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<title>Haaze.com / ArjunSahker / Voted News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:11:10 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[FBI warns of China-related wire transfer fraud]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=fbi-warns-of-china-related-wire-transfer-fraud</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=fbi-warns-of-china-related-wire-transfer-fraud</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:11:10 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>theodorehd</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=fbi-warns-of-china-related-wire-transfer-fraud</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Small and medium-size businesses in the U.S. lost more than $11 million over the past year in online scams in which stolen banking credentials were used in fraudulent wire transfers to companies in China, the FBI said.  There were 20 such incidents between March 2010 and April 2011, affecting companies and public institutions in the U.S. that tend to have accounts at local community banks and credit unions, some of which use third-party service providers for online banking services, according to the agency. The amounts transferred at any one time ranged from tens of thousands of dollars to nearly $1 million. In most cases the criminals managed to compromise the computer of someone within a target company who could initiate funds transfers, according to a fraud alert issued by the FBI this week (PDF). The victim either receives a phishing e-mail designed to trick the recipient into revealing online banking credentials or into visiting a Web site hosting malware that steals the information from the computer.  When the victims try to log in to the bank site, they're redirected to a page saying the site is under maintenance while the criminals use the stolen log-in information to transfer money to a U.S. bank. The money is then transferred to a bank account owned by one of a number of &quot;economic and trade companies&quot; located in the Heilongjiang province in China and immediately withdrawn or transferred again, the FBI said.  &quot;It is unknown who is behind these unauthorized transfers, if the Chinese accounts were the final transfer destination, or if the funds were transferred elsewhere, or why the legitimate companies received the unauthorized funds,&quot; the FBI alert says.  In addition to the unauthorized wire transfers, criminals also were found to be sending domestic Automated Clearing House and wire transfers to money mules in the U.S. within minutes of the overseas transfers, according to the agency. It's unclear where that money ends up.  The data stealing malware used in the fraud includes Zeus, Backdoor.bot, and Spybot. Zeus can steal multifactor authentication tokens and enable criminals to log in to accounts with username, password, and token ID during a user log-in session. Backdoor.bot has a worm, downloader, and keylogger and offers remote access to compromised computers. And Spybot is an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) backdoor Trojan that runs in the background and opens a back door to the compromised computer. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[IHS iSuppli: Manufacturing issues caused iPad 2 shortfall]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ihs-isuppli-manufacturing-issues-caused-ipad-2-shortfall</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ihs-isuppli-manufacturing-issues-caused-ipad-2-shortfall</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>octavio4ga</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ihs-isuppli-manufacturing-issues-caused-ipad-2-shortfall</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Manufacturing problems led to the shortfall of theiPad 2 during the first quarter, IHS iSuppli said yesterday, prompting the research firm to trim its forecast on Apple'stablet shipments for the year.(Credit:Apple)As iPad buyers have run into sold-out stock at Apple stores and long wait times ordering online, questions have arisen over why supplies of the new tablet failed to come close to demand.Though it raised the specter of supply chain problems caused by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, IHS iSuppli doesn't see the disaster as contributing to the iPad shortfall. Following the earthquake, Apple quickly moved to ensure that it would have the necessary components to ship the iPad 2 last month. Instead, the firm pointed to manufacturing problems with specific components.&quot;IHS iSuppli sources indicate that Apple's production was stymied by manufacturing difficulties, which--combined with strong demand--led to short supplies of the popular tablet,&quot; noted the firm's report. &quot;Those issues, according to the sources, included quality concerns with liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, production shortages of the new speaker, lamination issues with one of the touch suppliers, and end-unit production shortfalls.&quot;Though Apple has since been able to bump up production of the new tablet, the company still won't be able to meet its targets for April. Beyond that, a shortage of supplies owing to the Japanese earthquake could hinder Apple's ability to ramp up production enough in the second half of the year to compensate for the initial shortfall, said the firm.As a result, IHS iSuppli now expects Apple to ship 39.7 million units of both the original iPad and the iPad 2 in 2011, down 9 percent from its February forecast of 43.7 million.Based on the firm's estimate of 15.1 million iPads shipped last year, it also now expects iPad shipments to rise 163.3 percent this year, down from its February estimate of 189.6 percent. However, the initial short supply is not expected to pose a problem in 2012. Looking at next year, IHS iSuppli has upped its estimate on iPad shipments to 62.2 million from 61.6 million previously.Over the short term, Apple will continue to retain its dominance and edge over competing tablet makers on content, price, marketing, and momentum, the report said. Apple is forecast to lose its majority share of the tablet market late next year or early 2013, but it will still end 2012 with more than 50 percent of all tablets sold and hang on to a big lead beyond that.&quot;While Apple may lose its dominant share, there is no sign yet of a serious opponent to challenge Apple's place as the tablet market leader at least through 2015,&quot; IHS iSuppli analyst Rhoda Alexander said in the report.(Credit:IHS iSuppli)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[On Call: Best carriers for recycling your phone]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-call-best-carriers-for-recycling-your-phone</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-call-best-carriers-for-recycling-your-phone</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:10:26 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>percycccec</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=on-call-best-carriers-for-recycling-your-phone</guid>
<description><![CDATA[On Call runs every two weeks, alternating between answering reader questions and discussing hot topics in the cell phone world.Though you probably know that Friday is Earth Day, I'd wager that you weren't aware that it's also National Cell Phone Recycling Week. Created two years ago by the Environmental Protection Agency, the week encourages U.S. wireless subscribers to recycle and reuse old handsets rather than discarding them into a drawer, or worse yet, throwing them away in the trash.It's a noble effort, indeed, particularly when you consider how often we're encouraged to trade up for the latest and greatest phone. Sure, e-waste is a concern across the gadgetsphere, but the shelf life of a cell phone can last only months and the stream of new models never seems to stop. And when you add in harmful materials like lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic that can end up in the environment, it's not a pretty picture. Fortunately, though, recycling your handset is much easier than trying to get rid of your flat-screen television. In fact, you can do your part without even leaving your house.For this post, I rounded up and evaluated the recycling efforts of the major carriers. As you'll see from the list, some carrier programs offer incentives, whereas others give you just the peace of mind that you kept one more phone out of a landfill. Doing a good deed may be enough for some, but I recognize that other readers will enjoy an extra benefit. Also, keep in mind that many other recycling options are available. They can include your phone's manufacturer, your employer, a local government agency, a third-party retailer (like Best Buy), or a nonprofit organization. For local drop-off points, check out this helpful site from Call2Recycle. Currently, only about 1 percent of phones are recycled in the United States so the numbers can only improve. Before you recycle, however, there are a few points to remember.Though carriers offer recycling programs, they aren't actually operating the program themselves. Instead, they partner with reputable companies like ReCellular that do the dirty work.Carriers will promise to wipe your phone of any personal information, but it's essential that you take that step yourself. A &quot;factory reset&quot; is a great place to start, since it will clear your phone's data and return it to the same condition as when you bought it. If your phone doesn't have such an option (and even if it does), make sure to remove all text messages, photos, applications, e-mails, and contacts. Also, delete your call timers and your recent calls list.If you don't trust yourself to wipe your phone's memory properly, there are a few data third-party options that promise to do the job for you. I haven't used any personally, but ReCellular offers a tutorial on its site.Drain your phone's battery completely, but leave it in the phone. If sending extra batteries, tape over their connection points.Remove your SIM card and any memory cards.Make sure to cancel your account or switch your number before you recycle the phone.One of two fates will await your phone, though you won't have a choice of which one it will meet. If refurbished, the handset will be spruced up and either donated to a charity or resold by the carrier or a third party. If it's recycled, the handset will be salvaged for useful parts with the rest of the materials going to an eco-friendly disposal. Any valuable parts can then be reused in another gadget.If going green is a top concern, why not consider a handset like Verizon's Samsung Intensity II It's made from recycled materials, the package is partially printed with soy ink, and the box is smaller and is composed of 60 percent recycled paper.For more resources, check out these consumer sites from the EPA and CTIA.The best options SprintAs Sprint is eager to tell you, Newsweek listed it last October as the sixth greenest company in the United States. And to its credit, the carrier beats its rivals  in ways to put an old phone out to pasture. With the Buyback Program, new and existing customers will receive account credit when they trade in a used handset. You then can apply the credit toward your monthly bill or the purchase of a new phone. Not every device is eligible, but the long list of approved phones and tablets includes models that Sprint doesn't carry. For example, a 64GB Wi-Fi iPad will earn you $195, a T-Mobile MyTouch 4G is worth $85.69, a Samsung Restore brings $26, and an LG EnV Touch delivers $12 in account credit. Normal wear and tear is fine, but the product must turn on and be free of corrosion, water damage, and display scratches.To participate, you can visit a Sprint store (where you'll get your credit instantly) or print a shipping label online . If you use the latter method, Sprint will pay for postage though it will take a few weeks for a credit to post to your account. Once received, the device will either be refurbished or recycled. For more on the Buyback Program, check out Sprint's FAQ.If your phone isn't on the list of eligible devices, you can send it in for recycling through Sprint's Project Connect. Sprint will accept all phones in any condition, plus accessories, chargers, extra batteries, packaging, and user manuals. Prepaid shipping labels are available online or you can find them at Sprint stores and inside the box of most of the carrier's current handsets. Proceeds from the sale of parts will go to organizations like the National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children, Boys &amp; Girls Clubs of America, and the National Education Association Health Information Network.Verizon WirelessBig Red also offers credit for old devices through its Trade-In Program. The process is very much like Sprint's program: first you select your device, denote its condition, and print the free shipping label. Then, just send on its way and wait for a Verizon gift card with the corresponding credit. Verizon also accept a broad range of phones andtablets, including devices that it never sold. The list is comparable to Sprint's, though credit will vary widely. For example, a 64GB Wi-FiiPad has an appraised value of $175, a Samsung Restore is $1, a T-Mobile MyTouch 4G is $112, and an LG EnV Touch is $30. If your display is cracked or the device doesn't power on, you'll get just a couple of dollars if you get anything at all.Alternatively, Verizon's HopeLine program also will accept all phones for either reuse or recycling. Refurbished phones won't go back to Verizon, but will be donated along with 3,000 minutes of wireless service to domestic violence organizations. To donate a device, you can print a prepaid shipping label online. And if you just have a battery to dispose of, the carrier has a separate program through the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp.Still goodAT&amp;TThrough AT&amp;T's Reuse and Recycle Program, you can recycle an old phone by dropping it off at an AT&amp;T store. The carrier will accept all types of handsets as well as accessories and extra batteries. You also can recycle used handsets through the Cell Phones for Soldiers program, which uses funds from donated cell phones to buy prepaid calling cards for active-duty military personnel. Prepaid shipping labels are available at company-owned stores or online.Virgin MobileWhen you buy a new Virgin Mobile phone, the carrier will accept your old device for reuse or recycling. Refurbished handsets will then be sold to new Virgin Mobile customers or sold at a reduced rate to, as Virgin puts it, &quot;people who are in need of a mobile phone.&quot; On the other hand, profits from recycling efforts will got to charitable partners.Another option is the Pass it On program. After you buy a new Virgin Mobile phone, you can pass on your old handset to a friend or even a stranger (after transferring your number, of course). When that person activates the phone to their account, you'll receive 60 minutes in calling credit.Boost MobileBoost will recycle your phone with proceeds benefiting Global Inheritance. All models in any condition are accepted and you can get a prepaid shipping label on Boost's site.Just averageU.S. CellularThough it doesn't offer a dedicated green page on its Web site, U.S. Cellular will recycle any wireless phone that you bring to a carrier-owned store.T-MobileIf you're a T-Mobile customer, the Handset Recycling Program will be your only option, though the carrier will accept all wireless devices and accessories in any condition. T-Mobile stores will take donations or you can print free shipping labels online (PDF). MetroPCSWith MetroPCS' EcoSave Program, you can bring old phones, batteries, and accessories to any MetroPCS store for recycling.Cricket WirelessCricket partners with ReCellular to recycle or refurbish phones. You can get the shipping labels on Cricket's site or drop off your devices at the carrier's retail stores. