Sprint plans to keep the unlimited data coming on Apple’s next iPhone, even if it supports 4G LTE.

“I’m not anticipating the unlimited plan would change by that point,” Sprint CEO Dan Hesse told CNet. “That’s our distinctive differentiator.”

Sprint is the only major wireless carrier that still offers unlimited smartphone data with no throttling, though the carrier does limit tethering and hotspot use. Meanwhile, the rise of smartphones–and the iPhone in particular–has seen Sprint’s larger competitors clamp down on data use.

AT&T stopped offering unlimited data to new subscribers in mid-2010, and Verizon followed in 2011, months after it started selling the iPhone 4. Both carriers also now throttle their heaviest data users who still have unlimited plans, although Verizon only does so at congested cell sites.

With 4G LTE, phones and tablets can get speeds up to 10 times faster than 3G. as a result, 4G device users may burn through more data, bolstered by the ability to quickly load videos or download files. For Verizon and AT&T, that extra consumption can turn into more revenue, as users run into overage charges.

That may explain why Hesse left a bit of wiggle room–“I’m not anticipating … by that point”– in his statement. Sprint may always look to offer more data than its competitors as a way to stand out, but don’t be surprised if unlimited 4G LTE data doesn’t last forever.

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Sprint: Data Stays Unlimited, Even for a 4G LTE iPhone

a uniquely up-close-and-personal glimpse of primates navigating a rarely seen habitat, in this case the lush Tai forest of Ivory Coast in Africa, the film observes a cartload of chimps as they eat, groom and eat some more. Its diminutive star is 3-year-old Oscar, unexpectedly orphaned during filming and subsequently adopted by the group’s hulking alpha male. This astonishing turn of events might have had more impact had the filmmakers, Alastair Fothergill and mark Linfield, noted (or been permitted to note) that young’uns like Oscar are as likely to wind up on an adult female’s dinner table as in the alpha’s nest.

This squeamishness banishes all but the most vanilla facts and images. Aiming for toddlers — who, if those seated near me at the screening I attended were any indication, will quickly lose interest in Oscar’s snoozing, scratching and nut-cracking — the studio has ensured that conflict remains off screen and that violence is pushed to the margins. The hunting and consumption of a colobus monkey slides past at a discreet distance, and battles with a rival band of chimps play out in a blurred frenzy of lashing leaves.

while no one is looking to traumatize the tykes, it’s galling that we have to wait for the end credits to catch a hint of the enormity of the filmmakers’ task. these brief, last-minute revelations of danger and discomfort suggest a shadow story infinitely more captivating than the one that’s actually on screen.

‘Chimpanzee,’ a Disney Film Narrated by Tim Allen

“Project X” is “Super Bad” on crack.

This tale of three high school losers, who watch their birthday plans go out of control, zips past being a cautionary tale of teenage vices to reach the stratosphere of comic absurdity.

Thomas (Thomas Mann) is turning 17. His best friend, the fast-talking Costa (Oliver Cooper), convinces him to turn what is supposed to be a quiet birthday bash into the kind of sex, drugs and videotape event that will make the teens legends.

They become legendary when 1,500 to 2,000 guests turn the party into an untethered rave where the teens only slow down their consumption of liquor and drugs to get physical. Toss in a maniac with a flamethrower and this party has a little bit of everything.

Everything in the story goes over the top. There’s enough drugs and liquor to put a legion of teens into comas. Only attractive young women attend this party, and none are shy about disrobing. and all the adults are either mentally unstable or clueless. In other words, this is every teen’s dream.

Thomas, who is reminiscent of Cameron from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” is the perfect conduit for the audience. He’s loaded with the insecurities that make high school a death march for many, while holding on to the last grasps of responsibility as the partygoers trash his parents’ home.

Costa is the perfect counterbalance, a friend who talks and thinks big without any regard for consequences.

This kind of trouble-causing character has been a mainstay of buddy stories from “Leave It to Beaver” to “American Pie.”

