In advance of f8, Facebook’s developer conference, which takes place next week, Heroku and Facebook have jointly released a cloud-based platform for Facebook applications.
The integration allows for simple, one-click hosting and deployment of Facebook apps on Heroku’s platform through Facebook’s Dev App.
“To me, what’s most exciting is it shows a fundamental difference in the cloud application platform model,” said Heroku CTO Adam Wiggins in an interview with VentureBeat today. “It’s not just a faster way of doing something old. It’s a new way altogether.”
For personal apps, sandbox apps, experiments or apps with a small number of users, Heroku hosting is free. As apps scale up with more database horsepower and traffic, pricing will follow the standard Heroku model.
Of course, Facebook wants to make it as easy as possible for developers to create apps using Facebook Platform. And Heroku, which was acquired late last year by Salesforce for a whopping $212 million, is always looking for more ways to increase its user base. For the two companies, the partnership is a perfect solution.
The subscribe feature has broad implications unique to public figures–from journalists to celebrities and even elected officials. Because now you can hear from these figures without actually being friends. And, fine tune what you hear from friends and others.
Here are some things to keep in mind about the new subscribe button.
You Must Opt In
This feature doesn’t just kick in automatically. You have to activate it, which you can do by clicking here.
Once you turn it on, Facebook asks whether to allow anyone to comment on your public status updates — if you turn this on, then people who aren’t on your friend list can comment, even if you don’t allow this on your wall.
The site also asks whether you want to receive notifications about new subscribers, and if so, whether to notify you about anyone or just friends of friends. Activating this could fill your inbox in a hurry, but not doing so could have repercussions.
All of these choices really boil down to deciding how much privacy you want for your content. It’s better to think it through than be caught by surprise.
Oracle sued Google last year, claiming the Web search leader's Android mobile operating technology infringes Oracle's Java patents.
In addition to those patent claims, Oracle also leveled copyright infringement claims against Google. Oracle acquired the Java programing language through its purchase of Sun Microsystems in 2010.
In an order on Thursday, U.S. District Judge William Alsup largely denied Google's motion to resolve the copyright claims in its favor before trial.
And the great patent wars roll on.
This morning, a brand new patent troll“intellectual property firm” called Innovate/Protect Inc. filed a patent infringement suit against AOL,Google, IAC/Interactive, Gannett and Target. The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and filed by an Innovate/Protect unit called I/P Engine Inc., alleges the defendants violated features of two patents related to relevance filtering technology.
“This technology is used in the search engine industry to produce better search results, and has also become the dominant technology used in search advertising to position high quality advertisements,” I/P Engine said in a statement.
I/P Engine earlier this year acquired a portfolio of patents from Lycos, which had obtained them via the acquisition of WiseWire in May 1998 for $39.75 million. WiseWire was founded by Andrew Lang and Donald Kosak, both of whom joined Lycos after the acquisition – and both of whom now are part of the I/P Engine management team. Lycos is currently owned by Ybrant Digital, a company based in Hyderbad, India.
It has begun. Google released the first of its application programming interfaces (API) for its social network Google+ today, according to a Google blog post.
The API focuses only on publicly available data — the information users have purposefully included on their public Google+ pages. Developers can access users’ profiles and latest posts. Google is also providing code libraries for those who code in a different language such as Java, Python, Ruby or PHP. Developers can find more information about Google+ APIs on the company’s new dedicated site and the Google Developers site.
“This is just the beginning; the Google+ platform will grow and we value your input as we move Google+ forward,” Google says on its blog.
Maybe you'd better rethink that one, Bill. Google's cavalier treatment of small business, its unwillingness to move on privacy concerns until it's forced to, and its panic-driven handling of the $12.5 billion Motorola Mobility acquisition prove otherwise. Google still lacks adult supervision.
Everyone makes mistakes, but the mark of maturity is the ability to learn from them. You may remember that when Google launched the Nexus One Android smartphone, one of the many mistakes it made was selling a complex consumer product with no provision for support. Maybe that wasn't surprising for a company that had never sold anything to consumers, though it was a surprise to everyone else. But that's how you learn. It turns out, though, that Google is making the exact same mistake in the way it runs the Places program. (You do a search, and Google produces a little map with icons and a bit of information about businesses in the area.)
Last week, the New York Times broke the story that unscrupulous competitors were going on to Places and signaling that a rival business was permanently closed, which could be fatal to that fully operational business. When I read that story, I wondered why the aggrieved businesses didn't simply call up someone at Google to get help. It turns out they can't. With a few exceptions, "there's just no way to reach Google when you have a problem with Places," Linda Buquet, a marketing consultant, tells me.
