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<title>Haaze.com / Dakota02 / Voted News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:10:33 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[ReQuest tells media outlets it owns syncing patent]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=request-tells-media-outlets-it-owns-syncing-patent</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=request-tells-media-outlets-it-owns-syncing-patent</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:10:33 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>XemmelNools</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=request-tells-media-outlets-it-owns-syncing-patent</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A small firm that manufactures high-tech media servers and other electronic gear is notifying online-entertainment companies that it owns the patent on multimedia syncing. ReQuest, based in Ballston Spa, N.Y., has sent letters recently to an undisclosed number of companies, some of them involved in distributing digital media. The claims in the letter have raised eyebrows with some of recipients. One company that received a letter, which wished to remain anonymous, forwarded a copy to CNET.In the letters distributed by ReQuest, the company's CEO Peter Cholnoky wrote that his company's patents (No. 7,577,757 and 7,136,934) cover &quot;a system for synchronizing devices in a multimedia environmental&quot; for photos, audio, and video media. The company calls this technology NetSync. In a press release issued by ReQuest in 2007, the company claimed the patents cover &quot;automatically synchroniz(ing) entire media collections between different devices, whether in different rooms via the home's local network...or even on different continents over the Internet.&quot; In the same press release, the company wrote: &quot;The patent was filed on June 19th, 2001, which predates by several months Apple Computer's original introduction of its populariPod.&quot;Not everybody believes that ReQuest can defend such a patent. &quot;It's preposterous,&quot; said the source who forwarded the letter to CNET. &quot;Syncing is just about making copies and this has been a core function ever since the first computer rolled out.&quot;The source also said the language in Cholnoky's letter made it obvious that ReQuest was making veiled threats about litigation. In the letter there is a mention of patent attorneys and an offer to license the company's technology. In a phone interview today, Cholnoky told CNET he doesn't understand what the fuss is about. He noted that he took a very non-combative tone in his letter and never threatened litigation against any of the recipients. He declined to provide details about which companies received the letter or even to disclose how many he contacted. Cholnoky wrote in the letter that his company has received offers to buy the patents from &quot;law firms specializing in patent litigation.&quot; In the phone interview, he asked CNET, &quot;What do you think they will do with them&quot; &quot;We just wanted to open up the patents to the market, especially as the patent market has heated up,&quot; Cholnoky said in the phone interview. &quot;Google just offered to pay $900 million for (6,000 patents belonging to Nortel, the bankrupt Canadian telecom-equipment company). Nortel is auctioning them off. So, companies like Google are interested in acquiring patents and I sent the letters to people who might have some interest...we've received lots of calls.&quot; <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Hands-on with the Pioneer VSX-1021-K: AirPlay and iControl2 app]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hands-on-with-the-pioneer-vsx-1021-k-airplay-and-icontrol2-app</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hands-on-with-the-pioneer-vsx-1021-k-airplay-and-icontrol2-app</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:10:26 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ankratzata</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hands-on-with-the-pioneer-vsx-1021-k-airplay-and-icontrol2-app</guid>
<description><![CDATA[<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft's Streetside mapping arrives in U.K.]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsofts-streetside-mapping-arrives-in-u-k-</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsofts-streetside-mapping-arrives-in-u-k-</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>lilangelab</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsofts-streetside-mapping-arrives-in-u-k-</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft Streetside will display street-level, 360-degree images, using Navteq&amp;39's cars, seen here at Nokia World. (Credit:Ben Woods)Microsoft has started taking photos in London for Streetside, its Bing Maps photo feature that will go up against Google Street View in the United Kingdom.The Streetside feature will display street-level images collected using a 360-degree camera, the company said today. Mapping specialist Navteq--which is wholly owned by Nokia--has partnered with Microsoft and is providing thecars to take the 360-degree photos. As well as collecting images, Navteq will gather point-of-interest data such as where landmarks or pubs are located and other road and location information.&quot;Users should begin seeing [U.K.] images on Bing Maps from around the first or second week of May, depending on the weather and other factors,&quot; a spokesman for the company told ZDNet UK. Read more of &quot; Microsoft drives Streetside mapping into the UK&quot; at ZDNet UK.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft de-emphasizes Silverlight at Mix11]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-de-emphasizes-silverlight-at-mix11</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-de-emphasizes-silverlight-at-mix11</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ekumankamk</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-de-emphasizes-silverlight-at-mix11</guid>
<description><![CDATA[LAS VEGAS--As Microsoft works to woo Web developers to its tools, it is subtly trying to wean them from one product that the company once touted as the answer to advanced graphics development: Silverlight.The first day of Microsoft's Mix11 conference here, the company's annual gathering of Web developers, included demonstrations and talk about HTML5, the emerging Web standard. HTML5's promise is to make developing Web applications that use video and animation easy, much the same thing for which Microsoft created Silverlight.But Silverlight was largely missing in action today. The technology was never mentioned in either of the keynote speeches by Dean Hachamovitch, corporate vice president of Internet Explorer, and Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform.In debuting a preview version of Internet Explorer 10, Hachamovitch played up its support for HTML5, demonstrating smooth graphics programs loading quickly from the Web, like the new multi-level Pac-Man application, built by Namco for the 30th anniversary of the game.Namco&amp;39's Pac-Man(Credit:Microsoft)Microsoft has been de-emphasizing Silverlight for several months now. As veteran Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley noted at the company's Professional Developers Conference in October, Silverlight started falling off the radar. Just last week, Microsoft played up Silverlight's role as a browser plug-in, which, in turn, demoted its role as the key platform for advanced Web graphics.The reason, according to Tim O'Brien, a general manager in Microsoft's platform strategy group, is that HTML5 has evolved and addresses many of the technical issues that are core to Silverlight. &quot;The things that are driving this shift are the market dynamics,&quot; O'Brien said. As the standard evolves, it becomes easier for developers to create applications for it. And writing for the standard means that the application will run more widely than writing for a plug-in such as Silverlight.Silverlight still has its place, O'Brien said. It offers support for digital rights management, and handles Smooth Streaming, which speeds video start times. &quot;There is no single answer for all programming tasks,&quot; O'Brien said. And tomorrow at Mix11, Microsoft plans to roll out the beta version of Silverlight 5.But it also seems clear that Microsoft is placing an ever-larger bet on HTML5. The company disclosed that its next Professional Developers Conference will be September 13-16 in Anaheim, Calif. For Microsoft, the PDC is a stake-in-the-ground event where the company lays out a broad vision for its vast developer community to follow. The September PDC will likely be the place where the company shares details for its upcoming Windows 8 operating system. Expect HTML5 to be play a role there as well. &quot;We're going to place more emphasis on HTML5,&quot; O'Brien said.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Audi's woody 2-wheelers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=audis-woody-2-wheelers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=audis-woody-2-wheelers</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:10:28 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>GookssorVok</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=audis-woody-2-wheelers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Audi&amp;39's Duo City features a belt drive, an 8-speed internal hub, and a wood frame.(Credit:Audi)The latest models from Audi feature two wheels instead of four, and wood frames. No, this isn't an April Fools' joke' Audi partnered with Renovo, a bicycle designer in Portland, Ore., to offer three bicycles featuring Audi logos and colors.The really unique thing about Renovo's bicycles is that the frames are made from wood, hardwood, to be specific. The wooden tubes of the frame are hollow, and Audi says that wood offers the smoothest ride of any bicycle frame material due to its ability to absorb shocks. Further, Audi notes that the wood used in the frames is lighter than aluminum. However, aluminum doesn't suffer from termite infestations.Audi and Renovo created three bicycles, the Duo City, Duo Sport, and Duo Road. The &quot;duo&quot; in the name is a reference to Audi's Quattro all-wheel-drive system, although the bicycles only have one-wheel drive. The Duo City and Sport bicycles use internal gear hubs with belt drives, and are designed for city and casual use. The Duo Road features 20 speeds and has the narrow tires of a racing bicycle.All of the bicycles get Audi's four-ring logo, and the hardwoods making up the frames were chosen for a specific Audi color scheme. Components use aluminum and carbon fiber, while lighting is LED. Audi created the bicycles with Renovo to highlight its green credentials, as the wood frames are biodegradable and recyclable. The bicycles are priced at $6,530 for the Duo City, $7,350 for the Duo Sport, and $7,460 for the Duo Road. More information can be found about the bicycles at the Audi Collection Web site.The Audi Duo Road is intended for racing, and uses a 20-speed gear set.