Category: News

Fortress International Group consults on data center design, which is rapidly evolving, particularly in regards to modular architecture. This is part of the impetus behind the data center consulting and engineering specialist’s acquisition of the data center integration services business from arvato digital services for $1.5 million.

This acquisition expands Fortress’ capabilities so it can perform a full range of services both to the rack, and inside the rack. The acquisition is expected to generate over $10 million of annualized revenue and be accretive to Fortress International Group’s results in the second half of 2013.

“We are very excited to expand our data center services offerings to include integration services of IT equipment,” said Anthony Angelini, CEO of Fortress, which is perhaps best known for its Total Site Solutions brand. “This acquisition is strategically significant and will be financially accretive to our business.  Strategically, the acquired integration business is an ideal complement to our current offerings in both the traditional and modular data center markets.  As the company evolves, our ability to perform a full range of services for data center customers both to the rack, and now inside the rack, will enhance the value proposition that our customers gain by trusting their data center requirements to us.”

About arvato

arvato provides custom rack layout design and configuration for large enterprise IT solutions consisting of large banks of computer servers, digital information storage and networking equipment, with custom cabling, power and cooling within data center racks and mobile or containerized data centers.

The business also includes testing and deployment, including onsite installation and network set-up of completed data center racks and mobile or containerized data centers. Additionally, the business provides configuration services including the configuration of IT equipment, which consists of loading applications or systems software, customizing memory or storage capacities, adding peripherals, and testing (including hardware power-up testing, diagnostics and software boot testing).

“Modular data center services represent an important and growing business for us, and, with this acquisition, we now offer an unmatched set of capabilities to the overall data center market and particularly the modular data center space,” said Angelini. “The transaction represents a key step along our strategic roadmap, and we are very excited about the team of people joining us as a result of the acquisition. We anticipate a number of synergies in both business development and cost savings as we integrate our sales teams, existing customers and management teams. The transaction further provides an enhanced end to end solution to both existing and potential customers.”

Fortress (FIGI) also said this week that it had secured a new credit facility through Bridge Bank to support the company’s growth strategy and provide financial flexibility. The facility provides a line of credit up to $6 million over the next two years.

The plot has thickened around the potential acquisition of Waze, the Israel-based social-mapping service, with news from Bloomberg late Thursday night that Google is considering a bid for the company, which is already reportedly evaluating a $1-billion-plus offer from Facebook. While other sources have poured cold water on the Google news — and some speculate that it is just a gambit designed to draw a higher price from Facebook — there are some pretty compelling reasons for Google to acquire the company.

News of the Facebook bid emerged earlier this month via reports in the Israeli media, which said that the social network had offered up to $1 billion to acquire Waze, which adds a real-time social element to traffic maps and claims to have close to 50 million active users. More recently, however, the Facebook talks have apparently bogged down over issues involving whether Waze will have transfer most of its staff from Israel to Facebook’s home base in California.

As with many such reports, the Bloomberg news is couched in all sorts of qualified terms, quoting anonymous sources “familiar with the matter” who say the company “may be considering” an offer, and it’s not uncommon for companies to float such rumors when they are looking for more money — or when they want to convince their acquirer to drop certain conditions, such as the requirement that Waze move its operations to San Francisco.

Some Israeli news outlets have also reported that Facebook has locked down its offer with a clause that prevents Waze from negotiating with other companies. And Google may have decided that making a bid for Waze simply isn’t worth the hassle that it might generate from antitrust authorities, who are already said to be looking at the company on other matters.

Google needs Waze more than Facebook does

All that said, however, there are some compelling reasons for Google to make a bid for Waze, as I tried to outline in a recent post. While it would make sense for Facebook to acquire the company — if only because it would help cement the social network’s move into mobile, and broaden the range of behavior and location data it could use to target users — it makes far more sense for Google.

Google Maps is one of the core offerings the company has when it comes to mobile, arguably almost as important as search and email. And it’s clear that Google cares about evolving the service, since it continues to pour resources into redesigns and added features like the ones that Om wrote about recently. There’s also no question that the social data provided by users is a crucial element of maps — and that is what Waze specializes in, and has managed to build right under Google’s nose.