Google is hugely influential, and its technology has changed much of the world for the better. But no other company has its reach or its influence over day-to-day activities of billions of Web users. It simply has to stop acting like a hyperactive toddler set loose in a china shop.
In July, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) launched its third attempt in the social networking arena - Google+. Available through invite only, the service launched strong, quickly reaching 25 million users. But in less than three months' time, daily posts made by these users have dropped an alarming 41 percent. According to TechCrunch, 7,280 people have linked their Google+ and Twitter accounts, merging the newcomer with the younger social network. Yet statistics are beginning to look grim for Google's latest project.
The Google+ project was launched to make sharing simpler and to "make connecting with people on the web more like connecting with them in the real world." It attempts to integrate social elements into all of the services that Google offers, including maps, news, and Gmail.
Google's previous efforts at social networking ended in early failures. Its first attempt to gain a place in the social networking market, with Wave in March 2009, was shelved just over a year later. Wave was supposed to combine the benefits of instant messaging and status updates with email accounts. With Wave on the decline, Google launched Buzz in February 2010. Buzz intended to weave social aspects into existing Gmail accounts by allowing link and photo share as well as status updates. Ultimately, the service failed due to an unsound privacy structure.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/09/15/benzinga1920208.DTL#ixzz1Y5lgLMni
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for authors, publishers and Google on Thursday bought themselves more time to reach a deal to create the world's largest digital library, telling a judge they were making progress in settlement talks but had agreed to proceed toward a trial of the 6-year-old copyright case on a slow track.
U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan approved a pretrial schedule that calls for written submissions and depositions that extend into next summer, but he made it clear that he would prefer a settlement and offered to help the parties in their talks if it might help. He called the amount of time in the schedule "generous but acceptable." No trial date was set.
Chin in March rejected a $125 million deal after the original agreement drew hundreds of objections from Google rivals, consumer watchdogs, academic experts, literary agents, the Department of Justice and even foreign governments.
Google attorney Daralyn Durie said the parties had made "substantial progress" toward a new deal since a court hearing two months ago and expected talks to continue.
After the hearing, the Association of American Publishers put out a statement in which its president and chief executive, Tom Allen, said the publishers "have made good progress toward a settlement" with the Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc.
"We are working to resolve the differences that remain between the parties and reach terms that are mutually agreeable," he added.
Michael J. Boni, a lawyer for The Authors Guild, told Chin that authors "would like very much" to continue settlement talks while the 2005 lawsuit proceeds toward trial.
The patents were acquired from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on August 17. The transaction was confirmed by Bloomberg, which spoke with a spokesman for the Mountain View-based company. VentureBeat reached out to New York-based IBM, but the company is not commenting on the transaction.
Google needs to go after patents because Android, a free, open-source program, functions on some non-proprietary features Google didn’t create. This has made the Android operating system for mobile devices enemy #1 for competitors Apple and Microsoft, which say those innovations are theirs.
“We live in an innovation driven economy,” said Lewis Lee, CEO of patent analytics startup IP Street. “Patents are rooted in innovation, and they are in an asset class in and of themselves. We’ve seen a heck of a lot more activity in this area in the past few years and there are going to be a lot of lawsuits and skirmishes until [intellectual property (IP)] valuations are more established.”
Lee explained that the valuations are currently defined in terms of what the claims and IP documents say. The wording can easily be disputed.
Samsung Mobile's decision to tap YouTube star FreddieW as part of its campaign for the U.S. launch of its new flagship Galaxy S II smartphone appears to be paying off. "Gamer Commute" -- the latest video from FreddieW, shot in part with the Samsung device to highlight its 1080p video recording ability -- has garnered nearly 5.5 million views and 18,000 comments since debuting last Saturday.
The video featuring the goofy YouTube persona created by filmmakers Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch doesn't include an overt product placement for the phone. But an overlay ad for the Galaxy S II appears at the bottom of the screen and a companion banner ad for the phone runs along side it. The final frame of the video also bears a message acknowledging Samsung for use of Galaxy phones, and a link to a making-of video showing how the devices were used in filming.
Suk-Joo Hwang, who worked for 14 years at the US division of Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung, told jurors earlier this week in federal court in New York about the disclosure after he was granted immunity from prosecution by US District Judge Jed Rakoff, who's presiding over the case.
Hwang said that during lunch at a restaurant in Mountain View, California, with Fleishman and a hedge fund manager he identified as “Greg”, he gave them confidential information about Samsung's shipment of liquid crystal display screens it was supplying to Apple. The iPad made its US debut in April 2010, four months after the lunch.
