You're not going to see it advertised on billboards or during your favorite television program. Your local cell phone store isn't going to tell you about it either. It's something quite remarkable, and something that even the mighty Google couldn't do. Let's get some background under our belts, shall we? GSM is a wonderful technology. It has opened the world to mobile communications. That's basically what the acronym stands for -- Global System for Mobile Communications, originally Groupe Spécial Mobile. Using systems based on this technology, a subscriber can place their "identity ...

We love us some new technology, and we certainly give it its fair shake on today's episode of the Pocketnow Weekly. But every so often, you need to give a little lip-service to the tech of days gone by. The platforms and devices of yesteryear. That's right: I'm talking about dead technology. It makes sense, then, that a man going by the twitter handle DeadTechnology is here to help us dust off those fond memories. In his inaugural visit to the Pocketnow Weekly, our own Adam Doud pulls back the veil of public apathy secrecy surrounding the phenomenon of the "webOS meetup," a regular ...

The problem with most ruggedized mobile phones is that they compromise too much in the name of durability. Due to customer typecasting on the part of carriers and manufacturers, "rugged phones" are far too often synonymous with "low-end phones." As a result, many such hardened devices have historically been relegated to the dumbphone arena. But with the rising popularity of smartphones in the business sector, and millions of Nextel customers in search of a new home in the face of the impending iDEN shutdown, Sprint finds itself in need of a rugged, walkie-talkie-capable smartphone for ...

Earlier this week we got news of T-Mobile finally getting ready to flip the switch and join the LTE party. By the end of the month, it should be offering LTE service... somewhere, but where? Well, we knew it had been testing LTE in Kansas City and Las Vegas, so one of those two are likely candidates for where it could first go public, but now some new info has come in to help reveal the full picture of T-Mobile's roll-out of LTE. OpenSignal has been watching the airwaves, and caught wind of T-Mobile LTE under testing in a number of additional markets, including Seattle, Denver, New ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about the Nexus 5 rumors and why they focus mainly on the camera. Then we talk about Motorola and some more X Phone rumors that now include three devices on the list. Then we move the spotlight to Microsoft as the plans for upgrade to Windows Phone 9, or the lack there of are already official. Then we talk about T-Mobile, their new 4G LTE network, and which devices will be benefited. We end today's show talking about Samsung's plans to bring Android 5.0 to their most recent devices. All this and more after the break. Stories: - Nexus 5 Rumors Focus ...

The Kyocera Torque's 4-inch WVGA display and 4GB of on-board storage won't necessarily impress you, nor will its 5MP camera or its older build of Android ICS. But it's the first phone to launch in America with Kyocera's crazy-futuristic tissue conduction earpiece technology, which blew our minds a little bit in our hands-on at MWC. But its IP67 and MIL-STD 810G durability ratings should be enough to get you to sit up and take notice, especially if you end up drop-kicking the Torque into a freezing pond whose bottom is lined with razor blades (like ya do, from time to time). We don't go ...

The rise of LTE has brought alongside it a dream we've yet to see realized: that some day pure-LTE phones will be the norm, and we might finally get smartphones with radio support so broad that they could function on any carrier in the US. As things stand, we still have a long way to go, and all the currently-available LTE phones also have 3G and legacy voice support that can be carrier-dependent. Still, we've seen progress towards this goal, like the recent news of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile trying a spectrum-sharing experiment. The latest development that has us hopeful comes from ...

Ever since it was discovered that the Nexus 4 included hidden support for LTE operation, like its Optimus G cousin, it was clear that Google had to do something. After all, phones just using their radios any way they please is a big no-no, and the Nexus 4, unlike the Optimus G, wasn't specifically FCC certified for LTE use. Either LG and Google would have to get the phone re-certified, adding that LTE support officially, or the phone would need to have this hidden feature removed. Well, the other day we started witnessing Android 4.2.2 come to a number of Nexus devices, but not then the ...