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<title>Haaze.com / Marry / All</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:10:22 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Report: Apple adjusted top apps ranking criteria]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-adjusted-top-apps-ranking-criteria</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-adjusted-top-apps-ranking-criteria</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:10:22 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-adjusted-top-apps-ranking-criteria</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Apple)Reports surfaced earlier today claim that Apple has changed its ranking algorithms for the App Store, shifting how applications make it to the top of the heap where they are more likely to pick up sales due to the extra visibility. The change, which was picked up on by third-party analytics providers like Flurry last week and passed on to blog Inside Mobile Apps, is said to add other factors to an application's placement in the top sections of the App Store, besides raw download numbers alone.Citing several applications that made dramatic jumps without a major update--including Facebook, Netflix, and Pandora--the report suggests Apple is now weighing how often applications are used (once downloaded) by daily and monthly users to better signify their ranking. Rival Google, the makers of the Android OS, and purveyors of the Android Market reportedly began the same practice earlier this month based on similar third-party findings.Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.While seemingly subtle, the move has a dramatic impact not just on games and applications, which depend on placement on Apple's list for new downloads and purchases but also the businesses that have sprung up to promote them. It could also provide more accuracy about what's hot at any given moment than downloads alone. But that idea of apps effectively phoning home that data brings up concerns about what types of information Apple is tracking and using for listing and promotional purposes. This is at a time when Apple, Google, and app makers have been targeted by lawsuits for allegedly playing fast and loose with user privacy by allowing third-parties to track user activity.To Apple's credit, the behavior necessary to track activity and send it back would still fall within the &quot;collection and use of non-personal information&quot; section found in the company's iTunes privacy policy:We also may collect information regarding customer activities on our website, MobileMe service, and iTunes Store and from our other products and services. This information is aggregated and used to help us provide more useful information to our customers and to understand which parts of our website, products, and services are of most interest. Aggregated data is considered non-personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.The company also spells out its right to use cookies and other tracking technologies in various places, including &quot;interactive applications,&quot; later on in the same document. Race to the topSimilar to search engine listings, getting to the top of Apple's list can bring great rewards. Applications that break into the top 25 lists can get a dramatic number of downloads and purchases, an effect that can snowball and push some higher and higher. The process can also be beneficial to developers who produce &quot;lite,&quot; andiPad versions of their applications, where visibility can push the application's counterpart to the top as well. Developer 2-D Boy, the makers of the World of Goo application, which currently sits inside the top 15iPhone apps and in the top 30 for iPad, noted in February that nabbing the No. 1 spot on the charts provided sales that were orders of magnitude higher than No. 2. At the same time, the developer noted that the glory could be short-lived:Having obsessively monitored World of Goo's App Store ranking and sales numbers after launch, one of the things we found surprising is that when World of Goo was hovering near the top of the charts we saw that the 1 app was selling about twice as much as the 2 app. This drove home the point that it's dangerous to judge the health of a distribution channel by how much the top selling game makes. If you're lucky enough to reach the top of the charts, unless you're Castle Crashers or Angry Birds, you're not going to stay there for very long.That postmortem also noted that the same application, once it fell outside of the top 10, was still receiving a high amount of exposure from users. To back up 2-D Boy's claims, applications like Rovio's Angry Birds series have managed to stay on the top of the curve, raking in sales month after month and hanging on to the top spot. But even there there's a chance to be knocked off by new challengers. Andreas Illiger's Tiny Wings, for instance, dethroned longtime chart topper Angry Birds earlier this year and has managed to stay in the top 5. The business of promotionWhat makes any under-the-hood changes of special interest is the business that's cropped up around promoting applications. Solutions like Flurry's AppCircle program and similar efforts from TapJoy and W3i give developers a way to boost downloads of applications in exchange for ad space within their applications, or a payments per installation. When done as part of a large promotion, such campaigns can push applications out of obscurity and onto the charts where they can begin to gain downloads and users organically.How big are these networks In an announcement about its new self-publishing program last month, TapJoy said it had more than 200 million mobile customers and 100 million social gamers who could drive downloads to the point of being able &quot;to ensure that a game becomes a top hit.&quot; That same program could end up being less effective in the long run if the usage of that application is part of the ranking, quickly pushing off applications that pulled in big download numbers but failed to keep people using them.Apple also has what can be called a &quot;tepid&quot; relationship with the analytics and advertising arms of such networks, including Flurry. In early 2010, ahead of the iPad's official unveiling, the company shared identifying details about Apple's then-unreleasedtablet, including what kinds of applications Apple was testing and the version of iOS it was running. All of this was based on system data Flurry was grabbing from applications that were making use of its analytics technology and being tested within Apple's walls. As a result, Apple changed the rules of its software development kit to keep analytics from grabbing device data. Coming back to the rankings issue though, the bottom line is that there's still very little proof outside of some out-of-character rank jumping to point that there has been an overwhelming shift in how much it takes for an application to get on and stay on the list. Just like any other ranking algorithm, there are factors in play that determine the scale and speed of those jumps. The real question remains what else is a part of the mix that determines what takes an app to the top, and if Apple is trying to keep that a moving target. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Are plastic bags actually greener than paper]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=are-plastic-bags-actually-greener-than-paper</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=are-plastic-bags-actually-greener-than-paper</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 21 Feb 2011 08:10:36 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=are-plastic-bags-actually-greener-than-paper</guid>
<description><![CDATA[I find certainty a little dubious.Somehow, nothing has ever seemed that certain on this earth, so when people--especially scientists or green activists--claim they know everything, my skeptical muscle goes all Cirque du Soleil.So please raise an eyebrow with me to a stimulating article in the Independent newspaper. It reveals the existence of a report, commissioned by the U.K. government, that concludes that plastic bags are actually less harmful to the environment than either paper or cotton versions. I know that doesn't sound right, does it I live the merest gust of wind away from San Francisco, where plastic bags are banned. I have always been told that paper is green, recyclable, and the finest way we can make use of the Amazon forest.So how could it be that high-density polythene is actually greenerMight they be greener after all(Credit:CC Katerha/Flickr)Well, this report, created by Chris Edwards and Jonna Meyhoff Fry at the behest of the U.K. Environment Agency, reportedly says that ordinary plastic bags are 200 times more climate-friendly than those cotton carriers favored by so many environmentalist preachers.If that isn't exciting enough for you to question your precepts and sanity, the report also reportedly claims that these put-upon, downtrodden plastic carriers emit one-third of the carbon dioxide of paper bags. The researchers made a very simple conclusion--that plastic bags are greener because they're far lighter. Here's what I find slightly curious about this study: it hasn't been published yet. Even though it was reportedly presented a year ago. It is still being reviewed by peers, although the U.K. Environment Agency promises it will see encounter the public eye soon.The agency also created a frisson of excitement when it told the Independent that the reviewers &quot;questioned some aspects of the original draft, although much was about emphasis and balance.