Google Maps is in trouble again.
Google has apologized for its second major mapping embarrassment in one month, after a racist slur involving the N-word was demonstrated as finding the White House on Google Maps.
Searches including “n****r house” and “n****r king” returned the home of Barack Obama as one of the top suggestions.
Hate the fact that your wireless carrier keeps your smartphone locked? President Obama does too. The White House has filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking that wireless carriers be required to unlock all mobile devices.
Over the weekend, President Obama weighed in on the famous Apple vs. Samsung patent disputes by vetoing an import ban proposed by the International Trade Commission that would have prevented Apple from bringing iOS devices older than the iPhone 4S and iPad 3 into the country.
An avowed fan of Apple’s products, it was the first time a U.S. presidential administration had vetoed a product ban by the ITC since 1987, and seemed to signal that the Obama Administration was not going to penalize an American company like Apple in favor of a foreign company like Samsung.
Financial Markets took notice. Samsung’s market cap is down a billion dollars since the vetoing.
A group of U.S. Senators have introduced a new bill that will allow cellphone owners to legally unlock their devices again after their contract has expired.
Called the Unlocking Consumer Choice and Wireless Competition Act, and backed by Al Franken and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill would reverse a Library of Congress ruling from October 2012 that deemed cellphone unlocking illegal unless the process was performed by a carrier.
There’s been a lot of noise lately surrounding smartphone unlocking. On October 28, 2012, the Library of Congress said it was going to be illegal to unlock your smartphone starting on January 26, 2013.
Since then, Obama has stepped in and said that’s totally not fair. And then a few legislators have brought up bills to make sure people can unlock their smartphones without facing criminal charges. Now AT&T says it wants to be perfectly clear that they don’t really want you to go to jail for unlocking your smartphone.
