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<title>Haaze.com / erdikcopd / All</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:11:00 +0000</pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Schneider does home energy sans smart meter]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=schneider-does-home-energy-sans-smart-meter</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=schneider-does-home-energy-sans-smart-meter</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:11:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>erdikcopd</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=schneider-does-home-energy-sans-smart-meter</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Home of the future A Web-based application for managing home energy, a smart thermostat, and display for notifications and energy data.(Credit:Schneider Electric)Millions of two-way smart meters are expected to be installed in the next few years, but more energy management companies are finding ways to use home broadband connections to reach consumers. Schneider Electric today is scheduled to introduce a home energy management system called Wiser that's flexible in what network it uses. It's one of many announcements coming from the DistribuTech utility conference this week in San Diego.The package, which will be marketed at utilities, includes a networked thermostat, a small energy display, and an Internet gateway for brokering communications between consumers and utilities. There are also wallet-size controllers for connecting relatively large appliances, such as a pool pump or refrigerators, to a home network.There are dozens of companies working in home energy management, developing products to give consumers more control over how they use energy. Utilities are interested in reducing peak-time energy use or improving customer efficiency overall with these types of tools.But even as utilities provide consumers with more tools, such as Web-based dashboards and home energy displays, there's concern in the industry that consumers won't use them, particularly after the novelty wears off.Schneider, which makes a range of electric power equipment for commercial buildings, said that it designed the home energy display for ease of use and flexibility. If it's a location where there are time-of-use electricity rates, the display will show when prices change to motivate consumers to move power-hungry jobs to off-peak times. It can also notify a person that they are straying from a pre-set energy budget. For example, during a critical peak period, where utilities are struggling to meet energy demand, consumers can get an alert that the price for electricity has gone up. If they participate in a demand response program in exchange for a rebate, then they can agree to have a thermostat's temperature adjusted or a pool pump turned off. The system can be automated, too, using a Web-based application.With so many companies building consumer-facing smart-grid tools, it's hard to stand out from others. Schneider expects it can attract utility customers because it has a broad product line in power-related equipment to complement Wiser, said Mike Matthews, business development manager for residential energy efficiency at Schneider Electric Power Business. Having the ability to work both over a smart-meter network or Internet gateway is another way for Schneider to stand out from other suppliers, he added. In practice, Schneider expects that utilities will use both the smart meter and Schneider's Internet-based network service. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Prius gets a minivan, a hot hatchback, and a plug-in]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=prius-gets-a-minivan-a-hot-hatchback-and-a-plug-in</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=prius-gets-a-minivan-a-hot-hatchback-and-a-plug-in</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:10:57 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>erdikcopd</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=prius-gets-a-minivan-a-hot-hatchback-and-a-plug-in</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Toyota Prius V has a higher roofline than the current Prius, meaning more cargo space.(Credit:Josh Miller/CNET)Toyota Prius family (photos) DETROIT--Toyota fulfilled its promise to expand the Prius lineup at the 2011 Detroit auto show, turning the once single model name into a whole set of hybridcars. Joining the Prius lineup is the mini-minivan-sized Prius V, a plug-in version running a lithium ion battery pack, and a new compact concept.Prius C conceptWe saw a version of this concept previously at the 2010 Detroit auto show, dubbed the FT-CH. This sporty-looking little hybrid hatchback is Toyota's effort to design a Prius for young, urban buyers. Its size should make parking easy in cities and its looks will appeal to image-conscious buyers.Prius VWithout increasing length much, Toyota raised the roof with the Prius V to create a larger cargo area. The result is a Prius hybrid that offers more flexibility for families. This car uses the same power train as the current Prius, but loses some fuel economy due to its larger size. Toyota plans to release the Prius V late this summer.Prius Plug-inEgged on by an enthusiastic user base and even a modification community, Toyota has finally announced firm details on a plug-in Prius. This car swaps out the standard nickel metal hydride battery pack for a lithium ion version, which can handle plug-in charging better. The Prius Plug-in can drive 13 miles under electric power alone, and charges to full in 1.7 hours from a 220-volt outlet. The 13-mile electric range is not much compared with the Chevy Volt's 40 miles. Toyota plans to release the Prius Plug-in in mid-2012.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CNET Editors' Choice: Roku XDS]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cnet-editors-choice-roku-xds</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cnet-editors-choice-roku-xds</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:10:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>erdikcopd</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cnet-editors-choice-roku-xds</guid>
