Rebtel made a smart decision early on to bring its communication service to multiple mobile and desktop platforms. The company has apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows. Similar to Skype, calls can be placed to other Rebtel users for free, while calls or messages to landlines and mobiles around the world are priced as low as $0.01.

Building up an audience of 15 million users with such products shows that consumers are looking for less expensive ways to stay in touch with each other by leveraging the Internet as a conduit. Obviously, calling a mobile or landline with Rebtel isn’t a full VoIP solution as the call is routed on a carrier voice network or an old telephone line.

But support for Wi-Fi and 3G calling lessens the need to use traditional cellular voice minutes. Sadly, there are few ways to have a data-only service plan on a phone in the U.S. I’m doing just that with VoIP and SIP support on my Galaxy Nexus with a data-only SIM, but I’m certainly in the minority.

So most people will still pay for a voice service these days, but with services such as Rebtel, folks can cut back to the lowest voice plan with their carrier, using Rebtel as a cheaper substitute. That is apparently happening as Rebtel has now delivered 500 million connected calls and 2 billion minutes of international calls while boosting revenues in 2011 by 55 percent.

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Patents blog FOSS Patents explains:

The judge explained that the court does not hold Apple to infringe claim 9 of EP1053613 on a ‘method and system for generating a complex pseudonoise sequence for processing a code division multiple access [CDMA] signal’. In the court’s opinion, MMI failed to present conclusive evidence for its infringement contention.

Motorola had argued that the patent named above was “essential,” meaning that someone — in this case, Apple — would have to use technology covered by the patent if they’re using an industry-standard practice. The problem is, the judge didn’t see it that way and says Motorola didn’t present a convincing case that the patent was essential.

Just a week ago, Motorola claimed victory on two separate rulings related to its ongoing intellectual property battle with Apple. In the first, an injunction was granted against older iPhone and iPad models that infringed on a GPRS-related patent. And in the second, Motorola won an injunction against Apple devices that receive push email notifications from its iCloud system in Germany. Apple said it would appeal both.

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While I’m impressed by most of the hardware, Samsung skimped a little on the cameras. They’re adequate for basic shots or video and video chatting, but won’t replace a modern smartphone. The software is where I find the new Galaxy Tab 7.7 lacking. Oh, it’s obviously usable, or I wouldn’t be using it as my daily device.

But Android 3.2, or Honeycomb, still doesn’t impress me. I prefer Android 4.0 on phones and tablets so I’m looking forward to the update that Samsung has promised. In the meantime, Samsung’s TouchWiz user interface makes up for some of Honeycomb’s issues. And my hope is that third-party developers update their apps to take advantage of the high-resolution, but relatively small, tablet display; often icons and text is small because of this. Even with these challenges, this is the fastest small tablet I’ve used yet for browsing, and it’s great for watching video, playing games and social networking.

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Handcuffing the FCC

In a letter released Thursday Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) asked the two Congressmen who are overseeing the passage of the bill through the House and Senate to eliminate the provisions that strip the FCC of its ability to set rules about who and how wireless companies could bid in the hoped-for auction of TV spectrum. In recent weeks AT&T has gone into overdrive defending its efforts to stop the FCC from setting any rules that might limit AT&T’s attempts to bid for the hoped-for spectrum.

AT&T’s machinations are puzzling, since it has managed to pick up a considerable amount of spectrum under the rules that the FCC has set in previous years for auctions, and because it actually seems like it wouldn’t want a completely neutered FCC overseeing the wireless industry, especially given the amount of partisan bickering that can hold up its favored legislation in Congress. Sen. Kohl has other concerns that most consumers might share. In his letter he writes, “This essentially eliminates the FCC’s ability to conduct auctions in a way that maintains a competitive marketplace.”

After the FCC and the Department of Justice put the kibosh on AT&T’s attempts to buy T-Mobile on fears that it might harm mobile competition (and because the FCC claimed AT&T lied about job creation), one would think AT&T would lie low for a while instead of drawing the attention and possible ire of senators, several consumer watchdog organizations and most of the nation’s other carriers. Verizon has been silent on this issue so far, but I reached out to see if they wanted to address the rumors I hear that they, too, are lobbying to put legislation in that limits the FCC’s ability to limit who bids, but I haven’t heard back.

