German iPhone locked again

[PCW] T-Mobile Germany need not sell an unlocked version of Apple's iPhone, a court in Hamburg ruled Tuesday. The decision leaves the German operator free to sell the phone for €399 (US$585) including tax, tied to its network and with a two-year service contract, just as it proposed at the phone's German launch on Nov. 9.

Did EchoStar bid on spectrum?

[Forbes] The question of the day seems to be whether EchoStar Communications will bid for a piece of the wireless spectrum the U.S. government is auctioning off in January, and if so, why?

Girls kick ass in math contest

[BizWeek] In a first for the prestigious Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology for U.S. high school students, girls walked away with top honors in both the individual and team categories.

Nokia-Apple battle brewing

[BizWeek] Nokia announced a new initiative Dec. 4 that seems aimed squarely at Apple. Beginning next year, higher-end Nokia phones will come with a built-in music service offering unlimited downloads of songs for a year. Nokia has signed up Universal Music to provide its catalog, including top contemporary musicians such as Amy Winehouse and Kanye West.

Apple sued over visual voicemail patents

[eWeek] "We have litigated this patent successfully on two prior occasions," Greg Dovel of Dovel & Luner, counsel for Klausner Technologies, said in a statement. "With the signing of each new licensee, we continue to receive further confirmation of the strength of our visual voice mail patents."

Chat on AIM through gmail

[NYT] Now Gmail users can have instant-message conversations with users of AOL’s AIM system. (Here is Google’s blog post on this.) Google’s standalone message system, Google Talk, has not been a big hit. Then it started integrating its instant message system in a column on the left margin of Gmail, and it is picking up some more users.