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<title>Haaze.com / Dhoni / Voted News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:10:56 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft issues phishing alert for Xbox Live]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-issues-phishing-alert-for-xbox-live</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-issues-phishing-alert-for-xbox-live</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:10:56 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rettymo</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-issues-phishing-alert-for-xbox-live</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Modern Warfare 2 is suffering phishing attacks, it seems.(Credit:Screenshot by GameSpot)For the past week, Sony's PlayStation Network has been offline with no timetable as to when it will return. An external attack has compromised users' personal information and has left more than 75 million users unable to connect. Now Microsoft is experiencing its own online problems.Modern Warfare 2 is suffering phishing attacks, it seems.While the problem is not as wide-ranging as Sony's takedown, Microsoft today issued a Service Alert forXbox Live to warn users of a security risk. The alert states that matchmaking has been affected by a phishing attempt inside Infinity Ward's shooter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.&quot;Users may receive potential phishing attempts via title specific messaging while playing Modern Warfare 2,&quot; reads the message posted on the Xbox Support Web site.Read more of &quot;Microsoft issues phishing alert for Xbox Live&quot; at GameSpot. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple sued over location tracking in iOS]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>andplot56</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A lawsuit filed against Apple in Florida last week accuses the company of violating privacy laws, as well as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, by keeping a log of user locations without offering a way to disable the feature. The suit, which was first reported by Bloomberg, was filed by Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito, both of whom own Apple products. In the suit, the pair, who seek punitive damages and injunctive relief, cite research from Alasdair Allen and Pete Warden about the tracking files found within iOS as the source for Apple's collection techniques. &quot;Users of Apple's iPhones and iPads, including Plaintiffs, were unaware of Apple's tracking their locations and did not consent to such tracking,&quot; the suit claims. &quot;Apple collects the location information covertly, surreptitiously and in violations of law.&quot; The suit faults Apple specifically for not disclosing that the iOS software records &quot;comprehensive&quot; location data in its iTunes Terms of Service, nor offering end users informed consent of the practice.&quot;If Apple wanted to track the whereabouts of each of its products' users, it should have obtained specific, particularized informed consent such that Apple consumers across America would not have been shocked and alarmed to learn of Apple's practices in recent days,&quot; the suit says. The suit, which is seeking class action status, aims to have Apple completely disable the feature in the &quot;next-released&quot; version of the operating system. Until that happens, the suit claims Apple is in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, state laws comparable to the Federal Trade Commission Act, and &quot;common law rights in uniform ways&quot; of the plaintiffs and class members. Apple, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit, has not officially commented on the location tracking file since it came to light last week. An alleged e-mail exchange between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a reader of MacRumors surfaced this morning. In it, Jobs purportedly says, &quot;we don't track anyone,&quot; and &quot;the info circulating around is false.&quot; Apple has not confirmed or commented on the legitimacy of that correspondence. In addition, Apple and Google were targeted today by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan over location tracking. Madigan seeks a meeting with executives from both companies, as well as answers to her questions about disclosure and purpose of the tracking, and a way to turn the feature off. Madigan's efforts join those of other politicians and government groups who seek to know more about what the companies are doing with the information.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Is your life EV compatible]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-your-life-ev-compatible</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-your-life-ev-compatible</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:11:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>nadav-be</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-your-life-ev-compatible</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The BMW Evolve app has settings that let you track a trip&amp;39's distance and &amp;34'get charged&amp;34' at destinations that offer EV recharging.(Credit:BMW)BMW launched an app that gives conventionalcar drivers a hypothetical taste of electric-car living, but without the real-world hassle of range anxiety. The free BMW Evolve app is available for iPhone and Android phones and you don't need an electric vehicle to try it out. In fact, that's the point--the app is a little like a Tamagotchi for electric cars.Using the app, each day you start out with a 100-mile range for your pretend EV. The app tracks your driving distance using the phone's GPS, and lets you &quot;get charged&quot; at destinations that offer electric car charging to increase your range. At the end of the trip, you park the hypothetical EV. The app tallies your trip length and distance, and tells how much time you spent while driving, parked, and charging. It will also tell you how much less CO2 emissions you would have added to the environment and how many gallons of gas you could have saved if you had actually been driving an electric vehicle. Is it exactly like driving an an electric car Hardly. While it's a decent estimate for tracking distances, it appears the app doesn't track speed, weather, or terrain, all of which impact driving range. But it looks like a fun exercise to see how often, if ever, you drive more than 100 miles a day. And it could tell you if you're ready to swap the gas pump for an electric cord when the BMW ActivE is released this fall.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Supreme Court queries Microsoft on patent law]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-queries-microsoft-on-patent-law</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-queries-microsoft-on-patent-law</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>jimmy47u</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-queries-microsoft-on-patent-law</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The U.S. Supreme Court today pressed lawyers representing Microsoft about changing existing patent law as the software giant argued to overturn lower court rulings that it infringed on patents held by i4i, a tiny Toronto company.The case has become one of the most important in patent law in years. Microsoft is hoping to create a precedent that would make it harder for companies with patent claims to prove infringement. Several large technology companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook, and Cisco, have filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting Microsoft's arguments. At the same time, i4i's case has drawn support from big pharmaceutical companies, venture capitalists, universities, and the U.S. government.U.S. Supreme Court(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)As the heart of the case is the degree to which companies accused of infringing have to prove that a patent is invalid. In the i4i case, the district court ruled that Microsoft had to provide &quot;clear and convincing evidence&quot; that i4i's patent--covering the way XML, or Extensible Markup Language, is used in Microsoft Word--is invalid. Microsoft wants the court to lower the standard, requiring defendants to offer only a &quot;preponderance of the evidence&quot; to invalidate a patent.A jury ruled in 2009 that Microsoft infringed on i4i's patent, awarding i4i $200 million. Microsoft lost a subsequent appeal. In November, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.Just as Microsoft lawyer Thomas Hungar began presenting its arguments, Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Elena Kagen pressed him on the legal precedent in a 1934 case that seemed to mandate using a higher evidentiary standard. &quot;The language of that opinion is extremely broad,&quot; Kagan said, according to a transcript. &quot;And if you read that opinion, no one would gather from that opinion the kinds of limits that you're suggesting on it.Ginsburg, too, seemed to read the earlier ruling as requiring a higher standard of evidence than Microsoft proposes. &quot;An infringer who assails the validity of a patent...bears a heavy burden of persuasion and fails unless his evidence has more than a dubious preponderance,&quot; Ginsburg saidHungar argued that subsequent case law &quot;rejected the proposition that there is a heightened standard.&quot; Indeed, Hungar argued that requiring juries to consider such detail in complex patent litigation strains the bounds of logic.&quot;The fundamental problem is imposing this heightened standard on the jury that has no moorings in the statute and no moorings in common sense,&quot; Hungar argued.For its case, i4i argued that Congress has long understood the case law that requires the higher evidentiary standard and has chosen to allow case law to dictate patent protection, something i4i's lawyer Seth Waxman called &quot;active acquiescence.&quot;&quot;This is not a statute that Congress enacted and then forgot about,&quot; Waxman argued. Congress &quot;has been very active in this field, it is well aware of the clear and convincing evidence standard, and it has done nothing whatsoever to change it, [or] any effort to consider making such a sweeping change in long-standing doctrine.&quot;Waxman was pressed less than Hungar, with some questions from Justices Scalia, Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor focused on jury instruction in the case.The case was heard by eight justices, with Chief Justice John Roberts not taking part because he owns more than $100,000 worth of Microsoft stock. The court will likely rule on the matter by the end of June.Microsoft v. i4i US Supreme Court transcript(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(&quot;script&quot;)' scribd.type = &quot;text/javascript&quot;' scribd.async = true' scribd.src = &quot;http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js&quot;' var s = document.getElementsByTagName(&quot;script&quot;)[0]' s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s)' })()'<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Ford names 25 top EV-ready cities in the U.S.]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ford-names-25-top-ev-ready-cities-in-the-u-s-</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ford-names-25-top-ev-ready-cities-in-the-u-s-</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:11:22 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>afrolitochka</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ford-names-25-top-ev-ready-cities-in-the-u-s-</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Ford)From New York City to Seattle, Wash., Ford this week named 25 U.S. cities that are paving the way for an influx of electric vehicles.By the end of 2012 there will be more than 20 plug-in vehicles on the market, said Mike Tinskey, manager of vehicle electrification and infrastructure for Ford. And major metropolitan areas and utility companies are working together to provide an infrastructure for public charging stations.&quot;Over the next 12 months we will see at least 18,000 new charge stations in U.S. cities,&quot; Tinskey said. &quot;People will start seeing charge stations in some pretty familiar places,&quot; he said.The Ford Focus EV will be available by the end of 2011, and many more electric vehicles makes from other automakers will be available over the next two years. Ford has complied the list to not only recognize which cities are getting EV-ready, but also to encourage other cities to start preparing, Tinskey said.While the list of cities is diverse, it's not surprising that most of the cities flank the coasts while others dot the middle of the map. Honolulu is included, but Tinskey said pretty much the whole island of Oahu is getting EV-ready.The greater San Francisco Bay Area, not surprisingly, is also a larger geographical area that made it to the map.According to Tinskey, it's up to city governments to streamline the permit process for the installation of EV charging stations. And it's up to local utility companies to offer incentives for off-peak charging.&quot;A lot of decisions need to be made, like what the signage should look like, and whether or not local businesses can charge for the electricity, or just for the parking spot,&quot; Tinskey said. &quot;It ends up being an equal pull from the city and the local electric company. Then add a company like Ford, and it becomes the three-legged stool.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[SF passes Twitter tax break]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sf-passes-twitter-tax-break</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sf-passes-twitter-tax-break</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:10:33 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>AspisaMypsupt</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sf-passes-twitter-tax-break</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAN FRANCISCO--As expected, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors today approved a payroll tax cap for some businesses willing to move to the city's Mid-Market neighborhood.The legislation and subsequent amendments passed by a vote of 8 to 3.The Board  in a preliminary vote agreed to grant the tax breaks last week by the same margin, 8 to 3. Mayor Ed Lee has said he will sign the measure. The legislation's passing should come as good news to growing businesses in the city, but the poster child for this effort has been Twitter. The company currently resides in a building in the South of Market neighborhood and has been considering a move out of the city due to San Francisco's high payroll taxes and rents. Other tech firms like social-gaming company Zynga and Yelp, all born in San Francisco, have also threatened to leave the city for similar reasons.The legislation that officially passed today will cap payroll taxes for companies with a payroll of at least $1 million for the next seven years. That cap would remain even if the companies add to their ranks. Additionally, employee income from exercising stock options will not be taxed. Critics have said the legislation will drive away residents from one of the few neighborhoods in San Francisco with affordable rents and will deprive the city of a valuable source of revenue.But those in favor say it will revitalize an economically depressed neighborhood and encourage successful businesses to remain in a city whose tax structure has been increasingly unfriendly to businesses.CNET's Kent German contributed to this report.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Screenshots allegedly reveal Windows 8 app store]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=screenshots-allegedly-reveal-windows-8-app-store</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=screenshots-allegedly-reveal-windows-8-app-store</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Johnny5401</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=screenshots-allegedly-reveal-windows-8-app-store</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A screenshot that apparently shows the upcoming Windows app store.(Credit:ZDNet)The latest batch of alleged Windows 8 screenshots leaked onto the Web shows that a long-rumored Windows app store will appear in the next version of Microsoft's OS.The new images and information were published yesterday by Chinese tech news site CNBeta.com. Reportedly taken from a current pre-beta build of Windows 8, the screenshots reveal a dedicated window geared toward downloading and managing apps with links to both Microsoft software and third-party programs, such as Internet Explorer, Office 2010,Firefox, Opera, FreeCell, and Angry Birds.Citing information from its sources, CNBeta also is claiming that internal testing of the store has been completed and that Microsoft will soon release it as a beta.Rumors and reports about an upcoming Windows app store have been around for almost a year. Based on a series of Windows 8 documents leaked last June, Microsoft has reportedly been eager to match Apple at its own game by offering its own dedicated app store.CNET sister site ZDNet, which also has published screenshots of the app store, said that Microsoft has been trying to ramp up the store since Apple unveiled its Mac App Store, which opened its virtual doors in January.Here is another screenshot of the alleged Windows app store.