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<title>Haaze.com / Amihan / All</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:10:03 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Google yanking H.264 video out of Chrome]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-yanking-h-264-video-out-of-chrome</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-yanking-h-264-video-out-of-chrome</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:10:03 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-yanking-h-264-video-out-of-chrome</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Google just fired a broadside in the Web's codec wars.With its alternative WebM video-encoding technology now entering the marketplace, Google announced plans today to remove built-in Chrome support for a widely used rival codec called H.264 favored by Apple and Microsoft. The move places Google instead firmly in the camp of browser makers Mozilla and Opera, who ardently desire basic Web technologies to be unencumbered by patent restrictions.&quot;Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies,&quot; said Mike Jazayeri, a Google product manager, in a blog post.A codec's job is to encode and decode video and audio, a technologically complicated balancing act. Codecs must reduce file sizes and enable streaming media that doesn't overtax networks, but they also must preserve as much quality as possible--for example by trying to discard data that the human senses won't miss much and cleverly interpolate to fill in the gaps.One big change coming with the new HTML5 version of the Web page description language is built-in support for video' most Web video today employs Adobe Systems' Flash Player plug-in, which uses H.264 and other codecs under the covers. Although HTML5 video has promise, disagreements in the W3C standards group have meant the draft standard omits specifying a particular codec. Chrome was the only browser among the top five to support both WebM and H.264, but now Google has swung its vote.Google's move triggered flabbergasted glee among advocates of the &quot;open Web&quot;--one that employs open standards and shuns patent barriers. &quot;Ok this is HUGE, Chrome drops support for H264,&quot; said Mozilla developer Paul Rouget in a tweet.But not everybody is so happy. Don MacAskill, chief executive of photo- and video-sharing site SmugMug, bemoaned the move. &quot;Bottom line: Much more expensive to build video on the Web, and much worse user experience. And only Adobe wins,&quot; he tweeted. &quot;I want WebM. Badly. But I need time for hardware penetration to happen...This means the cheapest way to develop video on the Web is to use Flash primarily. Before, we could do HTML5 with Flash fallback.&quot;H.264, also called AVC, is widely supported in video cameras, Blu-ray players, and many other devices, but it comes with significant royalty licensing fees from a group called MPEG LA that licenses a pool of hundreds of video-related patents.WebM, though, has been an open-source, royalty-free specification since Google announced it last May. It comprises the VP8 video codec Google got through its acquisition of On2 Technology and the Theora audio codec associated with an earlier and otherwise largely unsuccessful royalty-free codec effort.It's catching on--for example with smartphone chip support from Rockchip announced last week. Hardware decoding means computing devices can decode WebM faster and without quickly sucking batteries dry. And Adobe has pledged to build VP8 support into a future version of Flash Player. The move spotlights the role Google has earned in the Web development world by building its own browser. Chrome, which now accounts for 10 percent of browser usage worldwide, according to analytics firm Net Applications, is a vehicle Google is using to try to promote its own agenda on the Web.One big part of that is speed--fast page loads, fast graphics, fast encryption, fast JavaScript, and more that helps expand activity on the Web. But there are plenty of cases where Google uses Chrome to advance favored standards such as WebGL for 3D graphics, Web SQL and Indexed DB for offline data storage, and WebM for HTML5 video.Some Web developers including YouTube have begun embracing HTML5 video. But because the standard is mute on the issue of a particular codec, and because browser support can't be counted on, Web developers typically rely on Flash, which is installed on the vast majority of computers in use today.Apple, with its own technology agenda to push, is keeping Flash off theiPhone andiPad despite Adobe's attempts to reengineer it for the low-memory, anemic-processor, battery-constrained world of smartphones. For video, those devices rely on video encoded directly with H.264.Adobe has become a major Google ally since Apple began taking a very hard-line stance against Flash in 2010. Google has heavily promoted Adobe's mobile Flash agenda and built its Flash Player directly into Chrome. Adobe gave WebM a big boost by building it into Flash.The partnership illustrates the pragmatic, political limits to Google's open-Web advocacy. Flash Player is proprietary software, and building it into Chrome certainly helps preserve its relevance. &quot;If Google is dropping H.264 because their 'goal is to enable open innovation,' why not also drop support for closed plugins like Flash&quot; tweeted Daring Fireball Apple-watcher