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<title>Haaze.com / Anjali01 / Voted News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
<item>
<title><![CDATA[Apple sued over location tracking in iOS]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>andplot56</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A lawsuit filed against Apple in Florida last week accuses the company of violating privacy laws, as well as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, by keeping a log of user locations without offering a way to disable the feature. The suit, which was first reported by Bloomberg, was filed by Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito, both of whom own Apple products. In the suit, the pair, who seek punitive damages and injunctive relief, cite research from Alasdair Allen and Pete Warden about the tracking files found within iOS as the source for Apple's collection techniques. &quot;Users of Apple's iPhones and iPads, including Plaintiffs, were unaware of Apple's tracking their locations and did not consent to such tracking,&quot; the suit claims. &quot;Apple collects the location information covertly, surreptitiously and in violations of law.&quot; The suit faults Apple specifically for not disclosing that the iOS software records &quot;comprehensive&quot; location data in its iTunes Terms of Service, nor offering end users informed consent of the practice.&quot;If Apple wanted to track the whereabouts of each of its products' users, it should have obtained specific, particularized informed consent such that Apple consumers across America would not have been shocked and alarmed to learn of Apple's practices in recent days,&quot; the suit says. The suit, which is seeking class action status, aims to have Apple completely disable the feature in the &quot;next-released&quot; version of the operating system. Until that happens, the suit claims Apple is in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, state laws comparable to the Federal Trade Commission Act, and &quot;common law rights in uniform ways&quot; of the plaintiffs and class members. Apple, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit, has not officially commented on the location tracking file since it came to light last week. An alleged e-mail exchange between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a reader of MacRumors surfaced this morning. In it, Jobs purportedly says, &quot;we don't track anyone,&quot; and &quot;the info circulating around is false.&quot; Apple has not confirmed or commented on the legitimacy of that correspondence. In addition, Apple and Google were targeted today by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan over location tracking. Madigan seeks a meeting with executives from both companies, as well as answers to her questions about disclosure and purpose of the tracking, and a way to turn the feature off. Madigan's efforts join those of other politicians and government groups who seek to know more about what the companies are doing with the information.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google's Schmidt scores major pay raise]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=googles-schmidt-scores-major-pay-raise</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=googles-schmidt-scores-major-pay-raise</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:10:02 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zainab01</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=googles-schmidt-scores-major-pay-raise</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The cash keeps coming in for former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.(Credit:Stephen Shankland/CNET)Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO and new executive chairman, has been handed a huge pay raise, according to a document that Google filed yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.According to the filing, Google's Leadership Development and Compensation Committee has granted Schmidt annual compensation of $1.25 million. In addition, he will be allowed to receive a &quot;target bonus of 400 percent of his base salary.&quot; In other words, Schmidt could walk away with more than $6 million in cash compensation in a good year.Schmidt's raise is effective as of April 4, the same day he stepped down as CEO of Google and handed the reins over to company co-founder Larry Page. Schmidt, who previously took a salary of $1 per year as Google CEO and board chairman, is now the company's executive chairman.Google's decision to give Schmidt a raise is the company's latest move to heavily compensate him. Earlier this year, the search giant gave Schmidt $100 million in stock and stock options while he was still chief executive.As much compensation as Schmidt has been awarded as of late, it will do little to affect his standing as one of the richest people in the world, considering how much he already has. According to Forbes, Schmidt is worth $7 billion.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Kinect for Windows SDK means business]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kinect-for-windows-sdk-means-business</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kinect-for-windows-sdk-means-business</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 13 Apr 2011 07:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>escucce</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kinect-for-windows-sdk-means-business</guid>
<description><![CDATA[LAS VEGAS--Microsoft had some fun while offering up details of the software development kit for Kinect for Windows. A technology evangelist named Clint Rutkas jury-rigged a lounge chair with wheels, wiring, and a Kinect motion-sensing controller for the company'sXbox 360 game console. Then, using just hand gestures, he drove the chair onto the stage at Mix11, Microsoft's annual Web and mobile phone developer conference.The Kinect SDK, though, may wind up leading to a business that's anything but trivial. The kit will give software developers tools to create applications that use motion-sensing and hand gestures. And Microsoft expects developers to come up with ideas that could generate huge paydays.Kinect drivable lounge chair at Mix11(Credit:Jay Greene/CNET)Think about running a meeting and moving through presentation with hand gestures, instead of a handheld clicker. Or maybe a device for conference video calls that knows to shift camera angles for different speakers. And there's little doubt Microsoft will come up with applications inside products such as Office.If developers embrace the technology and come up with clever and useful creations, Microsoft stands to gain. And maybe it stands to gain a lot.&quot;I think it could be a meaningful business,&quot; said Anoop Gupta, a distinguished scientist in Microsoft Research who is overseeing the project. And a meaningful business for Microsoft, which generated $62.5 billion in sales in the last fiscal year, generally has a few commas in it.That's because Microsoft would license the technology to enable so-called natural user interfaces. Software developers would likely pay Microsoft a fee to build applications that use the Kinect technology. And computer screen monitor makers would likely pay a licensing fee, too, to put the Kinect technology in their products.&quot;There's both the hardware and the software opportunity,&quot; Gupta said.And he knows a bit about building those businesses. From 2003 to 2007, Gupta built and led Microsoft's Unified Communications Group, running Microsoft Exchange Server,Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting.It's taken Microsoft some time to embrace developers using the Kinect for something other than Xbox gaming. When hackers first created applications, Microsoft was ambivalent at best. It mostly looked the other way, though Gupta said it was because the company was heads down on selling the device to gamers.Initially, Microsoft won't encourage commercial applications for Kinect. The software giant will release the SDK later this spring, but only on a noncommercial basis. That means developers can't use it for projects that they want to sell. That probably limits it to academics and enthusiasts, many of whom have already come up with creative hacks in the absence of an official SDK from Microsoft.And what happens if a developer creates an application that has commercial viability They do so at their own peril, according to Gupta. &quot;We are not making any promises that the (programming interfaces) will remain the same,&quot; Gupta said.Part of the reason is that Microsoft is trying to figure out how to draw up a commercial SDK license that protects its financial opportunity. &quot;Certainly, that would be one of the considerations,&quot; Gupta said.In the meantime, developers will have to satisfy themselves with ginning up applications more clever than a mobile lounge chair.Here's a video of me taking the Kinect Drivable Lounge Chair for a spin, with instruction from its creator, Microsoft's Clint Rutkas.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Gaming sites game Reddit, get caught]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gaming-sites-game-reddit-get-caught</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gaming-sites-game-reddit-get-caught</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:10:02 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>10JogosCarros</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gaming-sites-game-reddit-get-caught</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Reddit&amp;39's gaming subreddit, where the efforts took place.(Credit:CNET)A trio of gaming sites has been caught getting users to vote stories into popularity on social-news site Reddit. The effort, which had been run by a Reddit user called &quot;MasterOfHyrule,&quot; made use of multiple accounts to submit, vote, and comment on stories from gaming sites GamePro, G4TV, and GamrFeed. Those stories would then have a greater chance at making it to the front page of the site's gaming subcategory and possibly onto the front page of the site where even more traffic could be had. After being called out in a post by Reddit user Deimorz earlier today, all three have since issued apologies to the Reddit community owning up to the efforts. The legitimacy of G4's has been verified, however GamePro and GamrFeed's have not. CNET has reached out to both companies for independent confirmation.In its statement, G4 said that the company had originally found a Digg power user who also had other social networking accounts, including one on Reddit. G4 had traded games, then later money to this individual in return for them submitting stories to the social-news site.&quot;However, we didn't know the full extent of how he was achieving success on Reddit,&quot; the company wrote. &quot;We had no idea that he had 20 accounts under his control. We also didn't know that he was using the other accounts to comment on his own submissions. That's on us 100 percent, we should have paid more attention to his methods.&quot;Based on data pulled up by Deimorz, the first of the companies to begin the practice was GamePro nearly a year ago, with G4TV following three months later. Deimorz pegs GamrFeed to be the most recent, beginning four months ago. Out of that data, there is no determination of how many stories were affected, though user MasterOfHyrule was said to be &quot;by far the worst&quot; with &quot;hundreds of submissions,&quot; according to Deimorz' data. Gaming the system on social-news sites is nothing new though presents a particularly challenging problem to site owners. The site's growth has made it an increasingly lucrative target to sites that want to get a boost in traffic once stories are elevated to a promoted status. Reddit rival Digg faced similar challenges several years ago while trying to cope with an influx of users and groups that attempted to game its voting system. The company responded by changing its algorithm to penalize group voting, thereby encouraging stories to be voted on by a more diverse group of users before getting promoted. The site's spam filter can catch about 97 percent of submitted posts that are determined to be spammy, though the company is not able to go into specifics on its methods for fear of helping spammers bypass it, according to Erik Martin, Reddit's community manager.&quot;This is a little different because some of these sites have content,&quot; Martin told CNET. &quot;It's not quite the same as someone who puts up a crappy infographic with a bunch of back links to their furniture site. These are Web sites that are publishing content.&quot; &quot;Usually the other thing that helps is that our users smell it,&quot; Martin explained. &quot;But it's harder to smell it in gaming. I hope nobody in gaming gets offended by that. It's just much easier to smell it in other Reddits. Gaming has articles about commercial products with reviews, leaks of screenshots, conversations with marketing people and developers.&quot; &quot;What constitutes spam in the gaming Reddit is not the same as the cognitive psychology Reddit,&quot; Martin continued.Martin says the Reddit team still has to go through some of the data collected by Deimorz and its own filters to determine what to do next, though he made it clear that just because the sites in question are big media companies, Reddit won't pull any punches on taking action.&quot;If they have broken the rules, they'll be treated just like a mom and pop operation,&quot; Martin said.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: U.S. solar $6 billion industry in 2010]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-u-s--solar-6-billion-industry-in-2010</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-u-s--solar-6-billion-industry-in-2010</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:10:56 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sanya01</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-u-s--solar-6-billion-industry-in-2010</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:SEIA/GTM Research)The U.S. solar market grew 67 percent from a $3.6 billion market in 2009 to $6 billion in 2010, according to &quot;U.S. Solar Market Insight: 2010 Year in Review,&quot; a report released this month by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research.California installed the most photovoltaics last year, with 258.9 megawatts of direct current (MWdc), followed by New Jersey in second place with 137.1, and Nevada with 61.4. Others on the Top 10 list in order of greatest installations included Arizona, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas.The SEIA estimates that the U.S. now has a cumulative solar capacity of 2.6 gigawatts. Of that 2.6 gigawatts, there are 152,516 PV systems totaling 2.1 gigawatts (direct current) connected to the power grid. The U.S. also now has 17 concentrated solar plants totaling about 507 megawatts (alternating current), according to the SEIA.The biggest reason for this growth could be attributed to the large amount of utility installations. There were a total of 113 megawatts as of 2009, and that increased to 242 megawatts by the end of 2010. The SEIA attributes a lot of those projects to the Department of Energy Loan program and says future growth outlook will depend in part on that program's fate.Still, despite growth, the U.S. actually fell behind other countries in 2010 in terms of global photovoltaic installation. The U.S. was home to only 5 percent of the world's installed photovoltaics in 2010, compared with 6.5 percent in 2009. The SEIA attributed this to the European solar boom caused by government incentives that pushed countries like Spain, Italy, and Germany to install more solar plants.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Jobs ordered to testify in FairPlay antitrust case]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=jobs-ordered-to-testify-in-fairplay-antitrust-case</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=jobs-ordered-to-testify-in-fairplay-antitrust-case</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 Mar 2011 07:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>novijgodsergeigerasimov</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=jobs-ordered-to-testify-in-fairplay-antitrust-case</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple CEO Steve Jobs was ordered by a judge yesterday to answer questions in a deposition related to an antitrust suit filed against the company in 2005 over its FairPlay DRM software.Apple CEO Steve Jobs(Credit:Stephen Shankland/CNET)Attorneys for Apple had argued that Jobs' testimony in this case would be repetitive of what has already been offered as part of the ongoing lawsuit. But presiding over the case known as the Apple iPod iTunes Antitrust Litigation, U.S. Magistrate Judge Howard Lloyd ruled yesterday that this alone was not sufficient to preclude Jobs from testifying.The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, revolves around Apple's past use of FairPlay to encode its digital music files. Such encoding ensured that songs bought through iTunes would play only on iPods and not other music players and that songs bought through other digital music stores would not play on aniPod.Claiming it was the music companies and not Apple that wanted the digital rights management, Jobs eventually got rid of FairPlay in early 2009, paving the way for DRM-free music through iTunes.But the use of the software found Apple the target of a lawsuit launched in 2005 from a group of iPod and music buyers who claimed that the company's use of FairPlay allowed it to maintain a monopoly over both digital audio players and music downloads.As one example, RealNetworks had challenged Apple in July 2004 by releasing software called Harmony, which was designed to crack through the DRM and allow its own digital music files to play on the iPod.In its strong response a few days later, Apple threatened to block access to RealNetworks' digital music files the next time the iPod software was updated. Apple eventually followed through on that threat by updating the iPod in October and rendering RealNetworks' content unplayable.Though Lloyd has ordered Jobs to testify in the deposition, he did find in favor of Apple on certain motions. The plaintiffs argued that Jobs should be required to answer questions about Apple's initial decision to implement FairPlay and its refusal to license FairPlay to other companies. But the judge rejected both of those arguments.As a result, Jobs' deposition will be limited to two hours during which he'll be asked questions only related to RealNetworks' launch of Harmony in 2004, Apple's response to Harmony, and Apple's iPod update later that year.An Apple spokeswoman told CNET that the company would decline any response to the lawsuit and Jobs' testimony because the litigation is pending.In another matter related to Jobs, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that an investment advisory firm has raised questions over whether the Apple CEO should continue to serve on the board of directors for Walt Disney.Citing his absences from board meetings the past few years, Institutional Shareholder Services acknowledged that Jobs' ongoing medical condition could certainly excuse him from frequent participation. But the group felt that shareholders are entitled to greater disclosure and a full explanation were he to be renominated to the board. Disclosure of Jobs' medical ailments has been a issue that has dogged Apple as well over the years.The AFL-CIO, which owns about 3.8 million shares of Disney, already voted against Jobs returning to Disney's board, the L.A. Times added.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Zite adds Instapaper integration]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=zite-adds-instapaper-integration</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=zite-adds-instapaper-integration</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:12:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Cheery</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=zite-adds-instapaper-integration</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The popular iPad magazine Zite added Instapaper integration Wednesday.