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Three scraps 0800 charges but kills unlimited tethering on SIM-only plans
Even though it has roughly a year until Ofcom's new rule comes into effect, Three has decided it will no longer charge SIM-only customers for making calls to 0800 numbers. The company today unveiled new plans that mirror its pay-monthly handset tariffs, finally making freephone calls free and capping calls to other 08 numbers at 5 pence per minute. Starting at £7 per month for 500MB and 200 minutes, rising to £23 per month for unlimited data and calls, Three's new 12-month SIM-only plans also include access to Feel At Home, letting you enjoy free roaming in 16 countries.
Republic Wireless to open next beta of hybrid VOIP service this summer
The $19 all-you-can-eat smartphone service that seemed great, then not-so-great, then great again is about to re-open public beta testing. We're told that the first phase of the beta is "going very well", to the point where Republic Wireless feels it can "skip the baby steps" and offer its hybrid VOIP/cellular goodies to another batch of experimental folks starting in June. The provider also promises a new handset as early as April, a smoother transition between WiFi and cellular calling (on Sprint's frequencies) in May, and a full-on public launch at some point in the undeclared or undecided future. Not ready to abandon your Big Cell provider just yet? Then Republic Wireless makes one more promise: a way for customers with other carriers to save money on their bills even before they make the leap. Consider us intrigued![Thanks, Ryan]
Slacker intros Premium Radio subscription service, makes Radio Plus look like Basic Radio
Internet radio provider Slacker is bulldozing the thin line dividing itself from subscription-based music services today, with the launch of Premium Radio. The new pricing tier joins the existing gratis Basic Radio and ad-free Radio Plus plans, adding an all-you-can-eat music model akin to services like Rhapsody and Rdio. Subscribers who shell out $9.99 a month receive all of the features of the $3.99 Radio Plus users, plus unlimited access to eight million songs, letting them listen to what they want, when the want, and generally play god with the site's existing radio services. Premium Radio also gives you on- and offline access to music on a number of mobile devices, including the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android, and BlackBerry handsets -- not to mention unlimited bragging rights to all of your broke friends who are still rocking the Basic Radio plan. Don't feel too bad for 'em, though -- at least they didn't get suckered into slotRadio.
The OverAchiever: Mountain O' Mounts from achievements
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, 10 little points are all that stand between us and a new ... something. Many of the mounts this week be familiar to you if you've read The OverAchiever: Pimp Thy Ride, which I wrote before the Cataclysm content patch with an eye toward the number of people who wanted to slap a 310% mount on their toons before it had to be trained. Sadly, none of the mounts described in that article, barring one, will grant Master Riding for free now. Also read: Combining The Ambassador and Mountain O' Mounts Mountain O' Mounts in Outland Mountain O' Mounts in Northrend Mountain O' Mounts in 5-man dungeons Mountain O' Mounts in raids
Rumor: Amazon could launch unlimited movie streaming in February, no major studios on board yet
Just a few days after we got an early peek at Amazon's unlimited movie streaming setup, the LA Times reports "people familiar with the matter" say we could see an official launch by the end of this month. Amazon apparently pushed back its original date for technical reasons and while it tries to acquire more content to take on Netflix. Amazon reportedly has yet to lock up content from any of the six major Hollywood studios, which matches the selections seen in our screenshots, as the studios continue to evaluate the impact of streaming on their DVD sales. Amazon may not be the only one jumping in either as Hulu Plus could be looking to add more movies, though both are primarily looking at titles more than seven years old. That's bad news if you were hoping to see a fresher selection than what Watch Instantly offers for your $7.99+ a month, but as always, any of these things could change before launch. %Gallery-115340%
Amazon rolling out Netflix-like unlimited video streaming for Prime subscribers?
