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<title>Haaze.com / pensrities / All</title>
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<pubDate>Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
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<title><![CDATA[Sony brings online storage for saved games to PS3]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sony-brings-online-storage-for-saved-games-to-ps3</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sony-brings-online-storage-for-saved-games-to-ps3</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>pensrities</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sony-brings-online-storage-for-saved-games-to-ps3</guid>
<description><![CDATA[PlayStation 3 owners who are alsoPlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to save game data in the cloud, Sony announced today.After updating the PlayStation 3 with firmware version 3.6, which rolls out tomorrow, PlayStation Plus subscribers will find a new backup utility on their console. Users can go to the utility and upload up to 150MB of saved-game data to the cloud. Up to 1,000 data files can be stored on the service. The storage is connected to the user's PlayStation Network account, Sony says.Sony's new feature goes beyond storage. Users can download their saved game data on any other PlayStation 3 after logging in to their PlayStation Network accounts. In other words, if a gamer is playing a title at home and backs up his saved game to the cloud, he can pick up where he left off at a friend's house. The only requirement is a game disc and the ability for PlayStation Plus subscribers to connect to the Web to access the data.The addition of cloud storage to Sony's online suite could be a boon for gamers. The feature could make the process of continuing a game away from home much easier. And since it doesn't cost users any more to access it, that feature makes the $49.99 annual fee for the PlayStation Plus service even more valuable.But as with anything else, there is a limitation to Sony's new feature. According to the company, any single file can only be downloaded once per day. However, users can download multiple files each day without limitation.A Sony representative confirmed to CNET today that the 24-hour rule applies only to each piece of saved data. Gamers that play a title at home, upload their saved game to the cloud, download it at a friend's house, make more progress, and then upload that saved data to the online storage can then download that file when they get back home to continue from where they left off.Sony says that its new cloud-storage feature will work with &quot;most&quot; PlayStation 3 games and new games coming out from now on will support online storage, as well.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft to make Outlook easier to touch]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-make-outlook-easier-to-touch</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-make-outlook-easier-to-touch</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2011 08:10:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>pensrities</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-make-outlook-easier-to-touch</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A Microsoft job posting has provided clues into Microsoft's strategy to make its Office Web applications more friendly to touch-screen devices. A listing that went up over the weekend for a software development engineer touts some of the successes of Microsoft's Outlook Web App (OWA), saying it has &quot;made a huge difference in the daily lives of millions of users all over the world&quot; but that the company is looking for someone to take OWA to &quot;the next level&quot; with a &quot;next generation&quot; client. That client would be for both the desktop and &quot;the latest mobile and slate devices,&quot; the listing said.(Credit:CNET)OWA can currently be accessed via standard Web browsers but lacks some finger-friendly UI tweaks and gesture identifiers that competitors have packed into their mobile HTML clients. Google and Yahoo in particular have put out two-pane Web e-mail sites that work on devices likeApple's iPad without the need for a native client application. Microsoft does something similar with its Hotmail service by offering users a simplified version of their in-boxes, but the company has not brought such changes to the latest version of OWA.Along with the discussion about making OWA work better across devices, the listing goes into some detail about plans to help people &quot;manage meetings, appointments, and tasks.&quot; All three of those items are addressed in the current version of Microsoft's Outlook platform, however this would suggest that Microsoft is at work on alternate means for those tasks to be handled--be it inside the app, or by way of a new standalone application in the same vein as the company's Lync communications platform. That Microsoft would be aiming to make its own Web services more friendly to as many platforms as possible should not be a surprise to anyone, especially given the last several years of product launches. Besides talking up the importance of HTML5 as part of the latest version of Internet Explorer, the company has attempted to make the Web-based versions of its Office applications work on as many browsers as possible, including Google's Chrome, which had originally been left off the list of compatible browsers. As for when we'll actually get a look at this reworked version of OWA--that detail remains a bit fuzzy. While the company has said it's currently at work on the next major version of the Office software suite, OWA also plays an important part in Microsoft's Office 365 strategy. Part of the appeal for that offering is that users can get the latest versions of Office applications that are hosted by Microsoft, versus local deployments. If some of the changes are simply under the hood, there's the potential for them to end up in 365 ahead of any future versions of its desktop sibling.Microsoft's job posting was first picked up by blog Winrumors, earlier today.Related: Forcing Office Web Apps to