(Credit:Zite)If you build it, they will come. And in droves.In the world of top-notchiPad apps, that certainly seems to be the case, and this week the new iPad magazine Zite has been one of the hottest things around. In this space, evolutionary change comes fast. And to many, Zite is already being seen as the next step past what applications like Flipboard have been able to do. Flipboard became Apple's top iPad app of 2010 because it gives users a lovely presentation of personalized news based on their Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as other custom-selected feeds.Zite (see video below), however, appears to have stolen Flipboard's thunder. The app is exploiting Flipboard's lack of dynamic learning and giving users constantly updated feeds based on what they've demonstrated they're interested in. The app keeps track of the kinds of stories users choose to read and incorporates that intelligence into its algorithm for what it serves up. As well, it aims to give you less of what you're not interested in. Zite: Personalized Magazine for iPad from zite.com on Vimeo.In the first five days since being released, Zite--produced by a small team in Vancouver, B.C., led by CEO Ali Davar--jumped to the No. 1 spot for free apps in Apple's App Store, and has already been downloaded 120,000 times.And now, the company says it has responded to its users' top request--adding Instapaper integration. As of 11:30 a.m. PT today, users will be able to access the feature, allowing them to automatically and easily save articles for later without having to leave the Zite app. &quot;The integration with Zite will place an Instapaper button on Zite recommended articles,&quot; Davar told CNET, &quot;enabling Zite users to more easily save these articles to Instapaper. The integration uses Instapaper's API.&quot;Zite is moving quickly with new additions to its app, and seems intent on listening to its fast-growing community of users. With more than 4,000 followers of its Twitter feed, it's tuned in to what the community wants. The question now, of course, is what will Flipboard and those who produce other iPad magazine apps do to respond.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google Docs upgrades collaboration tools]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-docs-upgrades-collaboration-tools</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-docs-upgrades-collaboration-tools</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:10:57 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>svetalach</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-docs-upgrades-collaboration-tools</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Google Docs lets you address particular comments to people. They&amp;39're notified of comments by e-mail, and responses sent by e-mail appear in the discussion thread.(Credit:Google)The ideas behind Google Wave, a real-time communication technology the Net giant ditched, are making something of a comeback as a collaboration tool in Google Docs and Gmail.Google announced discussions in Google Docs today, a new ability to automate the communications part of collaborations. Google Docs already let multiple people edit a document at the same time and to append comments to a document, but the discussions feature advances those abilities.(Credit:Google)For one thing, comments now can be hidden once they've been addressed, not just deleted, and they can be resurrected if necessary.For another, comments are adorned with the commenter's photo, and they can be addressed to specific people. Such a comment automatically generates an e-mail to the person, who can open the document with a link in the e-mail. Simply replying to that e-mail will insert the response to the comment in the document itself.Wave users will recognize some of its features in these changes. Wave was a hybrid of e-mail, instant messaging, and group chat rooms. Though it ultimately failed at Google, the idea of collaboration--with both store-and-forward and real-time communications--has a lot to recommend it.&quot;Now you can easily tell who made a comment and when--with timestamps and profile pictures--and you can keep track of the conversation with e-mail notifications and reply to comments directly from your e-mail,&quot; said Scott Johnston, Google's group product manager for Google Docs, in a blog post.For details about how it all works, check the Google Docs blog post. Google Docs discussions can notify collaborators of changes to documents.(Credit:Google)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Second explosion at Japanese nuclear plant]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=second-explosion-at-japanese-nuclear-plant</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=second-explosion-at-japanese-nuclear-plant</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:11:06 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Kareena</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=second-explosion-at-japanese-nuclear-plant</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Four of the Fukushima Daiichi plant&amp;39's six reactors are shown in this satellite photo from Geoeye via Google Earth. The reactors are the four tall buildings inland of the four longer buildings' the Pacific Ocean to the east is on the bottom of this photo. Reactors four, five, and six had been shut down before the earthquake and tsunami, but plant operators are struggling to cool down units one and three.(Credit:screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)Buildup of hydrogen gas at a Japanese nuclear reactor caused an explosion today, but as with an earlier explosion Saturday, the reactor's containment vessel remains intact, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.The explosion took place at the unit 3 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi at 11:01 a.m. local Japan time, the United Nations agency said in a statement. And Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the plant, said in its own statement, &quot;The status of the plant and the impact of radioactive materials to the outside environment are presently under investigation.&quot;All personnel at the site are accounted for. Six people have been injured,&quot; the IAEA said. &quot;The reactor building exploded but the primary containment vessel was not damaged. The control room of unit 3 remains operational.&quot;It was the latest in a series of serious problems triggered by Friday's earthquake, now upgraded by the Japan Meteorological Agency to magnitude 9.0, and the resulting series of tsunamis that swept over Japan. The 170,000 residents living within 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) of the Fukushima Daiichi plant have been evacuated, piling another major problem on top of thousands of deaths, extensive property damage, rolling power blackouts, a run on food and water in Tokyo, and economic troubles. Japan's Nikkei 225 stock-market index declined 6.2 percent today despite the Bank of Japan's emergency injection of billions of dollars into the economy.The nuclear reactors are drawing particular attention. Reactors work when the radioactive decay of uranium fuel pellets inside fuel rods heats water into steam. That steam drives turbines to generate electricity. However, to function, they rely on a constant supply of cool water in which they're immersed.To control the nuclear reaction and stop it in an emergency, control rods can be inserted between the fuel rods. Control rods absorb the neutrons produced by the uranium's radioactive decay, slowing the reaction because the absorbed neutrons don't trigger more radioactive decay in the chain reaction.If the fuel rods get too hot, for example if they can't be kept immersed or when the cooling system fails, the uranium can melt. This scenario, called a meltdown, covers a wide spectrum of severity. The extreme heat also can produce dangerous amounts of gas that must be vented into the air to prevent an explosion.At the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the regular power for the cooling system failed after the earthquake, after which diesel generators kicked in for backup system. Less than an hour after the earthquake, though, the tsunami arrived and the generators failed.At 4:30 p.m. Saturday, the first explosion occurred at unit 1 of the Fukushima Daiichi plant a few hours after workers began preparations to vent some gases. That explosion didn't damage the reactor's primary containment vessel, but it did damage the containment building outside it.As an emergency measure, plant operators have been pumping seawater into the unit 1 and unit 3 reactors to cool them.Meanwhile, workers are trying to safely cool down at another damaged nuclear energy complex, the Fukushima Daini plant, which has four reactors, the IAEA said. Its third unit is safely shut down and cooled. Workers got a cooling system working again at its first unit, which is cooling down. They're working to restore cooling systems at the plant's second and fourth units.The 30,000 people living within 10km of the Fukushima Daini plant have been evacuated, the IAEA said. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Ex-Microsoft CTO's cookbook mixes science, food]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-microsoft-ctos-cookbook-mixes-science-food</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-microsoft-ctos-cookbook-mixes-science-food</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>keadfy</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ex-microsoft-ctos-cookbook-mixes-science-food</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Nathan Myhrvold (right) and fellow cookbook authors Chris Young (center) and Maxime Bilet, borrowed as much from the lab as from the kitchen.(Credit:The Cooking Lab)When you write about Nathan Myhrvold, it's kind of hard to keep it short. Perhaps best known as Microsoft's first CTO, he's also worked with Stephen Hawking, been involved in thousands of patents, zapped mosquitoes with lasers, won awards as a wildlife photographer, and now, published a massive cookbook that attempts to fuse the worlds of the geek and the gastronome.  As it turns out, Myhrvold himself doesn't keep it short, either. His new culinary effort, &quot;Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking,&quot; is a six-volume, 2,400-page, 50-plus-pound declaration of a paradigm shift in the world of food.Not exactly a fast read. (Credit:The Cooking Lab) The stated goal of the ambitious book is nothing less than &quot;reinventing cooking&quot;by looking at cuisine through the lenses of science and innovation (ever wondered how to use electric fields to kill wine bacteria), while not leaving out all the recipes and techniques you expect in a cookbook.  Some of the methods and recipes outlined in &quot;Modernist Cuisine&quot; aren't going to be too accessible to the average weekend chef, however. Myhrvold and his team borrowed as much from the lab as from the kitchen, using tools like homogenizers and centrifuges, and ingredients such as hydrocolloids and enzymes, to formulate recipes for everything from &quot;Astronaut Ramen&quot; to &quot;Monkfish with Mediterranean Flavors.&quot;  In other words, the message is about quality, not quickness, as with so many modern recipes for the harried cook. Just take this little bit of description from Myhrvold's approach to the ultimate cheeseburger (from the video below of an interview with a local Seattle TV show): &quot;We infuse smoke flavor into the lettuce' we make a special cheese slice. When the cheese melts, it doesn't separate out and get greasy. We grind the meat in a particular way so that we align all the grains of meat' we cook it in a very specific way using liquid nitrogen...&quot; If this all sounds a little obsessive-compulsive, that's because it is. There are even photos of those microscopic meat fibers included. But Myhrvold--a French-trained chef who once served as chief gastronomic officer for Zagat Survey--isn't just putting out a cookbook. He's releasing a comprehensive reference guide to, well... Modernist cuisine.  To get in on the revolution will cost more than $600 if you pay list price, but Myhrvold likes to point out that &quot;if you bought the same number of pounds of other cookbooks, it would cost you about the same amount.&quot; And a bit of good news for anyone still scared off by the list price. Among the scientific tidbits within is a revelation on why inexpensive pots and pans can actually be better than expensive ones. See, you're already getting your money back.        Eric Mack     Full Profile E-mail Eric Mack   E-mail Eric Mack If you have a question or comment for Eric Mack, you can submit it here. However, because our editors and writers receive hundreds of requests, we cannot tell you when you may receive a response.   Submit your question or comment here: 0 of 1500 characters       Crave freelancer Eric Mack is a writer and radio producer based somewhere high in the Rocky Mountains in a &quot;one bar&quot; service area (for both drinks and 3G). He has reported for NPR, Wired, and The New York Times and was previously an editor for AOL. He recently completed his first e-book on the Android OS. Eric is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CBS Interactive. E-mail Eric.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Adobe to deliver Flash for mobile 10.2 next week]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=adobe-to-deliver-flash-for-mobile-10-2-next-week</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=adobe-to-deliver-flash-for-mobile-10-2-next-week</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sallyjy</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=adobe-to-deliver-flash-for-mobile-10-2-next-week</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)Adobe Systems, working furiously to disprove Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs' belief that the Flash Player is a bad match for mobile devices, will deliver its second version of the software for Android devices on March 18.The software will be available in final form through the Android Market for Android 2.2 (Froyo) and 2.3 (Gingerbread) devices and in beta form for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb)tablets after Google's 3.0.1 system update, Adobe said in a blog post.However, it's not for any Android device. People can check Adobe's list of Flash-capable Android devices to see if theirs made the cut.Flash Player runs cross-platform software, notably games, and is widely used to stream video to personal computers. Adobe hopes to extend its cross-platform promise to mobile devices, but it's been hard given the different user interfaces and lesser hardware abilities compared to PCs.Flash Player 10.2 for mobile brings several changes, though. One is hardware-accelerated video presentation on Honeycomb 3.0.1 devices, something that could help preserve battery power and increase frame rates for smoother video.The new version also can take advantage of better hardware in some devices with graphics chips and dual-core processors--Motorola's Atrix smartphone and Xoom browser and LG's Optimus 2X, for example.The new software also is better integrated with the stock Android browser and with screen keyboards, Adobe said.To keep competitive on the desktop, Adobe also is working on improving Flash with versions 10.3 and 11 under development.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[EPA approves new air conditioning refrigerant]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=epa-approves-new-air-conditioning-refrigerant</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=epa-approves-new-air-conditioning-refrigerant</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:10:50 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>garretkrgr</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=epa-approves-new-air-conditioning-refrigerant</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Automotive air conditioning of the future will not be the environmental blight it has been in the past. The EPA on Monday announced it has approved the refrigerant HFO-1234yf for use in vehicles.Designed by Honeywell and DuPont, HFO-1234yf has a global warming potential that is 99.7 percent less than the current chemical (HFC-134a) used in mostcar air conditioners.General Motors last summer announced it planned to use HFO-1234yf in 2013 models pending final approval.GM will be joined by other automakers eligible to receive greenhouse-gas emission credits for 2012-2016 models by adopting eco-friendly refrigerant, thanks to new laws passed last year.Over the next few years, HFO-1234yf will become the new standard for U.S. automakers' the refrigerant has also been approved for use in Europe and Japan. The change will be better for the environment, the EPA said.Prior to the use of HFC-134a, car air conditioners generally used CFC-12, which the EPA calls &quot;a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting substance.&quot;&quot;This new chemical helps fight climate change and ozone depletion,&quot; said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. &quot;It is homegrown innovative solutions like this that save lives and strengthen our economy.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Room 77 locates choice hotel rooms, new biz angle]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=room-77-locates-choice-hotel-rooms-new-biz-angle</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=room-77-locates-choice-hotel-rooms-new-biz-angle</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 24 Feb 2011 08:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sufzireJulliTy</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=room-77-locates-choice-hotel-rooms-new-biz-angle</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Room 77 shows you a list of rooms that match your preferences, with Google-generated views out the windows.(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)When checking in to a hotel, the old advice goes, see the room before you accept it. Don't like it Sniff dismissively at the bellhop, and talk your way into a better room.  Who has time for this Start-up Room 77, launching at the Launch Conference, is building a system that gives hotel guests a look at their potential room before they check in.  In a nutshell, the company is building a database of individual hotel rooms, including for each information like distance from elevators, what floor they're on, subjective ratings from people who have stayed in them, and--the sexy feature--a Google Maps image, with 3D buildings, of the view out the window.  If you get the upcoming Room 77 smartphone app, when you're checking in to a hotel you'll be able see if the room you're offered matches what you like, and also check out the view. Bad-for-you rooms will come back red-tagged. You can request another before you leave the desk.  Better yet, when you're booking a hotel room online, you can tell Room 77 what's important to you and it will rank the rooms in the hotel based on your preferences. You can jump between entries and see their views, and possibly interior pictures. It's very cool, just the thing for the control-freak traveler. The mobile app will let you know if the room you&amp;39've been assigned is a match with your preferences.(Credit:Room 77) The thing is, though, there's no programmatic way yet to request a given room. Category of room, yes. Room number, no. Most hotels don't assign actual rooms until 24 to 48 hours before check-in. Guests sometimes request a given room in a booking, but in the global network of hotel services--hotel sites, travel booking sites, and trip planners--there's no standard way to pass room number requests through to hotels. If Room 77 is to really succeed, booking systems need to get finer-grained, so they can work with this data.  Assuming for the moment that Room 77 can build a good database of hotel room information, using its own services as well as customer-provided images and reviews, the company's future hinges on how successful it can be in inserting this database into the travel economy.  The first way the company will make a buck is straightforward: From booking fees, just like any other travel site. If you book through the site, the company will get its cut. You have to call the hotel to make sure you get the room you want, though. Room 77 provides a cheat sheet for doing so.  