John Gruber.One big uncertainty for WebM is the intellectual property purity of WebM. Google proclaimed a royalty-free codec, but that didn't stop MPEG LA from saying it's considering offering a VP8 patent pool license. &quot;We assume virtually all codecs are based on patented technology...MPEG LA doesn't favor one codec technology over another' we are like a convenience store that offers patent licenses for any number of codecs as a service to the market,&quot; said MPEG LA Chief Executive Larry Horn last May.More than half a year after Google released the software, though, no new pools or patent litigation has emerged, and WebM has attracted new allies. That doesn't mean litigation might not be waiting in the wings: &quot;A codec is like a mechanical device with hundreds of parts. Any one or more could be the subject of a patent,&quot; said Steven J. Henry, an intellectual property attorney at Wolf, Greenfield &amp; Sacks, and patent holders may wait for years before &quot;springing the trap.&quot;So far, that's a theoretical concern, though, and Mozilla's then-Chief Executive John Lilly said last year, &quot;Right now we think that it's totally fine to ship, or we wouldn't ship it...We're really confident in our ability to ship this free of encumbrances.&quot;It's possible Apple and others could embrace WebM. Microsoft has refrained from glowering too harshly on WebM even as it's issued an H.264 plug-in for Firefox users on Windows. But even if a change of heart occurs today, it will take a long time for tech giants like Apple and Microsoft to regear.Updated 2:10 p.m. PTwith further detail and commentary.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Demand forces Goldman to end Facebook solicitation]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=demand-forces-goldman-to-end-facebook-solicitation</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=demand-forces-goldman-to-end-facebook-solicitation</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=demand-forces-goldman-to-end-facebook-solicitation</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Well, that didn't last very long.In case you still had lingering doubts about the investing class's appetite to buy a piece of Facebook, follow the money to find out the answer: the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Goldman Sachs was so flooded with demand for its recent investment solicitation to investors seeking to buy into the social-networking site, that it has decided to stop taking new orders, according to sources familiar with the situation.Earlier this week, word leaked that Goldman had ponied up $450 million--Digital Sky Technologies of Russia, a partner in the deal, accounted for another $50 million--to acquire a position in Facebook. That paved the way for Goldman to invite clients willing to invest at least $2 million to buy equity in Facebook, which is still private.Goldman is likely to reap a fortune from fees resulting from any Facebook stock sales. Investors must pay 4 percent upfront frees to the investment firm as well as 5% on any future gains, according to the Journal.The creation of an investment vehicle has reportedly spurred an Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry of disclosure rules governing deals where investors are able to buy shares of private companies. Were it a public company, Facebook would be valued at around $50 billion, according to estimates.Current regulations require companies with 500 or more shareholders to publicly report financial information. Facebook's deal with Goldman Sachs creates a special fund that allows the social network site to stay under that threshold even though some investors will be able to buy up to $1.5 billion in Facebook shares. The SEC declined to comment.Goldman's investment underscored Wall Street's endorsement of Facebook's potential to make money in online social networking. Facebook is considered to be twice the value of Yahoo and about equal to what well-established names such as Boeing and Kraft Foods are worth on the open market. What's more, the cash infusion buys time for Facebook to keep its books private and not have to worry about the vagaries of the market. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Five surprising things about the Sprint ZTE Peel]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=five-surprising-things-about-the-sprint-zte-peel</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=five-surprising-things-about-the-sprint-zte-peel</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=five-surprising-things-about-the-sprint-zte-peel</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Before you buy the ZTE Peel for your iPod Touch, keep in mind some of its limitations.