(Credit:Audi)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Nokia unveils new typeface, Pure]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-unveils-new-typeface-pure</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-unveils-new-typeface-pure</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:10:37 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>SlullyTug</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-unveils-new-typeface-pure</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Nokia)Nokia Sans, one of the most familiar typefaces worldwide and a brand recognition money can't buy, is about to become irrelevant. The world's largest phone maker has unveiled a new font dubbed Nokia Pure for mobile and digital environments. &quot;Logically enough, the starting point for our brand new typeface, Nokia Pure, was also on-screen legibility at small sizes--although now we're talking about the pin-sharp color screens of contemporary smartphones,&quot; Nokia said in a blog post on its Brand Book site. &quot;At the same time, we also needed a recognizable corporate typeface, versatile enough to work well in all manner of different environments--from other screen-based formats, to a whole host of printed materials.&quot; Based on the concept of a seamless and fluid motion, the Nokia Pure typeface comprises rounded letters without serifs that &quot;flow into each other&quot; to create an impression of forward movement. The font was developed by Nokia together with London-based typographic designer Bruno Maag, who is the founder and managing director of Dalton Maag. A short film called Pure Reversal,&quot; which features a woodblock version of the typeface, has also been produced by graphics design studio Build. The new font will come in three weights: light, regular, and bold. These are designed to deliver &quot;pin sharp&quot; legibility on screens. The new branding--which is also supposed to create a sense of harmony between the different divisions of the Finnish outfit--will appear on billboards and devices this year, according to Nokia Conversations. (Credit:Nokia)(Source: Crave Asia) <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Oracle declares Intel's Itanium dead]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oracle-declares-intels-itanium-dead</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oracle-declares-intels-itanium-dead</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:10:53 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>svetalaok</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oracle-declares-intels-itanium-dead</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A wafer of Itanium 9300 processors(Credit:Intel)Oracle has signed the death certificate for Intel's Itanium chips, saying that none other than Intel has decided to end the high-end processor family.The old software giant and new server maker announced yesterday that it has &quot;decided to discontinue all software development on the Intel Itanium microprocessor.&quot; After several discussions, Oracle said, &quot;Intel management made it clear that their strategic focus is on their x86 microprocessor and that Itanium was nearing the end of its life.&quot;Nonsense, said Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini in a reply today.&quot;Intel's work on Intel Itanium processors and platforms continues unabated with multiple generations of chips currently in development and on schedule,&quot; he said. &quot;We remain firmly committed to delivering a competitive, multi-generational roadmap for HP-UX and other operating system customers that run the Itanium architecture.&quot;The next code name in the Itanium road map after its present Tukwila model is Poulson, an eight-core chip that Intel promises will double Tukwila performance, and after that comes Kittson, which is in active development. Intel said it plans to detail Itanium momentum at the upcoming Intel Developer Forum in Beijing.HP, too, said erstwhile ally Oracle's statement was an &quot;action of disinformation [that's] clearly an attempt to force customers into purchasing Sun servers in a desperate move to slow their declining market share.&quot; HP has a 10-year road map for Itanium servers and its HP-UX version of Unix, and boasted that the line has bumped Oracle's Sparc-Solaris servers into third place in the Unix market.&quot;Oracle continues to show a pattern of anti-customer behavior as they move to shore up their failing Sun server business,&quot; said Dave Donatelli, executive vice president and general manager, Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking, HP. &quot;We are shocked that Oracle would put enterprises and governments at risk while costing them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity in a shameless gambit to limit fair competition.&quot;Oracle's move spotlights how significantly the server market has changed in recent years.In 2006, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said, &quot;There is no more important platform for Oracle than HP and Itanium.&quot;Oracle, of course, has its own server lines now after acquiring Sun Microsystems last year, and those servers use mainstream x86 chips and the Sun-spawned Sparc family of processors. And today is the day that Itanium ally Hewlett-Packard holds its first shareholder meeting with new Chief Executive Lee Apotheker. Although HP continues to put Itanium chips into new server products, Oracle went out of its way to say &quot;Apotheker made no mention of Itanium in his long and detailed presentation on the future strategic direction of HP.&quot; The Itanium processor family got its start at Hewlett-Packard in the 1980s, but the company decided it would be better for a high-volume manufacturer to bring it to market, so Itanium became the product line with which Intel hoped to lead the charge to 64-bit processing.But a series of problems derailed the plan. Software written for Intel's dominant x86 chip family wouldn't run on Itanium chips. The first Itanium chip, Merced, was so late and slow that it became a mere device to test software. The formerly broad support among server makers steadily dwindled, and software makers including Red Hat and Microsoft dropped support for Itanium, largely leaving only HP-UX. The present Tukwila generation of Itanium was beset by delays, too, and instead of becoming the server market's &quot;unifying architecture,&quot; spanning many server lines and operating systems, it's been relegated to a high-end niche.Perhaps most significantly, x86 processors--including the competitive 64-bit Opteron models from AMD--improved in performance and popularity. Some high-end features formerly only in Itanium chips, such as machine check architecture, have made their way into Intel's increasingly powerful Xeon line of x86 server processors.Meanwhile, Intel faces powerful threats in the low-end, high-volume mobile market, where processors from a number of companies based on ARM's chip designs dominate among the fast-growing, high-profile array of smartphones andtablets.Updated 9:23 a.m. PT and 12:06 p.m. PTwith comment from Intel and HP, respectively.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[First impressions of LG Thrill 4G]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=first-impressions-of-lg-thrill-4g</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=first-impressions-of-lg-thrill-4g</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 Mar 2011 07:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>23fevralja</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=first-impressions-of-lg-thrill-4g</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The LG Thrill 4G is the Optimus 3D repackaged for AT&amp;T.(Credit:Nicole Lee/CNET)LG is definitely making a bigger name for itself in the U.S. market by bringing two hot European phones to these shores. The LG Optimus 2X was repackaged as the T-Mobile G2X, and now the LG Optimus 3D is coming stateside in the form of the LG Thrill 4G. We traipsed down to the AT&amp;T media event at CTIA 2011 earlier today to get a closer look at the phone that will be the first-ever 3D smartphone in the country.If our impressions sound similar to the ones we had of the Optimus 3D, it's because the Thrill 4G is really the same phone. Like the Optimus 3D, it has a very capable 1GHz dual-core processor along with dual-channel and dual-memory architecture. Design-wise, it has a generous 4.3-inch WVGA display, and feels decidedly solid in the hand. This is heightened by the matte rubbery surface, which provides a nice grip when held.The big attraction, of course, is that the Thrill 4G is capable of showing 3D without the need for glasses. Press the 3D button on the side (or select the shortcut via the touch screen), and you'll come to a rotating hub of 3D content. The hub itself appears three-dimensional, and we could definitely see the icons jump out at us. From here, you can look at 3D images, go to YouTube 3D, or start up the 3D camera so you can, yes, shoot photos and videos in 3D. The Thrill 4G can do this because it actually has two 5-megapixel cameras on the back. It can record 3D video in 720p, and 2D video in 1080p. Though we can't imagine using the phone in 3D mode all the time, we have to say that it does have its appeal. We played the Let's Golf game in 3D, and it was quite fun to see the ball fly off into &quot;the distance.&quot; The 3D effect is certainly there, in a way similar to how it is with the Nintendo 3DS. After a few minutes playing with it, though, we think the 3D apps and games might be more of a fun thing to demonstrate at parties rather than something we would use on a daily basis. We'll have to evaluate it further once we get a review unit to test. After recording those 3D videos, you can either share them on YouTube 3D, or plug in a cable connecting the phone's Micro-HDMI port to a 3D television so you can see it on the big screen. Of course, you can do this with non-3D content as well. The Thrill 4G also has DLNA support so you can stream that content wirelessly through other DLNA-compatible devices.As the name suggests, the Thrill 4G has support for AT&amp;T's HSPA+ network, which is the carrier's current definition of &quot;4G.