A February report claims that while the Kindle Fire is cheaper than the iPad 2, it's plagued with more problems. Neither is without fault, however.

The latest report from FixYa compares the top consumer issues with the Kindle Fire and iPad 2. For consumers still searching for the right tablet, reports like this are food for thought when pondering over the two most popular tablets on the market today.

According to the report, both experience Wi-Fi issues, but consumers have also mostly complained about the Kindle Fire's One-Click shopping security and a lack of parental settings. On the iPad 2, owners are whining about backlight bleeding.

"Product call centers are the closest thing to consumer hell, making the web the new owner’s manual," says FixYa CEO Yaniv Bensadon. "We see this first hand and have experienced an explosion in consumer issues with tablets, mainly the variety of devices running Android software. Despite Apple’s god-like status with consumers, it is no stranger to consumer issues, as noted in today’s report."

The report states that 30-percent of the Kindle Fire complaints are about the inability to turn off One-Click shopping. The problem, which has seemingly been fixed, was that owners could not add a password to the One-Click feature, thus children could go on a shopping spree. Yet despite the complaints, users can simply avoid this problem by going into Amazon's Appstore, choose Settings, Parental Controls, and enable the Use PIN option. Thus every purchase made via the Kindle Fire must requires a 4-digit PIN before completing the transaction.

Piece of cake.

Also on the Kindle Fire front, 25-percent of the owners complain about Wi-Fi connectivity problems, followed by a lack of parental controls (15-percent), touchscreen precision (15-percent) and USB issues (10-percent).

As for the iPad 2, 35-percent of the owners are complaining about Wi-Fi connectivity. "iPad 2 owners have reported fairly widespread issues with connecting to (and staying connected to) Wi-Fi," the report states. "Although this is a widespread issue that affects those without a 3G-enabled iPad or those close to their monthly data cap, there are a number of successful fixes. Turning Wi-Fi on and off, renewing the DHCP lease, and resetting the Wi-Fi network settings usually solves the issue."

The other top 5 iPad 2 problems include LED Display issues (15-percent), mostly the prominence of splotchy light patches around the edges of the device. Also on the list are complaints about the microphone quality (15-percent), USB issues (10-percent) and screen issues (10-percent).

FixYa summarizes that the Kindle Fire is much cheaper than the iPad 2, but is plagued with many more issues. The report, which is seemingly one-sided, also states that there is a greater ability for the user to customize their experience on the iPad 2. Yet Kindle Fire owners can install a more Android-like launcher by going into the tablet's Settings menu and turning on the Allow Installation of Applications option under "Device." What's more, owners can install apps that aren't listed on Amazon's Appstore.

The February Edition of FixYa's tablet report can be read here.

Anonymous plans to shut down the internet on March 31 to protest SOPA, Wall Street and more.

Oh my. Anonymous may be going too far this time.

The hactivist group is now threatening to shut down the internet to protest "SOPA, Wallstreet, our irresponsible leaders and the beloved bankers who are starving the world for their own selfish needs out of sheer sadistic fun." If the threat is indeed real, the world's entire population will suffer Internet withdrawal on March 31 as a result of the group's crusade.

So how does Anonymous plan to take down the Internet? By hitting the 13 root DNS servers. Thus, the HTTP internet will be disabled because no one will be able to perform a domain name lookup. "Anybody entering 'http://www.google.com' or ANY other url, will get an error page, thus, they will think the Internet is down, which is, close enough," the group writes.

Anonymous claims this will only be a protest, and is not designed to "kill" the internet. Instead, Anonymous is temporarily shutting the Internet down "where it hurts the most."

"The principle is simple," Anonymous writes, explaining how the attack on the 13 DNS servers will be carried out. "A flaw that uses forged UDP packets is to be used to trigger a rush of DNS queries all redirected and reflected to those 13 IPs. The flaw is as follow; since the UDP protocol allows it, we can change the source IP of the sender to our target, thus spoofing the source of the DNS query."