(Credit:ZDNet)The screenshots in English point to the name of the store as Windows App Store. If it sticks, that name is likely to upset Apple, which is suing Amazon for trademark violation over its use of the term &quot;app store&quot; for its new Android Appstore. Apple has also been pleading its case to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, asking to be granted an official trademark of the term &quot;app store.&quot; Microsoft and other companies have argued that the term is too generic to be trademarked.But Microsoft may still be playing it on the safe side in naming its Windows app store. An English translation of the Chinese name of the store on the CNBeta.com page displays the name as App Mall and not App Store. Meanwhile, Windows enthusiast site Windows 8 Center said the term can also be translated as App Marketplace.This latest batch of screenshots follow earlier images taken from a Windows 8 pre-beta build pointing to such new features as an expansion of the Ribbon interface, a new welcome screen, a built-in PDF reader, and a revamped version of IE that looks like its Windows Phone counterpart.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Grooveshark 'surprised' by Google snub]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=grooveshark-surprised-by-google-snub</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=grooveshark-surprised-by-google-snub</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Apr 2011 07:10:52 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>riauckli1</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=grooveshark-surprised-by-google-snub</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Music-sharing service Grooveshark responded late today to having its Android app dumped from the Android Market, saying it wasn't sure why, exactly, the app had been pulled.&quot;We were surprised by Google's removal of the Grooveshark App from the Android Marketplace, and are still unclear as to what policies have now been violated,&quot; the company said in an e-mail to CNET.As reported earlier today, Grooveshark, an online service that lets users upload songs and then share them with other users, saw its Android incarnation yanked by Google with little explanation. &quot;We remove apps from Android Market that violate our policies,&quot; was all a Google representative had to say when queried by CNET.The timing of the removal is perhaps telling in that Google is being chastised by some federal lawmakers over what they see as the company's lackluster antipiracy efforts. Google is also courting the entertainment industry in order to bring more content to Google TV, as well as to an upcoming digital music service.In 2009, Grooveshark, which oversees a cache of more than 6 million songs, responded to a copyright suit from record label EMI by agreeing to license the EMI catalog. But sources say other big labels still view the company as a pirate operation. Apple removed the Grooveshark iOS app from its App Store last August, after receiving complaints from the major labels. When queried earlier today, Google did not specify if it had been pressured by the music industry to yank Grooveshark.Grooveshark's full statement follows:We were surprised by Google's removal of the Grooveshark App from the Android Marketplace, and are still unclear as to what policies have now been violated. We have always had a positive relationship with Google as evidenced by the Grooveshark App's active and featured presence in the Android Marketplace for the past one and a half years. We respect copyright law and the rights of content owners, generating positive results and revenues for the artists and labels that we have agreements with. Regarding the content for which we do not have agreements in place yet, we abide by, and pay royalties, according to the rules outlined in the DMCA, the same legal act that governs Google and YouTube's activities. We are eagerly looking to enter into agreements with all labels and content owners, so that we can work together to the benefit of all parties. To be effective, these agreements, however, must be struck directly with the respective content owners in the boardroom not the courtroom.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[How I nearly got scammed on Facebook]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-i-nearly-got-scammed-on-facebook</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-i-nearly-got-scammed-on-facebook</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Apr 2011 07:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>jose22</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-i-nearly-got-scammed-on-facebook</guid>
<description><![CDATA[You may remember the now-famous New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner depicting a couple of canines in front of a computer with one telling the other that &quot;on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.&quot; Talk about prescience. And that was in 1993, long before most Internet flim-flammers began running their con games on the rest of us.  So there I was browsing through my e-mail while sucking down the first coffee of the morning yesterday, when I came across a distress message from an old industry contact. We had just reconnected on Facebook. For reasons that will soon become apparent, I'm changing her name in this account to Jane. The message read:I'm writing this with tears in my eyes, my family and I came down here to North Wales, United Kingdom for a short vacation. Unfortunately,we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash and credit card were stolen off us but luckily for us we still have ourpassports with us.We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight leaves in few hours from now but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel managerwon't let us leave until we settle the bills. Well I really need your financially assistance. Please, let me know if you can help us outAm freaked out at the moment!!&quot;Now, I'm used to Internet scams where notes arrive in my e-mail in-box, supposedly from people in dire straits pleading urgently for help. And true to my Queens-Brooklyn upbringing, I'm no sucker for sob stories. My first reaction usually is something along the lines of &quot;fuggedaboutit.&quot; But that knee-jerk skepticism got tested after I logged onto Facebook and saw Jane was online as well. &quot;Hey, how are you doing&quot; I wrote. &quot;Not good,&quot; she replied immediately.That led to a back-and-forth where &quot;Jane&quot; again sketched out her dilemma and repeated her plea requesting financial help to the tune of $1,900-plus (via Western Union.)Related links&amp;149' Facebook friends don't ask friends for money&amp;149' Using Facebook and Twitter safely&amp;149' How to secure your Facebook account That's where I became suspicious. Back in the day, when she was running point for her company's communications campaigns, I found Jane to be as sharp as a tack. One could never picture her as this helpless naif, sobbing in confusion about her next step. Besides, why would she send out a mass e-mail rather than try and figure out an answer on her own I also knew Jane could buy and sell the likes of me at least 1,000 times over, so why not just call Goldman Sachs--or wherever she's parked her trust fund--and have them send a limo and a change of clothes, pronto Then again, you never really know. Maybe she was indeed in a bad jam and I was the right person at the right time. Besides, I'm a sucker for the idea of coming to a damsel's distress. Plus, this wasn't a bogus Sanii Abacha scam mail' she was actually conducting a live chat from Jane's legitimate Facebook account. She had to be on the level.  Or not.The only thing I was sure about was my confusion. So I began fishing to see if I could learn more about who really was on the other end of the line. It didn't take very long.&quot;Where do I know you from&quot; I wrote.&quot;OMG, you must be kidding.&quot; Then, radio silence for what seemed to be several minutes.  I played another card.&quot;Wait, aren't you the Jane that I knew from Apple&quot; I asked.&quot;Yes, that's me,&quot; Jane said. Busted. Jane never worked for Apple and that was all I needed. But before logging off, I gave the impostor a self-righteous dressing down. Probably not a terrific idea since he/she could see my info, but it felt good all the same. A postscript from the real Jane, who is doing just fine, thank you.&quot;Several of my friends from Stanford alerted me to this scam earlier today--and then my niece got caught in a chat with &quot;fake Jane&quot; like you did and gave me a call,&quot; she e-mailed me. &quot;So I've changed all passwords and upped my Facebook security. Let's see if that helps. It is frightening that someone could break into my account--and I'm not sure I feel confident that it won't happen again.&quot;&quot;I think it's a great cautionary tale--and if the person on the other end of the chat had &quot;guessed right&quot; on the questions that you and my niece posed, it might have seemed pretty darn authentic. My niece happened to ask why I was in Wales, and my fake-self answered that I was traveling with &quot;the family,&quot; which would no way be an answer I'd give! But...I see how easy it could be for someone to say just enough to make folks think it really was me. Very scary, this Internet thingie! ' ) And so we're left with this lingering ambiguity. But that's just the reality of our times. And until some technology bright bulb figures out an answer, there's not much we can do but use our heads and heed the advice Reagan used to offer Gorbachev: trust but verify.This story originally appeared on CBSNews.com.   Charles Cooper    Full Profile E-mail Charles Cooper   E-mail Charles Cooper If you have a question or comment for Charles Cooper, you can submit it here. However, because our editors and writers receive hundreds of requests, we cannot tell you when you may receive a response.   Submit your question or comment here: 0 of 1500 characters       Charles Cooper is an executive editor at CBSNews.com. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, working at CNET News, the Associated Press, Computer &amp; Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[With Virgin Oceanic, Branson plans to get deep]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-virgin-oceanic-branson-plans-to-get-deep</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-virgin-oceanic-branson-plans-to-get-deep</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:10:50 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ravier2012</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-virgin-oceanic-branson-plans-to-get-deep</guid>
<description><![CDATA[With Virgin Oceanic, Richard Branson wants to explore the deepest spots in each of the five ocean using the DeepFlight Challenger from Hawkes Ocean Technologies.(Credit:Virgin Oceanic)Picking up where the late uber-adventurer Steve Fossett left off, Virgin impresario Richard Branson said today he wants to go to the deepest spot on Earth.In a press conference today in Newport Beach, Calif., Branson announced his Virgin Oceanic and Five Dives initiatives, which could send a Virgin-branded deep-sea submersible with a single pilot to the deepest spots in each of the planet's five oceans.Virgin Oceanic will use the DeepFlight Challenger, a submersible built by Hawkes Ocean Technologies of Point Richmond, Calif., for the dives.The five dives are intended to be to the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench, which at 36,201 feet below the surface is the deepest spot on the planet' the Atlantic Ocean's Puerto Rico Trench at 28,232 feet underwater' the Indian Ocean's Diamantina Trench at 26,401 feet below the surface' the Southern Ocean's South Sandwich Trench, which is 23,737 feet down' and the Arctic Ocean's Molloy Deep, which bottoms out at 18,399 feet down.Virgin Oceanic's deep-sea submersible (images) The idea is that by exploring these deepest of points on Earth, Branson's new venture will be able to contribute to the science of the oceans. As Virgin Oceanic (see video below) put it in a release, the expedition &quot;offers an unprecedented opportunity to conduct scientific research and to expand our knowledge of the unique conditions, ecosystems, and geology that exist at the bottom of the oceans.&quot;As part of the announcement, Branson said explorer Chris Welch will be behind the controls of the DeepFlight Challenger for the dive to the Mariana Trench--the big prize, while Branson himself will pilot the submersible to the Puerto Rico Trench. Welch and his company, Deep Sub, bought the submersible after Fossett's death, and Virgin Oceanic is the sponsor of the expeditions.The DeepFlight Challenger is designed to cruise at up to 3 knots and has the capability to dive 350 feet per minute. The Mariana Trench dive, which is expected to take place later this year, should take about five hours. Virgin Oceanic plans the next four dives over the following 24 months, assuming that it can get all of the certifications and regulatory approvals it needs.Following in Fossett's footstepsWhile attaching the Virgin and Branson names to the first-ever attempt at soloing the Mariana Trench, Branson is only picking up where his late friend Fossett had been intending to go several years ago.On September 3, 2007, Fossett, who was the first person to fly around the world nonstop in a balloon, and who held 116 records in five sports, died when his airplane smashed into mountains near Mammoth, Calif. At the time, he was working with Hawkes Ocean Technologies to ready the DeepFlight Challenger for the first solo dive to the Mariana Trench.Related links&amp;149' Oceans' salvation may lie in exploration&amp;149' A personal deep-sea submersible takes flight &amp;149' Steve Fossett's unfinished legacy: Deepest ocean explorationHawkes was just four weeks from putting the vessel through its first real tests when Fossett disappeared. His body was not found until October 2008.Hawkes made its own announcement today lauding Fossett's &quot;vision and courage in taking the first step to advance manned, deep ocean access technology&quot; and saying that &quot;While we initially began the DeepFlight project with the goal of getting one person to 36,000 feet, now our goal is to get 36,000 people at least one foot down in the oceans.&quot;Hawkes also said today that it has been preparing two of its DeepFlight Super Falcon submersibles: One is for an expedition it will lead in the Gulf of Aqaba, during which a team will try to be the first to explore that area &quot;below diver depths.&quot; The second is for a separate, multi-year ocean expedition that will be helmed by well-known venture capitalist Tom Perkins and will begin with dives among the &quot;big animals&quot; of the South Pacific.Mariana TrenchWhile first Fossett and now Branson have sought the notoriety of being the first to complete a solo dive to the Mariana Trench, such a success would by no means be the first-ever journey there. In fact, that was a feat that was first completed when Navy Lt. Don Walsh and his co-pilot, Jacques Piccard, made it to the deep-sea spot about 200 miles southwest of Guam on January 23, 1960.But the fact that no one ever returned to the Mariana Trench, let alone doing so solo, has led many experts to bemoan the lack of serious exploration and research, on par with what is done in outer space, in our oceans. &quot;We were happy to be the first, but we didn't expect to be the last,&quot; Walsh told CNET last year as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of his dive was about to get underway. &quot;To paraphrase [author] Tom Wolfe, we had the right stuff, but [went in] the wrong direction...In the oceanographic community globally, not just in the United States, we have really failed to make the necessary investments to learn about the world's oceans, which cover 70 percent of our planet.&quot;Another who worries about humankind's middling interest in what is to be found in our oceans is famed explorer and researcher Sylvia Earle, who was awarded the 2009 TED Prize for her work and who started Mission Blue, the goal of which is to &quot;heal and protect the Earth's oceans through the creation and management of essential marine protected areas.&quot;In an interview timed to the 50th anniversary celebration of Walsh and Piccard's 1960 dive, Earle told CNET, &quot;We're far behind the curve from where we need to be...People look at the surface, and they think that's the ocean, and because they can't see what's going on below, they think everything's just fine. But those of us with decades of exploration [experience know that] the ocean is in trouble, and therefore so are we.&quot;And that's a sentiment that Branson seems to share. In today's announcement, Branson offered this thought: &quot;What if I were to tell you about a planet, inhabited by 'intelligent' beings that had, in the 21st century, physically explored zero percent of its deepest points and mapped only 3 percent of its oceans by unmanned craft, when 70 percent of that planet's surface was made up of water. Then I tried to convince you that only 10 percent of the life forms inhabiting that unknown world are known to those on the surface--you'd think I'd fallen asleep watching the latest sci-fi blockbuster. Then you discover that planet is Earth.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Battery uses freshwater, salt water to produce power]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=battery-uses-freshwater-salt-water-to-produce-power</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=battery-uses-freshwater-salt-water-to-produce-power</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 01 Apr 2011 07:11:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>wirawuera</dc:creator>