(Credit:Sprint)A couple weeks back I told you about the Sprint ZTE Peel, aniPod Touch accessory that sounded almost too good to be true. For a mere $79.99, plus a no-contract monthly service fee of $29.99, you could add 3G connectivity to your Touch.Goodbye, priceyiPhone! Hello, much more affordable iPod Touch-Phone! Well, not quite. Now that I've had a chance to test-drive one, I must admit it's not what I expected. Here are five reasons why:1. It's not actually a dock.I mistakenly assumed that the Peel plugged into the Touch's dock connector, much like an external battery/case hybrid. But it doesn't: the Peel is actually a kind of specialized MiFi 2200, one that's been molded to function as an iPod Touch (second- or third-gen) case. Just pop in your device--or don't. Makes no difference.2. Only two devices can access the Peel's connection.Either the preliminary information was incorrect, or I made a mistake, but I originally wrote that two other devices could tap the Peel's 3G goodness at the same time as your Touch. In reality, it's two devices total. Again, it doesn't matter if your Touch is snapped into the enclosure or not--two devices, period. I wouldn't call that a deal breaker, but it's a little disappointing given that the MiFi supports up to five. On the other hand...3. Performance bites.Maybe the two-device limitation is due to the Peel's sub-3G connectivity. I tested it in several locales around my neck of the woods (metro Detroit), and according to Speed Test, the best download speed it could manage was 0.87 Mbps. Contrast that with my AT&amp;amp'T-powered iPhone 4, which pulled 2.6 Mbps--in my basement. Your mileage will almost certainly vary, but the Peel proved pretty pokey. Is it better than nothing for the Wi-Fi-strapped iPod user Absolutely. But I'm discouraged that it doesn't come anywhere near Sprint's advertised 3G performance.4. It relies on Micro-USB charging.Yep, another power cord to bring along. Although Micro-USB is an increasingly popular standard, a dock connector would have made the Peel much easier to travel with. It also would have enabled you to sync your Touch without having to pop it out of the case.5. It requires a headset adapterThe Peel's audio-jack pass-through is just a hair too deep and narrow to accommodate a stock pair of Apple earbuds, so you have to plug in a tiny adapter cord. Another thing to bring along, another thing to potentially lose. That's a pretty annoying design flaw.Another annoyance: the included &quot;Getting Started&quot; guide doesn't tell you how do to things like set up a password so other users can't tap your mobile hot spot. You can find instructions on Sprint's Web site, but they're buried in the poorly titled &quot;Admin Guide.&quot;Furthermore, the Peel is bulky, making your otherwise slender device feel a lot more brick-like in your pocket. The good news is that it's reasonably light, adding just 2.6 ounces to an iPod Touch's travel weight.I could forgive a lot of these issues--maybe even all of them--if Sprint didn't cap your monthly data at a paltry 1GB. If you go over, it'll cost you 5 cents per megabyte. To me that just seems stingy. A 2GB cap would make this whole enchilada a lot more appealing.Even so, I think the Peel might just find its way into a few stockings this holiday season. Would you like to see one turn up in yours<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Sharp Galapagos tablet, AT&T Galaxy Tab clear FCC]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sharp-galapagos-tablet-att-galaxy-tab-clear-fcc</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sharp-galapagos-tablet-att-galaxy-tab-clear-fcc</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 12 Nov 2010 08:10:20 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sharp-galapagos-tablet-att-galaxy-tab-clear-fcc</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Galapagos comes in two sizes, 5.5 inches and 10.8 inches.(Credit:Erica Ogg/CNET)Forgive us for missing this blog the last few weeks, but we're back to report on the mobile happenings at the Federal Communications Commission. Outside of the appearance of the Samsung GT-i9020, aka what could be the Nexus S, it was a tablet week at the FCC's certification labs. We spied the upcoming Sharp Galapagos and the AT&amp;T and international version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab . Meanwhile, a couple of Kyocera handsets, Tracfone's simple Samsung SGH-T340G, and the Android-powered ZTE 003Z Libero, which is destined only for the Japanese market, represented the phone camp.Because the FCC has to certify every phone sold in the United States, not to mention test its SAR rating, the agency's online database offers a lot of sneak peeks to those who dig. And to save you the trouble, Crave has combed through the database for you. Here is a selection of filings from the past week on new and upcoming cell phones. Click through to read the full report.Huawei F360Huawei U7520Kyocera E4100Kyocera S2100Samsung Galaxy Tab (AT&amp;T)Samsung Galaxy Tab (International version)Samsung SGH-T340GSharp Galapagos 003SHZTE 003Z<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google Buzz settlement gets preliminary approval]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-buzz-settlement-gets-preliminary-approval</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-buzz-settlement-gets-preliminary-approval</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:10:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-buzz-settlement-gets-preliminary-approval</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Google today said that a settlement for a class action suit by Gmail users over privacy violations related to Google Buzz has been granted preliminary approval by a federal district court judge. The approval was reached on October 7 but the company released the news today as it is preparing to notify Gmail users about it.  The settlement, proposed in September, calls for Google to pay $8.5 million toward a fund for organizations focusing on Internet privacy policy or education. In a statement today, Google said:  We are satisfied with the agreement and are glad to move forward, We have always been committed to offering users transparency and choice in Buzz and all our products, and will continue to work together with users to provide the best experience possible. Read more of &quot;Google Buzz settlement gets preliminary approval&quot; at ZDNet's Between the Lines. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Momento Is Perhaps The Perfect Passive Diary&nbsp'App]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=momento-is-perhaps-the-perfect-passive-diarynbspapp</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=momento-is-perhaps-the-perfect-passive-diarynbspapp</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=momento-is-perhaps-the-perfect-passive-diarynbspapp</guid>