Anonymous didn't state how long the Internet would be unavailable, only that it could last mere hours, or extend out for days. "No matter what, it will be global," the group concludes. "It will be known."

Oh yay. Thanks for that.

TV-focused Hulu Plus is now available on the Nintendo Wii console, complementing Netflix's focus on movies.

Here's another reason to purchase the Nintendo Wii for uses other than playing games: Hulu Plus. Nintendo said on Thursday that the service is available now, costing the typical $7.99 USD per month. Hulu Plus compliments Netflix by focusing on current TV episodes which typically appear on Hulu the day after their original showing on networks. Netflix provides seasons of TV episodes as well, but it's primary focus is delivering a plethora of movies.

"Wii offers the most entertainment fun for everyone in the family, with an impressive selection of streaming movies and TV shows in addition to an unparalleled lineup of games that can’t be played anywhere else," said Tony Elison, Nintendo of America’s senior director and general manager of Network Business. "The Wii console is the hub of the living room, and with the addition of Hulu Plus, millions of households now have even more options for streaming premium TV shows and movies."

Consumers looking for a family entertainment center may find this addition a great deal. Unlike the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii owners won't have to shell out extra money for network access on top of their Hulu Plus subscription. And unlike the PlayStation 3, the Nintendo Wii allows users to easily scroll through the Hulu Plus library by using the Wii remote. The console also doesn't rely on an HD connection, making it compatible with older composite-based televisions.

What's unfortunate is that it took this long to bring Hulu Plus to the Nintendo Wii, literally ten or less months away from the launch of Nintendo's next console, the Wii U. Hulu Plus will likely be a launch service for the next-generation console, and it's already slated to arrive on the Nintendo 3DS later this year.

Users who have a broadband Internet connection can visit the Wii Shop Channel now to download the Hulu Plus application at no extra charge. For the first month of launch, users who download Hulu Plus for Wii and do not already have an existing Hulu Plus account will get a two-week free trial.

The FCC has approved new rules that seemingly put an end to those annoying "robocalls" during dinner.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is now cracking down on what it calls "robocalls," those annoying automated phone calls that typically feature a recorded message telling consumers to "wait for a representative," "you won a free trip" or something similar immediately after they've answered the phone. Thanks to new rules approved by the FCC, telemarketers are now required to obtain written consent before placing another robocall.

According to the FCC, the "written consent" doesn't necessarily mean a hand-written signature -- a digital version will work just fine. The new rules also eliminate a loophole that allowed telemarketers to place robocalls if they had an "established business relationship" with the consumer. Previously U.S. residents had to sign up for a national do-not-call list to be exempt from this loophole.

On Wednesday the FCC stated that the new rules won't apply to information robocalls like automated messages from schools or flight changes. But the rules do require telemarketers to provide an automated opt-out mechanism during each robocall so that consumers can revoke their consent. If the consumer does choose to opt-out, telemarketers must add them to their do-not-call list.

"Robocalls invade consumers' privacy, and can, in the case of calls to wireless numbers, use up their minutes," the FCC said on Wednesday. "The Order adopted today helps put an end to these intrusions by empowering consumers with increased rights under the FCC’s telemarketing rules. The new rules reduce regulatory uncertainty with minimal burden on industry and maximize consistency with those of the Federal Trade Commission."

"Consumers by the thousands have complained to us, letting us know that they remain unhappy with having their privacy invaded and their time wasted by these unwanted calls," FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said in a statement.

So how long will it take telemarketers to find a loophole around this new set of rules?

A letter from Washington asks that Apple answer a list of questions about developer policies and practices.

U.S. House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Commerce Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee Chair G.K. Butterfield are now asking Apple to provide information on iOS developer policies and practices when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts.

The request stems from a scandal involving the Path iOS app and how it supposedly saved and uploaded to remote servers all of the consumer's address book data without permission. The two claim that if Apple did indeed approve such an app, then there must be some truth to the accusations of improper address book handling and secret data storage. What's more, it's possible similar collection methods are in use by other apps also approved by Apple.