In the future, Room 77 may offer a premium &quot;room request guarantee&quot; feature. The best way to get the room you want currently is to contact the hotel a day or two before you arrive, and make sure some human matches your request with the room you like, or one very much like it. That's a pain for travelers who may have booked their stay weeks before. Room 77 may offer a paid service where it will make the call for you. As time goes on, the company may start to make these requests automatically, but that will require a fair bit of backroom negotiating with booking software companies. (Negotiations with Starwood are underway.)  Eventually, though, Room 77's real value will be in bulk transactions around its database--in selling the room-specific data back to hotels or allowing other travel sites or hotel sites to use the Room 77 database through a paid API. If Room 77 ends up with a lock on this data, this is the killer business.  Projecting the economics of Room 77 out a bit, this service could have an impact on how hotel rooms are priced. With granular data available to travelers about each room, it stands to reason that pricing could get granular as well. Instead of just booking a deluxe room at a hotel, you'd book a room by view quality and proximity to elevator, if that's what matters to you. An algorithm could end up pricing hotel rooms by demand, similar to how airfares change frequently based on booking flow, availability, and other projections. I'll leave the implications for Priceline and other semiblind booking sites as an exercise for the reader. Not all the Google views are clear.(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET) Room 77 has a smallish number of hotels at launch, but it's expanding. Users with the smartphone app will be able to help by taking pictures, reviewing rooms, and sending in snaps of the emergency exit maps on their hotel room doors. The company uses those to fill out its database.  In my quick review of the prelaunch site, I found that the Google-generated views from hotels' upper floors were useful and illustrative, but that Google's images from low floors (with blocked views) were more muddy than useful, due to the mostly poor quality of the photographs of building facades that Google projects onto the 3D models in its map database. Also, the service doesn't have the information that matters the most to the geek traveler: Wi-Fi signal strength in the room. I asked my contact at the company if they could add that feature ASAP.  Room 77 is a useful, fun, and economically interesting start-up. A few turns of the development wheel as the product grows up and this travel company could become very important. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Study helps better understand mobile gamers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-helps-better-understand-mobile-gamers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-helps-better-understand-mobile-gamers</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:10:57 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>microappartement</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-helps-better-understand-mobile-gamers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The mobile social gamer is a different person than the traditional console player. Or at least that's what research firm Flurry Analytics concludes.According to the researchers, the average age of the mobile social gamer is 28, several years younger than the average 34-year-old &quot;traditional gamer.&quot; The company found in its survey of over 60,000 gamers that mobile social gaming is more prominent among people between the ages of 18 to 49. In fact, nearly 80 percent of those folks are playing casual titles on a mobile device. A little less than 50 percent of people in that age bracket play traditional games.However, in other age brackets, traditional gaming still leads the pack. Flurry Analytics found that more than 20 percent of people under 18 are traditional gamers, compared to about 15 percent of mobile social gamers. Approximately 25 percent of folks over 50 play traditional games, while only about 5 percent of people in that age bracket play casual social games on a mobile device.When it comes to gender, men still account for the majority of traditional gamers with 60 percent share, compared to 40 percent for women. However, in the social-gaming space, 53 percent of players are female, compared to the 47 percent who are male, according to the report.The growth of mobile gaming has been meteoric in the past few years. Devices like theiPhone and Android-based smartphones have become central to the gameplay experiences of people around the globe. And the sheer number of smartphones in the wild, compared to consoles, is helping the mobile gaming market grow.According to Flurry Analytics, it has &quot;detected&quot; more than 250 million iOS and Android-based devices around the world, and it believes more than 750,000 of those smartphones are being activated each day. The combined worldwide installed base of theNintendo Wii, Xbox 360, andPlayStation 3, is about 180 million, Flurry said. Approximately 200 million Nintendo DS and Sony PSP units are in the wild. For now, the majority of mobile social gamers--64 percent--are in North America. About 30 percent of mobile gamers are in Europe. Asia accounts for just 4 percent of all of the world's mobile social gamers, while the remaining 2 percent are scattered elsewhere around the globe, according to Flurry. The typical mobile gamer makes about $66,000 a year, Flurry found. Those who make less than $35,000 account for a little more than 5 percent of all mobile social gamers, while those who make more than $150,000 per year make up approximately 2 percent of that group. When it's all said and done, Flurry Analytics believes today's average gamer is a much different person than in previous years. &quot;The video game industry is transitioning from an era of hardcore male gamers who have dominated the landscape, to more mass-market usage across mobile social games,&quot; Flurry Analytics said in a statement. &quot;The Mobile Social Gamer segment is highly engaged, younger, made up of more females, more educated and more affluent. &quot;Mobile social gamers are the new mass-market powerhouse,&quot; the company said. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA['Hurt Locker' lawyers launch nationwide copyright fight]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hurt-locker-lawyers-launch-nationwide-copyright-fight</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hurt-locker-lawyers-launch-nationwide-copyright-fight</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>parabellumko</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hurt-locker-lawyers-launch-nationwide-copyright-fight</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A publicity still for the movie &amp;39'The Hurt Locker.&amp;39'(Credit:Voltage Pictures)After several setbacks, Dunlap, Grubb &amp; Weaver, the law firm that last year filed copyright suits against thousands of accused illegal file sharers on behalf of independent filmmakers, has made good on promises to push on with the cases. Dunlap has begun to refile lawsuits across the country against people accused last year of pirating movies via peer-to-peer networks. To do that, Dunlap established a network of lawyers who are licensed to operate in different federal districts. Dunlap, which also works under the name U.S. Copyright Group, made headlines last year by suing thousands in a federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the makers of such films as &quot;Far Cry&quot; and &quot;The Hurt Locker,&quot; last year's Oscar winner for Best Picture. The Washington court, however, appeared hostile to Dunlap's strategy of filing against thousands of people from outside that jurisdiction. That's when Dunlap changed strategy. 'Hurt Locker' sharers: Expect docs like this (photos) In the case of &quot;Far Cry,&quot; a film based on the popular video game, Dunlap told CNET that lawyers working with the firm have filed complaints on behalf of the filmmakers in Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota, and West Virginia. &quot;Filing in Florida in about 10 minutes,&quot; Thomas Dunlap, one of the firm's founders, e-mailed today. &quot;I am driving to courthouse now, should have cases already in Illinois. We will file in California, Texas, Washington, and Oregon in the next two weeks.&quot; Dunlap has also begun filing lawsuits against named individuals. Records show that he filed suits in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia against Linaka Stein and Gina Morrison, residents of West Virginia, and Richard Ball of Virginia. Dunlap typically offers an accused person a chance to settle out of court for a sum between $1,500 and $3,000. Dunlap has always said he would file lawsuits against those who refused to settle. But there were those who had their doubts. Dunlap appeared to drag his feet about starting the potentially expensive and years-long process of winning a copyright judgment against someone. The case of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota mother accused by the music industry of illegal file sharing, is an example of how hard a process it can be to pursue a copyright judgment. The Thomas-Rasset case has cost the major labels millions of dollars in legal fees and the case continues to drag on. Dunlap doesn't appear to be bluffing anymore. His firm shows no signs of letting up.A half-dozen people have contacted CNET since Tuesday about receiving notices from their Internet service providers informing them that Dunlap had subpoenaed their names and other information about them. Before filing a suit against someone, copyright owners must first acquire a person's identity from his or her ISP.Dunlap's lawsuits gave rise to a wave of antipiracy litigation last year. Attorneys in West Virginia, Texas, and California began using Dunlap's legal strategy as a template. The porn sector was the most passionate in pursuing these cases. But the adult-filmmakers have run into trouble. A federal judge in Texas recently &quot;severed&quot; thousands of defendants from copyright suits filed by attorney Evan Stone on behalf of 11 copyright owners, most of them porn studios, according to a report in Ars Technica. In 13 of Stone's 16 suits, only a single defendant remains. The judge in the case ruled that there wasn't enough binding the defendants together to name them in one suit. Stone argues that the defendants &quot;were improperly severed.&quot; He said that to use BitTorrent, people must work together to share files. &quot;This isn't over,&quot; Stone told CNET. &quot;There are numerous other tools for obtaining the names and addresses of pirates, and we're not going to stop until justice is served.&quot; In West Virginia, a federal court came to a conclusion similar to that of the Texas judge. Attorney Ken Ford had filed against thousands of people on behalf of adult-film studios, but most of the defendants were also severed from those suits. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has led the opposition against these suits, says the suits rob defendants of the ability to defend themselves--how, the group asks, can individuals tell their story when they're lumped together with so many other people<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Netflix's shares soar on Android, Nielsen news]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=netflixs-shares-soar-on-android-nielsen-news</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=netflixs-shares-soar-on-android-nielsen-news</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>maxx8888</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=netflixs-shares-soar-on-android-nielsen-news</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Today is one of those days when investors who sensed Netflix's potential years ago but didn't buy in may be kicking themselves. The Web's top movie-rental service today saw its shares soar 7 percent to $247.55, and set a new all-time high for the company. Netflix shares have steadily risen since January 26, when the company posted fourth-quarter earnings that featured big gains in profits and subscribers. Since then, Netflix shares have climbed more than 30 percent. Sure, the news today about how Qualcomm will help enable Android handsets to playback Netflix's streaming video had something to do with the stock spike. But that's just one of the company's gold stars recently. Netflix is riding a wave of positive headlines during the past two weeks. &amp;149'&amp;nbsp'On Friday, Nielsen reported that Netflix became the first paid Internet video service to break into the top 10 list of most visited Web sites.  &amp;149'&amp;nbsp'In December, Whitney Tilson, of hedge fund T2 partners, slammed Netflix's management and the company's prospects for competing for viewers but last week said surveys showing Netflix's high customer satisfaction helped change his view and he has now stopped shorting the stock. &amp;149'&amp;nbsp'In fourth quarter, Netflix added more than 3 million subscribers and surpassed the 20 million total-subscriber mark earlier than many on Wall Street had anticipated.  But investors should pay careful attention to how successful Netflix is at acquiring movies and TV shows for the company's burgeoning streaming service. Some executives from film studios and TV networks argue that supplying Netflix with content only serves to lower the value of content and undermines distribution partners that pay more to content creators, such as cable pay TV services. Some of the predict Netflix could see the flow of content slow to a trickle. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[T-Mobile to carry dual-core HTC Pyramid]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-to-carry-dual-core-htc-pyramid</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-to-carry-dual-core-htc-pyramid</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>adolphmhla</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-to-carry-dual-core-htc-pyramid</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Will HTC&amp;39's foray into the dual-core handset war start with the PyramidRumors of a dual-core Android smartphone from HTC began swirling today, thanks to information obtained by the blog AndroidAndMe.According to multiple sources, HTC should debut its first 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon handset in May. The handset, which carries the code-name Pyramid, is said to feature a 4.3-inch qHD display and support for HSPA+ connectivity. TmoNews has confirmed on its end that T-Mobile is expecting to offer the phone in the same time frame.Although the rest of the specs remain in the dark, AndroidAndMe speculates as to what the dual-core processor could provide in terms of support. Look for 1080p HD video recording, a 960x540 resolution on the display, and possibly a 16-megapixel camera.HTC will be at Mobile World Congress just two weeks from now where it will show off its latest models. While it's possible that the company could demonstrate dual-core technology on its handsets, I wouldn't hold my breath. With at least three months before its rumored launch, I would anticipate HTC waiting untilCTIA in March to show the device. On the other hand, the handset maker has a tendency to release various iterations of similar hardware across multiple carriers and regions. Perhaps the three recently leaked phones may shed some light on the hardware coming out of its camp in the first half of the year.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[iPad pub The Daily pops up on PCs]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipad-pub-the-daily-pops-up-on-pcs</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipad-pub-the-daily-pops-up-on-pcs</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Feb 2011 08:10:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>kodhitymail</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipad-pub-the-daily-pops-up-on-pcs</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Curious about Rupert Murdoch's heavily hypediPad publication but not in possession of saidtablet Well, thanks to an LA-based computer programmer and journalist, you can check out The Daily in its entirety on your laptop, Netbook, or PC--though you'll miss out on the tablet-specific bells and whistles.Launched with much fanfare yesterday, the specially designed, subscription-only, multimedia &quot;newspaper&quot; has media observers wondering if it will turn out to be a legitimate glimpse of publishing's future or nothing more than an interesting experiment.After the postlaunch free trial of two weeks, the pub--which is viewable in its intended form only on Apple's iPad--will cost readers 99 cents a week or $39.99 a year. At its unveiling, however, Murdoch and Co. said that though there are no outright plans to make The Daily available for free online, the popularity of social networking means that paid subscribers will be able to share links to Web-page versions of Daily stories with friends--thus making the publication available for free in a stripped-down, piecemeal fashion.Piecemeal, that is, unless you go to Andy Baio's site The Daily: Indexed. The New York Times reports that Baio became aware that the Web versions of Daily stories were available via search engines and decided to compile them into a facsimile of the pub, complete with archived editions.It's not clear how long Baio's site will last, but so far it seems The Daily's publishers are happy to have the additional exposure, and happy for the chance to keep the hype machine rolling. In an e-mail to The Times about the matter, publisher Greg Clayman said, &quot;It's not surprising that people want to share our content, but The Daily is designed for tablets, with a lot of rich media and a litany of interactive features and functionality. We are confident that as readers get to know our content, they will be driven to the full, authentic experience.&quot;Well, maybe. You can check out Baio's site, take a peek at a Daily promo video, and make the call for yourself.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: For T-Mobile, it's all about the 4G network (live blog)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-for-t-mobile-its-all-about-the-4g-network-live-blog</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-for-t-mobile-its-all-about-the-4g-network-live-blog</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:10:28 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Julrild</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-for-t-mobile-its-all-about-the-4g-network-live-blog</guid>
<description><![CDATA[T-Mobile shows off the Dell Streak 7.(Credit:CNET ) Editors' note: This live event has concluded. For a brief rundown of what was announced, check out our summary post here. You can also replay our live blog in the Cover It Live module below.T-Mobile's Android plans as well as their 4G strategy could come into play during Thursday's press conference, and you can find live coverage here. T-Mobile's press conference is set to kick off around 11 a.m. PT Thursday from the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. We'll provide news and analysis of the press conference, part of a full day's supply ofCES news.T-Mobile CES 2011 press conference live blogEditors' note: The original pre-event version of this story was published January 5 at 11 a.m. PT.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Hotmail's recent message loss hiccup explained]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hotmails-recent-message-loss-hiccup-explained</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hotmails-recent-message-loss-hiccup-explained</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:10:01 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>pearlinekl</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hotmails-recent-message-loss-hiccup-explained</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A service bug that left a group of Windows Live Hotmail users without access to new messages and entire folders for days has been explained and remedied against future instances. Writing on the Windows Team Blog, Mike Schackwitz of the Hotmail team says the problem stemmed from an error with an automated script that Microsoft uses to test the service for errors in every day usage. Part of the script's function is to clean its tracks once it's done creating test accounts, but this time around the testing jumped the test group and went to real user accounts.The good news, at least, is that the data is still there. &quot;Please note that the email messages and folders of impacted users were not deleted' only their inbox location in the directory servers was removed,&quot; Schackwitz said. The empty mailboxes those who were affected saw when logging in were made to compensate for the fact that their account didn't match up with Hotmail's database. &quot;This is why the accounts received the 'Welcome to Hotmail' message,&quot; Schackwitz explained.That bad news is for anyone who was affected by the bug and didn't log in during the time it was being fixed, Schackwitz said. For those people, any messages sent would bounce back to the senders as if the account was shut down. The script bug affected 17,355 users--16,035 of which Schackwitz said had their accounts fixed a day after the company first began addressing the issue. The other 1,320 took another three days to get sorted out. In order to keep a bug like this from happening again, Microsoft is splitting up its service testing accounts from the set of normal user accounts, as well as adding a service status to its support forums and bug reporting tools.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: BlackBerry PlayBook gets 4G model via Sprint]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-blackberry-playbook-gets-4g-model-via-sprint</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-blackberry-playbook-gets-4g-model-via-sprint</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Nina01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-blackberry-playbook-gets-4g-model-via-sprint</guid>