&quot;I am sure there will be many emphatic, balanced, and sober scientists all over the world who will await this report with some glee.The plastic bag has been such a universally useful invention that it would be a shame to see it disappear. It can hold so much of your life in one eminently foldable item. It can even keep your possessions--especially when you've been kicked out of an apartment and are walking the streets in despair--mostly dry.To merely imagine that it might be greener than all the items barkingly suggested by the Green Police might give some curious hope for the future. I know there are many who crave the days when, after being asked &quot;paper or plastic&quot; they were proud to say the latter.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft to open third retail store in California]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-open-third-retail-store-in-california</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-open-third-retail-store-in-california</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:10:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-open-third-retail-store-in-california</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft&amp;39's Costa Mesa, Calif. store is currently under construction, and due to open this spring.(Credit:Microsoft)Microsoft plans to open its third retail store in the state of California later this year. The South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Calif., will be the latest location to get a Microsoft retail store, and will join Microsoft's other Californian efforts in San Diego and Mission Viejo, the company announced on its Twitter account earlier today. As for the timing, Microsoft is saying only that the new store's doors will open in the spring.Outside of California, Microsoft has retail stores in Scottsdale, Ariz.' Lone Tree, Colo.' Bloomington, Minn.' Oak Brook, Ill.' and one that recently opened in Bellevue, Wash. As ZDnet's Mary Jo Foley notes, Microsoft has not yet ventured toward the East Coast, but may be heading to New York City sometime later this year as part of a six-store retail expansion. Microsoft opened up its first retail store in Scottsdale, Ariz., near the end of 2009. Since then the company has opened up six more, positioning the stores as places where users can come and get their hands on the latest Microsoft products and services--both on the company's own hardware, and from its partners. Microsoft also offers tech support, training, classes, and computers with a set of pre-installed software and settings as part of its Signature effort.Comparisons of Microsoft's efforts to Apple's have been made by many, though not in scale. Apple now has more than 300 stores open around the world, including one in South Coast Plaza.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Yahoo search share down, while Bing gains again]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=yahoo-search-share-down-while-bing-gains-again</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=yahoo-search-share-down-while-bing-gains-again</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 15 Jan 2011 08:10:19 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=yahoo-search-share-down-while-bing-gains-again</guid>
<description><![CDATA[After Yahoo and Microsoft finally integrated their massive search technology and advertising partnership, ComScore is reporting that Yahoo's explicit core search share in the U.S. had declined in December.Yahoo's 16 percent share was down from 16.4 percent in November, which was actually down from 16.5 percent from October.Meanwhile, Microsoft's aggressive Bing search service rose from 11.5 percent in October to 11.8 percent in November to 12 percent in December.And big guns Google more than regained a small loss from October (66.3 percent) to November (66.2 percent) in December, with a 66.6 percent share. (Yes, all you conspiracy theorists: 6, 6, 6.)Yahoo's decline in explicit core search--which ComScore noted &quot;excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results&quot;--is, of course, a key metric to watch at the company, which needs to improve its revenue growth.Here are some lovely tables to peruse:Story Copyright (c) 2010 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Nissan Leaf named 2011 European Car of the Year]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nissan-leaf-named-2011-european-car-of-the-year</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nissan-leaf-named-2011-european-car-of-the-year</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 29 Nov 2010 08:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nissan-leaf-named-2011-european-car-of-the-year</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This is the first time in the 47-year history of the annual competition that the award has gone to an electric vehicle, in this case the Nissan Leaf.(Credit:Nissan)Well, the Nissan Leaf has done it again. It's garnered another award.This time, the Leaf has been named 2011 EuropeanCar of the Year. The Leaf beat out 40 contenders including Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Dacia, Ford, Opel/Vauxhall, and Volvo.In the 47-year history of the annual competition, this is the first time the award has gone to an electric vehicle. This comes on the heels of the Leaf being rated at 99 MPGe by the Environmental Protection Agency.&quot;This award recognizes the pioneering zero-emission Nissan Leaf as competitive to conventional cars in terms of safety, performance, spaciousness, and handling,&quot; said Nissan Motor President and CEO Carlos Ghosn. &quot;It also reflects Nissan's standing as an innovative and exciting brand with a clear vision of the future of transportation, which we call sustainable mobility. With three other electric vehicles in the pipeline from Nissan--and with the imminent market introduction of four additional electric vehicles from our Alliance partner Renault--Nissan Leaf represents a significant first step toward a zero-emission future.&quot;Deliveries of the Leaf will begin this December in Japan and the United States. But it won't hit Europe (Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, the U.K. and the Netherlands) until early 2011. The zero-emission car is currently being built in Japan, but will also be produced in North America and Europe when new manufacturing facilities open in late 2012 and early 2013, Nissan said in a statement.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Unix copyrights to stay with Novell in merger]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=unix-copyrights-to-stay-with-novell-in-merger</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=unix-copyrights-to-stay-with-novell-in-merger</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=unix-copyrights-to-stay-with-novell-in-merger</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Novell today announced that it would continue to be the owner of its copyrights to Unix. The news comes just two days after Novell announced plans to be acquired by Attachmate as part of a $2.2 billion deal that also involved the sale of some of the company's intellectual property being sold to the Microsoft-organized tech consortium CPTN Holdings.&quot;Novell will continue to own Novell's Unix copyrights following completion of the merger as a subsidiary of Attachmate,&quot; Novell's chief marketing officer, John Dragoon, said on the company's site earlier today. What remains to be seen are the specifics of the 882 patents and other intellectual property that will go to the consortium as part of the deal. These will be listed in a merger filing that will be submitted to the SEC. A legal expert told CNET that filing could arrive within the next few weeks, but is more likely to take months given the inherent complexity of the deal.Novell's ownership of the Unix copyrights were the center of a hard-fought legal battle with the SCO Group that began in 2004, and was decided earlier this year in favor of Novell. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[3 lessons from Skyfire's botched iPhone launch]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=3-lessons-from-skyfires-botched-iphone-launch</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=3-lessons-from-skyfires-botched-iphone-launch</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:10:03 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=3-lessons-from-skyfires-botched-iphone-launch</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Skyfire sold about 300K copies on iPhone its first weekend, for $3 a pop.