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“One particular thing I remember vividly was that I talked about the shipment numbers of Apple, it was about iPad,” he said. “This is in December 2009, before it came out with the tablet PC, they didn't know the name then, so I talked to them about the tablet shipment estimates in that meeting.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/exsamsung-manager-admits-leaking-ipad-information-in-restaurant-20110916-1kdb6.html#ixzz1Y5kPcsJK
Korean based consumer electronics company Samsung says Apple’s (AAPL) got nothing on them.
Samsung’s chief executive in southwest Asia, JS Shin, told Times of India on Friday, “We have a wider product portfolio here and a R&D center to provide localized solutions. We are manufacturing our phones here. We are closer to the market.”
India is one of the fastest-growing mobile market in the world, and it’s an Android operating system market more than an iPhone OS market.
Within the context of the purchase, Google's move to acquire Motorola Mobility for approximately $12.5 billion is as much about acquiring valuable intellectual property as it is about becoming a major player in the handset market.
From a patent perspective, the Motorola acquisition provides a sizable portfolio of both issued and pending patents. A quick review reveals a portfolio of more than 17,000 Motorola patents that are still in good standing with another 7,500 in application. Using the rule of thumb that typically 3% of patents in any portfolio feature real value, one can assume that Google has acquired more than 500 high-value (possibly essential to standard) patents. Google has demonstrated an aggressive patent acquisition strategy in the past, just recently coming up short in a bid to acquire Nortel's patent portfolio to a consortium of industry leaders such as Microsoft, Apple, RIM, Sony, and others. With this recent acquisition, Google strengthens its own patent portfolio while acquiring the assets and engineers of Motorola, albeit at a cost much higher than the bids it submitted to Nortel.
As a relatively young company, Google hasn't had the benefit of time to build out a developed patent portfolio in comparison to its competitors and as such, has left itself open to litigation. In acquiring Motorola Mobility's patents and its recent purchase of more than 1,000 IBM patents, Google is arming itself to not only protect its business, but placing it in a position to be on the offensive. Motorola's IP team has plenty of experience dealing with patent assertion in the wireless space and one would expect Google to make good use of that team in an arena it has recently become all too familiar with - the court room.
Nearly nude photos of actress Scarlett Johansson posted online this week prompted security specialists to warn that hackers can steal cellphone pictures over the Internet.
The theft of the pictures, apparently from the actress’ own smartphone, is the latest in a series of hacking attacks against celebrities that led to an FBI investigation, a law enforcement official told The Washington Times.
“The FBI is investigating a person or group responsible for computer intrusions of high-profile figures,” said Arielle B. DeKofsky, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Los Angeles who declined to provide further details.
Nancy Fox, government relations director of the Screen Actors Guild, said, “Actors, particularly celebrities, are prime targets for such crimes.”
“No one should fall victim to such an intrusion into their private life,” she said. “We appreciate that this invasion of privacy is being taken seriously by law enforcement.”
Motorola Mobility (NYSE:MMI) closed Wednesday's bullish trading session at $37.75. In the past year, the stock has hit a 52-week low of $20.77 and 52-week high of $38.74. Motorola Mobility(MMI) stock has been showing support around $37.37 and resistance in the $38.11 range. Technical indicators for the stock are Bullish and S&P gives Motorola Mobility (MMI) a neutral 3 STARS (out of 5) hold rating. For a hedged play on Motorola Mobility (MMI), look at the Jan '12 $37.00 covered call for a net debit in the $35.80 area. That is also the break-even stock price for this trade. This covered call has a duration of 128 days, provides 5.17% downside protection and an assigned return rate of 3.35% for an annualized return rate of 9.56% (for comparison purposes only).
A few months ago, I reviewed the Droid X2 and came away unimpressed. Performance was mediocre despite the powerful dual core Tegra 2 CPU, and more importantly, the PenTile display used by Motorola was a step up on paper and a huge step back in practice. Fast forward a few months and I've landed a Motorola Photon 4G(slightly behind schedule thanks to a few logistics issues, but better late than never!) I'm happy to report that despite seeming like it's almost the same device inside, it's quite a different beast this time around.
Just one problem with Pres. Barack Obama's new website: it almost instantly became a punch line for Republicans and conservatives on Twitter.
Obama's re-election campaign recently launched AttackWatch.com "to challenge negative statements about the president made by Republican presidential candidates and conservatives," the Washington Post reports.
CBS News reported, "So far, the site seems to have been most effective at giving conservatives more ammunition against the president. … The Obama campaign has adopted the hash tag #attackwatch to organize its efforts on Twitter, but on Wednesday, the hash tag was largely being used by conservatives complaining about the new site. … Twitter user John Hayward tweets, 'Dear #AttackWatch: I just saw several people refuse to eat their peas. Do you have a SWAT team?' "
It all started with a message from the former U.S. national team player Tony Sanneh (@tonysanneh), who also played in the Bundesliga during his career (for Hertha Berlin and Nürnberg), that “Rumor is Chandler gonna play for Germany. Lowe visits Nberg today.”