<description><![CDATA[RIM&amp;39's PlayBook tablet.(Credit:Research In Motion)In a bid to be the most blazing tablet around, RIM has announced that their Blackberry PlayBook will be up and running on Sprint's 4G network by summer.The 4G-enabled PlayBook will exist as a separate model from the Wi-Fi only offerings due in the first quarter of 2011, and will bear the name BlackBerry 4G PlayBook. Beyond the added wireless connectivity, all other features should be identical.Sprint's 4G service is currently available in 71 markets, including Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and New York City. The addition of 4G wireless speed to the PlayBook puts another arrow in RIM's quiver when it comes to taking on Apple's market-dominatingiPad. Along with dual-core processing, 1GB of RAM, Flash 10.1 support, 1080p video recording and playback, and HDMI output, RIM is making a serious effort to position the PlayBook as the more professional and capable option, against Apple's offering. Time will tell if the strategy pays off.For more info on the BlackBerry PlayBook, read our hands-on impressions from CES 2011. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: Netflix, Hulu Plus navigation comes to Kinect]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-netflix-hulu-plus-navigation-comes-to-kinect</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-netflix-hulu-plus-navigation-comes-to-kinect</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>winmatertaj23</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-netflix-hulu-plus-navigation-comes-to-kinect</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Xbox 360 and Kinect owners will soon be able to enjoy easy new ways to wave their way through movies and music.Microsoft this evening announced a spring software upgrade that will let Kinect owners use hand gestures and spoken commands to watch videos streamed through Netflix and the Hulu Plus monthly subscription service, effectively upping the stakes in the rivalry with Sony's Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3.You'll be able to watch these &quot;controller-free in the living room, the biggest screen in your home,&quot; Ron Forbes of Microsoft's interactive entertainment division told the audience at the Consumer Electronics Show.Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says over 8 million Kinect units have been sold.TheZune Marketplace--similar to music offerings from Apple and Amazon.com--will also be navigable through Kinect gestures, he said.Forbes indicated the new features, including an avatar-based chat called Avatar Kinect that can mimic facial expressions, would only be available toXbox Live gold members who pay about $10 a month. That excludes standard Xbox Live users.There was precious little in the way of product announcements in tonight's widely anticipated event, which was billed as a keynote for CEO Steve Ballmer but also featured a handful of other employees. (See CNET's archived live blog.)Ballmer said that Kinect has created a kind of halo effect for the Xbox. There are more than 50 million units worldwide, 30 million Xbox Live members, and 8 million Kinect units sold, Ballmer said.Ballmer spent a good portion of the time revisiting announcements from earlier in the day relating to a new version of Microsoft's multi-touch, table-size computer called Surface and forthcoming Windows support for system-on-a-chip processors from Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments. (See CNET's Surface report and coverage of the new architecture from today.)Microsoft also highlighted Windows Phone 7, with Ballmer saying the reaction has been positive among people who have used it. There are more than 5,500 apps available today, he says, with 100 new apps appearing every 24 hours.Forthcoming updates include: the addition of copy and paste, significant performance improvements when launching and switching between apps, and a Sprint and Verizon update in the first half of 2011.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[15 best Kindle covers and accessories]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=15-best-kindle-covers-and-accessories</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=15-best-kindle-covers-and-accessories</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 26 Dec 2010 08:10:01 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>instantempo2axociabbittah</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=15-best-kindle-covers-and-accessories</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Amazon&amp;39's covers are great, but there are plenty of alternatives.(Credit:Amazon)Updated 12/26When Amazon released its third-generation Kindle, it also put out its own line of cases, which dominate Amazon's top Kindle accessories list. But that hasn't stopped dozens of companies from selling various covers and accessories for the Kindle. In fact, there are so many to sort through, it's hard to figure out which ones are really good--and worth considering. And that's why we've tried to boil it down for you to just a handful of products.Of course, when it comes to protective covers, everybody's got their own taste, and we may have missed a few that you think should have been included. We'll be updating this list as more products arrive, so feel free to make any suggestions or criticize our picks in the comments section below.More: Amazon promises to replace problem Kindle covers, look into issueClick any image to begin the slideshow.15 best Kindle covers and accessories (photos) <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Play Halo all night with Lexus, win MS Points]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=play-halo-all-night-with-lexus-win-ms-points</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=play-halo-all-night-with-lexus-win-ms-points</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:10:51 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>superedatingrus</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=play-halo-all-night-with-lexus-win-ms-points</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Lexus is marketing its CT 200h to a younger audience than its normal demographic.(Credit:Lexus)Lexus is partnering with online gaming serviceXbox Live to promote its new 2011 Lexus CT 200h hybrid hatchback by giving away Microsoft Points to lucky gamers. To be eligible to win, users must log on to the Xbox Live service, download the free Lexus All-Nighter Gamer Picture, and then just play Halo: Reach on the night of Saturday, December 18. According to Lexus, the longer you play, the better your odds of winning will be. Of course, that means that people who play all night long will have the best chance of snagging a prize.Every hour between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. (Pacific Time) on the night of the promotion, Lexus will award eight random players 4,000 Microsoft Points--the currency of the Xbox Live service used to make purchases within the Xbox Live ecosystem. For those unfamilar with the Microsoft-Points-to-dollars conversion rate, 4,000 Points is worth approximately $50 and will get you either five Arcade games, three movie downloads, or 50Zune songs.If Lexus' previous marketing efforts are an indication, the Japanese luxury automaker's target demographic tends to be well-heeled baby boomers, which is why its latest partnership with Xbox Live strikes us as a bit odd. But perhaps it shouldn't, as Lexus has been making strides to lower the average age of its target audience with its Dark Ride online advertising campaign for the CT 200h hybrid and its Darkcasting online lifestyle show, which launched last month--a sort of younger, more painfully hip video version of the Lexus Insider lifestyle audio advertorials available as part of the automaker's Enform infotainment suite.The partnership with Xbox Live will also enable people to download and view episodes of the Darkcasting show from their console's dashboard. (Right about now, you're probably thinking, &quot;That's exactly what Xbox Live needed, more ads!&quot;)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Finch flingers don't flock to Angry Birds Day]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=finch-flingers-dont-flock-to-angry-birds-day</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=finch-flingers-dont-flock-to-angry-birds-day</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 12 Dec 2010 08:14:52 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>nowmaal</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=finch-flingers-dont-flock-to-angry-birds-day</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Screenshot by Christopher MacManus/CNET)ATLANTA--Not many birds of a feather flocked together for Rovio's official Angry Birds Day meetup yesterday--in Atlanta at least.  Rovio promoted the event, scheduled to mark the first anniversary of the popular game for mobile devices, as a celebration of 3 trillion popped piggies and the chance for fans to meet, play, and compare scores. And while enthusiasts signed up for meetups in 65 countries, poor planning and only a couple of show-ups made the event here in Atlanta seem rather lackluster despite 28 people expressing interest on the meetup site. New York enjoyed the sight of Angry Birds fans in costume. (Credit:Flickr user Caniba) Our nest ended up being a brewery just north of downtown that had recently gone through a name change, which probably added to the confusion. (My fellow Crave contributor Matt Hickey reported that no one showed up for the meetup in rainy Seattle, though New York and Los Angeles enjoyed the sight of fans in Angry Birds costumes).  Still, despite the tepid showing here in Georgia, we managed to have some finch-flinging fun. After checking in and grabbing a pint, I came across David Moore (aka Cap'nDave), a mild-mannered thirty-something who secretly moonlights as an Angry Birds enthusiast. He was eager to talk about his passion for the game, and we were comparing scores and strategies after a few minutes.  It wasn't long before he revealed the depth of his superpowers. Moore has completely beat the game with three stars on all levels, has all golden eggs, a 97 percent achievement score, and was one of the top-rated players in the area (according to the built-in leaderboards). I knew I had found the superfan I was looking for. Moore has been launching birds for about seven months, and continues to play &quot;because it's fun, and addictive. I like to defend the title.&quot; He boasted that he was the top player for level 3, but his rank goes back and forth because he's locked into a &quot;score war&quot; with another major player in the area. His favorite level is 7-7, because &quot;it's set up like a burger and a drink. It's fun to throw the bomber bird in there and blow the buns off.&quot; We finished things off with a contest to see who could beat the 11th level on the Christmas-themed seasonal Angry Birds app. My girlfriend, also an avid player, chumped us both so I ended up buying a shot for everyone. The drink of choice A Naked Yellow Bird shot, of course.  Did you attend an Angry Birds Day meetup in your city If so, how was it Angry Birds fans mark the first anniversary of the hit game in New York. Not all cities saw such lively celebrations. (Credit:Flickr user Caniba)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Best Buy vs. Amazon: MacBook Air edition]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=best-buy-vs--amazon-macbook-air-edition</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=best-buy-vs--amazon-macbook-air-edition</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 11 Dec 2010 08:13:56 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>mamapapa2010</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=best-buy-vs--amazon-macbook-air-edition</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Amazon may offer one of the best holiday deals on the red-hot MacBook Air. But don't count out California retail giant Fry's Electronics before doing the usual comparison with Best Buy. The 11.6-inch MacBook Air can be had for $959 at Amazon. But Fry&amp;39's beats that by a few dollars.(Credit:Amazon)Amazon is serving up a pretty good deal on the popular 11.6-inch MacBook Air, offering the MC505LL/A model right now for $959, which Apple lists for $999 (1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo chip, 64GB flash memory drive, and 2GB RAM). This was based on a price check I did Saturday morning Pacific Time. Which brings me to a caveat: the price can change quickly, as demand for this unit appears to be high. Fry's Electronics--whose giant warehouse-size stores are located mostly in California and Texas--will beat that price, though. At a Fry's I visited Friday night in Los Angeles, the MC505LL/A Air model was on sale for $949. Fry&amp;39's, a California phenomenon, beats all rivals on decor.(Credit:Brooke Crothers)Not to be outdone, the MacConnection is selling the same model for $1 less, at $948. Though the online store shows it &quot;on order.&quot; Amazon is also offering the 11.6-inch MacBook Air model MC506LL/A (which ups the flash drive capacity to 128GB from 64GB) for $1,148.99, a discount of $50 off the list price. So far, Best Buy isn't offering any special deals on the new MacBook Air. (Correction: The current-generation 13.3-inch model is available for $1,299 with a 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB Memory, and a 128GB flash memory drive. That's a few hundred dollars less than I paid for the similarly-configured, prior-generation 13.3-inch model with a 1.86GHz processor, the same-capacity solid-state drive and same amount of memory. Ironically, that older model is listed for $1,699 on Best Buy's site. Go figure. ) And let me add as a postscript: Fry's beats Best Buy handily (for effort, not necessarily the result) on interior decorating. (Amazon can't compete because it has no brick-and-mortar stores.) I've been to Fry's stores all over California--Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Diego, and Los Angeles, and throw in Phoenix, Arizona, too--and I always find myself gawking and/or scratching my head at the curious dioramas that usually occupy a corner of the store (see photo). And decor, as well as bargains, usually get amped up during the holidays.Updated at 9:30 p.m. PST: correcting for current 13.3-inch MacBook Air model with 1.86GHz processor.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple patents glasses-less 3D projection]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patents-glasses-less-3d-projection</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patents-glasses-less-3d-projection</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:10:19 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Fameka</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patents-glasses-less-3d-projection</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A diagram of how Apple&amp;39's proposed 3D projection system would work.(Credit:U.S. Patent and Trademark Office)It's not that much of a surprise that Apple thinks watching 3D content with plastic glasses is dumb.And the company that's all about sleek, cool, and simple has actually been granted a patent on a method of projecting a 3D image that can be perceived properly without glasses.The system would work like this: each pixel would be projected onto a reflective, textured surface, which is then bounced into a viewer's left and right eye separately, producing the 3D, or stereoscopic, effect. it would sense the locations of both eyes of the each viewer, so multiple people could watch from a variety of angles.The goal of the technology they've cooked up is &quot;inexpensive auto-stereoscopic 3D displays that allow the observer complete and unencumbered freedom of movement,&quot; according to the patent application the Patent Office granted yesterday. In other words, 3D displays should have no need for special glasses, and viewers shouldn't be limited by viewing angle, or be forced to sit and not move in order to see the 3D effect.Interestingly, the patent breaks down why they think current offerings for glasses-free 3D aren't good enough, including parallax barrier, volumetric, and hologram.A parallax barrier display, which is what is used in some auto-stereoscopic phones and likely the Nintendo 3DS, uses one liquid crystal display layered under another. Each has tiny stripes that will hide certain pixels so that some are only visible to your left eye, while others will only be seen by your right eye. In that way, each eye gets its own image, producing the illusion of 3D without the need for glasses.Toshiba and Sharp both have prototype glasses-less3D TVs and expect to begin selling them in Japan by the end of the year. Toshiba's method is to use a fast, powerful processor to take a 2D image and simultaneously create nine images of it from nine different directions, in real time, and display it on a high-definitionLED TV.Apple says those aren't good enough because of the processing power needed for the hologram style of Toshiba and Sharp, and the limits on movement or more than one viewer with parallax. &quot;A need still remains for highly effective, practical, efficient, uncomplicated, and inexpensive autostereoscopic 3D displays that allow the observer complete and unencumbered freedom of movement,&quot; the patent application reads.Of course, like any patent, this doesn't mean we should expect an Apple-branded 3D projector anytime soon. The original patent was applied for in 2006, and these are the kinds of technologies that tech companies like to keep in their back pocket, just in case.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Nintendo sells 1.5 million Wii, DS units in a week]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nintendo-sells-1-5-million-wii-ds-units-in-a-week</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nintendo-sells-1-5-million-wii-ds-units-in-a-week</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 29 Nov 2010 08:10:33 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sonia01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nintendo-sells-1-5-million-wii-ds-units-in-a-week</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Nintendo)Nintendo enjoyed an exceptionally strong past week.The game company announced today that it sold 900,000 DS units and 600,000Wii consoles in the U.S. from November 21 to 27, according to internal estimates. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said that such success means U.S. consumers &quot;bought about 9,000 Nintendo hardware systems non-stop for every hour of every day during the week of Black Friday.