&quot; Theoretically, this gives it faster speeds, though some of AT&amp;T's customers might beg to differ. Other features of the phone include a front-facing camera for video calls, and the usual Wi-Fi, GPS, and stereo Bluetooth. The Thrill 4G ships with Android 2.2 Froyo with a UI that's not quite stock, but AT&amp;T promises the phone will be upgradeable to 2.3 Gingerbread. As for pricing and availability, that information is unknown for now. Check out our gallery of the LG Thrill 4G.LG Thrill 4G hands-on (photos) <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[iPad launch 2.0: What's different this time]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipad-launch-2-0-whats-different-this-time</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipad-launch-2-0-whats-different-this-time</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 11 Mar 2011 08:10:36 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>lovislaiuy</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipad-launch-2-0-whats-different-this-time</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The scene just before sales for the first iPad kicked off last April at Apple&amp;39's flagship store in San Francisco.(Credit:James Martin/CNET)Mock them or envy them, you can expect more than a few gadget aficionados to be lining up at Apple stores today to buy the newiPad.The overwhelming success of the original iPad ended up taking Apple by surprise last year, with the company announcing sales of more than 300,000 Wi-Fi iPads on its first day, going on to hit 1 million in just under a month. Over the following months, supply was scarce, with Apple resorting to a reservation system that would have users waiting weeks in some cases. This ended up affecting Apple's plans to release it outside the U.S., causing sales in nine other countries to be delayed for about a month. Things look very different this time around. With the second generation of the iPad set to hit store shelves this evening, analysts are already betting it will hit the million unit sales mark faster than the first. Now about those differences:A pre-order receipt from the first iPad. (Credit:Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)No pre-orders or reservationsWith the first iPad, buyers could pre-order, or reserve the device from Apple about three weeks ahead of when it actually hit store shelves. That meant people who had pre-ordered would get an iPad delivered to their door the day it was released or walk into the store on launch day and be guaranteed a unit. This time, online orders have been restricted to the first day the device is on sale (which started three hours ago to be precise), with orders going out to customers the following week. This could end up having a dramatic impact on the size of lines at retail stores, given that people who might have wanted to grab an iPad 2 to use it that first weekend will have to head to a store to get one versus waiting for it to be delivered to their doorstep. At the same time, it could also simplify the line-up process at a number of stores. For the first launch, Apple had to balance out two different lines: one for walk-ins and one for people with reservations. More retailersFollowing up on that last point, the iPad 2 is being sold at more stores from the get-go. When the first iPad launched, the only place you could get it was Apple and Best Buy's retail stores. Apple later extended its retail availability to Target, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Verizon and AT&amp;T retail locations, and online at Amazon.com.This time on day one, the iPad 2 will be available at Best Buy (as it was before), but also the rest of those retail partners, with the exception of Amazon.com, which has not yet committed to having the iPad 2 on sale. The online retail giant declined to comment on its iPad 2 sales plans. Considering Amazon currently carries a number of Apple products, including the first-generation iPad, it's a safe bet it will end up on there eventually. Though Amazon's knock at the iPad's usefulness as an e-reader in an advertisement from back in September could have put the retailer on Apple's naughty list.More countriesThe original iPad launched in the U.S. on April 3, 2010, with the promise that it would arrive in a handful of international markets by the end of the month. Less than two weeks later, Apple announced that it would be delaying that launch until the end of May.The international launch came to nine additional countries on May 28, with Apple opening up for international pre-orders on May 10. Two months later, availability expanded to eight more countries. China then got it in September, followed by Malaysia in November, and India at the end of January of this year. This time, the iPad 2 is still launching in the U.S. first, but 26 additional countries will get it just two weeks later. In its initial press release about the iPad 2, Apple said the iPad 2 would be available in &quot;many more countries around the world in the coming months.&quot; That quick increas to include 26 countries within weeks of the U.S. launch is a good sign Apple has been stocking up to make sure supplies won't run as dry as they did during the launch of the first-generation device. Even so, reports had cropped up in early February that Apple was just beginning to mass produce the iPad 2, giving the company little more than a month to build a launch supply.An iPad 2 with the 3G antenna. (Credit:Apple)3G from day oneThere was a nearly one month delay between the release of the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad, and the one that shipped with a 3G antenna. This effectively split up the number of people who would have queued up in front of stores to pick one up. Yet lines were formed. While not nearly as large at the ones for the Wi-Fi-only version, people set up shop outside of Apple stores and waited for 5 p.m. to hit in order to get their hands on a version of the device with built-in 3G. This time, all three models will be available with a 3G option, in addition to a choice of 3G carrier, which in the U.S. is AT&amp;T or Verizon. Since the two are using separate types of network technology, users have to pick which of those two carriers they want to go with.More choicesChoosing between models of the first iPad was a rather simple affair. There were three capacities, and each one of those had a Wi-F-only model, and a Wi-Fi + 3G variant. But at launch, there were just the Wi-Fi units. Now, for each of those capacities (which remain unchanged), there's not just two color choices (black and white), but you can also get each capacity with 3G in either a GSM or a CDMA antenna. All told that adds up to 18 different models. Looks are a bit deceiving on this pricing matrix. Each of those models has two colors, and the models with 3G can be had on either Verizon or AT&amp;T, totaling 18 different types of iPad 2.(Credit:Apple)Confused as to which one to get You're probably not alone. This is actually a highly unusual amount of stock variations for Apple to offer on any product. On theMac side, for example, you can only get one version of the MacBook, and five variants of the MacBook Pro (across three different screen sizes). The MacBook Air comes in two sizes with two different configurations per size. The iMac line follows a similar configuration lineup with two different sizes, and two configurations each. And rounding it off is the Mac Mini, which comes either a consumer version, or an optical drive-free server version, and the Mac Pro, which has the same case, but ships with four different internal configurations. None of those even gets close to the potential configurations for an iPad 2 buyer. On the iOS side of the product line it's much simpler, with there only being three versions of the iPod Touch--all differentiated only by capacity. This is followed by theiPhone, which comes in only one color, has two capacities, and can be had with either a GSM or CDMA antenna, totaling four possibilities. (Note: Apple had originally intended to offer a white version of the device, but ran into manufacturing problems. It's now rumored to be arriving in April.) Apple CEO Steve Jobs announces that there are now more than 65,000 native apps designed specifically for the iPad at the iPad 2&amp;39's unveiling earlier this month. (Credit:Apple) More appsThose looking to get their hands on the original iPad did not have all that many iPad native, or universal apps to look forward to when first picking up the device in its launch time frame. Original estimates put availability around the 3,000 mark the day after the device's release, with Apple offering an official tally of 5,000 apps at the end of May. Apple's best promise at the time was that the device would run &quot;almost all of&quot; the 140,000 or so apps in the App Store while developers worked to make some existing applications universal. Fast forward to today, and we've got what Apple says are more than 65,000 native iPad applications that make up a part of the 350,000 total apps available in the App Store. Apple has branded this release with a similar promise that &quot;almost all&quot; applications will be able to run on the iPad 2. One more thing...All these things combined add up to a very different picture from last year's launch, and put the iPad 2 at a considerable advantage at topping the first iPad's sales numbers. Even so, there's another big difference worth mentioning, that was not present during last year's launch: competitors.  When the first iPad launched, there were a number of Windows-based PC tablets, though they were aimed mainly at business users and packed higher price tags. There was also the JooJoo, which crashed and burned before the iPad even hit store shelves. Since then, there's been some serious movement in the tablet category with a laundry list of heavyweights like Samsung, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, LG Electronics, Acer, Asus, Research In Motion, and Motorola offering--or at least promising--to ship competing products. While Apple's CEO Steve Jobs called these efforts &quot;copycats&quot; at the iPad 2 unveiling earlier this month, they do offer potential buyers alternatives. And even if a large number of them can't beat the iPad's price or massive software library, it doesn't mean competitors aren't beginning to offer things the iPad doesn't have. RIM's upcoming Playbook for instance, will run Adobe Flash, while HP's TouchPad (due this summer) will let users wirelessly transfer files between PalmOS devices, as well as pick up phone calls. Both also feature front-facing cameras for video chatting, one of the iPad 2's headlining hardware additions.Are features like that good enough to sway buyers to put off buying a tablet until release Perhaps some, though not the ones who are sure to line up outside of Apple's store today. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Beating a robot at rock-paper-scissors]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=beating-a-robot-at-rock-paper-scissors</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=beating-a-robot-at-rock-paper-scissors</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 05 Mar 2011 08:10:06 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>TakiraJanaka</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=beating-a-robot-at-rock-paper-scissors</guid>
