TMB is set to strike from 27th February to 1st March. The strike is set to effect all major bus and metro routes in Barcelona and with an expected 60,000 attendees, the strike will surely have a significant impact on travel for the week.

World Mobile Congress organizers GSMA are confident that the show will go on without too many problems. There is a comprehensive contingency plan in place that can be quickly implemented should the planned strikes go ahead.

For those who don’t already use it, perhaps now is a good time to familiarize yourself with the wonderful Google Maps Navigation. You just might need it!

Check out the statement from GSMA.

The metro and bus workers from TMB, the main public transport operator in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, have announced plans to strike during Mobile World Congress which will be held 27th February through 1st March 2012.

The GSMA has senior executives in Barcelona and they have been meeting regularly with government officials from the City of Barcelona, Catalonia Regional Government, Spanish Ministry of Industry, the Fira and the various police authorities since the strike was first announced. The GSMA has advised the government authorities that they should do everything to avert the strike and we have been assured that negotiations are ongoing in order to try and resolve the issues.

In the event the parties do not reach agreement, comprehensive contingency plans are in place to ensure that all participants of the Mobile World Congress have unfettered access to and from the Fira during all days of the event. We will announce the details of those contingency plans as necessary should the strike take place. The GSMA remains confident that the issues will be resolved and that there will be little, if any, impact to the Mobile World Congress.

Further, the Barcelona government has offered the GSMA its strong assurances that Mobile World Congress attendees will not be affected and all participants will be able to arrive and depart the event safely and without disruption.

Come comment on this article: Spanish transport strike to hit Mobile World Congress

LightSquared, the company which has spent billions of dollars developing a whole-sale only wireless broadband network, filed a document with the FCC regarding stricter standards of GPS devices. LightSquared believes that signals that are used as part of GPS bands are the culprit of interference on the spectrum that they’ve chose to use for their services. Originally, that spectrum was supposed to be a satellite-only type of deal, but the FCC cleared it for terrestrial use back in 2005. The FCC also granted the company a waiver so LightSquared could run a terrestrial-only network.

Now, due to Sprint delivering an ultimatum, LightSquared is pressed for time in achieving a resolution for all these interference issues. Losing a long-term multi-billion dollar deal like the one struck with Sprint could be potentially catastrophic for LightSquared, especially when you couple it with LightSquared’s largest investor, Harbinger Capital Partners, who last year reported a whopping 46.6 percent value loss. Although the potential of LightSquared can be valued quite high in my opinion, it seems that if it can’t strike a deal with the FCC, we might be seeing a little more sinking than swimming.

Source: CNET

Come comment on this article: LightSquared Requesting the FCC Require Stricter GPS Device Standards

Have you ever sat at your computer and wondered who uses the Android OS and how they actually use it? Well, neither have I, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not something that would be interesting to see. Thanks to the people at BlueStacks, who sent us an infographic called Mr. Android 2011, we can now see a breakdown of such things. However, this isn’t a normal sort of breakdowns for Android stats, but rather, a breakdown of the male gender and how they interact with Android daily. They show various stats such as hair color or hair length, what kind of clothing is worn, or even how many male android users have zero paid apps on their phone (33%). So if you are interested in the breakdown hit the break below to check out Mr. Android 2011. 

Come comment on this article: Mr. Android 2011 Infographic Shows Us How Males Use Their Android Devices

Hey everyone, welcome to our special CES edition of the TalkAndroid InfoByte which we recorded right here in Las Vegas. We ran down the most important news we covered this week, including all the info about Verizon’s 4G phones, Honeycomb, Motorola’s Xoom tablet, and much much more.

TalkAndroid InfoByte – 1/10/11

You can follow along with the podcast by checking out our CES 2011 round up here.

Come comment on this article: TalkAndroid InfoByte: Episode 15 – 1/10/11

TalkAndroid InfoByte – 1/3/11

Welcome to the new TalkAndroid InfoByte, our weekly Monday Podcast that gets you caught up on the week’s news.
You can either stream it to your browser (above), or you can download it here. We should note that, if you click the stream link above (play button next to the link) from your mobile browser, it should open up in your Android media player.
The RSS feed for the podcast is available here.

Come comment on this article: TalkAndroid InfoByte: Episode 14 – 1/3/11

TalkAndroid InfoByte – 11/16/10

Welcome to the new TalkAndroid InfoByte, our weekly Monday Podcast that gets you caught up on the week’s news.

You can either stream it to your browser (above), or you can download it here. We should note that, if you click the stream link above (play button next to the link) from your mobile browser, it should open up in your Android media player.

The RSS feed for the podcast is available here.

Come comment on this article: TalkAndroid InfoByte: Episode 13 – 11/16/10