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[App finds iPad 2 stock in nearby stores]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=app-finds-ipad-2-stock-in-nearby-stores</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=app-finds-ipad-2-stock-in-nearby-stores</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>TakiraJanaka</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=app-finds-ipad-2-stock-in-nearby-stores</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Debra Orton)DespiteiPad 2 ship times currently sitting at one to two weeks from Apple, many customers still opt to get one sooner by trying their luck at local retailers. However, trying to find one specific color, in the capacity and connectivity of choice for the 18 possible variations, can be a hit-or-miss affair when shopping at nearby stores.Attempting to solve that, a new app called FindOne gathers stock information from Target and Wal-mart stores and lets users pick the specific models they want to see if they are available and where they can get them.The application makes use of your location to figure out how far away the stores are and provides store details like hours of operation, addresses, and phone numbers to get in touch to verify its information. Not supported are Apple stores, RadioShack, Best Buy, or Toys &quot;R&quot; Us retail locations, where iPad 2 models can also be found. On developer Debra Orton's support site, she says RadioShack and Toys &quot;R&quot; Us will be included in future updates.The app is free of charge, and only available for iOS devices. (via App Advice)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Adobe CS 5.5 inches closer to build once, output many]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=adobe-cs-5-5-inches-closer-to-build-once-output-many</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=adobe-cs-5-5-inches-closer-to-build-once-output-many</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 10 Apr 2011 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>10JogosMario</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=adobe-cs-5-5-inches-closer-to-build-once-output-many</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Let's get this out of the way first: if you're looking for updates to Photoshop, move along, there's nothing to see here. Ditto for Illustrator and Fireworks. While there's a lot going on in Adobe's bump toCreative Suite 5.5, those products will retain the CS5 moniker. As for the rest of the crew, the updates to the applications fall into 4 categories: single source, multiple target workflow enhancements' improved interapplication integration' performance boosts and interface tweaks' and broader support for a variety of formats. I'm not going to list all the various new features and tools--that's a great way to lose the forest for the trees--and instead hit some of the highlights. If you're looking for detailed information on any particular product, you can find it on Adobe's site. Also announced today&amp;149' Photoshop Touch SDK drives 3 Adobe iPad apps&amp;149' Adobe's new subscription model&amp;149' Adobe wakes to mobile world, Web standardsSo what's new InDesign makes the ePub format contort in ways it was never intended to' that is, rather than output basic text documents, you can now do fancy-schmancy multimedia stuff like embed video and audio, determine article flow and dynamically resize images. If you're a big publisher and use the Digital Publishing Suite, you can create .folio files with interactive image overlays that support audio, video, slideshows and hyperlinks. To me, though, the most noteworthy addition is mapping styles to HTML, ePub, and PDF tags, as well as the ability to add CSS class names and custom tags.Flash Pro and Catalyst have improved roundtripping with each other. Catalyst has some interface tweaks, including a new common Library panel. (I'm not a Flash user, but I have to say--Adobe's just adding an Align panel now) You can also define projects as resizable with parametric scaling. Flash Pro has been updated to support the latest versions of the Player and AIR, with source-level debugging on AIR devices. There's enhanced layer handling (including copy/paste and duplicate), parametric object scaling relative to stage size, and symbol rasterizing to improve playback performance.On the video side, Premiere Pro, After Effects and Audition all seem to play better with each other, and incorporate interface tweaks and performance boosts. Adobe boosted the selection of GPUs supported by Premiere Pro's Mercury Playback Engine, as well as upped the variety of operations which take advantage of it. There seem to be improvements in handling RED workflows and Canon XF video, as well as a new Merge Clips feature for syncing that pesky timecode-free audio that comes from dSLR shooting. Media Encoder has new presets for rendering to a variety of screen sizes. After Effects incorporates the Warp Stabilizer image-stabilization feature about which Adobe released video previews recently. There's also a set of depth-of-field tools to make your video look like it was shot with a dSLR, along with its artistic anti-particle, 3D stereoscopic editing. Audition now runs natively on theMac OS, and supports native 5.1 surround editing.Finally, as you'd expect, Dreamweaver beefs up its HTML5 and CSS3 implementations with an enhanced CSS panel and CSS3 code hinting, and updated Live View to support CSS3 attributes. For multiplatform coders, Adobe improved the Multiscreen Preview panel. Now you can see how your beautiful designs will render on all sorts of tiny device screens simultaneously!<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[2010: The year Apple also became a chip company]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=2010-the-year-apple-also-became-a-chip-company</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=2010-the-year-apple-also-became-a-chip-company</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 24 Mar 2011 07:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>zisirbimVeroni</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=2010-the-year-apple-also-became-a-chip-company</guid>
<description><![CDATA[While changes in the ancient market-share rivalry between chipmakers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices were unremarkable in 2010, the emergence of Apple as a force was anything but. The iPad and iPhone are making Apple a force in the chip market. (Credit:Apple)&quot;The competitive state of affairs remained very much the same two-horse race it has been for more than 20 years, with Intel firmly in the lead and AMD a distant second,&quot; IHS iSuppli said in a research note today. Intel finished 2010 with an 81 percent share of global microprocessor revenue, up a scant 0.4 percentage points from its 80.6 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, AMD ended the year with an 11.4 percent share, down 0.8 points from 12.2 percent in 2009, keeping it in second place, iSuppli said. With that out of the way, we have the much more interesting rise of Apple. &quot;The year 2010 was marked by the rise of a new platform: the mediatablet, led byApple's iPad, which employed a [chip] at its heart designed by Apple,&quot; said iSuppli. Though the Apple A4 processor and recently announced A5 chip are made by Samsung Electronics, that's no different than, for instance, Qualcomm-branded chips, which are fabricated by Asia-based contract chip manufacturers. The note continues. &quot;IHS believes unit shipments of media tablets soared to 17.4 million in 2010, up from zero in 2009, with levels expected to grow to more than 240 million units in 2015.&quot; 240 million is a very big number and portends seismic shifts in the chip market--a lot of that potentially coming at the expense of Intel and AMD, which make chips primarily for PCs. iSuppli also noted that most Intel and AMD chips in 2010 included built-in graphics circuitry, a trend that will continue in 2011 and beyond. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Sprint dials up Google Voice for all subscribers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sprint-dials-up-google-voice-for-all-subscribers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sprint-dials-up-google-voice-for-all-subscribers</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 21 Mar 2011 07:10:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abnusiredf</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sprint-dials-up-google-voice-for-all-subscribers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Sprint makes it easy to use Google Voice.(Credit:Google/Sprint)Little by little, Google Voice has encroached on U.S. mobile operators' turf, most recently offering to port a subscriber's carrier-assigned cell phone number for use with Google Voice's service. But now for one carrier, potential friction has given way to partnership.Sprint and Google announced today deep integration with Google Voice that lets subscribers use their Sprint phone number as a Google Voice number to access the service's features. These include transcribed visual voice mail (manage voice messages as you would your e-mail), call forwarding (calls ring through on your cell phone, home phone, office phone, Gmail inbox, and so on), custom voice mail greetings, and competitive international calling rates, among many more offerings.Google and Sprint have been in talks for about a year, Vincent Paquet, senior product manager for Google Voice, told CNET. &quot;We always felt that the ultimate simplicity would be to just use [Google Voice] with your mobile phone,&quot; Paquet said. He declined to comment on details pertaining to the deal, and questions about Google's deals with other carriers.Benefits of Google VoiceAnyone could sign up for the free Google Voice service before, but today's agreement has a few notable benefits. First, Sprint simplifies getting on board with Google Voice. Previously, Google Voice users on any carrier needed to walk through a number of steps to either get a new Google Voice number, port their existing number, or let Google handle just the voice mail. The results could be confusing, with friends often collecting multiple phone numbers for a contact, depending on a several factors, including if the Google Voice user has a feature phone, or uses a Google Voice mobile app or Web-optimized site from a smartphone.As a second benefit, all Google Voice calls will originate from the same single number--the one first issued by Sprint. Third, if you enable Google Voice, the service will replace Sprint's voice mailbox on your phone, so dialing &quot;1&quot; from the handset dials up your Google Voice message inbox. There is no extra set-up required. Fourth, Sprint smartphones get most Google Voice features without requiring a mobile app. Texting is one exception to this last point, however. Sprint's rates and plans still apply for messages sent from the phone's default texting program, but Google Voice texts will remain free to the United States and Canada if you send them from the Web or from a Google Voice smartphone app.Prepaid phones and MVNOs that ride on Sprint's network--like Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile--are ineligible for the Sprint/Google Voice combo.Signing upThere are several ways to enable Google Voice on a Sprint phone. When new users sign up online, Google Voice will recognize Sprint numbers before guiding you through the setup process. Existing users who log in will receive a prompt to switch to the Sprint number. This is optional, of course.We look forward to testing the service out in the coming days, and we'll likely hear much more from Google and Sprint this week at CTIA. Check back with CNET for more insights, and feel free to leave your own in the comments.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Plaxo re-focuses on address book maintenance, faces new competition (updated)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plaxo-re-focuses-on-address-book-maintenance-faces-new-competition-updated</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plaxo-re-focuses-on-address-book-maintenance-faces-new-competition-updated</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 16 Mar 2011 07:11:15 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>stuartggsr</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plaxo-re-focuses-on-address-book-maintenance-faces-new-competition-updated</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Plaxo Personal Assistant will monitor the public Web for updates on your contacts.(Credit:Plaxo)This review has been updated throughout, now that I have had hands-on experience with the Plaxo Personal Assistant product. Some time after its launch back in 2002, contact list management app Plaxo lost its way. Leadership at the company saw social networking as a bandwagon it had to get on and made Plaxo into a personal social hub--which nobody really needed. It was the second bad mistake Plaxo had made with its service, the first being its habit of sending requests for updated information to users' contacts that were often taken for spam. Nobody liked Plaxo's users, even though Plaxo's core address book updating and multidevice sync functions were quite useful.  Now the company, a division of Comcast for the last three years, is going back to its roots as a contact updating and synchronization service, which is still a needed function. If you've got different and conflicting address books on the Web, your e-mail app, and your phone, then you know the problem well. The new Plaxo also dials back on the outbound e-mails, so you can use it without becoming a pariah. But it's facing off with a less well-known competitor that performs a similar function for 100 percent less money.  Plaxo is officially dumping the redundant social-network portal today and launching a new service to automate address book maintenance for its users. The new Plaxo Personal Assistant takes your personal address book and goes out to the public Internet to find updates for the information in it. Then it syncs that data back to your existing address books (on Outlook or Google) and devices (iPhones and so on).  Unlike Hiya (see review below), which uses White Pages data to update home addresses and phone numbers of your contacts, Plaxo uses ZoomInfo to update business contact details, like the companies your contacts work for, and their titles and work contact information. That's of more business use, obviously, than White Pages data. And having the data updated automatically means you don't end up annoying your contacts with impersonal impingements on their time. You won't get unlisted and private information, of course, but you will get to keep your friends happy.  I was also not willing to experiment with Plaxo's sync function to send its data back to my main contact list on our company's Exchange server. As is the case with many people I know, my own address book is made from a collection of separate and fragile lists in various Exchange folders, plus someiPhone-only addresses. As much as I would like to pull all these lists together, Smalley told me I'd have to disable existing Exchange sync functionality on my phone, and also install software on my PC, to sync with Outlook directly to make Plaxo work, and we weren't sure all my data would make the transition back to Exchange. I did connect my Plaxo account to a Gmail account, and the two-way synchronization was fast and accurate.  