<description><![CDATA[To me, one of the most interesting thing about Foursquare is the History tab. It transforms the service from a &amp;''where you are&amp;'' app, into a &amp;''where you were&amp;'' log. In a way, it&amp;'s sort of like a diary. I wish Twitter was better at this idea as well. Because what I tweeted a year ago says something about how I was feeling, or what I was doing back then. In fact, a lot of the web services we use on a daily basis would be perfect for this type of passive diary writing. And that&amp;'s exactly what Momento, an iPhone app, makes happen.At its core, Momento (made by the UK-based d3i)a4sis a straightforward diary app. It allows you to easy write &amp;''Moments&amp;'' (diary entries) to express what you are doing or feeling on any given day. It takes the process a step further by allowing you to tag friends (from you iPhone contact list), places, events, and add photos to these entries. But the real killer feature of the app is that it also allows you to import bits of information from a number of services including Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, Digg, and any RSS feed. The result is a brilliant log of almost everything you&amp;'re doing online.Other services have tried to do similar things before, but Momento works because they&amp;'ve nailed the user interface and experience. The entire app looks like a journal, which is broken down by days in descending order from the current day. In this view, you get a snapshot of any given day, including the most recent items (tweets, check-ins, etc). Clicking on any of these days takes you to a detail page which shows you all of your activity for that day. All your tweets, check-ins, blog posts, pictures, etc, are here.There&amp;'s also a calendar view which allows you to quickly hop to any moment in the past. Clicking on a date will again take you to a specific day page with all of your info with what you did that day.Another view allows you to see entries broken down by tags. From here, you can choose to see only entries with certain people tagged. Or you can see only entries that you gave a high rating to (when you make your own Moments, you can rate them if you want).There&amp;'s also a way to see just certain types of elements, such as tweets. Again, these are broken down by the day they were sent. And what&amp;'s really awesome is that you can search all of this stuff if it has been imported into Momento.The key to Momento is that all of this information is for you and you alone. You import social items, but it never sends anything out. It&amp;'s simply a way for you to log and keep what you did on any of these services in a given day. And it&amp;'s all presented in a very nice, easily accessible package.It&amp;'s another of the anti-social social apps, like OhLife and the newer Path, which seem to focus more on what experiences mean to you (or a very small group of friends), rather than to strangers and the larger web as a whole.With the personal approach in mind, Momento also comes with an impressive way to both backup and export all of your data (this is accessed through iTunes file sharing).Momento also comes with some nifty importing options to better tailor you data. For example, you can tell it to leave out tweets with a certain hashtag. Or you can tell it to only import tweets with a certain hashtag. You can tell it to leave out @replies and/or retweets, etc.Momento actually isn&amp;'t a new app' it first came out about a year ago. But version 2.0 was recently released, and with it comes a huge number of excellent improvements including all the geolocation service integration and the video service integration. Both of these features are pretty key for a full and interesting social service diary.Simply put: I love this app. I think it&amp;'s a near-perfect execution of a very compelling idea: passive diary writing. The downside is that it currently only works with the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad. But if you have one of those devices, this app is well worth its current $1.99 price (that&amp;'s a limited-time price). Find Momento in the App Store here. CrunchBase Informationd3iiPhoneInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Deal of the day LivingSocial could be raising $100M from Amazon.com]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=deal-of-the-day-livingsocial-could-be-raising-100m-from-amazon-com</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=deal-of-the-day-livingsocial-could-be-raising-100m-from-amazon-com</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=deal-of-the-day-livingsocial-could-be-raising-100m-from-amazon-com</guid>
