The last time we heard from Ivan Seidenberg, he was letting Sprint know precisely what he thought of it. This go 'round, in a new 'Charlie Rose' interview, the Verizon chief is being entirely more coy. In speaking to recent political happenings, he mentions that the communication coming from the citizens of Iran is "a great thing," and he also notes that attempts to block internet use "can't work long term" as the "power of the people will override that without any question." Sort of comical given VZW's prior persistence to cripple phones in spite of consumer backlash, but we digress. He also dodged (with great skill, might we add) questions on whether Verizon Wireless would carry the iPhone, noting that it was "Apple's decision" on whether it would build one to support the company's forthcoming LTE network. As for Android? He did confess that recent reports of a Motorola handset coming its way "might be true," which is CEO speak for "oh, that's absolutely happening." Hop on past the break for a video of the whole shakedown.

When your government raises tariffs on imported phones from 4 percent to a staggering sixty percent, you kinda hope there are plans in place to start producing handsets on home turf. That's exactly the bind Iranians find themselves in at the moment, but relief's in sight -- the head of Iran Telecommunication Manufacturing Company says his folks are ready to start selling ITMC-branded phones as soon as June of this year, with a full 300,000 units being thrown together by year's end. Though the manufacturing is homegrown, it appears the technology is not; Iran has contracted with as-yet-unnamed South Korean companies to get the necessary equipment and tech brought over to Iranian borders. If this means Iran gets a DMB-equipped Shine before we do, that's going to be so not cool.

[Via textually.org]

It's no secret that China is rockin' some serious server power dedicated to filtering its SMS airwaves of unthinkable topics like Taiwan, democracy, and pornography, but other countries are getting in on the action, too. Belarus and Iran have both been called out in recent months for listening to its citizens' texts, and in Belarus' case, sending them as well. Although the technology for real-time filtering by keyword is largely homegrown (or so we hope), predictive text manufacturers like Tegic (disclaimer: Tegic is owned by Engadget's parent company's parent company, AOL) are receiving pressure from handset manufacturers to double- and triple-check their dictionaries for words that could be considered distasteful in countries with more oppressive governments than our own. Personally, discovering a word missing from T9 has never prevented us from typing it manually, but nonetheless -- between this and M-Track, we're about ready to head down into the Engadget bunker with a year's supply of Spam and just ride this whole thing out.

[Via textually.org]