Here’s what should really frustrate Silicon Valley and broadband nerds.

Making it hard for existing mobile operators or upstarts to get the spectrum they need to compete against AT&T and Verizon is bad, but this bill also contains language that could kill or maim white spaces broadband before it’s even born. The legislation makes it impossible for the FCC to Allocate unlisenced spectrum in the TV white spaces — an issue I’ve written a lot about. Unlicensed spectrum is an important part of our daily lives, because those are the airwaves that Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, baby monitors and cordless phones operate in.

Heck, even wireless toys rely on that shared spectrum. And under a plan to create white spaces broadband, some of the airwaves between the digital TV bands were going to be used for fixed wireless broadband. That technology would provide a free over the air link to existing Internet pipes in homes, in the ground or in businesses. Unfortunately, under the proposed payroll legislation it’s looking like the FCC can’t even allocate any of those airwaves to unlisenced use at all — something 40 members of Congress wrote the heads of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee to protest on Thursday.

It’s frustrating when important technical issues become balls swatted around by Congress. Given the importance of passing this legislation, which is supposed to cut the amount of payroll taxes employees will pay, the inclusion of this language as a hope to cram it through without a public debate seems like a low blow at the FCC, consumers and broadband in general.

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What can SpeakToIt Assistant do?

I spent some time with SpeakToIt on both an old iPhone 3GS and my iPad 2 earlier today, and while it’s somewhat limited compared to Siri — more on that later — the $1.99 app can assist with certain tasks. Using the software, I was able to compose and send text messages and emails from my iPhone and my iPad; note that on the iPad, SpeakToIt appears as an iPhone app with support for pixel doubling.

SpeakToIt Assistant can also search the web for various information. I asked it to search Amazon for a product and the results were spot on. A small window with results opens in the top half of the display, but with one tap, these can be expanded to a full screen. Other searchable items include images, maps, news, stock information, the IMDB site and weather nearby or around the world.

Search results take place quickly; in some cases faster than Siri. That could be due to more people using Apple’s software and servers versus those using SpeakToIt. You can customize the look of the assistant and turn conversation mode on or off.

Multiple skills, but not hooks into iOS

Also in the list of skills are features to organize events or your agenda, tasks, translate words or phrases from English and a calculator for basic math or conversion of currency or measures. I rely on Siri’s “what’s my day look like?” function on a daily basis, and a “what’s on my calendar?” query worked just fine. I first had to give the OK for SpeakToIt to see my Google Calendar; the app isn’t hooked into the native iOS Calendar software.

And if you allow SpeakToIt to access your Twitter or Facebook accounts, you can send tweets or update your status by voice. You can also check in to FourSquare, although I didn’t try that function yet. Tweets and status updates worked out really well in my tests; better than the email dictations I tried.

Limitations and voice input

Here’s where the limitations come in. Although SpeakToIs Assistant is powered by Nuance, the same as Siri, I found message dictation to be marginal at best for some reason. With Siri, I can speak multiple sentences, along with punctuation, and the text is perfect nearly every time. With SpeakToIt, even when trying to add punctuation, my dictations became giant run-on sentences without punctuation.

And although the app has a coversation mode, so that you don’t have to hit the microphone button for every command, it’s not quite as conversational as Siri. If you want to talk about weather in several places, that’s fine. But the process of creating a message ends with the message dictation. You have to manually send it by tapping the Send button.

Siri also has better native app integration as well. I tried to create a reminder with SpeakToIt assistant, but it could only do so with Evernote. No such luck setting an alarm with the native Clock app, either. This is where Siri shines: It’s integrated at a lower level with iOS than any third-party option likely ever will be.

Worth a try if you temper expectations

Still, SpeakToIt assistant shows promise as a $1.99 app, as I’d expect it to keep maturing and improving. Folks that don’t want to pay for the app just yet can take a free chance on Valentine’s Day: the software will be free to the first 100,000 people who download it, and $0.99 after that for the remainder of the day.

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Over the weekend, blogger John Cozen posted a recent e-mail exchange with AT&T about why his smartphone data connection was slowed down after he breached 2.1 GB in his last billing cycle. His argument was his usage couldn’t be subject to throttling since his data use must be well under the top 5 percent cut-off AT&T stipulates in its terms. AT&T’s response was very interesting:

“To give you a baseline – the average data use across the country by the top 5% of AT&T smartphone customers was 2GB per month, effective August 2011. The amount of data usage of our top 5% of heaviest users varies from month-to-month and by market, based on the usage of others and the ever-increasing demand for mobile broadband services. To rank among the top 5%, you must use an extraordinary amount of data in a single billing period.”