<description><![CDATA[editor's notebook Since you've all no doubt shut off your smartphones for the &quot;National Day of Unplugging&quot; and hence can't rely on Angry Birds to help you procrastinate on doing your taxes (you have just a little more than a month, you know), I'll gallantly help you shirk (with an assist from the illustrious New York Times).The Times' Web site is proudly making it difficult to get anything constructive done today, by offering up an interactive feature in its Science section that lets you try out your roshambo chops against a computer opponent.OK, it's not &quot;Jeopardy&quot; versus a mainframe, but this digital version of rock-paper-scissors is still a whole lot of fun (and more addictive than even--shall I say it--Charlie Sheen could manage). Especially since the Times' art department has created a great robot hand that lets you conjure up images of your frustratingly smug android rival, getting you that much more involved.After being pulverized far too often by The Times' Watson wanna-be (I played the &quot;Veteran&quot; robot, not the &quot;Novice&quot;), I suddenly hit on a brilliant strategy (with a little help from the note that's perched innocently above the robot opponent's window). Almost immediately things began to change: three games to one in my favor, with no ties. Take that, you HAL-9000 reject.So, here's the deal: if you want to avoid my &quot;spoiler,&quot; jump over to the feature and play a few games. Do your best. (Good luck.) Then come right back and read the next paragraph. I'll even put a great big image right here so the 'graph will get pushed down the page and you won't be able to peek. OK: bye for now. Be sure to come back soon, or I'll get busted for driving traffic away from our site.Neck and neck with C-3PO.(Credit:Screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)Ah, you're back. Good. I was afraid you'd be gone all day. In case you didn't figure it out on your own, my brilliant strategy--the secret to success in robo-roshambo--is simply this: cover everything except your Rock, Paper, and Scissors buttons and play totally randomly. In other words, be completely brainless. Then the droid's statistical database of several hundred past games and the patterns that emerged from them becomes totally useless.So there it is--don't think.As for my brilliant strategy when it comes to writing blog items I'll leave that one for another time.Thanks for playing.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Manilla vs. PageOnce: Building better bills]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=manilla-vs--pageonce-building-better-bills</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=manilla-vs--pageonce-building-better-bills</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 04 Mar 2011 08:10:11 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>tithasperie</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=manilla-vs--pageonce-building-better-bills</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Manilla collects all your bills and financial statements. Its accuracy is good--but not good enough.(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)The bill organizing service Manilla launched at Demo this week. The pitch: it's a portal for your household bills. It will collect bills from your service providers, as well as bank statements and other financial data for you, and remind you what's due, to whom, and when. Furthermore, it'll keep records of all your bills and statements for you securely. It should work with nearly any billing company, and in some special cases, you can use it to turn off your paper bills, doing your bit for the environment.  Using Manilla to receive and file electronic statements (called &quot;bill presentment&quot; in billing industry lingo) is far superior to asking your service providers to send your statements to e-mail, where they're highly likely to get ignored or accidentally spam-filtered (trust me on this). That's probably why only a small percentage of consumers allow their paper bills to be turned off. Having a single, dedicated, junk-free site for financial transactions makes more sense. That's what Manilla is.  It also makes some bottom-line sense for business. It costs about 73 cents to process and mail a paper bill, according to Manilla CEO George Kliavkoff, compared with nearly nothing for providing Web access to show the consumer an online statement.  On the other hand, businesses do get something for that 73 cents. They get to stuff your bill envelope with upsells, marketing materials, and pitches from partners. Manilla will offer an online version of that channel to businesses that decide to use it (like Comcast, at launch). For other billers, the service will just log in to users' accounts on their behalf, get their billing data, and present it to them on Manilla.  Those other, non-signed-up billers, which make up the enormously vast majority of businesses, in fact might find that Manilla is not such a fantastic deal for them. Customers who sign up for Manilla are likely already online-savvy users. They're already going to business Web sites to view, and maybe pay their bills. On those Web sites, business cannot only market to their customers (as they can via snail mail), but can also track what they're doing, offer surveys, and learn more about them. Once a middleman presentment service like Manilla is their online destination, the businesses lose that direct channel to the customer--until they get on board, like Comcast did, and start using the marketing channel.  So while the businesses of America figure out whether they should do a deal with Manilla, should you consider using it Maybe, but you can probably do better. PageOnce has iPhone and Android apps that let you see your financial to-dos anywhere. Once the service adds bill pay, you&amp;39'll hardly need a computer for managing your money.(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)Manilla is not a new pitch Manilla is a compelling idea and will likely be a strong and highly usable product fairly soon' hopefully it'll be better when it comes out of its invite-only beta. If you're really interested in consolidating your bills into one online portal right now, I'd recommend using PageOnce, a two-and-a-half-year-old, but recently updated product that I found just as easy to set up, but more useful for tracking the really important data: what you owe now and whether you have enough money to cover it.  While Manilla acts a great repository for statements and bills--it's a really good electronic filing cabinet--PageOnce does a better job of parsing your current financial status. It can get details from bank statements and bills, where Manilla will only link you to your online account or show you an un-digested Web version of most of your statements.  PageOnce is almost Mint-like in its capability to dig into your finances and get useful data from them. It doesn't have all of Mint's historical or analytical chops, but it's still quite useful--and Mint doesn't do bill presentment at all.  Unfortunately, just like Manilla and Mint, PageOnce doesn't have a direct bill payment function. Yet. One is coming, though, and from what I know of it, it'll be unique and useful. Manilla does at least dump you onto the biller's site when you want to pay a bill.  PageOnce has extremely good mobile apps, something Manilla hasn't yet shown. PageOnce makes it easy and clear to see what's happening in each of your accounts on a smartphone's small screen. There's even a calendar view that shows bill due dates. Manilla CEO Kliavkoff told me that when the company comes out of closed beta, it will also have a dedicated mobile product.  I do have to note that neither PageOnce nor Manilla are 100 percent accurate. In my tests, while most accounts I added worked perfectly, both services indicated that I had an overdue balance on my Comcast account. Genuinely concerned (I'm far too OCD to let this happen), I logged onto the Comcast Web site, only to find that my payment had been received earlier this week. Similarly, both threw an error when trying to access my Schwab account, although neither would say exactly what was wrong. Other paper-replacement optionsThere are other emerging ways to get paperless bills, but they're not quite ready for real users. Doxo, in particular, has a Manilla-like focus on replacing your paper filing cabinet with an electronic one. Customers of businesses on the Doxo network get full access to their accounts as well as all the marketing materials the businesses want to send out--the same business benefit as Manilla. Doxo is also adding a centralized payment system. Doxo, like Manilla, is in invite-only beta test now, and has only three billers set up on its system: Sprint, Kansas City Power &amp; Light, and Puget Sound Energy. For billers not on the network, Doxo does little more than provide their customers a place to store user IDs and passwords, and whatever documents they opt to scan in themselves, like Evernote with a focus on home documents.  Likewise, Zumbox is trying to replace paper bills with electronic ones. It makes it easy for billers to send bills to you without knowing either your Zumbox account ID or your e-mail. Zumbox instead creates accounts based on your postal addresses. The service seems to be fallow, as it has no way that I could see to request that billers send statements to your Zumbox &quot;address.&quot; But it's still an intriguing idea.  