“Löwe” is Joachim Löwe, the coach of Germany’s national team. “Nberg” is Chandler’s Bundesliga club, Nürnberg, which is currently in seventh place in the Bundesliga five games into the season. According to reports in Germany, officials of that country’s federation said that Löwe was not in Nuremberg.
Chandler, 21, the son of an American serviceman and a German woman, has played four times for the U.S. national team under its old coach, Bob Bradley. But none of those appearances have come in official FIFA international matches. When called to the American team for June’s Concacaf Gold Cup,Chandler demurred, citing a long and taxing Bundesliga season and the need for rest.
There is little doubt that the further we get into the 21st century, the bigger social media networks are getting. While the American market is thoroughly tapped there are plenty of other markets out there that social networking sites are just starting to reach. It isn’t just social networking that is trying its best to branch out to other cultures than English speaking ones.
Netflix just recently launched their service in Latin America. Still because of their inherit communication capabilities, social networking sites are leading the charge. Twitter is now joining this pursuit with the announcement that they are offering the service in five new languages.
Currently Twitter is available in 12 languages, but the company announced that they are taking the necessary steps to add five additional languages to their repertoire. Those languages are Simplified as well as Traditional Chinese, Hindi, Tagalog and Malay. This may be a direct answer to Facebook taking better aim at more languages itself.
Facebook Sept. 14 launched a Subscribe button, a tool that aims to poke through the social network's sharing walls by letting users pick what they see from people in the News Feed, even if they are not friends with them.
Facebook was built seven years ago with the construct that users cannot "friend" or connect with other users unless those users confirm their friend requests and agree to share information with them. While some have criticized this synchronous, two-way sharing as too limiting, other, more private people believe this is a good thing.
The Subscribe button offers users a compromise. In addition to letting user choose what they see from peoples' News Feeds, users may "follow" users they don't know. It's fair to compare the tool--many have--to Twitter's popular Follow button, which is the gateway to social interaction on that microblog.
Facebook has started prompting users to subscribe to the accounts of Facebook employees. Users will see the "people to subscribe to" prompt under the "upcoming events" section to the right of their News Feed. However, users will also find the Subscribe button on the right of the News Feed of all users whose profiles are public.
eWEEK, for example, clicked on the profile of Facebook engineer Lars Rasmussen, the former Google product manager renowned for building Google Maps and the failed Google Wave.
Once we clicked the Subscribe button to follow Rasmussen we were able to choose to follow all of his updates, most updates (which is the default setting) and just important updates.
Twitter Inc. got a green light from U.S. regulators to issue restricted stock units without running afoul of a rule that requires public disclosure of financial information.
The San Francisco-based blogging company won relief from complying with a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that compels private companies with 500 or more shareholders to make certain disclosures. Twitter requested the exemption in August.
“The division will not object if Twitter does not comply with the registration requirements” of the 1934 SEC Act, with respect to issuing the restricted shares, Kim McManus, special counsel at the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, wrote in a Sept. 13 letter posted to the SEC website.
Closely held companies with fewer than 500 shareholders aren’t required to disclose financial data, such as revenue, profit, cash flow and debt. Before an initial public offering, that helps them pursue growth without the same degree of scrutiny directed toward publicly traded companies.
TORONTO: BlackBerry maker Research In Motion plans to open doors for its key corporate customers using a decade-old technology that most in the smartphone industry eye as a way to turn phones into wallets.
Everyone from Nokia to Android developer Google plans to include near-field communications (NFC) technology in future devices as they seek to replace cash and cards for everything from coffee to concert and transport ticket purchases.
NFC enables data to be exchanged wirelessly over distances of a few centimeters, meaning mobile phones can be used to pay for goods, store electronic tickets, download music and swap photos and business cards.
But implementation of NFC for purchases has been stymied by the competing interests of banks, merchants, device makers and even wireless carriers all eager to get a cut.
"It is a very dynamic ecosystem, there are a lot of people involved, a lot of things that need to happen before a critical mass can be achieved," RIM's vice president for handheld software products, Andrew Bocking, said in an interview.
In the meantime, RIM will be leveraging its established role as smartphone of choice in offices and government buildings to gain physical access to those properties.
Office workers often swipe a plastic card at a reader to gain access to their building or activate the lift. There's a decent chance that card and the associated reader is made by HID Global, a part of Assa Abloy.
If you were hoping to one day grab Super Mario Bros. or other Nintendo hits from your smartphone's app store, the future does not look good.