open on an iPad<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Market share dilemma: iPads and PCs belong together]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=market-share-dilemma-ipads-and-pcs-belong-together</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=market-share-dilemma-ipads-and-pcs-belong-together</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:10:38 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>pensrities</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=market-share-dilemma-ipads-and-pcs-belong-together</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple iPad, Galaxy Tab, Dell Streak, and iPod Touch. Should any of these be considered a PC(Credit:Donald Bell/CNET)Is aniPad a PC Depends on who you ask.It's true the way we use personal technology now is changing, making what we refer to as a &quot;PC&quot; a moving target. Recently, some market share studies have grouped tablets with traditional PCs to show how power in the laptop and desktop market is shifting in favor of, well, Apple, a longtime underdog in the PC world. That's sales numbers we're talking about, of course: at more than 10 percent, Apple's Mac sales put it at its highest market share in the U.S. in ages but still nowhere near HP's worldwide market share of more than 17 percent. Cupertino's influence, however, is much more broad' you need only glance at the design and marketing of most computers sold today for proof. But is it fair to group PCs and touch-screen tablets together if only to illustrate Apple's ascendancy in the industry Not yet. The touch-screen tablet and a PC are still different devices in terms of what they enable us to do. Certainly, there are overlaps: both allow you to watch movies on a decent-size screen, you can connect a tablet to a full-size keyboard and get a lot of typing done--e-mail, documents, you can even create presentations, read e-books, and of course, browse Web sites on a display without having to squint. But it will be a rare iPad or Android tablet user who will tell you they've been able to completely replicate what they were doing on a MacBook or an Acer laptop, or Dell desktop on a 7-inch or 9-inch screen--a display at least 12 or 13 inches is what most PC users would regard as &quot;normal.&quot; These media tablets don't have full desktop operating systems, storage is limited, a virtual keyboard does not replace a physical one, there are limited ports, there's no file system, and the most-used productivity apps we use for work don't necessarily translate easily to these devices. While you can do many PC-type tasks, it's easy to argue that for most users the touch-screen tablet experience is just not the same because of some basic limitations. At times, it's &quot;a question of degree,&quot; noted Bob O'Donnell, PC analyst for IDC, a firm that does not include tablets in the same bucket as traditional PCs. &quot;I just got back from two weeks in Asia, so I'm two weeks behind on e-mail,&quot; O'Donnell offered as an example. &quot;I can do some, but there's no way I'm doing 300 e-mails on an iPad.&quot; The difference in how people are actually using media tablets is all about context--the task you're doing and where you are, he argues. But that's not to say tablets won't replace PCs for many people some day, even soon. Smaller, more powerful devices still to come are inevitable, and those will enable us to do more traditional PC functions on different and smaller form factors. And of course, over time habits and usage scenarios change. Michael Gartenberg, analyst at Gartner, argues that a tablet may already replace a PC for some people, even if it's not their primary PC, which we can define as the computer that they use to store most of their data and sync their phone or music player. Someone might buy a Galaxy Tab instead of a Netbook, which is typically recognized by the industry as a mini notebook, or a college student might be limited by funds and choose an iPad instead of a laptop, he pointed out. Not everyone uses PCs the same way, so a tablet might function as a PC for some people, even if experts and analysts insist the two are separate, Gartenberg added. &quot;Someone's primary PC is someone else's casual PC,&quot; Gartenberg said. How the average soccer mom, Silicon Valley engineer, or high school student are using devices and how those devices are being marketed to them gets at the heart of the very murky and continually shifting definition of how we define a computer. The Logitech Revue with Google TV isn&amp;39't all that different on the inside from an Atom-based Nettop computer.(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)The extremely mobile, app-friendly mode of computing many of us recognize from using aniPhone or an Android phone is being replicated in form factors that we're used to seeing on more traditional PCs, including Google's Chrome OS coming soon to Acer and Samsung mini notebooks. With those small laptops, there will be no traditional OS, it's a small notebook that only runs a browser and has its own app marketplace, the Chrome Web Store. Apple's next major update to its desktop operating system is also going to be geared more toward downloadable third-party apps, with theMac App Store. The confusion over how to categorize gadgets isn't likely to be limited to analysts and marketers though. When you're considering buying one of these devices, it's not at all clear sometimes if you need a smartphone and a tablet, or a smartphone and a laptop, or all three. The lack of clarity over what is a tablet or what is a PC and in what situations you use them extends beyond those devices too since so many gadgets are taking on computer-like characteristics. Take the Nook Color from Barnes &amp; Noble. It's marketed as a competitor to the Amazon Kindle, which is to say, as an e-book reader. But the Nook also runs Android, looks an awful lot like a tablet, and can browse the Web. And what about Google TV One of the first devices on the platform, the Logitech Revue, is a set-top box that has an Atom chip inside--traditionally used in mini notebooks, runs a smartphone-oriented OS in Android, Gartenberg points out. In other words, it's not going to get easier to define these categories of what is and isn't a PC anytime soon. &quot;The problem is, we want clarity,&quot; he said. &quot;It's important to understand what these (market share) numbers look like, but as we face more convergence and have devices that do more things, counting them is going to be trickier.&quot;  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[No more syncing: Didiom streams music to your iPhone from anywhere]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-more-syncing-didiom-streams-music-to-your-iphone-from-anywhere</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-more-syncing-didiom-streams-music-to-your-iphone-from-anywhere</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>pensrities</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-more-syncing-didiom-streams-music-to-your-iphone-from-anywhere</guid>