If you want to get and actually pay your bills online on one service today, you can look to Intuit's Paytrust. The service costs $9.95 a month, though, which is too much to pay when you consider how much money you're saving billing companies by using it. Intuit's Aaron Patzer (the founder of Mint), told me that the company is working on new consumer bill management services, but he wouldn't give a time frame for a feature or product release. It's still too earlyPageOnce CEO Guy Goldstein told me that the annual American cashflow through consumer bills is $3.7 trillion. There's limited direct revenue to be made by just showing customers those bills. It is, though, not too hard to make a few pennies each time you facilitate an actual bill-pay transaction. With that amount of money in the balance, expect to see more companies try to get a piece of that big, fat, cash pie.That's the future. If you want to use a service today to consolidate your bills, and you can live with less than perfect accuracy, PageOnce is your best bet.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[With Marginize, the conversation comes to Web pages]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-marginize-the-conversation-comes-to-web-pages</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-marginize-the-conversation-comes-to-web-pages</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:11:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>pnoressufujhh</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-marginize-the-conversation-comes-to-web-pages</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Web site Feld.com, which has the Marginize widget installed. This means anyone can join the discussion on pages like this one and others with the widget.(Credit:Marginize)PALM DESERT, Calif.--Since the beginning of time, or at least since the beginning of the Web, we've all used Web sites in solitude, regardless of how many social tools were available.But thanks to an application called Marginize, that dynamic may soon change. At the Demo Spring conference here today, Marginize talked about how, for what may well be the first time, social and collaborative Web browsing is finally here.The idea is actually quite simple. Using either a browser add-on--forFirefox, Chrome, orSafari--or a native application on sites whose publishers have opted-in, Web surfers can now see what other people are saying in real-time--on services like Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz--about the pages and the topics they're exploring.Until now, said Marginize founder and CEO Ziad Sultan, people have been able to talk all they want about what they're seeing on the Web, but have been limited to doing so in &quot;social silos.&quot; Marginize, by comparison, aims to bring the conversation about a page right on to that page. A simple window that pops up when you click on the little Marginize tab that sits on the side of the page shows the real time discussion around the topic, and gives users the ability to easily jump into that conversation by tweeting or posting to Facebook or by responding to what others have already said.For several months, a group of users has already been applying Marginize to more than half a million sites, Sultan said. Those beta users have each downloaded the browser plug-in and employed it to bring the service's social aspects to sites in which they are interested. But that didn't do anything for people who haven't downloaded the add-on, let alone those who haven't even heard of the service in the first place.At Demo today, the company announced the launch of its publisher widget, which makes it possible for owners of sites of all kinds and sizes, from personal blogs to large news sites, to proactively place Marginize functionality on their pages. Now, for example, Brad Feld, who writes about entrepreneurship for Boston.com, has the Marginize widget embedded in his page, allowing anyone to see and participate in the ongoing conversation taking place on his page.There's no doubt that in order for Marginize to be truly useful, it needs a large critical mass of users. After all, there's not much point to looking for a conversation that isn't there because there aren't enough people discussing a page or its topics. But if the company can lure in enough users, and enough sites embed the tool, there's a real chance that it could permanently change the way we interact with Web sites. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Opera: Full cross-platform hardware acceleration coming]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=opera-full-cross-platform-hardware-acceleration-coming</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=opera-full-cross-platform-hardware-acceleration-coming</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:10:11 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sirwanwin5</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=opera-full-cross-platform-hardware-acceleration-coming</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Hardware acceleration has become the holy grail of browser development in the past year, as the technology to increase browser performance by tapping graphics cards to help with Web site rendering has advanced from the theoretical to the practical. Despite Opera being a longtime developer and advocate of hardware acceleration standards, and the first major browser maker to demonstrate hardware acceleration in use, no publicly released version of Opera included the technology--until today.Opera 11.50 (direct download) is a rough alpha, unstable, not for daily use, and limited to Windows computers, but it does have hardware acceleration. This means that JavaScript-based 3D rendering can be viewed using Opera, which basically means that highly complex, non-Flash-based in-site animation will be supported by the browser.A screenshot of WebGL implementation in action on Opera 11.50 alpha.(Credit:Opera)Opera promised in a blog post that its hardware acceleration will differ from its competitors. Unlike Internet Explorer 9's hardware acceleration--which is limited toWindows 7 and Vista, orFirefox 4's, which is fully available on Windows 7 and Vista but limited on Windows XP,Mac, and Linux--the way that Opera has built its hardware acceleration allows it to be used in full on any computer with the hardware to support it. This means that not only will Opera's hardware acceleration support Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X, and Linux, but that Web-enabled televisions and devices such as smartphones will also be able to use it. Opera says that any device that uses the OpenGL ES 2 standard will work with it.The current implementation of hardware acceleration in Opera 11.50 alpha is limited to OpenGL support. A Direct3D backend is planned for future versions and before 11.50 gets pushed to the public. You can see if your installation of Opera 11.50 alpha has the OpenGL hardware acceleration working by typing opera:about into the location bar, and looking to see if the &quot;Vega backend&quot; entry lists &quot;OpenGL&quot;. If it says &quot;Software,&quot; then your computer graphics card doesn't support OpenGL 2.x hardware acceleration.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[First Intel-branded 3G, LTE chips debut]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=first-intel-branded-3g-lte-chips-debut</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=first-intel-branded-3g-lte-chips-debut</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:10:34 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Priya01</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=first-intel-branded-3g-lte-chips-debut</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Intel announced shipments of the first 3G chips that sport its branding today at Mobile World Congress--the fruits of its acquisition of Infineon's wireless business. Apple&amp;39's iPad uses what is now an Intel 3G chip--formerly Infineon.(Credit:Apple)&quot;Intel Inside&quot; takes on a new meaning with 3G chips. After the acquisition, Intel Mobile Communications has overnight become a major supplier of so-called baseband processors, which handle the 3G connection and are one of the most critical chips in a smartphone ortablet. Intel's--formerly Infineon's--3G chips are used in prominent devices such as theiPhone andiPad.  Announced today, the XMM 6260 is designed for smartphones and can be coupled with a smartphone's application processor or offered as a standalone solution for PC modems and data cards, Intel said.  The HSPA+ technology &quot;comprises a fully integrated HSPA+ system solution supporting HSPA category 14 (21 megabits per second) in the downlink and category 7 (11.5Mbps) in the uplink,&quot; according to Intel.  Intel's MWC wireless rollouts don't stop there. The world's largest chipmaker also announced LTE technology, generically referred to as 4G.  The multimode (LTE/3G/2G) platform XMM 7060 &quot;is suitable for integration in LTE-enabled portable devices such as mobile handsets, data cards/dongles and other embedded solutions,&quot; Intel said.  The 3G silicon is shipping in volume now, while the LTE solution will be available for volume shipment in the second half of 2012. Though the world's largest manufacturer of chips, Intel will not be making these products, instead consigning production to an Asia-based manufacturer.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Why I want a Nokia Windows phone]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-i-want-a-nokia-windows-phone</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-i-want-a-nokia-windows-phone</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>natalieweston</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-i-want-a-nokia-windows-phone</guid>