The letter, sent on Wednesday to Apple and CEO Tim Cook, quotes an article written by Dustin Curtis, Stealing Your Address Book, which claims that "there’s a quiet understanding among many iOS app developers that it is acceptable to send a user’s entire address book, without their permission." The letter also references a report claiming that app developers may store the contact details for Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison and Bill Gates.

Meanwhile, developer Burbn Inc silently updated its Instagram photo sharing app to request data access when matching contacts. The update was made shortly after the data collection accusations regarding Path Inc's app began to surface.

Wednesday's letter to Tim Cook and Apple asks the following questions:

* Please describe all iOS App Guidelines that concern criteria related to the privacy and security of data that will be accessed or transmitted by an app.
* Please describe how you determine whether an app meets those criteria.
* What data do you consider to be "data about a user" that is subject to the requirement that the app obtain the user’s consent before it is transmitted?
* To the extent not addressed in the response to question 2, please describe how you determine whether an app will transmit "data about a user" and whether the consent requirement has been met.
* How many iOS apps in the U.S. iTunes Store transmit "data about a user"?
* Do you consider the contents of the address book to be "data about a user"?
* Do you consider the contents of the address book to be data of the contact? If not, please explain why not. Please explain how you protect the privacy and security interests of that contact in his or her information.
* How many iOS apps in the U.S. iTunes Store transmit information from the address book? How many of those ask for the user’s consent before transmitting their contacts’ information?
* You have built into your devices the ability to turn off in one place the transmission of location information entirely or on an app-by-app basis. Please explain why you have not done the same for address book information.

Apple retaliated by providing a public statement right after the letter was received:

"Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AllThingsD. "We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require explicit user approval in a future software release."

The company also admitted that dozens of apps have been accessing, transmitting and storing user contact without explicit permission. These apps include Twitter, Yelp and Foursquare. Now the apps ask permission to access address book data rather than take what they want unknowingly.

FreedomPop is moving forward with its plans to offer free 4G LTE coverage despite the recent setback with LightSquared.

FreedomPop, which is backed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, said on Wednesday that it's partnering with Clearwire to provide a "disruptive" mobile 4G broadband service for consumers, free of charge, here in the U.S. Clearwire currently offers a 4G mobile broadband network covering more than 130 million Americans, but FreedomPop is hoping to offer even faster speeds once Clearwire's planned 4G LTE Advanced-ready network comes online.

"FreedomPop's ultimate goal of providing our customers with a free mobile broadband alternative will soon be realized thanks to Clearwire's proven 4G network services," said Tony Miller, FreedomPop's VP of Marketing. "This agreement enables FreedomPop to offer a disruptive retail service, providing free, flexible, high-speed internet access to millions of Americans."

The "strategic wholesale relationship" formed between the two parties will see FreedomPop paying wholesale rates for access to Clearwire's 4G network. Specific terms of the agreement are not being disclosed.

The news arrives just after the FCC said it plans to kill LightSquared's terrestrial network waiver, FreedomPop's original mobile network of choice prior to Wednesday's announcement.

"LightSquared’s proposal to provide ground-based mobile service offered the potential to unleash new spectrum for mobile broadband and enhance competition," the FCC said in a statement. "The Commission clearly stated from the outset that harmful interference to GPS would not be permitted.  This is why the Conditional Waiver Order issued by the Commission’s International Bureau prohibited LightSquared from beginning commercial operations unless harmful interference issues were resolved."

"NTIA, the federal agency that coordinates spectrum uses for the military and other federal government entities, has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time," the FCCadded.

Plans to launch a free mobile service was revealed to the public back in December, but Miller just recently explained to Forbes how the business model will work. He said there will be a "free" basic service that most of the customers will use, but premium users (bandwidth hogs) will be charged a fee -- this latter group will account for 10 to 15-percent of the overall customer base, he said.