Plaxo's best features are not cheap. The new automatic update feature, Plaxo Personal Assistant, is $79.95 a year. The sync tool, Plaxo Platinum Sync, is also a paid service, at $59.95 a year. You can get both for $120 a year (a savings of $1.66 a month, if you're counting). Plaxo is a useful service, but these are high prices. Someone who's concerned enough about contact maintenance is probably already paying for LinkedIn (starting at $239.40 a year) and possibly an e-mail intelligence app like Xobni Plus ($95.88), both of which you're more likely to use day-to-day. Plaxo does have a useful free function that it used to charge for, a de-duper to get rid of the dust bunnies of modern address books: the repeated contacts that come from the contact list merges we do from time to time, such as when moving to a new mobile device. This tool works well, merging data appropriately from separate records, and always asking before performing a merge that may not make sense. The de-duper is a key feature given Plaxo's focus on merging and synchronizing contact lists from multiple sources (Outlook, Google, smartphones, etc). Plaxo will collate your address books from all your sources, and merge them into one online address book (at Plaxo.com) for free, which is good for backing up your personal contact lists. But it is the paid services that make Plaxo really useful. Hiya also updates contacts from public information--but it&amp;39's free.(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)If you don't want that, try thisThere's a serious competitor to Plaxo, called Hiya. Like Plaxo, it will de-dupe your contacts and update them automatically from public White Pages data. I fed Hiya my iPhone address book, and it did a good job at finding and merging duplicate contacts. It also put personal (home) contact information that I didn't have into my address book. Hiya doesn't, though, know much about contacts' work information, as that data isn't in phonebooks. For keeping business contacts up to date, Plaxo Personal Assistant does a better job.  As with Plaxo, though, a flaw in the system meant I couldn't sync my changes back to my iPhone address book. In Hiya's case, I was alerted that enabling two-way sync would replace all the photos in my iPhone address book (and by extension my synced Exchange contacts) with blanks. That wasn't a feature I wanted.  Hiya does not work directly with Outlook or Exchange, but if you enable two-way sync to your iPhone, you can update your PC-based addresses indirectly. It will connect to Google Contacts, though. It will also, if you ask it to, e-mail your contacts asking for updated contact information. Plaxo has taught us that people dislike receiving those e-mails.  One big advantage: Hiya is free. I like its iPhone app, too.  There's a big limitation in both Hiya and Plaxo: Neither uses Facebook or LinkedIn as a source for updating contact info. These social networks are the de facto white pages of today's Internet, so it's a shame that these utilities don't use them. I'm told that in the case of Facebook, it's because that service doesn't allow API calls to the address book (for once, Facebook is more private than it should be)' Hiya representatives tell me that Facebook integration is coming, though. Recommendations (updated)For people who want to keep their address books updated with personal information on their contacts, Hiya is a good address book management utility. It's free, easy to use, and does a good job with de-duping and filling in information. Plaxo is better for automatically updating business contact information, but you'll pay a lot for the service. Plaxo also remains the go-to updating service for users who are primarily on Outlook. It's a shame neither service does a complete job, updating both personal and work information accurately.  Anyone with an older or complicated address book scheme should proceed with caution, however, as neither system has perfected the mechanism to sync updated contact lists back to PC- or phone-based address books.  See also Soocial, which does sync and de-duping.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Google planning mobile payment trial]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-google-planning-mobile-payment-trial</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-google-planning-mobile-payment-trial</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 15 Mar 2011 07:11:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>jathomthmm</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-google-planning-mobile-payment-trial</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Google plans to begin testing a mobile payment service within the next four months, according to a report today.  The company will pay for the installation of thousands of NFC (Near-Field Communication) short-range, wireless point-of-sale systems from VeriFone at stores in New York and San Francisco, Bloomberg reported, citing two unidentified sources familiar with the project. Users of phones with NFC chips in them could then make payments by holding the devices up to the specialized reader.  A Google representative said the company was not commenting on the report. Representatives from VeriFone did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment. The adoption of mobile payment systems has been held up by the lack of NFC chips in handsets. Later this year, Visa will begin offering  a way to use existing smartphones for such payments with a microSD (Secure Digital) removable memory card.  Mobile payments are being made on theiPhone 3 and 4, various BlackBerry models, and Samsung's Android-based Galaxy S II, while the Nexus S has NFC technology in it. NFC chips also could make their way into Windows-based phones made by Nokia, as well as future iPhone versions.  Meanwhile, Google added some NFC capabilities to Android in an update earlier this year and reportedly is working on a mobile wallet code-named &quot;Cream&quot; that will be integrated into NFC-enabled Androids. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Florida, Carolinas getting smart grids in $500M push]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=florida-carolinas-getting-smart-grids-in-500m-push</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=florida-carolinas-getting-smart-grids-in-500m-push</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 10 Mar 2011 08:11:15 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>TonyMontac</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=florida-carolinas-getting-smart-grids-in-500m-push</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Progress Energy is moving forward with its plan to spend $500 million to upgrade two of its electric utilities in Florida and the Carolinas to a smart-grid system.Together the two utilities provide electricity service to over 3.1 million customers. The Raleigh,N.C.-based company is paying for the upgrade in part with a $200 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The grant came out of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and is part of the high-profile push by the Obama administration and many state leaders to upgrade U.S. electric grids.The project is also a boon to IBM's efforts to grow its presence in the potentially lucrative industry of smart-grid analytics. Progress Energy plans to use IBM's WebSphere software platform as a tool to integrate distribution management and demand response systems. Big Blue has also been hired to help install and implement the systems in conjunction with Progress Energy, IBM announced today.IBM has run several pilot programs to test smart-grid systems in the past four years, including a consumer-level one in North Carolina in 2009 which found that on average, the introduction of smart-grid technology and smart meters cut electricity use by 15 percent.In the case of Progress Energy, however, IBM's services will concentrate on equipment and system upgrades, analytics, and management that will enable the company's utilities to better control things like voltage levels, as well as electricity distribution across power lines.IBM is one of a number of blue-chip companies getting into the smart-grid industry in recent years through software and services. Many of them have done so by buying smaller companies with existing technology, as is the case with Johnson Controls' purchase of EnergyConnect, Honeywell's purchase of Akuacom, and Siemens' acquisition of Site Controls.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Kiss Controller: Smooch your way to high scores]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kiss-controller-smooch-your-way-to-high-scores</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kiss-controller-smooch-your-way-to-high-scores</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:10:46 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Elina</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kiss-controller-smooch-your-way-to-high-scores</guid>
<description><![CDATA[PDA for geeky gamers.(Credit:Hye Yeon Nam)&amp;60'bragging&amp;62'My girlfriend often tells me I'm a great kisser &amp;60'/bragging&amp;62', and now those skills could help me become a gaming Casanova.Artist (and Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate) Hye Yeon Nam and Sam Mendenhall have created the Kiss Controller, a project that uses snogging motions to control a bowling video game. Setup is relatively easy' one lovebird straps on a headset with sensor receivers, and the other attaches a magnet on their tongue using Fixodent. I can just imagine the odd stare I'll get at the drugstore buying a value size tube of denture adhesive.To play, the person with the magnet on his or her tongue uses mouth muscles to guide the direction and speed of the bowling ball. As you can see in the video below, centering the ball is a rather tongue-tying experience, while speed is determined by how fast you kiss. Unfortunately, my style of kissing is a little slower and more tender, so I'll have to wait for Romantic Kiss Controller.The Kiss Controller's primary goal is to elicit the &quot;emotional experience of a kinetic act while users play the game rather than control games with their body.&quot; The controller has &quot;not been proposed to the video game industry,&quot; but it has gotten a lot of attention in the tech world lately. Sadly, a girl (or guy) is not included with the game.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Stream your own video content to iPads with JetStream HD]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=stream-your-own-video-content-to-ipads-with-jetstream-hd</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=stream-your-own-video-content-to-ipads-with-jetstream-hd</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 27 Feb 2011 08:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>winbugpnos2u</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=stream-your-own-video-content-to-ipads-with-jetstream-hd</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In a world of cloud-based applications and media, it seems very 20th century that it's been difficult to stream movies and TV shows from collections on our home computers or media servers to mobile devices like iPads and iPhones.But a new product called JetStream HD is aiming to change that dynamic. Launching at Demo Spring 2011 in Palm Desert, Calif., this week, JetStream HD combines hardware and software to serve up your personal media to aniPad, and in the near future to other devices like iPhones andiPod Touches, and possiblyAndroid tablets.JetStream HD is a new product that could give users an easy way to stream all kinds of media from their home devices to an iPad.(Credit:JetStream)JetStream HD users who pay the one-time $199 fee will get a special appliance that they connect via an Ethernet cable to a Wi-Fi router in their home. Any content from a home computer or media server that they want to view on the go is then captured wirelessly--or through a USB connection--and streamed over the Internet to their iPad. JetStream HD requires a visit to Apple's App Store for its dedicated iPad app, which authenticates the user, ensuring that only they can view the content.The idea here is that users should be able to access all their rich media any time they want no matter where they are. JetStream CEO Grant Hall argued that while other services like Stream to Me and Air Video offer personal media streaming, they depend on software running on a user's home machine and therefore can be hamstrung if that computer lacks sufficient horsepower. As a result, Hall suggested, they cannot usually stream in high-definition.By comparison, he said, JetStream HD can do just that, utilizing video conversion technology embedded in the appliance to boost the quality of the movie or TV show to HD when it arrives on the mobile device. That means, Hall said, that users should have no problem getting the quality they're used to from content like Blu-Ray movies stored at home.At the same time, viewing video content in HD on the mobile device is meant to be continuous even if a user moves their iPad from a Wi-Fi connection to 3G--if they have a 3G-enabled device. JetStream HD auto adapts to the bandwidth available, Hall said, meaning that users generally have a seamless experience even if they move outside a Wi-Fi network. If the bandwidth available drops, users &quot;may see [the] picture soften slightly,&quot; Hall said.In addition to video content--either movies, TV shows, or a user's personal own videos--JetStream HD can also stream photos or music. In that, it is similar to what another product called Pogoplug does--send a user's personal content to mobile devices via an appliance that plugs into a wireless router in the home. Pogoplug will also soon make it possible to stream video.Scrapes for metadata Another feature of JetStream HD is that its software is designed to search the Internet, scraping for metadata related to the content that is available for streaming. They will see lists of content available from their home computer or media server and related information such as genres for their movies, the season and episode number for any TV show, and cover art for music. The JetStream software also provides search options so users can enter keywords and find content they're looking for, Hall promised.And if new content is added at home, it will automatically be added to the database, meaning that it will instantly show up as available on the mobile device.The appliance has two USB ports, allowing users to plug in two external hard drives or thumb drives. In the future, Hall said, the service is likely to be configured so that a USB camera could be plugged into the appliance, allowing for applications like a security system where users can see what's going on in or around their home at any time via their mobile device.Hall said that JetStream will begin taking orders for the product this week and it is expected to be released in April or May. The Canadian company is funded through a combination of the founders' own money, some support from the Canadian government, and investments by family and friends. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Researchers unveil first mm-scale computing system]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=researchers-unveil-first-mm-scale-computing-system</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=researchers-unveil-first-mm-scale-computing-system</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 Feb 2011 08:11:02 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>domingalom</dc:creator>
<category>Social</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=researchers-unveil-first-mm-scale-computing-system</guid>
