There’s definitely something wrong with carriers’ roaming charges. A man in vacation in Mexico thought of downloading Wall-E over his wireless carrier’s network. Now that’s a wrong move in the first place, not knowing what the tariffs are. He ended up having to pay a $62,000 bill. He has negotiated the bill down to $17,000 after complaining about the initial number. These are bandwidth costs according to the carrier but it sounds weird to pay $17,000 for a 700MB file. At least everyone else learned an important lesson from this event.

via Ars Technica

The European Commission has decided to go against Microsoft again on that Internet Explorer matter. Practically, by bundling the web browser with the Windows OS, Microsoft is dominating the competition. The commission fined Microsoft last year for anti-competitive practices. After that $1.35 billion fine, the commission will continue its action against Microsoft:

Microsoft’s tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.

Microsoft will have to answer to the charges in 8 weeks or else. We’re waiting to see what that means. In the mean time, it’s time for all the other browsers out there to gloat. Mozilla, Opera, Chrome, “how you doin’”?

via BBC

According to a newly released report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans now spend more on their cell phones than on land lines services. The typical U.S. consumer spent $1,110 on telephone services in 2007 (the most recent year in which statistics are available), with $608 going for cell phones, $482 for landlines and $20 for other services. The older the user, the more likely that person was to maintain a landline. The younger the user, the more likely that person was not to have a landline at all.

On average, users under 25 spent 75% of their phone service money on cell phones. For people over 65 that figure dropped to 33% of money spent. Since 2003, land lines have been declining in popularity, with more and more people choosing cell phone service or internet phone service as their main mode of communication. In the single year from 2003 to 2004, land line use dropped 60%, with another drop of 53% between 2004 and 2005.