FreedomPop won't sell devices, but it will loan out modems as long as customers put down a deposit. Three items will be up for borrowing: a USB dongle, a mobile hotspot and a third mystery device. Users will only be able to access the 4G LTE network through these three devices. That said, the service may be free, but will still require money upfront, requiring either a $49 or a $29 deposit -- that final price is still up in the air.

So how much data will freemium subscribers get with this new service? FreedomPop may enforce strict data caps or throttle back speeds to prevent users from streaming video without a premium plan. Like Dropbox and other services that sell premium plans by offering free access on a limited level, the upcoming 4G LTE will undoubtedly have some type of restrictions limiting free data usage.

We expect to hear more about the plans shortly, perhaps later this month at Mobile World Congress?

Android 4.0, meet Atom.

There were quite a few eye-catching products at CES (Samsung's eye-catching OLED TV among them), but one of the most talked about announcements was Intel's unveiling of the Lenovo K800, the first Medfield-based smartphone. Today, we're getting a peek at another Intel-based phone, this one from Motorola.

Pocket-Now claims to have gotten hold of photos and details of Motorola's first Ice Cream Sandwich phone. Though that in itself is interesting, the fact that it's also said to be Atom-based is what caught our eye. Pocket-Now doesn't name a source for these photos, but the company says it will have a new version of Motorola's MotoBlur UI, as well as a high-end camera that offers instant-on capabilities and 15 fps burst capture.

Sadly, Pocket-Now's source didn't provide any more juicy details, so that's our lot for now. However, with Mobile World Congress just over a week away, we're expecting to see this device and others like it in more official circumstances very, very soon.

_{Follow @JaneMcEntegart on Twitter for the latest news.}      

Here's a 9.7-inch tablet that costs around $230 if you're looking for something that won't hurt the wallet.

Looking for a decent tablet that won't break the bank? Amazon's 7-inch Kindle Fire packs plenty of Android punch for the buck once you ditch the bookshelf launcher. But if you're looking for something larger that doesn't jump into the $300 and $400 range, Archos has launched the Arnova 9 G2 budget tablet here in the States for as low as $229.99 USD.

Released overseas last month, the Archos Arnova 9 G2 features a 1024 x 768 pixel capacitive multitouch screen with IPS, an ARM Cortex-A8 single core SoC clocked at 1 GHz, and 4 GB of internal storage (Arnova says 8 GB). There's also a microSD card slot for adding 32 GB of extra storage space (as it really needs it), 802.11 b/g connectivity, and a battery that supposedly offers up to six hours while watching videos, four times that when listening to music with the screen off.

Also thrown into the mix is a USB 2.0 port for connecting keyboards, mice, external drives and other gadgets. The tablet will sport Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" right out of the box, meaning it's highly doubtful users will have access to Google's suite of applications like Google Maps and Android Market. Instead, owners will simply have access to the AppsLib market instead. Additional specs include a front-facing camera for video calling, built-in speakers, a microphone, G-sensor and more.

"Thanks to the range of document, slideshow and spreadsheet editors available to download on AppsLib^, you Arnova 9 G2 can be your mobile work station; you may never need your laptop ever again," Arnova reports. "With the integrated microSD card reader you can transfer files easily or even plug in a USB flash drive in the USB host slot / via the USB host cable."

Arnova states that the tablet is also fully compatible with the Archos G9 3G Stick, allowing users to slip in their data sim card into the stick (which is provided by their wireless carrier), plug it into the tablet, and experience 3G connectivity.

Currently PC Richard & Son is selling the Arnova 9 G2 for $229.99, and B&H is selling the tablet for a pricier $249.99. The Arnova 9 G2 measures 9.4 x 7.2 x 0.4-inches and weighs 1.4 pounds.

The majority of qualifying Motorola gadgets won't bite into Google's Ice Cream Sandwich until the second half of 2012.

Motorola finally released an estimated schedule for the Android 4.0 upgrade to be installed on many of its smartphones and tablets. Unfortunately, the news isn't good for those hoping for some tasty ice cream sandwich love this quarter. In fact, only a handful of devices will receive the update in 2Q12 and five devices in the following quarter. Over twenty smartphones and tablets are still stuck in the "evaluation and planning" phase (limbo), and awaiting a projected release date.

