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<title>Haaze.com / Dakota02 / All</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:10:46 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Obama to hand Commerce Dept. authority over cybersecurity ID]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=obama-to-hand-commerce-dept--authority-over-cybersecurity-id</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=obama-to-hand-commerce-dept--authority-over-cybersecurity-id</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 07 Jan 2011 08:10:46 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Politics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=obama-to-hand-commerce-dept--authority-over-cybersecurity-id</guid>
<description><![CDATA[STANFORD, Calif.--President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.It's &quot;the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government&quot; to centralize efforts toward creating an &quot;identity ecosystem&quot; for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates, including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil-liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.The Obama administration is currently drafting what it's calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)&quot;We are not talking about a national ID card,&quot; Locke said at the Stanford event. &quot;We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.&quot;The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said.Details about the &quot;trusted identity&quot; project are remarkably scarce. Last year's announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. &quot;I don't have to get a credential, if I don't want to,&quot; he said. There's no chance that &quot;a centralized database will emerge,&quot; and &quot;we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this,&quot; he said.Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology, who spoke later at the event, said any Internet ID must be created by the private sector--and also voluntary and competitive.&quot;The government cannot create that identity infrastructure,&quot; Dempsey said. &quot;If it tried to, it wouldn't be trusted.&quot;Inter-agency rivalries to claim authority over cybersecurity have existed ever since many responsibilities were centralized in the Department of Homeland Security as part of its creation nine years ago. Three years ago, proposals were circulating in Washington to transfer authority to the secretive NSA, which is part of the U.S. Defense Department.In March 2009, Rod Beckstr&amp;246'm, director of Homeland Security's National Cybersecurity Center, resigned through a letter that gave a rare public glimpse into the competition for budgetary dollars and cybersecurity authority. Beckstrom said at the time that the NSA &quot;effectively controls DHS cyberefforts through detailees, technology insertions,&quot; and has proposed moving some functions to the agency's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters.One of the NSA's missions is, of course, information assurance. But its normally lustrous star in the political firmament has dimmed a bit due to Wikileaks-related revelations.Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private who is accused of liberating hundreds of thousands of confidential government documents from military networks and sending them to Wikileaks, apparently joked about the NSA's incompetence in an online chat last spring.&quot;I even asked the NSA guy if he could find any suspicious activity coming out of local networks,&quot; Manning reportedly said in a chat transcript provided by ex-hacker Adrian Lamo. &quot;He shrugged and said, 'It's not a priority.'&quot;Last updated at 12:20 p.m. PT<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Hawaii to test hydrogen vehicles with GM]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hawaii-to-test-hydrogen-vehicles-with-gm</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hawaii-to-test-hydrogen-vehicles-with-gm</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:10:42 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hawaii-to-test-hydrogen-vehicles-with-gm</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The General Motors Fuel Cell vehicle on the coast of Oahu, near Honolulu, Hawaii.(Credit:Steve Fecht for General Motors)General Motors announced today it is part of a partnership to test fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen fueling infrastructure in Hawaii.The Hawaii Hydrogen Initiative aims to bring 20 to 25 hydrogen fueling stations to Hawaii by 2015, according to an agreement with GM, Hawaiian utility The Gas Company (TGC), and other research and government agencies.The project will seek to use existing natural gas pipelines to distribute hydrogen. TGC said that it has the capacity to produce enough hydrogen for 10,000 vehicles.Hawaii is the most fossil fuel-dependent state in the U.S., according to the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. Because it imports so much fossil fuel, it has very high electricity and liquid fuel prices compared to other states.To lessen Hawaii's dependence on fossil fuels, the Hawaii Hydrogen Initiative is trying to address one of the toughest challenges to fuel cell vehicle adoption--the lack of distribution infrastructure.GM, like other major auto companies, has a long-standing hydrogen fuel cell vehicle development program. But these vehicles have only been used in a few pockets of the U.S. where there are hydrogen filling stations.Fuel cell vehicles produce electricity on board through a chemical reaction in a fuel cell to power the vehicle. The fuel cells produce only water vapor emissions during driving, but hydrogen requires energy to be produced, often either by reforming natural gas or splitting water in an electrolyzer.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook Color earn CNET Editors' Choice Awards]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazon-kindle-and-barnes--noble-nook-color-earn-cnet-editors-choice-awards</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazon-kindle-and-barnes--noble-nook-color-earn-cnet-editors-choice-awards</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 22 Nov 2010 08:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazon-kindle-and-barnes--noble-nook-color-earn-cnet-editors-choice-awards</guid>