I would argue that Google can’t afford to let Facebook (or Apple, although it reportedly isn’t part of the current negotiations) get its hands on Waze — in much the same way that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg came to the swift conclusion that he couldn’t afford to let Twitter acquire Instagram, and made a surprise $1-billion offer without even consulting his board of directors. If Google hasn’t already made a bid for Waze, I think it needs to get busy working on one.

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Dunechaser and Eva Blue

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European operators have been asked not to go ahead with the launch of the HTC First planned for this summer. The phone comes with Facebook Home which replaces the standard Android screens with its own social media interface.

Home has been available for download to other Android devices too but hasn’t proved popular with users. UK mobile operator EE has issued a statement making it clear that Facebook is behind the decision not to launch saying, “Following customer feedback, Facebook has decided to focus on adding new customisation features to Facebook Home over the coming months. While they are working to make a better Facebook Home experience, they have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the UK.” Orange in France has made a similar statement.

Facebook confirmed the news saying, “While we focus on making Home better, we are going to limit supporting new devices and think it makes a lot of sense for EE and Orange to hold off deploying the HTC First in Europe.”

Pre-orders for the phone will be cancelled whilst Facebook returns to the drawing board. EE has said it will contact customers who have shown an interest in the device. The decision is bad news for the social network which has seen its usage rates dropping in the UK and which needs to boost its mobile presence to gain advertising revenue.

Good news for Samsung today because Google has agreed to use their OLED screens for the consumer version of Google Glass. Samsung has been going toe to toe with LG lately, but LG has been leading the way.

“Samsung will supply its high-end OLED screens for Google Glass. This is a really big thing because its means that Google shares confidential data with Samsung on its futuristic projects,” said an executive at one of Samsung Display’s local parts suppliers.

This deal will no doubt strengthen Samsung’s OLED business. Samsung Display CEO Kim Ki-nam said, “OLED on silicon may be used for glasses-type, augmented-reality devices much like the Google Glass. The wearable market will be a major beneficiary of the free-form factor advantage of flexible OLEDs. Smartphone-linked wearable accessory products such as watches and health bands will use ultra-thin flexible OLEDs embedded with various sensors.”

Of course the next generation of OLEDs will be flexible and unbreakable, but LG seems to have a leg up in that department.

source: Korea Times

Come comment on this article: Samsung to provide OLED screens for consumer version of Google Glass

Nokia on Thursday filed a second patent infringement complaint against HTC with the International Trade Commission. The company has alleged that HTC’s products, including its flagship HTC One smartphone, infringe upon its protected technologies. In a statement to ZDNet, Nokia accused HTC of not taking action to prevent infringement and said the company has instead “tried to shift responsibility to its suppliers.” Nokia had previously filed a suit against HTC in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California San Diego, claiming 10 of the company’s products, including the HTC One and HTC First, infringe three of its patents. In its new complaint, Nokia has asked the ITC to ban sales of the HTC One in the United States.

Google Glass could be the future of computing or it could be something we’re all sitting around laughing back on years from now. Actually, a lot of people are already laughing about it, and some are making videos ridiculing the device and those who wear it.

This one doesn’t seem to be done in a mean-spirited way, but it does show you how silly you could look while taking pictures with Glass – one of things it’s supposed to be great for.

[via Gizmodo]

As the calendar ticks down to Apple’s first public event since October 2012, more details are starting to emerge regarding what the company will present. It’s fairly clear WWDC 2013 will primarily be about software, for both iOS and Mac OS X. And a new report contains some hints about the coming visual overhaul to iOS.

9to5Mac, which earlier reported that iOS 7 would get a new look with “very, very flat design” and see some default iOS apps get a refresh, has a report with far more detail about the coming changes. The sources are anonymous and obviously final decisions are still yet to be made. Still, the report is a good indication that we’re not going to get the same old iOS this year.

It’s a long piece filled with many details, but a few of the more interesting slated changes include:

• User interface functions, like the slide-to-unlock bar, the textured background of the drop-down Notifications menu, and the tappable app icons will all be subtly upgraded visually.
• Basic Apple apps, like Calendar, Notes, GameCenter, Mail will get a unified black and white look and be differentiated mostly by a third color.
• The Weather app is getting an upgrade with more features.
• Over-the-top real-world animations, like the shredder that animates when a Passbook ticket is deleted, will go away.