<description><![CDATA[University of Michigan computer scientists and engineers are at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco today presenting papers on two systems: a prototype implantable eye pressure monitor for glaucoma patients and a compact radio for wireless sensor networks.This prototype implantable eye pressure monitor is 1 cubic millimeter.(Credit:Greg Chen)What makes their presentation so remarkable is that both systems involve what is believed to be the first complete millimeter-scale computing system.The near-invisible package is just over 1 cubic millimeter in size and includes an ultra-low-power microprocessor, a thin-film battery, a solar cell, memory, a pressure sensor, and a wireless radio with an antenna.&quot;Millimeter-scale systems...have a host of new applications for monitoring our bodies, our environment, and our buildings,&quot; said Professor David Blaauw in a news release. &quot;Because they're so small, you could manufacture hundreds of thousands on one wafer. There could be 10s to 100s of them per person, and it's this per capita increase that fuels the semiconductor industry's growth.&quot;The team points to Bell's Law, formulated by computer engineer Gordon Bell in 1972, which says that a new class of smaller and cheaper computers is developed roughly every decade. This is considered to be a partial corollary to Moore's Law, established in 1970 and named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore (first names coincidental), which describes the now 50-plus-year trend that the number of transistors able to be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every two years.The new system out of Michigan is being hailed as the first in a new class of millimeter-scale computing, and while the researchers are specifically targeting the medical side of body sensor networks, other potential applications include tracking such things as pollution, weapons, structural integrity, and more.The eye pressure monitor is designed not only for direct implantation but also continuous tracking of glaucoma, a disease that can lead to blindness. It incorporates the team's third-gen Phoenix Processor, which combines an extreme sleep mode and a unique power-gating system for ultra-low-power usage (averaging 5.3 nanowatts).The system wakes every 15 minutes to take measurements and relies on 10 hours of indoor light or 1.5 hours of sunlight every day for full battery recharging. The team says the device could be commercially available in the next several years.The researchers are also working on a radio with an on-chip antenna using an advanced complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process that allows them to control the antenna's shape and size, and thus its response to electrical signals. Because of this control, they can do away with the bulky external crystals that keep time and select radio frequency bands for communication between two isolated devices, thereby drastically reducing the size of the radio system.The university hopes to patent these tiny-yet-huge developments, and is looking for commercial partners to help bring the tech to market.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[At security confab, Clinton urges risk, investment]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at-security-confab-clinton-urges-risk-investment</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at-security-confab-clinton-urges-risk-investment</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:11:13 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Zoolepype</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=at-security-confab-clinton-urges-risk-investment</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Former U.S. President Bill Clinton addresses RSA attendees.(Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET)SAN FRANCISCO--Like any great endeavor, information technology does not come without its risks, former President Bill Clinton said this afternoon during a speech at the RSA security conference here.Clinton stressed that this was especially true given recent events in Egypt, efforts to secure free Internet access around the world, investigations into WikiLeaks, and the fallout from the Stuxnet virus. &quot;There are no totally risk-free endeavors and advances,&quot; Clinton said. &quot;At every step along the way we have to ask ourselves, 'what is it we're really trying to do here'&quot;Clinton closed out the weeklong security conference with a talk entitled &quot;Embracing Our Common Humanity,&quot; in which he focused on the importance of making sure there is good political policy to back up new technologies, so as not to repeat mistakes made in the past. Part of such an effort also involves looking for evidence to make the right decisions, Clinton said. &quot;You can have all the technology you want, but if you don't have good information, you're going to make the wrong choices,&quot; he said. Even so, Clinton knocked an organization that had plenty of information--WikiLeaks (or as he mistakenly called it during the speech &quot;Wikipedia leaks&quot;)--for not giving up its own Internet records once under investigation. Clinton referred to the situation as ironic. As was the case with a past RSA keynote speech by Al Gore, who served as vice president to Clinton, those with press badges were barred from attending the talk by Clinton because of a &quot;contract restriction.&quot; But RSA attendees with different sorts of credentials (including, in this case, CNET News staffers) were allowed to snap photos and blog during Clinton's presentation.During the nearly hour-long talk, Clinton ran through a brief history of economics and policy changes, emphasizing how the focus of the U.S. economy following his administration had led to a set of industries that didn't encourage IT jobs. &quot;We went through a long eight-year period when there was no source of new jobs. When all of America's economic growth were in housing, consumer spending, and finance,&quot; Clinton said. &quot;And if you think about it, they're all inherantly self-limiting, and when you go beyond the limits they're all fraught with opportunities for disaster.&quot;&quot;Throughout history, everything that has value is subject to being stolen, or altered. So at one level, everybody in cybersecurity is sort of like the most modern cop on the beat. And you're dealing with human nature's inevitable tendency to try to take advantage of whatever the latest object of value is. But it is profoundly important.&quot; --Former U.S. President Bill ClintonOf course hindsight is 20-20, which is why Clinton talked up the importance of risk in regard to projects like the Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The Hadron Collider was not just about subatomic particles, Clinton said, it was also about the computers, and the IT that made the setup possible. Clinton also compared the security industry to a modern day police force. &quot;Throughout history, everything that has value is subject to being stolen, or altered,&quot; Clinton said. &quot;So at one level, everybody in cybersecurity is sort of like the most modern cop on the beat. And you're dealing with human nature's inevitable tendency to try to take advantage of whatever the latest object of value is. But it is profoundly important.&quot; Clinton said he believed his administration to be the first to deal with both the opportunity and challenge of the information technology era, with, among other things, its establishment of the Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, an effort to guard against technological threats that could disrupt critical parts of the economy.&quot;It seems ludicrous now, but every third person was convinced that the world would come to an end when computers failed to actually make the conversion when 2000 occurred,&quot; he joked. &quot;Nothing bad happened, but the work we did provided sort of a template for the efforts that the executive branch made when I was there in the cybersecurity era.&quot;Following his speech, Clinton briefly mentioned yesterday's Silicon Valley visit by President Obama during a question and answer session. Clinton said he hoped Obama was going through a similar process to the one he himself went through in 1991-92, in which his administration tried to determine where jobs were likely to come from, as well as what public policies and private incentives were likely to bring the biggest gains. &quot;I think you have to understand where we are, where we're going, and what we need to do,&quot; Clinton said.        Josh Lowensohn     Full Profile E-mail Josh Lowensohn   E-mail Josh Lowensohn If you have a question or comment for Josh Lowensohn, 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       Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Microsoft. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house.      Topics:  News    Tags:  Clinton,   Bill Clinton,   security,   RSA 2011,   Talk      Share: Digg Del.icio.us Reddit Facebook Twitter                <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Rhapsody bites back at Apple]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rhapsody-bites-back-at-apple</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rhapsody-bites-back-at-apple</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:10:41 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>carolin7831</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rhapsody-bites-back-at-apple</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Rhapsody is the first company to take issue publicly with Apple&amp;39's new App Store subscription policy.(Credit:Rhapsody)With Apple officially sharing the details of its new App Store subscription plan, which lays the groundwork for Apple to take a 30-percent cut from publishers who sell content within their apps, we were waiting for some reaction from content providers. Well, one, Rhapsody, has finally braved Apple's wrath and issued a statement saying Apple's new arrangement was &quot;economically untenable.&quot; And while it didn't threaten legal action, it certainly hinted at it. Here's the full statement from Rhapsody's President, Jon Irwin:Rhapsody is the leading digital music subscription service in the U.S.,with 750,000 subscribers. Music fans can access the service using free apps from any Internet-connected device, be it on an Android, Sonos, Tivo, BlackBerry, iOS or personal computer. Today, Rhapsody subscriptions are available for purchase exclusively via Rhapsody.com.Rhapsody offers a content-based subscription service that makes millions of tracks available to fans pursuant to longstanding partnerships with thousands of rights holders, all of which then distribute revenues to artists and other creators.Our philosophy is simple too--an Apple-imposed arrangement that requires us to pay 30 percent of our revenue to Apple, in addition to content fees that we pay to the music labels, publishers and artists, is economically untenable. The bottom line is we would not be able to offer our service through the iTunes store if subjected to Apple's 30 percent monthly fee vs. a typical 2.5 percent credit card fee.We will continue to allow consumers to sign up at www.rhapsody.com from a smartphone or any other Internet access point, including theSafari browser on theiPhone andiPad. In the meantime, we will be collaborating with our market peers in determining an appropriate legal and business response to this latest development.While Apple is reportedly giving publishers and content sellers several months (June 30) to remove any links within their apps to outside-the-App Store purchasing options, a major battle is brewing and it remains unclear just what heavyweights such as Netflix, Barnes &amp; Noble, and Amazon, which has sold millions of e-books via its iPad and iPhone apps, will do. Under the new rules, it appears that Amazon will be forced to sell those e-books directly from the app, with Apple taking its 30 percent royalty. For iPad-centric publications like the recently launched The Daily, Apple's 30 percent is baked into the business plan. But this probably doesn't work for many content sellers that can't afford to have those percentages skimmed off sales. Whether there's a viable workaround for companies or whether this is a negotiating tactic by Apple is unclear. But eventually this may develop into a game of chicken, with companies threatening to pull their apps from the App Store and initiate legal action while Apple continues to flex its muscles and demand what it feels is its proper due for creating a huge market. According to law professors interviewed for a Wall Street Journal article, Apple's new subscription service could draw antitrust scrutiny.As we said, Rhapsody hasn't quite played the pull-out card yet, but it seems to be moving in that direction. Should make for an interesting few months and I'm sure we'll be writing a lot more about this growing tussle as we get closer to June. More: Apple unveils subscription service in App Store         David Carnoy     Full Profile E-mail David Carnoy   E-mail David Carnoy If you have a question or comment for David Carnoy, 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       Hunkered down in New York City, Executive Editor David Carnoy covers the gamut of gadgets and writes his Fully Equipped column, which carries the tag line &quot;The electronics you lust for.&quot; He's also the author of &quot;Knife Music,&quot; a novel that's available at Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, and as a Kindle or Nook e-book.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft looks to health care for improved security]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-looks-to-health-care-for-improved-security</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-looks-to-health-care-for-improved-security</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>craigemiller600</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-looks-to-health-care-for-improved-security</guid>
<description><![CDATA[SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft wants to make tomorrow's tech-security world work a lot like tomorrow's health care industry.While the comparison has long been made in the security industry, with threats like &quot;viruses,&quot; Scott Charney, corporate vice president in Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, noted that the response to those problems has fallen short in areas where health care has proved more agile.&quot;Every year there's a new version of the flu,&quot; Charney said to attendees of this year's RSA Conference. &quot;There was a time before SARS, and a time before H1N1. And when those threats appeared, [the health care industry] didn't scramble to know what to do, they already had defenses.&quot; Microsoft's multistep plan to put a similar safety net in place approaches the problems from both a security and a data ownership position.Charney said one option is cryptographically signed health certificates. These would be provided for users who had gone through various security check protocols to prove their machine was not dripping with malware before getting on something like a bank's site or a local intranet.The second aspect of this measure would be alerting people to possible security holes ahead of when their machines have been compromised. That way, they could put fixes into place before encountering attack scenarios, as well as to avoid compatibility issues with sites and services.Charney also highlighted the importance of making sure whatever lockdown system went into place for compromised machines would not go too far, so critical services like VoIP weren't being sealed off as well. After all, Charney said, nobody wants to be kept from calling 911 during a heart attack because their computer needs to download software updates.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Imagining a quad-core Motorola Xoom]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=imagining-a-quad-core-motorola-xoom</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=imagining-a-quad-core-motorola-xoom</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>NOheart</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=imagining-a-quad-core-motorola-xoom</guid>
