Project Byzantium calls itself Ad-hoc wireless mesh networking for the zombie apocalypse. It's also potentially useful for less-thrilling emergencies, such as floods, earthquakes, and political uprisings (or getting everyone at the office their /. fix when the network goes down). The latest version debuted at the HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth) conference in July, 2012. You can download your very own copy of Byzantium any time you like. Hopefully you will then burn a dozen or so CDs (it's compact enough that it doesn't need a DVD) for friends and neighbors, so that if you suddenly see zombies approaching and your regular ISP has already been overrun and isn't working, you can set up a wireless mesh network and coordinate your anti-zombie efforts. And you won't even need to use the command line. (slides and audio of their presentation)

fistfullast33l writes "The Associated Press is reporting that the Justice Department, FCC, and New York State Attorney General approved portions of a deal between Verizon Wireless and cable companies Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox to sell parts of the wireless spectrum to Verizon for $3.9 billion. However, the Justice Department rejected the agreement between the two groups to allow Verizon to market cable services in its stores in markets where it also offers FIOS service. The spectrum will be used to increase Verizon's 4G LTE network coverage. Verizon will also sell some spectrum to T-Mobile. Consumer groups were very concerned about the cross-marketing by Verizon: 'When it comes to home broadband, Verizon Communication Inc.'s FiOS provides the only significant competition to cable in many areas. Yet FiOS is costly to build out, and Verizon's commitment to the technology has faltered. Consumer groups and unions that opposed the deal between the cable companies and Verizon said it showed that Verizon was further giving up on FiOS and yielding the home broadband market to cable.'"

Qedward writes "Motorists are being invited to help develop a new driving app that could earn them a discount of 'up to 20%' on their motor insurance. British insurer Aviva is using smartphone technology to create individual driver profiles that will be used to calculate tailored pay-how-you-drive premiums. The driver behavioral app, Aviva RateMyDrive, will monitor motorists taking part in the test for 200 miles, including acceleration, braking and cornering. This data is then turned into an individual score which helps determine the motorist's premium, with 'safer' drivers earning up to 20% off their deal."

infodragon writes "Today in the ongoing Apple vs Samsung court case Judge Lucy Koh's patience wore thin as Apple presented a 75-page document highlighting 22 witnesses it would like to call in for rebuttal testimony, provided the court had the time. As those following the case closely know quite well, the case has a set number of hours which are already wearing quite thin. As quoted by The Verge as they sat in the courtroom listening in, Koh wondered aloud why Apple would offer the list 'when unless you're smoking crack you know these witnesses aren't going to be called!'"

tad001 writes "The Daily Mail has pictures of Apple's new mini connector. The photograph, shared by French tech website nowhereelse.fr, shows two components, one of which is said to be similar to another apparently leaked picture of a part of the new iPhone. As well as the new dock connector, the part also seems to take in the headphone jack and the home button connector for the hotly awaited devices."

metrix007 writes "I am a recent immigrant to the U.S. I am used to going to countries and paying a small amount, say, $30, for a simcard and using it with my unlocked phone. I can't seem to do that in the U.S., where the only options seem to be to buy a phone and buy minutes as I need them such as with Tracfone, or a contract where I pay an amount per month to pay off a phone and a certain amount of minutes. I have a Google Nexus One, which is better than any phone offered on the basic plans from all the cell providers. Is there any way I can use it as a cell phone in the U.S. for about $30-$50/month? It seems a shame to waste it and have to pay for a lesser phone."

judgecorp writes "Mozilla's mobile phone operating system only exists in an early beta form, but Oleg Romashin, a researcher at Nokia, has already got it working on the Raspberry Pi and posted video to prove it. We don't think this indicates any alternate strategy for Nokia if Windows Phone doesn't pan out, but it does show that Firefox OS is portable, and the Pi is capable, and both can be played with — which will please both Mozilla and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. And the Firefox OS work in progress is available for download (direct tarball link)."