(Credit:Skyfire)Mobile browser-maker Skyfire may have had a disastrous launch day of Skyfire for iPhone due to shaky bandwidth, but now that the Silicon Valley company is disclosing some numbers, there are several tidbits we can glean about the Flash video-streaming browser.1. Skyfire grossed almost $1 million: Skyfire sold about 100,000 copies of Skyfire foriPhone during the first five hours of release last Wednesday, plus more than 200,000 more during the weekend since the company quietly reinstated the app on Friday, according to a Skyfire statement. At $2.99 each for about 300,000 sales total, that's about $1 million during the weekend, before Apple's 30 percent share.2. iPhone users want Flash support: At least for now, iPhone users have shown a willingness to pay $3 for an app that provides a workaround to receive streaming Flash video on most Web sites you visit through Skyfire. This is significant when you consider on one hand the proliferation of 99-cent apps as a normal amount of cash to part with for an app, and on the other hand, the substantial number of free browser alternatives. In addition, Skyfire ranked No. 1 in paid, top grossing, and utility categories during the weekend, Skyfire reports. Apple CEO Steve Jobs may despise Flash, but enough Apple users are voting with their dollars.3. This isn't the solution: At the end of the day, Skyfire presents a messy workaround to play Flash on iPhone. It's clever, and much of the time it works, but by definition of a workaround, it's far from seamless. What the Skyfire sales indicate isn't that iPhone owners clamor for Flash per se, but that being able to watch video play on the Web site of its origin is wished-for functionality. Skyfire is merely the best option for now.Last week's Skyfire snafu sheds some more light on the challenges of serving streaming video. It takes much more bandwidth to deliver video than images and text, and maintaining server farms large enough to meet the demand costs money, especially if you're unprepared for the onslaught as Skyfire proved it wasn't.After their servers began faltering, Skyfire pulled its own app from the App Store to avoid a crash. Since then, the company doubled its capacity and has been adding more users &quot;in batches&quot; that the servers can handle. In reality, Skyfire is available for purchase in the App Store unless the servers see future strain. Skyfire has not reported any interruption in performance since.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[News Corp. to MySpace: Time is running out]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=news-corp--to-myspace-time-is-running-out</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=news-corp--to-myspace-time-is-running-out</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 04 Nov 2010 07:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=news-corp--to-myspace-time-is-running-out</guid>
<description><![CDATA[MySpace has a very limited amount of time to revive its operation, News Corp. said during a recent call with analysts.&quot;We've been clear that MySpace is a problem,&quot; News Corp. President and COO Chase Carey said yesterday during the call, according to AFP. &quot;The current losses are not acceptable or sustainable. Our current management did not create these losses but they know we have to address them.&quot;When News Corp. acquired MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, it thought it had a winner on its hands. After all, MySpace was the place to go for social networking. But since then, the service has been hit hard by the growth of both Facebook and Twitter. MySpace currently has over 100 million users worldwide. Facebook has over 500 million active users around the world, while Twitter currently has 175 million registered users.Going forward, Carey said that MySpace's time is running out. He acknowledged that the social network's &quot;traffic numbers are still not going in the right direction,&quot; and his company would need to &quot;stabilize that and have a predictable path forward.&quot; He said that News Corp. will judge success for MySpace &quot;in quarters, not in years.&quot;MySpace is hoping to meet that possible deadline with a site redesign and new focus.Last week, the social network unveiled its new site, which attempts to bridge the gap between social entertainment and Generation Y. The site includes several features, including a Topics product that delivers over 20,000 &quot;entertainment-focused, dynamic pages&quot; to users. MySpace hopes to have the site available to all of its users by the end of November.But as Facebook's star continues to rise, it could become increasingly more difficult for MySpace to regain its past glory.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Voters: Tax and spend OK when it comes to water]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=voters-tax-and-spend-ok-when-it-comes-to-water</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=voters-tax-and-spend-ok-when-it-comes-to-water</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:10:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=voters-tax-and-spend-ok-when-it-comes-to-water</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:ITT Corporation)An average of one water main breaks somewhere in the U.S. every two minutes, according to the latest U.S. Geological Survey.It's no wonder then that 85 percent of American voters agreed the government should invest money to overhaul the nation's water infrastructure, according to a report released Wednesday by water systems manufacturer ITT Corporation.Voters are also willing to pay for the upgrade.When asked if they were willing to pay 11 percent more on their monthly water bill &quot;to help ensure continued access to a reliable and consistent supply of clean water,&quot; 63 percent of American voters said yes, according to ITT.&quot;When applied across all American households, this increase is equal to $5.4 billion--or four times the (fiscal) 2009 federal investment in our nation's drinking water systems.&quot; ITT said in a statement.When asked to rank the most important service, 95 percent of U.S. voters put water in first place followed by electricity, heat, Internet, cell phone, landline phone, cable TV, and cooling systems, respectively.Perhaps most interesting is that the desire for reforming the U.S. water infrastructure remained around 80 percent in favor, regardless of how the data was parsed. Gender, age, party affiliation, income level, region of the country, or whether the respondent came from a water-challenged or water-rich state did not seem to matter.The survey, which was conducted between August 6, 2010 and September 3, 2010, included 1,003 registered voters from 50 states, as well as 502 industrial and agricultural businesses.On the corporate side, 57 percent of industrial and agricultural businesses said they were willing to pay more in bills in order to ensure a continued clean and reliable water supply. When asked to name their price, 7 percent was the average acceptable increase, according to the ITT report.It's fair to note ITT's business interest in the survey results, as water is one of its key manufacturing markets. But the results dovetail with water data released by the research analyst Ethical Corporation in May. That corporate water report found that 99 percent of corporate sustainability managers ranked water as a top priority for businesses in the next 5 to 10 years.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[White iPhone 4 delayed until spring]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=white-iphone-4-delayed-until-spring</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=white-iphone-4-delayed-until-spring</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:10:08 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=white-iphone-4-delayed-until-spring</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The still elusive white iPhone 4.(Credit:James Martin/CNET)Stop me if you've heard this one before. The whiteiPhone 4 is delayed.For those keeping track, yes, that is the third time you've read that headline since June. Apple is saying today that the white version of the iPhone 4 now won't be for sale until spring 2011. And that's after telling us in June that it would be delayed until late July, then in July putting off the ship date until &quot;later this year.&quot;Apple's quote today is, &quot;We're sorry to disappoint customers waiting for the white iPhone yet again, but we've decided to delay its release until this spring.&quot;It comes just shortly after news broke this morning that Apple had released an updated version of its App Store iPhone app with the option to reserve a white iPhone 4 in stores. Clicking &quot;Reserve&quot; didn't actually make a reservation, but it did get the rumor mill churning that a white iPhone 4 was soon to be released.So what's up with the delays Presumably the same &quot;manufacturing challenges&quot; Apple cited in previous delays concerning the white iPhone 4. A person spotted using one of the elusive white handsets last week, who had received it from a friend working at Apple, said he'd heard the problem was related to getting the white face plate of the phone to match the white home button.Again, we don't know the specifics of the holdup because Apple is keeping silent about that. But it is looking increasingly likely that we'll hear about the Verizon iPhone from Apple before we actually see a white iPhone 4 in stores.