<description><![CDATA[There&amp;'s a big business in online bargains. How big Amazon.com may be about to tell us, if a rumor VentureBeat has heard about the giant Internet retailer investing in daily-deal venture LivingSocial is true.A source close to an investor in the Washington, D.C.-based startup, backed by former AOL CEO Steve Case, Grotech Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, among others, said that talks are underway for a $100 million strategic investment. It&amp;'s not clear how far discussions have gone.The daily-deal space has exploded thanks to LivingSocial and its better-known archrival Groupon. Both now offer deeply discounted offers for services, meals, and group activities from local merchants who have previously struggled to reach new customers online.Rather than relying on fancy geolocation algorithms or self-service platforms, they&amp;'ve grown swiftly with a more human-centered approach: local salespeople who solicit merchants paired with city planners and writers who curate deals and market them with old-fashioned if well-written emails. (Much has been made of their use of social networks to spread offers' my suspicion is the importance of that aspect pales next to good old-fashioned sales and copywriting, rendered more efficient by the Internet.)Amazon.com is a minor player in the daily deals business through one of its neglected acquisitions, Woot.com. But Woot deals mostly with discounted electronics, a liquidation-focused business where margins are thin. The margins are far better in the local services that Groupon and LivingSocial increasingly focus on. For service providers like masseurs, trip guides, and the like, the cost of goods is minimal and customer acquisition is the biggest challenge.It makes sense that LivingSocial would be in the market for fresh funds, despite raising money in March and April of this year. With the runaway success of its business model, which commands big margins even on deeply discounted offers in exchange for bringing new customers in the doors of local merchants, LivingSocial can confidently spend money expanding into new cities and countries. (LivingSocial recently bought an Australian deals site for $5 million.)Groupon is reportedly seeking new investment at a $3 billion valuation &amp;8212' roughly what we hear it has been offered by Yahoo in so-far fruitless acquisition talks. And LivingSocial, despite the competition from Groupon, is growing fast, and has issued a forecast that it will do $500 million in revenues next year. Both companies have a big backlog of merchants seeking to offer deals through their sites.One interesting dot to connect here: LivingSocial&amp;'s new CFO, John Bax, who started Monday, was previously CFO of RecycleBank, a Kleiner Perkins-backed cleantech startup. Kleiner Perkins Caulfield &amp;amp' Byers backed Amazon.com in the 1990s, and CEO Jeff Bezos remains close to Kleiner partner John Doerr. The connection may be coincidental, but a startup&amp;'s hiring of a new CFO is often a sign of more aggressive fundraising plans.Amazon.com has a longstanding policy of not commenting on rumors, a PR representative said. LivingSocial did not immediately respond to a request for comment placed with its PR agency.Update: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that New Enterprise Associates had invested in LivingSocial.Next Story: The who&amp;'s who of the digerati: A gargantuan Web 2.0 Summit photo gallery Previous Story: Why startup Coda thinks it can compete against Big AutoPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: e commerce, social buyingCompanies: Amazon.com, Groupon, LivingsocialPeople: John Bax, Steve case          Tags: e commerce, social buyingCompanies: Amazon.com, Groupon, LivingsocialPeople: John Bax, Steve caseOwen Thomas is the executive editor of VentureBeat.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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<title><![CDATA[Yahoo Hires Ross Levinsohn To Run Americas&nbsp'Business]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=yahoo-hires-ross-levinsohn-to-run-americasnbspbusiness</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=yahoo-hires-ross-levinsohn-to-run-americasnbspbusiness</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=yahoo-hires-ross-levinsohn-to-run-americasnbspbusiness</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Yahoo has hired Ross Levinsohn, the former President of Fox Interactive Media, as EVP America&amp;'s Region, we&amp;'ve confirmed. AllThingsD first broke the news that he was close to taking the job.Levinsohn will replace Hillary Schneider. Yahoo announced Schneider&amp;'s departure last month.Levinsohn will take control of Yahoo&amp;'s Americas business, including content, advertising and partnerships. Some 2,000 employees will report into his organization.This is also the first high profile executive hire at Yahoo since bringing in Chief Product Officer Blake Irving earlier this year.Levinsohn is currently a partner at Fuse Capital, a venture firm with ties to Best Buy. Levinsohn&amp;'s former partner at Fuse Capital, Jonathan Miller, now runs News Corp.