<description><![CDATA[E-ink EC: The Kindle(Credit:Amazon)We don't always do special blog posts announcing that a certain product has received a CNET Editors' Choice Award, but in the case of our two new winners--the Amazon Kindle and the Barnes &amp; Noble Nook Color--we're taking a moment to explain our decision for a couple for reasons.For starters, in the case of the third-generation Amazon Kindle, the product has already been out a few months. So why award it an Editors' Choice now Well, we had been leaning for a long while toward stamping it with an &quot;EC,&quot; but upon hearing rumors that Barnes &amp; Noble might have a new Nook, we decided to hold off until everything was out for the holiday season before making a final decision. As it turned out, the new Nook was a color product, and though Barnes &amp; Noble has released its new 1.5 firmware update that improves performance and adds a few new features to its existing e-ink models, we felt that the Kindle--with its slimmer, lighter design, 4GB of internal memory, superior battery life (four weeks with the wireless turned off), slightly higher contrast &quot;Pearl&quot; display, and strong Amazon shopping experience--has the edge in the e-ink e-reader market. (Our Editors' Choice Award extends to both current 6-inch iterations of the Kindle--the $189 3G/Wi-Fi model and the $139 Wi-Fi-only model.)That doesn't mean the e-ink Nooks should be be ruled out when you're shopping for e-ink e-book readers. They offer better compatibility (EPUB support), the option to lend certain titles to fellow Nook users, and virtually unlimited full-book browsing when you log in from a hot spot within a Barnes &amp; Noble store. If any of those features--or the LCD navigation screen--appeal to you, don't hesitate to buy a Nook. But we had to pick one e-ink reader, and the Kindle is it.Best color e-reader for less than $250.(Credit:Barnes &amp;amp' Noble)As for color-display e-readers, theiPad remains the strong choice for those looking for a multifaceted device that does more than reading, but in terms of dedicated e-readers in the sub-$250 range, the Nook Color stands out. Its interface is great, and its sleek design makes it more portable than the iPad. Yes, we'd like to see some more apps, but overall the Nook Color is a solid product that will improve with time--and a few software updates. As a result, we feel comfortable recommending it to folks looking for an affordable Android tablet that's heavily slanted toward reading. So, there you have it. Until this point, we hadn't doled out any Editors' Choice Awards in this category, largely because it has evolved--and continues to evolve--so quickly. We expect to see new e-readers at CES 2011 (January) along with a lot more Android tablets that should become more compelling digital-reading devices as they get more affordable. If you're shopping in the meantime, the Kindle and Nook Color are our top choices, depending on your price range and screen preference (e-ink versus color LCD).Related reading:CNET's top e-book readers listKindle vs. Nook vs. iPad: Which e-book reader should you buy<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Hasbro bringing 3D to the iPhone]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hasbro-bringing-3d-to-the-iphone</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hasbro-bringing-3d-to-the-iphone</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 09 Nov 2010 08:10:15 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hasbro-bringing-3d-to-the-iphone</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Those who once peered into their trusty View-Masters for 3D slideshows will soon get the chance to do the same with their iPhones.View-Master, an oldie but a goodie.(Credit:CC axeldeviaje/Flickr)Hasbro is set to pull the curtains on a new gadget today dubbed My3D and designed to bring 3D viewing to theiPhone andiPod Touch, according to the Associated Press. Resembling a classic View-Master from Fisher-Price, the My3D from rival toymaker Hasbro will hook onto Apple devices, promising 3D games, entertainment, and virtual travelogues.Hasbro is targeting the $30 My3D for adults as well as kids and is working directly with Apple to develop the gadget, the AP reported.To create the content, Hasbro is teaming up with a variety of companies, such as Dreamworks Animation. Hasbro will offer trailers and other movie snippets from a 3D network to be launched next year by Discovery, Sony, and Imax, the AP said.My3D is scheduled to hit the market next spring in Apple retail stores and other outlets that sell the iPhone and iPod Touch. Consumers will be able to browse Apple's App store to download 3D apps, both free and paid.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Leaked memo notes MacBook Air display problems]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=leaked-memo-notes-macbook-air-display-problems</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=leaked-memo-notes-macbook-air-display-problems</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 04 Nov 2010 07:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=leaked-memo-notes-macbook-air-display-problems</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Purportedly an internal memo to Apple&amp;39's customer support staff, it appears to confirm that the Air&amp;39's reported display issues are for real.