zacharye writes "With 100 million mobile subscribers, Nigeria stands among leading mobile markets in the world. Its mobile content sector is quite fascinating — this is a market where $100 apps can debut at the No.3 position on Apple's list of top iOS apps. Bible and Quran apps are a major feature of the Nigerian mobile content market. The evergreen 'Message Bible' was launched globally in December 2009 at almost the same time as 'Angry Birds.' While the raging avians achieved greater global success, 'Message Bible' was a smash in Nigeria, recently returning again to No.15 among the top grossing iPhone apps. In the United States, the app didn't even crack the top 600 at its peak."

coondoggie writes "Let's say that for whatever reason, you'd rather your telephone number not be published. If you are a Verizon customer, that privacy privilege will cost you $5 a month. And how does Verizon justify such a significant fee for such an insignificant service? 'The cost charged to offer unlisted phone numbers is chiefly systems and IT based,' a media relations spokesman for the company tells Network World. (Asking the same question of online customer service elicited a predictably unenlightening response.) Sixty dollars a year to keep an unpublished number unpublished? Does that seem plausible?"

New submitter Blindman writes "The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has held that it is okay for police to track your cellphone signal without a warrant. Using information about the cell tower that a prepaid cell phone was connected to, the police were able to track a suspected drug smuggler. Apparently, keeping your cellphone on is authorization for the police to know where you are. According to the ruling (PDF), '[The defendant] did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data emanating from his cell phone that showed its location.' Also, 'if a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal.'"

TheBoat writes with a bit from BGR on the Apple vs Samsung case: "We're starting to see a theme develop here. Now that it's Samsung's turn to present its case in the San Jose, California patent trial that regularly has the tech media abuzz, the company is taking an interesting approach. Rather than start out by arguing that its various Android smartphones and tablets do not copy Apple's designs or infringe on its patents, Samsung is arguing that Apple's IP is invalid to begin with. On Monday, Samsung argued that Apple's pinch-to-zoom patent was stolen from Mitsubishi's old Diamond Touch and on Tuesday evening, Samsung made a similar argument regarding the design of Apple's iPad. Samsung on Tuesday presented the jury with videotaped testimony from Roger Fidler, head of the digital publishing program at the University of Missouri. In his testimony, Fidler stated that he began work on a tablet design in 1981. 'Apple personnel were exposed to my tablet ideas and prototypes,' he testified, adding that Apple staff saw his designs in the mid-1990s."

John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a thoughtful piece about the design of Apple's smaller iPad, which the company is expected to announce on September 12. Simply shrinking the current iPad's dimensions to a new form factor is unlikely, he says, and the bezel surrounding the display is more likely to be a cross between an iPad and an iPhone. He also discusses evidence of Apple's PR team getting the rumor mill going immediately after the announcement of Google's Nexus 7, and how Apple has probably bet on having a thinner and lighter tablet than Google, rather than worrying about a better display. Quoting: "Apple product designs are true to themselves. Each thing has proportions suited to its own nature. Consider how the iPad doesn’t look like a blown up iPhone. They share a few similar design elements — a family resemblance, if you will — but the proportions are different. The iPad has a thick bezel surrounding all four sides of the display; the iPhone does not. Why? Because you need a place to rest your thumbs while holding an iPad. ... Should not the iPad Mini fall somewhere in between? Not as close to the aspect ratio of its display as the iPad-as-we-know-it, but also not as far away from its display aspect ratio as the iPhone. You might need more thumb-rest room on the sides than you do on the iPhone, but not nearly as much as you do on the full-size iPad. If that assumption is right, the proportions of a 7.85-inch 4:3-aspect-ratio display iPad Mini are likely not the same as the proportions of the 9.7-inch 4:3-aspect-ratio display iPad."

Qedward writes "The BBC has revealed that on the busiest day of its London 2012 Olympics coverage it delivered 2.8 petabytes worth of content, peaking when Bradley Wiggins won gold, where it shifted 700Gb/s. It has also said that over a 24-hour period on the busiest Olympic days it had more traffic to bbc.co.uk than it did for the entire BBC coverage of the FIFA World Cup 2010 games. They revealed they had 106 million requests for BBC Olympic video content, which included 12 million requests for video on mobile devices across the whole of the Games. Mobile saw the most uptake at around 6pm when people had left the office but still wanted to keep informed of the latest action. Tablet usage, however, reached a peak at around 9pm, where people were using it as a second screen or as they continued to watch the games in bed."

