Rocco Penn — Two Takes contributions

Pay-per-use cellphone plans are sometimes befuddling — the rates can change depending on whether you’re calling or texting, or how much cash you put on your account. T-Mobile thinks it can end this confusion with its new, much simpler Pay as You Go plan. As long as you plunk down at leas

LG has confirmed that it has plans to provide an official bootloader unlocking solution for those who wish to install custom ROMs and other third-party tweaks on their LG smartphones and tablets. The company warns, however, that “it will take some time.” Some smartphone manufacturers offer a small n

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler isn’t happy with Verizon’s reply to his strongly worded letter, which chastises the company for its plans throttle some unlimited LTE subscribers. See, Big Red defended the move and reasoned that the other major carriers (AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile) do it too,

Can you make a 3D-printed saxophone that’s a fraction as heavy as a “normal” one but sounds, to the untrained ear, virtually the same? Yes. I mean, you probably couldn’t, but luthier Olaf Diegel has done exactly that. Diegel took a break from making high-end 3D-printed guitar

Solar panels suffer from two fundamental problems that have continued to persists even after decades of research: they’re not very efficient, and they cost a lot to produce. At least one of these problems has to be solved beforesolar power can overtake cheap energy sources like fossil fuels, and som

The new law requiring Russian bloggers to register as media entities and hold themselves to the same standards as a full media organization has come into effect today. First signed info force by President Vladamir Putin in May this year, it’s now applicable to all blogs that manage to attract more t

Three former Zynga developers have raised $2.5 million to build out their new gaming studio, JuiceBox Games, on the back of the release of their first gaming title HonorBound. With 3 million downloads and counting, JuiceBox’s first game is already generating revenue for the company. The game is rank

Researchers at Stanford University have made progress toward designing a battery with a lithium anode, a development that could increase battery power in electronics. Reporting in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the researchers described how they designed a lithium-metal anode in order to boost t

Energy management vendor Schneider Electric is to build two eco-friendly M1 containerized data centers for Chinese web service giant Baidu. As the world’s biggest Chinese search engine and website provider, Baidu invited tenders for a fast build, low input high capacity system, which Schneider said

In an emergency, a mobile phone can be the device that saves you, even if you aren’t able to make a call. A drone developed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne can pinpoint the location of a mobile phone by picking up its Wi-Fi signal. The drone, which was first reported by [&he

One of the downsides to downloading new messenger apps is that you have to make sure your friends are using it too, otherwise there won’t be anyone to send messages to! That being said, if you’re a LINE user you might be pleased to learn that the app has recently been updated and has gained [&hellip

South Korean capital Seoul could potentially ban Uber in the city, in favor of its own still-in-development app. The city government advised that it would try to ban the car-hailing app, as current South Korean law makes it illegal to provide any sort of fee-based transportation service via privatel

A few years ago, games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, DJ Hero, and so on were all the rage. Perhaps it was the novelty of playing such games in our living room where previously they could only be found in arcades, but admittedly that trend has somewhat died out. However it looks like Harmonix, the [&h

You might be used to following news and updates from law enforcement agencies on Twitter and Facebook, but now West Midlands Police in the UK has made the usual move of launching a Snapchat presence. It says it’s the first force in the world to utilize the network, enabling locals to keep up with it

High-speed photography can be daunting if you’re not a seasoned pro. You may have a fast camera and flash, but you probably don’t have the gear you’d need to get that frozen-in-time look in most situations. MIOPS’ new camera trigger might make it easier to take high-speed sho

Manzama, a startup with cloud-based software that helps law firms stay on top of key information about their clients, is expanding into consulting and financial services markets, thanks to some fresh money. The startup announced today a $1.3 million round of new funding. The money shows investors be

The German investigative committee tasked with looking into the extent of the National Security Agency’s meddling in German affairs has decided to go retro in a bid for better security. The committee has acquired a mechanical typewriter, and plans to get more as a way to reduce leaks. The info

The Internet Association, a consortium of major US tech outfits that includes: Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter, has presented its joint case in favor of Net neutrality to the Federal Communications Commission on Monday. The group’s position is as straightforward as it get