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Goodbye Walkman, thanks for the iPod]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=goodbye-walkman-thanks-for-the-ipod</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=goodbye-walkman-thanks-for-the-ipod</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:22:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=goodbye-walkman-thanks-for-the-ipod</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Sony has announced it has finally retired the Walkman cassette tape player, marking the end of one of the most successful consumer gadgets of all time. Over three decades, Sony sold more than 200 million Walkman tape players. (Credit:Sony Corp.) At least it outlived disco. By today's standards, the Walkman was clunky. The plastic tape player required frequent replacing of two AA batteries. There was no shuffle. There was no storage to speak of. It could play only the number of songs on the tape. Jumping to a new song tasked an owner with fast-forwarding, an inexact process that meant repeated stops to find the start of the desired tune. But until July 1, 1979, the day the Walkman went on sale in Japan, people had no concept of portable music--not the kind that Sony offered. Until that day, portable music mostly meant holding a transistor radio up to your ear. The Walkman dazzled.Count Steve Jobs among the most impressed, according to John Sculley, Apple's former CEO. &quot;We used to go visit [Sony founder] Akio Morita and he had really the same kind of high-end standards that Steve did and respect for beautiful products,&quot; Sculley said in an excellent interview with Leander Kahney of the Cult of Mac blog.&quot;I remember Akio Morita gave Steve and me each one of the first Sony Walkmans. None of us had ever seen anything like that before because there had never been a product like that...Steve was fascinated by it. The first thing he did with his was take it apart and he looked at every single part. How the fit and finish was done, how it was built.&quot; So, the Walkman's designers likely influenced the eventual concept for theiPod. And what about the Walkman's branding After the music player became a hit, Sony tried to capitalize by releasing such products as Pressman, Watchman, Scoopman, Discman, and the Walkman MP3 player--which will soldier on. Now, think iPod,iPhone, andiPad.  iPod Nano(Credit:Donald Bell/CNET)Of course, Jobs took portable music to a new level, one where even Morita's company couldn't compete. Jobs wrapped his offering around a cohesive and as yet unbeatable combination of hardware, software, and digital retail. Sony knew hardware but was at best so-so in retail and a total disaster at developing software (see Sony Connect). Some have speculated that Sony's failure to keep up in a segment that the company created was one of the reasons it has given the Walkman such a quiet send off. Still, the company should be proud. It's unlikely we would have had the iPod without the Walkman and Morita, who helped set music free. For that, we owe the device and the man a deep and respectful bow.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[4G: What's in a name]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=4g-whats-in-a-name</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=4g-whats-in-a-name</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:23:52 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=4g-whats-in-a-name</guid>
<description><![CDATA[CHICAGO - Two of the most popular next generation wireless technologies are close to getting their official 4G moniker from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).The ITU, which is an agency within the United Nations, is the International standards body that officially designates wireless technologies as 1G, 2G, 3G and now 4G. This week at a meeting in China the group took a step closer to making the technologies LTE or Long Term Evolution and WiMax official 4G standards.Specifically, the ITU voted that LTE-Advanced technology, meets the criteria it uses to classify the technology as 4G. The ITU also voted that the WirelessMAN-Advanced portion of WiMAX IEEE 802.16m also meets requirements to be considered 4G. The organization will likely ratify the LTE technology as a 4G standard at its next meeting in November. The WiMax version will likely be voted on later in 2011.The last 18 months has been very confusing for consumers when it comes to understanding what 4G really means. The term has been used by marketers to describe next generation wireless networks that offer faster speeds. But so far the ITU has not officially designated any technology as being 4G.This means that the LTE network that Verizon Wireless is building and will soon launch as well as the WiMax network Clearwire and Sprint Nextel have been building are not technically &quot;4G.&quot;In fact, even after the ITU officially designates LTE and WiMax as 4G technologies, the flavors that are currently being deployed still won't be officially&quot;4G.&quot; The ITU requires 4G technologies to be IP-based and use orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). The other main requirement is that the technology needs to support peak download speeds of 100Mbps. The current flavors of LTE and WiMax are not that fast.That said, they are still a big improvement over older-generation 3G technologies and data speeds. Average 3G services offer between 700Kbps and 1.5Mbps. Sprint's WiMax service, built by Clearwire, offers average download speeds around 6Mbps, the company has said. And Verizon claims that tests indicate it is getting download speeds between 6Mbps and 12Mbps on its pre-commercial LTE network.Clearwire, which uses WiMax today, is already testing new generations of LTE technology. At the 4G World conference here this week, the carrier said it has been testing an advanced verstion of LTE that offering peak download speeds between 50Mbps and 90Mbps.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Anti-viral developer Alios raises $8M more for $32M]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=anti-viral-developer-alios-raises-8m-more-for-32m</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=anti-viral-developer-alios-raises-8m-more-for-32m</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Science</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=anti-viral-developer-alios-raises-8m-more-for-32m</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Alios BioPharma, developer of anti-viral therapies, has tacked $8 million onto its first round of funding, bringing its total to $32 million. The new money came solely from SR One. Based in South San Francisco, the company plans to use the money to push its lead compound past phase-one trials.Alios brought in the initial $24 million from Novartis Ventures, Novo AS and Roche Venture Fund.Next Story: HP funds 60 researchers at 46 universities Previous Story: Analog is dead! Long live digital TV!PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Companies: Alios BioPharma, Novartis Ventures, Novo A/S, Roche Venture Fund          Companies: Alios BioPharma, Novartis Ventures, Novo A/S, Roche Venture FundCamille was the lead writer for GreenBeat until August 2010. To reach VentureBeat's current writers, email tips@venturebeat.com.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[DEMO: On lets you present different &''faces&'' to the world]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=demo-on-lets-you-present-different-8220faces8221-to-the-world</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=demo-on-lets-you-present-different-8220faces8221-to-the-world</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=demo-on-lets-you-present-different-8220faces8221-to-the-world</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Orange Valleis one of 70 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2011 event taking place this week. These companies do pay a fee to present, but our coverage of them remains objective.On is a mobile address book which aims to be the hub of all your communications. It covers contacts from Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and your phonebook and allows you to view everyonea4a4s tweets and status updates in a single stream.At DEMO, Onis launchingVoiceFeed, a visual voicemail app for iPhone that lets you customizeyour voicemail message for different callers or groups. When your partner calls, he is greeted in a different way to a client orfriends, e.g. you can let the latter know which bar you are heading to. You can also browse your voicemail messages and choose the ones youa4a4d like to hear first. VoiceFeed is a freemium service. The free version has ads.   A monthly fee of $0.99 monthly fee gets you unlimited greeting messages, message storage and no ads.On has been more than three years in the making and involved sociologists, anthropologists and designers, who observed how people form groups.Giles Corbett, the head of the On project, told Fast Company that the most surprising thing they learned was &amp;''that you have no secrets with strangers. The things we keep secret, we withhold mostly from those who are closest to us. If I&amp;'m a 15-year-old kid walking around smoking a cigarette, I don&amp;'t care if strangers see it, but I do care if my parents see it.&amp;''You can assign contacts to different circles (something like Facebook groups but more configurable), where you can see the updates from those contacts, control which updates they see from you, how you can be contacted and whether they can locate you. On can be configured so that it only releases your location when youa4a4re in a specific context. You may want to share your work location with colleagues but not where you are after-hours. Similarly you may want to be available to your friends, but not work colleagues after a certain point in the evening.On was created by Orange Valle, the innovation arm of mobile carrier Orange, which has 193 million customers in 32 countries. However, On is available to anyone with an Android or iPhone, not just Orange subscribers. On is part of Orange&amp;'s attempt to counteract a4Aover-the-topa4 communications players like Google or Skype who challenge the mobile carrier&amp;'s role in the mobile eco-system. Competitors to On Voicefeed includeHullomail, Google Voice, YouMail, Friends by Taptivate , etc.It&amp;'s hard not to see some similarities between On and Vodafone&amp;'s ill-fated Vodafone 360. 