In all, it’s about what we’ve been expecting. Nothing too drastic, but a thorough refresh that will be the first major visual upgrade to the operating system in its six years of existence.

It’s also been reported that in order to do this, the iOS team has been scrambling to finish the project and has pulled members of the OS X software team over to help it meet its deadline. It’s not clear what effect that may have on the timely release of the desktop OS, which is expected to be released later this summer or fall.

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After Tuesday’s Xbox One reveal, reports came forward that Microsoft would block used games, or at least charge those playing used games a fee. Microsoft finally came out with an official statement that didn’t clear much up, but a report out today offers more details.

MCV reports that Microsoft will be taking command of the pre-owned market with a system that gives publishers and itself a cut of every used game sale. In fact, the new system detailed today would give retailers about the same cut as it gets from selling used games.

As you already know, each Xbox One game will tie itself to a single Xbox Live account when installed on the system. In essence, you are buying a license to use that software.

Now, this is where things get interesting. Those who sell their game to a retailer will have that game’s license removed from their system. This will all be done through Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform – the same platform that will power Xbox Live on the new console.

Once the game is in the hands of the retailer, they can sell it for whatever price they like. Unfortunately, that price may be higher than usual thanks to Microsoft and publishers now getting a cut of every pre-owned sale. In fact, unconfirmed reports are saying that retailers will only get to pocket 10 percent of pre-owned sales. The current pre-owned market allows retailers to pocket all of the money from sales.

While this may be good for publishers and Microsof, I find it hard to believe that retailers would accept these terms. Retailers like GameStop can only survive thanks to the used game market. Taking that revenue away from them makes many, including myself, think that GameStop and others will refuse to sell pre-owned Xbox One titles.

It should be noted that these are unconfirmed reports for now. It wouldn’t surprise me, however, to see Microsoft working with publishers to take back the profits from the pre-owned market. It may be good for them in the short run, but I can only see it blowing up in their faces further down the road.

For those of you excited to get your hands on the Sony Xperia Tablet Z tomorrow, it looks like you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer. According to the official Sony Store and Newegg the new launch date is May 29th. B&H is expecting to have it on June 4th and Amazon lists it as “temporarily out of stock.” Anyone out there planning on picking this gorgeous tablet up?

Source: Xperia Blog

Come comment on this article: Sony’s upcoming Xperia Tablet Z launch delayed by a week

Last month, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones announced that she would be receiving treatment for her bipolar disorder. Earlier this week her husband, Michael Douglas, revealed that the Traffic Actress should be done with treatment this week.

Now it appears that Zeta-Jones has returned to normal life. According to a People magazine report, the actress was spotted driving her car in New York City on Tuesday.

Zeta-Jones came forward about her struggle with bipolar back in December 2012. She stated at the time that it’s “not easy” to deal with, but reassured fellow sufferers that it can be controlled. When entering treatment earlier this year she also stated that “millions” of people suffer just as she does, but that they should not be ashamed to seek help.

Bipolar disorder, once known as manic depression, is a mood disorder characterized by extremely intense mood swings. When experiencing a mania, symptoms can include insomnia, grandiosity, delusions, paranoia, racing thoughts, and inappropriate behavior. Sufferers have described the feeling as thoughts racing through their head too fast to fully comprehend, and seemingly without end. Following a manic episode, bipolar sufferers can fall into a deep depression, often intensified by guilt or embarrassment over their actions while manic.

(Image courtesy David Shankbone/Wikimedia Commons)

 

As part of its sudden momentum, HTC has announced a special promotion to try and entice Canadian mobile users to jump ship and use the One smartphone instead. The new promotion is appropriated called “One Phone, One Weekend, Premium Upgrade” and invites mobile users to trade in their existing handsets for the One instead and HTC will give a sweet $100 to $300 credit that goes towards the purchase of the HTC One. All prospective customers will need to do is simply buy a new HTC One, register the device with the promo code of HTC100 and finally mail in “yesterday’s technology”. Not a bad deal, right?

The promotion will begin today and run through this Monday, May 27th for those of you who might be interested.

source: Mobile Syrup

Come comment on this article: HTC offering “One Phone, One Weekend, Premium Upgrade” promotion for Canadian mobile users

Frances Bean Cobain, daughter of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, doesn’t take kindly to people who can’t see past the end of their own nose. And when she thinks you’re one of those people, you’d better hope she doesn’t find you on Twitter.