(Credit:Boy Genius Report)The redesigned MacBook Air is only two weeks old, and reports of display issues have begun to crop up.Cult of Mac reported earlier this week that it noticed flickering horizontal lines sometimes appearing on the display of its 13-inch model. A quick check of Apple support forums reveals a couple dozen reports of similar issues.Though Apple has yet to publicly acknowledge the problem, a leaked internal memo shows that the company's support staff is indeed aware of it. Boy Genius Report received the memo from an unnamed source, and published it today.Sources tell BGR:(T)hat the manufacturer is investigating several of them internally. Included among the issues is a bug where the display flickers or shows horizontal lines of varying colors when a computer wakes from sleep or after hot-plugging a display. Another bug causes the screen to fade from light to dark repeatedly after waking from sleep. Apple's internal support system includes suggestions for interim fixes in each of these cases, but no permanent fixes are available at this time. We've reached out to Apple for comment on the memo and the issue with displays to see if it will confirm either. We haven't heard back but will update the story if we do.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[IE9 the best browser Not so fast]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ie9-the-best-browser-not-so-fast</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ie9-the-best-browser-not-so-fast</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 Nov 2010 07:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ie9-the-best-browser-not-so-fast</guid>
<description><![CDATA[It began innocently enough--a promotional blog post about Microsoft's newest version of Internet Explorer 9. But in less than a week, it became an illustration of just how rapidly misinformation moves through a hot and increasingly important corner of the software market.The browser market was already competitive a year ago, but the arrival of IE9, currently in beta testing, has added even more energy to the competition. That's because Microsoft has placed support for a host of modern Web technologies front and center, transforming IE from a drag on the Internet into an ally in developers' efforts to bring everyone a more powerful Web.IE6, nearly a decade old but still widely used, has saddled Microsoft with a reputation for browser neglect. So what could be more eye-catching than the news that IE9 not only is back in the game, but that it leapfrogged the competitorsAlas, as with many good stories, the truth turns out to be less dramatic and but harder to find. The IE9-is-better idea triggered teeth-gnashing on a Web standard mailing list and a hastily published disclaimer by the World Wide Web Consortium that's developing many of those Web standards.The episode shows the difficulties of keeping track of a browser market in the throes of breakneck change. Even those creating the yardsticks to measure the progress struggle to keep up.IE9 and standards supportWhat happened with IE9 Last week, Microsoft released the sixth &quot;platform preview&quot; version of IE9. At the same time, browser makers had begun submitting test results to a new W3C suite of HTML5 standards compliance tests.When Microsoft discussed the new IE9 version on its IEBlog, the company included a link to the tests, calling them &quot;an early version of the W3C's Official HTML5 Test Suite Conformance Results.&quot;Shortly after came the headlines: &quot;W3C Says IE9 Is Currently the Most HTML5-Compatible Browser&quot; from Slashdot. &quot;IE9 Outperforms Other Browsers for HTML5 Compliance&quot; from ReadWriteWeb. &quot;IE 9 Beats Chrome,Firefox, andSafari on Official HTML 5 Test&quot; from Windows IT Pro.Then came the alarmed reaction by those creating the standards. The W3C page, it turned out, was preliminary at best.&quot;This test suite is vastly incomplete. Publishing unverified results of a vastly incomplete test suite without a big fat warning is extremely silly. Why was this done&quot; said Anne van Kesteren, an Opera developer who works on standards issues, in a mailing list posting Tuesday.Added Ian Hickson, the Google employee who's editing the HTML5 specification, &quot;I agree with Anne that it's rather pointless to be publishing results for this test suite. Realistically speaking the test suite isn't even 0.1 percent complete yet.&quot;Shortly after, the disclaimer arrived on the Web page with the results: &quot;The HTML5 test suite is still being developed. The number of tests and the results on these tests will change. The results in this document may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by others documents at any time. It is inappropriate to cite those results as other than work in progress and unstable.&quot;In a presentation this week, leaders of the HTML5 effort said there are 215 tests included in the suite right now, with more than 600 on the way, and that the group needs &quot;a lot more tests!&quot;So declaring IE9 the winner on the test at this stage is something like saying England is better than the United States because it's got lusher lawns. The full range of tests aren't yet available.Even worse, HTML5 is only part of the full range of Web technologies that are arriving. Others include Scalable Vector Graphics and Canvas for 2D graphics, WebGL for 3D graphics, Web Sockets for better live communications between servers and browsers, Web Workers for multithreaded JavaScript programs, and Cascading Style Sheets for increasingly advanced formatting.Benchmark brouhahaAll these technologies are instrumental to transforming browsers from passive receptacles for server content into active engines for running Web-based applications. Accompanying the new standards is ever-faster JavaScript, the language for Web-based programs.Browser makers are scrambling to attract and retain users. As new features emerge, a golden age of Web demos has begun with helicopter games, ruffling curtains, exploding videos, computer aquariums, virtual reality, jiggling balls, and blooming flowers.But what if you want something more authoritative A natural way to get a handle on the chaos, of course, is to measure whose browser can run Web-based programs the fastest, or build Web pages to tally who supports what new features. Such seemingly neutral areas are where the problems are cropping up.Back in the days of yore--say, early 2010--there were two prevailing methods that were useful if not perfect. For measuring JavaScript program speed, one could run the SunSpider benchmark. For checking compliance with new-era standards, one could run the Acid3 test.Now, though, the browser world has begun moving to new tests. The only problem with calling winners in the browser race, though, is that the new tests really aren't settled down yet. The W3C tests are just one illustration.SunSpider stemmed from the WebKit project behind Apple's Safari browser and, more recently, Google's Chrome and any number ofmobile browsers. Dissatisfaction is brewing with what's now a relatively elderly test, however.