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports researchers in Korea have developed a technology that can be used as a viable alternative to QR codes. Made of plastic and electronic ink, the rectennas cost less than one penny each to produce and use the NFC standards for wireless radio communication to devices. They are seen as a cheap, easy-to-print and environmentally friendly way to overcome the limitations and inconvenience of QR codes, the usage of which has greatly increased in the last few years."

zacharye writes with an excerpt from BGR: "One reason for Nokia's surprisingly strong share price rebound over the past two weeks is the success of its new Asha feature phones in Asia. According to our sources in Delhi, the Asha 305 sold out in several stores soon after its debut even before the marketing campaign kicked in. Is it a coincidence that major Asian newspapers like The Philippine Star and Singapore's The Sun Daily describe Nokia's new Asha models as 'smartphones'? No. Nokia has done its very best to dress up its cheap new feature phones as something far more aspirational — to the extent that devices like Asha 305 are now widely depicted as smartphones across Asia and Africa. This is a critically important maneuver.." Of course, maybe they are smartphones; the Asha appears to be speced better than the HTC Dream (1Ghz processor, albeit with only 128M of RAM), and they've added a lot of new features to Series40. But then it's still Series40 with JavaME.

zacharye writes "In the five years since Apple launched the iPhone, the popular device has gone from a malicious hacker's dream to law enforcement's worst nightmare. As recounted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review blog, a Justice Department official recently took the stage at the DFRWS computer forensics conference in Washington, D.C. and told attendees that the beefed up security in iOS is now so good that it has become a nightmare for law enforcement."

In perhaps one answer to the question of how tablet makers will react to a more crowded market for small screen tablets, the L.A. Times reports that Barnes and Noble is dropping the price on its Nook tablet by 10 percent, undercutting the Amazon Kindle Fire by $20. The company's Nook Color is also shedding $20, and will now cost $149. I'm glad to hear it; I've been using a Nexus 7 lately, and finding the size (like a trade paperback, including a protective case) far handier and more often used than any of the 10" tablets I've tried.

First time accepted submitter amiller2571 writes "The eyes of the technology world are focused on the epic patent struggle between Apple and Samsung — the latest iteration of Apple's frantic legal battle against everything Android. The iPhone maker has also brought suits against Android device manufacturers HTC and Motorola. Apple has faced criticism for its endless lawsuits designed to stunt competition from Google's Android, but a quick look at Android device shipments in the second quarter of 2012 reveals a key number that suggest Apple is right to worry." Spoiler alert: the number the article focuses on is 68 — as in, the 68 percent of the smart phone market in this year's second quarter that consisted of Android phones.

redletterdave writes "For about a year, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble were almost completely alone in the 7-inch tablet market. It was nice while it lasted. The past few months have seen Google and Microsoft unveil their 7-inch tablet offerings — the Nexus 7 and Microsoft Surface, respectively — and it looks like Apple is about ready to get into the mini tablet game, too. If Apple releases its first 'iPad Mini' next month, what can Amazon and Barnes & Noble do to keep the Cupertino colossus at bay, as well as the other new competitors in the 7-inch tablet game?"

New submitter jolle sends word that stable builds for CyanogenMod 9 rolled out to their servers last night, supporting a wide range of devices. Downloads here. From their announcement: "[This] release is for the majority of our ICS supported devices, the stragglers will catch up, and we will leave the door open for merging in additional devices from maintainers, external and internal. The team itself, will focus solely on Jelly Bean and maintenance of the CM 7 codebase. Many have wondered why we bothered to finish CM 9 when we are already active in CM 10 development. To that, our answer is: we don't like to leave things incomplete. There is no profit gained from what we do, so the satisfaction of completing a goal is our only reward. This release also serves as a release suitable for the masses, especially those who won't have 100% functioning releases of CM 10 immediately or are averse to anything branded as 'preview', 'alpha', 'beta' or 'nightly.'"