&quot;Nintendo's announcement is an important one, considering the issues it has been experiencing over the past few months.Last month, Nintendo reported a disappointing six-month period from April to September with a loss of $24.6 million. It sold 6.69 million DS units during the period, down from the 11.7 million it sold during the same time last year. It sold 4.97 million Wii units between April and September, representing a decline from the 5.75 million Wii units it sold in 2009.In response, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said in an interview with the Associated Press that his company was &quot;not thinking of [a Wii price cut] for the near future.&quot; He went on to say that the company's plan was to offer bundles to ramp up demand for its products.The company currently offers a &quot;Mario-red&quot; Wii option for $199.99, as well as a red Nintendo DSi XL bundle for $179.99. It also sells orange and green Nintendo DSi bundles for $149.99.Nintendo was quick to point out that its decision to offer such bundles helped spur sales last week.Although its past week's sales are impressive, the company didn't provide any indication on how its hardware performed for the rest of November. And it will have some work cut out for it to match last year's hardware sales.Last November, Nintendo sold 1.26 million Wii units and 1.7 million DS units, according to market research firm NPD.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[No silver lining in Chrome OS delays]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-silver-lining-in-chrome-os-delays</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-silver-lining-in-chrome-os-delays</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 29 Nov 2010 08:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>eeTOeT8Oc</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-silver-lining-in-chrome-os-delays</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A Chrome OS delay might not be the worst thing in the world if it gives Google time to hone its pitch.(Credit:Google)Google executives like to say they celebrate their failures, reasoning that when something fails, at least they've learned something. Perhaps with Chrome OS, they're learning how to set expectations. It's looking pretty clear that Google is going to miss its fourth-quarter target for the launch of Chrome OS, a lightweight Web-based operating system that is designed for Netbooks. The company hasn't said as much, but Google CEO Eric Schmidt referred to the Chrome OS launch as &quot;a few months&quot; away in mid-November, and Jim Wong, senior vice president for Acer, told reporters last week that Google is planning a consumer launch in 2011. Wong, whose company was among the original Chrome OS hardware partners, also suggested that Google may be planning to duplicate its corporate holiday party gift bag from last year, when attendees received Nexus One phones several weeks before they made their formal debut. Google has long said that it plans to have its employees use Chrome OS internally, and may jump-start the process with a free Netbook as a Christmas gift: a company representative would only say &quot;we are very happy with the progress of Google Chrome OS and we'll have more details to share later this year.&quot; But what to make of Chrome OS The idea is solid: a Web-based operating system that doesn't tax a battery, allows for extremely fast boot times, and provides security with no local data or locally installed applications. Yet smart ideas often fail from a lack of execution as well as shifting tastes among those once willing to jump on board. It's just hard to see exactly where Chrome OS Netbooks fit among the hardware scene of late 2010 and early 2011. It's increasingly clear the tablet device is here to stay, and those companies not named Apple that want to target that category are using Android--not Chrome OS--in order to get going.Schmidt reiterated at the Web 2.0 conference in November that Android is optimized for devices where touch-screen input rules, while Chrome OS is meant more for devices with traditional keyboards. The last time Google provided a significant update about Chrome OS, Sundar Pichai, the leader of the Chrome OS project, said Google was drawing up specific Netbook hardware requirements for partners that were likely to involve larger screens and keyboards than the industry standard Netbook.Acer, a prominent Chrome OS supporter, is investing heavily in tablets (such as the ones showcased last week) and using Android, not Chrome, on those devices (click for larger image).(Credit:Acer)But hardware makers just aren't investing in Netbooks the way they were a few years ago, when they felt compelled to produce a lower-cost product amid a huge economic recession despite the drain on their operating margins. Tablets are more friendly to those margins, and companies thinking about tablets this year and next need to go with the software that is tested and mature--Android--as opposed to the development project that is Chrome OS. One big advantage that Chrome OS has for the cost-conscious hardware maker is, of course, the cost: it's free. But even with that selling point it's obvious that the buzz surrounding the Netbook market a few years ago has dramatically faded with the rise of the tablet, perhaps demonstrated quite well by Acer's massive tablet unveiling last week in New York, where not a Netbook was to be found. Almost since the day Google revealed plans for Chrome OS, a persistent unanswered question has been &quot;why develop another operating system&quot; Google thinks that the answer to such questions is &quot;because we can,&quot; believing that if enough smart people gather to work on big important projects that some truly excellent work will result. It's starting to become clear, however, that this creates confusion both internally and externally. When asked earlier this year about the overlap between Google Wave and Google Buzz, Lars Rasmussen, the co-creator of Google Wave (who has since departed for Facebook), said &quot;If we required every product we launched not to have any overlapping functionality, that would dramatically slow down our innovation. I wish I could tell you there was a grand master plan, but that's not how it works at Google.&quot; Google struggles with the classic big-company problem of how to generate innovation when it takes so much longer for ideas to bubble up from the rank-and-file to the senior management level. And so, it allows overlapping projects to develop as to give talented employees an outlet for their creativity, figuring that even if the project is a bust--like Google Wave--it can at least find uses for that code somewhere. That strategy can backfire, however, when external partners have to depend on your guidance. Netbook makers who have been thinking about working with Google as a hedge against Apple and an alternative to Microsoft have had to navigate quite the maze. Android, in fact, was originally pitched as suitable for Netbooks, until it became clear that smartphones and tablets were the smart hardware bets in 2010. Chrome OS has been discussed as suitable for tablets, but Schmidt's comments indicate that it's not really meant for that kind of device. Andy Rubin, head of Android development, said the two operating systems will follow separate paths, while Google's Sergey Brin suggested that Android and Chrome OS will simply merge over time. So Google's main Chrome OS problem may not be that it's not going to be ready for the holiday season. It's that it may be a product that's both behind the times (too late for the Netbook craze) and ahead of its time (too early for the coming era of HTML5-based Web apps), with no coherent explanation as to why it's necessary now. Google has some time to figure this out, now that the pressure of meeting the holiday season deadline has passed. It's extremely important to the future of the project, because if the industry doesn't understand why it needs Chrome OS, it's hard to imagine how consumers will.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Congressman wants WikiLeaks listed as terrorist org]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=congressman-wants-wikileaks-listed-as-terrorist-org</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=congressman-wants-wikileaks-listed-as-terrorist-org</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 28 Nov 2010 08:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>agriceememsah</dc:creator>
<category>Politics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=congressman-wants-wikileaks-listed-as-terrorist-org</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee says WikiLeaks should be officially designated as a terrorist organization.Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the panel's next head, asked the Obama administration today to &quot;determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization,&quot; putting the group in the same company as Al Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese cult that released deadly sarin gas on the Tokyo subway.&quot;WikiLeaks appears to meet the legal criteria&quot; of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, King wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reviewed by CNET. He added: &quot;WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States.&quot;King's letter was prompted by a massive document dump totaling more than 250,000 State Department diplomatic cables, which WikiLeaks gave in advance to news organizations, including Germany's Der Spiegel and Spain's El Pais, that began appearing on the Internet this morning. The White House has condemned the release, which Der Spiegel called &quot;nothing short of a political meltdown for U.S. foreign policy.&quot;King also wrote separately to Attorney General Eric Holder, asking him to &quot;criminally charge WikiLeaks activist Julian Assange under the Espionage Act&quot; for conspiracy to disclose classified information. The Espionage Act makes it illegal to disclose &quot;information relating to the national defense&quot; if that information could be used &quot;to the injury of the United States.&quot; (See previous CNET article.)If the State Department adds WikiLeaks to the terror list, one effect would be to prohibit U.S. banks from processing payments to the group. WikiLeaks currently takes donations through PayPal, bank transfers, and Visa and Mastercard payments.Another would be to trigger the punitive measures included in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which made it a federal felony to provide &quot;material support or resources&quot; to a terrorist organization. That would likely dry up support from U.S.-based volunteers for WikiLeaks--one volunteer has been detained and released at the border already--and curb the group's options for Web hosting services. (Both Wikileaks.org and Cablegate.WikLleaks.org are currently hosted, in part, on Amazon.com servers in the United States.)The news organizations have released a small subset of the cables. WikiLeaks itself says it has published only 220 of 251,287 of them and promises to post the rest &quot;in stages over the next few months.&quot;That has, perhaps unintentionally, given critics in Washington's national security establishment a strong incentive to find a way to pull the plug on the document-leaking Web site as soon as possible, one way or another.Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement today: &quot;I also urge the Obama administration--both on its own and in cooperation with other responsible governments around the world--to use all legal means necessary to shut down WikiLeaks before it can do more damage by releasing additional cables. WikiLeaks' activities represent a shared threat to collective international security.&quot;Australia said today it's investigating whether today's release violated its laws (Wikileaks editor Julian Assange has an Australian passport). And Sweden has issued an international warrant for Assange's arrest on sexual assault charges, which has been upheld by an appeals court. Assange denies the allegations.WikiLeaks has already been the target of often-strident denunciations from Washington officialdom after releasing confidential military dispatches from Afghanistan and Iraq. The Washington Times and a former Bush administration official suggested WikiLeaks as the first public target for a U.S. government cyberattack, and a Republican senator has proposed a law targeting WikiLeaks.The Patriot Act increased the maximum penalties for violating what has become known as the &quot;material support&quot; law to 15 years in federal prison. In a 6-3 ruling this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that law as constitutional, saying the Draconian legal sanctions are reasonable &quot;even if the supporters meant to promote only the groups' nonviolent ends.&quot;If Wikileaks is added to the State Department list, one problem for its supporters might be the relative vagueness of the term &quot;material support.&quot; In a law review article, former UCLA chancellor Norman Abrams wrote that &quot;the janitor or the pizza delivery person or a taxi driver, or anyone who provides the most mundane 'services,' would seem to be at risk of prosecution&quot; if they could be said to know they're dealing with a designated terrorist group.Here are some excerpts from Rep. Peter King's letter to Secretary Hillary Clinton:I am writing to request that you undertake an immediate review to determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in accordance with Section 210 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). In addition, I urge you to work with the Swedish government to determine the means by which Mr. Julian Assange can be brought to justice for his actions while recognizing and respecting Swedish sovereign law.As Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded, the &quot;irresponsible posting of stolen classified documents by WikiLeaks puts lives at risk and gives adversaries valuable information.&quot; I concur with Chairman Mullen's statement...From these acts, WikiLeaks appears to meet the legal criteria for FTO designation as a (1) a foreign organization' (2) engaging in terrorist activity or terrorism which (3) threatens the security of U.S. nationals or the national security of the United States. Specifically, pursuant to Section 212 (a)(3)(B) of INA (8 U.S.C.  1182(a)(3)(B)) WikiLeaks engaged in terrorist activity by committing acts that it knew, or reasonably should have known, would afford material support for the commission of terrorist activity.We know terrorist organizations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to use against us and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large. By disclosing such sensitive information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us...WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States. I strongly urge you to work within the Administration to use every offensive capability of the U.S. government to prevent further damaging releases by WikiLeaks.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[How Google Docs won me over]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-google-docs-won-me-over</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-google-docs-won-me-over</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Nov 2010 08:10:06 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Pooja01</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-google-docs-won-me-over</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Android phones, iPhones, and iPads now can be used to edit Google Docs word processing documents.(Credit:Google)With a single new feature added to its online word processor yesterday, Google has diminished many concerns I had about taking the cloud-computing plunge a few months ago.That feature, autocorrect in Google Docs, fixes common typos such as converting &quot;teh&quot; into &quot;the.&quot; In and of itself, it's not a game-changer.But it carried outsized importance for me because it was one of the things I missed most about Microsoft Word and because it gives me faith that Google Docs is headed in the right direction.As if to validate my new optimism, Google today announced an improvement that's much larger than a single feature: the ability to edit Google Docs from Android phones, iPhones, and iPads. Google Spreadsheets already were editable with some mobile phone browsers.Google Docs, which has grown considerably since Google's 2006 acquisition of Writely, consists mainly of word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation modules that compete withMicrosoft Office's Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It's become a standard-bearer for the Web applications movement and, with Google selling it in premium form along with Gmail for $50 per user per year in the form of Google Apps, Google's next billion-dollar revenue stream after advertising.Google has said Google Docs will compete not by matching every Microsoft Office feature but by emphasizing common abilities needed by everyone and by making collaboration a centerpiece rather than an afterthought. That message stuck in my craw, I confess. Although I agree it's transformative to have several people editing the same document at the same time, I think you also need a lot of more features to be truly compelling for more than very lightweight use.Thus my delight with autocorrect. It signifies that Google realizes it needs better features and is working to make them happen. Much of this is possible from the rebuilt Google Docs foundation that emerged in April. Last year, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told me Google Apps customers sign up for Gmail and Google Calendar, but with improvements, maybe they'll start using Docs in earnest, too.So here's my assessment of Google Docs from having lived in it for months. My needs may not be yours--I've hardly used Presentations, for example, and I deal much more with raw text than with fancy formatting, revision-tracking, fonts, and printing--so don't assume everything here applies universally.Why switchI use three computers and a mobile phone for work, and Google Docs spans all of them. That's the reason I fully embraced it starting in March, but it's not why I got started.Before I switched, I'd been dabbling with Google Docs to see what it could offer. I liked the colorful, clean spreadsheet graphs better than what came out of Excel. In a few cases where I needed to take some notes I needed at home while I was at work, I'd use a Google Docs document instead of my previous approach, e-mailing them to myself.Autocorrect, accessible through Preferences in Google Docs&amp;39' tools menu, lets you fix common typos and expand abbreviations into long phrases that are cumbersome to type.