When AT&T introduced throttling in October, its highest-tier data plan was 2 GB for $25, compared to the $30 charge for unlimited plans that Cozen and millions of older AT&T customers still hold on to. That seems reasonable enough. If the 2 GB is what the top 5 percent of smartphone users consume and is at the level AT&T considers abusive, then 2 GB is a good place to set its cap, charging customers more if they exceed it.

But AT&T just overhauled its plan pricing. It’s newest mid-tier plan charges customers $30 for 3 GB. Why is AT&T inviting new customers to consume a full gigabyte more of data while telling older customers – who pay the exact same monthly fee – that 2 GB of data is excessive? My bet is that the former is really a false invitation.

When AT&T first announced these new plans, I wrote there was good and bad in them for consumers. The bad is that new subscribers will have to pay $5 more a month than their predecessors for any of AT&T’s plans. The good is that AT&T is actually lowering the per-MB charges on data, which is ultimately necessary if average mobile broadband consumption continues to grow. Now I’m not so sure.

If 2 GBs is the average use for AT&T’s 5 percent hungriest users, that means 95 percent of AT&T’s customers are well under 2 GB each month. So the vast majority of A&T customers don’t get any real benefit out of the new 3 GB plans. To them it just amounts to a $5 a month price increase.

To be fair, AT&T can’t just price for what its customers are consuming today. It has to price for where they’re going, otherwise it would just be adjusting its rates every few months. It’s not unreasonable to assume that its customers average monthly data consumption will grow beyond 2 GB in the next few years, especially as mobile video services take off. AT&T is also a business that wants to make money off of mobile data, though this may be a rather sneaky way of doing it. Ma Bell’s data rates still far undercut those of its main competitor Verizon Wireless, however.

But AT&T also claims to be facing a capacity crunch. Since its planned acquisition of T-Mobile has failed, the carrier has used every podium it can find to proclaim that its networks are reaching critical mass in an effort to justify its spectrum acquisition aims. On its fourth quarter financial call, AT&T Randall Stephenson even blamed the government’s failure to let it have T-Mobile as the reason why its forced to raise data prices.

If AT&T is so network constrained, if 2 GB of monthly usage is too much for its networks, and if it doesn’t have the spectrum to meet future demands, then why is it opening up the data spigot, actually encouraging its customers to consume more for an extra $5 a month?

iPhone image courtesy of Flickr user mark sebastian

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HTC has been working hard to get its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades ready, and we’re excited to announce that our first round of ICS upgrades will roll out by the end of March for the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation 4G and HTC Sensation XE, followed soon there after by the HTC Sensation XL.

In addition, we can confirm Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades will be coming later this year to the HTC Rezound, HTC Vivid, HTC Amaze 4G, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G, HTC Incredible S, HTC Desire S and HTC Desire HD. Stay tuned for more updates on Ice Cream Sandwich releases in the coming weeks.

This is fantastic news for owners of an HTC Sensation, a model of which I previewed on video last June. I’ve used Android 4.0.2 on my Galaxy Nexus for the past two months and in my opinion, it’s leaps and bounds better than any prior version of Android for smartphones.

Many will argue that Android updates take too long — a very valid complaint — and part of the issue is the software customizations that HTC and others add to the phones. Instead of simply providing the Android update, these company’s have to re-integrate, and possibly re-write, their own additions. In HTC’s case, that’s HTC Sense; a software overlay with custom apps and features.

Given my own Android 4.0 experiences, I think this upgrade will be well worth the wait. And it shows that the loose partnership announced last May between carriers, Google and handset makers to get software updates out quicker hasn’t been forgotten.

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Herbert Bay, co-founder and CEO of Kooaba

Herbert Bay doesn’t like QR codes very much. He’s not alone of course: The glitchy glyphs, which are generally used as a clumsy way to link physical media to the web, are regarded by many as the ugliest thing seen in black and white since D.W. Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation.