<description><![CDATA[King of the (under $100) hill(Credit:Roku)Some things are better the second time around.We looked at the Roku XDS when it was first released in September 2010. At the time, we liked what we saw, but ultimately it was little different from the previous incarnation of the Roku box. Moreover, we were anticipating the release of several major competitors in the upcoming weeks: the $99 Apple TV, the $129 Sony SMP-N100, the $199 Boxee Box, and a slate of Google TV products ($299 and up). Now that we've had a chance to test all of those products, we've looped back to the Roku. Yes, it's still largely the same box--albeit with the notable addition of Hulu Plus to its channel list. But Roku is now a better deal than ever, especially when compared with its aforementioned competitors. In fact, we think it's the best sub-$100 streaming media box you can buy. As always, there are caveats. If you already have an older Roku model, the new one offers only a handful of improvements. Likewise, if you have a good Blu-ray player, a Net-connected TV, aPlayStation 3, or anXbox 360, you'll already have access to many (but probably not all) of Roku's mainstream content providers--Netflix, Vudu, and Pandora are widely supported, for example.Of course, if you don't already own one of those devices, it's a different story. The Roku XDS is more affordable than all of them, and it's got built-in Wi-Fi--something you won't find on entry-level Blu-ray players and even many Net-enabled TVs.How about Roku's streaming media peers Google TV is three times as expensive, and currently offers far less content (thanks to media companies blocking its built-in browser). Boxee is twice as expensive, and has yet to enable its Netflix and Vudu apps. Apple TV is the same price, but it's very much targeted at users who wish to stay within the &quot;iUniverse&quot; of products. If you own aniPad/iPhone/iPod Touch, and you enjoy buying and renting content from iTunes, it's good--great, even. But otherwise, it offers only Netflix, YouTube, Flickr, and Internet radio content you can get on Roku or countless other devices. (The AirPlay feature is a cool addition for streaming audio from an iOS device, but in its current form, it's not a game changer.) Yes, Apple TV's user interface is far slicker than that of the Roku--but Roku's utilitarian interface is good enough, and it provides a gateway to far more content options. Only the dark horse competitor Sony SMP-N100 (review coming Friday, December 3) gives the Roku XDS a real run for its money, delivering many of the same top streaming sources (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and many others). It even one-ups Roku for local media streaming (from USB and network PC sources). But it's 30 percent more expensive, and the interface and setup procedures are a little rough around the edges. In the final analysis, even with the increased competition--and despite some shortcomings--the Roku Player's simplicity, affordable price, and superior programming selection make it the go-to choice for buyers looking for a sub-$100 solution for accessing the increasingly attractive panoply of online streaming media services.  And that's why we're awarding it a CNET Editors' Choice. Read the full review of the Roku XDS. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[YouTube Leanback Brings Personalized Channels To Your&nbsp'TV]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=youtube-leanback-brings-personalized-channels-to-yournbsptv</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=youtube-leanback-brings-personalized-channels-to-yournbsptv</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>erdikcopd</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=youtube-leanback-brings-personalized-channels-to-yournbsptv</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Around YouTube headquarters, there&amp;'s a stat that management likes to throw around to make it clear that the company isn&amp;'t resting on its laurels. No, it isn&amp;'t the fact the site is the world&amp;'s second largest search engine or that its users upload 35 hours of content per minute. It&amp;'s that the average user spends around 15 minutes per day on YouTube. That would be an impressive amount of engagement for just about anything else, but it pales in comparison to the five hours that people spend sitting in front of their TV sets watching cable (yes, seriously).  And make no mistake: YouTube wants to take some of that time for itself.Today, the site is taking an important step toward that goal as it improves its Leanback product with a key new feature: personalized channels. LeanBack, which launched in July and is integrated into Google TV, lets users hit &amp;8216'play&amp;' and then sit back and watch an endless stream of YouTube content with no input required. In short, it&amp;'s YouTube TV. And now it&amp;'s personalized TV a4&quot;a4ssomething that no cable network out there can match. Before now Leanback has had the concept of channels, but these were primarily built around social activity from your friends and videos curated by YouTube. Now the site is going to try to learn what you like and generate new personalized channels accordingly. These channels will show content that&amp;'s relevant both to the things you&amp;'ve told YouTube you like, and topics that YouTube thinks you&amp;'ll like (for example, if you build a channel around funny cat videos, it may start throwing some funny videos without cats into the mix).The feature acts a bit like a Pandora for video. It learns about your preferences based on both your explicit actions (like hitting the &amp;8216'thumbs up&amp;' button) and implicit signals, like which videos you&amp;'ve watched and how long you watched them for. You can also manually add new topics and keywords to adjust the kind of content YouTube will display.It sounds great, but I suspect it&amp;'s going to be a long, slow process for YouTube to really get people used to the idea. Issue number one: YouTube Leanback is supposed to let people sit back and watch an endless stream of relevant content' if they&amp;'re doing that, I doubt they&amp;'re going to want to hit the &amp;8216'thumbs up&amp;' or &amp;8216'down&amp;' button unless it&amp;'s effortless (at this point no Google TV remote has a dedicated button). So YouTube will probably be relying primarily implicit signals for now.But more important, Leanback is introducing users to an experience that is very different from YouTube itself. Yes, YouTube has long offered suggested videos, and has countless channels of content, but this notion of leaning back and just watching is something that will take some getting used to. That said, YouTube reports that Leanback users are consuming 30 minutes at a time a4&quot; twice as much as they do using the normal site a4&quot; so obviously it&amp;'s working for some people.And it won&amp;'t take long until