Communication with disaster-stricken Japan now free across the board

T-Mobile USA- No international long distance charges on phone calls to Japan, free Wi-Fi calls to and from Japan, and free SMS text messaging to and from Japan for T-Mobile postpaid clients through March 31, 2011 and retroactive to March 11, 2011. Subscribers can text "REDCROSS" to 90999, and donate $10 to the Red Cross. This donation will be charged to subscribers' T-Mobile phone bill.

Sprint says it is waiving and/or crediting fees for wireless calls and text messages to and from Japan for clients who are on Sprint's networks, retroactive from March 11 and continuing to April 10, 2011.

Verizon announced that both Residential and Wireless clients will be able to make free long distance calls to Japan until April 10, and Verizon Wireless postpaid clients can send and receive text and multimedia messages to Japan for free. Carrier billing is as well available for ten different "text to donate" systems:

Comcast - Xfinity Voice and Business Class Voice clients will be able to call Japan freely from today through April 10, 2011. Comcast will as well remove any charges for calls placed to Japan dated back to March 11.

Cox Communications - Both Cox Digital Telephone and Cox Wireless subscribers will be able to call and text freely to Japan until March 31. Additionally, Cox has made TV Japan available for free to Cox Advanced TV clients in Orange County and San Diego, Calif., Las Vegas and Northern Virginia.

Bright House Networks - Monday, Bright House announced that all Home Phone and Business Phone customer calls to Japan would be free of charge through April 15, 2011, retroactive to calls placed beginning March 11, 2011.

North State - From March 10 to April 30, North State is offering free, unlimited long distance and wireless calling and text messaging to Japan for its residential clients. The Red Cross' "text to donate" plan is free for North State clients as so then.

Alaska Communications - Effective March 11 through March 31, wireless postpaid and residential wireline clients with international calling plans will not be charged for international long distance calls up to 60 minutes or text messages from Alaska to Japan.

netTalk- VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) operator netTalk today announced that calls to and from Japan using netTALK DUO or netTalk smartphone app will be free beginning Tuesday until March 21.

One by one, regional carriers are responding to the trend of bigger telecommunications companies, and we'll update as they arise.

The continuing disaster Tuesday

In response to the continuing disaster Tuesday, near every telecommunications company with a significant American footprint has waived some or all of the fees that would by and large apply to calls or texts to Japan.

As expected, Microsoft launched the Release to Market version of Internet Explorer 9 on Monday. The rollout begin previously in the day with a launch in the UK, and was heralded at an event at SXSWi in Austin, Texas.

Hackers have already managed to break open Apple's latest iPad, with developer and hacker Comex saying he had managed to do so remotely over the weekend.

Yes, the Zune music player is end of life. Early days, Microsoft failed to make the commitment Zune needed to compete against iPod or other music players. More recently, Microsoft's smartly shifted its Zune commitment to Xbox and Windows Phone.

Tuesday morning, Verizon Wireless and HTC announced Thunderbolt, their first smartphone supporting the LTE (Long Term Evolution, latest standard in the mobile network technology) 4G protocol, will be available this Thursday, March 17 for $249.99

Internet Explorer 9 may have only just been released by Microsoft, however already there is a tool available that can be used to tweak the browser to your liking.