<description><![CDATA[As chipmakers trip over each other to announcetablet-centric chips packing four processing engines, it's not hard to see where a product like the Motorola Xoom is headed. Where The same performance space a mainstream laptop occupies now. A graphic Nvidia released to CNET shows its next-generation Tegra processor exceeding Intel's Core 2 Duo processor (the chip used in many, if not most, laptops today) in performance. And Nvidia is claiming benchmarks back up this (see second embedded video below). Benchmarks aside, it's easy to imagine a future Motorola Xoom tablet tackling image processing with proficiency that is similar or better than a Core 2 Duo-based laptop. &quot;Today at Mobile World Congress, we demonstrated [a quad-core Tegra] running in an Android tablet,&quot; Mike Rayfield, manager of Nvidia's mobile business, wrote in a blog today. &quot;This wasn't your average amazing video. It was 1440p video content running on a 25601600 panel. That will enable mobile devices to output to the highest resolution monitors or tablets equipped with a 10.1-inch display with 300 DPI.&quot; Can tablets handle these PC-like processing engines Rayfield said today that customers (which currently include Motorola, Samsung, Toshiba, and LG) are ready for all the processing brawn that Nvidia can muster. &quot;You might well ask, what on earth can be done with nearly 75x improvement in performance over Tegra 2 that Stark [future processor] will provide in 2014 Our customers and partners have already indicated that they're confident they can use everything we give them,&quot; he wrote. Nvidia posted a brief demo (first video below) of what a quad-core tablet's screen might look like flying through graphics-intensive Web sites. Pretty snappy. And, again, not too much of a stretch to imagine a future Xoom packing this kind of punch. Needless to say, Nvidia is trying to set a high-water mark that rivals like Apple will have to match to stay competitive. So, when is that Apple A6 processor due <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Translation, mobile simplicity coming to Twitter]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=translation-mobile-simplicity-coming-to-twitter</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=translation-mobile-simplicity-coming-to-twitter</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:10:46 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>newyorkdd</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=translation-mobile-simplicity-coming-to-twitter</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Twitter Chief Executive Dick Costolo (Credit:Stephen Shankland/CNET)BARCELONA -- To make Twitter easier to use for everyone and similar across platforms the company is aiming for tighter integration with phone services and launching translation tools, Chief Executive Dick Costolo said during his keynote at the Mobile World Congress 2011 here. The company is launching a &quot;crowd sourced&quot; translation center for Russian, Indonesian and Turkish and later this year will be offering its own Portuguese translations, he said.  The service is already popular among many mobile users, providing first photos for news events like the US Airways jet crash landing in the Hudson River two years ago, and unique perspectives like Spanish soccer star Carles Puyol sending a photo via TwitPic while participating in the national parade.  Showing Puyol's photo on the screen&quot; behind him, Costolo said &quot;This tweet to me is a metaphor for what all of us in this room are trying to do&quot; - - enable users to create experiences for each other instead of companies creating the experiences for the users. At the mobile event, in particular, Twitter is focusing on making using the service similar on different platforms.  &quot;Twitter already works on almost everything you're going to hear about this week. From the highest bandwidth, high-touch most elegant interface to the most inexpensive cell phone carrying only SMS,&quot; he said. &quot;I shouldn't have to think about how I use Twitter&quot; when switching devices. Another goal for the company is to make the service simpler to use than it is now, regardless of the platform. For instance, when a photo is taken on a mobile device a user shouldn't have to open a separate platform to post it to, Costolo said. The company also wants to be instantly usable for everyone and retain users even if they don't follow a lot of people, he added. Asked to elaborate during a question-and-answer session, Costolo said that the Android integration allows a user to tweet a photo. But &quot;what I would like are more single sign-on experiences, the ability to tweet from the browser,&quot; he said. &quot;Those kinds of integrations that remove&quot; complexity. Twitter is not merely a microblogging site, but a place where people connect with each other in profound ways that are distinctly social and on a large scale, such as 6,000 tweets sent per second right after midnight on New Year's Eve in Tokyo. The company's mission is to connect people everywhere to what is most meaningful to them, he said.  Ninety-nine percent of tweets in the system have some social context, while 40 percent are made from mobile devices, and 50 percent of the users are active on more than one platform, according to Costolo. During the question-and-answer session, Costolo was asked what the company's biggest fear is and what its biggest mistake has been. The biggest fear is lack of execution, he said. The service is handling more than 130 million tweets per day, &quot;so growth is not an issue' we just need to execute.&quot; As for the biggest mistake, the founders would all agree that would be not initially hiring employees fast enough or scaling quickly enough, he said. A 350-person company doesn't have the resources of a larger company, he said.  Asked to comment on rumors that Google would consider buying the company for $10 billion, Costolo said &quot;people write that stuff down all the time,&quot; but it is &quot;just rumor.&quot;  Meanwhile, the company will have news later this year about enabling more geographic specificity in its Trends product, he said.  Asked what the company can do to help people using Arabic and other languages in areas where there has been recent unrest like Tunisia and Egypt, Costolo said: &quot;We don't support right-to-left languages yet and we need to do that... (We're) trying to get short codes up and running for Twitter via SMS&quot; for countries in the Middle East and North Africa. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Exclusive: Andreessen Horowitz invests $80 million in Twitter]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=exclusive-andreessen-horowitz-invests-80-million-in-twitter</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=exclusive-andreessen-horowitz-invests-80-million-in-twitter</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Exarlropalier</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=exclusive-andreessen-horowitz-invests-80-million-in-twitter</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Andreessen Horowitz has invested more than $80 million in Twitter via purchasing stock in private secondary markets. When called about it by BoomTown, a spokeswoman at the high-profile Silicon Valley venture firm confirmed the purchase. To be clear, Twitter does not get this money--early investors and employees able to sell their privately held Twitter shares do. Buying into the secondary markets--which have recently attracted some controversy and regulatory scrutiny--has become a common way for VCs to invest in a hot start-up without a complex and competitive funding bake-off. The move is an interesting one, since Andreessen Horowitz was not part of the recent $200 million round of venture funding at the San Francisco microblogging company, led by Kleiner Perkins at a $3.75 billion valuation. Sources said that the firm made the move because it is already deeply invested in other key companies in the social space, including gaming giant Zynga, location-focused Foursquare, local discounting phenom Groupon, and general social-networking behemoth Facebook. Apparently, Twitter makes it a full basketball team. The investment by the firm gives more perceptual boost to Twitter, which is still trying to create a lucrative business model for itself, focused on advertising. It needs to, if it want to stay independent for the long haul. While an IPO is a possibility, so is an acquisition. Several months ago, while it was doing its funding round, Twitter had incoming interest from Facebook, which lobbed in a $5 billion soft offer, as well from Google.Story Copyright (c) 2010 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[eBay paying for smartphones]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ebay-paying-for-smartphones</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ebay-paying-for-smartphones</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>joycelinyymc</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ebay-paying-for-smartphones</guid>
<description><![CDATA[                                Smartphone users looking to sell their current devices to pick up a new Verizon iPhone will find eBay a willing buyer.The auction site yesterday launched a special two-week promotion through its Instant Sale feature that offers cash to people willing to sell their current smartphones.Running through February 22, people can receive at least $200 from eBay by sending in any one of a number of phones, including an AT&amp;amp'T iPhone 3GS, a Motorola Droid X, a Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant, or an HTC Evo 4G. Those willing to part with an AT&amp;amp'T 32GB iPhone 4 can grab more than $500.(Credit:eBay)Prices vary based on the condition and functionality of the phone. But for a phone in excellent shape, eBay, of course, is touting its promotion as a better deal than people can get through Best Buy or Verizon Wireless, both of which are promoting their own trade-in or buyback programs to coincide with this week's debut of the Verizon iPhone.eBay's trade-in values do appear to be more competitive, depending on the models and condition. For example, Verizon's trade-in plan appears willing to pay $212 for AT&amp;amp'T's 16GB iPhone 4 and $285 for the 32GB version--as long as the phones function and the displays aren't cracked.Best Buy's online trade-in option will pay $306 for the 16GB iPhone 4 and $337 for the 32GB model, both in the form of gift cards and with both models in good condition. Cash is available at lower amounts.eBay upped the price to $405 for a working 16GB iPhone 4 in excellent condition and to $511 for the 32GB model. For models in good condition, eBay's offers are $344 for the 16GB model and $434 for the 32GB edition.Verizon is also offering $200 in the form of a gift card for certain model smartphones. But that applies only to phones bought between through Verizon between November 26 and January 10 and requires the customer to buy a new iPhone at the full retail price.To use eBay's Instant Sale for the smartphone promotion, you pick the smartphone you want to sell and indicate its condition. eBay in turn will reveal the price it's willing to pay. If you accept the offer, a free shipping label is generated for you to mail in your phone. After eBay receives and checks out the item, the money is put into your PayPal account.eBay's Instant Sale tool was launched as a pilot project in October and will offer people cash for cell phones and other electronic gadgets.                 <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Verizon to improve voice quality with 4G]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-verizon-to-improve-voice-quality-with-4g</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-verizon-to-improve-voice-quality-with-4g</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2011 08:10:51 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>hekuli</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-verizon-to-improve-voice-quality-with-4g</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Verizon Wireless is promising improved voice quality on phone calls when its able to deliver voice services over its new &quot;4G&quot; LTE network, according to a story on CNN.com.CNN spoke to Brian Higgins, executive director for ecosystem development at Verizon Wireless, who said that the company will be offering voice over LTE service sometime next year. The improved voice quality will be considered &quot;high-definition&quot; audio fidelity. Verizon Wireless launched its LTE network in December and will soon begin selling smartphones that use the network. When the first LTE phones hit the market, they will use Verizon's traditional CDMA network to deliver voice services and the company's new LTE network to deliver faster data services. But Higgins told CNN that the company will soon be able to offer the voice service over the LTE network, which will improve call quality among other things.It will also allow Verizon phones to handle data and voice services at the same time. Today's version of CDMA chips in Verizon phones do not allow data and voice services to be delivered simultaneously. This is a fact that AT&amp;T has pointed out in its marketing as a major difference between its 3G cell phone service and Verizon's service. Verizon is the first company to sell theiPhone after AT&amp;T's three and a half year exclusive to sell the phone in the U.S. TheVerizon iPhone goes on sale later this week.The new voice over LTE service on Verizon's network will allow the company to offer a video chat service. Other video chat services are available on cell phones today, but the quality is not very good on some and many do not work over a carrier's 3G cellular service. For example, today AT&amp;T iPhone customers can use Apple's FaceTime application, but it only works over a Wi-Fi network. Apple is working to test the service over a 3G wireless network, CNN said. Skype also allows wireless users to make video calls over a 3G network, but the quality is not great. CNN reported that Skype and Verizon are working together on a video conferencing feature.Verizon plans to demonstrate Internet calls over LTE next week at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona, the CNN article said. Verizon will show off the new feature on the LG Revolution, a newGoogle Android smartphone announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month.The service won't be available when the LG Revolution launches later this year. Verizon expects voice over LTE to be available next year. Dick Lynch, Verizon Communications' former CTO, said last year at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona that getting voice to work over LTE has been particularly challenging. But a new standard was adopted about a year ago by members of the GSM Association, which has helped resolve many of those issues. Verizon's LTE network launched in 38 markets in December. By the end of 2011, it will be able to serve 200 million people with the service. Within 18 months, Verizon says it will blanket the entire country with the service, serving about two-thirds of users in its 3G wireless footprint. Eventually, Verizon will offer LTE everywhere 3G is available. By the end of 2013, the service will be available to more than 285 million potential customers. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[New PicPlz interface opens up app possibilities]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-picplz-interface-opens-up-app-possibilities</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-picplz-interface-opens-up-app-possibilities</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 08 Feb 2011 08:10:11 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Emma01</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-picplz-interface-opens-up-app-possibilities</guid>