360 also tried to aggregate all contacts and communications. However, On places greater emphasis than 360 did on the different &amp;''faces&amp;'' we present to the world in real life and how those identities can be reproduced in our virtual lives. On is also not restricted to Orange subscribers as Vodafone 360 was to Vodafone customers. Since launching in beta a year ago, On has acquired tens of thousands of users who, on average, use it 7 times per day.The On project started in 2008, has 25 employees, is based in Paris and is funded by Orange.Previous Story: DEMO: Bizness Apps to include do-it-yourself apps for AndroidPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: address book, Contacts, DEMO, DEMO Spring 2011, social, visual voicemailCompanies: Orange, Orange ValleePeople: giles corbett          Tags: address book, Contacts, DEMO, DEMO Spring 2011, social, visual voicemailCompanies: Orange, Orange ValleePeople: giles corbettCiara Byrne is a full time techie and part-time writer. She has worked as a software developer, team lead, engineering manager and mobile standards expert. Ciara is based in Amsterdam and her interests include creative companies, useful technology, torture by piano and cycling in high heels. Follow her on Twitter at @deciara.  Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Does Using Yahoo Mail Lower Your Credit&nbsp'Score]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=does-using-yahoo-mail-lower-your-creditnbspscore</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=does-using-yahoo-mail-lower-your-creditnbspscore</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=does-using-yahoo-mail-lower-your-creditnbspscore</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Yahoo Mail just announced its first redesign in five years and it took the tech community 20 hours to notice. Meanwhile Aol Mail went down last week without making a sound. Imagine the echo chamber uproar if either had happened to Gmail.So if we&amp;'re not using Aol and Yahoo, who isPeople with low credit scores according to Credit Karma. While the above chart doesn&amp;'t mean that changing your @gmail.com address to a @yahoo.com or an @aol.com will actually lower your score, it is showing that for one reason or another people who use Yahoo Mail tend to rank lower on their credit score analysis.From Credit Karma:&amp;''Certainly switching email providers will not increase or decrease your credit score. It&amp;'s more the case that people with a certain score have a greater likeliness to use a particular email provider. Why this happens is probably due to some demographic skew which then carries to the email domain.&amp;''Of all the mail service providers, Yahoo definitely has the most users at 94.6 million uniques a month. In terms of user age, our parent company Aol Mail skews the oldest in the 65+ age range (!), while Yahoo hits the 35-44 range, Hotmail clocks in at 25-34 and Gmail the same at 25-34 according to comScore.In terms of household income, Yahoo Mail users are skewing towards the under $15k income bracket when compared to the rest of the Internet, despite the fact that a majority of users Yahoo users make between $40K to $60K.Perhaps the fact that people who make less money (because they&amp;'re students or other people with no income) are overrepresented on Yahoo Mail might shed some light on the Credit Karma statisticsIn any case, you can add this to the pile of  &amp;''What Your Email Address Says About You&amp;'' posts. And, in this case, it says that you&amp;'ve got bad credit.CrunchBase InformationYahoo!AOLGoogleInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Digg Says Internal Accounts Were For Testing Purposes, Not Gaming Its Own&nbsp'System]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=digg-says-internal-accounts-were-for-testing-purposes-not-gaming-its-ownnbspsystem</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=digg-says-internal-accounts-were-for-testing-purposes-not-gaming-its-ownnbspsystem</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=digg-says-internal-accounts-were-for-testing-purposes-not-gaming-its-ownnbspsystem</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Digg just can&amp;'t get a break. On the heels of news that the company had to lay off 37% of its staff and saw the departures of both its CRO and CFO, last night a report surfaced alleging that Digg was gaming its own system, ostensibly to favor certain partners. If true, this would have further undermined user trust in the site&amp;'s democratic voting system, and the evidence was convincing that something out of the ordinary was going on. Now Digg has just responded to this accusation with a blog post that boils down to, &amp;''Yes, we do have fake accounts voting up stories, but they&amp;'re for testing purposes&amp;''.  Here&amp;'s a relevant excerpt:Before doing that, I&amp;'m going to address a story submitted to Digg that called out activity of a number of our internal test accounts. As with many sites, we continuously run tests on the site to expose vulnerabilities in our own security. In this case, we did have a number of our internal test accounts Digging content from the Upcoming section of the site. We learned a great deal about some vulnerabilities in how users can inappropriately Digg stories into the home page. We have already made some changes over the last few weeks and are going to be making some other changes to the site this week to address a few of the issues we found. Similar to how good security companies try to break their own security, we have always tested and will always run tests to find spam vulnerabilities on Digg.Most importantly, we should have been forthright with our community about our testing efforts and we&amp;'ll certainly do so in the future. Rest assured that Digg does not in any way receive financial gain from this activity and the accounts were not used to submit any content.Digg founder Kevin Rose followed up on the blog post with a comment explicitly saying that Digg has always used such test accounts:We&amp;'ve never taken a single dime from a publisher for any activity on Digg (outside of standard ad units). We&amp;'ve used test accounts since day one and will continue to use them as we validate our various spam/promotion algorithms.Along side the post explaining the fake accounts, Digg&amp;'s Jen Burton detailed some of the new (or at least, returning) features that would be coming to Digg in the next two weeks. These include the ability to sort content by images and video, suggested users, the Bury button, and a &amp;8216'Breaking News&amp;' module.CrunchBase InformationDiggInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Facebook owned the Internet in 2010]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-owned-the-internet-in-2010</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-owned-the-internet-in-2010</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebook-owned-the-internet-in-2010</guid>
<description><![CDATA[If you did a Web search in 2010, you were probably looking for Facebook, according to new data released by Experian Hitwise.The report shows that between January and November of this year, a4Afacebooka4 was the most popular term entered into search engines in the United States. That was also true last year, so the more impressive shift is how Facebook-related terms (a4Afacebook logina4, a4Afacebook.coma4, and a4Awww.facebook.coma4) now make up four of the top 10 searches and accounted for 3.48 percent of all searches.Given that dominance, ita4a4s no surprise Facebook is now the most-visited website as well, passing Google and Yahoo Mail. An earlier report from comScore showed a similar trend in worldwide traffic.Beyond being good news from Facebook, the data seems like another sign that people are using search as their default way to navigate the Web, even when it might seem easier to just type in a URL. I would imagine that many of the people who do a search for a4Afacebook.coma4 probably know what Facebooka4a4s URL is, but they typed it into a search engine (or into the search box at the top of their browser) instead.Herea4a4s the list of 2010&amp;'s top 10 search terms:Next Story: SEC takes aim at venture capital rules in 2011 Previous Story: Early iPad magazine numbers are uninspiringPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: search terms, top searchesCompanies: Experian Hitwise, Facebook          Tags: search terms, top searchesCompanies: Experian Hitwise, FacebookAnthony 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[When Tesla&'s lockup expires Monday, will its stock drop Short sellers think so]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=when-teslarsquos-lockup-expires-monday-will-its-stock-drop-short-sellers-think-so</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=when-teslarsquos-lockup-expires-monday-will-its-stock-drop-short-sellers-think-so</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=when-teslarsquos-lockup-expires-monday-will-its-stock-drop-short-sellers-think-so</guid>