<category>Social</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=battery-uses-freshwater-salt-water-to-produce-power</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The clean-energy geeks (definitely a term of endearment) at Stanford University have come up with a way to turn every river in the world into a power plant--no big ugly hydropower dams required. Put simply, Yi Cui, associate professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford, and his research team want to put a newly developed rechargeable battery at the mouths of rivers' the batteries would take advantage of the difference in salinity between salt water and freshwater to produce electricity and charge themselves. The cycle that generates electricity in Cui's new battery (Credit:Yi Cui / Stanford)That's the simple explanation. For the explanation that includes a discussion of the relationship between voltage and the concentration of sodium and chlorine ions, check out the news from Stanford. That said, the basic concept behind the battery itself isn't too complex and is similar to other batteries--basically two electrodes immersed in water--but the Stanford team took advantage of nanotechnology, which is cool because...here, let's just let them explain it: To enhance efficiency, the positive electrode of the battery is made from nanorods of manganese dioxide. That increases the surface area available for interaction with the sodium ions by roughly 100 times compared with other materials. The nanorods make it possible for the sodium ions to move in and out of the electrode with ease, speeding up the process.The nanorods are also stronger than the fragile membranes that have been used to generate current in similar salinity projects.Cui's team calculated that the batteries could create 13 percent of the world's current power consumption if deployed on every river. But there are plenty of obstacles to that ever becoming a reality, not the least of which is potential conflict with critical wildlife habitat.&quot;You would want to pick a site some distance away, miles away, from any critical habitat,&quot; Cui said in a release. &quot;We don't need to disturb the whole system, we just need to route some of the river water through our system before it reaches the ocean. We are just borrowing and returning it.&quot;Even if it doesn't solve the world's energy problems, the new technology can make a dent. Cui envisions that a power station at the mouth of a single river could generate enough energy for 100,000 homes.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Chevy unveils new Malibu in China, on Facebook]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chevy-unveils-new-malibu-in-china-on-facebook</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chevy-unveils-new-malibu-in-china-on-facebook</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:10:28 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>beachnudey</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chevy-unveils-new-malibu-in-china-on-facebook</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Chevy teases the tail of its new Malibu.(Credit:GM)Punctuating its move toward globalcars, Chevy will unveil the next-generation Malibu simultaneously at the Shanghai auto show and on the marque's Facebook page. The auto show unveil will be shown live on Facebook at 5:30 p.m. PT on April 18.Prior to the unveil, Chevy released a teaser photo showing a set of LED taillights and the rear fender of the car. The square design of the taillights reveals a retro look, similar to the square gauges in the new Chevy Camaro.The only other clues Chevy offers about the new Malibu is that it will be powered by &quot;global family of fuel-efficient and powerful four-cylinder engines, along with six-speed transmissions.&quot; For U.S. models, we would expect direct injection and possibly turbochargers, but a diesel version would be unlikely.The Malibu should also benefit from the latest versions of OnStar, which allows integration with smartphone apps, and an updated navigation system.Chevy boasts that the Malibu was GM's best-selling car in the U.S. in 2010. Chevy's moves into emerging markets and its expansion in Europe led to 4.26 million global sales in 2010.In the U.S., we will get our first chance to see the new Malibu live at the 2011 New York auto show.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Obama's got an iPad, and he tethers too]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=obamas-got-an-ipad-and-he-tethers-too</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=obamas-got-an-ipad-and-he-tethers-too</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>watchzangare</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=obamas-got-an-ipad-and-he-tethers-too</guid>
<description><![CDATA[President Obama on a computer in Northern Michigan University last month.(Credit:Pete Souza/The White House)Despite callingApple's iPad, among other modern-day entertainment gadgets, a conduit for distraction less than a year ago, U.S. President Barack Obama has been outed as an iPad owner himself. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Obama detailed that fact during a town hall meeting with Spanish-language network Univision, which took place earlier today. During an interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, Obama said he does in fact have an iPad, and even tethers it to his high-security BlackBerry cell phone. Obama also noted that he owns his own computer, joking to Ramos and the audience about the idea of him having to borrow one from someone else:Ramos: Not long ago I was having a conversation with my son. He's only 12 years old, and he couldn't believe that I grew up in a world where there were no cell phones, no Internet, no computers. (Laughter.) So do you have your BlackBerry with you, or do you have aniPhone What do you haveObama: You know, I took my BlackBerry off for this show, because I didn't want it going off, and that would be really embarrassing. But usually I carry a BlackBerry around.Ramos: Do you have an iPadObama: I do have an iPad. Ramos: Your own [a] computerObama: I've got my own computer.Ramos: Very well. (Laughter.)Obama: I mean, Jorge, I'm the President of the United States. You think I've got a -- (laughter and applause) -- you think I've got to go borrow somebody's computer (Laughter.) Hey, man, can I borrow your computer (Laughter.) How about you You've got oneIn a commencement speech to students of Hampton University last May, Obama admitted to not knowing how to workApple's iPod or iPad, or Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation game consoles. Obama had also referred to the devices as turning information into a &quot;distraction, a diversion,&quot; and &quot;a form of entertainment&quot; that kept people from empowering themselves. The flip-flop on that particular topic is certainly a testament to the iPad being more than an entertainment device, even if that's what Obama is using his for. Perhaps we'll soon have a list of Obama's favorite apps if he's as happy to share them as he was with his NCAA basketball tournament picks. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Intel executive quits as smartphone biz falters]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=intel-executive-quits-as-smartphone-biz-falters</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=intel-executive-quits-as-smartphone-biz-falters</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:10:57 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>arliqoixgas</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=intel-executive-quits-as-smartphone-biz-falters</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Intel executive who led Intel's so-far-unsuccessful push into smartphones andtablets quit as that business comes under unrelenting competitive pressure from companies like Apple, Qualcomm, and Nvidia. Anand Chandrasekher, who had headed up Intel&amp;39's push into smartphones and tablets.(Credit:Intel)Anand Chandrasekher, who had been senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Ultra Mobility Group, announced today that he will be leaving Intel to &quot;pursue other interests.&quot; Effective immediately, Mike Bell and Dave Whalen, both vice presidents of Intel Architecture Group (IAG), will co-manage the group, which is responsible for building Atom chips that go into smartphones and tablets. This follows the departure last year of Eric Kim, who headed another team--Intel's Digital Home Group--that targeted the Atom processor for consumer products such as TVs. &quot;Intel remains committed to this business,&quot; said David Perlmutter, executive vice president and IAG general manager, in a statement, referring to smartphones. &quot;We continue to make the investments needed to ensure that the best user experience on smartphones and handhelds runs on Intel architecture, and to ship a phone this year,&quot; he said. Chandrasekher had become somewhat infamous for making regular appearances at Intel conferences over the last few years and invariably waving a prototype smartphone or handheld device for the cameras, then promising that an Intel-based smartphone was on the way. But none ever materialized. &quot;The industry has gone right past them,&quot; said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman &amp; Renshaw. &quot;They're just another player [in the smartphone and tablet markets]. There's no first among equals,&quot; Kumar said, referring to the ARM processor business, which is dominated by an oligarchy of other big chip companies, including Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Samsung, Apple, Marvell, and Nvidia. Another analyst says that Intel's first chip designed specifically for tablets and smartphones, &quot;Moorestown,&quot; was a failure. &quot;Moorestown was a complete flop,&quot; said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at The Linley Group, a chip consulting firm. &quot;Intel is still struggling to get traction in tablets and particularly smartphones. Atom is in a few tablets that run Windows, but Windows tablets are not very popular, except in a few vertical applications,&quot; he said. And what about Intel's next-generation Atom for smartphones &quot;It remains to be seen whether Medfield (the next Atom for smartphones) will do any better, since Intel has not disclosed any details on that product yet. In addition to finding customers, the new [Ultra Mobility Group] management has a big task in figuring out how to integrate Atom with the ex-Infineon baseband products,&quot; Gwennap said, referring to Infineon's wireless business, which Intel purchased this year. &quot;Legacy (Windows) compatibility doesn't matter in the post-PC era. All the blockbuster products that Apple has had are post-PC. Therein lies the conundrum for Microsoft and Intel,&quot; added Kumar. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[DST glitch: Apple iOS would rather spring back]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dst-glitch-apple-ios-would-rather-spring-back</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dst-glitch-apple-ios-would-rather-spring-back</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>09ZSirish</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=dst-glitch-apple-ios-would-rather-spring-back</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Were you affected by the DST glitch(Credit:Josh Catone/Mashable)Apple'siPhone,iPod Touch, andiPad yet again had difficulty adjusting to daylight saving time. Frustrated U.S. iDevice users on Facebook, Twitter, and Apple forums griefed over the weekend that their gadgets fell back an hour instead of springing forward.  This means many alarms went off went off at incorrect times yesterday and today, making people late for appointments, church, and whatever else people do on Sunday mornings (as for me, just don't wake me up).&quot;Thanks iPod Touch and iPhone for making me late to work! DST is not working properly,&quot; Twitter user iSiC_XXIII wrote. Wrote Twitter user meemnoonwowrah: &quot;Wife's iPhone needed a reboot to fix DST time switch. My Android phone was automatic. Even MS has that fixed. Come on Apple. Step ya game up.&quot;  The fix is easy, according to PCMag.com. &quot;Either power the phone off and turn it on again, or go into the device's settings and switch Airplane Mode on briefly, then flip it off.&quot;  The problem mirrors the bug that hit European and Australian and New Zealand iPhone owners last year when they switched from daylight saving time back to GMT. The problem could, conceivably, hit Europe again in several weeks. Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment.  Additional timekeeping problems came up on January 2, when non-reoccurring alarms failed to go off, then randomly fixed themselves the following day. Maybe Apple needs to hire a CCO (chief clockmaking officer) who can tune up these devices back up  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google claims better Web video with new VP8]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-claims-better-web-video-with-new-vp8</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-claims-better-web-video-with-new-vp8</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>001xdark</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-claims-better-web-video-with-new-vp8</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Google's VP8 technology for encoding Web video just got a notch better at creating video, the Net giant says, and another round of improvements are set for a sequel due next quarter.Yesterday, Google released its &quot;Bali&quot; version of VP8 software then announced a new Cayuga version set to ship late in the second quarter of 2011. The software doesn't change the VP8 technology, a codec that defines a method of encoding and decoding video, but works faster and does a better job than the preceding public version of VP8, called Aylesbury and released in November.When encoding video with VP8's best quality setting on a computer with an x86 processor, &quot;Bali runs 4.5x as fast than our initial release and 1.35x faster than Aylesbury,&quot; said John Luther, WebM product manager, in a blog post yesterday. A lesser improvement comes with the good quality setting. The new version also works better on ARM chips, particularly multicore ARM chips. That's important given the growing use of video telephony and the dominance of ARM processors in smartphones andtablets.VP8, along with the Vorbis audio codec, form Google's royalty-free, open-source WebM technology. It's not clear yet exactly how patent-free WebM will be, though' a patent licensing group called MPEG LA is actively soliciting patent holders to come forward if they have patented technology they believe is required to implement WebM.In the grand scheme of things, the new Bali and Cayuga versions don't drastically change the fate of VP8, a technology Google is hoping will usher in a royalty-free online video future not possible with today's dominant but patent-encumbered H.264 codec. But Bali and Cayuga do show that Google is continuing to invest significantly in a technology it clearly deems a high priority for its vision of the Net's future. Google Chrome 10, released yesterday, dropped built-in support for H.264 for showing videos built into Web pages with the new HTML5 standard.Aylesbury focused on faster decoding, and Bali focused on faster encoding. &quot;We will continue to focus on encoder speed in Cayuga,&quot; Luther said in blog post. &quot;There are more speed improvements to be had. As always, we'll continue to improve video quality in the encoder.