Cobain recently blasted Kendall Jenner on the social media network after Jenner tweeted that she “wished things could be easier sometimes”.

“Oh shh. There are kids on earth abandoned&homeless who forcibly drink contaminated water because clean water isn’t accessible,” Cobain tweeted back. “Oh ya, not to mention, CANCER, famine, poverty, draught, disease, natural disasters, Death. Fuck, Humans are so self involved.”

She then tweeted:

I’d like to thank my parents for providing me with a high IQ & I’d like to thank my grams for encouraging me not to be a self absorbed idiot

— Frances Bean Cobain (@alka_seltzer666) May 22, 2013

Jenner’s only response has been a quote from Frank Ocean: “Sorry, but I don’t need any part time people in my life. You’re either with me or you’re not. You can’t just come and go as you please.”

The Android web browser market is a packed one, and users are almost spoiled for choice. If you’re a fan of Firefox, Chrome or Opera on your main computer, there’s an accompanying mobile version for you to work with, and there are plenty of others as well.

The GO Launcher Dev Team is best known — it should go without saying — for the Android launcher GO Launcher EX, but it has now branched out and is bringing its stylish looks to a web browser — Next Browser.

Like many of the other apps from the same team, Next Browser has a clean, Holo look but it is the features that are going to make or break it. The app borrows ideas from many of its existing competitors, including tabbed browsing, a speed dial screen, a combined search and URL bar, and bookmark syncing.

Support for plugins means that the browser’s feature set can be further extended and this is something that is sure to make Next Browser extremely popular, especially as more and more add-ons are released.

Voice searching is available, but this is not the only means of interacting with the browser. There is good use of gesture support in the app. Swipe down to close a tab, swipe left to access extensions, and swipe right to access Next View. This handy page provides a quick overview of headlines and stories from various websites.

Could this be the browser to rule them all? Maybe not, but it’s a decent alternative to the big names and shows great signs of promise.

Next Browser is available free of charge from Google Play.

The Call of Juarez series from Techland has seen some major ups and downs throughout its history, as it started off rather well, with the original and the Bound in Blood iteration, which were set in the Wild West, but then moved to the present day, with the lackluster The Cartel.

Now, the studio is back with Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, a new Wild We… (read more)

Patrick Lastennet is director of marketing & business development, financial services segment for Interxion.

The use of big data, in general, is still in its early stages for many industries, but the financial services industry has been dealing with big data for years. In fact, it’s already been managed and embedded into core financial processes. What used to be done in hours can now be done in minutes thanks to advanced data processing capabilities being applied to everything from capital market portfolio management applications to financial risk management. Prior to such advancements, data from previous days or weeks was analyzed to help re-strategize market approaches for the next day’s trading. But now, with more complex data analytics capabilities, financial firms are able to shorten that window for data processing and create more up-to-date strategies and trading adjustments in real time.

However, it’s not just the increasing volume of data sets that is of concern to financial firms. There’s also the velocity and variety of the data to consider. When pulling clusters of diverse databases together for both structured and unstructured data analysis, financial firms rely on having powerful processing speeds, especially as real-time insight is increasingly a key strategic factor in market analysis and trading strategies. But are financial institutions equipped with the proper infrastructure to effectively handle the three V’s of Big Data – volume, velocity and variety – and benefit from real-time data analysis?

Increasing the Value of Real-Time Operations

With real-time data analysis, financial institutions are better able to manage risk and alert customers to real-time issues. If a firm is able to manage risk in real time, that not only translates into better trading performance, but also ensures regulatory compliance. Such improvements can be seen in consumer instances with enhanced credit card transaction monitoring and fraud protection and prevention measures. But, on a larger scale, the most recognizable incident that would have benefited from better data analysis may have been the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

When Lehman Brothers went down, it was called the Pearl Harbor moment of the U.S. financial crisis. Yet, it took the industry days to fully understand how they were exposed to that kind of devastating risk. For every transaction made, it’s imperative that the financial firms understand the impact, or, as an extreme scenario, risk another “Lehman-esque” collapse. Today, with advancements in big data analysis and data processing, whenever any trader makes a trade, financial firms know what’s going to happen in real time through the risk management department–that is, if they have the right infrastructure.

