contracts
Latest
Italy is investigating Apple, Google and Dropbox cloud storage services
Italy launches six investigations into Apple, Google and Dropbox cloud storage services.
Lawyers almost made 'click to accept TOS' boxes disappear forever
Could simply visiting a website bind you to its terms of service? Luckily, not in the near future. A controversial vote of the American Law Institute on Tuesday on a sweeping change to consumer contract law was postponed after hours of heated debate and not much consensus. If approved, the nearly 134-page Restatement Project would have opened the door for businesses to take data from unknowing consumers. Critics of the project, including consumer rights groups, more than 23 state attorneys general and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) had called for it to be voted down.
iPhone 7 trade-in programs require two-year contracts
If you're looking to get your hands on an iPhone 7 in the coming weeks but weren't fast enough to secure one when preorders opened, there's still hope. All four major phone carriers have implemented their own iPhone 7 promotions, but despite their seemingly generous offers, there are quite a few caveats that might keep you from cashing in.
O2 launches shared data plans for gadget-lovers and families
New mobile tariffs often aren't the easiest things to get your head around, but thankfully, O2's not putting too much pressure on our grey matter this morning. Joining EE and Vodafone, O2 has today launched a couple of relatively simple data-sharing plans for individuals and families alike. Anyone on an O2 Refresh contract with 1GB of data per month or more can now share that allowance with other SIM-slotted devices. Pricing for this new "Sharer Plan" starts at £6 per month, with the cost added to your existing monthly bill. Under the "Family Sharer Plan," new contracts that include between 1GB and 8GB of data can share it across up to ten devices. Each additional SIM costs an extra £15 per month, and comes with unlimited minutes and texts (you also get a £25 restaurant voucher if you take out a plan with at least two voice-enabled SIMs). If data is all that's required, additional connections start at £6 per month. Both of these sharing options are now available in-store and over the phone today, but not online just yet.
New contracts find their way into Hitman: Absolution's dossier
Square Enix has added some new featured contracts to Hitman: Absolution today. Somebody wanna wake up Agent 47 and tell him to suit up? These new contracts, which are custom scenarios conjured up by developer IO Interactive, are specific to each platform. On PC, the new contract takes Agent 47 to a haunted house, while the PS3 contract tasks him with taking down a pyromaniac with a penchant for selling ice cream. The Xbox 360 contract, pictured above, highlights a massacre in a donut shop. Hitman: Absolution launched in late 2012 and added some new mechanics to the sandbox murder formula established by earlier entries in the series. In our review, we said the game "has its flaws," but they're negated by the game's "healthy dose of stealth and creative assassinations." IO Interactive is currently working on a new entry in the series for next-generation consoles and PC.
AT&T's lower off-contract pricing and revamped Mobile Share plans launch next week
Whether or not you buy into T-Mobile CEO John Legere's UnCarrier strategy, we can't dispute the fact that it's at least making waves in the US wireless industry. Some of the network's biggest competitors are responding with new strategies of their own, and AT&T is one of them. Starting next Sunday, the GSM giant will make a few noticeable tweaks to its Mobile Share and Next plans. What's on the menu for December 8th? Quite a bit, so let's break it down. Under the current plans, your per-smartphone cost goes down as your data plan goes up; for instance, you pay $50 per smartphone on the 300MB plan, but only $30 if you're on any plan that's 10GB or higher. And as it stands right now, you still pay that same amount after your contract expires. With the new changes, you can tack smartphones onto your plan at a flat rate of $40 a pop, but you get a $15 discount on each one if you aren't in a contract. (AT&T informed us that as soon as your commitment expires, the rate is automatically taken off, so you don't need to call in to make the adjustment.) Basic phones are lower too, seeing a drop from $30 per handset to $20. Along with this change, the base cost for each data tier has moved as well; we'll add a table after the break to show what's different. The higher tiers get a significant drop to make up for the additional per-device charge, so keep that in mind if you have a lot of smartphones on your plan. On the other hand, the lower tiers become more advantageous when you add more lines. There's also a new 8GB plan that fits right in between the 6GB and 10GB options.
DigitalOptics enlists Lite-On for MEMS camera production
Five months after DigitalOptics' memscam module showed off its Lytro-like multi-focus feature at MWC, it has a production contract. Lite-On, the company known for budget Blu-ray drives and moldable mice, plans to start production of the speedy camera part later this year and hit "high volume capacity" sometime in 2014. We left MWC impressed by the MEMS' (microelectromechanical system) 10ms settling time and are curious where this clever contraption could wind up. Speaking of which, Lite-On assures us that its "Chinese Smartphone customers" are interested.