&quot;Faster encoding is important for companies--and for Google's massive YouTube operation--that are considering encoding Web video with WebM as well as other technology.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Bing deepens 'liked results' Facebook integration]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bing-deepens-liked-results-facebook-integration</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bing-deepens-liked-results-facebook-integration</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:10:03 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>joesmithie2</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bing-deepens-liked-results-facebook-integration</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft says the feature that highlights Facebook activity around some of Bing's search results has been &quot;extended&quot; to include any and all URLs.The company announced the expansion in a blog post earlier today, saying that this integration was just &quot;part of a longer journey,&quot; and that it played a complimentary role to the company's efforts in adding a social layer to is results, as it did with Twitter.&quot;This is the first time in human history that people are leaving social traces that machines can read and learn from, and present enhanced online experiences based on those traces,&quot; Lawrence Kim, the principal program manager for social search, said in a post on the Bing Team blog. &quot;As people spend more time online and integrate their offline and online worlds, they will want their friends' social activity and their social data to help them in making better decisions.&quot;The Bing feature analyzes links that show up in its search results to see if Facebook friends have &amp;34'liked&amp;34' that particular URL.(Credit:Microsoft)Microsoft had originally unveiled the social features back in October of last year at a press conference with Bing execs and Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The company rolled them out to U.S. users three weeks later. Last week, Google unveiled a similarly social feature it's applying to search results which takes advantage of data from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to display links that have been shared by other users. The feature remains exclusive to U.S. users of Bing, the company said.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[IBM researchers show love for 'Jeopardy' champion Watson]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ibm-researchers-show-love-for-jeopardy-champion-watson</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ibm-researchers-show-love-for-jeopardy-champion-watson</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Feb 2011 08:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>CarPsyday</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ibm-researchers-show-love-for-jeopardy-champion-watson</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A large group of researchers watched their hero, Watson, take on the best 'Jeopardy' players in history Wednesday night at the Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)SAN JOSE, Calif.--I'm going to just come out and admit it--I was rooting for the humans. By &quot;humans,&quot; of course, I mean Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, two men who on the one hand are the greatest champions in the history of &quot;Jeopardy&quot; and who on the other just ended up getting their butts handed to them at the game by a computer that didn't even seem to know that Toronto isn't in the United States.In case you were somehow in a cabin in the mountains with no Internet access and no TV over the last few weeks and don't know what I'm talking about, I'm referring of course to the latest IBM Grand Challenge--Big Blue's development of a supercomputer known as Watson that was intended to be able to beat the world's best &quot;Jeopardy&quot; players at a game centered around one of the biggest problems in computing: understanding and parsing natural language.Over the last three days, Watson's battle against Jennings and Rutter played out on national TV in a two-game match. May the best, er, man win. Though I wasn't able to be in the room at IBM Research in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., when the matches were played last month, I did get invited to the final night party this evening at IBM's Almaden Research Center here, and let me tell you, though I was in a roomful of actual human beings, not many of them shared my preference for a contestant with DNA. These folks were definitely in Watson's corner, tinny text-to-speech voice and all.In the end, they all got the last laugh. As you've no doubt heard by now, Watson out and out dominated Jennings and Rutter, finishing the two games with a total of $77,147, more than the two humans' $24,000 (Jennings) and $21,600 (Rutter) combined.So I guess Jennings' tongue-in-cheek comment &quot;I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords,&quot; which he wrote along with his Final Jeopardy question, was somewhat appropriate.Roomful of researchersWhen I got the invitation to tonight's festivities, I accepted readily. I knew it would be a lot of fun to watch the prime-time conclusion of IBM's four-year effort in the same room as a large group of people who might actually be able to understand the complex science, technology, and math behind the Watson project. Of course, many of those researchers brought their families with them to watch the final match, and some of the kids may have been more enthusiastic than any of the employees.&quot;My daughter feels 50 percent more geeky&quot; than she used to, said James Kaufman, a research manager at the Almaden facility. To which the daughter, Sarah Kaufman, added, &quot;I was pretty geeky to start with.&quot;Watson research manager Eric Brown spent part of the evening answering questions about the project and signing autographs. He also posed for a few pictures.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)The evening began with coffee and popcorn outside the research center's auditorium, and on hand was a surprise guest--Eric Brown, Watson research manager at Yorktown Heights, who happened to be in town for another meeting and decided to stick around and regale the crowd with some tales of the project. Standing outside the auditorium, Brown was answering questions and signing autographs. If you think about it, it's probably a pretty rare thing for an otherwise unknown IBM employee to be signing autographs, but here he was a rock star.One kid came up to him for an autograph, and Brown said to him, &quot;Are you going to be a computer scientist when you grow up Because, you know, when you're a computer scientist, you get to go on TV. It's really quite glamorous.&quot;To Brown, being able to watch the finale with a group of fellow researchers was a very different experience than being with members of the general public. Yet, he said that everywhere he's gone as an ambassador for the Watson project, he's been struck by the high level of public excitement. Still, here at Almaden, he knew that the audience would bring &quot;a different eye&quot; to the show.Confidence To me, one of the most interesting things about watching the two matches among Watson, Jennings, and Rutter was seeing the little display at the bottom of the screen in which viewers could see not only Watson's top three potential answers but also the percentage of confidence the computer had in each. To Brown, that last element is one of the most important parts of the entire project. &quot;What [Watson] really is,&quot; Brown said, &quot;is a demonstration of the technology. And what we really want people to think about is [that Watson has to] come up with an answer buried in a [natural language] concept, not only the right answer, but confidence in the answer.&quot;Strangely, there were times during the two matches when Watson's confidence in what turned out to be the right answer was extremely low. At least once, Watson pegged what turned out to be the right answer at just 12 percent confidence and didn't even bother to buzz in. That struck me as odd. But to James Kaufman, that wasn't surprising, given that in order to come up with an answer, Watson had to balance several different algorithms. Most of the time it worked and quite well as evidenced by the computer's resounding victory. But sometimes the computer seemed very off-kilter.Another thing that didn't surprise Kaufman was how well the computer did, even matched up against trivia powerhouses like Jennings and Rutter. &quot;I know the guys [on the] Watson&quot; team, Kaufman said, alluding to those researchers' across-the-board genius-level intelligence.What did surprise Kaufman was how, depending on the topic at hand, the amount of time that Watson sometimes took to answer a question. &quot;That struck me as almost human,&quot; he said. &quot;It was almost hesitation.&quot;Kaufman said that he really enjoyed being able to watch Watson take on the champions and do so well, even as the computer sometimes made silly mistakes, such as its answer of Toronto to the first-match Final Jeopardy question about U.S. cities. But mainly, Watson showed off what was an extremely impressive display of computing prowess, one that now has to be measured right up against IBM's Deep Blue's victory over chess world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.&quot;I spoke to a colleague,&quot; Kaufman said, &quot;who said that the goal [of the Watson project] was to create the computer on 'Star Trek.' They're moving the needle in that direction, and I think they did it.&quot;'Marry that computer'Sarah Kaufman, daughter of research manager James Kaufman, posed with a sign touting the Watson match.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)Throughout the evening, IBM Silicon Valley human resources manager Alexa MacDonald fired up the crowd with a series of IBM- and &quot;Jeopardy&quot;-related questions. One showed how closely the group had been paying attention to the project. When MacDonald asked what the correct answer to the first match Final Jeopardy question was--the very same question that Watson botched by responding with &quot;Toronto,&quot; about half the room shouted out &quot;Chicago!&quot;To Andy Hood, a technician specialist at Almaden who with a steady stream of fist-pumping cheers, loud exhortations to the screen, and general energetic support of Watson may have been the most enthusiastic member of the crowd, the outcome of the matches was never in doubt. &quot;I believed that Watson was going to crush [Jennings and Rutter],&quot; Hood said. &quot;He's just got way more information available.&quot;But teenager Sarah Kaufman may have been the one who Watson may most want to meet. &quot;I want to marry that computer,&quot; she said in all seriousness after the computer had finished destroying its merely human opponents.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[HP walks on the bile side at the Grammys]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hp-walks-on-the-bile-side-at-the-grammys</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hp-walks-on-the-bile-side-at-the-grammys</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 13 Feb 2011 08:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>reyesgutss</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hp-walks-on-the-bile-side-at-the-grammys</guid>
<description><![CDATA[It seems but a year ago that famed right-wing singer Stephen Colbert launched the iPad at the Grammys. Principally because it was.So at tonight's Grammys, it was HP's turn to touch the nation's hearts, with its TouchPad.And some may decide that HP's musical contribution was created by someone very touched indeed.For someone enjoying a spark of dubious luminosity appears to have thought it a fine idea to take Lou Reed's great anthem to grime and excitement, &quot;Walk on the Wild Side,&quot; and rewrite the words.Yes, Grammy TV audiences were treated to such lines as &quot;Everybody touch, everybody tap, everybody move, everybody app.&quot; Yes, and this came just slightly before--all together now: &quot;Everybody digg, everybody host, everybody skype, everybody post.&quot;It was as if Kanye West had swallowed a large bottle of whiskey, taken Taylor Swift's &quot;Teardrops on my Guitar,&quot; and changed the words to &quot;Beer Stains on my New Bra.&quot;I'm sure the HP TouchPad is a fine machine that will make everybody sigh, everybody buy.But really, at the party where this idea was generated, wouldn't Valium have helped that bash<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple patent shows built-in iPad stand]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patent-shows-built-in-ipad-stand</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patent-shows-built-in-ipad-stand</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:10:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>peacup2000</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patent-shows-built-in-ipad-stand</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Patently Apple)We're expecting a new iPad to be announced in the next few months, and it appears that it, or future iterations of it, could have a built-in kickstand. A new patent filed by Apple shows a stowable stand that folds into theiPad's casing, removing the need for cases with built-in stands. The patent, detailed by Patently Apple, shows a dual-hinged stand that folds out to hold up the iPad in either portrait or landscape mode on a surface like a table. It might not be built-in' the patent says it might be optional, which means it might affix via screws, suction cup, magnets, or witchcraft.  No matter what, it's better than not having a stand. As anyone with an iPad will tell you, a stand's a good idea--apps like Hulu and Netflix are popular on the iPad, and unless you're watching them in bed, you have to hold thetablet up. That's fine for short YouTube videos of cats hitting people in the groin, but not for watching awesome movies like &quot;Fletch.&quot;Currently there are many such cases with stands available on eBay, and one I got recently came with a free gift--a stylus, which leads to another intriguing patent by Apple we covered recently: yes, a stylus.Styli (that's styluses to you and me) for iPads aren't new, and they can be useful. I have a couple of drawing apps, but unlike David Hockney, finger painting isn't my style. The stylus I got in my eBay-bought case is perfect for sketching.Apple's patent shows a stylus with a ballpoint-pen-type end, allowing it to apparently roll on a conductive disk of some sort. The disk is larger than the point of the stylus, so that capacitive screens, like those of theiPhone or iPad, can sense it.As with all patents, this may or may not evolve into a shipping product, but the fact that Apple is working with the idea of a stylus is intriguing. Steve Jobs famously said during the iPhone's launch that styluses were for suckers (to paraphrase). Then count me among the suckers' I want a stylus for my iPad. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Nielsen: U.S. smartphone ownership higher among minorities]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nielsen-u-s--smartphone-ownership-higher-among-minorities</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nielsen-u-s--smartphone-ownership-higher-among-minorities</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:10:53 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abnusiredf</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nielsen-u-s--smartphone-ownership-higher-among-minorities</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Almost a third (31 percent) of all mobile phone users in the United States own smartphones, but their adoption is higher among specific minority groups, says a report out today from Nielsen.Based on a survey conducted in December, Nielsen found that 27 percent of white mobile phone users in the U.S. currently own smartphones. But that rate was lower than the 45 percent of Hispanics, 45 percent of Asians/Pacific Islanders, and 33 percent of African-American mobile users polled who said they have a smartphone.(Credit:Nielsen)The adoption rates for smartphone ownership are also rising, especially among minority groups. Over the past six months, 42 percent of white users who bought a mobile phone opted for a smartphone, while 60 percent of Asians/Pacific Islanders, 56 percent of Hispanics, and 44 of African Americans made the same choice.Which mobile platforms are proving the most popularAmong those who currently own a smartphone, Nielsen discovered a three-way tie among Research In Motion's BlackBerry, Apple's iOS, and Google's Android. However, ownership of a BlackBerry has dropped around 10 percentage points over the course of a year and iOS has remained the same, but Android has shot up 25 percentage points.(Credit:Nielsen)Further, more people who picked up a smartphone in the past six months went for an Android device, with 43 percent ownership compared with 26 percent for Apple's iOS and 20 percent for BlackBerry.A report out yesterday from research firm Canalys noted similar trends in worldwide smartphone ownership, with Android surging to become the top smartphone platform across the globe.Finally, Nielsen found that theiPhone was the top choice among Asians/Pacific Islanders, Hispanics, and white users. But among African-American smartphone owners, the BlackBerry pulled into the lead, owned by 31 percent of those polled.Nielsen surveyed a total of 56,719 people to obtain the data on current smartphone ownership and 13,258 of them to get the stats on those who bought a smartphone over the past six months.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Out with the old--Jasmine's Tech Dos & Don'ts]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=out-with-the-old-jasmines-tech-dos--donts</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=out-with-the-old-jasmines-tech-dos--donts</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:10:31 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>kristofsif</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=out-with-the-old-jasmines-tech-dos--donts</guid>