<description><![CDATA[With  the iPhone app Didiom, syncing music files to your phone may become a thing  of the past. Thata4a4s why wea4a4re choosing Didiom as the first innovative app for VentureBeat&amp;'s Mobile App Spotlight.Didiom lets you stream music to your iPhone or iPod Touch (or BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile 6 phone) from your Windows PC over Wi-Fi and 3G. Ita4a4s available in two flavors: A free, or Lite, version that lets you stream up to five songs, and a Pro version that offers higher-quality audio and unlimited streams for $9.99 a year.Setting up Didiom is simple: First download the desktop client,  then create a Didiom account, and finally choose the music folders  youa4a4d like to sync with the service. Didiom gives you access to songs,  podcasts, audiobooks and playlists &amp;8212' though it wona4a4t support files encrypted with DRM from iTunes and audiobook company Audible. (Apple now sells unencrypted MP3 files on iTunes, but older files may have DRM.)The  Pro version lets you stream audio at up to 128 Kbps quality &amp;8212' which is  noticeably worse than CD quality. Still, the quality drop is a decent  trade-off for the convenience of accessing your music from practically anywhere.In  my testing over AT&amp;amp'T&amp;'s 3G network in New York, Didiom managed to quickly find  my music library, and it was able to play back files within a few  seconds of accessing them. The app itself is well-designed and stable.  Didiom takes advantage of the iPhone 4a4a4s multitasking capabilities, allowing you to listen to songs without staying in the app, although it doesna4a4t integrate with the iPhonea4a4s native playback controls.Didiom,  short for a4Adigital distribution of musica4, started out as a  graduate project for founder Ran Assaf. In an email interview, Assaf mentioned that his original plan in 2004 was to let users stream music  from a large licensed catalog. Eventually, the company pivoted its focus  to placeshifting, or the ability to access your files from anywhere.Driving  the service is a peer-to-peer (P2P) placeshifting technology that  Didiom has been developing since 2004, which makes streaming files from computers to phones easier. With Didiom, your music never hits any  intermediary servers &amp;8212' instead, ita4a4s encrypted and piped directly from your PC to  your phone. That&amp;'s a far less problematic approach than other pioneers of streaming, like MP3.com, an online-music pioneer which copied files from users&amp;' libraries and stored them on its own servers. That last step &amp;8212' copying them to servers &amp;8212' raises potential copyright issues. And that&amp;'s what Didiom smartly avoids.When asked if music labels took issue with the service, Assaf said, a4AWe demonstrated the technology to the labels. They did not raise any concerns. It was important for them to know that Didiom is not a music  locker service, and that we do not duplicate or upload music from the  computers of our users to our servers.a4Assaf counts other services like Orb, ZumoCast, and Simplify Media (which Google acquired earlier this year)  as Didiom competitors. He says that Didiom stands out a4Ain terms of  speed, navigation, streaming quality, user experience, DRM support,  compatible devices and availability on app stores.a4 He added that  Didioma4a4s streaming technology is more stable, and less prone to error  due to Internet outages, as well.Didiom certainly performed better in  my testing than ZumoCast and Orb. When it comes to music, I also prefer  Didiom to Libox, an innovative streaming service wea4a4ve covered in the past.Didiom, founded in 2005,  is based in New York City. The company has received some funding from angel  investors but is primarily bootstrapped.Developers: Want to get your app featured like Didiom Then submit your app for consideration!The Intel AppUp developer program is sponsoring VentureBeata4a4s Mobile App Spotlight. However, VentureBeata4a4s editorial staff selects apps for the program according to its customary editorial standards, without input from Intel.Next Story: Enterprise social network Yammer raises a whopping $25M to triple its team Previous Story: Hatsize raises $5M to let businesses try new tech before they buy itPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: copyright, digital music, iTunes, Mobile App Spotlight, mobile apps, music, music industry, online music, placeshifting, record labels, streaming, ZumoCastCompanies: Apple, Didiom, Google, Libox, orb, Simplify Media, ZecterPeople: Ran Assaf          Tags: copyright, digital music, iTunes, Mobile App Spotlight, mobile apps, music, music industry, online music, placeshifting, record labels, streaming, ZumoCastCompanies: Apple, Didiom, Google, Libox, orb, Simplify Media, ZecterPeople: Ran AssafDevindra Hardawar is VentureBeat's lead mobile writer and East Coast correspondent. He studied philosophy at Amherst College, worked in IT support for several years, and has been writing about technology since 2004. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach him at devindra@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @Devindra.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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