&quot;Because of...all the progress each browser vendor has made over the last several years, SunSpider is no longer particularly useful as a JS benchmark,&quot; Asa Dotzler in a blog post last week. &quot;This is kind of obvious when you see that all of the top scores are pretty much tied. One one-hundredth of a second (across 26 tests) separates the slow from the fast, and that's just not particularly meaningful.&quot;Google found SunSpider wanting, too, and introduced its own V8 JavaScript benchmark suite. The first version arrived with Chrome, more than two years ago, but it's now up to its sixth revision.And in September, Mozilla released Kraken, a new JavaScript speed test. It was developed to try to be closer to real-world computing challenges.Benchmarking is ever an imperfect science, to be sure. It's hard to measure the full breadth of computing chores, hard to weight tests toward the important components, hard to account for different hardware and network constraints, hard to factor in the latest technology. To draw a parallel from the auto industry, miles-per-gallon ratings for cars are reasonably useful--until electric vehicles come along.And just as cataloging HTML5 feature support is a narrower task than the full panoply of Web standards, clocking JavaScript is only one aspect of browser performance. There's also the time to show a Web page, network performance, scrolling fluidity, and any number of other matters. Microsoft has been releasing a series of tests that exercise several parts of the browser--naturally the IE9 versions shine when it comes to the matter of hardware acceleration.All these tests are useful--as is Find Me By IP's browser support test and the HTML5 test site.Unfortunately, it'll take time for the testing community to converge on new tests, even assuming the standards settle down enough to create meaningfully complete tests in the first place.So for the time being, we'll all have to live with inconvenient ambiguities in browser testing. Sounds like good practice for the real world. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Poll: Do laptops still need optical drives]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=poll-do-laptops-still-need-optical-drives</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=poll-do-laptops-still-need-optical-drives</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=poll-do-laptops-still-need-optical-drives</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ The 13-inch version of Apple's revamped MacBook Air doubles the USB ports (to two) and adds an SD card slot, but it still lacks an optical drive. And it's not alone--other recent DVD-free 13-inch systems include Toshiba Satellite T235D and the Asus U35JC. In smaller 11- and 12-inch laptops, we're used to not having an optical drive, although they do occasionally turn up. But to some, the optical drive is becoming like the telephone modem jack that used to be standard on every laptop--a bit of legacy hardware that rarely gets used. The main reasons we used to need an optical drive were for installing applications (including games), playing DVD movies, and burning backup discs. Thanks to painfully overenthusiastic DRM, games are much easier to download and install via an online service such as Steam' the same goes for many apps (including the ones we use frequently, including OpenOffice, Reason, and Pro Tools LE).  Even video content is much more convenient when downloaded from iTunes or streamed from Netflix. Backing up is now a task for a high-capacity USB key or networked hard drive. But we also know there are many people out there who will never give up their laptop DVD drives, and they have sound reasons for feeling that way (we learned earlier this year that people have a similar attachment to their computer mice). Assuming optical drives are going to stick around for the time being in 15-inch and larger laptops, let's instead see how people feel about them in smaller systems. Cast your vote in this poll, and then jump into the comments section below and let us know why you need (or don't need) an optical drive in your laptop. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[No more manquisitions: 5 New Year&'s resolutions for the tech world]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-more-manquisitions-5-new-yearrsquos-resolutions-for-the-tech-world</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-more-manquisitions-5-new-yearrsquos-resolutions-for-the-tech-world</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-more-manquisitions-5-new-yearrsquos-resolutions-for-the-tech-world</guid>
<description><![CDATA[As we head towards the New Year of 2011, the VentureBeat team has put together a list of things we&amp;'d like to see the tech and startup world improve on.Yes, we&amp;'re whiners, and yes, this is skewed toward the topics that we&amp;'re personally worked up about. But if there are things you&amp;'d like to see changed in the New Year, either in the tech world as a whole, at a specific company, or even at VentureBeat,  please let us know in the comments.1. No more manquisitions &amp;8212' Also known as &amp;''talent acquisitions&amp;'', these are deals where a company is purchased just to hire its founders and maybe some other senior team members. In many cases, a substantial number of employees are laid off, the technology is scrapped, and users of the startup product are screwed.There are times when these deals are an easy way for the founders to make some money and find gainful employment, and