<description><![CDATA[With the new year upon us, there are no doubt plenty of plans in place for changes both big and small. For precisely this reason, January's Tech Dos &amp; Don'ts column will be focused on helping you through the necessary transitions--at least as far as technology is concerned. First up: out with the old, in with the new.Certainly, both the holidays and the Consumer Electronics Show have inspired a lot of dough-dropping in the gadget space. Many of you probably have a new device or two lying around, which raises the question: what to do with the sad, old tech you're replacing  According to one study, only 39 percent of consumers are recycling their electronics. That's not nearly enough, especially considering the sometimes hazardous and always environmentally unfriendly material that makes up most of these products. Here are some tips that I hope will help us all reduce the e-waste littering in landfills.First off, DON'T throw your electronics in the trash (bet you could see that coming a mile away). To find recycling centers near you, check out E-cycling Central. The site offers options in every one of the 50 states. For the uberdiligent, there's also a series of questions to ask potential recyclers to check whether they're using the proper disposal methods. (Some other options for searching for locations are EPA eCycling and e-Stewards.)If none of the options identified by those search offerings are close enough to home, DO check in with your local school and government offices. These establishments can often direct locals to specified locations and dates for dropping off e-waste. Also, DO research the company that manufactured the product in question. Sony for example has partnered with Waste Management to offer a Take-Back program that will even allow you to ship gadgets for recycling--a handy service for those who live in remote areas.For tech that might still be worth a little something, DON'T overlook the option to sell. Of course, we all know about eBay and Craigslist, but EcoSquid offers a more innovative way to deal with old gadgets, batteries, and cables. If there's no resale value, Ecosquid will help with recycling options as well.If selling isn't your bag (after all, it can be kind of a hassle), DO donate your unwanted gear to support a cause or organization of your choosing. Personally, I'm fond of Project KOPEG, which receives your used electronics and then donates the corresponding monetary value to a fund that helps soldiers and their families. You can donate to everything from schools to organizations that fight against domestic abuse. Goodwill also runs a great program called Reconnect that accepts certain types of tech.Finally, with all those old gadgets expunged from your repertoire, DO be forward-thinking and reduce future waste by choosing items that have less of an impact on the earth. An increasing number of companies are churning out products (and packaging) aimed at reducing our ecological footprint when it comes to technology. Indeed, I saw loads of environmentally friendly offerings on display atCES 2011, from electronic cars to headphones with principles.Have tips of your own for reducing, reusing, and recycling electronics Please share them in the comment section below.Last time:Traveling with video<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[New King of Kong crowned, but battle not over]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-king-of-kong-crowned-but-battle-not-over</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-king-of-kong-crowned-but-battle-not-over</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2011 08:10:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>termonria74y</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-king-of-kong-crowned-but-battle-not-over</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Hank Chien: This man is projecting serious swagger.(Credit:Twin Galaxies)A full 30 years after Donkey Kong's release, gamers are still holding tight to ancient arcade joysticks in a quest for the next high score.  The latest King of Kong  Hank Chien, according to video game score certification organization Twin Galaxies. The 35-year-old doctor from Queens, N.Y., has set a new Donkey Kong arcade world record by tallying up a mesmerizing score of 1,068,000 points on the classic 1981 game in 2 hours and 45 minutes. Chien beat out the previous record held by competitor Steve Wiebe (1,064,500 points).  Now the heat is on for Wiebe, a teacher, to strike back (Wiebe, true Donkey Kong afficionados may recall, was filmed in his pursuit of the DK high score in the 2007 documentary &quot;The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters&quot;).  The DK arcade scene is actually pretty fierce, with Chien competing not only against Wiebe, but others such as his predecessor, hot-sauce magnate Billy Mitchell. The fate of the barrel-tossing high score will be decided in the upcoming &quot;Kong-Off&quot; competition on March 19-20, where another player could beat Chien's latest score. In an epic battle with the top 10 DK players, the arma-kong-eddon will determine the real King of Kong. The event will be hosted at Richie Knucklez' Arcade Games in Flemington, N.J. Richie Knucklez I feel like I should go watch &quot;Out for Justice&quot; now. Hey, Richie!<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Supreme Court won't block antitrust suit against labels]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-wont-block-antitrust-suit-against-labels</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-wont-block-antitrust-suit-against-labels</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:10:53 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>grydladziepo</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-wont-block-antitrust-suit-against-labels</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The U.S. Supreme Court says an antitrust suit against major record companies can go forward.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that a lawsuit, filed by a group of online music buyers who allege the four largest record companies conspired nearly a decade ago to fix prices of songs sold online, can now move forward. The high court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by the labels--Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group--to block the suit, according to reports by Bloomberg and Reuters. Instead, the decision by a federal appeals court that the plaintiffs had supplied enough evidence to sue the labels will stand. The lawsuit by the music buyers alleged that the record labels agreed to set a wholesale price floor of about 70 cents per song when competitors were offering songs on the Web for less. A spokeswoman for Warner Music declined to comment. Representatives from the other labels and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) did not immediately respond to interview requests. The roots of the case can be traced to 2001, when the top labels were preparing to try their hand at selling digital music out of their own Internet stores. Bertelsmann, Warner Music, and EMI had backed a service called MusicNet. Sony and UMG built Pressplay. &quot;All defendants signed distribution agreements with MusicNet or Pressplay,&quot; according to the consumers' group. The labels &quot;sold music directly to consumers over the Internet through these joint ventures. Both the joint ventures and the (RIAA) provided a forum and means through which defendants could communicate about pricing, terms, and use restrictions.&quot;&quot;[The labels] sold music directly to consumers over the Internet through these joint ventures. Both the joint ventures and the (RIAA) provided a forum and means through which defendants could communicate about pricing, terms, and use restrictions.&quot; --Plaintiffs suing labels&quot;To obtain Internet Music from all major record labels,&quot; the consumer group continued, &quot;a consumer initially would have had to subscribe to both MusicNet and Pressplay at a cost of approximately $240 per year.&quot;The plaintiffs also noted that the labels were investigated about four years ago by the office of the New York State attorney general regarding wholesale prices charged for digital music and were the focus of an inquiry by the Department of Justice into possible &quot;collusion and price fixing&quot; and to determine whether &quot;defendants misled DOJ about the formation and operation of MusicNet and Pressplay.&quot; None of the investigations appeared to go anywhere. In court documents, the plaintiffs accused MusicNet and Pressplay with being anticonsumer and attempting to restrict access to online music. Even after those services began selling songs, the labels required these other outlets to &quot;only sell defendants' music if they contracted with MusicNet to provide Internet Music for the same prices and with the same restrictions as MusicNet itself or other MusicNet licensees. If the licensee attempted to license music from another company, defendants forced them to pay penalties or terminated their licenses.&quot; Rick Boucher, former congressman from Virginia.(Credit:U.S. Congress)Pressplay and MusicNet were the music industries responses to Napster and illegal file sharing. They were attempts to seize back control of distribution and cram the toothpaste back into the tube. They didn't work. Large audiences that were then just going online gravitated towards the now-defunct LimeWire and other peer-to-peer networks. From their start, MusicNet and Pressplay drew a lot of criticism. Critics, who included then Congressman Rick Boucher, warned that the labels' direct-to-consumer services could violate antitrust laws. At a tech conference in 2002, Boucher predicted that there would be trouble. &quot;That level of duopoly...of content ownership and the ownership of distribution is threatening to the arrival of competition in the delivery of music on the Web,&quot; Boucher said then. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: Verizon readies smart home service for 'nominal' fee]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-verizon-readies-smart-home-service-for-nominal-fee</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-verizon-readies-smart-home-service-for-nominal-fee</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>yeroppy</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-verizon-readies-smart-home-service-for-nominal-fee</guid>
<description><![CDATA[LAS VEGAS--Verizon atCES is showing off a home energy and security service it expects to roll out later this year priced for the &quot;mass market.&quot;Starting later this quarter, Verizon will start a trial of the Home Monitoring and Control service to its broadband customers in New Jersey, followed by a broader rollout, a company executive said here yesterday.Verizon's home monitoring and control service (photos) View the full galleryThe company will offer a couple of starter kits, with one focused on home security and the other on energy. An associated monthly fee will be &quot;nominal&quot; and priced for broad usage, said Hassane Bouhia, group manager at Verizon Broadband Solutions. With the service, consumers can go to Verizon's portal and get information on home energy use and set up different modes, such as &quot;home,&quot; &quot;away,&quot; or &quot;night.&quot; From the TV, smart phone, or PC, people can choose one of the settings to adjust the thermostat, security settings, or other networked appliances, such as lights.To make it work, people will need to purchase Z-Wave-enabled equipment, such as a wireless thermostat, Z-Wave to Wi-Fi gateway, and a dongle that lets consumers control a plugged-in appliance. The security kit will include a Wi-Fi Webcam. To get the whole home's electricity use, Verizon will also be selling a clamp that fits onto a home's circuit breaker box. With that installed (typically by a professional electrician), people can view their electricity usage over different periods and, from the portal, access home efficiency tips from sources such as the Department of Energy or the EPA, explained Bougia.Consumers can purchase many of the hardware components from other companies already but Verizon has tested them and is designing its Web portal to make it easy to configure them, he added. Verizon expects that the energy service will appeal to energy-conscious consumers, but the services will be customizable.The smart or connected home already appears to be a strong theme here at CES. Although there are a number of smart grid companies trying to bring home energy management to customers through utilities, making these services available through broadband providers could end up being an easier path to market. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report details workings of alleged Mossad hit on Hamas member]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-details-workings-of-alleged-mossad-hit-on-hamas-member</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-details-workings-of-alleged-mossad-hit-on-hamas-member</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:10:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>kaushalbuddy4u</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-details-workings-of-alleged-mossad-hit-on-hamas-member</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Nearly a year ago, a senior member of Hamas died in a hotel in Dubai. Local police blamed Israel's elite intelligence agency, Mossad, and posted a 27-minute video showing activities of the victim and what are identified as Israeli operatives inside the hotel before and after the alleged assassination.  Now, a GQ feature unveils details about the operation, how the victim had survived a poisoning attempt two months earlier and how such an advanced group of spies were unmasked by simple hotel videocameras and other standard security measures. Although Israeli officials have not confirmed or denied that Mossad carried out the mission, &quot;no one seriously doubts that to be the case,&quot; the article says. Not surprisingly, the early stages of the operation appear to have involved the use of the Internet. Israeli spies learned Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh would be arriving in Dubai on January 19, 2010, by monitoring his e-mail and online activities via a Trojan horse planted on his computer, according to the GQ article. The spies--part of a secretive unit within the Mossad known as &quot;Caesarea&quot;--didn't know what hotel Al-Mabhouh would be staying at, so they staked out different hotels he was known to visit.  When he is spotted arriving at the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, the operatives converged there and used various disguises to track his movements and get into his room. They must not have been too concerned about video surveillance cameras in the hotel as they were caught on camera talking to each other, standing in the lobby in tennis gear with rackets for hours, and exchanging room keys and suitcases. Dubai police studied hundreds of hours of closed-circuit security footage to reconstruct the activities of the operatives and Al-Mabhouh.  