(Credit:screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)I was glad I got started, because in March, when I happened to be far away from any company IT help, my work computer, a Windows XP machine, croaked. A busted fan bearing meant it wouldn't even switch on. My data was safe but inaccessible, but more to the point, I had stories to write.I had two other machines on hand: a MacBook Pro andWindows 7 laptop. I wasn't sure what my computing future held and was reluctant to commit to a long-term relationship with another hard drive. Google Docs was an easy option to try for a few days while I got things sorted, and it would be easy to export a few files back to my machine after I got things sorted out, I reasoned.It stuck. I rapidly came to appreciate the ability to hop from one machine to another. At one point, waiting in a queue in a post office, I was able to retrieve address information I'd stored in a document using my phone, too.Although there are legitimate concerns about the security and reliability of Google's infrastructure, they must be assessed not just in absolute terms but also in relation to the alternative. That one fan bearing showed one pretty glaring weakness.The goodSo what do I like about Google Docs besides cutting the dependence on a single machineThe reliability, as I mentioned, is one asset. During the transition to the new foundation, I had recurring warnings that I had to reload my documents, but they faded as Google patched it up. Now I find it consistently available. I also appreciate that my data is backed up on Google's servers, which if not infallible are at least engineered to surmount hardware failures as a routine rather than exceptional problem.Something else that took some getting used to but that I prefer now is real autosave. Every few seconds after I stop typing, the document is automatically saved, with no weird corrupted versions resurrected after a crash.I don't share the bulk of my documents, but there have been occasions when I jointly wrote a piece with another reporter when it's been useful. My wife and I both wrote our holiday letter at the same time using one document but different computers.For organizing my files, I vastly prefer Google's idea of labels to the traditional folder hierarchy. If I take notes on a story that involves Google, Apple, Web browsers, and Adobe Systems, I'd have to decide where to file it back in the old days. Now I just mark the story with each of those labels so it's available when I view any of those subsets of my files.The Google Docs file list page is a useful portal to my data. The most recently changed document is at the top, which often helps me resume work where I left off earlier. The ability to hide documents I'm done with resembles Gmail's useful archive. I occasionally add a star to important documents, but usually the time-based organization produces a page that naturally resembles my to-do list without having to do much more.And did I mention that I like autocorrect It's not just useful for fixing common typos. The reason I swear by it is to automate unpleasant or tedious typing chores. If you must write cumbersome phrases like &quot;Massachusetts Institute of Technology&quot; often, you can set Google Docs to type it for you when you type something shorter. I use it to replace the HTML coding, and it was one of the single biggest things I missed about Microsoft Word. Bear in mind, though, that if you add an autocorrect entry in one document, it won't be available in others--or in other instances of that document in separate browser tabs--until you reload those documents.The badGoogle Docs needs a lot of improvements, though.My biggest complaint, far and away, is the activation energy needed to get rolling with a new document. Clicking a menu item and waiting for the new tab to load is just so much slower than hitting Ctrl-N in Word. When it's crunch time and I need to start taking notes immediately, it's just too much fussing. Google knows darned well the benefits of alacrity, as shown by its obsession on search speed, but I feel with Gmail's current laggardliness and Google Docs' pokey point-and-click hurdles, Web apps have a lot of catching up to do.Spellcheck has problems. I should be grateful that a JavaScript-based program running in a browser can even do this at all, but instead I focus on annoying omissions: I most definitely did not misspell &quot;hadn't,&quot; &quot;didn't,&quot; or &quot;wasn't.&quot; Maybe there's a way to crowdsource the addition of new terms to the spell-checking dictionary or at least try to spotlight candidates for inclusion based on how often they appear on the Web overall.I crave these features from Word: split screen, the &quot;go back&quot; command, and text highlighting with a fast keyboard shortcut.Other weaknesses: Google Docs' search and replace falls short, for example because I can't search for or replace characters like a carriage return. The pop-up information about hyperlinks gets in the way of text I'm trying to edit. And I find it starts to crawl with big documents with several thousand words.And Google Docs' &quot;clear formatting&quot; command seems awfully timid about actually clearing away formatting--line spacing and indents, for example. On a related note, I want to be able to paste unformatted text. For now, when I'm using Chrome, I use Ctrl-Shift-V on Windows and Command-Shift-Option-V onMac OS X to paste without formatting.Labels are useful, but awkward. Right now I drag documents to the labels in the documents view--a process that's rather laggy, by the way--but I wish there were an ability to add labels directly from the document itself. As it is, I create the document, save it with a title, go back to the documents list and reload it, then apply the labels.Speaking of the documents list, as long as Google is pilfering code from the Gmail team, why not let me select, star, label, and archive items with keyboard shortcuts Network relianceThere was a day when Google was working on offline access to Google Docs and Gmail. With the demise of its Gears project and the as-yet unfinished replacement work with Web standards, though, the idea is on ice for now. Google says most people didn't use it anyway, which is a fair point, but I found it pretty clunky, and I suspect the people who do a lot of work offline weren't touching Google Docs with a ten-foot pole anyway.But offline work is important for me. There are so many times when I lack a network, even in my glamourous high-tech first-world existence, this omission is really glaring. Here are some I've experienced personally in the last few months: on the train, on the plane, in the car, on vacation, dealing with collapsing conference Wi-Fi or flailing ISPs, reckoning with data-transfer limits on a mobile network using a tethered mobile phone.So when there's a risk of a dead network, I preemptively do my work either in Word or in Evernote, which has a convenient native application that synchronizes with the cloud-based system. I suspect such an app would be possible for Google Docs with Adobe Systems' AIR foundation, which has a built-in browser based on the same WebKit engine as Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome, but perhaps Google doesn't want to taint the purity of its Web-app marketing message.Another awkward marriage of native and cloud apps comes when it's time to search. Back when all my data lived on my computer, I could use a local search application to turn up all sorts of data. Google Docs, though, has one search interface, Gmail and Google Calendar add a couple more, and none of them search my thousands of archived documents, presentations, PDFs, or other files on my hard drive.I expect some of the problems I have are on Google's to-do list. What I find encouraging is the faster pace of improvements since the new Google Docs foundation arrived. Who knows--perhaps someday there will be something more Googley built in--live translation of a document into another language, for example, or predictive text autocompletion using Google Scribe. But even today, on balance, Google Docs has won me over. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Transcript: Senate hearing on TSA, full-body scanners]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=transcript-senate-hearing-on-tsa-full-body-scanners</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=transcript-senate-hearing-on-tsa-full-body-scanners</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>marmonju34</dc:creator>
<category>Politics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=transcript-senate-hearing-on-tsa-full-body-scanners</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The topic for today's Senate Homeland Security hearing was supposed to be air cargo security.But in the wake of growing public concern about the Transportation Security Administration's new procedures to screen air travelers, that's where the discussion kept returning. CNET is providing excerpts from the transcript of the hearing, in which committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman calls the scanners &quot;necessary for the security&quot; of the American people and TSA Administrator John Pistole says his agency's screeners are &quot;there to protect you and your loved ones.&quot; (See related article.)This image of an adult man was taken using a Rapiscan Secure 1000backscatter X-ray scanner(Credit:John Wild (johnwild.info))As the Thanksgiving travel season draws near, the reaction to TSA's new procedures has been visceral and sharply critical, driven by cell phone recordings of security line incidents, privacy and health concerns, and Web sites including the Drudge Report, which published a photograph of a hands-on examination of a nun with the caption: &quot;THE TERRORISTS HAVE WON.&quot; Yesterday's Colbert Report called them machines &quot;that X-ray your X-rated parts,&quot; and a software engineer from Oceanside, Calif., became an Internet sensation after telling a TSA screener: &quot;If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested.&quot;Thanks to the federal stimulus legislation, TSA has been able to buy approximately 373 whole-body scanners and install them in at least 68 airports around the country. A few weeks ago, with only a one-paragraph mention on TSA's Web site, the screening procedures were changed to offer air travelers a choice of either full-body scans or what the TSA delicately calls &quot;enhanced patdowns.&quot;Read on for the transcript excerpts. SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (I-CONN.): I want to ask you a question related to TSA that's very much in the news, which is the so-called pat-down procedures that follow and are associated with the use of the whole-body imaging scanners, which I recall because we held hearings on this subject after the Christmas Day bombing attempt. And most of us were calling for you to go to the whole-body scanners, either in the Amsterdam variety or what--what you've done.And I--I wanted to give you an opportunity before the committee really to explain the pat-down procedures that have troubled people and why you think that they're justified.PISTOLE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is an ever-evolving nature of the terrorist plot that has been well-described here this afternoon. The challenge for TSA and the whole U.S. government and our allies around the world is to develop both the best techniques and tactics, enabled by the best technology, to detect those plots.As we've heard the various plots outlined here this afternoon, it is clear that we have to be one step ahead of the terrorists. And it's obvious that we are not always in that situation, as evidenced by the last three plots that would--could have been successful.So it really comes down to a balance, where partnership on the one hand, working with the traveling public and the security safety issues on the other hand, and what is a proper mix So what we try to do is understand--we want to be sensitive to people's concerns about privacy about their personal being and things, while ensuring that everybody on every flight has been properly screened.We've recognized--I particularly recognize that reasonable people can disagree as to what that proper balance or blend is between privacy and security and safety.That being the case, I think everybody who gets on a flight wants to ensure and be assured that everybody else around them has been properly screened and, oh, by the way, everybody else on that flight wants to make sure that I have been properly screened or you have been properly screened.So how do we reach that balance And that's what we--that is the challenge that we go through. I believe the advanced imaging technology is the best technology we have today to detect the nonmetallic device that was well-designed, well-concealed, such as we saw on Christmas Day.What I am concerned about, and I know many share this concern, is if we have an individuals who opts out of the advanced imaging technology--let's say Abdulmutallab [CNET editor's note: this is a reference to last year's underwear bomber] had done that, if that had been the case in (inaudible). If he had opted out, thinking that, well, I'm not going to receive a thorough pat-down, so I can get on that flight, and if that had been successful on Christmas Day, I think we might be having a different dialogue here this afternoon and in the public.But what I want to assure and reassure the public is we are concerned about your safety, your security, and your privacy. Let's work together in partnership to ensure that we can have the best way forward.LIEBERMAN: Let me just take this a moment or two more. Just make clear, if you will, to the committee and public who may be listening, watching, how does someone get subjected to a pat-down procedurePISTOLE: There's actually a very small number or percentage that would actually have the pat-down. And it would really occur almost exclusively in situations where somebody has opted out of the advanced imaging technology or that they have alerted on that because there's something still in their pockets or they may be trying to carry some contraband on the flight.LIEBERMAN: In other words, either they've chosen not to go through the scanner or they have gone through and there's some alert.PISTOLE: There's alert, or through the walk-through metal detector and there's alert, and so there's some basis for doing that. There--so, and even with that, it is a very small percentage of all the passengers. So very few people, even though the information out there--the public out there, because it is a new technique, if you will--the other thing I've said here--I've been in Europe several times in the last few months and observed the pat-downs being done in many airports.And it's very similar. Our pat-down approach is very similar to what is being utilized in Europe and, as we know, around the world. It's even much more thorough in other parts of the world.LIEBERMAN: Yes. I know, Chris, you have a same-gender person, TSA employee, doing the pat-down. I presume they're put through training to--this is a difficult balance because, obviously, they are--this has to be a more intimate and intrusive investigation because of the choice that has been made earlier or what the machine has shown, but that they're--they're instructed in a way that will determine whether somebody is potentially dangerous but also, in doing so, try to do minimal harm to their privacy.PISTOLE: Correct. They go through training. And the clearest outcome of that training is to be professional and to give clear guidance and a lot of clarity as to what they are going to do in terms of the actual pat-down and to make sure that the passenger understands that and responds to that.There's been a lot of publicity out there about a certain individual who recently tried to travel but did not want to have that pat-down. And I think, if people get away from just the passenger to hear what the security officer was saying, very cool, calm, professional. And that's what we expect out of our security officers, to do this in a way that is professional.And, again, the bottom line is, if you have two planes that are getting ready to depart and one, you say, everybody has been thoroughly screened on this plane and you can either go on that plane or we have another plane where we have not done a thorough screening because people didn't feel comfortable with that, I think most of if not all the traveling public would say, &quot;I want to go on that plane that has been thoroughly screened.&quot;LIEBERMAN: Yes, I--I agree with you. I think you're doing the right thing. I think perhaps the reaction to the pat-down procedures got ahead of TSA's or the department's description of what you were doing and why you were doing it.But if, God forbid, that bomb on Abdulmutallab's body had gone off on the plane over Detroit, Congress and I dare say the public would have been demanding not just the body imaging equipment but pat- downs. Because I understand the privacy sensitivities, of course. It's awkward' it's unusual. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of--we get on those planes and we want to have the confidence that nobody on the plane has evaded security in a way that will allow them to blow up the plane and kill everybody else on it.So it--this is unfortunately the world in which we live. It wasn't our choice. But--but we have to do everything we can to protect the traveling public. And I think that what you're doing here with the pat-down procedures is difficult' it's sensitive, but it's necessary for the security--homeland security of the American people.SEN. ROLAND BURRIS (D-ILLINOIS): Mr. Chairman, I--I don't have much longer in the Senate, but we ought to look at these private contracts. And I'm concerned about the number of private contractors not only TSA but the other government agencies are going to, and then dealing with liability. [CNET ed. note: Roland Burris was appointed to President Obama's Senate seat and is succeeded by Republican Mark Kirk.]Because I'm wondering where the liability is going to be if one of those passengers who feel that they have been over screened, just what the liability there would be. And, in terms of the underwear bomber, would patting down have caught the underwear bomber in your--your estimationPISTOLE: Yes.BURRIS: Not the machine, but the patting downPISTOLE: Yes.BURRIS: Because this--the--allegedly it was in a diaper type of arrangement.PISTOLE: Yes.BURRIS: So they are going that deep in terms of patting down individualsPISTOLE: The pat-downs are based on the latest intelligence and the information that we have. And...BURRIS: There was no intelligence on this gentleman that was on the flight to Detroit. I mean, you know, he was on the plane.PISTOLE: That's right. That's why we changed the policy.BURRIS: So, OK. And our personnel have received--our personnel have received adequate trainingBecause, Mr. Chairman, do we know what will happen, with the litigation coming out of this Because the pilot's association and the flight attendant's association are getting ready to bring some type of action, as I'm getting information, because of the excessive patting down a flight attendant and the pilots. Is that the case, sirPISTOLE: That had been the case.Pilots have, of course, not generally gone through the advance (inaudible) technology because they are allowed to keep their shoes on and that's a different issues. But I've had a number of conversations with representatives of the pilots associations and we are actively exploring options as it involves pilots because we're using a risk- based approach, and the question--it just begs the question: If you have somebody who's in charge of the aircraft who can put the aircraft down, as could be the case, then why do we have the screening for themSo actually in the near future, I will be announcing some new policies on that.BURRIS: That would help. There's also a question, Mr. Pistole, about the degree of X-rays that these individuals have to go through in the course of their day-to-day work and what that will do to their physical health, is it not, if--if they go through the X-ray machine rather than the excessive pat-downPISTOLE: Sure. And that's one of the concerns that I think has been raised. What I rely upon is the scientific literature and the studies that have been done using these specific machines, including FEA (ph), National Institute of Science and Technology, and Johns Hopkins. They've all done independent assessments of the advanced imaging technology machines, the amount of radiation, and I've seen several analogies, but one that sticks in my mind is going through one of these machines is similar to receiving about three minutes--is it seconds or minutes--three minutes of radiation that you would receive at 30,000 feet on a normal flight.So it's very minimal, well within the established scientific standards for safety, and we're always trying to update that independent validators, others who have opinions about that. BURRIS: And how about the protection of the TSA personnel I mean, if I get accused of, you know, grabbing a lady's breast or, you know, or the female gets too close to the male genitals--I mean, how are they protected nowPISTOLE: OK, so it's always same gender security officers who would do that pat-down, and then people can request a private...BURRIS: Well, have you a witness there with that pat-downPISTOLE: You're welcome to have a witness there present.BURRIS: So the TSA person--can the TSA person request a witness employee to be there with her or him when he is patting him down or she is patting her down Can they have a person there with them there to protect themPISTOLE: It's not our current policy, but unless it goes into a private screening area, the closed-circuit TV would capture virtually all of that because every checkpoint has C.C. TV-enabled.BURRIS: I see my time is up. But I--I'm also concerned about our TSA personnel, and I listen to these people, &quot;please take care of the TSA personnel.