Rumors of Amazon either purchasing Netflix or launching a competing option have been circling and now one of our readers says he's seeing an unlimited video streaming section to complement the current Amazon VOD options. That's a nice bonus for the $79 / year package that currently adds a few free shipping bonuses and it would be cheaper on a yearly basis than Netflix's Watch Instantly ($95.88.) As seen above and in the gallery, it consists of "unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of 5,000 movies and TV shows" with selections that mirror the Watch Instantly catalog closely. Resolution is apparently limited to a "pretty solid" 480p SD, but there's no word on audio or subtitle options. We'll wait to hear if anyone else is seeing a similar page before assuming a wide rollout, but it certainly appears that there could finally be a viable competitor to the Netflix juggernaut. Update: We weren't able to pull up the option on any of our Prime-enabled accounts and from the comments it doesn't appear any of you were either. According to our tipster, the option has disappeared from his page as well. One other interesting note came from commenter vfiz, who found that several variations of the primeinstantvideos.com domain name were registered by Amazon-owned DPReview January 5. %Gallery-115340% [Thanks, Pavel]
The OverAchiever: The good, the bad, the ugly, and the weird
Every Thursday, The Overachiever shows you how to work toward those sweet achievement points. This week, we reminisce on that auld lang syne ... that nobody really misses. It occurred to me recently that we've never really done a retrospective piece on achievements. Sure, we've rounded up stuff like entertaining achievements and evil achievements, but we've never really looked at their impact on the game as a whole. There's an article in that, but it won't be this one. New Year's Eve is tomorrow, and I'm in the mood for some brainless fun. While I was writing this article, a number of the achievements that came to mind were the product of tier 7 raids, and I think I know why. Wrath raiding achievements were the first time Blizzard had experimented with their inclusion in raid content, and the implementation occasionally had some bizarre results. There was also the pressure cooker of having to finish Glory of the Raider before the rewards disappeared (a very belated announcement), and there was never that sense of urgency with Ulduar or Icecrown achievements. Anyway, let me know what you think.
Three's The One Plan serves up all-you-can-eat data in the UK
Unlimited data. No, for real this time. While US carriers are tripping over each other to claim the death of uncapped data allowances, the UK's 3G-only network operator is bringing them back like a pair of retro sneakers. Three's grandly titled The One Plan takes all limits and fair usage gotchas away and just lets you suckle bandwidth to your heart's content. And that explicitly includes tethering your phone to your laptop and using it as a 3G modem -- very classy. New and old customers will benefit from this, meaning that if you're already on this plan you're in line for a free upgrade. The offer's effective now and contracts start at £25 a month with a minimum term of one year. We'll be highly impressed if Three's network, never mind this deal, survives a full year of being bashed over the head by iPlayer streams and YouTube uploads, but here's hoping, eh?
OnLive ushers in the MicroConsole with all-you-can-eat game plan for $10 a month
OnLive wants to be the Netflix of video games, that much is clear, and today it's rolling out a flat-rate monthly pricing plan called PlayPack to help seal the deal. It'll cost $9.99 a month when it launches January 15th, giving subscribers access to a back catalog of forty retired and indie titles, including a number of games entirely new to the OnLive service. What's more, if you bought the company's $99 MicroConsole, you'll get access to that entire flat-rate catalog free until the formal launch, meaning you'll have fourteen full games instantly ready to play the moment you boot it up. OnLive founder Steve Perlman tells us you can pay month-to-month and cancel PlayPack anytime you want, and OnLive will still store your savegames for a full year in case you decide to rejoin -- or if you want to mix and match flat-rate and a la carte titles without losing your precious progress. So, when are those MicroConsoles going to arrive? If you were among the first to buy, you could get yours this very afternoon, and Perlman says there are "thousands and thousands of boxes" shipping right now. PR after the break.