In an interview last week with Japanese news site Nikkei, Nintendo President and Chief Executive Satoru Iwata reiterated the company's stance against bringing its titles to smartphones versus keeping them on its own hardware.
Iwata said the company was not considering that option, and that if it did, the move would diminish the company's strength in building its hardware and software in-house.
In a translated statement, Iwata acknowledged that offering Nintendo's games on smartphones could prove profitable in the short term, but that it wouldn't play to the company's long-term plans.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20106888-248/nintendo-ceo-re-affirms-no-smartphone-games-plan/#ixzz1Y5gmZrVF
The annual exposition of the newest and greatest Japanese videogames, taking place Thursday through Sunday at the Makuhari Messe convention center outside Tokyo, has traditionally been the home of blockbuster games for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and other dedicated gaming consoles. The Final Fantasies and Monster Hunters that the country’s gamers love are still here, but with sales of traditional games in decline, the booths have been noticeably scaled down. Some major publishers, like Professor Layton maker Level-5, declined to even set up a stand this year.
In their place, dominating a massive section in the center aisle of the show floor, are smartphones and tablets: iPhones, Android phones, PlayStation phones and all manner of Japan-only devices with keys that easily let the country’s millions of texters type out entire novels’ worth of kanji messages.
Cellphone games have been part of the Tokyo Game Show for more than a decade, but until this year, the casual time-killers lurked on the periphery of the show, in the backs of the booths, attracting few onlookers.
Smartphone games are front and center in 2011. And they’re foremost on the minds of Japan’s game creators.
Our patience has finally paid off: within the next few days, the Samsung Galaxy S II will finally land in the US on AT&T and Sprint. Since the phone landed in our hands, we’ve enjoyed nearly every minute with it—it’s fast, it’s thin, it’s light, and the screen is enormous. We wouldn’t call it flawless, but we haven’t been this impressed by a phone in a long time.
The Galaxy S II AT&T and Sprint versions are physically different: AT&T’s is slightly thinner and has a 4.3-inch screen, while Sprint’s has a 4.5-inch screen. We received the Sprint version to review, which has “Epic 4G Touch” appended to its name, but we will refer to it as Galaxy S II throughout.
With its 4.5-inch screen, the wide-set Galaxy S II is edging toward feeling like you’re holding a billboard, or trying to fool yourself that your smallish tablet is still a one-handable phone. That’s not to say you can’t still one-thumb type, but my lone thumb can’t stretch all the way to the top of the screen. Haptic feedback is a little tinny, but on the softer side.
Best Buy has begun taking pre-orders of the Wi-fi-only Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9, starting at $469.99.
According to Best Buy's product page, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9—that's an 8.9-inch screen—features a WXGA TFT display with 1280-by-800 resolution, Android 3.1 Honeycomb, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of onboard memory, a 2-megapixel front-facing and 3-megapixel rear-camera with autofocus and LED flash, USB 2.0, Bluetooth and wireless support. It weighs 15.8 ounces (just under one pound).
A 32GB version will set you back $569.
Samsung first demoed the 8.9-inch tablet at the CTIA Wireless Association conference back in March, which also featured a dual-core processor and 1080p HD video playback. Click on the the slideshow below for some hands-on photos.
There is a tablet out there right now, ladies and gentlemen, that has many faces, the most recent of which was the Windows 8 developer version of the new Microsoft platform. We’ve seen this tablet back at IFA 2011, then we saw it again when we got the opportunity to check out the Windows 8 version of it just this week at Microsoft BUILD developers conference. Now what we’re getting to see at the Pepcom Holiday Spectacular 2011 in NYC is this slate, once again using Windows 7, working flawlessly with the Samsung Central Station, a wireless display hub made to allow you the ability to mirror any device on its lovely large 27-inch screen
Back at CES 2011, we got a very brief look at this Central Station device as it existed pre-final shipped edition. Now we see that the display, available in both 23 and 27-inch versions, is ready and out on the market, working with essentially any device that’s able to have a full-sized USB dongle plugged into it. What the Samsung Central Station offers you is more than just a mirroring-capable monitor right out of the box, it allows you to do so with as little hassle on your part as physically possible. Just plug the USB bit in your device, activate it once, and have the display instantly pick up your host device’s presence whenever its near.
Read more at http://www.slashgear.com/samsung-central-station-working-with-series-7-slate-hands-on-video-15180185/
If you haven't heard about the Samsung Galaxy S II by now, you're definitely tardy to the party. But as the proverbial saying goes, it's better late than never, right? The Galaxy S, its predecessor with myriad chassis selections and carrier variants, is still selling like hotcakes all over the world, and the sequel is no lightweight (figuratively) either -- selling three million units in 55 days only seems to be rivaled by a company based out of Cupertino -- and for good reason. We gave the unlocked version high marks for its excellent performance, gorgeous display and top-of-the-line camera, so it was only natural that we'd spend the next four months wondering when we'd see the powerhouse make it Stateside.