Optimizing Current Infrastructure

The crux of handling the volume, velocity and variety of big data in the financial sector lies within the underlying infrastructure. Many financial institutions’ critical systems are still dependent on legacy infrastructure. Yet to handle increasingly real-time operations, firms need to find a way to wean off of legacy systems and be more competitive and receptive to their own big data needs.

To address this issue, many financial institutions have implemented software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that are accessible via the Internet. With such solutions, firms can collect data through a remote service and without the need to worry about overloading their existing infrastructure. Beyond SaaS apps, other financial companies have addressed their infrastructure concerns by using open source software that allows them to simply plug their algorithms and trading policies into the system, leaving it to handle their increasingly demanding processing and data analysis tasks.

In reality, migrating off legacy infrastructure is a painful process. The time and expense required to handle such a process means the value of the switch must far outweigh the risks. Having a worthwhile business case is, therefore, key to instigating any massive infrastructure migration. Today, however, more and more financial firms are finding that big data analysis is impetus enough to make a strong business case and are using solutions like SaaS applications and open source software as stepping stones for complete migrations to ultimately leave their legacy infrastructure behind.

Integrating Social Data

While the velocity and variety of big data volumes from everyday trading transactions and market fluctuations may be enough of a catalyst for infrastructure migrations and optimization, now that social data is creeping into the mix, the business case becomes even more compelling.

Digital marketing is evolving as fast as any other medium on our tablets, smartphones, Google Glass and beyond. To learn about what the future may bring to this marketing genre, we reached out to Gerd Leonhard, an author, strategic advisor, CEO of TheFuturesAgency, and someone whom The Wall Street Journal calls “one of the leading media-futurists in the world.”

Here are some of Leonhard’s predictions for what’s coming. Add yours in the comments section below.

1. By 2020, most interruptive marketing will be gone. Instead, marketing will be personalized, customized, and adapted to what I have expressed as my wishes or opt-ins — which essentially means that advertising becomes content. Data will be essential, and as users, we’ll be paying with our data — bartering a bit of our personal information in return for the use of platforms and services. Customers will be forming relationships with brands that are built on trust, and if a company breaks that trust, it will be very quickly viral and very quickly over. By 2020, unauthorized targeting of consumers will essentially be useless. I, as a consumer, am going to choose who I want to hear from. I’m going to like things, or I won’t like them, and you will have to earn that from me.

2. The idea of having a separate marketing department is going to vanish. In the future, the “reason to buy” will be socially motivated. If a product is great and everybody loves it, it will sell. And you’re going to stop buying things from companies that don’t fit your values, just because you can’t see giving them the money.

3. Location-based services will be immensely valuable and useful, but not until we have some kind of a privacy bank — some authorized authority or entity that will keep the public safe, and that has a neutral objective. Because clearly, I’m not going to offer up my location if I don’t feel safe.

4. Companies are going to try to predict how people feel about their brand, and then adjust in real time by changing features, and starting new conversations with customers in real time. All of the companies of the future will have one big job: to make sure that the customer feels cherished and safeguarded. As Amazon calls it, “customer delight,” will be the number one mission. If you screw that up, everyone will leave.

5. Companies can collect all the data they want, but data alone will never be enough. You still need to reach consumers on an emotional level. The bottom line for marketers will be that if a product or service isn’t humanized, it won’t sell — because buying something isn’t an intellectual process of saying “this could be useful”; it’s saying “I really want this.”

About Gerd Leonhard:
Gerd Leonhard is considered a thought-leader and global influencer in media/content, technology, marketing & communications, telecom, and culture, consulting many leading global companies. He is an author, strategic advisor, CEO of TheFuturesAgency and a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (London). Since 2011, Gerd’s area of expertise also includes important “green” topics.

Have you heard the latest app store numbers? Apple and Google now offer 800,000 or more apps each. Google’s store has crossed the 42 billion app download mark, while iTunes surpassed 50 billion. Big numbers, indeed. That means Microsoft and BlackBerry, both with far fewer apps, simply can’t offer the same experience. Or does it?

Last night I was reading a mobile app store report published by research firm Canalys on Thursday that suggests the “app gap” is still huge.