One operative is seen in the footage reprogramming the electronic lock to Al-Mabhouh's room so they can use an unregistered electronic key on the door without disabling Al-Mabhouh's key. It's unclear, though, how the operatives managed to leave the room with the door chained on the inside, according to the article. The operatives were linked to each other by their comings and goings at the hotel on the video footage, guest registers during that and previous Al-Mabhouh visits, the use of pre-paid debit cards issued by a company whose chief executive is a veteran of an elite Israeli Defense Force commando unit, and the use of a private switchboard in Austria that connected the operatives' phone calls without them having to call each other directly, the report says. The operatives also used forged foreign identities. &quot;False identities and cover stories are no longer any match for well-placed security cameras, effective passport control, and computer software that can almost instantly track communications and financial transactions,&quot; the article says. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: Microsoft's 2011 CES keynote (live blog)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-microsofts-2011-ces-keynote-live-blog</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-microsofts-2011-ces-keynote-live-blog</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:10:04 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Smith</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-microsofts-2011-ces-keynote-live-blog</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Join us Wednesday evening for Microsoft's CES keynote kick-off. The event is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. Pacific and should run anywhere from one to two hours based on past performances. Steve Ballmer shows off a slate PC at last year&amp;39's CES keynote.(Credit:James Martin/CNET)As usual, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be taking the stage to demonstrate the latest PCs, as well as hardware and software from Microsoft and its partners.Last year's keynote had Ballmer talking upWindows 7, while demoing the Office 2010 suite and Halo: Reach for theXbox 360. That keynote was also where we first laid eyes on HP's Slate 500 device--some 10 months before proper details of the device surfaced.Like the rest of our live coverage at CES 2011, we'll be using Cover it Live to bring you news and photos from these press conferences as they're happening. All you need to do is bookmark this page and come back to it, or sign up in the module below to get a reminder e-mail 15 minutes before it starts. You can also watch a live Webcast of the keynote through Microsoft's CES news site. Microsoft's CES keynote<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[With Verizon iPhone, how many will flee AT&T]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-verizon-iphone-how-many-will-flee-att</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-verizon-iphone-how-many-will-flee-att</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 01 Jan 2011 08:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>mawembof</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-verizon-iphone-how-many-will-flee-att</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Analysts weigh in on the potential sales impact of a Verizon iPhone.(Credit:Geeky Gadgets)For those waiting for a VerizoniPhone, the wait may not be much longer. Citing a person familiar with Apple's plans &quot;who isn't authorized to discuss them publicly,&quot; Bloomberg has been reporting that Apple will &quot;probably&quot; introduce a Verizon iPhone after next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. But what's interesting about the latest articles is that analysts are already predicting the number of AT&amp;T customers who will defect to Verizon for its new iPhone.The estimates range from 1 million to 6 million moving from AT&amp;T to Verizon, though the bulk of sales of a potential Verizon iPhone would still come from current Verizon customers updating their existing phones.The Bloomberg article quotes John Hodulik, an analyst at UBS AG in New York, who comes in &quot;somewhere in the middle&quot; with his projections, saying 2.3 million would switch from AT&amp;T to pick up a Verizon iPhone. Hodulik expects AT&amp;T would sell 8.8 million iPhones in 2011 (down from 15.6 million in 2010) and that Verizon would sell 13.3 million. Of those 13.3 million, 10 million would go to Verizon subscribers and the rest would come from other carriers. If indeed Verizon introduces an iPhone later this month, there are still some unknowns that could affect sales. For instance, how much will service plans for a Verizon iPhone cost (typically, Verizon's plans cost more than those of rival carriers), and will the phone offer any new enhancements Also, despite a lot of AT&amp;T customers being unhappy with that carrier's service, many will be weighing whether to hold out for an improved fifth-generation iPhone that will arrive in June and may support 4G data transmissions. Additionally, AT&amp;T could offer incentives for customers to stick with the company. And finally, perhaps its service will improve as more folks defect to Verizon.More:iPhone 5's 20 most-wanted features<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Survey: People can't live without high-speed Internet]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=survey-people-cant-live-without-high-speed-internet</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=survey-people-cant-live-without-high-speed-internet</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Dec 2010 08:10:02 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Torrie</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=survey-people-cant-live-without-high-speed-internet</guid>
<description><![CDATA[High-speed Internet is the technology that's had the greatest impact on society and the one that people say they can't live without, according to survey results from Zogby Interactive.Released this week, Zogby's study found that 28 percent of those polled tagged broadband Internet as the one technology they can't live without' e-mail came in second at 18 percent. Facebook was lower on the overall list at only 3 percent, but among the younger crowd (18-24), 15 percent said they can't live without Facebook.Looking at technologies that have had the greatest impact on society over the past 10 years, 24 percent named high-speed Internet, followed closely by Facebook at 22 percent. Google came in third at 10 percent.The results also varied based on gender and age.Women and adults under 55 tagged Facebook as having the most impact, while men and those over 55 pointed to high-speed Internet. Adults between 35 and 54 were split pretty evenly between the two. People from 18-24 found Facebook the most impactful technology of the past decade, with Google in second place.Zogby also asked people to gaze into the future to offer predictions for the next year and the next decade.Many (24 percent of those polled) believe the greatest technological advancements for 2011 will be in home entertainment, with general computing in second place.Looking further down the road, 43 percent of those surveyed believe science will make regular use of stem cells and cloning to create human organs for transplant by the year 2020. Forty percent think that computer chips will be implanted in people to monitor their health. The same percentage expect robots to be able to perform manual labor jobs. And 36 percent see virtual reality making its way into home entertainment by the end of the decade.To compile the study, Zogby polled 1,950 adults from December 8 through December 10.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Cisco wins more Greenpeace kudos]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cisco-wins-more-greenpeace-kudos</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cisco-wins-more-greenpeace-kudos</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:10:41 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>cash21</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cisco-wins-more-greenpeace-kudos</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Greenpeace)Cisco, once again, was the leader of the pack as Greenpeace released its latest Cool IT Leaderboard on Tuesday.The environmental watchdog group named Cisco, Ericsson, and Fujitsu, respectively, as the three most environmentally responsible IT companies. Cisco received 70 out of 100 possible points, while Ericsson received 57 points and Fujitsu 52 points. Greenpeace praised Cisco for &quot;making IT climate solutions an increasingly core part of its business strategy.&quot;Cisco was in first place in the group's previous list in April, despite Google upping its public support for climate change legislation in the U.S. at the time.In this latest evaluation, Japan-based Fujitsu was particularly praised for a 12-prong proposal it made to the Japanese government in support of reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a country. The company showed strong leadership in its proposal &quot;while the rest of the Japanese IT companies remained silent,&quot; said Greenpeace.The proposal is timely since the Japanese government has been evaluating whether it will pass a series of laws that could lead to the reduction of the country's greenhouse gas emissions to 25 percent below what they were in 1990 by 2020.Google, which ranked fourth with 47 points, was also praised for publicly opposing Proposition 23, a proposition to suspend the law already in place that mandates emissions reductions in California. Greenpeace, in fact, gave Google the highest rating when it came to environmental advocacy with 30 points, the most any company could achieve. But Google was outranked by every other company except Oracle when it came to reducing its own energy footprint, or offering a timed plan for reducing its own emissions.Companies that did not fare as well with Greenpeace include: IBM (46 points), Intel (31 points), and Microsoft (29 points).Greenpeace deducted points from their ratings because the three companies lobbied against a European Union-proposed plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020, according to Greenpeace. Meanwhile the group praised Sony Europe and Google for publicly supporting that same reduction proposal.The worst-ranked companies included SAP and Panasonic, each with 21 points. Oracle made its debut on the list in last place with 12 points.Officially, Greenpeace says that it evaluated the IT companies based on the three categories of solutions, energy impact, and advocacy. But those categories are then further broken down. The organization has released a comprehensive yet easy-to-read chart (see below) that shows how each category is weighted.The Greenpeace chart signals, as with the organization's previous report, that it's moved beyond simply looking at sourcing, manufacturing, and waste policies when evaluating whether a company is environmentally responsible. It's also monitoring and holding powerful companies responsible for how they wield their lobbying power with regard to government regulation and the environment.(Credit:Greenpeace)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Amazon's free-shipping secret]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazons-free-shipping-secret</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazons-free-shipping-secret</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 04 Dec 2010 08:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>mariavalo</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazons-free-shipping-secret</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A lot of people don&amp;39't know you can share your Amazon Prime membership with up to four household members.(Credit:Screenshot by David Carnoy/CNET)For those of you who are planning to do a lot of last-minute online shopping on Amazon.com this year, here's a little tip. If you own or are considering purchasing an Amazon Prime membership ($79 for the year), which enables you to get free two-day shipping on a whole host of items in Amazon's catalog, you can actually share your Prime membership with up to four &quot;household&quot; members. A lot of people don't know about this option because it's buried in the settings menu under &quot;Your Account.&quot; To get there, just click on your &quot;Your Account&quot; (it's a little link in the top-right corner of your screen when you sign into Amazon). Look at the &quot;Settings&quot; section, and find &quot;Manage Prime Membership.&quot; Once you click on that, you'll be able to send invitations to folks you're close to. You just select your relationship, and enter an e-mail address and a birthday of the recipient to send out the invitation.  Of course, some people balk at paying $79 for Amazon Prime, but if you could share the cost with a roommate or just be a generous family member, it starts to look like one of the great bargains, especially if you use Amazon a lot.Anyway, that's my free Amazon shopping tip this holiday season. Hope it helps.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Green-tech companies look overseas for foothold]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=green-tech-companies-look-overseas-for-foothold</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=green-tech-companies-look-overseas-for-foothold</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 20 Nov 2010 08:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>zimansuf2</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=green-tech-companies-look-overseas-for-foothold</guid>
<description><![CDATA[CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Rather than follow a well understood game plan, energy technology entrepreneurs need to think more like chess players on the fast-changing global stage. A panel of clean-tech entrepreneurs and financiers here at the MIT Venture Capital conference yesterday discussed ways to navigate the regulatory and commercial landscape. Their strategies reflect how energy innovators and their financial backers have had to adjust over the past few years to have a shot at succeeding.One persistent challenge for energy technology entrepreneurs is getting the money and permits to build either an initial production facility to make goods, such as solar panels or biofuels, or test a product at large scale. In many cases, young companies are looking outside the U.S., where the regulatory environment is simpler and governments are more welcoming, panelists said. Introducing products for use on the U.S. electric grid, in particular, is very complex because each state can have separate rules.&quot;If somehow the regulations in the U.S. don't start to be more amenable to the clean technologies we're starting to develop, then I'm already looking to China to move products because I know I will have a lot fewer regulatory issues getting products online there,&quot; said Tom Zarella, the CEO of a Dartmouth University spin-off called SustainX, which is making a novel storage system that uses compressed air.Zarella was previously the CEO of GT Solar, which makes solar manufacturing equipment and made 85 percent of its revenue in China. Even as it looks overseas, SustainX hopes to get a toehold in the U.S., too. It received funding from the Department of Energy to test out its storage device, which Zarella said will be ready next year.James Kim, a partner at Khosla Ventures, shared a similar story. He had invested in a small-scale nuclear power company in the U.S., where it will take 10 years to get the permits to test to see how well the product works. Now having invested in a second nuclear company, he expects to have the product operating in five years in China.State-level incentives are significant as well, he added. For example, Khosla Ventures-backed Kior committed to building a biofuels facility because of incentives from Mississippi. Absent those, the company may have looked at Canada, which has similar wood resources, he said.Dealing with policy Amonggreen-tech investors and entrepreneurs, there's a better understanding of the amount of money required to launch an energy venture than there was at the beginning of the decade, when many green-tech companies launched. Out of necessity, green-tech companies are now trying to find cheaper ways to build their first products. Rather than manufacture themselves, for example, start-ups can license technology to another company, a money-saving approach.Solar panel maker Solyndra raised more than a billion dollars in venture money and a government loan program to do the soup-to-nuts approach where it not only built its own factories but built the machines for manufacturing its unique rooftop solar collectors. Even though it has some great technology, Solyndra's under pressure to rapidly lower its costs, said James Kim, a partner at Khosla Ventures. By contrast, another solar investment he's involved in will license first-generation technology to a manufacturer in Asia, which will give it revenue to develop the second and third generations, he said.