The OverAchiever: The 25 most evil achievements, part 1
What are evil achievements? They're the soul-killing rep grinds, the raiding milestones that required sacrificing a farm animal to get, and even fun pasttimes like battlegrounds into which a sizable dose of misery has been added. Eventually you just want to grab the nearest developer and shake him back and forth, screaming, "What the hell were you thinking?" Last week I previewed three of the most evil achievements in the game, both to collect my own thoughts and to canvass commenters' opinions for a larger article. This week, I'd like to present the first set of evil achievements for your reading, wincing and antacid-chugging pleasure. A note on judging the "evil value" of achievements: I've been adding to this list for a while, and it's drawn from both the achievements we've covered in this column and some I've seen players complain about frequently in game. Obviously, there's no real way to quantify exactly how difficult or excruciating achievements are, so I'm going with the definition I gave above. Any incredibly difficult or RNG-saturated achievement made the short list, but I also tried to keep some unusual picks in mind. In this vein, there's an achievement in today's column that, while extremely easy by today's standards, was a screaming horror when it first debuted. I may wind up doing a list of honorable mentions as well. So, in no particular order, I am pleased to present World of Warcraft's 25 most evil achievements, starting with #25-16 this week.
WSJ: Apple likely to push TV subscription option in 2010
The WSJ and the New York Times, among other outlets, are reporting that Apple is in preliminary discussions with ABC and CBS (at a minimum) about a possible subscription plan arrangement for broadcast and cable TV channels. This idea was noted by All Things D in November, which cited a target price of $30 a month for subscription access via iTunes. If the company can get content providers signed up, the service would be likely to launch next year, say both papers. It's also possible that Apple's Lala purchase could play into this new model, with 'shows in the cloud' and micropayment options that would improve the user experience for TV-watching. Meanwhile, the NBC-Comcast deal might throw a wrench into the works for Apple, and it's not clear that the other broadcast and cable networks are inclined to make a deal at this point; while CBS has few cable assets to protect, and ABC/Disney have a powerful vote in favor of collaboration with Apple, the other companies may have more to lose by throwing in their lot with the iTunes juggernaut. NBC, in particular, has a hit on its hands with the ad-supported Hulu site, now the second-biggest programming provider according to comScore. If only there were some kind of portable viewing device that could play back your videos...
Apple evaluating "all you can eat" iTunes option?
The subscription-based iTunes rumor has been around for what feels like eons, and apparently, it's rearing its always intriguing head once more. According to a report over at Financial Times, the suits in Cupertino are currently "in discussions" with major music outfits about a new model that could essentially "give customers free access to the entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices." Reportedly, a distribution model similar to Nokia's "Comes with Music" could be used on both iPhones and iPods, while traditional subscriptions would be reserved for the iPhone -- a device which has a monthly billing relationship already attached to it. As it stands, we're hearing that the major holdup is Apple's hesitation to pay big bucks in order to access the labels' libraries, but here's to hoping the iTunes buffet opens for business sooner rather than later. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]
Omnifone announces MusicStation: unlimited mobile tunes, one price
UK-based Omnifone is using 3GSM today as the backdrop to announce its intriguing "MusicStation" service, promising an all-you-can-eat serving of music delivered over the air to handsets for £1.99 (about $3.88) a week -- about 8 quid a month, if our math's right. According to the company itself, Omnifone's goal is to get its service onto customer's handsets ahead of the iPhone's European launch at the end of the year, and if we have a good read on how well the iPhone's going to sell, we think that's a pretty good plan on its part. The first two operators to sign up for a MusicStation launch (of an alleged 23 in total) are Scandinavian carrier Telenor and South Africa's Vodacom, with several more European launches plan over the course of the year. The music selection may not be half bad, either, with a number of independent labels signed up alongside Universal. Music can be kept as long as the user maintains service, though the downside -- as with every other all-you-can-eat download service -- is that the tunes evaporate into thin air just as soon as it's canceled. All told, not a bad alternative to the offerings we've seen from carriers Statside so far, and with 23 operators apparently on the hook, we have to believe (read: hope) one or two might be on American soil.[Via MocoNews]