And when talking about overall available apps, it is. Microsoft has around 145,000 apps for its Windows Phone platform and BlackBerry offers 120,000. But when Canalys took a deeper dive, something didn’t sound right to me.

From the report:

“Of the top 50 free and top 50 paid apps featured in the Apple App Store and Google Play in the United States, based on their aggregated rankings over the first 20 days of May 2013, just 34% feature in either the Windows Phone store or BlackBerry World (as of 21 May 2013). The Windows Phone store contained 16 of the top 50 free Apple App Store applications, and 14 of the top 50 paid. It contained 22 of the top 50 free Google Play store’s applications, and 13 of the top 50 paid. In comparison, BlackBerry World contained BB10 versions of five of the top 50 free Apple App Store applications, and nine of the top 50 paid. It contained 11 of the top 50 free Google Play store applications, and 11 of the top 50 paid.

Dire numbers, no? Yet, we keep hearing from both Microsoft and BlackBerry that they now offer a majority of the top apps found in other app stores. Something doesn’t add up here.

I didn’t do extensive research but I figured I’d have a quick look for myself as to what top apps are missing from the Windows Phone and BlackBerry stores. I fired up the Google Play store to see the top paid apps and then looked for them online in these two stores. Note that I haven’t yet checked the iTunes App Store, mainly because I’m back to using Android for my primary phone and tablet; plus I’m using a Chromebook and can’t install the App Store.

Here’s what I found in my cursory look: Of the top 20 paid apps in Google Play that weren’t utility type applications, BlackBerry was missing two and Windows Phone lacked six; two of which were also missing on BlackBerry — Need for Speed, Most Wanted and Minecraft.

The latter strikes me as odd since Minecraft is one of the top indie game downloads on Microsoft’s Xbox 360. The four that were missing only from Windows Phone? World of Goo, Tapatalk, TuneIn Radio Pro (TuneIn is available) and Where’s My Water. That’s not too bad.

So why the low figures from Canalys? It has to do with those utilities I mentioned, which are fairly specific to Android’s more open take on apps: You can modify system settings, install third-party keyboards, etc. Several of the top paid Android apps missing on the other two platforms are titles like: Swiftkey Keyboard, Titanium Backup Pro, Nova Launcher Prime (a home screen customizer), Beautiful Widgets Pro, Root Explorer and ROM Manager, for example. Several of these are in the top 10, in fact. And guess what: None of these are available for iOS either.

One would get a completely different comparison if device-specific utilities were ignored and Canalys does admit it:

“The lists also include a small number of apps, such as ‘Find My iPhone’, that are specific to a particular ecosystem, as well as some utility apps, such as flashlight apps, for which similar offerings with equivalent functionality are available. Taking this into account, the picture can be made a little more optimistic, but the presence of clear gaps in their inventories cannot and should not be masked.”

Let’s face it: There are many ways to measure the “app gap” between platforms. It is real because each platform has its own requirements, APIs and corresponding app store. Unless we were all running cross-platform web apps — something that is poised to happen on desktops with Chrome — there will always be apps available for some mobile platforms and not others. And one could measure the top 20, 50 or whatever number they wanted across various stores to get different results.

If you’re researching a mobile platform, the app ecosystem is undoubtedly important. But the best person to determine if a platform’s ecosystem will work for you isn’t a third-party, a research firm or me. Figure out what apps you need to use on a regular basis and check the stores for yourself. You’ll likely find that the best opinion on this is your own.

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Daft Punk’s new album Random Access Memories is burning up the charts and breaking records on Spotify. You’ve probably listened to it a few…dozen times, right?

Well, I bet you haven’t heard it like this before. Say hello to “A-bit of Daft Punk,” every song on the album, rearranged in 8-bit.

“I think this might be my best work to date!” says creator Joe Jeremiah on Facebook.

AT&T said earlier this week that it will add a new administrative fee to each of its wireless subscribers’ monthly bills. The fee is only $0.61, which doesn’t sound like much, and an AT&T spokesperson was quick to point out to several news sites that this new fee is lower than similar fees charged by rival carriers. Subscribers were still outraged. Now that the shouting has died down a bit, however, people are looking for a batter explanation for the new charge they’ll see each month. According to one industry watcher, that explanation couldn’t be simpler: “Because they can.”

Continue reading…