<description><![CDATA[PicPlz, a photo-sharing start-up, has released a programming interface that lets applications tap into its tools for uploading and applying artistic filters to images.&quot;We think that allowing developers access to our upload and filter pipeline brings something different to the table than &quot;just another photo-sharing API,'&quot; the company said in a blog post yesterday. &quot;We're pleased to announce that in the past 2 weeks we've had well over 100 developers apply to be part of our API (far exceeding our expectations).&quot;Opening an API lets programmers tap into the abilities of a Web site or operating system, turning it into a foundation for a broader ecosystem. PicPlz released sample code, for example, for building a slideshow that displays PicPlz images.APIs are important for growth, too. By exposing an interface, as Twitter did years ago, a successful service can become plumbing for others' services. That can complicate Web business plans, though: it's hard to show ads if nobody is coming to your Web site. But if your service becomes a utility others depend on, you can charge for high-reliability, premium access to its interface.For years, photo sharing has been dominated by Yahoo's Flickr and some other relatively slow-moving sites such as Shutterfly and Google's Picasa Web Albums. But the old order is being overturned with people sharing photos with Facebook, Instagram, and other tools that make the process relatively easy and very social.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple patent shows built-in iPad stand]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patent-shows-built-in-ipad-stand</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patent-shows-built-in-ipad-stand</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Feb 2011 08:10:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>peacup2000</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-patent-shows-built-in-ipad-stand</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Patently Apple)We're expecting a new iPad to be announced in the next few months, and it appears that it, or future iterations of it, could have a built-in kickstand. A new patent filed by Apple shows a stowable stand that folds into theiPad's casing, removing the need for cases with built-in stands. The patent, detailed by Patently Apple, shows a dual-hinged stand that folds out to hold up the iPad in either portrait or landscape mode on a surface like a table. It might not be built-in' the patent says it might be optional, which means it might affix via screws, suction cup, magnets, or witchcraft.  No matter what, it's better than not having a stand. As anyone with an iPad will tell you, a stand's a good idea--apps like Hulu and Netflix are popular on the iPad, and unless you're watching them in bed, you have to hold thetablet up. That's fine for short YouTube videos of cats hitting people in the groin, but not for watching awesome movies like &quot;Fletch.&quot;Currently there are many such cases with stands available on eBay, and one I got recently came with a free gift--a stylus, which leads to another intriguing patent by Apple we covered recently: yes, a stylus.Styli (that's styluses to you and me) for iPads aren't new, and they can be useful. I have a couple of drawing apps, but unlike David Hockney, finger painting isn't my style. The stylus I got in my eBay-bought case is perfect for sketching.Apple's patent shows a stylus with a ballpoint-pen-type end, allowing it to apparently roll on a conductive disk of some sort. The disk is larger than the point of the stylus, so that capacitive screens, like those of theiPhone or iPad, can sense it.As with all patents, this may or may not evolve into a shipping product, but the fact that Apple is working with the idea of a stylus is intriguing. Steve Jobs famously said during the iPhone's launch that styluses were for suckers (to paraphrase). Then count me among the suckers' I want a stylus for my iPad. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[No Nook Colors for two weeks]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-nook-colors-for-two-weeks</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-nook-colors-for-two-weeks</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>raarook</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=no-nook-colors-for-two-weeks</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Nook Color buy button on bn.com.(Credit:Barnes &amp;amp' Noble)Looking to make the Nook Color a Valentine's Day gift Well, your present might not make it in time.We noticed a small item on the Good E-reader blog that was hard to believe. Without citing a source, the blog claims Barnes &amp; Noble is doing &quot;major inventory&quot; to see how many Nook Colors are in circulation and that the company has, &quot;Quietly depleted all stock in their retail locations and either sent them all to the Nook headquarters in New York, or has not had further shipments fulfilled.&quot; The post adds: &quot;This goes the same with other companies whom sell the color e-reader on their behalf.&quot;Weird, rightWell, we went to check the Best Buy site and sure enough it said the Nook Color was &quot;backordered.&quot; Then we went directly to Barnes &amp; Noble's website and saw a little message on the &quot;buy&quot; button saying the Nook Color &quot;ships in two weeks.&quot; We're a little surprised Barnes &amp; Noble would take as popular a device as the Nook Color out of stores leading up to a holiday like Valentine's Day, so we'll wait and see if the company has a little more to say about this in the coming days. Some people have reported that certain Barnes &amp; Noble's stores still have some stock but most do not (let us know if any stores in your area have any' we don't want to spread false rumors).Does this mean some sort of significant software upgrade is coming or is this truly just an inventory update We'll let you know as we get more information. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[News Corp.'s iPad magazine launching Feb. 2]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=news-corp-s-ipad-magazine-launching-feb--2</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=news-corp-s-ipad-magazine-launching-feb--2</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:10:20 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>winucklimgfrd</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=news-corp-s-ipad-magazine-launching-feb--2</guid>
<description><![CDATA[News Corp. has chosen Groundhog Day for its launch of The Daily, a digital publication designed fortablet devices--and it's chosen New York, not the previously rumored San Francisco, for the February 2 event.News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch will be making the announcement at the event at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Apple Vice President of Internet Services Eddy Cue will join him. This is in contrast to News Corp.'s initial plans to hold the event at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in late January.A source close to the matter had informed CNET that Apple had a significant part in the decision-making process for The Daily's launch, and that Jobs would be joining Murdoch to make the announcement. Apple fans closely followed the rumors of a close partnership between Apple and News Corp., hoping that it might provide some insight into Apple's strategy about how it sees theiPad as a device for digital media consumption. A Jobs appearance at the launch of The Daily would be a big deal indeed.But on January 17, a day before the company's quarterly earnings announcement, Jobs announced that he would be stepping aside on a medical leave. While Jobs--a pancreatic cancer survivor who has already taken one medical leave from his post--will remain CEO, chief operating officer Tim Cook will temporarily take over his duties at the company.So The Daily will launch without Jobs. Cue, a longtime Apple exec, has been instrumental in the development of the iTunes Store, App Store, and the future of applications on the iPad.The Daily, which News Corp. hired former MTV digital executive Greg Clayman to spearhead, will be the second high-profile tablet-based publication to be launched by a billionaire mogul. In late November, British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group released Project Magazine, a slick monthly lifestyle publication for the iPad. No Apple executives made appearances, but vice president of product marketing Michael Tchao was in the audience and chatting with attendees afterward.At the time, The Daily's launch was rumored to be imminent--but it's taken another three months to finally get it up and running.A notably smaller tablet publication company, Nomad Editions, launched earlier this week. It's run by Mark Edmiston, former president of Newsweek magazine.This post was last updated at 10:11 a.m. PT.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Motorola feels pressure from Verizon iPhone]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=motorola-feels-pressure-from-verizon-iphone</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=motorola-feels-pressure-from-verizon-iphone</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:11:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ollietelle</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=motorola-feels-pressure-from-verizon-iphone</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Motorola is bracing itself for a slowdown in smartphone sales in the first quarter as theApple iPhone goes to Verizon Wireless.During the fourth-quarter conference call with analysts and investors on Wednesday, Sanjay Jha, the CEO of Motorola Mobility, said the company saw a slowdown in sales during the fourth quarter due to anticipation of the iPhone at Verizon. He said he expects sales to be slightly down as the company will now compete head to head with the iPhone at its strongest carrier partner, Verizon Wireless.&quot;Since the announcement of the iPhone, we have seen a little slow down in our sell through of devices at Verizon,&quot; Jha said. &quot;There was anticipation of devices coming to Verizon even prior the announcement of the iPhone.&quot; In addition to the iPhone, which goes on sale at Verizon starting February 10, Motorola is also launching newGoogle Android smartphones on Verizon's 4G LTE network. For this reason, Jha said the company saw a slight slowdown in sales and expects some pressure in sales in the first quarter.During the fourth quarter, Motorola said it shipped 4.9 million smartphones. This was slightly lower than the 5.2 million smartphones that analysts had expected, Reuters said.Motorola said in a press release that it expects a net loss of $26 million to $62 million in the first quarter of 2011.Still, Jha said the company's relationship with Verizon Wireless is strong. Verizon helped revive the company's ailing mobile handset market over the past year by making Motorola's Droid smartphones its flagship devices to combat the iPhone, which has been exclusively sold by AT&amp;T in the U.S. since 2007. Verizon has spent more money marketing the Motorola Droid products than any other line of smartphones in its portfolio. Jha would not comment specifically about whether Verizon would limit its spending in the future now that it has the iPhone. He said the company will still have strong support from Verizon as it introduces new smartphones for the carrier's 4G LTE network, such as the Motorola Bionic, which is set to debut toward the end of the first quarter.He also pointed out the fact that Motorola is working with other carriers, such as AT&amp;T, to provide Android smartphones. And it is getting ready to launch its firsttablet PC called Xoom in February.As for the Verizon iPhone, Jha also said that the iconic device could help get customers in the door at Verizon retail stores. Which phone they leave with may yet be determined. But Jha hopes it's a Motorola Droid instead of the iPhone.&quot;When customers go into the Verizon stores now, they'll be offered choices,&quot; he said. &quot;And time will tell what percentage of sales goes to which brand.&quot; <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Who can afford the carbon-friendly skies]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=who-can-afford-the-carbon-friendly-skies</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=who-can-afford-the-carbon-friendly-skies</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Collinsmith</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=who-can-afford-the-carbon-friendly-skies</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Screenshot of Directflight.com&amp;39's new tool for finding carbon-friendly flights shows the &amp;39'greenest&amp;39' and &amp;39'cheapest&amp;39' options from its selection of airlines.(Credit:Directflights.com)Directflights.com is now offering a search engine for finding the cheapest carbon-friendly flights between two destinations, the company announced today.The tool was developed in conjunction with The Carbon Consultancy, a British company that offers reports on emissions data and offset procurement information for travel industry companies.It offers to show international flights, as well as those contained within the U.K. and Europe, or contained within the U.S., among other places. Flights can be viewed by cheapest only, or by most carbon-friendly with a choice to see flights in different currency options.The tool ranks flights on a carbon-friendly scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the most carbon-friendly. The carbon ratings are not the exact data for a given flight, but based on the carbon footprint of the plane model used by a particular airline for that particular route, using official EU aircraft fuel consumption data, and UK government fuel to emissions conversion values, according to Directflights.com.The poster-flight for the site is a Virgin Atlantic flight between London and New York that costs 376 pounds ($597), only 41 pounds ($65) more than the least carbon-friendly option, according to a Directflights.com press release.The tool is limited to certain airlines, and testing of several flights found that applying the carbon-friendly option is usually a lot more than the 41-pound difference example given by Directflights.com.The Web site may serve more to show to people just how expensive it is to fly mixed-fuel flights compared to conventional jet fuel flights.Looking at U.S. flights with the tool, one could choose the cheap roundtrip New York City (JFK) to San Francisco (SFO) AirTran option for $257, or a carbon-friendly Delta flight for $624. The Delta link led to a Virgin America flight priced at $625 before taxes.Virgin America, as well as Virgin Atlantic, have both been adding biofuels to its fleet fuel mix, as well as offering consumer carbon offsets.The most egregious difference was in a search for a roundtrip flight from Bristol airport in England (BRS) to Berlin Schoenfield airport in Germany (SXF). It rendered only one option, a KLM flight for a whopping 1,369 pounds ($2,174). Since it was the only flight the tool found, it was also labeled greenest. That's an insane price to pay for conscientious flying compared to EasyJet's 111-pound ($176) budget option for the same dates. As the site only includes certain airlines, the EasyJet flight was obviously not even included in its grid. One would have to know of the famous European budget airline's common routes.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Conficker worm beaten but not gone]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-conficker-worm-beaten-but-not-gone</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-conficker-worm-beaten-but-not-gone</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>spacgrlluvlli</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-conficker-worm-beaten-but-not-gone</guid>