<description><![CDATA[updatedTesla&amp;'s IPO has been one a few super-successful cleantech public offerings this year, if not the most successful.But will the good news continue after the 180-day post-IPO lockup period expires Monday and new shares flood the marketMaybe not. There&amp;'s tremendous short interest in the electric car company&amp;'s stock &amp;8212' that means there&amp;'s a lot of buyers looking to bet that shares will fall. On Nov. 30, the ratio of short interest to available shares that day was 6 to 1, and at the end of October that ratio reached 22 to 1, ahead of Tesla&amp;'s most recent earnings report. It fell to 4.5 to 1 after the earnings came out, but current short interest in advance of the lockout&amp;'s end signals belief that the shares will fall after the lockout ends. In essence, the market is now anticipating a drop in the stock price. We also spoke to some venture capitalists who, in an office pool, were betting on TSLA&amp;'s stock price come Monday &amp;8212' the highest bet was only $18.[Update: Capstone Investments analyst Carter Driscoll has justdowngraded Tesla shares to a &quot;sell&quot; with a price target of $22, which suggests that investors should sell now. The news caused Tesla's stock to slide 8 percent to $30.09 today.Driscoll wrote that the company faces tough competition from major automakers, and that lack of charging infrastructure will drive car buyers towards hybrids rather than the all-electric models that Tesla makes.]Venture capitalists invested in Tesla upfront have incentive to sell their shares because it lets them lock into profits, but at the moment, they&amp;'ve got a huge portion of the holdings, so new shares hitting the market are relatively high compared to the number of shares already on the market. In fact, Morgan Stanley projects that shares available for public trading will triple on Monday.Traditionally, the increased supply after a lockup period means the price comes down. Simply economics of supply and demand, right But Tesla&amp;'s stock doesn&amp;'t always obey the rules. Despite posting losses in the third quarter &amp;8212' granted, smaller than expected losses &amp;8212' the stock closed at a record $33. And its blockbuster IPO &amp;8212' a $17 June offering thatjumped 40.5 percent in the first day of trading &amp;8211'happened in the midst of a lackluster cleantech IPO season. And in a practically unheard-of aberration, the IPO bucked market trends with a successful debutthe same day the Nasdaq and S&amp;amp'P had their worst days of the year.&amp;''It&amp;'s definitely trading on sentiment,&amp;'' says Eric Jackson, founder of hedge fund Ironfire Capital. He predicts the stock will trade down to the mid-20s in coming weeks.Nat Goldhaber, managing director at venture capital firm Claremont Creek Ventures, agrees.&amp;''Cars are sexy. Ita4a4s almost just about that. They got enough public attention early enough on. They had physical product that was kind of cool,&amp;'' Goldhaber told me recently, referring to Tesla&amp;'s Roadster sports car. &amp;''[Cars are] the thing that captures the American imagination. Ita4a4s valued disproportionately to its actual utility.&amp;''Ironfire&amp;'s Jackson has been vocal in the past about his short position on Tesla &amp;8212' but this week, he told me he&amp;'s now long on the stock. He still stands by his concerns about the company&amp;'s management, in particular, CEO Elon Musk and Elon&amp;'s brother and Tesla board member Kimbal Musk &amp;8212' but Jackson thinks the company&amp;'s plans for the Model S have real potential.&amp;''What theya4a4re doing is just in a great little niche that is going to be popular and extremely attractive to a lot of people when and if they do get the Model S out on time,&amp;'' Jackson said.For now, Tesla has been ramping up on the positive press &amp;8212' perhaps to maintain the stock price to guarantee its investors a good return next week It announced an aggressive timeline for the Model S electric sedan last week, promising a prototype would be built by the end of this year and deliveries to start in 2012. The company plans to build up to 20,000 Model S cars a year and currently has about 3,000 reservations for the car. (The reservations cost $5,000 each.)A Morgan Stanley report last month said that the Model S (pictured, right) would be exhibited at the Detroit Auto Show in January. Tesla told the reports&amp;' authors that it eventually plans to sell 100,000 vehicles per year on the Model S platform and ramp up to 500,000 in its new Fremont factory. CEO Elon Musk also noted plans for a cheaper &amp;''Model X&amp;'' car that could sell 400,000 a year. &amp;''Those volumes are well in excess of what we have modeled in our bull case,&amp;'' the report said.They&amp;'re also big numbers considering Tesla has only sold about 1,300 cars to date (or closer to 1,400 by some estimations). And while the pricing of the more-mainstream Model S sedan is considered attractive at $57,400, can Tesla live up to its promises Or will it miss production targets Or even raise the price, like its fellow luxury green car startup Fisker has&amp;''Thata4a4s a big question. I think ita4a4ll be difficult to hit,&amp;'' Jackson said. &amp;''It goes back to one of my fears about the company. Theya4a4re definitely overconfident. And that parlays down from Elon,&amp;'' who Jackson has called narcissitic and argues has a track record of generating positive interest in his companies, then failing to deliver on promised dates.&amp;''I am worried about whether or not theya4a4re going to back that [Model S claim] up,&amp;'' Jackson said. But not worried enough to change his position on the stock &amp;8230' yet.How will Tesla&amp;'s stock fare Monday and in coming weeks Will it make good on its Model S promises and prove naysayers wrong Stay tuned.Next Story: Obama praises the success of Apple&amp;'s Steve Jobs Previous Story: iPads, super angels, and Facebook&amp;'s trip to the movies: VentureBeat&amp;'s 10 biggest stories of 2010PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: electric cars, electric vehicles, Model S, Model XCompanies: Claremont Creek Ventures, Ironfire Capital, Morgan Stanley, TeslaPeople: Elon Musk, Eric Jackson, Kimbal Musk, Nat Goldhaber          Tags: electric cars, electric vehicles, Model S, Model XCompanies: Claremont Creek Ventures, Ironfire Capital, Morgan Stanley, TeslaPeople: Elon Musk, Eric Jackson, Kimbal Musk, Nat GoldhaberIris Kuo is the VentureBeat's lead GreenBeat writer. She has reported for The Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, Houston Chronicle, the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Dallas public radio. Iris attended the University of Texas at Dallas and lives in Houston. Follow Iris on Twitter @thestatuskuo (and yes, that's how you  pronounce her last name).VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Facebook&'s Android App Sucked Because &''Obnoxious&'' Google Bought The&nbsp'Developer]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebookrsquos-android-app-sucked-because-8220obnoxious8221-google-bought-thenbspdeveloper</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebookrsquos-android-app-sucked-because-8220obnoxious8221-google-bought-thenbspdeveloper</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=facebookrsquos-android-app-sucked-because-8220obnoxious8221-google-bought-thenbspdeveloper</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Today at their mobile event in Palo Alto, CA, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed something interesting and rather humorous. It&amp;'s no secret that Facebook&amp;'s Android app has long been sort of a lame little cousin to their excellent iPhone app. But do you know why Well it&amp;'s mostly Google&amp;'s fault. You see, they acquired the developer Facebook had hired to make the app.&amp;''Yeah, I thought that was obnoxious,&amp;'' Zuckerberg said today when we asked him about it following the event. Everyone in the room burst out in laughter at that.Zuckerberg said it was a really small shop that Facebook had contracted to make the app a4&quot; he was quickly corrected that it was actually more like one developer. &amp;''But it was the main thing they were working on. It wasn&amp;'t like it was some shop and that&amp;'s why Google had to buy them,&amp;'' Zuckerberg continued, clearly still holding a bit of a grudge about it.&amp;''Obviously, it wasn&amp;'t a huge deal. But it definitely set us back for a while,&amp;'' he noted.a4sZuckerberg said that they worked out an arrangement to use the code the developer had written for the app up until then, but that he obviously couldn&amp;'t work on it anymore.a4s&amp;''It was kind of frustrating.&amp;''Previously, it was thought that Google was actually helping Facebook to build their Android app a4&quot; after the social network indicated it wasn&amp;'t a priority. But this makes more sense as to why it was so bad for so long a4&quot; Google screwed over Facebook on it.Robert Scoble recorded the entire conversation, so you can hear it in Zuckerberg&amp;'s own wordsa4shere (it&amp;'s about 32:20 in).Facebook is finally building the Android app in house now. And they actually updated it today which a range of new features to match the other versions available.CrunchBase InformationFacebookAndroidGoogleInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[It&'s the Community,&nbsp'Stupid!]