Included in the renderings were depictions of Apple's next device, which was shown as having a rounded aluminum backing, similar to the iPad 2's design.
The accessory gallery was pulled down shortly after its discovery, BGR reports. In its place, the old gallery page redirects to a page where users can sign up to be notified when Case-Mate will be providing cases for the new device, be it an "iPhone 5" or "iPhone 4S."
A Case-Mate spokeswoman declined to comment on the gallery.
Curiosity over whether Apple plans to make dramatic changes to the iPhone's design continues, with reports dueling over the details. For months, there has been talk of Apple moving to a larger screen size and new materials, with others saying simply that Apple is rolling out a version that will be nearly identical to the iPhone 4 model, with a speedier processor, a new camera, and improved networking equipment. There have also been reports of Apple debuting both such models at once, using the 4S as a low-cost option in emerging markets.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20106825-248/case-mate-briefly-posts-iphone-5-case-gallery/#ixzz1Y5fMFjYG
Ask any cell phone geek to name Motorola's most famous phone over the last 10 years and you're bound to hear either the Droid or Razr.
Both handsets were important in the company's history and each helped to revitalize Motorola in the ensuing years. And this week, new evidence has emerged that suggests that Moto could be combining these two iconic brands into one device.
According to EXIF data found online, the 3-megapixel image seen on the right could be from a device known as the Droid Razr. Considering how easy it is to fake EXIF data, we should consider this strictly rumor for now.
Yet, Pocketnow, which initially discovered this image, surmises that this most likely is legit and that the photo was taken at a lower resolution than it is capable of producing.
Read more: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20106730-251/motorola-could-marry-the-droid-and-razr-brands/#ixzz1Y5f9VCCw
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 was announced at CTIA back in April with an 8.9″ display, thin design and Android 3.1 operating system. The larger Galaxy Tab 10.1 has given the iPad 2 some of its first competition, and caught our attention with built in 4G LTE on Verizon.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 comes in 16GB and 32GB models, which cost $469 and $569 respectively. You can pre-order the Galaxy Tab 8.9 from Best Buy starting today, with expected release on September 25th or 26th. In store pickup is reportedly coming soon.
Kensington has a new iPhone 4 case out that adds a number of nice features to your iPhone without adding significant bulk.
The BungeeAir Protect Wireless Security Tether andBungeeAir Power Wireless Security Tether for iPhone help you remember your iPhone, secure your iPhone and can find your keys. The Power model adds a battery to the mix so that you don’t need to charge up as often.
The BungeeAir iPhone cases aren’t available to purchase yet, but you can pre order them from Kensington for $79.99 and $99.99. The Power case is more expensive.
Don't tell Sy Flores about stress.
The guy is a sales manager at the Silicon Valley AT&T mobile store at the intersection of innovation and power. His Palo Alto shop is visited by "the captains of industry," he says, as well as lawyers from Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati down the street; engineers from nearby Hewlett-Packard(HPQ) and AOL, nearly next door; students (aka masters-of-the-universe-in-training) from neighboring Stanford University.
Even Steve Jobs, who lives about a mile away, has stopped by -- Flores is almost certain. He can't say for sure that he's actually seen him in the store, but Jobs "always does give direct feedback on this location," Flores says."You want to see stress! You've got to try this on our boss!"
So it's no wonder Flores' stress was off the charts -- as he realized once one of those captains of industry stopped in to buy an iPhone and showed him an app that actually charts stress levels. It was mid-July when Bojan Bostjancic, a co-founder of Azumio, came in for the phone and was showing a couple of AT&T sales people the Stress Check app he and a small crew had developed. Put your finger on an iPhone camera and flash and the app will rate your stress on a 100-point scale. One look at the gizmo and the salespeople said something like,
"I think they were in a little bit of disbelief," Flores, 36, says, "because it registered near one of the highest numbers. I just remember the look on their faces."Flores to
Flores saw his doctor within days and the two worked out some strategies to bring that stress level down. Azumio -- a Palo Alto startup that just landed $2.5 million from Accel Partners, Founders Fund and Felicis Ventures -- would no doubt love for Silicon Valley is a well-established pressure cooker going back to the days of Internet time. There's the race for the new thing. The penchant for promising a miracle and then worrying about how to make it happen. There's the competitive zeal that leaves everyone feeling like he or she has to be the best at all things all the time.