Yet they have proved remarkably popular with publishers, advertisers and web consultants desperate to find gimmicks that can add interactivity to analog media.

But it’s not just that Bay, a Swiss entrepreneur, dislikes QR codes. He also thinks he has a way to kill them off entirely.

His company, Zurich-based Kooaba, has been working on a suite of image-recognition technologies for the past six years, ever since it spun off from Switzerland’s Federal Institute of Technology. And now it has launched a new app that it hopes can make a significant dent in the way we link the offline and online worlds.

The app, Shortcut, allows users to take a photo of newspaper pieces, magazine articles, advertisements and even billboards and then link them straight to a digital version on their phone. With a Path-like UI, users can then share, comment or store what they have found — or go and play with it if there are interactive extras attached.

“The pitch when we talk to newspapers and printed publications is that we can make them interactive — and they don’t need to place any QR codes anywhere,” says Bay. “In addition they can sell their advertisers on that interactivity . . . it removes the need for QR codes.”

It already works with publications like USA Today and the New York Post, and more are being added all the time. In practice, it is not a million miles away from Google Goggles but with more focus.

Here is a video that shows it in action.

The app — for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone — is actually a retooling of a previous release known as Paperboy, which was focused on news media. That remains its strong point, with recognition of more than 1,000 newspapers and magazines from all over the world. However, through a partnership with the international media sales company Publicitas, Bay and his team realized they wanted to branch out into advertising — and that meant they needed to rework what they had done.

But even though Shortcut has broadened out its remit a little, the reality is that Kooaba could actually apply its technology to any media: DVD cases, books, movie posters, CDs. Instead the company has chosen to keep its focus narrow to try to gain traction.

“The thing with a startup is deciding where to put your resources,” says Bay. “Newspapers and magazines are low-hanging fruit for our app, so we’re focused on those for now.”

Simply recognizing images may not be enough, though. Image recognition — Kooaba’s secret sauce — is a hard nut to crack, but it has become radically easier over the past few years with computing power moving to the cloud. Bay thinks the extra ingredient lies in a system that Kooaba has built that allows publishers to add interactive elements to the content that is fed into Shortcut. However, with many media companies struggling and confused about where to spend their time and energy, he admits that it is proving a tough sell.

Right now the majority of the app’s traction has been powered through partnerships — one with NewspaperDirect, which has a huge inventory of around 2,000 newspapers every day, and one that links it with Evernote.

It has gotten this far with around $5 million in funding — one seed round from a Swiss bank, friends and angel investors, and another slightly larger round from private Swiss investors.

To break through, however, what Kooaba needs to do is forge a couple of really smart deals with great publishers and advertisers so that the dreaded QR code can be sidestepped. But Bay knows that in order to take the service to the next level, it will need something more . . . and that could require more funds.

“In terms of profitability we do well on the technology side,” he says. “But the advertising part is resource-demanding — we need sales guys and business development, so we are looking for strategic investment.”

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Telus will launch with four devices and will be the first North American operator to sell Samsung’s new hybrid smartphone/tablet, the Galaxy Note, in its stores on Feb. 14 (AT&T started taking pre-orders last week, but won’t get the device untol Feb. 19). On Friday, Telus will begin selling LTE versions of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and the LG Optimus, as well as a Novatel USB stick.

Rogers was the first to kick off its LTE, rolling out service in Canada’s four biggest markets last summer and fall. It was followed quickly by Bell Mobility, which turned on its first networks throughout Ontario in September. Now all three are in a race to complete their nationwide rollouts. Given Canada’s much smaller population, they will probably beat most U.S. operators to that goal, though they still have a lot of geography to cover.

Telus’ launch cities are: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, metropolitan Toronto, Kitchener, Waterloo, Hamilton, Guelph, Belleville, Ottawa, Montreal, Québec City, Halifax and Yellowknife.

The LTE debut is welcome news for Telus’ two primary network vendors Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks, which are both working on Bell Mobility’s networks as well. Both have failed to land any of the major U.S. LTE contracts, despite their 4G success in other regions of the world.

Photo courtesy of Juan_M

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So for those of you planning a road trip, a move or who might want to avoid the lure of the web while on holiday, the map gives a big picture view at how much physical area of the U.S. isn’t connected via 3G –something that isn’t always apparent because carriers measure their coverage in terms of the percent of the population covered.