First-time director Nima Nourizadeh uses the rapidly fading “found film” gimmick of making the entire movie look like it was shot on a variety of recording devices. since that style drew big raves with “The Blair Witch Project,” it’s almost become a cliche.

What saves “Project X” is that the party comes with a designated videographer (Dax Flame), so the footage seems less contrived.

“Project X” works, primarily because everything is so big and unbelievable.

‘Project X’ works in over-the-top way

Apple’s new iPhone 4S consumes on average twice as much data as the previous iPhone model and even more than iPad tablets due to increasing use of online services like the virtual personal assistant Siri, an industry study showed.

When Apple rolled out the iPhone 4S in October, its small improvements disappointed many analysts and reviewers, but consumer demand for the device has been strong, and buyers have extensively used their devices.

IPhone 4S users transfer on average three times more data than users of the older iPhone 3G model which was used as the benchmark in a study by telecom network technology firm Arieso.

Data usage of the previous model, the iPhone 4, was only 1.6 times higher than the iPhone 3G, while iPad2 tablets consumed 2.5 times more data than the iPhone 3G, the study showed.

Today’s generation of smartphones is placing increasing demands on available carrier bandwidth as applications become slicker and average personal usage of videos intensifies.

That sharp rise in data consumption puts more pressure on wireless operators to speed up capacity investments, as they are struggling already with clogged telecom networks to keep up with growing demand for data services on the go.

A smartphone’s consumption of data depends upon what the user asks it to do.

The iPhone 4S is perceived by some as a data hog because of Siri, a well-reviewed virtual personal-assistant and search app. It is integrated into the iPhone 4S and responds to voice commands.

“I use the iPhone 4 myself and when I first heard of the iPhone 4S features I was not compelled to rush out and get one. however, the data usage numbers I am seeing make me wonder what I am missing,” said Arieso’s chief technology officer, Michael Flanagan.

He said as tablets use smartphone-like user interfaces and software platforms, their data usage was similar to top-end smartphones.

“A tablet still looks like a big smartphone,” he said.

Mobile data usage has skyrocketed since the introduction of Apple’s original iPhone in 2007, with usage of data networks seen roughly doubling each year. Emerging mobile cloud services such as Siri are expected to further boost growth.

Wireless operators are keen on raising revenue from Internet browsing and the social networking boom as revenue from traditional voice calls declines, but they are facing increasingly congested networks.

Fearful of losing customers, only a few operators have publicly admitted to the problem of keeping pace with data traffic, but the majority are experiencing difficulties.

“There is no silver bullet,” Flanagan said, adding that the introduction of new, more efficient LTE networks will help. But he said operators should also identify heavy users of data and distribute small cellsites to them to offload traffic from mobile networks.

New, so-called small cell technologies enable operators to use tiny, almost personal base stations which cost around $100 to remove mobile data traffic from the big base stations which serve hundreds or thousands of clients around them.

Telecoms gear makers Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent — which have had to battle aggressive pricing by Asian rivals — hope rising data traffic will lead to new orders.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

New iPhone doubles data consumption: study

Computerworld – Owners of Apple’s new iPhone 4S consume twice as much data as iPhone 4 users, and triple that of iPhone 3GS owners, a U.K.-based network management firm said today.

After analyzing traffic on a unnamed European mobile carrier, Arieso concluded that the iPhone 4S was the biggest contributor to a boost in data consumption in 2011 over the year before.

Arieso, which counts mobile network providers O2, Telefonica and Vodofone among its clients, said that iPhone 4S users download an average of 276% more data than people with an iPhone 3G, Apple’s 2008 smartphone.

On the data upload side, iPhone 4S users beat iPhone 3G owners by 320%.

Apple started selling the iPhone 4S in the U.S. and several other countries — including the U.K., France and Germany — on Oct. 14. since then, Apple expanded iPhone 4S availability to dozens of other markets, and plans to roll out the device in China a week from today.

Altogether, iPhone 4S owners consumed three times more data than iPhone 3G users, and double that of people with an iPhone 4, Apple’s 2010 model, said Arieso.