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=itrsquos-the-communitynbspstupid</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=itrsquos-the-communitynbspstupid</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=itrsquos-the-communitynbspstupid</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Last week&amp;'s guest on Press:Here was Tim Wu, author of the new book Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Wu also wrotea4sthis guest post for us about why we should all fear Steve Jobs.In general Wu &amp;8212' who gets credit for coming up with the term &amp;''Net Neutrality&amp;'' &amp;8212' has a really important mission whether you agree with him or not: Raising alarm bells that the Internet, like every mass communication medium that has come before, could one day become strangled and controlled by a handful of companies.From what I&amp;'ve read and from our conversation on and off camera last Thursday, Wu seems to stop short of saying what has happened before on radio, telegram and television will happen with the Internet, saying it could happen. The question, he says, is whether there is something inherently different about the Internet from a technology standpoint that keeps it inevitably open. I think what keeps it from happening is something else: The community around the Internet and the age of modern entrepreneurship in which we live.Unless the FCC totally screws up on Net Neutrality, big Internet companies just don&amp;'t have the luxury of shutting upstart rivals out. You want to be cynical and say money drives policy in Washington Fine. There is more money on the side of the Internet being open than the Internet being closed.Wu argued that there is nothing different about entrepreneurship today in Silicon Valley than there was back in the early days of the telephone or the radio, and&amp;8211' channeling my inner James Carville&amp;8211' I argued why he was wrong. Here&amp;'s the gist of my argument, which we didn&amp;'t have to time really get into on camera:1. Invention versus iteration. There was probably more raw invention in early waves of communications industries because a lot of Internet companies have been able to stand on the shoulders of giants. Try inventing the consumer Web without copper lines going to homes and businesses and try inventing all of that without, say, electricity. As the Web gets longer in the tooth, there&amp;'s less sheer OH-MY-GOD! innovation and more iteration. Facebook was a version of social media that worked, not the first social media site' same with Google and search. And unlike a lot of the other waves Wu talks about, at this point the consumer Internet is almost purely software development, not hardware and manufacturing' it&amp;'s mostly design and user experience not hardcore circuitry and science.This may sound like a knock, but when it comes to commercialization it&amp;'s not. The more revolutionary the invention, the harder it is to fund it, manufacture it, commercialize it and get broad distribution for it. The lower the barrier for disruption, the more it occurs and the fewer opportunities large incumbents have to keep markets closed by, say, sucking up manufacturing capacity or raw materials. The assets for the web are smart coders and venture cash. The former tends to flow out of big companies seeking new challenges and new stock options. There&amp;'s no shortage of the latter&amp;8211' in fact there&amp;'s an unhealthy glut of it. When new upstarts are awash in an industry&amp;'s natural resources, it&amp;'s hard for incumbents to keep them out.2. Lines of credit versus venture capital. Wu argues that modern venture capital isn&amp;'t a differentiator because there were ways of financing companies in earlier waves of technology, like lines of credit. Come on. Really There is a world of difference between an entrepreneur able to put up enough personal collateral to secure a line of credit and an industry where thousands of VCs have $20 billion-plus burning a hole in their pocket looking for high-risk, no revenue opportunities in which to invest. By definition it opens the concept of being an entrepreneur up to huge new swaths of the global population. That means at a minimum that more companies are started, and that means there&amp;'s more opportunity to start the next Google or Facebook. The barrier of financing for a smart idea is all but eliminated.How different would, say, early Hollywood have been if any kid with an idea for a movie studio had millions of dollars in funding It creates huge, constant pressure on incumbents to keep users happy and &amp;8212' as mentioned earlier&amp;8211' incentivize the best employees to stay because suddenly jobs at startups not only offer stock options but they have enough cash to pay competitive salaries. And if one hot company gets traction it means hundreds more are started the next day by VCs who want &amp;''their YouTube,&amp;'' &amp;''their Foursquare,&amp;'' or &amp;''their Groupon.&amp;'' This much money with the sole purpose of backing new companies starts to become a game of odds. Every VC would have to be utterly inept not to accidentally back the next great Web mogul.There is a fundamental difference in how banks and VCs make money and what keeps them in business. Lenders want companies to do well enough to repay debt, and then take bigger loans to continue building their business. Venture capitalists want continual waves of industry disruption. When you have power and money behind breaking not protecting big companies, it&amp;'s a different scenario. Building a huge company is never easy, but entrepreneurs at the center of the Web are hardly the Davids going up against Goliaths that entrepreneurs were in previous information ages of the past.3. The culture of pioneers versus the culture of young-eating-the-old. Wu&amp;'s argument is that when a technology is new, aggressive entrepreneurs flood in, many go out of business and a few survive to become the big winners. He is right that there is nothing unique about that cycle generally. But the uniqueness of Silicon Valley is that it no longer relies on returns from the pioneers of huge new industries, it relies on the young continually eating the old throughout an industry&amp;'s life cycle. Witness the lack of mourning when a former giant  falls on hard times. Witness the lack of asking for bailout dollars. Witness the constant churning of talent, press and attention towards new things. The hype cycle is a bad thing in a lot of ways for Silicon Valley. But the one good thing that it does is continually champion the new over the old.Overall, Wu and I agree more than we disagree. If the future of the Internet were up to Google, Apple, AT&amp;amp'T and the federal government, I&amp;'d be concerned too. But $20 billion a year in venture capital and thousands of people starting companies all over the world every year aren&amp;'t going to cede anyone that right. The biggest evidence of that is Facebook. If the Internet were copying the trajectory he describes, we&amp;'d have our winners and they&amp;'d be AOL, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and Google&amp;8211' end of story. I doubt AOL, Yahoo or eBay would argue they are protected oligarchs, and Amazon would be in the same state had the company not dramatically pivoted into new areas. Google dominates, in part, because it is the youngest of the bunch and iterated in business model and product after watching the older search and portal companies. And Google is now feeling the heat from companies like Facebook and Twitter. Mobile Web may prove to be another matter, but there are just no signs to support that the early pioneers of the Web have an advantage that makes them immune to younger challengers.Indeed in a lot of verticals, late 1990s companies have already tried to flex these muscles Wu fears, and they&amp;'ve largely failed. Look at travel where online travel agents who had protected inventory fought sites like Kayak who wanted to spider their travel listings. The big portals tried to do this pre-Google, de-emphasizing the search box in favor of people staying within their walled virtual department store. Google disrupted that by making the idea of sending people away from your site more lucrative. Google got very little time to bask in that. Just a few years later, one of Google&amp;'s biggest challenges is trying to find ways to match the dramatic rise of Facebook, when it comes to keeping their key employees and finding their own answer to social and casual games.Consider the industry that has done the best job using a closed system and high-paid lobbyists to kill startups: Online music. VCs funding nearly any online music company in the last decade could have just made out the investment checks out directly to the labels, and the result would have been much the same. These companies were almost all bled dry with royalties, and then killed. One of the only reasons Pandora has survived is because it catalyzed its loyal users to break congressional fax machines with complaints about proposed legislation that would put the company out of business. But even in this industry where protectionism has killed so many great startups, the labels haven&amp;'t &amp;''won&amp;'' because they are still slowly dying. They continue to lose money, because of users like Pandora&amp;'s who demand they work with new entrants, rampant and uncontrollable piracy and VCs who continue to fund new music startups like Spotify despite a graveyard of failures. It&amp;'s not just the power of the Internet&amp;8211' it&amp;'s a powerful community of hackers, entrepreneurs and VCs who send wave after wave of challenges to an industry that they believe should be more open.Wu says somewhat dismissively in the clip below that everyone always thinks there&amp;'s something so different about their own time. While it&amp;'s good to sound potential alarm bells, I&amp;'d argue that believing that industries and consumers never change is just as flawed of an outlook.There&amp;'s a clip of the show below, go here to hear Wu talk specifically about the state of Net Neutrality.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[A Look At Windows Phone 7 Marketplace&'s Catalog, App Prices (Distimo&nbsp'Report)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=a-look-at-windows-phone-7-marketplacersquos-catalog-app-prices-distimonbspreport</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=a-look-at-windows-phone-7-marketplacersquos-catalog-app-prices-distimonbspreport</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=a-look-at-windows-phone-7-marketplacersquos-catalog-app-prices-distimonbspreport</guid>