CRTC wireless code lets Canadians cancel contracts after two years, caps excessive data fees
It's spent the past few months soliciting feedback from Canadian wireless users, and the CRTC has now announced the details of a new wireless code that it says "addresses the main frustrations that Canadians shared with the CRTC." At the top of that list is the length of cellphone contracts, which will now effectively be capped at two years -- carriers may still be able to offer longer terms, but you'll be able to cancel your contract after two years with no cancellation fees. The code also places some significant new caps on data fees: excess data charges will be capped at $50 per month, while international roaming charges will be capped at $100 per month. Beyond that, Canadians will now be able to get their phones unlocked after 90 days (or sooner if you've bought the device outright, although the actual unlocking fee isn't specified), and they'll be entitled to a 15-day trial period, during which they can return their phone and cancel their contract if they're unhappy with their service. The code also promises to enforce "plain language" in contracts -- ensuring, for instance, that you don't pay any extra charges for services described as "unlimited." Notably, however, the code doesn't immediately cover all current cellphone users. It only applies to new (or extended) contracts starting on December 2nd of this year. In the meantime, you can read up on all the finer details at the source link below.
NASA awards Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada $30 million in contracts
The race to get the US back into space, under its own power that is, is on. While we bide our time, hitching a ride to the ISS with Russian cosmonauts, our private sector is working diligently to put an American behind the wheel (yoke? joystick?) of a space vehicle once again. Of course, our government is helping a bit by signing sizable contracts with the players with the best chance of getting us there. Big winners Boeing, SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. have each been awarded roughly $10 million, which will primarily be used for safety upgrades and testing. The goal is to ultimately receive certification from the agency for delivering astronauts into orbit. This is the first phase of the contract, which will wrap up in May of 2014. By 2017 NASA hopes to have at least one craft from these companies (the CST-100, Dragon or Dream Chaser) running a "space taxi service" to the ISS. But that's still a long way off. For more, check out the PR after the break.
German prosecution charges HP staff with bribing Russian officials to clinch PC contract
The legal system's engines can take awhile to get churning, but there's no questioning the impact when they're at full bore. German prosecutors have wrapped up an almost three-year investigation into allegations of HP managers' bribery by charging the executives involved. Hilmar Lorenz, Päivi Tiippana and Ken Willett, along with claimed accomplice Ralf Krippner, have all been indicted for supposedly funneling €7.5 million ($9.7 million) in bribes through a German subsidiary and far-flung shell accounts to land a €35 million ($45.3 million) PC supply deal with Russia's Prosecutor General Office early in the previous decade. While only the people directly attached to the scandal currently face any consequences if found guilty, German lawyers are motioning to have the PC builder attached to the case, and there's a chance the formal charges could fuel an ongoing US investigation. HP is cooperating even as it's trying to distance itself from the indictments as much as possible -- these are for old allegations and a "former HP company," it says. While we don't yet know the whole story, it may be a protracted tale knowing that at least Tiippana and Willett plan to fight the accusations.
AT&T may discontinue subsidized tablet sales, will still offer slates at full price
Saving a few short-term bucks on a subsidized tablet by inking a two-year contract with AT&T may be a thing of the past. According to a document sent to us by a tipster, Ma Bell will no longer offer discounted, on-contract slates as of August 19th. However, it looks like Big Blue is still happy to offer slabs at standard, no-commitment prices along with DataConnect and MobileShare plans. Head past the break if you'd like to take a peek at the notice in deeper detail.
New Pathfinder dev blog talks contract, questing mechanics
The latest Pathfinder Online dev blog is all about contracts. It's also about 20,000 pages long, so reading it starts to feel like reading a real contract after about the 10,000 page mark. OK, it's not all that bad. Heck it's actually pretty interesting stuff, since most MMOs these days go out of their way to segregate players from each other and from decisions that have lasting gameplay implications. Not so in Pathfinder, thanks to its contract mechanics, which Ryan Dancey says are like "a questing system hidden in plain sight." While some of what you'll read in this particular blog is theoretical (and as such, it carries the standard subject-to-change disclaimers), the system as it stands right now is broken down into four in-game tools: escrow, reputation, alignment, and the law. Contracts themselves are sub-divided into assassination, auction, bounty, guard, loan, purchase, sale, and transportation flavors. It sounds somewhat complex, but there's definitely a method to Goblinworks' madness. "Ideally, most of the commercial, diplomatic, and adventuring activities in the game will develop through player-to-player contracting," Dancey writes. "If somebody offers you a reward for bringing them 10 rat tails, it will be because another player needs 10 rat tails for some reason, not just because an NPC has an exclamation point bobbing over his head."
Verizon pushes its upgrade fee to $30 on April 22nd
Ah, it was only a matter of time before Verizon decided to jump on the bandwagon of ridiculously high upgrade fees, now that Sprint and AT&T have both exercised the option. Big Red announced this morning that April 22nd will be the magic date in which it will charge you a cool $30 just for the privilege of purchasing a subsidized handset and signing a fresh two-year commitment. Granted, it's still less than the $36 sum that Verizon's two largest competitors now demand, but we're going in the wrong direction here, folks. Catch the dreary announcement after the break.