&quot; Some of them don't have health insurance. Some of them working part-time. And I'm listening to these complaints, and as the new administrator, I'm counting on you to take care of those people who are going to take care of us getting on these airplanes. Because we can't have disgruntled TSA personnel...PISTOLE: Absolutely.BURRIS: ... trying to protect us on these flights.PISTOLE: I couldn't agree with you more, Senator. I appreciate your support. Thank you, sir.BURRIS: God bless you.LIEBERMAN: Thank you.Thanks very much, Senator Burris.SEN. JOHN ENSIGN (R-NEVADA): Are you going to, you know, allow certain groups to be exempted from that because of, you know, religious beliefsPISTOLE: Senator, we try to be sensitive to each individual and in groups that have particular sensitivities as to whether it's head-wear or certain garb or sensitivities about being viewed or touched and everything. So we try to be sensitive to those issues. At the same time, the bottom line is we have to ensure that each person getting on each flight has been properly screened. And so we have options such as, if somebody does not want to go through the advanced imaging technology, it is optional. They would just do the walk- through metal detector and then--and have a pat-down that would identify any possible items.They can request private screenings. So if they don't want to be screened in public, they can go to a private area, have a witness with them.And so we try to address those concerns in every way possible, recognizing, again, in the final analysis, everybody on that flight wants to be assured with the highest level of confidence that everybody else on that flight has been properly screened, and including me and you and everybody.ENSIGN: I realize this is a difficult question for you, but--so are you going to make no exceptions, thenPISTOLE: Everybody...ENSIGN: I know you're trying to responsibly accommodate.PISTOLE: Yes.ENSIGN: But within those reasonable accommodations, OK, let's just say that--that, listen, you know, my religious whatever does not allow me to be touched by somebody else, does not allow me to go through that screening. So what happens in those casesPISTOLE: So a very small percentage of people would have and will continue to receive pat-downs. So if somebody comes through...ENSIGN: So they have to at least go through the pat-down, if not the screeningPISTOLE: No, they--unless there is an alarm in the walk- through metal detector or they opt out of the advance imaging technology, they would in all likelihood never receive a pat-down. So it's--the pat-down is only a very, very small... ENSIGN: No, no, I--let me--maybe not (inaudible) my question. If somebody is--a random screening. I just got randomly screened at the airport. For whatever reason, my number seems to come up quite often.But if that, you know, happens and either the imaging, OK, was one of the options or, you know, the pat down--let's just say I don't--I don't want either of them because of religious--because of religious reasons. What happens to mePISTOLE: So while I respect and we respect that person's beliefs, that person's not going to get on an airplane.ENSIGN: OK. And there will be no exceptions because of religion. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google mixes local and social reviews in Hotpot]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-mixes-local-and-social-reviews-in-hotpot</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-mixes-local-and-social-reviews-in-hotpot</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dhoni</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-mixes-local-and-social-reviews-in-hotpot</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Hotpot will present recommended businesses based on search terms and your previous ratings.(Credit:screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)If at first, second, and third you don't succeed, try, try again.Google is taking another crack at a social service, this time with Hotpot, a tool designed to capture local knowledge and recommend establishments such as restaurants or stores you might want to visit. Google unveiled an early version of Hotpot in a blog post yesterday, and I think Hotpot has some attributes that could help it achieve modest success.&quot;With Hotpot, we're making local search results for places on Google more personal, relevant, and trustworthy,&quot; product manager Lior Ron said in the post, calling the service a &quot;local recommendation engine powered by you and your friends.&quot;As with many attempts to make something useful and commercially relevant out of social networking, Hotpot attempts to convert the recommendations of your connections into advice for you. Your own recommendations and warnings will be used as signals to determine which establishments are presented to your friends when they search--and, of course, vice versa.So yes, that means if Hotpot attains any level of success, you'll be enduring yet another round of invitations from your online connections. I just inflicted some on my own friends and family in an attempt to try out Hotpot, and it pained me to do so.But here's a nice thing about Hotpot: you can play it in solitaire mode, too, so to speak.Google wants people to join Hotpot to rate local businesses and see what others have rated.(Credit:screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)Based on what you've liked and disliked in your own reviews through the service, Google will tailor recommendations based on the broader pool of ratings of establishments in Google Places. This means that, although you'll be deprived of the wisdom of your local-savvy friends, the service still provides a human-filtered answer.Hotpot, it should be noted, is eminently suited for making money. It's got search terms for entities that likely are related to commercial transactions, a tasty combination for Google's automated ad auction system.If this all sounds a little familiar, it should: Yelp, whose local business data once fed into the Google Places service on which Hotpot is based, has been working for years on the idea of local reviews and socially influenced recommendations.&quot;Yelp is all about the power of word-of-mouth amplified,&quot; Yelp tells its new members. &quot;Our growing online community wants to hear the real story about everything local, from you and your friends.&quot;One advantage Yelp has going for it is integration with Facebook, which can ease the painful process of trying to construct yet another social graph out of your online connections.Facebook, too, is trying to cash in on local business dealings. Facebook Places, for example, lets merchants offer deals to people who electronically &quot;check in&quot; to a particular spot using the company's geolocation services.Google has been trying to build social networking into its business for years now. Orkut caught on in a couple corners of the world--Brazil and India--but not beyond that. Google Latitude gives people a way to find their friends on Google Maps, but it has languished too. Google Buzz, the most recent effort, grafted onto Gmail for easier social graph construction, but it's faltered as well. (That's too bad, in my opinion, since I prefer its user interface to Facebook's any day.)Google isn't one to give up easily, though, and location services have new prominence at the company with Marissa Mayer now spearheading Google's location-aware services and local markets work.The company has some assets on its side in this competition. Here are three big ones: search, Android, and Google Maps.Ready for another social service Sign up for Hotpot. The service uses your ratings both in a mostly anonymous way and more personally with your social connections.(Credit:screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)Search, which is Google's cash cow, could theoretically give Google an advantage if its algorithms do, in fact, produce relevant results.But with Google Places, there is a garbage in, garbage out problem: why, when I searched forcar repair businesses in my home of Old Windsor, England, did Hotpot show me Clewer Mill Stream, a haunt where (Wikipedia informs me) the Knights Templars of Bisham granted a license for a fishery in 1198 and 19th-century schoolboys from Eton were penalized if caught shooting waterfowl On the flip side, Hotpot's recommendations for New Mexican restaurants in Santa Fe--a subject in which I have some modest if somewhat outdated expertise--were spot on. I immediately added some ratings of my own for restaurants I liked with the nice Hotpot interface that flips over the cards on which the entries appear so you can enter the information.Android and Google Maps are related: each is a tremendous boon for the other since knowing where you are is so important when you're out and about. Version 4.7 of the Google Maps app for Android just arrived, and it's plugged into Hotpot.When you launch the new version, you'll see this update message: &quot;Rate places to get personalized place recommendations. Add the 'Rate Places' widget to your home screen to rate a place quickly while you're there.&quot;It's not clear how many people will leap to supply Google with this user-generated content. But certainly there's a fair amount already in Google Places, and making it easier to add more will undoubtedly help. Amazon, Yelp, and others have given people a mechanism to have their say about their customer experiences, and Google might have an easier time plugging into that impulse than into the more serious commitment of participating in some new social service.Here's one more thing I find fascinating about Hotpot, Google Places, Google Maps, and Street View: the idea that Google is building a virtual overlay to the real world. Search results are a virtual phenomenon that has relevance to the real world, but Places is essentially a layer of information stitched directly to the real world.Augmented reality, which aligns closely with this concept, has plenty of hype from overenthusiastic advocates, but it's not just sci-fi silliness. The navigation app on my Android phone is a very here-and-now example of what can be done.Finally, I find Google Places and Hotpot intriguing due to who owns its content.A lot of what Google has done in its mission to &quot;organize the world's information and make it universally accessible&quot; is index what's already available online--Web pages, books, and Twitter, if not Facebook.With Places--as with photos in Panoramio, streets and 3D buildings in Google Maps, and the ill-fated Knol--Google wants us all to add the information directly to Google. The company has been better than most about sharing such data with others through application programming interfaces, but there's no doubt that information Google controls is more valuable than that it skims from the rest of the Net.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 adds touch screen, 1080i video]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=panasonic-lumix-dmc-gf2-adds-touch-screen-1080i-video</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=panasonic-lumix-dmc-gf2-adds-touch-screen-1080i-video</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 Nov 2010 07:10:15 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Pooja01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=panasonic-lumix-dmc-gf2-adds-touch-screen-1080i-video</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Panasonic)Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2 photos When we awarded the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 an Editors Choice about a year ago, it was mostly because it fulfilled 3 of the 4 reasons I think the category exists: an interchangeable-lens camera (ILC), it provided a consumer-friendly compact size, faster than point-and-shoot performance, and the image-quality benefits of a large-ish Micro Four Thirds sensor. Now there's a lot more competition: Olympus' PEN series is still around (but with sluggish performance), and Sony's come out with its sleekly designed and solidly performing NEX models. The biggest problem with a lot of these models, however, is price: they command the prices of entry-level dSLRs but don't deliver on the performance. The cheaper ILCs simply aren't compact enough. So I have to admit, I expected a little more with Panasonic's announcement of its GF1 update, the Lumix DMC-GF2. Though the sensor is the same resolution as before, it's the same newer version that's in the Lumix DMC-LX5. The camera also has the updated image processing engine that's in the GH2, improved video capture capabilities, and a touch-screen interface similar to that of the G2. Of course, given Panasonic's refusal to announce pricing it's impossible to state outright that it's too expensive' I'll just assume it's going to cost at least as much as the current GF1, which is on the high side.Here's Panasonic's current lineup:&amp;nbsp'Panasonic Lumix DMC-G10Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2Sensor (effective resolution)12.1-megapixel Live MOS12.1-megapixel Live MOS12.1-megapixel Live MOS12.1-megapixel Live MOS16.1-megapixel Live MOS17.3mm x 13.0mm17.3 x 13.0mm17.3 x 13.0mm17.3 x 13.0mm17.3 x 13.0mmFocal-length multiplier2.0x2.0x2.0x2.0x2.0xImage processor versionVenus Engine HD II Venus Engine HD II  Venus Engine HD  Venus Engine FHD Venus Engine FHDSensitivity rangeISO 100 - ISO 6,400ISO 100 - ISO 6400 ISO 100 - ISO 3,200  ISO 100 - ISO 6,400 ISO 160 - ISO 12,800Continuous shooting3.2 fpsunlimited JPEG/7 raw3.2 fps unlimited JPEG/ 7 raw  3fps unlimited JPEG/7 raw  3.2fps unlimited JPEG/7 raw 5.0 fps unlimited JPEG/ 7 raw Viewfinder magnification/ effective magnificationElectronic 202,000 dots  100% coverage  1.04x/0.52x magnificationElectronic n/a/1.4 million dots 100% coverage  1.4x/0.7x magnificationOptional Electronic  n/aOptional Electronic  n/aElectronic 1.5 million dots 100% coverage  1.42x/0.71x magnificationAutofocus23-area contrast AF23-area contrast AF23-area contrast AF23-area contrast AF23-area contrast AFShutter speed60-1/4000 sec' bulb to 4 minutes1/4000 to 30 secs' bulb up to 4 minutes' 1/160 x-sync 60-1/4000 sec' bulb to 4 minutes  60-1/4000 sec' bulb to 4 minutes' 1/160 x-sync1/4000 to 60 secs' bulb up to 2 minutes' 1/160 x-syncMetering144 zone144 zone144 zone144 zone144 zoneImage stabilizationOpticalOpticalOpticalOpticalOpticalVideo720/30p Motion JPEG MOVAVCHD Lite 720/30p or Motion JPEG MOV 720/30p AVCHD Lite or Motion JPEG MOV  1080/60i/50i @ 17, 13 Mbps 720/60p @17, 13 Mbps AVCHD or Motion JPEG QuickTime MOV AVCHD 1080/60i/50i/24p (60p sensor output) @ 24, 17, 13Mbps' 720/60p @ 17, 13Mbps QuickTime MOV Motion JPEG 720/30pAudioMonoMono' mic inputMonoStereoStereo, mic inputLCD size3-inch fixed460,000 dots 3 inches articulated 460,000 dots 3-inch fixed 460,000 dots  3-inch fixed touch screen 460,000 dots 3 inches articulated 460,000 dotsBattery life (CIPA rating)380 shots390 shots 350 shots  300 shots  340 shotsDimensions (inches, WHD)4.9 x 3.3 x 2.94.9 x 3.3 x 2.9 4.7 x 2.8 x 1.4  4.7 x 2.8 x 1.4 4.9 x 3.5 x 3.0Body operating weight (ounces)13.913.112.211 (est)15.2 (est)Mfr. Pricen/an/an/an/a$899.95 (body only)$599.95 (with 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 lens)$699.95 (with 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 lens) $899.95 (with 14-45mm f3.5-5.6 lens)  $tbd (with 14-45mm f3.5-5.6 lens) $999.95 (with 14-42mm lens)n/an/a $899.95 (with 20mm f1.7 lens)  $tbd (with 14mm f2.5 lens) $1499.95 (with 14-140mm lens)Ship dateMay 2010May 2010September 2009January 2011December 2010The GF2 will retain its unique place in Panasonic's ILC lineup as its &quot;compact&quot; model--at least until the company introduces a less-expensive version, which I think is necessary, if not inevitable. It's possible Panasonic could drop the price on the GF1 into E-PL1 territory' at my last questioning company reps weren't sure (or weren't admitting) what the strategy would be with respect to the older model.The enhancements to the GF2 are nice, and I expect the image quality to match that of the LX5. I like the touch-screen implementation of the G2 as well, but Panasonic jettisoned the physical mode dial in favor of a virtual one, which some users might dislike.In its marketing, the company seems to be aggressively targeting the NEX-5 with the GF2. Here's how it stacks up against that and some other, (presumably) cheaper competitors:&amp;nbsp'Olympus E-P2Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF2Samsung NX10Sony Alpha NEX-5Sensor (effective resolution)12.3-megapixel Live MOS12.1-megapixel Live MOS14.6-megapixel CMOS14.2-megapixel Exmor CMOS17.3mm x 13mm17.3 x 13.0mm23.4mm x 15.6mm23.4mm x 15.6mmFocal-length multiplier2.0x2.0x1.5x1.5xImage processor version TruePic V Venus Engine FHD n/an/aSensitivity rangeISO 100 - ISO 3,200 ISO 100 - ISO 6,400 ISO 100 - ISO 3,200ISO 200 - ISO 12,800Continuous shooting3.0 fps 12 JPEG/ 10 raw  3.2fps unlimited JPEG/7 raw 3.0 fps 10 JPEG/ 3 raw 2.3 fps unlimited JPEG/8 raw Viewfinder magnification/ effective magnificationElectronic 100 percent 1.44 million dots1.15x/0.58x Optional Electronic  n/aElectronic 921,000 dots 1.29x/0.86x NoneAutofocus11-area contrast AF23-area contrast AF15-point contrast AF25-point contrast AFShutter speed60-1/4000 sec' bulb to 30 minutes 60-1/4000 sec' bulb to 4 minutes' 1/160 x-sync30-1/4000 sec.' bulb to 8 minutes30-1/4000 sec.' bulb' 1/160 flash syncMetering324 area144 zone247 segment40 segmentImage stabilizationSensor shiftOpticalOpticalOpticalVideo720/30p Motion JPEG AVI 1080/60i/50i @ 17, 13 Mbps 720/60p @17, 13 Mbps AVCHD or Motion JPEG QuickTime MOV 720/30p H.264 MPEG-41080/60i AVCHDAudioStereo' mic inputMonoMonoMono, mic inputLCD size3-inch fixed230,000 dots 3-inch fixed touch screen 460,000 dots 3-inch fixed AMOLED614,000 dots3-inch tilting 921,600 dotsBattery life (CIPA rating) 300 shots  300 shots 400 shots 330 shotsDimensions (inches, WHD) 4.7 x 2.8 x 1.4  4.7 x 2.8 x 1.4 4.8 x 3.4 x 1.6 4.4 x 2.4 x 1.6 Body operating weight (ounces)12.211 (est)14.510.2 (without flash)' 10.9 (with flash)Mfr. Price$749.99 (body only)n/an/an/a $799.99 (with 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 lens)  $tbd (with 14-45mm f3.5-5.6 lens) $699.99 (with 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 lens)$699.99 (with 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 lens) $799.99 (with 17mm f2.8 lens)  $tbd (with 14mm f2.5 lens) n/a$649.99 (with 16mm f2.8 lens)Ship dateDecember 2009January 2011March 2010July 2010The GF2 does offer an optional EVF, but otherwise looks pretty evenly matched with the NEX-5 for features--the GF2 has all the usual Panasonic automatic options and a few touch-screen advantages (such as touch focus)--and its interface looks a lot more functional than the NEX. But the NEX's likely lower price and tiltable LCD are pretty compelling. In the US, the Lumix DMC-GF2 will be available in black, red, white and silver--Panasonic will be sparing us the pink version--and one of the two kits will ship with the new 17mm lens announced last month. Pricing is slated to be announced a month before the camera ships. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[How to buy World Series tix online and not get ripped off (FAQ)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-to-buy-world-series-tix-online-and-not-get-ripped-off-faq</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-to-buy-world-series-tix-online-and-not-get-ripped-off-faq</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 28 Oct 2010 07:10:31 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>vxjkzhygoohxya</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-to-buy-world-series-tix-online-and-not-get-ripped-off-faq</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Seats for tickets to the World Series are selling for an average of $800, and individual seats can go for thousands each. If you are careful, you can buy safely.