For an overview of some of the other measures the FCC is taking with regards to getting the 18 million rural Americans online who don’t have access to real broadband, check out the FCC’s blog posting on the topic. The final paragraph is probably worth noting for all you startups because it means your free conference call services that so hack off Ma Bell and even Google are protected.

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Cocoafish, founded in 2010 in San Francisco by Michael Goff and Wei Kong, is part of an emerging class of mobile backend providers that includes Stackmob, Parse, Kinvey and others that are helping developers add cloud-based features to their apps. Cocoafish services such as push notifications, social integration, sharing, location and others will be integrated into the Titanium Platform by early in the second quarter. Appcelerator said it will also offer iOS, Android, JavaScript and REST SDKs so that these services can be accessed by all mobile app developers, regardless of what technologies they use, such as Objective-C, Java, PhoneGap, Sencha and HTML5.

Why the acquisition makes sense

Appcelerator’s acquisition of Cocoafish is logical, as it looks to become the go-to resource for developers and companies building cross-platform apps. In its latest developer survey, Appcelerator found that 84 percent of its developers connected to cloud-based services. But almost all of them were manually adding these services themselves. That can double the time it takes to launch an app.

Now Appcelerator can offer a full suite of front-end and backend solutions for developers with Cocoafish integrated into Appcelerator’s Titanium Studio. And by opening iOS, Android, JavaScript and REST SDKs, it means that Appcelerator could also appeal to developers who don’t use its Titanium Platform. That can drum up even more business, though it pits Appcelerator against a number of competitors in the mobile development services market. But it looks like there is still a lot of business to be had. Kinvey did a survey of apps on iOS and Android in September and found that 73 percent didn’t connect to a backend.

Connecting apps to cloud services can still be tough, but it usually provides more engaging features. That is increasingly important for app developers, who need to create more-dynamic apps that keep users involved. User engagement and attention is the name of the game in the mobile app world, in which users are quick to try then discard apps. The purchase of Cocoafish also raises the question of whether we will see more consolidation in this nascent market as potentially other Platform-as-a-Service offerings or other companies look to add mobile support. For Appcelerator, which raised $15 million in November, it is another sign of momentum as it capitalizes on the boom in mobile apps.

Curious about how the backend-as-a-service market fits into the larger mobile market? Take a look at this helpful chart worked up by Kinvey.

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Like its predecessor, the new SmartWatch connects wirelessly to an Android phone for message notifications on the wrist. The wearable device can also be used for checking Facebook and Twitter or monitoring exercise activities.

After watching the video and checking out the device description — Sony says images are illustrative, so the final product could appear differently — it sounds great. But I bought the Sony Ericsson LiveView watch last year based on similar expectations, and for me, it was a dud. The watch wouldn’t keep a steady connection to my handset once I moved about a meter away. Even with phone in my pocket and the LiveView on my wrist, the connection was never stable.

Hopefully, Sony has addressed that problem with its upcoming SmartWatch. Bluetooth 3.0 is used in this version and Sony claims a range of 10 meters, so I’m a bit leery. By comparison, I reviewed several other smartwatches in the last year and the MetaWatch gave me a range of of 30+ meters; even if I put my phone down and walked away several rooms in my house, the connection never dropped.

The other factor with these devices is the user interface. A touchscreen is often used — and the Sony SmartWatch continues that tradition — but with such a little display, the interface must be effective and intuitive. You don’t want to fumble around through pages of menus on a screen that’s 36 millimeters square.

As far as I know, Sony hasn’t officially announced the SmartWatch with pricing and availability details; if I’m correct, expect news at the Mobile World Congress in a few weeks; we’ll be on-site covering the event live. Thanks to John Biggs’ tweet pointing out the new watch over on WristWatchReview.

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AllThingsD is reporting that Apple will hold one of its signature press events to announce the iPad 2′s successor in the first week of March. According to ATD writer John Paczkowksi, “The event will be held in San Francisco, presumably at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Apple’s preferred location for big announcements like these.” He has no information about how long after the event it will be possible to go buy the iPad 3 (the presumed name).

Apple has been pretty regular about its iPad cycle, and it was the first week of March last year when Apple first showed off the iPad 2. So it’s not far-fetched in any way that the company would have its successor ready the same time this year.