<description><![CDATA[When closed, the Nokia E7 closely resembles the company&amp;39's N8.(Credit:David Meyer/ZDNet UK)Nokia is wonderful at hardware. But like Motorola, another veteran of awesome industrial design, Nokia is not terribly strong on the software front--once upon a time it was, but it proved unable to shake itself loose from the now-outdated software of its glory days. The Nokia E7 is a prime example. It really is a thing of beauty (I like a proper keyboard, me) but I don't want one because it runs Symbian. As it happens, I retain a lot of respect for Symbian as an operating system, but its user interface sucks. It's a tragedy that Nokia hasn't been able to quickly and effectively redesign that UI for the modern age, but there you go. Point proven. Stick something else in there, and the E7 would rock.Now we know what that &quot;something else&quot; is: Windows Phone 7.Read more of &quot; I want a Nokia Windows Phone, and here's why&quot; at ZDNet UK.See also:Photos: Nokia E7<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Recyclable school building makes the grade]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=recyclable-school-building-makes-the-grade</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=recyclable-school-building-makes-the-grade</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:10:38 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Irinaeis</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=recyclable-school-building-makes-the-grade</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A Gen7 School at Bolsa Knolls Middle School in Salinas, Calif.(Credit:American Modular Systems)Could prefab structures be a quick and cost-saving way to get U.S. students out of dilapidated and energy-sucking schoolsA recent award to a Gen7 school building, made by American Modular Systems, seems to signal that modular classrooms have moved beyond being ad hoc building solutions for developing nations.For the first time in California, a prefab building has been awarded national Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) certification for new school construction. CHPS certification is awarded to those schools that meet specific health, comfort, maintenance, and environmental sustainability standards.&quot;The Gen7 classroom proves that a prefab structure can achieve the same desired high performance results as a conventional building,&quot; CHPS Executive Director Bill Orr said in a statement.The Bolsa Knolls Middle School in Salinas, Calif., which has added a Gen7 school building that will house classrooms, met the CHPS requirements. The building will hold six classrooms totaling 5,760 square feet, and it reportedly will exceed the California Title 24 Energy Code by more than 30 percent. The permanent structure was designed and built in about 60 days, according to Gen 7.Features of the building include: smart lighting, Energy Star-rated tubular skylights, thermal ventilation, and interiors made from low- and no-VOC (volatile organic compounds) materials. The building is 100 percent recyclable, and made almost entirely of recycled materials.Whether the idea takes off across the nation remains to be seen, but some California school districts, at least, seem to be interested. In addition to Bolsa Knolls, the Santa Rita Union School District has ordered eight Gen7 classrooms and a restroom facility slated for installation in June 2011, according to American Modular Systems.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Powerbeats by Dr. Dre might be too stylish for gym]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=powerbeats-by-dr--dre-might-be-too-stylish-for-gym</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=powerbeats-by-dr--dre-might-be-too-stylish-for-gym</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>VellduenSheni</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=powerbeats-by-dr--dre-might-be-too-stylish-for-gym</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Josh Miller/CNET)Headphones aimed at the fashionable consumer are not in short supply these days, but one would think the last place people are concerned about gadget style would be the gym. However, plenty of manufacturers are banking on the belief that you want good-looking tech no matter how sweaty you are, hence the Powerbeats by Dr. Dre Sport Headphones from Monster. These $150 earphones offer a secure fit, integratediPhone controls, and a sleek look--but they're also pricey for workout headphones, and they don't seem particularly durable or sweat-resistant.Read the full Powerbeats by Dr. Dre Sport Headphones review and get a closer look in our gallery.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google claims Bing copies its search results]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-claims-bing-copies-its-search-results</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-claims-bing-copies-its-search-results</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 01 Feb 2011 08:10:13 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>SlullyTug</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-claims-bing-copies-its-search-results</guid>
<description><![CDATA[After noticing curious search results at Bing, then running a sting operation to investigate further, Google has concluded that Microsoft is copying Google search results into its own search engine.A Bing search result based on one of Google&amp;39's hand-coded honeypot search results that previously appeared only in Google. (Click to enlarge.)(Credit:Google)That's the report from Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan today, who talked to both companies about it and presented Google's evidence. According to the report, a mechanism could be the Suggested Sites feature of Internet Explorer and the Bing Toolbar for browsers, both of which can gather data about what links people click when running searches.The story began with Google's team for correcting typographical errors in search terms, which monitors its own and rivals' performance closely. Typos that Google could correct would lead to search results based on the correction, but the team noticed Bing would also lead to those search results without saying it had corrected the typo.The original hand-coded honeypot search result on Google. (Click to enlarge.)(Credit:Google)Next came the sting, setting up a &quot;honeypot&quot; to catch the operation in action. Google created &quot;one-time code that would allow it to manually rank a page for a certain term,&quot; then wired those results for particular, highly obscure search terms such as &quot;hiybbprqag&quot; and &quot;ndoswiftjobinproduction,&quot; Sullivan said. With the hand coding, typing those search terms would produce recognizable Web pages in Google results that wouldn't show in search results otherwise.Next, Google had employees type in those search terms from home using Internet Explorer with both Suggested Sites and the Bing Toolbar enabled, clicking the top results as they went. Before the experiment, neither Bing nor Google returned the hand-coded results, but two weeks later, Bing showed the Google results that had been hand-coded.Microsoft didn't say today whether it plans to continue the practice, but evidently it doesn't consider it &quot;cheating,&quot; as Google does.In a comment to ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft said, flatly, &quot;We do not copy Google's results.&quot; However, that denial turns out to be more a matter of interpretation.A blog post by Harry Shum, Microsoft's corporate vice president of Bing, offered some detail on what Microsoft did. He acknowledged monitoring what links users clicked, but essentially described it as letting humans help gather data through crowdsourcing.We use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm. A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt-in to sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users.To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today's story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query [rare search query] ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we'll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn't accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience.The history of the web and the improvement of a broad array of consumer and business experiences is actually the story of collective intelligence, from sharing HTML documents to hypertext links to click data and beyond. Many companies across the Internet use this collective intelligence to make their products better every day.Google made it clear it isn't happy about it.&quot;I've got no problem with a competitor developing an innovative algorithm. But copying is not innovation, in my book,&quot; Sullivan quotes Google Fellow and search expert Amit Singhal as saying. &quot;It's cheating to me because we work incredibly hard and have done so for years but they just get there based on our hard work...Another analogy is that it's like running a marathon and carrying someone else on your back, who jumps off just before the finish line.&quot;And in a statement to CNET News, Singhal added that Google disagrees with Microsoft's position, speaking just as flatly as Microsoft denying copying:Our testing has concluded that Bing is copying Google Web search results.At Google we strongly believe in innovation and are proud of our search quality. We look forward to competing with genuinely new search algorithms out there, from Bing and others--algorithms built on core innovation and not on recycled search results copied from a competitor.Google didn't respond to CNET questions about whether it plans any actions beyond publicizing the honeypot.Google brought its concerns to Sullivan shortly before a Bing search event today. Coincidentally or not, Google just shifted that event's agenda significantly. Indeed, the search-copying issue become the focus of a debate between Microsoft and Google representatives at the conference.Stefan Weitz, director of Microsoft's Bing search engine, shared this response with Sullivan: &quot;Opt-in programs like the [Bing] toolbar help us with clickstream data [information that shows Microsoft what links people click on], one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites. This 'Google experiment' seems like a hack to confuse and manipulate some of these signals.&quot;Hack, experiment, or honeypot, it's very revealing. Google created about 100 such hand-coded results, Sullivan said, so it's hard to imagine the act distorting search results in any significant way. The next relevant question will be to see whether Microsoft concludes it's time to update its own search algorithm so that a Bing search for &quot;hiybbprqag&quot; won't lead to ticket information for the Wiltern theater anymore.Updated 4:20 p.m. PST: Google has officially commented on the matter via a blog post attributed to Singhal. In it, he writes &quot;However you define copying, the bottom line is, these Bing results came directly from Google.&quot; Also, &quot;And to those who have asked what we want out of all this, the answer is simple: we'd like for this practice to stop.&quot;Updated several timeswith comment from Google and Microsoft, most recently at 4:10 p.m. PT.