<description><![CDATA[TheConficker worm may have been squashed, but this nasty piece of malware is still squirming around millions of computers around the world.Those were the findings of the Conficker Working Group, a collection of antivirus vendors and several other parties that joined forces in 2009 and 2010 to try to stomp out the worm.Releasing a &quot;Lessons Learned&quot; document (PDF) yesterday, the CWG claimed success in ultimately stopping Conficker from communicating with its creator, thus preventing it from updating into newer and more dangerous variants. The group seemed especially proud of the way the various organizations and people were able to work together in their battle against Conficker.But the CWG also conceded that in some ways it lost the war because Conficker still resides on anywhere from 4 million to 13 million computers across the world. So it remains a threat as long as its creator can potentially tap into this huge reservoir of infected machines.Launched in late 2008, Conficker was designed to create a botnet, a collection of infected computers that can be controlled by cybercriminals, and has been used to send out spam and steal confidential data. The ongoing battle between Conficker and the CWG played out over months as new variants of the worm were released in an attempt to thwart the efforts of those trying to stop it. Only by registering and blocking entire domains before Conficker managed to use them was the CWG able to keep the worm's creators from further updating it.Experts have disagreed about the threat posed by Conficker, with some arguing that the worm was perceived as more of a danger than it turned out to be. The CWG said it believes that its own efforts helped stop the spread of Conficker but admits that the worm's author didn't seem to try his or her hardest. The group offered a couple of other explanations for the ultimate performance of Conficker.&quot;It is possible the level of attention given to the malware scared off the author,&quot; the report said. &quot;It is also possible the author is waiting for a later date or is waiting for someone to pay for the use of the botnet.&quot;Staying one step ahead of the bad guys will always be a challenge in fighting cybercrime. But in its document, the CWG expressed the notion that sharing information and resources among the private and public sectors, supporting law enforcement, and reforming current legislation are all key to fighting these ongoing threats.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Verizon's BlackBerry 9650 Bold and Curve 3G gets OS 6]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizons-blackberry-9650-bold-and-curve-3g-gets-os-6</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizons-blackberry-9650-bold-and-curve-3g-gets-os-6</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Khristinajane</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizons-blackberry-9650-bold-and-curve-3g-gets-os-6</guid>
<description><![CDATA[RIM BlackBerry Bold 9650 (Verizon Wireless)(Credit:CNET)If you're a Verizon customer, you can now finally upgrade the BlackBerry 9650 Bold and the BlackBerry Curve 3G to the latest BlackBerry 6 operating system.  The update will be available today by 5 p.m. PT, and you can either update over the air or via the BlackBerry Desktop Manager on your PC. This is a welcome change, as OS 6 brings many updates like a new home-screen interface, universal search, a new Webkit browser, and more. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Verizon VL600 4G LTE USB modem gets a firmware update]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-vl600-4g-lte-usb-modem-gets-a-firmware-update</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-vl600-4g-lte-usb-modem-gets-a-firmware-update</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:10:28 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Mary01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-vl600-4g-lte-usb-modem-gets-a-firmware-update</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Verizon&amp;39's 4G VL600 USB modem is truly a speed demon, but you don't want to enjoy it too much due to the limited data plans.(Credit:Dong Ngo/CNET)I reviewed the LG VL600 4G LTE USB modem awhile ago and conclude that apart from the limited and expensive data plans Verizon offers with it, it makes a great solution for mobile Internet access. It seems to have just gotten better. Verizon announced today a firmware upgrade for the device that the company calls a &quot;software update.&quot; This is not to be confused with the VZAccess Manager, which is used to start the connection. According to Verizon, the firmware update to the VL600 modem offers the following improvements:Successful reconnection to the network after the SIM card's activation or reset.The time and size of LTE Data usage sessions are now accurately recorded in the VZAccess Manager Session Log.VZAccess Manager now displays current network connection correctly.The modem now scans for better service more often to ensure the best connection possible.Unfortunately, there's no word on whether the company will lower its monthly fee of $80 and/or increase its data cap to more than 10GB (or unlimited). For now, the Clear 4G+ modem, which comes with a $55/month unlimited 4G data plan, is still clearly a better deal for those who don't travel outside of the state frequently.The new firmware, version VL600ZV4, and its update tool can be downloaded for free here. The upgrade process is fairly easy and straightforward but the detailed instructions can also be found here (PDF).<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Big four carrier CEOs to share stage at CTIA 2011 keynote]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=big-four-carrier-ceos-to-share-stage-at-ctia-2011-keynote</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=big-four-carrier-ceos-to-share-stage-at-ctia-2011-keynote</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:10:35 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>groogsvaria</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=big-four-carrier-ceos-to-share-stage-at-ctia-2011-keynote</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Keynotes at technology trade shows can be hit or miss. Sometimes you're privy to an hour of juicy news (Verizon at CES 2011) and other times you get only dancers, emcees in wolf hats, and an exec boasting about his fabulous company (Samsung at CES 2011).CTIA 2011, however, promises a good show. On March 22 the opening day keynote will feature a round-table discussion with the CEOs of the four national cell phone carriers. That means you'll see Ralph de la Vegga of AT&amp;T, Dan Hesse of Sprint Nextel, Philipp Humm of T-Mobile, and Dan Mead of Verizon Wireless. The specific topic hasn't been announced, though &quot;What's going on in wireless&quot; is a safe bet, and CNBC's Jim Cramer will host.This is the first time I can remember that all four head honchos will be gathered on one stage at the annual cell phone confab. CTIA takes place in Orlando, Fla. from March 22 to 24. CNET will be there to bring you all the news from the show and to tell you who gets in the best swipes at the keynote. In the meantime, let us know what you'd ask the execs. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Software groups urge probe of Novell patent sale]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=software-groups-urge-probe-of-novell-patent-sale</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=software-groups-urge-probe-of-novell-patent-sale</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 20 Jan 2011 08:10:29 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Julie01</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=software-groups-urge-probe-of-novell-patent-sale</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Open Software Initiative and the Free Software Foundation yesterday released a joint statement, urging the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as the German Federal Cartel Office, to investigate the sale of Novell's more than 800 patents as part of its multibillion dollar sale to Attachmate in November. In December, the OSI sent a position paper to the German Federal Cartel Office. That paper has been updated to name both software groups as the concerned parties and filed with the U.S. Department of Justice. &quot;Since making that filing, we have been joined by the Free Software Foundation and have updated that statement to represent that both our communities--the open source community and the free software community--are concerned that CPTN represents a potential broadside not against any particular product in the market today, but against one of the only viable sources of competition for these companies in software today: the free, libre, and open source software (FLOSS) communities.&quot; The OSI now says the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department has acknowledged receiving the groups' contention.At the heart of OSI and FSF's complaint are the patents that will be handed over to CPTN Holdings, which made up of Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and EMC. The two software groups point to Microsoft and Oracle in particular being major competitors to the FLOSS movement, as each company cited it as a &quot;competitive threat&quot; in their 10-K SEC filings. Furthermore, the group goes on to say that there is an inherent danger in having all those companies under the guise of a consortium. &quot;That is, they have no incentive to support FLOSS as a competitive alternative to proprietary software,&quot; the letter said. &quot;CPTN creates a cover to launch patent attacks against companies delivering solutions based on FLOSS while creating for each principal a measure of plausible deniability that the patent attack was not their idea.&quot;Earlier this week the sale of the patents to CPTN Holdings got the go-ahead from the European Commission vice president and competition commissioner, Joaquin Almunia. Almunia said that it would be &quot;unlikely&quot; for the transaction to raise any eyebrows from the EU's merger regulation commission, or be infringing of the EU's competition rules.(via PC World)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: Meet Microsoft's new multitouch mouse]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-meet-microsofts-new-multitouch-mouse</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-meet-microsofts-new-multitouch-mouse</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>karadim3z</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-meet-microsofts-new-multitouch-mouse</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft&amp;39's new multitouch Touch Mouse arrives on store shelves in May.(Credit:Microsoft)LAS VEGAS--Not mentioned at today's CES keynote address from Microsoft was something new--a multitouch mouse that's been designed to bring special gesture features toWindows 7 users. Readers with a good memory might take one look at what Microsoft is calling Touch Mouse, and recognize it as the &quot;Cap Mouse&quot; from October of 2009, which the company unveiled as one of five mousing prototypes. Since then the mouse has cut the cord, tapered out in front, been given a completely different finish (black and red instead of gray and dark gray), and a $79.95 price tag.The Touch Mouse makes use of multitouch gestures to put nine different system shortcuts up at the top of the mouse instead of using buttons. By the number of fingers, Microsoft breaks them down like so:One finger lets you manage the content of a document or Web page. Moving one finger lets you precisely scroll in any direction and hyperscroll through long documents with a quick flick of your finger, while using your thumb lets you move back/forward easily through your internet browser.Two fingers lets you manage multiple windows by maximizing, minimizing, restoring, and snapping them side-by-side.Three fingers lets you navigate the whole desktop--three fingers up to display all of your open windows for easy task switching or three fingers down for clearing the desktop entirely.It's worth noting these gestures are only available to Windows 7 users--no word yet on whether the mouse reverts to something more standard on older hardware. Microsoft has a video of these gestures in action, which you can watch below:The mouse joins Microsoft's Arc Touch as another touch-friendly mouse in the company's hardware lineup. Microsoft says it will hit store shelves in May, though places like Amazon are already taking preorders.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Get instant Polaroid prints from a pinhole camera]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-instant-polaroid-prints-from-a-pinhole-camera</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-instant-polaroid-prints-from-a-pinhole-camera</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Dec 2010 08:10:06 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>winliab365</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-instant-polaroid-prints-from-a-pinhole-camera</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Yoo Geun-hyuk &amp;amp' Yoon Bo-jung, via Yanko Design)Fans of Polaroid photos, check this out. Korean designers Yoo Geun-hyuk &amp; Yoon Bo-jung have conceptualized the Flutter In Pinhole camera, which is made from cardboard and has two Polaroid sheets inside. It comes shipped flat, and users simply have to expand the case and remove the strip covering the two lens openings at the front of the shooter to take a shot. Supplied with the snapper is a white pencil which you can use to roll over the back of the camera to &quot;process&quot; the photos. Then, cut the snapper in half and you'll see two exposed Polaroid frames. There are even spaces at the side for you to use the pencil to write a message with.It sounds confusing, but check out the video below to see how it works. (Source: Crave Asia via PetaPixel) <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple, EMC, Oracle tied to Novell patent buy]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-emc-oracle-tied-to-novell-patent-buy</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-emc-oracle-tied-to-novell-patent-buy</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:10:41 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Harveymayngeary</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-emc-oracle-tied-to-novell-patent-buy</guid>