&amp;'s digital business, effectively the same position Levinsohn held.While at Fox Interactive Media Levinsohn oversaw the $580 million acquisition of MySpace as well as the nearly $1 billion advertising deal with Google.Many of his previous employees have gone on to do interesting things. Adam Bain is now President, Revenue at Twitter. And Heather Harde, our CEO, ran M&amp;amp'A for Levinsohn. And for once, we have nothing negative to report about Yahoo.You can watch an interview with Levinsohn by Sarah Lacy at TechCrunch50 last year here, and we&amp;'ve embedded it below. CrunchBase InformationYahoo!Ross LevinsohnInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Facebook PR director departs for the startup world]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-pr-director-departs-for-the-startup-world</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-pr-director-departs-for-the-startup-world</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-pr-director-departs-for-the-startup-world</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Brandee Barker, who has been Facebooka4a4s director of corporate communications for the past four years, revealed that Wednesday will be her last day at the company. AllThingsDigital broke the news, and Barker also announced her departure on Twitter.If you don&amp;'t write about Facebook for a living, I suspect you may not have heard of Barker, since Mark Zuckerberg and other executives tend to take the company spotlight. The big joke in the AllThingsDigital article is that this corporate communications exec has been a constant source of a4Ano commenta4s, and a quick search of the VentureBeat archives shows that wea4a4ve only mentioned her six times, all in 2007.Still, ita4a4s a significant departure, since Barker led the companya4a4s PR team through a number of crises, starting with one of Facebooka4a4s first big controversies, the launch of its news feed. Despite constant user complaints and criticism, Facebook has continued its rapid growth, and its reputation appears relatively unscathed by the release of The Social Network, a largely unflattering film about the companya4a4s founding. (I suppose that last point is debatable, but at least  Zuckerberg doesn&amp;'t appear to be worried about the movie anymore.)Barker just returned from maternity leave and she said she will be forming her own communications firm for early-stage startups. Which startups One possibility is Asana, co-founded by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and early employee Justin Rosenstein.[image via Flickr/Brian Solis]Next Story: Amazon falls behind Chinese e-reader maker Hanvon to debut first color E Ink device Previous Story: Right before sedan debut and planned IPO, Coda replaces CEOPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: too insideryCompanies: FacebookPeople: Brandee Barker          Tags: too insideryCompanies: FacebookPeople: Brandee BarkerAnthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining VentureBeat 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.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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<title><![CDATA[Quub lets you share status updates from the past, present, and future]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=quub-lets-you-share-status-updates-from-the-past-present-and-future</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=quub-lets-you-share-status-updates-from-the-past-present-and-future</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Science</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=quub-lets-you-share-status-updates-from-the-past-present-and-future</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A new startup called Quub is taking a less frivolous approach to the status updates popularized by Facebook and Twitter. While Twitter asks users &amp;''What are you doing&amp;'' the actual messages veer into jokes, complaints, and other random thoughts. Quub, however, really is focused on telling people what you&amp;'re doing.One way the Irvine, Calif., company does this is by dividing the updates into the past and present &amp;8212' and now, the future. Tweets on Twitter may still be amusing or thought-provoking a day later, but the relevance of real status updates (like, &amp;''I&amp;'m at home writing an article about Quub&amp;'') tends to fade pretty quickly. And people often have a good idea what their future status will be, too. I already know that I&amp;'m going to be in a meeting at the VentureBeat office at 4pm today, so why should I have to wait until that time to enter that as my status, or to let my friends know I&amp;'m going to be busy Quub&amp;'s new &amp;''future&amp;'' tab means I can enter that information now, either manually or by importing it from my Google Calendar.There are other ways to share your calendar information, like Google Calendar itself, but what makes these features potentially powerful is the fact that they&amp;'re integrated into the broader Quub service. To differentiate itself from other status update/messaging services, Quub lets you create different lists of friends/acquaintances/colleagues and decide which status updates get shared with each list. It creates an area for discussion so that conversations don&amp;'t clutter up the status updates, and it provides automatic suggestions for what your update might be. Quub also has mobile support, though its iPhone application hasn&amp;'t been approved by Apple yet.I suspect it will be tough for Quub to compete against all the other ways people can let others know what they&amp;'re doing. At the same time, nothing I&amp;'ve tried has solved the problem perfectly &amp;8212' and it is a problem, as I&amp;'ve discovered whenever I try to figure out what other VentureBeat writers are up to.The company is self-funded so far, and while chief executive George Ruan won&amp;'t reveal any details about the business plan, he did say, &amp;''Rather than selling you ads, we want to actually add value to people&amp;'s real-world life.