(Credit:StubHub)It's World Series time, and if you're a fan of either the San Francisco Giants or the Texas Rangers looking for tickets to any of the sold-out games being played over the next few days, don't despair: You can get in.Of course, it's not going to be cheap. Since the only tickets that are available are on the secondary market, they're going to cost substantially more than face value. For example, in San Francisco, where tonight's game two, and games six and seven (if necessary) will be held, the average price for all tickets is about $800 each. Good seats are going for well into four figures.So, assuming you've made the decision to spend a month of rent (or more) on one or more ducats, how can you do so and feel confident that you're going to actually get to listen to the Star Spangled Banner alongside thousands of your fellow fansFirst, you should know that it's perfectly legal for ticket owners, such as season ticket holders, to sell their unused seats, and to do so for prices above face value. But since you probably have questions about how it all works, CNET is here to help with this FAQ on the current ticket-buying environment:I want to buy a ticket to the World Series, and I don't know anyone personally who's selling. What are my options There aren't that many. If you walk up to either the Giants or the Rangers ticket window, you're most likely going to encounter someone who wants to laugh at you for harboring the notion that the games aren't fully sold out.Your best option for finding World Series tickets, regardless of the cost, is to go online to StubHub, which is the official ticket marketplace partner of Major League Baseball, and each of the individual MLB teams. Other sports use other marketplaces. The NBA, for example, partners with Ticketmaster's TicketExchange service, as does both the NFL, and the National Hockey League.There are other marketplaces, as well, but they are generally not official, unless they are affiliates of the official sites.How does the system work with these online re-sellersIt's actually very simple. Because each ticket to a major sporting event like the World Series has a bar code, sellers are able to transfer control of the ticket (for which they can set any price they want, as long as it's above face value)--via the database record associated with the bar code--to StubHub, or TicketExchange. As explained by StubHub, &quot;Once [the seller has] entered the bar codes, we issue new tickets with unique bar codes to the buyer and the original bar codes [the seller] entered are deactivated.&quot;When a buyer goes online and purchases the ticket from a list of available seats, the marketplace service then e-mails the buyer the tickets in printable PDF form. The tickets have a brand new bar code. And that means that that the original physical tickets will no longer be recognized by the automatic scanning systems used at the gate.This is an example of ticket listings on StubHub for World Series tickets.(Credit:StubHub)Can I be sure I'm not going to get ripped off buying tickets from StubHub or similar marketplacesIf the site is legitimate, like StubHub--which is owned by eBay--or TicketExchange, you can. That's because they offer buyers a guarantee that the tickets will be good: &quot;You will get your tickets in time for the event,&quot; reads StubHub's guarantee. &quot;Your tickets will be authentic and valid for entry. Your tickets will be as good as or better than the ones you ordered. You will be refunded if the event is canceled and not rescheduled.&quot; For its part, TicketExchange promises: &quot;Tickets purchased on TicketExchange are guaranteed to get you in. The seller's original tickets are canceled and a new set is issued for you.&quot;In the case of online marketplaces that are not official league partners, you would be wise to double-check the site's guarantee, and see if there's any way to confirm its legitimacy.Are there multiple sites selling the exact same World Series ticketsAccording to StubHub public relations and corporate communications manager Joellen Ferrer, there aren't--unless the sites in question are affiliates. Ferrer explained that the tickets available on StubHub are unique to that service, and shouldn't be available anywhere else. However, there are ticket aggregators that are affiliates of multiple marketplaces that will sell the same seats. Those aggregators, such as FanSnap, or SeatGeek, share in the commission for the sale of the tickets. And buyers on those sites are protected by the StubHub guarantee, Ferrer said.What happens to the original physical ticket when a sale like this occursAlthough ownership of the digital version of the ticket--in other words, its database record--has transferred, the original owner still has the physical ticket. That ticket will no longer work if presented at the ballpark.I bought what seems like a real (physical) ticket from someone, either on the street or from someone on Craigslist. How can I tell if it's validYou can't. The days of a physical ticket being the only thing that matters for entry into a major sporting event like the World Series are long gone. It's not that the physical ticket you bought from a scalper can't be valid. It's that there's no way to be sure until you try to get into the stadium, or arena, that the rights to that ticket haven't been sold to someone else. If the ticket is rejected at the gate, you're not getting inside, and good luck tracking down and getting your money back from the person who sold it to you.In almost all cases, the teams or the leagues will not help you with recovering your money in any way.There are also plenty of counterfeit tickets floating around that look real. Obviously, they too will be rejected by the scanners at the gate.I bought a World Series ticket from StubHub, but I'm worried something will go wrong when I get to the ballpark. What do I do if that happens.Ferrer said that StubHub will have representatives on hand in the box offices of both the Giants and the Rangers to deal with any customer service issues. However, be aware that the guarantee the service offers applies only to the person who bought the tickets directly from StubHub. If you buy tickets from someone who got them from StubHub, you are not covered by the guarantee.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Samsung Mesmerize on sale at U.S. Cellular]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-mesmerize-on-sale-at-u-s--cellular</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-mesmerize-on-sale-at-u-s--cellular</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:10:11 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Cheery</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-mesmerize-on-sale-at-u-s--cellular</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Samsung Mesmerize(Credit:U.S. Cellular)U.S. Cellular bolstered its Android lineup today when it announced its new Mesmerize smartphone. Part of the Galaxy S series, the Mesmerize joins the Samsung Acclaim and HTC Desire in the carrier's growing Android repertoire.The hardware on the Mesmerize is nearly identical to that found on the other Galaxy S series handsets with its 4-inch Super AMOLED display Although the phone comes with Android 2.1 out of the box, U.S. Cellular claims customers will be able to upgrade to 2.2 &quot;Froyo&quot; later this year. Features inlcude a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, a 5-megapixel camera with HD video capture, and Samsung's Media Hub video store. Looking forward, the Chicago-based carrier promises two more Android phones in the LG Apex and LG Optimus U. Not much is known about the Apex, but I venture to guess the Optimus U will be very similar to the Optimus T from T-Mobile and the Optimus S from Sprint.The Mesmerize runs $199 after $80 mail-in rebate and two-year service agreement and can be purchased immediately. For more on the Mesmerize, check out our hand on video and photo gallery fromCTIA earlier this month.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CEO Expects TV Networks To Block Boxee Box, Plans Payment Platform To Win Them&nbsp'Over]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ceo-expects-tv-networks-to-block-boxee-box-plans-payment-platform-to-win-themnbspover</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ceo-expects-tv-networks-to-block-boxee-box-plans-payment-platform-to-win-themnbspover</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dsoopddpss</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ceo-expects-tv-networks-to-block-boxee-box-plans-payment-platform-to-win-themnbspover</guid>
<description><![CDATA[TV is coming to the Web and there is nothing that can stop it.  Just ask Avner Ronen, the CEO of Web TV startup Boxee.  Later tonight, he will announce the general availability of his Boxee Box, a small device you hook up to your TV and the Internet so you can watch video from the Web on your TV.  The videos come not only from YouTube, but also from ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com, Comedy Central, and many other video sites on the Web.  I visited Ronen today at his New York City offices where he gave me a demo of the Boxee Box (more on that in a later post), but we also got into a very interesting discussion about how the major TV networks and media companies are reacting to seeing their Web videos increasingly turning up on large-screen TVs.As he describes in the video below, Ronen argues that the media companies should be more consistent: either charge for videos on the Web or make it free, or go for the freemium model and offer premium video watching experiences on devices like Boxee and the iPad or an additional fee.  He reveals that Boxee is working on a payments platform to support such subscription business models on the Boxee service.  Furthermore, Hulu Plus will become available on Boxee as a paid option.  Yup, the same Hulu that previously blocked BoxeeIt is not a foregone conclusion that the media companies who control the most popular TV shows and movies will play along.  Just last month, when Google launched its competing Google TV, it was almost immediately blocked by the major TV networks even though it was simply grabbing video freely available on the Web.  Hulu also blocked Google TV.  Effectively, the media industry is now discriminating based on device and what kind of browser you are using.  Why wouldn&amp;'t they do exactly the same thing to the Boxee Box  &amp;''I think that is a reasonable assumption to make,&amp;'' admits Ronen.  But he believes that eventually they will come around.  &amp;''Our view is that ultimately it does not make sense for content owners to discriminate based on browsers and screen size.  It is an endless battle. &amp;''  I pointed out that what seems to be happening instead is that the TV networks and movie studios are trying to replicate the business model of cable TV on the Web, by granting access only to services which pay them hefty fees like Netflix does (to the tune of an estimated $2 billion next year).  Ronen is actually fine with making people pay for content, and in fact says that he will make one-click payments part of the Boxee service itself.  Next year,&amp;'' he reveals, &amp;''we will launch a payments platform on Boxee.  With one click you will be able to subscribe. We think that will be part of the solution.&amp;''  You can watch videos behind Web paywalls today on Boxee, but you have to enter a different username and password for each site.  Boxee&amp;'s payment service would be single sign-on and manage all the subscriptions in one place.What he suggests is a classic freemium model.  If you want new shows and videos as soon as they come out in HD, you pay a few bucks a month to NBC or HBO and you can watch those shows on Boxee, your iPad, your computer or anywhere you want.  Then a week or so later, it comes out free on the Web in standard definition with ads.  The we-support-subscriptions argument is also one the Google TV folks are making.  The media companies are fine with Netflix streaming their movies and shows because Netflix pays them a bunch of money.  But where their model breaks down is that often they offer the same TV shows on their own Websites for free.  &amp;''While they are comfortable with the Netflix model, they are not comfortable with their own services online. I think it is better if they have an online business model that they believe in.&amp;''Watch the shaky-cam video below for more of his thoughts on the matter.CrunchBase InformationAvner RonenBoxeeInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Standing Cloud Raises $3 Million, Fends Off Font Snobs With New&nbsp'Logo]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=standing-cloud-raises-3-million-fends-off-font-snobs-with-newnbsplogo</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=standing-cloud-raises-3-million-fends-off-font-snobs-with-newnbsplogo</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>themamedizin</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=standing-cloud-raises-3-million-fends-off-font-snobs-with-newnbsplogo</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Back in July, I wrote about a nifty new startup called Standing Cloud that makes it easy to set up hosted installs of dozens of cloud-based applicationsa4sa4&quot; like WordPress, Drupal, or Traca4sa4&quot; with a single click. Unfortunately, all our commenters seemed to care about was the company&amp;'s logo, which consisted of Papyrus font set against a plain white background.Now Standing Cloud is back with a new, much more attractive logo that should appease all you font critics, and it has some big news in tow: it just closed a $3 million Series B funding round led by Avalon Ventures, with participation from existing investor Foundry Group. This brings Standing Cloud&amp;'s total funding to $5 million since it was founded in 2009.Standing Cloud&amp;'s core offering lets you choose from over 60 applications to install, and it gives you the flexibility to decide which cloud hosting provider you want to use them on.  Since we last covered them, there have been some tweaks to the business model: previously, Standing Cloud charged users $19.95 per month for access to as many applications as they wanted, but users had to manage and pay for their bandwidth and hosting costs in addition to that.CEO David Jilk says that some users found this confusing, so the company has adopted a different model: users will now pay $24.95 per month per application deployment, but bandwidth costs are included. Obviously this could make things pricier if you plan to deploy multiple apps, but Standing Cloud&amp;'s value proposition is all about keeping things simple, so it&amp;'s a change that makes sense.Another change is the addition of the Standing Cloud Application Network. Jilk says that many small and medium businesses who might be interested in Standing Cloud aren&amp;'t necessarily familiar with the various applications it offers, or which ones might be best for them. So the site is building out a directory of these applications with fleshed out descriptions. Each application listing will include references to recommended consulting firms that specialize in working with that app, in case a business needs something customized.However, Jilk says that this directory of applications (which will primarily be composed of open sourced apps for now) doesn&amp;'t represent a change in Standing Cloud&amp;'s strategy. Rather, it&amp;'s a compliment to it a4&quot; if it becomes a great resource for learning about these applications, then it will inevitably drive more businesses to use Standing Cloud&amp;'s service.CrunchBase InformationStanding CloudInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[If WikiLeaks founder turns himself in, will the cyber leak war end]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=if-wikileaks-founder-turns-himself-in-will-the-cyber-leak-war-end</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=if-wikileaks-founder-turns-himself-in-will-the-cyber-leak-war-end</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>DimaFGert</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=if-wikileaks-founder-turns-himself-in-will-the-cyber-leak-war-end</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Julian Assange, the founder of WikilLeaks, is planning to turn himself into police to face questioning over allegations of rape and other crimes in Sweden. The question is whether that will end the cyber leak war that has been happening for weeks.The case is a test of just how far internet freedoms can go, since WikiLeaks has come under fire from governments around the world for making classified documents public on the internet. It&amp;'s unclear whether such leaks would continue if Assange is arrested and prosecuted, although Assange has said himself that if anything happens to him, further sensitive documents would automatically go live.Newspapers have reported that Assange is expected to hand himself into police as early as Tuesday, after the Swedish authorities issued a European Arrest Warrant. Assange has been hiding in the southeast of England. The development follows news that Swiss authorities have closed down one of Assange&amp;'s bank accounts. The 39-year-old Australian has been operating WikiLeaks from secret locations.Wikileaks stirred an enormous controversy as it released secret documents related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan earlier this year and then released secret U.S. diplomatic cables in recent days. WikiLeaks also published a list of hundreds of sensitive sites around the world that the U.S. fears could come under attack.Kristinn Hrafnsson, spokesman for WikiLeaks, told the Guardian that Assange had to keep a low profile after several threats on his life. But Sweden&amp;'s Supreme Court upheld an order seeking to detain Assange for questioning related to charges of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. Assange has denied wrongdoing.WikiLeaks has faced increasing troubles since its publication of the 251,000 secret documents. It lost its domain name service provider, EveryDNS.net, because that company came under a huge cyberattack and had to jettison WikiLeaks. And Amazon also stopped providing web-hosting services to WikiLeaks, saying its display of stolen content had violated Amazon&amp;'s terms of service. The Swiss Bank, Postfinance, said it shut his bank account after it found Assange gave a false address.Next Story: So. California companies: Get great feedback from VCs and&amp;8230'cocktails Previous Story: Zynga has its best launch ever with CityVille social gamePrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: secret documentsCompanies: WikiLeaksPeople: Julian Assange          Tags: secret documentsCompanies: WikiLeaksPeople: Julian AssangeDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[This isn&'t Pets.com: PetFlow scores $5M for automatic pet food delivery]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=this-isnrsquot-pets-com-petflow-scores-5m-for-automatic-pet-food-delivery</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=this-isnrsquot-pets-com-petflow-scores-5m-for-automatic-pet-food-delivery</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jasmine01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=this-isnrsquot-pets-com-petflow-scores-5m-for-automatic-pet-food-delivery</guid>
<description><![CDATA[New York-based PetFlow is aware of the stigma around pet-centered startups, but it believes it can avoid the fate of spectacular flameouts like Pets.com. The company announced today that it has landed $5 million in funding from Westwood Ventures.PetFlow offers automatic pet food delivery. The company offers flat-rate $4.95 shipping for any order over $20, and it offers simple tools to let you easily choose food, treats, litter, and other pet supplies. Once you&amp;'ve built your order, you can schedule it to automatically ship to you every 2 to 14 weeks.The site has over 70 brands of pet food and treats (thankfully, it has all of my spoiled cat&amp;'s favorite stuff). The benefits of a service like PetFlow are obvious to anyone who has had to lug hefty bags of litter and food home in the rain, while using public transportation. Best of all, you&amp;'ll never have to deal with trekking to a store only to find that your pet&amp;'s brand of food isn&amp;'t in stock. The company tells us that most of its customers are women above 40, but I honestly have no shame in admitting that I&amp;'m currently preparing an order of my own.PetFlow is definitely eating shipping costs to get large items shipped for $5, but co-founder Alex Zhardanovsky tells us that it&amp;'s not doing anything stupid like selling food below cost. And unlike Pets.com, it doesn&amp;'t have any expensive Superbowl ads on the horizon. Instead, the company is hoping to hook repeat customers. With 80 percent of its customers opting for auto-delivery, PetFlow may be on to something.Photo via XuillaNext Story: On the GreenBeat: A123 posts sharp Q3 losses, Sage gets $80 million for smart building glass Previous Story: ARM promises mobile phone graphics that won&amp;'t stinkPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: eretail, pet food, petsCompanies: PetFlow, Pets.comPeople: Alex Zhardanovsky          Tags: eretail, pet food, petsCompanies: PetFlow, Pets.comPeople: Alex ZhardanovskyDevindra 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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