While the company could measure data use for individual smartphone models, it wasn’t able to pinpoint the exact kind of bits that were being transmitted or received. “The drill-down causes are not directly available to us,” admitted Michael Flanagan, Arieso’s chief technology officer and the author of his company’s report, in an interview today. “So we have to look at the feature capabilities of the phones.”

So Flanagan attributed the iPhone 4S’ voracious appetite to a pair of causes.

“The most salient difference between the iPhone 4S [and earlier models], and we think the root cause, is its cloud-based capabilities,” said Flanagan.

He cited the constant synchronization via iCloud — Apple’s sync and storage service that also is accessible to users of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS — as one, and Siri, the voice-activated assistant available only on the iPhone 4S, as the other feature most likely to cause increased data consumption.

iCloud’s synchronization means more data on the download and upload channels, said Flanagan, especially when that data consists of audio and video files.

“Say I download the latest “Archer” episode from iTunes to my laptop,” he said. “The next day it’s been automatically downloaded to my iPhone. And if I take videos using the iPhone, it’s automatically pushed to another device via iCloud. together [the downloads and uploads] can account for the increases.”

Siri, which some reports identified as the most likely reason why iPhone 4S data consumption was double that of the iPhone 4, is probably also a cause, Flanagan said.

Apple’s iCloud, Siri doubles iPhone 4S data consumption

We don’t have a catchy name like the fire to have a play on words, but it doesn’t need to as the new Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet aims to do all the talking itself and start its own fire. Today at the NYC event B&N unveiled their newest 7″ Android tablet, some might still want to call it an e-reader although its more of a consumption device and tablet than anything. This tablet tablet comes rocking a 1.0 GHz dual-core processor to help it become much more than just an e-reader. We have some hands-on impressions below

The new B&N NOOK Tablet features a 7″ 1024 x 600 resolution bright IPS display with LG Vivid view technology for reduced glare and better reading. A powerful dual-core 1.0 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB internal storage, micro-SD for expanded storage and thousands of books and magazines all for just $249. You can see the official announcement here, as well as some videos and pre-order information. the announcement event has just finished up and since we aren’t there live, we have some hands-on coverage rounded up for you to enjoy.

First we’ll start with CNET’s impressions. they might not have a load of pictures but they break all the details down and mention just how great the new IPS display is on the NOOK Tablet. Here is what CNET had to say regarding the awesome visual experience from the 7″ screen:

While offering the same 1024 x 600 resolution of the Nook Color (and the Kindle Fire), B&N claims that the in-plane switching (IPS) display offers an 89 percent viewing angle. I just know that the screen appeared brighter and sharper than last year’s model, and the high-res video stream from Netflix looked really good.

B&N mentions that the 7″ display has a no-air lamination process making colors more vivid, the text crisper, and will help reduce glare. Giving it one more of many advantages over the Kindle fire from Amazon.

Then be sure to look over the hands-on impressions from the Verge. To sum up their hands-on they basically enjoyed their limited time with the NOOK Tablet. it continues to be one of the best looking and feeling devices to use and handle, mainly because its the same design as the awesome NOOK Color.

They mention the familiar OS with the bookshelf layout for basically everything, nothing surprising here. Apparently press isn’t able to fully play with and enjoy the new NOOK so the hands-on time is limited but here is one bit the Verge had to say about the web browsing:

Unfortunately, they aren’t really permitting reporters to play with it, but I did get to sneak in a quick look at the browser and load up the Verge. Both the full and mobile site loaded quickly over the in-store WiFi and scrolling was decently smooth, though I wouldn’t say as silky as the iPad.

Last but not least, be sure to look over the pictures and information over at Engadget as they snapped a few up close and personal pictures with the NOOK Tablet and it sure looks awesome. I’ve always been a fan of the design and soft-touch coating on the rear. just like the Color the new tablet is exactly the same and anyone who loved the design will be plenty happy.

Again the new B&N NOOK Tablet that was just announced will be $249, and is available for pre-order right now and ships November 17th. Expect a full review here at Android Community once the device is finally available.

Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet hands-on roundup