&amp;''Next Story: Next-generation iPhone game Doom Resurrection debuting next week Previous Story: Smartphones are no longer a luxuryPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Companies: QuubPeople: George Ruan          Companies: QuubPeople: George RuanAnthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining VentureBeat 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.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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<title><![CDATA[Just When You Needed To Know Whether Prop. 19 Will Pass, CA.gov Results Page Goes&nbsp'Down]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=just-when-you-needed-to-know-whether-prop--19-will-pass-ca-gov-results-page-goesnbspdown</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=just-when-you-needed-to-know-whether-prop--19-will-pass-ca-gov-results-page-goesnbspdown</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=just-when-you-needed-to-know-whether-prop--19-will-pass-ca-gov-results-page-goesnbspdown</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Man, it looks like Silicon Valley is getting its butt kicked at the Califonia polls, with forecasted losses from former eBay CEOa4sMeg Whitman, former HP CEO Carly Fiorina and the heavily tech industry supported Proposition 19, which would legalize marijuana in California. And you know what else is getting its butt kicked Vote.Sos.CA.govApparently the entire Internet is really invested in today&amp;'s California midterm elections, because the official California Secretary of State site has been either down or more spotty than Twitter for the last 20 minutes. While it may appear functional, any attempt to view specific results is met with the following error message:&amp;''Due to an extremely high volume of traffic, the page you have requested is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience, please try your request again shortly.&amp;''Internet users dying to watch the votes as they e-trickle in can catch them on CNN&amp;'s CA State Results page, where it looks like the Fiorina vs. Barbara Boxer race is the only one of the big three that is even remotely close.Image: Kevin Rose via InstagramCrunchBase InformationCarly FiorinaMeg WhitmanInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Is Gulf Seafood Safe To Eat Feds&' New Test Says Yes, Not&nbsp'Convincingly]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-gulf-seafood-safe-to-eat-fedsrsquo-new-test-says-yes-notnbspconvincingly</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-gulf-seafood-safe-to-eat-fedsrsquo-new-test-says-yes-notnbspconvincingly</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-gulf-seafood-safe-to-eat-fedsrsquo-new-test-says-yes-notnbspconvincingly</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ More than 9,000 square miles of U.S. federal Gulf waters are closed to commercial and recreational fishing today thanks to the BP oil spill. However, government offices today claimed that seafood from the Gulf is basically safe to consume, based on the results from their latest battery of tests. You gonna eat that Companies responsible for the environmental disaster spilled about 5 million gallons of oil, accidentally. They poured about 2 million gallons of oil dispersants into the Gulf waters on purpose, though. The dispersants were supposed to break up the wildlife-choking slicks into droplets that could be more easily digested by oil-eating bacteria. Or at least, they&amp;'d make the water look more like water and less like tar while the cameras were flying overhead.At the time of the spill, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) sent scientists to the Gulf to help with the oil spill cleanup. Even that federal office knew nothing about the dispersants&amp;' likely impact on sea life or humans. USGS director Maria McNutt admitted to her office&amp;'s ignorance at last week&amp;'s 2010 PopTech conference. By May, the St. Petersburg Times reported, there were still no federal standards for how much dispersant could be present in seafood consumed by humans, a detail the paper confirmed with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).Here&amp;'s what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) claimed in their joint press statement today regarding the safety of seafood in the Gulf, though: Building upon the extensive testing and protocols already in use by federal, state and local officials for the fishing waters of the Gulf, NOAA and FDA have developed and are using a chemical test to detect dispersants used in the Deepwater Horizon-BP oil spill in fish, oysters, crab and shrimp&amp;8230'.Experts trained in a rigorous sensory analysis process have been testing Gulf seafood for the presence of contaminants, and every seafood sample from reopened waters has passed sensory testing for contamination with oil and dispersant.  