<description><![CDATA[One big detail that has been unclear since Attachmate's acquisition of Novell last month has been the destiny of the 882 patents that are set to be handed over to CPTN Holdings LLC--a consortium of technology companies that was organized by Microsoft.Would Microsoft be getting all those patents, or would it have to share them with the other companies More importantly--who are the other &quot;technology companies&quot; that make up the group While the first question remains unanswered, the second part of the equation is coming into view this morning, with blog FOSS Patents unearthing a merger filing that outs Apple, EMC, and Oracle as the other companies joining Microsoft. With a reader tip, FOSS Patents discovered the legal notification detailing the three other companies' involvement, which had been filed earlier this month on a German Federal Cartel Office Web site. What these four companies intend to do with the patents once the paperwork is all done is a very large question mark. Mary Jo Foley over at ZDnet speculates that the ragtag bunch of technology competitors banding together has something to do with the antitrust case between Novell and Microsoft, as well as some of the virtualization patents that could help out EMC, the owners of VMware. How Apple and Oracle, fit into a split, or a possible cross-licensing deal of the 882 patents remains to be seen.Novell was acquired in late November by Attachmate as part of a $2.2 billion deal. CPTN Holdings' involvement was $450 million in cash that made up a payment. Not included as part of the deal were some of Novell's Unix-related copyright, which will remain with with the company.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Apple drops jailbreak detection API from iOS 4.2.1]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-drops-jailbreak-detection-api-from-ios-4-2-1</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-drops-jailbreak-detection-api-from-ios-4-2-1</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:10:22 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>oillymint</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-drops-jailbreak-detection-api-from-ios-4-2-1</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Apple)After introducing an API that allowed developers to check on an iOS device to see if its operating system had been compromised (read: jailbroken) less than six months ago, Apple has now unexpectedly dropped the functionality from iOS 4.2.1.The jailbreak detection API was part of the mobile device management (MDM) API which was introduced with iOS 4 in June this year, according to NetworkWorld. Now, device management vendors say Apple has dropped the API while also saying that there are alternatives to checking on whether an iOS device has been jailbroken.So, it remains a mystery as to why Apple would no longer provide the ability to check for jailbroken software on their devices. Perhaps its a peace offering to the jailbreak community that has often been at odds with Apple, continually having to recode exploits to keep iOS devices jailbroken after updates.One major player in the jailbreak community isn't buying that though. MuscleNerd tweets: &quot;Apple removed their &quot;jailbreak detection API&quot; in 4.2...we didn't even attempt to fool it (honestly!)&quot;MDM engineers do not seem to have much to add: &quot;We used it when it was available, but as an adjunct,&quot; says Joe Owen, vice president of engineering at Sybase, which offers the Afaria device management software. &quot;I'm not sure what motivated their removing that....I've not had anyone [at enterprise customer sites] talk to me about this API being present or being removed.&quot;Most likely, Apple discovered that while allowing developers access to iOS information for the purposes of detecting if a jailbrokeniPhone,iPod Touch, oriPad was being used on their network could be helpful, it might also lead to devastating circumventions from the hacking community.  Since MDM professionals have other methods of detection without the API, Apple probably decided it would be best to leave it to third-party engineers to detect jailbroken devices.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[New Samsung Android phone clears FCC]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-samsung-android-phone-clears-fcc</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-samsung-android-phone-clears-fcc</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:10:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>bugterreskitchen</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-samsung-android-phone-clears-fcc</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Samsung SHW-M190S(Credit:FCC)Blame it on the holidays, but it wasn't a busy week over at the Federal Communications Commission. Besides a couple of Sharp handsets headed for Japan, we found a new Samsung Android handset, the SHW-M190S.  Because the FCC has to certify every phone sold in the United States, not to mention test its SAR rating, the agency's online database offers a lot of sneak peeks to those who dig. And to save you the trouble, Crave has combed through the database for you. Here are a selection of filings from the past week on new and upcoming cell phones. Click through to read the full report.Huawei FC'Nokia C5Samsung GT-C3500Samsung SHW-M190S Android smartphoneSharp SH-011Sharp SH-05c<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Better HDR images and arcade football: iPhone apps of the week]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=better-hdr-images-and-arcade-football-iphone-apps-of-the-week</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=better-hdr-images-and-arcade-football-iphone-apps-of-the-week</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>alfley</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=better-hdr-images-and-arcade-football-iphone-apps-of-the-week</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:CNET)When iOS 4.2 was released, I didn't update myiPhone right away. I waited until I was back from Thanksgiving vacation, where I could sync my iPhone on my home computer. Once I got home, like any responsible iPhone user, I backed up my iPhone first then hit the update button. From there it went through its usual process of downloading the update, some rebooting of the phone, and the rest of the updating procedure. Everything seemed to be running smoothly until the end. That's when I got an error (1013) and my iPhone went into recovery mode and would not come out, which basically means my phone was dead. No calls, no texts, and no apps.I looked around online for similar issues and found forums filled with complaints, some with fixes that seemed to work for others, but didn't work for me. I ended up getting an appointment at the Genius Bar the next day at the busy downtown San Francisco Apple store. Once I got in there, the Apple employee was very nice, restored my iPhone to factory settings, and sent me on my way in less than 20 minutes. Never once did he mention this was a common problem, but at that point I was more worried about getting my favorite toy back (and getting back to work) rather than grilling him on Apple's update practices. Once home, I was able to restore my apps and info from the backup I made (Note to everyone: always back up your iPhone before updating!) and now I'm totally up to speed. Obviously, this chain of events is less than ideal when all I wanted to do was update my firmware.I know I'm not the only one who had this issue. I'm interested to see what kind of issues readers have had with updating their iPhones. I'd also like to hear about Genius Bar visits and what your experience has been. My visit was pretty smooth, but I'm guessing not everybody gets in and out of there like I did. Tell your stories in the comments.This week I check out an app for improving your pictures and an excellent sequel to a fun football game I reviewed in the past.Line up your shot, and you&amp;39'll get instructions based on which capture mode you chose.(Credit:Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)TrueHDR (99 cents for a limited time) for iPhone helps you take better pictures by giving you control over the process of combining images to create a resulting image that has richer colors and better lighting. The iPhone 4 offers the option to take HDR images and does a fairly good job, but with this app you have a number of options for making your images even better. The interface is very simple: you have four options for taking an HDR image. Auto Capture automatically detects light values in your shot, snaps two photos, and combines them to give you the best result. Semi-auto mode lets you choose light and dark exposure settings by tapping on the screen before snapping and combining images. Manual mode lets you control each part, having you select a light value, snap the shot, select the second light value, and snap the second shot before combining. You also have the option to improve photographs from your library.TrueHDR doesn't come with a lot of bells and whistles, but I've managed to get some great results using the available capture modes. Having a little more control over how the HDR process combines the images lets you experiment with different light settings that might be better than what you would get with the regular iPhone 4 camera.Once you're satisfied with the results, TrueHDR has a couple of quick options for sharing your work on Twitter, FaceBook, and through e-mail, or you can simply save the image to your photo library. Overall, if you want a little more control over your HDR images, TrueHDR has a simple approach with just enough options to make brighter, more color-rich photographs.You&amp;39'll be challenged with aggressive defenders and on-field objects before reaching the end zone. (Credit:Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET)Backbreaker Football 2: Vengeance ($2.99) is the sequel to Backbreaker Football (99 cents), a game that put you in the shoes of a football player running and dodging tackles to get to the end zone. Just like the original, beautiful 3D graphics and solid animations give you the feeling of powering your way down the field. But in BackBreaker Football 2: Vengeance, you now have the ability to play on the other side of the ball as a defender who needs to dodge blockers and ultimately tackle the ball carrier. You start off by customizing a player with a few options for jersey number, skin tone, and uniform, but you'll be able to unlock more uniforms and other goodies as you play the game.Once on the field, Backbreaker Football 2: Vengeance adds new moves and features to keep the game exciting. In addition to the spin, juke, and sprint moves found in the original, you can now jump over low tackles and objects by tapping on the middle of the screen. You also have a &quot;trucking&quot; move that turns your player into a power runner, bulldozing your way through high tackles and under props on the field. Having a low solid object to jump over or a low hanging bar to &quot;truck&quot; under look a little out of place on the football field, but BackBreaker Football is an arcade game, and the new additions definitely make for some complicated challenges. You also can't help but feel a sense of accomplishment after a long line of jumping over objects, dodging tackles, and showboating into the end zone.Like the original, you get more points if you can showboat or high step into the end zone at the end of your run. The Showboating move slows you down, making it possible for tacklers to catch up to you, so you have to choose the right time to start showing off in order to make it to the end zone while racking up the most points. Backbreaker Football 2: Vengeance takes showboating a step further with an extra button that makes your showboating move even more exaggerated and quite a bit slower while doubling the points you'll receive if you make it to the end zone. Don't be surprised if you end up eating the turf 5 yards short of the end zone before you get the hang of it.Overall, Backbreaker Football 2: Vengeance is an excellent sequel that keeps the best things about the original, and adds a fun new game type and more moves to help you make defenders miss. The game mechanic is very addictive, and as you progress, you'll need to use every move at your disposal to reach the end zone or tackle your opponent. Anyone who played the first game or likes the idea of an easy to pick up and play football game will appreciate the challenge and polish of this sequel.What's your favorite iPhone app Do you have a better app that gives you more control over HDR photos Were you surprised at how fun it is to play defense on Backbreaker Football 2: Vengeance Let me know in the comments!<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Best and worst phones of 2010]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=best-and-worst-phones-of-2010</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=best-and-worst-phones-of-2010</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:10:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>davidclarl</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=best-and-worst-phones-of-2010</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Josh Miller/CNET)Though it's not quite the end of the year, the new cell phone releases for 2010 are beginning to wind down. So as December lurches on, we take this opportunity to look back at the mobile year that was. Since January, CNET's cell phone reviews team has reviewed almost 200 handsets. Some were fantastic, some were awful, and the rest fell somewhere in between.Since the two extremes are the most interesting, we offer a review of the best and worst phones of 2010. These photo galleries do not include smartphones--Bonnie Cha will follow up with those lists next week--but they do include the shining stars and darkest pits of despair that we encountered on the regular cell phone beat.  So now, sit back, relax, and see them for yourself. And be sure to tell us about your cell phone loves and loathes in the comments below.Review the best and worst phones of 2009.Best cell phones of 2010 (photos) Worst cell phones of 2010 (photos) <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Gawker shakes up blog format, sales department]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gawker-shakes-up-blog-format-sales-department</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gawker-shakes-up-blog-format-sales-department</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:10:35 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sirwanwin5</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gawker-shakes-up-blog-format-sales-department</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Gawker&amp;39's new look for 2011 (Credit:Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)Web publisher Gawker Media plans to drastically change the way users interact with its network of sites with a redesign launching next year that lets users jump through stories and interactive advertising akin to using an RSS reader.The new design was unveiled earlier today by Gawker founder Nick Denton as being the &quot;most significant change in the Gawker model since the launch of Gizmodo and Gawker in 2002,&quot; and something that &quot;represents some convergence of blog, magazine and television.&quot; What that means to end users is that they'll be able to cycle through news stories from a right-hand navigation bar, without scrolling down the page like a typical site. One of the big reasons for this, Denton explained, is so that certain stories can remain pinned to the top, no matter what you're looking at, which works better with the company's high-volume publishing model.Denton noted that a large part of the change is centered on advertising, particularly balancing the cycle of breaking news content--some stories being big, and others small-- around advertisers that are choosy about where content appears. &quot;We can't predict a surge in traffic' and often advertisers don't want to be associated with scandal, however enticing it is to readers,&quot; Denton said. &quot;But the experience of Gawker, Deadspin and other sites shows that--once the dust has settled--advertisers flock to buzz and growth.&quot;As part of the redesign, one item that's already causing controversy is the use of video ads. These have now been integrated into the reading experience, so that readers must sit through a clip prior to reading a story. These are similar to the click-through ads found on many publishing sites (including CNET), but their placement within the site now more closely resembles content.The overall change is being attributed, in part, to the departure of two high-level Gawker sales employees, as reported by Business Insider. Gawker sales boss Chris Batty and salesman Michael Caesco have left the company due to what Denton referred to in a private employee e-mail as a &quot;serious&quot; divergence in strategy that &quot;spilled over into unhealthy conflict between editorial and sales,&quot; according to the story. &quot;However, of all media companies, Gawker Media is one that has built itself around audience growth, in the belief that advertising will follow,&quot; Denton said in the e-mail. &quot;That isn't the only media strategy available' it just happens to be the one that we chose' and it is to that which everybody signs up when joining the company.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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