Tech News: Verizon Sued, PCMichiana Lockergnome, VZW iPad MiFi, MySpace Chaos

Today’s news was filmed eight hundred times. That’s right, the tech news video just didn’t want to be nice today. Perhaps it was because Verizon Wireless, one of the largest networks in the world, finally settled in court for $25 million dollars with the FCC regarding “false data charges”. That’s right, we have all experienced it. That moment where we open up our monthly bill, flip through nine hundred confusing pages (of which a few of them are missing) and find that we have random data charges added to our account. As a result of the lawsuit, Verizon must not only pay $25 million to the FCC, but they must also refund $58 million dollars of “false data charges” to their customer base. I would consider this a major victory in the scam department, perhaps from now on Verizon will handle random third party charges better.

The Verizon iPad was officially released today with an interesting addition. For those of you who weren’t paying attention, apparently the iPad does not support the 3G built in adapter for the iPads. In order for users to get the “anywhere” Verizon data network, they need to purchase it with a “MiFi” bundle that allows their iPad to communicate with the Verizon data services. Thankfully the MiFi adapter is only the size of a pack of cigarettes, but still, isn’t the whole point of an iPad portability and convenience. I found this oddly frustrating news myself.

Lastly, MySpace decides to change their business model and revolve their entire network around entertainment. This is a bothersome business move as their 127 million users cannot possibly all be into the entertainment business. It seems like they will be isolating a huge chunk of their user base by forcing entertainment and media down their throat when most of them simply used MySpace for connecting with friends and family. I could be wrong, I have been before.

PCMichiana Lockergnome Blog – Everything Geek with Craig Chamberlin:
http://www.lockergnome.com/pcmichiana

Verizon Wireless pays FCC $25M for years of false data charges:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/10/the_federal_communications_com_5.html?hpid=topnews

Apple iPad Now on Sale at Verizon, AT&T:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371662,00.asp

MySpace Redesigns Site Around Entertainment, Content:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/trends/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228000187&itc=ref-true