<description><![CDATA[App store analytics provider Distimo took its monthly look at the world of mobile application stores, and this time zoomed in on the differences between Microsoft&amp;8216's Windows Phone 7 Marketplace and Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x).For you information, Distimo gathered data on all major app stores, but the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace data specifically was collected from 1 November until 22 November 2010, in the United States only (the store launched at the end of October 2010).Sidenote: make sure you check out CrunchGear&amp;'s take on Windows Phone 7.Distimo found that games are far more popular in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace than they are on Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x), mirroring the way Microsoft positions Windows Phone 7 as a more consumer-oriented platform.In fact, all ten of the most popular paid applications in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace are games, with prices ranging from $2.99 &amp;8211' $6.99. There are only two games among the ten most popular free applications in the store.Prices for applications in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace are largely the same as those in other major app stores, including the App Store for iOS devices and Android Market, but significantly lower than apps in Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x).Note that this contradicts earlier, widely cited reports.The price of applications in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace closely mirrors the prices in other application stores, with 57% of the 100 most popular apps priced below $2.One difference: apps in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile (6.x) are significantly higher than those in its succesor: only 37% of the 100 most popular applications is priced below $2.As of November 22, there are 2,674 applications in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace (Microsoft says there are roughly 3,000 apps in the store today). That&amp;'s not too shabby when you consider Windows Marketplace for Mobile had garnered only 1,350 applications since its debut, over a year ago.Mirroring the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, a large portion of the ten most popular apps in Windows Phone 7 Marketplace is published by Microsoft (six, to be precise).It will be interesting to see how it evolves.CrunchBase InformationDistimoInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Mint.com founder backs Capire Micropower&'s engine-on-a-chip]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mint-com-founder-backs-capire-micropowerrsquos-engine-on-a-chip</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mint-com-founder-backs-capire-micropowerrsquos-engine-on-a-chip</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mint-com-founder-backs-capire-micropowerrsquos-engine-on-a-chip</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Capire Micropower, a startup that manufactures an engine-on-a-chip power supply, announced today that it has secured angel funding from Mint.com&amp;'s Aaron Patzer and is coming out of stealth mode at VentureBeat&amp;'s cleantech conference GreenBeat 2010 at Stanford University.The &amp;''powerchip&amp;'' manufactured by Capire is essentially a 10-watt power supply that&amp;'s based on jet engines and train engines. The chip has its own fuel supply that runs on either ethanol or biodiesel. It&amp;'s placed in a hybridized setup that will charge batteries when devices go into standby mode, and serves as a &amp;''range extender&amp;'' like hybrid vehicles have today.When placed in a laptop, the chip should extend the life of a laptop to around 40 hours. It&amp;'s potentially a huge market, as there will be an estimated 266 million laptops shipped in 2013, said Jason Massey, cofounder and chairman of Capire Micropower. Chips can also be clustered together for larger devices, like scooters or even robots.The final chip model should by ready in about a year and a half, when Capire will bring it to market for mass production. Massey wouldn&amp;'t go into specifics over how much money he raised in the angel round, which included Mint.com&amp;'s Patzer and other individual investors, but he said it was somewhere between $250,000 and $1 million. He said the company was seeing a lot of interest for its first round of funding, but it wouldn&amp;'t be closed until the beginning of next year due to the holidays.Capire is a spinout of MIT and Duke University resulting from a $25 million fund from DARPA and the Army Research Office. The team of eight engineers is split between Durham, N.C. and Cambridge, Mass. Capire is currently looking to raise its first round of funding.Next Story: Gridbot builds an electric vehicle charger that wona4a4t break the grid Previous Story: For energy savings, work with consumers or around themPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: engine-on-a-chip, GreenBeat, GreenBeat 2010, powerchipCompanies: Capire MicropowerPeople: Jason Massey          Tags: engine-on-a-chip, GreenBeat, GreenBeat 2010, powerchipCompanies: Capire MicropowerPeople: Jason MasseyVentureBeat 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[Co-founder says Twitter is still exploring business models]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=co-founder-says-twitter-is-still-exploring-business-models</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=co-founder-says-twitter-is-still-exploring-business-models</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Marry</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=co-founder-says-twitter-is-still-exploring-business-models</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In the past few months, Twitter appears to have finally found a business model, and that model is advertising &amp;8212' chief executive Dick Costolo said in September that the company had a4Acracked the codea4 on ads. But Twitter co-founder Ev Williams said today that the company isna4a4t settling on ads.a4ATherea4a4s a million ways to make money with Twitter,a4 he said. a4AWea4a4ll probably try a few more.a4Williams did talk a bit more about Twitter&amp;'s ad products, saying that the company&amp;'s concern right now is that demand from advertisers far exceeds supply, which is why the company is building out its sales team. Like Costolo, Williams emphasized that Twitter ads start out as regular content and stop running if theya4a4re not getting much response from users.John Battelle, who was interviewing Williams on stage at the Web 2.0 Summit, said hea4a4s heard that Twitter&amp;'s Promoted Trend ads cost between $80,000 and $100,000 but Williams didna4a4t comment on specifics.  (No surprise.) On the question of total advertising revenue, he said, &amp;''I haven&amp;'t done the math.&amp;''There do seem to be revenue streams that Twitter isna4a4t interested in. The company is testing an analytics service and apparently doesna4a4t plan to charge for it. Although Twitter has sold access to its its firehose of data in the past, Williams said Twitter made those deals because the team thought increasing distribution of its data was a good thing.a4AThe point of those deals was never primarily about revenue,a4 he said.That doesna4a4t mean reselling data couldna4a4t become source of money. Gnip today announced a deal with Twitter to resell access to the firehose.Williams also discussed his decision to step down as Twitter&amp;'s CEO, which I covered in a separate post.[photo by Dean Takahashi]Next Story: Federated Media&amp;'s buying spree continues with Foodbuzz Previous Story: Gaikai kicks off its beta for cloud-based game streamingPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: advertising, online ads, Web 2.0 SummitCompanies: TwitterPeople: Ev Williams          Tags: advertising, online ads, Web 2.0 SummitCompanies: TwitterPeople: Ev WilliamsAnthony 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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