congress

Silicon Valley execs press D.C. on immigration law fixes

Silicon Valley firms are presenting a rare united front in an effort to end a political logjam that has blocked high-tech immigration reform.

In an unusual show of support that underscores how important the topic has become, executives from Facebook, Google, eBay and other major tech companies sent a letter today to President Obama and congressional leaders asking them to fix immigration law by the end of 2013. The current system is broken, they say, blaming visa shortages, long waits for green cards, and difficulties bringing spouses and children to the United States.

"Because our current immigration system is … Read more

Why more mobile OSes are good for you

commentary How do you feel about Firefox as an operating system? Or Ubuntu on your phone or tablet? Is Windows Phone 8 worth switching to? BlackBerry 10 means that the company formerly known as RIM isn't dead yet, right? And what the heck's a Tizen, anyway?

Depending on the OS, these questions and more will begin to plague mobile phone reviewers, phone providers, and consumers at large within the year at the most, and probably sooner.

Some people think this is a bad thing.

Yesterday's IDC report that smartphones will overtake feature phones in global sales this year … Read more

Growing pressure in Congress to fix flaws in DMCA law

A once-obscure copyright law that the U.S. Senate unanimously approved in 1998 has finally irritated so many members of the public that Congress might bother to defang it.

It's not like the flaws of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have remained a state secret for the last 15 years: it's been wielded to threaten Princeton security researchers, restrict replacement garage door openers, and jail a programmer who dared to create an e-book converter. One federal appeals court even invoked the law when banning "linking" to certain DMCA-offending Web sites.

Not one of those extrusions of … Read more

Silicon Valley stymied on immigrant worker plan

Silicon Valley firms aren't going to get the immigration changes they want, at least not right away.

Straightforward fixes to a legal framework that just about everyone agrees is broken -- the fixes would let foreign engineers and scientists remain in the United States post-graduation -- have run aground on the usual shoals of special interest politicking and partisan bickering.

Technology companies were hoping for prompt action on a pair of bills introduced this year that would ease a shortage of skilled workers, in part by expanding the H-1B visa program. It's a bipartisan idea backed by Microsoft, … Read more

Episode 29: Hot phones in cold Barcelona

Barcelona is the place to be, and not just for the cafe con leche, the jamon iberico, or the incredible melted-stone facades of such Gaudi creations as the Sagrada Familia or the Casa Mila. Forget all that nonsense. It's all about the phones.

Mobile World Congress just wrapped in Barcelona, and with it came a bevy of new product announcements, ranging from Ubuntu and Firefox operating systems to new Samsung tablets, new phablets from LG and ZTE, a new Wi-Fi coffee-maker from Qualcomm, and...well, no, no Samsung Galaxy S4. That's next week. But this week's episode … Read more

Coming to an e-book or car near you: The Web

BARCELONA, Spain--You're used to the Web on your PC. You're getting used to it on your smartphone. So what's next?

Publishing and automobile industry players have just begun spinning up efforts at the World Wide Web Consortium, said W3C Chief Executive Jeff Jaffe in an interview here at Mobile World Congress. So don't be surprised to see proprietary technology for e-book readers and in-dash computer systems slowly disappear in favor of software based on Web technology.

Books are perhaps an obvious area for Web technology, given that in electronic form they're just formatted documents and the Web began its life as a way to share formatted documents. But the two domains have taken years to reach today's level of convergence.

"The Web equals publishing," Jaffe said. "There's really no difference anymore."

Among the inroads Web technology has made into publishing:… Read more

Pandora limits free mobile streaming

CNET Update teaches you how to say Ubuntu:

Thursday's tech news roundup has bad news for Pandora addicts. Free music streaming on Pandora apps is limited to 40 hours a month -- but there's no limit for desktop users. Pandora is bringing back limits just as Spotify evolves: it's making changes to be more social, just updated its iOS app, and is going to be available on Ford's Sync AppLink. Another streaming cousin, TuneIn, also updated its site and iPad app to offer live listening recommendations.

And as Mobile World Congress coverage wraps up, we're … Read more

HTC One camera features and Zoe mode walk-through (video)

The Ultrapixel camera is the jewel in the HTC One's smartphone crown, but camera hardware is only half the story.

Click through the photos below to check out the torrent of filters, modes, and editing tricks that come stuffed inside this new smartphone's software.

The camera app features two modes -- normal camera mode and Zoe mode. In normal mode, you'll see a number of filters along the bottom of the display. These allow you to see your photos with Instagram-esque image tweaks before you hit the shutter button. Handy.

Tap the top left of the screen … Read more

Practical, affordable phones take center stage at MWC 2013

BARCELONA, Spain--Although mobile phones will always have a central role at Mobile World Congress, this year the red-hot buzz went to software, tablets, wearable tech, and other geeky-cool oddities.

With heavy hitter HTC announcing its flagship HTC One days before MWC, and Samsung saving its Galaxy S4 announcement for March 14, it was the sensible, midrange Android phones that made up the bulk of the announcements.

However, it was the outlier operating systems that really stole the show.

Firefox, Ubuntu, Tizen: The other, other OSes

The mobile, browser-based Firefox OS appeared on several smartphones, like the Geeksphone Peak (our pick … Read more

Tablets at Mobile World Congress: The best, the rest, and the 'Why'd they even bother?'

BARCELONA, Spain--Given the highly successful year tablets enjoyed in 2012, their overall dismal showing at CES was that much more of a disappointment. I came in expecting to see 2013's "Nexus 7" (not the actutal next Nexus 7, but another small, awesome tablet) and Transformer Infinity. Instead, tablets were largely ignored by the larger vendors. This gave smaller vendors a chance to shine, but beyond some encouraging plans to aggressively price their wares, I came away unimpressed.

Thankfully, things improved this week at Mobile World Congress, with some of the major vendors bringing out their big guns. … Read more