EVE Evolved: Five scams to avoid
Anyone who's familiar with EVE Online will have heard stories of the game's criminal underworld, from devastating corporate infiltration to the daily grafting of common con artists. Most players will never perpetrate a scam, but those who do are constantly coming up with new tricks to part you from your hard-earned ISK. For every genuine smooth-talking con-artist who comes up with new schemes and socially engineers his way to a fortune, you'll find dozens of copycats who flood popular chat channels with scams they've seen perpetrated in the past. On an average day, over 90% of the chat in Jita's local channel is people posting copycat scams, with legitimate offers completely drowned out. There may not even be anyone at the helm with these scams, as a script could easily paste the scam message every few minutes for an entire day. Not confined to Jita, these scams are often replicated across all of the game's main trade hubs and popular mission-running systems. Knowing how these scams work is the first step to protecting yourself from making an expensive and extremely embarrassing mistake. In this week's EVE Evolved, I explain the trick behind five of EVE's most common copycat scams and how to protect yourself from them.
Sprint launches early upgrade promo, wants you to stay and chat awhile
In an industry where customer churn can be likened to the fearsome troll under the bridge, Sprint has launched a program designed to keep its favored subscribers around for another two years. While not everyone is eligible -- those who've upgraded less than eight months ago, corporate outfits and those in collections need not inquire -- the program lets customers buy their way out of their current commitment and become eligible for a new, subsidized handset. The promotion begins February 12th and is set to run through the 14th of April, where the amount you pay correlates to the time since your last upgrade. So if you're currently pining for the Epic 4G Touch or the iPhone 4S, just give your local Sprint store a call this Sunday. They just may be able to hook you up.
EasySignMobile enters the Facebook fray for iPhone and iPad
Need to sign a contract, like, now? There's an app for that. Several actually, but the folks who create EasySignMobile have gone and made their service a bit more accessible to the unwashed masses with an updated version that supports Facebook authentication. The new feature is currently available only for iOS, although we'd imagine Android users will find similar love in the near future, as the company released its first version for Google's platform last October. Also on deck for iPhone and iPad fans, the latest version of EasySignMobile offers integration with Dropbox and Box.net for easy file storage and retrieval. So next time you need to make your mark, perhaps you can reach into your pocket rather than rummage for a pen. Those interested will find the full PR after the break.
Adobe releases EchoSign app for iOS, enables legally binding contracts to be signed with a 'click'
We're not going to twist your arm, but if you're sitting on some beachfront property that you're willing to deed over to your favorite Engadget writers, the folks at Adobe are making the process all too easy. The company is delivering a free app for iOS that enables EchoSign subscribers to attach legally binding signatures to virtually any document, all from the comfort of their preferred fruit-filled device. What's more, the software also allows users to send documents to others for a one-click stroke of the pen and track the status of said agreements with real-time updates. Now, please excuse us. We've got some aboveboard contracts to draft.
Telus makes it simple to terminate contracts, replace your feature phone
Taking a page from its own playbook, Telus Mobility has extended its Clear and Simple Device Upgrade program to the logical conclusion of contract termination. Now, if a customer chooses to cancel their service, they must pay only a $50 administrative fee and the remaining portion of their phone's subsidy -- it could still result in a lot of loonies, but the amount decreases monthly according to a fixed schedule. Similar to Rogers, Telus offers its customers early upgrades by allowing them to pay this unrecovered subsidy and commit to a new contract. To make the process even easier (and more tempting), the carrier is now including this magical number with its monthly bills. So, as you dream of getting cozy with a new Nexus S or Optimus Black -- or ditching the Telus network -- just follow the break for the PR.
Verizon Wireless killing one-year contracts on April 17th, assumes you won't even care
Okay, so maybe you'll care, but you'll still opt for the two-year option once your contract is up. That's according -- more or less, anyway -- to a Verizon Wireless spokesperson, confirming to our inquiry this afternoon that the carrier's one-year contract option will be eliminated on April 17th. The reason, as you might expect, revolves around historical customer preference. That's a fancy way of saying that most customers prefer the stout hardware discounts that are available with a lengthier two-year agreement, and barring that, they can still choose month-to-month, prepaid or a rival. Not that VZW would encourage the latter, but hey -- America's about options, man.
Improvements on the way for EVE Online's contract system
There are many professions open to players in EVE Online, but it's the trading that often draws players to the game. Due to the number of players buying and selling on EVE's single server and the fact that items are destroyed on death, a savvy player can find countless opportunities for profit. To avoid overloading the market window with thousands of items most players will never need to buy, CCP limits rare and unusual items to being sold on the contract system. Items can be listed as auctions or direct sales, and players can search for items by name. The system has been working amicably for years, but recently several back-end performance issues were identified in it. As part of CCP's on-going war on lag, major back-end optimisations were made. Due to this restructuring of how contracts are handled on the EVE server, several new features have suddenly become possible. In a new devblog, CCP Atlas explains the back-end improvements and what they mean for the average player. Several features players have asked for over the years are on the way, such as the ability to put damaged items into contracts. Ammo in the guns of a ship being contracted will now be moved into the ship's cargo hold rather than the item hangar, and ship insurance will no longer be voided when a ship is contracted. A whole host of improvements are also on the way to make the terms of courier missions more obvious. Players will be informed of the dangers of a contract before they accept it, including dangerous systems en-route and whether the destination station might refuse them docking rights. The upgrades are already live on the EVE test server and will be hitting the live server as part of the Incursion expansion's third phase in January.