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Has the App Store killed the point-and-shoot]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=has-the-app-store-killed-the-point-and-shoot</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=has-the-app-store-killed-the-point-and-shoot</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>barbarastone</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=has-the-app-store-killed-the-point-and-shoot</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Casio Tryx might be the first step to having a camera that runs apps. (Credit:Casio)My first thought when I saw the Casio Tryx camera announced at CES 2011 was that Casio took a smartphone and turned into a single-function device. The Tryx is 0.6 inch high by 2.3 inches wide by 4.8 inches deep, has a 3-inch touch screen, and a fixed focal length f2.8 21mm-equivalent ultrawide-angle lens (that means no optical zoom). Take away the swiveling and rotating screen and lens design and you essentially have the body of a smartphone. On top of that, one of the Tryx's key shooting features is high dynamic range (HDR) photos. HDR photography isn't new, but the use of it in the iPhone 4 certainly broadened awareness (for better or worse). If you're unfamiliar with it, basically, the camera takes several photos at different exposures and then combines them to bring out details that would otherwise be lost in the highlights and shadows of a scene. The Tryx can also do this for artistic effect by adjusting the strength of contrast throughout a photo. In other words, this camera does what apps like TrueHDR and Pro HDR do foriPhone users.So what you have in the Tryx is a high-powered smartphone-like camera with an app. One app. It does do other things, of course, and I'm sure Casio's argument would be that it performs better than any multipurpose mobile device can, and that's probably true. However, I keep hearing from readers, friends, and co-workers that they've pretty much abandoned their point-and-shoot cameras for their smartphones. Not because the photo quality is fantastic, but because it's always with them, because they can share photos instantly, and because of all of the apps. A good app can turn a bad or boring photo into something worth sharing. (Ask anyone who's ever used Hipstamatic.) While smartphones are not going to kill point-and-shoots anytime soon, camera manufacturers can't compete with apps. At least, not right now. Current camera systems are ridiculously closed off (Canon hacking aside), so people can't just start developing apps for them. And camera manufacturers can't be left to develop their own software because, well, the software would suck. Right now the manufacturers' solution is to add in special scene modes or give users creative art filters. However, neither option matches the fun or the flexibility of most photography apps. Add in instructional and editing and other utility apps and you can start to see why people are giving up on their simple pocket cameras. The Tryx seems like an if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em attempt at going after smartphones. Unfortunately, it doesn't go far enough. I don't know if Apple will ever make a new QuickTake camera and have it run on the iOS. However, there is some hope that an Android-based smartcamera isn't too far off. System-on-a-chip manufacturer Ambarella has developed the iOne, a chip designed for digital still and video capture that has full support for the Android OS. Match it with a good lens, a large touch-screen display, Wi-Fi and/or 3G mobile broadband, and the ability to load it full of fun and useful photography apps, and that might be worth sticking in the pocket your phone's not in.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Angry Birds gets the Kinect hack treatment]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=angry-birds-gets-the-kinect-hack-treatment</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=angry-birds-gets-the-kinect-hack-treatment</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:10:39 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Nena01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=angry-birds-gets-the-kinect-hack-treatment</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Two things in gaming right now that are exciting even to non-hard-core gamers are Angry Birds and Microsoft's Kinect. They both allow for addictive gameplay without a lot of investment and knowledge of things like &quot;fragging&quot; and &quot;spawn camping.&quot; And now a hacker by the name of Joel Griffin Dodd has combined the two with a hacking tool he helped develop called KinEmote.It uses a controller, so it's not quite the fully immersive experience one can imagine being developed for the Kinect system, but it's a start.And Kinect hacking is still in its infancy, as is KinEmote. It's easy to envision a version in the near future that would let you manually pull back your birds to send them at those evil, smug pigs. That certainly sounds gratifying.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Gartner: Mobile apps to generate $15 billion in 2011]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gartner-mobile-apps-to-generate-15-billion-in-2011</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gartner-mobile-apps-to-generate-15-billion-in-2011</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>abbugmantae</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=gartner-mobile-apps-to-generate-15-billion-in-2011</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In June, Steve Jobs said app makers had made $1 billion from iOS apps since the launch of the Apple App Store. But that number is expected to jump exponentially over the next year for developers on all mobile platforms.(Credit:James Martin/CNET)Three years ago, we didn't know what a mobile app store was. Or how popular the concept would become in a very short period of time.Since Apple's App Store opened in July 2008, however, mobile app sales have skyrocketed as app stores have popped up everywhere. Is it just a passing trend Research firm Gartner says no way.In a forecast of what's to come, Gartner released a study today that says more than 17.7 billion apps will be downloaded in this year alone, up over 100 percent from the 8.2 billion downloaded in 2010. And that's despite 8 out of every 10 apps downloaded being free, according to Gartner's findings. The money is rolling in for app makers, and the app store owners that they share revenue with. Gartner says by the end of this year revenue from mobile app stores worldwide will pass $15.1 billion--and that includes money made from smartphone ortablet users buying apps, and money made from ads placed inside those applications. It's a sizable jump from the $5.2 billion in revenue generated during 2010.Every major mobile OS maker has an app store these days. But even some handset makers and carriers are getting in on the action. The list of app stores include: Blackberry App World, Android Market, Microsoft Marketplace, HP's WebOS store, Nokia's Ovi Store, Verizon, Samsung, and the one that started the craze, Apple's App Store.The number of devices those app stores are available on is expected to increase. There are many people who still don't have a smartphone, but plan on buying one, and shipments of mobile media tablets are expected to explode by the end of this year. Apple has sold 14 million iPads already that have access to its App Store, and its competitors are expected to follow suit. RIM and HP are planning tablets with access to mobile app stores this year. And while there are a few Android tablets already for sale from Dell and Samsung, there are many, many more expected to start shipping over the course of the year.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Ask Maggie: On iPhones vs.Droids, again]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ask-maggie-on-iphones-vs-droids-again</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ask-maggie-on-iphones-vs-droids-again</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:10:39 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>garnersteen12</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ask-maggie-on-iphones-vs-droids-again</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Nearly two weeks after Verizon Wireless announced it will get the iPhone,iPhone fever is still gripping many CNET readers.I dedicated last week's Ask Maggie to answering questions about theVerizon iPhone. And this week I got several more questions related to Verizon's upcoming launch of the iPhone. So in this week's Ask Maggie column I answer some follow-up questions. Specifically, I clarify for one reader that both iPhone and Droids support Outlook e-mail andMicrosoft Office docs. I also advise another reader not to ditch his Comcast broadband for the Wi-Fi tethering feature of the iPhone 4 on Verizon. And finally, I answer one eager Sprint customer's question about where the iPhone might be launched next in the U.S. Ask Maggie is a weekly advice column that answers readers' wireless and broadband questions. If you've got a question, please send me an e-mail at maggie dot reardon at cbs dot com. And please put &quot;Ask Maggie&quot; in the subject header.Still deciding between an iPhone vs. a DroidDear Maggie,Thank you for last week's column comparing the Verizon iPhone and the Droid smartphones. I have a few follow-up questions for you on this. I use Microsoft Office Outlook for my contacts, calendar, and e-mail. Would this work with a Droid or iPhone I also want to be able to access Microsoft documents from my smartphone so I need Microsoft Office mobile formats like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Can I use this with either of these phonesWhen do you think that Verizon might offer a &quot;Global iPhone&quot; with both CDMA and GSM capability Could be on an upcoming iPhone 5 for Verizon.Thanks for your advice in advance! Howard Dear Howard,These are some great follow-up questions for anyone considering buying either an iPhone or a Google Android phone.You are in luck, the iPhone and the Droid each support Microsoft Outlook and some of Microsoft's other business suites. I spoke to CNET Reviews mobile experts Kent German, Nicole Lee, and Bonnie Cha to get more detail about this. Kent said that it's very easy to set up Microsoft Exchange on your iPhone if you know the necessary information. You'll need your e-mail address, username, password, and server name. For some accounts, you might need the domain as well.If you have Outlook Web Access, then you shouldn't need to involve your IT department. But if you don't, you may need to contact them for the correct settings.As for accessing, reading, and altering Microsoft documents, you can do this on the iPhone, but you'll have to purchase an app, Kent said. He suggests QuickOffice apps which cost between 4.99 and $16.99. There are cheaper and even free apps available, but they won't offer a lot of functionality, he said.Android subscribers can also access and sync their e-mail and calendar to their Outlook accounts. But if you are not using a Microsoft Exchange account it gets tricky. CNET Reviews editor Nicole Lee says that Android phones are optimized for Google products, such as Gmail and Google Calendar. So she recommends switching over to those tools rather than going through the trouble of syncing to Outlook. But if Outlook is what you like to use then there are workarounds and you can sync Outlook with your Google account or use a third-party solution, such as gSyncit, Bonnie Cha said. If you want more information check out Nicole's explanation in her column on the 411. Bonnie added that all Android phones come with some kind of free Microsoft Office suite, such as QuickOffice, which allows you to, at the very least, open and view Office documents. Most have basic editing functions, but if you want the ability to create new docs on your phone, you'll often have to pay to upgrade the app to a premium version of the suite.Now to answer your final question: Do I think Verizon will come out with a GSM/CDMA iPhone Honestly, I don't know the answer to that. I was surprised that the version Verizon announced two weeks ago was not a &quot;world phone.