sometimes they&amp;'re the best option for a struggling startup, and we&amp;'re not under any illusion that that&amp;'s going to stop. But let&amp;'s stop pretending that these deals are a huge victory for anyone except the acquiring company.Besides, the word &amp;''manquisition&amp;'' is just ugly. And &amp;''acq-hire&amp;'' is even worse.2. Solve the app discovery problem &amp;8212' This is something that every mobile application-builder we talk to is concerned about. They&amp;'ve usually developed some good strategies for getting noticed among the flood of content in Apple&amp;'s App Store, the Android Marketplace, and elsewhere, but there&amp;'s still no good way for users to explore the &amp;''long tail&amp;'' of apps that lie beyond the top-selling and featured app lists.I don&amp;'t think this is a problem that individual startups can solve. The companies running these marketplaces need to make structural changes that help users find apps, especially the apps that don&amp;'t have a big marketing budget &amp;8212' otherwise, the growth of apps will start to seem like a defeat, not a victory.3. Have a substantive discussion about the absence of women in tech &amp;8212' Yes, this is a topic that prompts a lot of eye-rolling, partly because so much of the debate is shout-y and shallow. Some men get defensive because they feel like they&amp;'re being accused of sexism, while some women get defensive because they hear condescension in the topic, as if they can&amp;'t succeed in the startup world without handholding.It&amp;'d be nice if we could move the discussion away from kneejerk defensiveness and more towards the big, long-term factors that contribute to women still being underrepresented in the industry, especially in tech-centric and leadership roles (and yes, many of these involve broader issues that no particular company or group of companies can fix).To be clear, I think sexist assholes should still be called out. But let&amp;'s not make them the focus of the conversation.4. Disclose active user numbers &amp;8212' For most Web startups, the big number to flaunt is the amount of registered users. Now those can make for great stories &amp;8212' 1 million! 2 million! 500 million! But these numbers can distort the discussion, because registered user numbers don&amp;'t tell us whether a company has an engaged, loyal audience or if they simply convinced a bunch of people to sign up for the service who never came back. Most  startups are only going to share numbers that look good for them, but let&amp;'s try to focus on daily or monthly active users whenever possible.For more on this subject, check out this great rant from TechCrunch&amp;'s Jason Kincaid.5. End the overuse of embargoes &amp;8212' Okay, this one is really insidery, but it affects the quality of coverage that you see in VentureBeat. PR firms in tech and elsewhere have developed a practice of giving journalists advanced notice on news, as long as we agree to hold off on publishing anything until an appointed time. There are probably instances when this approach makes sense, particularly if companies have a complicated product or announcement that they want to explain to reporters without everyone feeling like there&amp;'s a rush to publish. But embargoes often result in canned, same-y stories showing up everywhere, especially since we can&amp;'t talk about the stories (say, with competing companies or an analyst of our choosing) until after they&amp;'re published.Many embargoes are sent with so little advanced notice that there&amp;'s no time to do a good job anyway. And there are other times when someone breaks the embargo, leading to the same old rush to publish.To be clear, VentureBeat still plays by the rules, because that&amp;'s the only way we can cover some of the big stories. But I hope there&amp;'s a shift away from using embargoes as the default way to distribute news. We&amp;'re trying to do our part by increasing the number of stories that aren&amp;'t prepackaged, embargoed announcements, and hopefully you&amp;'ll see more of that coverage in the coming year.By the way, I hope never to write at such length about embargoes again. Because on top of everything else, embargoes are boring.[image via Flickr/Allan Chatto]Next Story: Founder Institutea4a4s Adeo Ressi says you cana4a4t teach entrepreneurship (video) Previous Story: AskGaijin launches crowd tool to help Japanese companies avoid embarrassing EngrishPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: app discovery, embargoes, manquisitions, New Year&amp;'s resolutions, talent acquisitions, women in tech          Tags: app discovery, embargoes, manquisitions, New Year&amp;'s resolutions, talent acquisitions, women in techAnthony 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.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[PapayaMobile launches Chinese version of Android game-development kit]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=papayamobile-launches-chinese-version-of-android-game-development-kit</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=papayamobile-launches-chinese-version-of-android-game-development-kit</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=papayamobile-launches-chinese-version-of-android-game-development-kit</guid>