&quot;It's the biotech model where you get the technology to a point and then you partner for scaling up without giving away the crown jewels,&quot; Kim said.The bar for entry has gotten tougher as well. Panelists here said companies that have a product to make power for the grid need to make those products as cheap as natural gas-generated electricity. Subsidies for solar and wind are in place now, but there is uncertainty about whether they will be extended, with the new Congress coming into power after the mid-term elections. There wasn't a lot of optimism that additional laws that are favorable to clean energy would be passed. With its coordinated policies, China is better positioned than the U.S. to take the lead on emerging clean-energy industries, panelists said. &quot;We're punting technology leadership in energy to the Chinese,&quot; said Kim.To deal with the lack of consistency in U.S. federal energy policy and utility regulations, investors are looking for products that produce power at the same cost as natural gas plants, panelists said. &quot;If you can't compete on cost of production with a natural gas peaker plant, you won't get on the grid,&quot; said Alan Dash, vice president of late-stage private equity energy company Starwood Energy Group.But even with the formidable financial and policy challenges, entrepreneurs and investors said there are many areas in the economy where efficiency can be improved--everything from how concrete is made to lighting. Unlike the IT industry, though, there isn't the same infrastructure for a start-up to plug into, said Tom Pincince, CEO of Digital Lumens, which makes LED lighting systems for industrial companies. Because of open APIs in software, an IT start-up company knows it can rely on a network of other online services, but that doesn't exist in energy and efficiency.&quot;We're back really in the foundation stage of creating these new markets and so in some cases you're going to have more highly vertically integrated companies because the infrastructure is not laid out for you,&quot; said Pincince. &quot;Relearning patience becomes really important.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[China's rare earth embargo triggers price hikes]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chinas-rare-earth-embargo-triggers-price-hikes</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chinas-rare-earth-embargo-triggers-price-hikes</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 08 Nov 2010 08:10:35 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>minsirparxd4</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=chinas-rare-earth-embargo-triggers-price-hikes</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A Chinese embargo on rare earth elements is causing a dramatic spike in the price of materials, which is expected to lead to a jump in high-tech product prices before settling back down in a few years, according to report released today. Prices will increase rapidly until &quot;non-Chinese rare earth mines are up and running, increasing product availability and thereby decreasing prices,&quot; wrote Robert Castellano, president of The Information Network, in a research note today. (See: Pay dirt: Why rare earth metals matter to tech (FAQ).) But for the time being, Castellano points to some alarming statistics. In semiconductor manufacturing, where rare earth materials are used as high-k dielectric films and as polishing materials in chemical mechanical polishing, prices of ceria for certain applications have increased more than 1,000 percent in the past year. Ceria is also used in the polishing of glass disks for hard disk drives, LCD panels, and high brightness LEDs. And price hikes of 170 percent in the past year for Europium are now reaching manufacturers of end products, Castellano wrote. Europium is a rare earth used as a phosphor in cold cathode fluorescent lamps in laptop backlights and plasma display panel TVs. Neodymium is also in short supply with price increases of 420 percent in the past 12 months. This rare earth element is used in magnets for hard disk drives, wind turbines, and hybrid electric vehicles. &quot;During the past 20 years there has been an explosion in demand for many items that require rare earth metals. China capitalized on its rich rare earth deposits and cheap labor to drive down prices to a point that nearly every mine outside China was forced to shut down because they couldn't compete on price,&quot; according to Castellano. &quot;We estimate that the Chinese held 90.0 percent of capacity of rare earth oxides with 103,300 tons, but its share will drop to 67.2 percent in 2014 based on output of new mines coming on stream,&quot; said Castellano. &quot;China's capacity will only increase 10.4 percent to 114,000 tons between 2010 and 2014, whereas non-Chinese capacity will increase nearly 5 fold, from 11,500 to 55,800 tons,&quot; he wrote. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Rasmussen: Why I left Google for Facebook]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rasmussen-why-i-left-google-for-facebook</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rasmussen-why-i-left-google-for-facebook</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:10:06 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Simoncarter</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rasmussen-why-i-left-google-for-facebook</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Lars Rasmussen shows off Google Wave in May 2009.(Credit:James Martin/CNET)One of the lead engineers behind Google Maps and Google Wave has left the Web powerhouse to get into the thick of the &quot;compelling&quot; action at Facebook.Last Friday, Lars Rasmussen said goodbye to his six-year career at Google' he'll start his new job at Facebook in December following a vacation. The noted Sydney, Australia-based software developer explained why he jumped ship in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald.&quot;It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company,&quot; Rasmussen told the Herald. &quot;Obviously they've already changed the world and yet there seems to be so much more to be done there. And I think that it's the right place for me to be.&quot;The size of Facebook versus that of Google was another reason for the job hop, according to Rasmussen. Comparing Google's 25,000 employees to Facebook's 2,000, Rasmussen told the newspaper that Google was becoming unwieldy and said he felt that Facebook's smaller size would make it easier to get things done.(Credit:Facebook)&quot;The energy there is just amazing, whereas it can be very challenging to be working in a company the size of Google,&quot; Rasmussen said in the Morning Herald story.On a purely financial basis, Rasmussen also said that the Facebook offer was too good to refuse, calling it &quot;much more compelling both financially and in terms of the work there.&quot;Rasmussen, who said he received the &quot;compelling personal pitch&quot; from Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, defined his new job description as &quot;come hang out with us for a while and we'll see what happens,&quot; which he called &quot;a pretty exciting thing.&quot;Confirming the news, a Facebook spokesman sent CNET the following statement:&quot;It's true that Lars Rasmussen has joined Facebook. Lars has a knack for building elegant, powerful products that people love. We're thrilled he'll be part of Facebook's world-class engineering team to help design transformative technologies that will improve how people connect and interact online.&quot;Rasmussen joined Google in 2004 after his start-up mapping company was acquired by the search giant. Together with his brother and two fellow Australians, he turned this acquisition into the creation of Google Maps, which proved a huge success. But the software developer's most recent project didn't turn out quite as well.Rasmussen and his team were the brains behind the recent Google Wave project, which the company abandoned in August due to low user interest and confusion over the purpose of the tool, even within Google itself. Rasmussen himself seemed a bit unclear over Wave, telling CNET at the time, &quot;It takes a little getting used to. We're still learning how to use it.&quot;With Wave one of his &quot;pet projects,&quot; Rasmussen admitted to the Sydney Morning Herald that he felt Google may have reacted too quickly in ditching the effort.&quot;We were not quite the success that Google was hoping for, and trying to persuade them not to pull the plug and ultimately failing was obviously a little stressful,&quot; he said.Rasmussen joins other prominent players who've left Google amid various complaints. Last year, for instance, Google visual design leader Douglas Bowman exited the company, venting in a blog post that the creative process of Web design at Google was becoming too confined and controlled by data analytics.At Facebook, Rasmussen will also also cross paths with two former Google colleagues. Facebook's Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor was part of the Google Maps team, while Carl Sjogreen, now a product manager at Facebook, was also involved with Google Maps.Updated at 9:40 a.m.:Added comment from Facebook.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Snooki, Lady Gaga top Halloween costume queries]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=snooki-lady-gaga-top-halloween-costume-queries</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=snooki-lady-gaga-top-halloween-costume-queries</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 29 Oct 2010 07:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Aubery</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=snooki-lady-gaga-top-halloween-costume-queries</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Lady Gaga costumes have been a Halloween staple for the past few years.(Credit:CC: Flickr user billiejoesentourage)No surprise here: Eccentric pop star Lady Gaga and &quot;Jersey Shore&quot; star Nicole &quot;Snooki&quot; Polizzi are the top Halloween costume searches this year, according to Experian Hitwise. Also big this year are Katy Perry, Michael Jackson, and tween sensation Justin Bieber--though in Bieber's case, people are specifically searching for wigs.Other Halloween costumes that have been popular searches this year are &quot;queen of hearts,&quot; &quot;mad hatter&quot; (those two perhaps in reference to Tim Burton's summer hit flick &quot;Alice in Wonderland&quot;), &quot;catwoman,&quot; &quot;gypsy,&quot; and &quot;tinkerbell.&quot; Searches that tossed in the word &quot;homemade&quot; were topped by Lady Gaga, &quot;pirate,&quot; &quot;mummy,&quot; and &quot;scarecrow.&quot;Hitwise figured out its top costume rankings by tabulating searches that had &quot;costume&quot; attached to them, like &quot;lady gaga costume&quot; and &quot;snooki costume,&quot; over the course of the four weeks ended October 24.Completely absent from this year's list was one of last year's bizarre favorites, &quot;adult care bear costume,&quot; which thoroughly creeped me out, until a reader kindly e-mailed me photos of himself and his fraternity brothers dressed up as Care Bears, and I was forced to acknowledge that it was kind of hilarious.As for the tykes, this year, Hitwise found that the top searches for babies' costumes included &quot;vampire,&quot; &quot;tinkerbell,&quot; and &quot;peter pan.&quot; Toddler costume searches were topped by &quot;cow,&quot; &quot;strawberry shortcake,&quot; and &quot;pink poodle,&quot; all of which sound like recipes for blackmail-worthy photos in about a decade or so.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Hybrid hard disk market set to take off]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hybrid-hard-disk-market-set-to-take-off</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hybrid-hard-disk-market-set-to-take-off</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:24:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Fely</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hybrid-hard-disk-market-set-to-take-off</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The hybrid hard disk drive market is expected to reach 600 million units in 2016, according to market researcher Objective Analysis. This would mean an explosion of mainstream drives that integrate the performance-boosting benefits of flash memory. Seagate&amp;39's Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive can add a lot of performance on certain tasks with just a touch of flash memory. (Credit:Seagate)The first generation of hybrid drive technology was &quot;well conceived but poorly implemented,&quot; according to a report released on Monday by Objective Analysis. &quot;Now that working versions have been implemented the hybrid drive promises to sweep the PC hard drive market.&quot; &quot;We expect the hybrid drive market to nearly double every year for the five years following its initial adoption, reaching 600 million units by 2016,&quot; said analyst Jim Handy, who authored the report, in a statement. &quot;This blazing growth will result from hybrid drives replacing standard HDDs in mainstream PCs.&quot; Hybrid drives, in their current form, add a small amount of flash memory to a traditional spinning HDD. But this pinch of flash can deliver a big boost to performance on certain tasks at relatively little extra cost, as CNET Reviews demonstrated with the 500GB Seagate Momentus XT and as other reviews of the Seagate drive have shown. &quot;The NAND [flash memory] in these hybrid drives will be pretty small. Seagate's Momentus XT does a really good job with only 4GB of flash, and Nvelo's Dataplex software accelerates HDDs very well with only 16GB of NAND,&quot; said Handy, responding to an e-mail query. Handy continued. &quot;We expect the hybrid drives released in 2010 and 2011 to be introduced around the 4GB level, but over the forecast period, the amount of flash per drive should ramp to an average of 16GB.&quot; The upside for consumers is that they're not as expensive as flash-only solid-state drives, which can add hundreds of dollars to the price of a traditional HDD. &quot;A 4GB NAND--using SLC [single-level cell] NAND flash, which is required in this application--should add about $20 to the manufacturing cost of an HDD today, which might translate to an added $30 to 40 to the end user.&quot; He continued. &quot;A lot of consumers would be perfectly happy to spend an extra $30 to 40 to get the performance of an SSD and the capacity of an HDD. So far they have not been happy to spend an extra $200 to 500 to get an SSD that's smaller than an HDD.&quot; In the case of Apple's just-announced MacBook Air, for example, adding just 128GB of flash storage to the base configuration increases the price of the 13-inch model from $1,299 to $1,599. And choosing a 256GB solid-state drive over a 500GB hard disk on a 15-inch MacBook Pro adds a whopping $650 to the price. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[AT&038'T to acquire T-Mobile for $39B]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at038t-to-acquire-t-mobile-for-39b</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at038t-to-acquire-t-mobile-for-39b</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>technikest</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at038t-to-acquire-t-mobile-for-39b</guid>
