Active wireless subscriptions totaled 326.4 million or 102% of the total U.S. population! Out of that, more than 152 million were smartphones, 22.3 million tablets, and 76 million “pay as you go” units. Carriers also reported 1.5 TRILLION MB of data in 2012, up 69.3% over 2011!!!

Huge numbers that are showing no sign of slowing down. We are clearly living in a mobile driven world…

Get all the data details via CTIA’s website here.

• PrivacyStar’s new updated app featured on AndroidApps.com!
  
• ATT beefs up its 4G LTE in 15 new locations (including Mountain Home, Arkansas!)
• By the end of 2013, Informa estimates that 41 billion OTT messages will be sent every day, compared with an average of 19.5 billion P2P SMS messages. Read all the details here.
• MetroPCS and T-Mobile officially merged. Find out what this means for you here.
• Apple’s revenue growth continues but profits have dropped for the first time in 10 years due to increasing market competition.

The deal was approved by the FTC and Justice Department back in March and is expected to close by May 1.

We have radically changed our business model and launched drastically simplified tariffs,” said Timotheus Höttges, CFO of Deutsche Telekom and chairman of the newly formed company. “Together with MetroPCS, we will make considerable improvements to our competitive position with our combined state-of-the-art network, more powerful sales model and top devices like the Apple iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S4.”

Combining the two companies seems natural to us, as Metro PCS and T-Mobile are both know for their consumer-friendly attitudes and lower rate plans, plus a strong presence in big cities. MetroPCS customers should expect to see better phones on a national network in their very near future.

In truth, the money collected was for an out of state charity, with no special emphasis on Iowa children, and 85 cents of every dollar donated goes to the telemarketing firm, not the sick kids…

The Iowa attorney general’s office took swift and serious action, banning the telemarketing firm from ever making fundraising calls again. This is the third time in the past three years that Iowa officials have used an undercover phone line to shut down an allegedly deceptive telemarketing operation.

A debt collector may not engage in any conduct the natural consequence of which is to harass, oppress, or abuse any person in connection with the collection of a debt. Without limiting the general application of the foregoing, the following conduct is a violation of this section [of the FDCPA]:

…(5) Causing a telephone to ring or engaging any person in telephone conversation repeatedly or continuously with intent to annoy, abuse, or harass any person at the called number.

The problem Eidelman touches on is that the definition of “repeatedly or continuously” is subjective. Does it mean more than once per day, week, or even month? Currently, this term is left up to the individual judge interpreting each case before them, making it difficult for collection agencies and consumers alike to know what actually constitutes harassment.

What do you think?

First off, the phone-maker did what it had to do with the launch of the Z10: managed to sell over 1 million phones in the UK and Canada alone, in just 2 weeks. This is impressive considering 75% of the market was entirely absent.

Second, worldwide reviews are now coming in and definitely seem positive. On average, users have rated the phone better than the iPhone5, Galaxy S IV, and Nokia Lumia 920.

Third, there’s more and even better product to come. The physical-keyboard version of the Z10, the Q10, is due out next month and pre-orders from major carriers are already “overwhelming”.

Forth, the Z10 has some innovative features like home vs work screens, and a much better display and resolution than the iPhone5. It’s top-notch security features are still in place and very attractive to the business class. They are also working constantly to add new apps and become more “hip”- showing the BlackBerry user is just as active on social forums as their iPhone and Android cousins.

And finally, BlackBerry has a very strong financial backing and lots of leverage to fuel research and development.

Clearly, Mr. Chattaraj  is not the only fan of the company’s future growth, as stocks are doing well and predictions quite positive.

But what do you think? Will the BlackBerry make a full comeback and rival the 2 big boys for more of the market? Will you purchase one yourself?

Reporter Luke Jones talked with both Brad Lacy of the Conway Chamber of Commerce and our neighbor Rick Howe, CEO of Inuvo, on what makes Conway the place to be for so many technical jobs…

… Conway Chamber of Commerce President Brad Lacy said the town has made a concerted effort to cultivate businesses through both tax incentives and infrastructure development.

“We really have to play to what our strengths are,” he said. “Our demographics are very young, very well-educated people. That lends itself to white-collar endeavors. That doesn’t mean we forget about blue collar and manufacturing, and certainly many of those manufacturing operations have significant engineering staff needs as well. So I think it’s just a natural progression of what we’ve attempted to do.”

Inuvo got $1.75 million from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s quick action closing fund to help move its facilities to Conway.

Similar AEDC incentives have gone to other companies that have moved to Conway in recent years. PrivacyStar, which relocated to downtown Conway in 2012, received income tax credits based on the payroll of new jobs, tax refunds on building material tied to its expansion and $224,000 from the quick action closing fund.

Howe listed several reasons besides incentives for his desire to move Inuvo to Conway.

“One was the university culture here,” he said. “That was encouraging for us. It gives us access to talent. There have been a whole lot of companies that have been built up successfully in university towns.”

Howe said another reason was existing talent in the town due to other tech companies, like Acxiom and HP, being present.

“The third component of it was the community aspect of the city itself,” he said. “We have a very young demographic. We’re an Internet marketing company, so our demographic of the average employee is around 30 years old. A lot of our employees are at the stage where they’re starting to raise families. They’re looking for this sort of community.”

Labor costs are more favorable to Inuvo in Conway, too. Howe said salaries would have to be roughly 30 percent higher in New York, one of Inuvo’s two previous locations. The company stated in a release that it would save from $80,000 to $120,000 per month when it exits its lease in New York City.

“It’s interesting: You’d think that in today’s day and age you’d want to move to, say, San Francisco,” Howe said. “But you can’t compete there. If you really think about it, if we had moved our company to San Francisco, we’d be competing with thousands of similar-sized companies that are all competing for money, talent and mindshare. Why would we do that?”

Read the full article at ArkansasBusiness.com

Does that 947 number keep calling but you have no idea who it is? With Lookup+, you can simply type the number in and it will tell you the name or business that the number is coming from. How genius! And while iOS prohibits call blocking (only carriers provide the functionality–which, lame), Android users can rejoice: You’ve got call and text blocking directly from the app.

Read Jeana’s full review here.

1) Racked up phone bills

Perhaps the most obvious way to detect malicious activity is something you hopefully check often- your phone bill. SMS Fraud (or text spam) is notorious for adding phantom credit card charges or subscription fees that you never approved.

2) Data Plan Spikes

Malware isn’t content just hanging out on your phone- it wants your data! Be on the lookout for noticeable spikes on your data plan bill.

3) Battery Drain

Malware loves to drain a phones’ battery life by making your phone work double-time to perform everyday tasks. If you notice your fully charged phone dying well before the end of the day, malware may be the culprit.

4) Performance CLogging

Lots of malicious apps can cause serious performance problems on your phone, from reading data to loading applications. Check this through your Android settings menu- then apps- then swiping over to the running section. Here you see all your running apps, how much RAM they are using, and the amount of RAM available on your phone.

5) Dropped calls & disruptions

Malware can often cause other features and functions of your phone to have problems, such as dropped calls or strange disruptions in conversation. Mobile malware may be the interference.

If any of these things are happening and it’s more than the age of your phone, it’s probably not the end of the world. Cleaning up and removing malware is quite simple and there’s lots of security scans you can run to find the evil culprit. The important thing is to catch them early! Protect yourself from malware by avoiding text spam, weird links, sketchy apps, and unsolicited email attachments. Oh, and report the text spam to the FTC for free with PrivacyStar!