Nonetheless, to ensure consumers have total confidence in the [emphasis added] safety of seafood being harvested from the Gulf, NOAA and FDA have added [a] second test for dispersant when considering reopening Gulf waters to fishing.  Using this new, second test, in the Gulf scientists have tested 1,735 tissue samples including more than half of those collected to reopen Gulf of Mexico federal waters.  Only a few showed trace amounts of dispersants residue (13 of the 1,735) and they were well below the safety threshold of 100 parts per million for finfish and 500 parts per million for shrimp, crabs and oysters. As such, they do not pose a threat to human health.The press statement follows an investigative report by English Al Jazeera about the dispersants&amp;' impact on people and our environment that concluded: The Gulf has suffered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic dispersants&amp;8230' Dispersed, weathered oil continues to flow ashore daily&amp;8230'[Human] health impacts include headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitization, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, genetic mutations, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage&amp;8230'One researcher studying the impact of dispersants in the Gulf, told Al Jazeera about dolphinsa4&quot; and peoplea4&quot; hemorrhaging from too much dispersant exposure. Gulf residents showed off pieces of their boats that had been eaten away by dispersant-contaminated waters over just a short time. How could the new FDA-NOAA tests declare the seafood from the Gulf oil spill waters safe to eat in light of Al Jazeera&amp;'s (and so many others&amp;') reports According to the press statement, the labs tested for traces of dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, a.k.a. DOSS, a component of the dispersants used in the Gulf that&amp;'s approved by the FDA for use in various household products and over-the-counter medication at low levels. It didn&amp;'t test for the other stuff that&amp;'s included in Corexit 9500 the primary dispersant used by BP that&amp;'s still sprayed over the Gulf these days, including 2-butoxyethanol and a host of other things that for some reason, the company just won&amp;'t reveal to the public. Image via: U.S. Coast Guard 8th District, External AffairsCrunchBase InformationBritish PetroleumInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[On the GreenBeat: BMW readies electric car, Obama pitches $8 billion for clean energy]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-the-greenbeat-bmw-readies-electric-car-obama-pitches-8-billion-for-clean-energy</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-the-greenbeat-bmw-readies-electric-car-obama-pitches-8-billion-for-clean-energy</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Amihan</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-the-greenbeat-bmw-readies-electric-car-obama-pitches-8-billion-for-clean-energy</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Here&amp;'s the latest action we&amp;'re following today on the GreenBeat:Obama proposes $29.5 billion for DOE budget &amp;8212' The president pitched more clean energy projects for the 2012 budget, to be funded by cutting $3.6 billion in fossil fuel subsidies, an idea he proposed in his State of the Union address last month. The Department of Energy&amp;'s proposed budget would give it $29.5 billion for the fiscal year 2012, with $8 billion for clean energy research, Reuters reports.BMW readies electric car pilot &amp;8212' The company will be releasing 1,000 ActiveE electrified BMW coupes (pictured) to drivers in the U.S., Europe and China. The cars are essentially in a field test phase, Autopia writes.GE launches line of halogen lights &amp;8212' GE&amp;'s halogen lights are in the shape of the incandescent bulb, but are up to 22 percent more efficient, CNET writes. Two-backs of halogen bulbs will retail for between $4 and $7. LEDs, compact fluorescent light bulbs and haolgen lights are another alternative to incandescent bulbs, which are being phased out due to energy efficiency legislation. In fact, Ikea announced last month it would stop selling incandescent bulbs altogether.Enernoc potentially snared in business troubles &amp;8212' The demand response company recently saw its Chief Operating Office step down for unnamed reasons, soon after grid operator and major Enernoc customer PJM made general complaints of market manipulation in the realm of demand response, Earth2Tech writes. Demand response is a increasingly popular program in which utilities pay financial incentives to customers who agree to cut energy use during peak times. Companies like Enernoc help implement such programs. Shares of Enernoc fell on the news, and the company released a statement this morning saying it was in compliance with PJM&amp;'s rules.Next Story: Big media, not popular bloggers, dominate the conversation on Twitter Previous Story: Ubisoft ships 6.5M copies of Assassin&amp;'s Creed BrotherhoodPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: cleantech, demand response, electric cars, energy, halogen lights, LEDsCompanies: Bmw, DOE, Enernoc, GE, PJMPeople: Barack Obama          Tags: cleantech, demand response, electric cars, energy, halogen lights, LEDsCompanies: Bmw, DOE, Enernoc, GE, PJMPeople: Barack ObamaIris 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). 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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