<description><![CDATA[PapayaMobile is launching the Chinese language version of its software development kit today as part of a plan to get more developers to make Android mobile games with its tools.The Beijing-based company created Papaya Game Engine for Android, a game engine, or tool, to make cool 3D games on Android phones. Now it has targeted China, where there are already an estimated 1,000 Android developers and 20 independent Android app stores.The company&amp;'s platform helps developers make games more social and more viral by adding challenges and leaderboards. Developers using the platform can also cross-promote their games to PapayaMobile&amp;'s 8 million registered users. The company says it has doubled the size of its user base since launching the Android social game platform in June.It will be interesting to watch the growth of the Chinese game developer market. The talent for making cell phone games is spreading around the world, but many of the successful companies have been based in the U.S. and Japan. Game companies such as Ngmoco have been successful on the iPhone, but successes on the Android platform have only just begun to happen. Rovio, for instance, said it published its Angry Birds game as a free ad-supported app on Android and has seen more than 7 million downloads. At some point, the Android market should become large enough to support more Android-focused game studios.About 20.5 million Android smartphones were sold worldwide in the third quarter of this year, claiming a 25.5 percent market share, compared to just 3.5 percent a year earlier. Apple sold about 13.5 million iPhones, falling from 17.1 percent market share a year ago to 16.7 percent, according to Gartner.PapayaMobile expects strong growth of Android games in the coming year, particularly in China. To encourage developers further, PapayaMobile is launching a global game developer contest. Developers who use the company&amp;'s game engine can enter the contest. First prize will get $10,000, a flight for one member of the team to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in the spring, an internship in Beijing for six months, and free promotion on the PapayaMobile home page as Android App of the Day for one week. I am the final judge for the contest. (Rules are here).Si Shen, a former mobile product manager for Google in China, started PapayaMobile in 2008 with Wenjie Qian. The company has 30 employees and raised$4 million in funding from DCM. More than 100 apps use PapayaMobilea4a4s technology, Shen said. Rivals include Scoreloop, Ngmoco and Aurora Feint.Next Story: 5 top trends in consumer-based Internet businesses for 2011 Previous Story: RockYou acquires TirNua for next-generation 3D social games (exclusive)PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Android, game developersCompanies: PapayaMobilePeople: Si Shen          Tags: Android, game developersCompanies: PapayaMobilePeople: Si ShenDean 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.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[Week in review: Oracle wins huge verdict against SAP]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=week-in-review-oracle-wins-huge-verdict-against-sap</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=week-in-review-oracle-wins-huge-verdict-against-sap</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=week-in-review-oracle-wins-huge-verdict-against-sap</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Herea4a4s our roundup of the weeka4a4s tech business news (shorter than usual due to the Thanksgiving holiday). First, the most popular stories VentureBeat published in the last seven days:Oracle wins a whopping $1.3B verdict against SAP &amp;8212' Piracy doesna4a4t pay &amp;8230' at least not for SAP.With Saturday Night Live spoof, TSA is losing the Internet war on pat-down searches &amp;8212' What we seem to have here is a citizen revolt in progress, aided and abetted by the Internet, with word spreading on social networking tools such as YouTube and Twitter.iPhone OS 4.2 lands: Brings multitasking to iPad, free Find My iPhone service &amp;8212' Ita4a4s time to get updating: Apple rolled out iPhone OS (iOS) 4.2 for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, bringing with it some long-awaited new features like multitasking support on the iPad, and a surprise reveal that its a4AFind My iPhonea4 device location service is now free.iPad beats back first Android tablet a4&quot; what does it all mean &amp;8212' Just a month in, the first model in a new series of Android-based tablet computers is already losing to Applea4a4s market-defining iPad. We talked to consultant Tim Bajarin about where things are going from here.And here are four more posts we think are important, thought-provoking, fun, or all of the above:VentureBeata4a4s top 10 holiday gift ideas: affordable and fun gadgets that work &amp;8212' Our top picks were easy. Apple or Apple or Apple.As its CEO steps down, whata4a4s happening at RockYou &amp;8212' News broke Tuesday that Lance Tokuda is stepping down from his role as chief executive of social game- and app-maker RockYou. Coming barely more than a month after the company announced substantial layoffs, we started wondering where RockYou is headed. Your iPhone can be charged wirelessly a4&quot; how about your electric car &amp;8212' Plugs. Theya4a4re, like, so 2008.Report: Windows Mobile was for work, Windows Phone 7 is for fun &amp;8212' Microsoft seems to have a new mantra: When all else fails, shoot for a bigger audience.Previous Story: EC Roundup: Crisis management and 5 unexpected challengesPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Android, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Phone 7Companies: Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, RockYou, SAPPeople: Tim Bajarin          Tags: Android, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Windows Phone 7Companies: Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, RockYou, SAPPeople: Tim BajarinAnthony 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[Y Combinator Names First New Partners Since 2005: Paul Buchheit And Harj&nbsp'Taggar]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=y-combinator-names-first-new-partners-since-2005-paul-buchheit-and-harjnbsptaggar</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=y-combinator-names-first-new-partners-since-2005-paul-buchheit-and-harjnbsptaggar</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=y-combinator-names-first-new-partners-since-2005-paul-buchheit-and-harjnbsptaggar</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Prestigious startup incubator Y Combinator has just announced that it&amp;'s adding two new partners:  Paul Buchheit, who created Gmail and founded FriendFeed' and Harj Taggar, a former participant in the YC program who has been working there over the last year to help advise startups.Buchheit is the better known of the two a4&quot; in addition to Gmail and FriendFeed, he also created the first prototype of Google&amp;'s AdSense and coined its motto &amp;''Don&amp;'t be evil&amp;''.  