A purported screen protector for the iPhone 5 mirrors a number of early "leaked" case designs that suggested a significantly altered form factor for the upcoming device. While it could be a sign that Apple has something completely new in store for its next-gen iPhone hardware, case designs in the past have been hit or miss when it comes to predicting what new Apple hardware will look like.
There have been two competing rumors concerning the design of the iPhone 5. One posits that the external design will be very similar to the still popular iPhone 4, with the external antenna, 3.5" screen, and glass front and back. The other suggests something "radically" different, more akin to the current iPad 2, with a tapered aluminum back. This rumor has also suggested that the device will feature a larger, edge-to-edge screen—roughly 4"—and a revised, elongated home button.
Several case designs allegedly leaked out of China support the latter rumor, a radically changed design. A new screen protector revealed by Unwire.hk this week, designed to fit the front of the device, also supports a changed iPhone 5. When compared to an iPhone 4, it suggests the upcoming device will be even larger in width and height. It makes sense to a degree—if Apple plans to flatten the device, it would definitely want to increase the other dimensions to make enough room for a sizable battery.
Some third-party accessory makers are banking on a completely redesigned look for Apple's fifth-generation iPhone, though time will tell whether their projections stem from real inside information or are based on bogus rumors.
For example, Case-Mate this week launched a new section of its website claiming to have "inside resources" on Apple's next iPhone. The site claimed that the fifth-generation iPhone will have a "completely different form factor" from the iPhone 4, with a design wider and thinner with an "extended home button."
The page was put up to replace a previous listing with variety of different cases claimed to have been designed for Apple's fifth-generation iPhone, which were captured by Boy Genius Report, but that has since been pulled down. Like others seen before, they showed a device with curved sides, a flat back, and a mute switch moved to the right side of the handset.
Case-Mate claims the so-called "iPhone 5" will have a dual-core A5 processor, an 8-megapixel camera, and "wireless charging." While the A5 processor and 8-megapixel camera are widely expected, Case-Mate's claims of wireless charging of the device make the contents of the page suspect.
Sprint Nextel says it is ready to handle the iPhone, even if it isn't officially carrying it yet.
Sprint is watching the network and investing in the infrastructure as needed to ensure a good customer experience, regardless of the rumors, Chief Financial Officer Joe Euteneuer said during an investor conference yesterday. The comments were reported by Fierce Wireless.
It's widely believed that Sprint will sell the iPhone alongside AT&T and Verizon Wireless. While Apple has set no date for the next iPhone, it is expected to come in October.
Euteneuer didn't confirm that Sprint would sell the iPhone, but discussed the possibility of getting the blockbuster device from Apple.
A bigger question remains whether Sprint will be able to keep offering an unlimited data plan with the device. Eutenuer said "we think we have great runway room," but kept the possibility open that it would move away from the offer.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20106837-94/sprint-says-it-can-handle-the-iphone-traffic/#ixzz1Y5dKuXXh
LOS ANGELES (AP) — All that tweeting and sharing of photos on Facebook could finally have a tangible reward: free music.
MOG, a subscription music service based in Berkeley, Calif., says it is introducing a free music service that will supplement its $5-a-month unlimited streaming plan and $10-a-month unlimited mobile music offering.
Starting immediately, MOG is giving new users a kind of digital gas tank they can use to listen to tracks from its library of 11 million songs.
Sharing songs, making playlists and other actions get users more gas while listening uses it up. Having more friends or followers multiplies the gas-earning effects of a user's activity.
MOG's free system revamps what had been a 14-day free trial and puts it in competition with Spotify, a Swedish subscription music plan that is popular in Europe. Spotify launched in the U.S. in July and has a free service that is limited by listening time caps in some countries. Rdio, another subscription music service, also said Thursday it would expand its free trial service soon.
The moves come ahead of an event on Sept. 22 at which Facebook is expected to announce a new set of tools for music services that the social network hopes will bolster it as a platform for sharing musical tastes with friends.
Facebook may postpone its expected initial public offering until next fall, so the company can focus on products, rather than be distracted by the major event.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the Financial Times he would prefer to wait until at least September or later of next year so employees can remain focused on product development, rather than a payout.
Delaying the IPO, expected to be one of the world’s biggest with recent private share sales estimated at $65 billion, may also be good for business reasons. An IPO is often meant to generate money, something the blockbuster social network doesn’t seem to need, and operations for private companies are easier to manage than for a public one.
“There are so many things you don’t have to do until you take public shareholder money,” said Lise Buyer, a consultant to advised Google through its IP process. “You don’t have to take investor phone calls or show up at investor conferences.”