a lot more people are on Leanback. YouTube is already integrated into Google TV, and it has apps on other HTPCs as well. The company has also started searching for a Product Manager to lead its &amp;8216'YouTube on TV&amp;' projects, whose responsibilities include managing relationships with both content and hardware partners. In other words, YouTube Leanback (or a related product) is going to be popping up in a lot of places over the next few years. And once it nails this notion of personalized video content, it&amp;'s going to be tough to go back to plain old TV.CrunchBase InformationYouTubeInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Groupon spurns Google&'s paltry $6B offer, makes $2B every year]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=groupon-spurns-googlersquos-paltry-6b-offer-makes-2b-every-year</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=groupon-spurns-googlersquos-paltry-6b-offer-makes-2b-every-year</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>erdikcopd</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=groupon-spurns-googlersquos-paltry-6b-offer-makes-2b-every-year</guid>
<description><![CDATA[It&amp;'s official: Groupon makes a ridiculous amount of money. In fact, it makes more than enough to reject Google&amp;'s offer, worth somewhere between $5 billion and $6 billion, to buy the daily-deal company.Groupon has reportedly called off the massive buyout offer from Google and apparently makes $2 billion in revenue year,according to a number of reports. The reports also indicate the site could file to go public next year.The daily-deal space has exploded thanks to sites like LivingSocial and Groupon. Both Groupon and LivingSocial, as well as a host of imitators, now offer deeply discounted offers for services, meals, and group activities from local merchants that have previously struggled to reach new customers online. The sites make money by convincing businesses to offer steep discounts, then selling those discounts directly to consumers and picking up the difference.Both of those sites are living large right now. Groupon is the king of the hill, based on arecent Experian Hitwise blog post that showed that Groupon received 79 percent of U.S. visits among 81 group-buying sites last week. It was valued at over $1 billionfollowing a large round of funding in April.LivingSocial also recently confirmed an earlier VentureBeat report that it was receiving an investment from Amazon worth $175 million.AllThingsD reported a few weeks ago that Google and Groupon were in talks, which sparked countless follow-up rumors.We argued that the Google-Groupon deal would inevitably be bad for the daily-deal provider because it would rip the human element right out of the service. Deal sites have grown because they have a human touch. The sites rely on local salespeople, who solicit merchants, and city planners and writers who curate deals and market them withold-fashioned well-written emails.This would be the second time Groupon has rejected a massive offer from a search giant. There were reports that Yahoo tried to purchase Groupon for as much as $4 billion, after rumors from earlier this month thatthe deal site was after more funding that would value it at $3 billion. And it&amp;'s also the second time Google has failed to pick up a potential daily-deal site in as many years, after it failed to buy Yelp last year.Sorry guys. Better luck next year[Photo: ramblingmediaimages]Next Story: Google&amp;'s Chrome OS netbook coming Dec. 7th Previous Story: Samsung steals top Android phone manufacturer crown from MotorolaPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: acquisition, buyout, daily deal, merger, Mergers and AcquisitionsCompanies: Google, Groupon, Livingsocial, Yahoo, Yelp          Tags: acquisition, buyout, daily deal, merger, Mergers and AcquisitionsCompanies: Google, Groupon, Livingsocial, Yahoo, YelpMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francsico, Calif. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron.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[Trademarkia helps you find social media impostors]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=trademarkia-helps-you-find-social-media-impostors</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=trademarkia-helps-you-find-social-media-impostors</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>erdikcopd</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=trademarkia-helps-you-find-social-media-impostors</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Legal service engine Trademarkia just launched a service that allows companies to check whether someone is impersonating them on social networks.Of course, you can check this stuff on your own, either by visiting each social network or by running a Google or Bing search. But if youa4a4re a small business or startup, ita4a4s a challenge to check everything. VentureBeat, for example, has accounts on major social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but I dona4a4t think wea4a4ve checked to see if anyone else has started a VentureBeat account on Xanga or Ehow.Through Trademarkia, you can search for company names on more than 500 social networking sites at once. (It searches for both the name and near-spellings of the name.) Trademarkia shows you a preview of the account on each site, so you can see if ita4a4s really yours. If ita4a4s not, you can pay $185 to have chief executive Raj Abhyankera4a4s law firm write a cease-and-desist letter to get the fake account taken down.The Mountain View, Calif. startup first launched last year as a trademark search engine and has been adding features since. As you may already have guessed, Abhyanker isna4a4t your typical CEO &amp;8212' hea4a4s both a tech entrepreneur (his last company was a local social networking startup called Fatdoor) and a corporate/patent attorney. He said his latest venture is an attempt to combine what hea4a4s learned from the tech and legal worlds. The company is self-funded.Next Story: Andreessen Horowitz writes big check for Factuala4a4s data platform Previous Story: San Diego companies: Get feedback from Avalon Ventures, and cocktailsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: brand management, social media impostors, social network impostorsCompanies: TrademarkiaPeople: Raj Abhyanker          Tags: brand management, social media impostors, social network impostorsCompanies: TrademarkiaPeople: Raj AbhyankerAnthony 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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