To take the new position Buchheit is leaving Facebook, which he joined last summer when the social network acquired his company Friendfeed.  Given Facebook&amp;'s rapid growth this is a bit surprising, butBuchheit is financially secure and Y Combinator is surging as well.Taggar founded Auctomatic, a service that helped users sell things on eBay that was acquired by Live Current Media in March 2008 for $5 million in cash and stock.Given Y Combinator&amp;'s success, these are certainly coveted spots. Y Combinator hasn&amp;'t added any Partners to its team since it launched in 2005' other partners include Anybots founder Trevor Blackwell, Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, and Robert Morris. YC also recently named Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian as its &amp;8216'Ambassador to the East&amp;'. Here&amp;'s YC founder Paul Graham&amp;'s post on the news:In case anyone doesn&amp;'t already know who he is, Paul Buchheit was responsible for three of the best things Google has done: he wrote GMail, built the original prototype of AdSense, and came up with the phrase &amp;''Don&amp;'t be evil.&amp;'' After leaving Google he started FriendFeed, which last year became Facebook&amp;'s largest acquisition to date. He&amp;'s a good friend as well as one of the world&amp;'s best hackers' for years we&amp;'ve considered him an honorary YC partner.We hired Harj Taggar earlier this year to work advising startups alongside me. He wasn&amp;'t technically a partner, but we quickly realized that he was one de factoa4&quot;that among us his opinion carried as much weight as any of oursa4&quot;and that it would be mean of us to delay recognizing this officially. Harj&amp;'s arrival significantly improved how well YC operated. He&amp;'s a large part of the reason we were able to fund 36 startups in the summer 2010 cycle.CrunchBase InformationY CombinatorInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Freebie Startup Listia Now Helps Businesses Hold&nbsp'Give-Aways]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=freebie-startup-listia-now-helps-businesses-holdnbspgive-aways</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=freebie-startup-listia-now-helps-businesses-holdnbspgive-aways</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=freebie-startup-listia-now-helps-businesses-holdnbspgive-aways</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Everybody loves free stuff. And, believe it or not, plenty of businesses love giving it away a4&quot;a4sfreebies can help raise awareness of a company and increase customer loyalty. Thing is, it isn&amp;'t always so easy for a business to give something away a4&quot; at least, not in a manner that&amp;'s going to result in much exposure. Listia, the startup that specializes in helping connect users with free stuff, wants to help. a4sToday, the company is launching a new &amp;8216'raffle&amp;' feature that will allow businesses to sign up, decide what they want to give away, and use Listia to actually run the contest.But why would aa4sbusiness pay for this After all, throwing up a landing page with an email submission form isn&amp;'t terribly difficult.a4sListia has a few reasons: first, their contest pages include integration with Facebook and Twitter, making it easy for users to tell their friends about a raffle. And Listia is prominently featuring business give-aways throughout the rest of the site, which means businesses will have an audience of thousands right off the bat.We should note that these raffles differ from Listia&amp;'s auctions, which are the startup&amp;'s main feature. Listia auctions invite people to use free points to bid on items other users are giving away for free. You can earn these points by interacting on the site (and giving away free stuff of your own), or you can buy some points yourself. The system ensures that the person who gets the item being given away actually wants it, and isn&amp;'t just shrugging their shoulders and saying &amp;''sure, why not&amp;''.Listia&amp;'s raffle feature a4&quot;a4sthe one that&amp;'s launching today a4&quot;a4sdoesn&amp;'t have this mechanic: you enter your name and email address and a winner is chosen at random. But it does still benefit from the existing system: users are incentivized to share a business&amp;'s raffle on Twitter and Facebook, because they earn Listia points when they do so (which they can in turn use on auctions).Listia is offering the raffle feature free for now, with plans to charge businesses for it down the road. Listia will be benefitting in another way: anyone who wants to enter a raffle has to create a Listia account (which is easy to do, but it&amp;'s still valuable for the startup).Listia says it now has over 200,000 registered users (though they won&amp;'t say how many are currently active). The site recently had its 1 millionth auction, and has been growing 15-20% per month.You can see the first Listia raffle, which is being offered by fellow YC-alum WePay right here.CrunchBase InformationListiaInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Group holidays for mourners help them rediscover joy in life - Springwise]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=group-holidays-for-mourners-help-them-rediscover-joy-in-life---springwise</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=group-holidays-for-mourners-help-them-rediscover-joy-in-life---springwise</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Travel</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=group-holidays-for-mourners-help-them-rediscover-joy-in-life---springwise</guid>