<description><![CDATA[AT&amp;amp'T just announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Deutsche Telecom&amp;'s T-Mobile USA unit.The deal is worth $39 billion, with $25 billion in cash and the rest in stock. By adding 33.7 million customers, the decision should solidify AT&amp;amp'T&amp;'s position as the largest carrier in the United States, a position it recently reclaimed with 95.5 million subscribers.In the announcement, AT&amp;amp'T emphasizes the network benefits to the deal, saying the acquisition provides &amp;''a fast, efficient and certain solution to the impending exhaustion of wireless spectrum in some markets, which limits both companiesa4a4 ability to meet the ongoing explosive demand for mobile broadband.&amp;''Indeed, some have long said that the carrier model is broken and that economies of scale are helping AT&amp;amp'T and Verizon grow larger, while threatening T-Mobile and Sprint&amp;'s ability to survive in the long haul. AT&amp;amp'T&amp;'s acquisition of T-Mobile accelerates that process and signals the first major step of consolidation. (See the piece written by VentureBeat&amp;'s Matt Marshall and Norwest&amp;'s Tim Chang two years ago about this).AT&amp;amp'T&amp;'s network has plenty of critics &amp;8212' including from T-Mobile, as you can see in the commercial embedded at the end of this post (spotted via Omar L. Gallaga).Sprint was previously rumored to be in talks to acquire T-Mobile, a deal that VentureBeat&amp;'s Devindra Hardawar described as the &amp;''worst idea ever.&amp;'' This deal makes a bit more sense, since AT&amp;amp'T (unlike Sprint) uses the same GSM network technology as T-Mobile.US regulatory agencies still have to approve the acquisition. The government may not be entirely receptive to the idea &amp;8212' Business Insider notes that 2010 was the first year the Federal Communications Commission did not conclude that the wireless industry was competitive, although Wireless Industry News reports that the FCC may go back to calling the industry competitive this year. AT&amp;amp'T tries to address regulatory concerns in its announcement, saying, &amp;''The U.S. wireless industry is one of the most fiercely competitive markets in the world and will remain so after this deal.&amp;''Forrester analyst Charles Govin said the deal has pluses and minuses:The good news: high-speed mobile broadband service will improve in quality and coverage, including a4&quot; in the long run a4&quot; those in rural communities outside the reach of terrestrial broadband today. The bad news: the cost of that service won&amp;'t come down nearly as fast as customers would like, since AT&amp;amp'T and Verizon Wireless combined would own nearly three out of every four wireless subscriptions in the US. While clearly troublesome for Sprint and other smaller mobile competitors, It&amp;'s also bad news for cable operators, whose incipient mobility products will suffer in comparison to what AT&amp;amp'T and Verizon can offer.Calling all mobile executives: This April 25-26, VentureBeat is hosting its inaugural VentureBeat Mobile Summit, where we&amp;'ll debate the five key business and policy challenges facing the mobile industry today. Participants will develop concrete, actionable solutions that will shape the future of the mobile industry. The invitation-only event, located at the scenic and relaxing Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif., is limited to the top 180 mobile executives, investors and policymakers. Request an invitation.Next Story: AT&amp;038'T&amp;'s purchase of T-Mobile will test antitrust law Previous Story: Facebook acquires Israeli mobile app startup SnaptuPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Companies: AT&amp;amp'T, T Mobile, Verizon          Companies: AT&amp;amp'T, T Mobile, VerizonAnthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Mark Zuckerberg meets The Social Network&'s Jesse Eisenberg on Saturday Night Live]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mark-zuckerberg-meets-the-social-networkrsquos-jesse-eisenberg-on-saturday-night-live</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mark-zuckerberg-meets-the-social-networkrsquos-jesse-eisenberg-on-saturday-night-live</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>mharpsterr</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mark-zuckerberg-meets-the-social-networkrsquos-jesse-eisenberg-on-saturday-night-live</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Can someone please explain the metaphysics of this scene Tonight, on Saturday Night Live, Jesse Eisenberg did the opening monologue. As the star of Best-Picture-nominated The Social Network movie, he plays Mark Zuckerberg in the fictionalized account of the founding of Facebook. He was interrupted by comedian Andy Samberg, who trotted out in a Zuckerberg-style sweat shirt. Samberg said that he felt bad because Eisenberg got nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor and added, &amp;''What did I get&amp;'' Eisenberg said, &amp;''Well, wasn&amp;'t Facebook just valued at $50 billion&amp;'' Samberg booms, &amp;''All hail the Zuck.&amp;''And then the scene cuts to Zuckerberg himself saying that he wants to go out there because &amp;''those guys are nerds&amp;'' and that he&amp;'s fun because he invented &amp;''poking.&amp;'' The pair talk about how they play Zuckerberg. Then Zuckerberg joins the duo on stage.Samberg said it was &amp;''Awkberg,&amp;'' (suggesting it was awkward that Eisenberg and Zuckerberg had never met before). Eisenberg said he liked Zuckerberg&amp;'s interview on 60 Minutes. Eisenberg asked him if he had seen the movie and Zuckerberg said yes. He said it was &amp;''interesting,&amp;'' and Eisenberg said, &amp;''I&amp;'ll take that.&amp;'' They then introduced the next gig and high-fived each other. It wasn&amp;'t much of a comedy routine. In fact, Zuckerberg has been funnier on 60 Minutes, when he said that the filmmakers got the T-shirts right that Eisenberg&amp;'s character wears. &amp;''I think I own every one of those T-shirts,&amp;'' he said. Zuckerberg was actually far more poised than Eisenberg, who seemed, or at least was acting, like a nervous wreck.Zuckeberg, Sean Parker, and others have laughed off the movie for making their lives far sexier and more dramatic than it really was. But his current attitude toward the film, which has won a lot of accolades, is probably a good one. Zuckerberg fares best in the press when he shows a sense of humor about his nerdy self and tries to be charming in a self-deprecating way.Previous Story: The iPadification of the WebPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Saturday Night Live, the social networkCompanies: FacebookPeople: Andy Samberg, Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Zuckerberg          Tags: Saturday Night Live, the social networkCompanies: FacebookPeople: Andy Samberg, Jesse Eisenberg, Mark ZuckerbergDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Hashable Starts Measuring The Strength Of Your&nbsp'Relationships]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hashable-starts-measuring-the-strength-of-yournbsprelationships</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hashable-starts-measuring-the-strength-of-yournbsprelationships</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>jonathanmo</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hashable-starts-measuring-the-strength-of-yournbsprelationships</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Last night, social introduction service Hashable rolled out a new site design to members.  While the site is still semi-closed (you need an invite or introduction from an existing member to get ina4&quot;the first 500 readers to follow @hashable on Twitter will get one), it is playing with some very interesting ways to rank your online social connections.  One of the new features on the site allows you to see your contacts by the strength of your relationship on Hashable.  The more interactions you have with that person, and whether or not they reciprocate, determines whether you are &amp;''tight,&amp;'', &amp;''connected,&amp;'' or merely &amp;''acquainted.&amp;''  Hashable is taking on LinkedIn in a very lightweight way.  Instead of static degrees of separation, you can see exactly who you are connected with has the strongest connection to someone else you might be seeking an introduction to.  Hashable is also now starting to show &amp;''hashbits&amp;'' whenever you post a connection. A hashbit is just a serendipitous bit of information showing how one person you know is also connected to someone else you know.  You can connect with people on Hashable either through Twitter or email, and it serves as both a business introduction service and a souped-up online address book.  CEO Michael Yavonditte calls it a &amp;''relationship book&amp;'' because it tracks your business relationships over time.  It starts out with a simple intro (you introduce people by using the hashtag &amp;''intro&amp;'' in a Tweet and their Twitter handles), but early users are also recording when they justmet someone, or go out for drinks, lunch, or dinner.  You can use Hashable to publicly thank someone, or make up your own hashes. I use it to record when a startup founder gives me a demo.  These descriptive tags make those hashbits more interesting because they flesh out how people are related.  Imagine when people start hashing their dates on this service.The more you use Hashable, the more points, or Hashcred, you get.  Every city has a leaderboard, and soon there wil be leaderboards by industry and profession.  So people will be competing to be the startup lawyer with the most Hashcred.  It&amp;'s a way to measure status for super-networkers.  But even if you are not into the competitive aspect of the service, you can use it just as a simple way to keep track of the people you meet and write notes about those meetings either to yourself in private or publicly. Then later on if you are going to meet that person again you can see your history, or you can search by hashtag to see all the demos you&amp;'ve gotten or people you have justmet.  And the more you interact with any given person, the stronger your connection strength becomes.Once Hashable opens up more publicly in the coming weeks, we&amp;'ll see if this new form of business networking catches on.  Yavonditte quit LinkedIn a few days ago, and he no doubt hopes you will too.Here&amp;'s a video interview I did with him last October:CrunchBase InformationHashableLinkedInInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Inside the race to green data centers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=inside-the-race-to-green-data-centers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=inside-the-race-to-green-data-centers</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>eeTOeT8Oc</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=inside-the-race-to-green-data-centers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This post is sponsored by Dell. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity. Dell had no involvement in the content of this or other posts.When one thinks of green, the first thought that comes to mind probably is not a chilly warehouse packed sky-high with servers. Yet in the energy-efficiency world, that&amp;'s exactly what where an increasingly amount of focus is going to &amp;8212' data centers.Data centers are used by companies to store Web servers and associated computer equipment. And the behemoth buildings, which typically take up hundreds of thousands of square feet, are huge energy hogs, requiring large amounts to power the equipment, as well as air conditioning to keep the servers from overheating. In 2006, the government reported that data centers consumed 1.5 percent of all electricity in the U.S., costing $4.5 billion, and projected the energy use could nearly double by 2011, costing $7.4 billion a year.It&amp;'s enough of an issue that the EPA&amp;'s Energy Star program has launched a program to certify data center equipment as energy-efficient, as well as underscore best practices.And investors are taking note of the opportunities. Kevin Skillern, who heads up GE&amp;'s energy venture capital investments, thinks the official numbers may be behind the curve. He put the current consumption rate at three to four percent of U.S. energy output a year. That&amp;'s one reason why his company has backed green data center startups like SynapSense and JouleX.Companies like HP, Dell, Yahoo and Google have increasingly turned to greening their data centers. More and more pressure has fallen upon big companies to follow suit, as evidenced by the Facebook imbroglio this fall with Greenpeace over a data center in Oregon that will run on coal-burning power sources. (Facebook recently announced that it would place a green data center in North Carolina.)The area is already rife for innovation because of inherent inefficiencies. When data centers were first being built, energy was cheap, and not much thought was given to optimizing space or server efficiency, says Simon Mingay, analyst for technology research company Gartner.  But &amp;''those days are over,&amp;'' Mingay says.The lack-of-forethought point is underscored in approach of Nlyte, which makes a data center management tool that can tell operators the best place to put a new set of servers that avoids overheating issues, or predict how much capacity a company will need in the future &amp;8212' right now, most companies deal with that by over-provisioning, which also wastes resources and money, says Nlyte CEO Jon Temple.&amp;''Telling a customer what they&amp;'ve got, what&amp;'s being used and what isn&amp;'t being used &amp;8212' that in itself  is 10 percent savings on energy bill,&amp;'' Temple said. The rather shoot-in-the-dark approach Temple says organizations have taken in the past to data centers means that, on average, 15 percent of the assets in a data center are powered up and consuming energy without actually having anything to do &amp;8212' &amp;''other than pushing up your energy bill.&amp;''Other startups like Viridity, Power Assure and Sentilla also take a software-based approach &amp;8212' Earth2Tech notes that Sentilla could have an edge in its ability to identify underutilized servers as well as older equipment that wastes more power. Viridity makes a package called EnergyCenter that models and predicts energy usage for $500 per server rack.These days, a number of companies have emerged to compete in the greener data center space. Solutions range from the unusual &amp;8212' like GRC&amp;'s method of dunking servers in a bath of oil to cool them down &amp;8212' to architectural approaches to what&amp;'s called &amp;''freecooling,&amp;'' like Yahoo&amp;'s chicken coop-inspired, 155,000-square-footComputing Coop and HP&amp;'s 200,000-square-footWynard Center. Both companieslocated the centers in cool climates, then structured the buildings in a way that brought in chilly winds in to cool down servers, rather than fire up the air conditioning.Sensors also look like they&amp;'ll play an important part in data center efficiency. GreenBeat 2010&amp;'s innovation competition winner Redwood Systems uses sensors in networked lighting systems that can reduce data center energy usage &amp;8212' a4AWe can tell if a door has been left opena4 just by looking at its data from its sensors, the companya4a4s VP of marketing Jeremy Stieglitz told me, which in turn can be used to generate additional energy savings.SynapSense uses wireless sensors that feed into a system for data center operators to monitor and adjust heat and load. And JouleX monitors, analyzes and automatically adjusts energy usage of devices in a network to the tune of 30 to 60 percent in energy savings.Some startups, like Calxeda (formerly Smooth-Stone), aim to tackle the problem at its roots. The company makes chips that will result in servers that suck less energy and take up less space.Internet and computer titans have taken to investing or partnering with some of these companies. HP, for example, has a technical alliance with Nlyte, and also makes server management software that can cut energy use at peak times. Google has an entire website dedicated to green data center best practices, and in particular emphasizes using recycled water as part of the cooling process. The company notes thattwo gallons of water is consumed for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced in the U.S., and has pledged to make recycled water 80 percent of its total data center water consumption by this year.The varied nature of all the competing solutions in the green data center space says something about the nature of the problem itself &amp;8212' that it&amp;'s complicated, a conclusion echoed by Nlyte&amp;'s Temple.&amp;''It isn&amp;'t going to be one vendor that provides a single silver bullet,&amp;'' he said. &amp;''IT is a complex environment that requires a lot of complexity to manage.&amp;''Next Story: Correcting the course of your companya4a4s culture Previous Story: Zynga links FarmVille and other games with American Express rewardsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: data centers, energy-efficient servers, freecooling, green data centers, Greenpeace, LED, lighting, wireless sensorsCompanies: Calxeda, Facebook, Google, Nlyte, Redwood Systems, Viridity, YahooPeople: Jon Temple, Kevin Skillern, Simon Mingay          Tags: data centers, energy-efficient servers, freecooling, green data centers, Greenpeace, LED, lighting, wireless sensorsCompanies: Calxeda, Facebook, Google, Nlyte, Redwood Systems, Viridity, YahooPeople: Jon Temple, Kevin Skillern, Simon MingayIris Kuo is the VentureBeat's lead GreenBeat writer. She has reported for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Houston Chronicle, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Dallas public radio. Iris attended the University of Texas at Dallas and lives in Houston. Follow Iris on Twitter @thestatuskuo (and yes, that's how you  pronounce her last name).VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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