As for what will be inside it? Paczkowksi says he’s hearing the same basic thing as has been whispered in the Apple rumor mill over the last few months: faster chips, better graphics and about the same form factor. The one curious thing he says? The next iPad will have ”a 2048×1536 Retina Display — or something close to it.”

So for those thinking a Retina Display was a given, this will make for at least some element of surprise once the iPad event arrives.

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Users who normally keep the app running while driving to stay abreast of traffic conditions will now be able to wave their hand in front of the phone and activate the voice recognition system. They can tell Waze to navigate home or to work, which are the two pre-set destinations that the system accepts right now for voice input. That’s a nice upgrade that puts Waze on better footing compared to Siri and Google’s free navigation system on Android.

But what’s more interesting is being able to report traffic or accidents while driving. Before, Waze allowed people to report this data but for safety reasons, it would turn off the keyboard while the car was moving. Now, users can input the data while they’re moving by just waving their hand in front of their phone and saying, “report traffic” or “report accident.” Waze will respond by asking for the severity of the situation and users can answer with “heavy,” “moderate,” “standstill” or “done” for traffic reports. It’s a smart way to add more information to the system while keeping people safe. That in turn should add more color to Waze’s traffic reports and help explain to drivers what’s at the heart of some of the traffic slowdowns their encountering.

The latest update also includes the ability to tell others about your destination, estimated time of arrival or that you’re running late. The Android update with the same features is expected in the coming months.

Adding voice control is a nice and logical step for Waze, which is now up to 12 million users, adding 1.5 million users a month. I really like the use of the proximity sensor, which gives Waze users a simple way to start voice actions. Google’s Search app also reportedly leverages the proximity sensor on the iPhone, allowing people to enter in a search by lifting the phone to their ear. But I can’t seem to make it work these days on my iPhone 4.

Waze’s use of the proximity sensor is a more elegant solution that works well within the Waze use case and should encourage a lot more active use of Waze. And it’s a nice alternative to waiting for Siri to open up to third-party developers.

“Siri is an amazing product and hopefully we’ll be able to use it eventually though Apple hasn’t given any insight on that. We couldn’t wait for it,” said Michal Habdank-Kolaczkowski, Waze’s director of communications.

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Credit: Priceonomics

Priceonomics, which keeps track of the resale value of items like cars, bikes and gadgets, published a report Wednesday that shows how the value of iPhones, Android devices and BlackBerrys hold up over time. Short answer: iPhones, even years-old models, retain their value the longest, which means iPhone owners can recoup the most money when they go to resell their phones.

Here’s the method they  used:

We measure depreciation by comparing a phone’s current used price to its new price (without a contract) the day it was released. We examined all iPhone models and the 70 most popular Androids and 30 most popular BlackBerry models. We split phones into five different cohorts (newly released, 1, 2, 3, and 4 year-old phones). We then calculated which phones had the best resale by cohort, as well as which platforms in aggregate tended to retain their value the most.

The highest quality phones should have the best resale values over time and crappier phones should depreciate the fastest. The evidence is clear – the winner is the iPhone.

After crunching the data they came up with a series of charts, like one that shows that after owning a smartphone for 18 months, iPhone owners can resell theirs for 53 percent of the original price, Android owners for 42 percent and BlackBerry owners for 41 percent of the original price.

That part won’t be news to people who make a habit of reselling their old iPhone before or right after buying a new one a new one. There are sites like Gazelle.com, eBay and NextWorth.com that regularly buy used iPhones, BlackBerrys and Android phones in order to resell them. The iPhone is always the easiest to resell and will go for a decently high price if you time it right.

But all is not lost for penny-pinching Android owners. One caveat to the data that Priceonomics found is that less expensive Android phones sold by prepaid operators do hold their value much better than their pricier Google-powered brethren, probably because those phones are highly subsidized by the operators. Specifically, the Motorola Triumph, HTC Wildfire and Samsung Exhibit 4G on average keep up to 86 percent of the original value.

Be sure to check out the original post for more interesting data.

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Rather than just read my experiences with the app, the DoubleTwist folks kindly offered 25 unlock codes for GigaOm readers, so if you hurry, you can get them right here. I happened to be in conversation with the DoubleTwist team about one of our reader’s suggestions for the app. Not only did we get a public response to the suggestion, but the unlock codes as well!

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