<description><![CDATA[For people who have lost a loved one, moving beyond grief and mourning can seem impossible. In Germany, leading travel company TUI has teamed up with grief counselor Fritz Roth to offer mourners a ''journey back into life'' by stepping out of their daily routine. Starting this month, Reise Ins Leben is offering group holidays to the Mecklenburg Lake District, Portugal, Spain and Greece. The trips follow a specific daily rhythm: mornings are devoted to quiet reflection, afternoons are about venturing into life by going to a beach or a museum, and evenings are focused on life''s pleasures: enjoying a good meal or listening to music. Since everyone is going through the same process, the groups bond quickly, with members offering each other support and encouragement. While death and grieving might feel like taboo subjects at home, the holidays provide an open and positive atmosphere, as well as the time and distance needed to deal with such a key stage in life. All trips are accompanied by grief counselors trained by Roth, and the company advises participants to wait three to four months after a loved one''s death before going on a trip. It also recommends  traveling without family or friends. While similar holidays have been offered by smaller organizations, the involvement of a major brand like TUI suggests this could be a significant opportunity for entrepreneurs elsewhere.Website: www.reiseinsleben.deContact: info@reiseinsleben.deSpotted by: Andy Kurth <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple Massively Ramped Up Ad Spending In 2010, But Sales Grew Even&nbsp'Faster]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-massively-ramped-up-ad-spending-in-2010-but-sales-grew-evennbspfaster</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-massively-ramped-up-ad-spending-in-2010-but-sales-grew-evennbspfaster</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-massively-ramped-up-ad-spending-in-2010-but-sales-grew-evennbspfaster</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Earlier today, Apple&amp;'s 10-K form was released for their 2010 fiscal year. The long document is full of tidbits about the state of Apple&amp;'s business. One thing of note is just how much Apple ramped up their advertising spending in 2010.For 2010, the company&amp;'s advertising costs were $691 million. That&amp;'s up from $501 million last year. And it&amp;'s the first huge jump for Apple in recent years. In 2008, for example, they spent $486 million. And in 2007, they spent $467 million. In other words, in previous years, the ramp up in ad spending has been about $15 to $20 million. This past year A $190 million jump.But what&amp;'s pretty incredible is that even despite this huge ramp up, Apple continues their trend of lowering the percentage of revenues they spend on advertising. While the spend was $691 million this year, total revenues were over $65 billion, so Apple only spent about 1 percent of their revenue on this. Last year, that percentage was 1.37. In 2001, it was 5 percent.So even though Apple is ramping up ad spending, they&amp;'re bringing in money much quicker so the overall percentage of money they&amp;'re spending keeps getting less and less.And while $691 million may seem like a massive amount of money, it&amp;'s still less than half of what Microsoft spent on advertising last year. And it&amp;'s less than what Dell spent last year.So what did Apple spend that extra $200 million on They don&amp;'t break it down, but you can bet a bunch was their new category: iPad. And those great Don Draper-like iPhone 4 ads.[image: AMC]CrunchBase InformationAppleInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Facebook investor Accel looks east with New York office]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-investor-accel-looks-east-with-new-york-office</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-investor-accel-looks-east-with-new-york-office</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota02</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-investor-accel-looks-east-with-new-york-office</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Accel Partners, the venture firm best known for backing Facebook, just announced that ita4a4s opening an office in New York City.Ita4a4s an unusual move, said Accel partner Rich Wong. While East Coast firms have opened offices in Silicon Valley, we haven&amp;'t really seen Valley firms moving in the other direction.  The new office is an acknowledgment of how the New York startup scene has grown. And it also reflects the fact that 15 of Accela4a4s portfolio companies are already in the New York area: Quidsi, Etsy, Squarespace, Learnvest, Glam, Global Grind, Bauble Bar, Birchbox, Loosecubes, Salescrunch, Bonobos, Collective, VenMo, and Exlclusively.In.This doesna4a4t mean Accel is hiring any partners or that any of its existing partners are relocating. Partner Theresia Gouw Ranzetta said that, with the firma4a4s existing investments, not a week goes by without someone from Accel visiting the city. And Jim Breyer, another Accel partner whoa4a4s leading the New York initiative with Ranzetta, has homes in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Manhattan. The New York office gives visiting partners a place to work, hold meetings, and host events.Accela4a4s new office will be in the Union Square neighborhood of Manhattan &amp;8212' making it neighbors with, yes, Union Square Ventures, the famous New York firm that was an early investor in Twitter. When I asked if Accel wants to become more competitive with New York firms, Ranzetta said, a4AWe partner pretty closely with all of those guys, we have a strong relationship.a4Accel also has offices in Palo Alto, Bangalore, Beijing, London, New Delhi, and Shanghai. The New York office will be making investments from both Accel&amp;'s early-stage and later-stage investment funds.[image via Flickr/Swaminathan]Previous Story: BlackBerry PlayBook hands on shows zippy interface and touch-enabled bezels (video)PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: New York CityCompanies: Accel PartnersPeople: Jim Breyer, Rich Wong, Theresia Gouw Ranzetta          Tags: New York CityCompanies: Accel PartnersPeople: Jim Breyer, Rich Wong, Theresia Gouw RanzettaAnthony 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.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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