As Motorola indicates, upgrades go through four stages: evaluation and planning, development, testing, and the actual release. During the evaluation and planning stage, Motorola evaluates the benefits, technical issues and user experience of an upgrade. "Generally, we are not able to provide release dates in this stage," the company states. "There are also some cases in which we can state that an upgrade will happen but are not able to provide a release date. Please note that some products that enter the Evaluation and Planning phase may not complete the upgrade cycle."

Once the upgrade goes through development and testing, it must be approved by the carrier or local regulators. Typically this is when consumers actually notice that an OTA update is ready to install, but at times there's also a small testing group that will make sure everything is in order before the carrier unleashes the upgrade to the masses (Verizon, for example, does this). Otherwise, users can simply go into the Settings menu to see if a manual update is possible.

With that out of the way, here's Motorola's schedule thus far here in the States:

Q1 2012
Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi only

Q2 2012
Motorola Xoom Family Edition

Q3 2012
Atrix 2
Atrix 4G MB860
Photon 4G
Motorola Xyboard 8.2
Motorola Xyboard 10.1

Undetermined (meaning it's too early to project a timeframe)
Admiral
Droid 3
Droid 4
Droid Bionic
Droid Razr
Droid Razr Maxx
Droid X2
Droid Xyboard 8.2
Droid Xyboard 10.1
Electrify
Milestone 3
Milestone X2
Motorola Pro+
Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi + 3G MZ600

Motorola also provides a schedule for Canada, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Mexico which can be viewed here.

"We know how excited you’ve been about getting the next stage of Ice Cream Sandwich updates for your Motorola devices," the company said in a blog. "Our engineers and designers are combing through the code and preparing it for you. We are pleased to provide more details to the ICS upgrades."

So far it seems that a majority of Motorola devices won't bite into Google's ice cream sandwich until later this year. Bummer, we know (sigh).

Research results recently released by scientists at Georgia Tech suggests that some of the vocabulary we use in emails can reliably predict whether the email is sent up or down the organizational chart.

Sure, there are words you would never write to your boss, but people below you. But would you believe that the phrase below are indicative for an email to be sent downward?

- have you been
- you gave
- we are in
- title
- need in

And the use of the phrases below points to an email that was sent to your boss?

- the ability to
- I took
- are available
- kitchen
- thought you would

Researchers at GeorgiaTech believe they have found prove for this claim when they examined are portion of 500,000 emails sent by 150 former Enron employees.

“Across a wide variety of messages and relationships, these phrases consistently stand out as signaling a power relationship between two people,” said Eric Gilbert, assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing. “The probability of it occurring due to chance alone is less than 1 in 1,000.

Gilbert said that the results you lead to the development of smarter email software. For example, email software could automatically predict a subset of possible recipients of an email and simplify the selection of recipients. Email messages could also get scheduling features: "Post-5 pm messages from people under you, for example, might get held for delivery until the next day, while emails from the boss—or the boss’ assistant—could go right through," the scientists said.

The entire list of phrases enabling reliable predictions is published in a paper published by Eric Gilbert.

Calling all Portal fans...

Valve's insanely popular Portal title has been unofficially ported to Android. Well, at least one level of the game has been ported to Android. Sadly, it's not Valve behind this project, so we can't say for sure if you'll ever be able to play a full version of the game on your Android phone or tablet. What we can tell you that the developers responsible for this port used the Unity engine to do it.

Android Police reports that "there's actually not much to play" and it's more proof of concept than anything else, but perhaps if we all cross our fingers and wish really hard, Valve will give us something we can actually work with. For now, this demo from a team of Russian developers is all we have. Savor all two minutes and nine seconds of it below. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Android Police says the choppiness you see is from their recording, and not the game itself:

_{Follow @JaneMcEntegart on Twitter for the latest news.}