For these reasons, many analysts advise against an IPO unless absolutely necessary to comply with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations. Once a company accrues more than 500 shareholders, it must file public financial results in the first quarter following that year, according to the SEC.
Senator Jane Cunningham, sponsor of the original law, filed Senate Bill 1 during the legislature’s special session that started this month. The Senate has now passed SB1 33-0, and will move it to the House, where it will be assigned to a committee. If the committee approves the bill, it becomes eligible to be heard and debated on the House floor. SB1 requires every school district to have a written policy concerning employee-student communication by March 1, 2012.
Two months ago, State Governor Jay Nixon signed Senate Bill 54, which was supposed to go into effect on August 28, 2011 in the state of Missouri. The bill, also known as the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, aims to fight inappropriate contact between students and teachers, including protecting children from sexual misconduct by their educators. It is named after a Missouri public school student who was repeatedly molested by a teacher several decades ago.
Among other things, it was meant to ban direct social networking contact between teachers and students in the hopes of setting more distinct boundaries on the relationships between the two. The law said teachers would still be able to have a Facebook Page for interacting with students on a slightly more personal level, as long it’s still work-related. It’s the actual friending, messaging, and whatever other direct connection you can make on a social network that was to be banned.
Skype on Thursday introduced an update for its beta Mac app that brings the Facebook integration already available on Windows PCs.
Skype 5.4 for Mac Beta basically brings Facebook functionality into Skype. It's available for download now.
"Just like in our Windows client, you will now be able to IM and connect with your Facebook friends without leaving Skype," Skype said in a blog post. "You will also be able to read and update your News Feed, as well as comment and 'Like' your Facebook friends' posts - all within Skype for Mac."
To set it up, sign into Skype, click on the "Connect to Facebook" tab, and enter your Facebook sign-in details.
Facebook features were added to Skype for Windows back in October 2010. At the time, Skype also added "Facebook Phonebook," which let users call and text Facebook friends directly on mobile phones and landlines with a few clicks. If a Facebook friend is also on Skype, the feature allowed for free Skype-to-Skype calls.
Facebook has been rolling out a slew of changes and new options, one of the latest being its so-called smart friend lists. This feature creates lists of a user's friends, automatically based on such criteria as work, school, family and city. Users do have some control -- they can opt out entirely. Or they can use the automatically generated lists to add friends -- without, Facebook promises, a lot of effort.
Each of the lists has its own News Feed, where the user can see photos, status updates and other posts from the people on the list. Facebook has placed the Lists section on the left side of the homepage.
Users can also share items with their specific lists, leaving out the wider audience. This is done by clicking on the dropdown audience selector in the sharing tool and selecting a list.
Other niceties: Users can continue using lists they may already have created. Also, no one is able to see list titles.
Facebook did not respond to TechNewsWorld's request to comment for this story.
If you're concerned about strangers subscribing to your profile against your will, you can rest easy. A Facebook official said the social network will not force you to allow people to subscribe to your public updates. This is an entirely opt-in part of the new subscribe function.
Facebook has started to roll out the subscribe button to users, so you should see them on your friends' profiles soon. You can also activate the public subscriber option right now. Here's how to get started with the new subscribe button.
In 2010, Samsung made headlines with their flagship device – the Samsung Galaxy S, which sold over 10 million units. They also had the privilege to introduce the Nexus S – the Google reference device – in the same year, and that helped concrete their dominance in the Android category. Without a doubt, the 1GHz Hummingbird processor really helped them soar high!
Industry experts, ABI Research, most recently took the Samsung Galaxy S II apart, and concluded that “Samsung took many risks by combining all these new technologies into one phone. ABI Research believes those risks will pay off; the Galaxy S II sets a new benchmark for almost every category on which a smartphone is measured.”
As a result, they shook the industry with the Samsung Galaxy S2; selling over 5 million units in the first 85 days of release.
A former Samsung manager has admitted to supplying confidential Apple data to a hedge fund manager, supplying information on liquid crystal displays (LCD) used in the Cupertino-based company’s iPad, before it was due to launch.
BusinessWeek reports that Suk-Joo Hwang, a US-based Samsung employee, testified at the insider-trader trial of Primary Global Research, detailing a lunch meeting with Fleishman and a hedge fund manager, providing them with information on Apple’s plans to use Samsung screens in a new tablet device that was to become the iPad – four months before it was released.
“One particular thing I remember vividly was that I talked about the shipment numbers of Apple, it was about iPad,” he said. “This is in December 2009, before it came out with the tablet PC, they didn’t know the name then, so I talked to them about the tablet shipment estimates in that meeting.”
Fleishman is charged with running a scheme that saw employees of private companies pass confidential information to clients of Primary Global, charges that could ensure a sentence of 25 years if convicted.