&quot;  I suppose that adding the additional radio increase device costs and takes up room in the device. So if there is a way to mitigate either of those things, then there's a chance that Verizon and Apple will add GSM in a future version. What I think is more likely to happen is that Apple will add an LTE radio chipset to a newer version of the Verizon iPhone. LTE is the technology used for Verizon's &quot;4G&quot; network. If LTE is added to the phone, then it will be backward compatible with GSM networks. So when you're traveling abroad, you'll be able to roam onto other GSM networks. When will this happen I don't know. But I don't think Verizon will get another release of the iPhone for at least a year. Maybe it will release an update in six months, but Apple typically only releases one new version of a product per year. A new GSM version of the iPhone is likely to be released this summer. Ditching broadband for the iPhone's hot spotHi Maggie,I have a question I was hoping you could answer in regards to the release of the Verizon iPhone, and its ability to become a Wi-Fi hot spot. I was thinking about getting rid of my broadband Internet provider (Comcast) at home and adding the $20 tethering, so that I could connect my desktop and Xbox 360 all at once. I figured this could help reduce my bill. I was wondering how much slower my devices would operate if I did this. And if I would notice a real difference if i just used my iPhone instead of Comcast's 15Mbps service. Thanks, Mullarky Dear Mullarky,In theory this sounds like a great idea. Why not share the bandwidth from your iPhone account with all the other Internet-enabled gear you have in your home The $20 Wi-Fi tethering fee that Verizon charges for its other Wi-Fi hot-spot phones is nothing compared to the $50 or $60 you are paying for Comcast's broadband service. RightThere are a couple of reasons why this isn't a good idea. For one, Verizon's iPhone operates over Verizon's 3G network. This is a network that provides average download speeds between 700Kbps and 1.2Mbps. And that's if you are in a place with good cell phone reception. Speeds can be much slower when connections aren't great or if the network is congested.If you're used to a 15Mbps cable modem service, and you plan to do a lot of gaming and video streaming via your Xbox 360, you will notice the difference in performance. Now, if you were to use one of Verizon's new LTE smartphones coming out later this year for Internet access, that's a different story. The LTE network, which Verizon calls its &quot;4G&quot; network gets average download speeds between 6Mbps and 12Mbps. Some users have even reported download speeds around 20Mbps. So an LTE device would definitely provide you a fast enough broadband connection so that you could stream movies and play interactive games on your Xbox. And you likely wouldn't notice the difference in terms of performance. But there's a catch to this as well. And that's price. Verizon doesn't want people using its wireless broadband services as a replacement to fixed broadband. Remember, the company has a wired broadband business selling DSL and Fios fiber to the home service. So the company makes sure to keep limits on how much data can be used on its wireless broadband networks. It's been doing this for years with its 3G wireless data service, capping usage at 5GB per month. Traditionally, customers using the $20 a month tethering feature via a smartphone, have been held to the same 5GB cap.Verizon hasn't yet announced data pricing for either the iPhone or the new LTE smartphones it is launching this year. So I don't know the specific pricing for the data services for these devices or what Verizon plans to charge for tethering. But the company has released pricing for its USB data stick customers on its LTE service. Subscribers can get 5 gigabytes of data per month for $50 or 10GB of data for $80 a month. Customers who exceed this limit will be charged $10 for every 1GB over the limit. The $50 pricing of the service is $10 cheaper than Verizon's existing 3G wireless service. The company said it will offer text alerts that will warn customers about the usage of their data plan. Based on this pricing model or a similar one that will charge you if you exceed your monthly usage cap, you're probably better off keeping your Comcast broadband service. Sprint iPhoneDear Maggie,I am currently on the Sprint network, and was wondering if there is any chance that the iPhone 4 will be released on Sprint anytime in the future. I have read rumors that say that it will be released, but I have also read articles saying it won't. I am hoping you have some good news for me! ') Thank you so much! Ben Dear Ben,I wish I could look into my crystal ball and tell you for certain one way or another. But honestly, I don't have magical powers to predict the future and Apple doesn't fill me on its device launch plans.That said, during the press conference two weeks ago, Tim Cook, Apple's COO, said that the deal with Verizon to sell a CDMA version of the iPhone was not exclusive. So you could infer that Apple will be looking to strike deals with other CDMA providers. So my guess is that Sprint will eventually get the iPhone. In fact, I suspect that eventually several U.S. carriers will have a version of the iPhone. When will this happen I don't know. Again, I suspect that Verizon will get a semi-exclusive on the iPhone for at least a few months. Before Apple starts selling the CDMA iPhone elsewhere in the U.S., I think it's more likely that the company will announce a deal with China Telecom, another big CDMA provider. It makes sense for Apple to sell the iPhone through as many carrier channels as possible. It will be interesting to see what happens as it adds these new carriers. Will it offer older models of the device to other carriers Will it keep the newest versions of the product for AT&amp;T or, in the future, Verizon WirelessThe iPhone is so popular that people seem willing to buy it even when the latest version of the product doesn't have all the same bells and whistles that its competitors have. We'll have to wait and see if customers are as eager to buy an older version of the iPhone on Verizon this spring, even though AT&amp;T is likely to get a new version this summer. Sorry I couldn't more precisely answer your question. I'll be sure to write a story should I hear of an exact release date for a Sprint Nextel iPhone.          Marguerite Reardon     Full Profile E-mail Marguerite Reardon   E-mail Marguerite Reardon If you have a question or comment for Marguerite Reardon, 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       Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Mobile e-mail rises' Web e-mail dips]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-mobile-e-mail-rises-web-e-mail-dips</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-mobile-e-mail-rises-web-e-mail-dips</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:10:08 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>artwhale</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-mobile-e-mail-rises-web-e-mail-dips</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Mobile e-mail is growing in popularity while the use of Web-based e-mail seems to be waning, according to a new study from ComScore.Looking back at November, ComScore found that the number of people sending e-mail via a dedicated client on a mobile device was up 36 percent from the prior November. Over the same period, the number of visitors to Web-based e-mail sites fell by 6 percent.(Credit:ComScore)Even further, those who visited Web-based e-mail sites spent less time doing so. The amount of time spent at such sites dropped 9 percent in November year over year, while the number of total pages viewed fell 15 percent.For the mobile e-mail figures, ComScore is counting people who use a dedicated e-mail client on a mobile device as well as those who just sync mail from Gmail or another online account to their phones. Those numbers also include users who access Webmail accounts from a mobile device. For the Web-based mail stats, ComScore is referring specifically to users who access Webmail through a PC.&quot;From PCs to mobile devices, whether it's e-mail, social media, IM, or texting, consumers have many ways to communicate and can do so at any time and in any place,&quot; Mark Donovan, ComScore senior vice president of mobile, said yesterday in a statement. &quot;The decline in Web-based e-mail is a byproduct of these shifting dynamics and the increasing availability of on-demand communication options.&quot;Despite the move toward mobile, e-mail is still one of the most popular activities on the Web, with more than 70 percent of online users accessing their messages via the Web each month. For November, ComScore reported that 153 million people checked their Web-based e-mail accounts. That compares with 70.1 million mobile users--30 percent of all mobile subscribers--who accessed e-mail through their mobile devices.(Credit:ComScore)Still, the rise in mobile e-mail usage is significant. ComScore found that 43.5 million people used their mobile phones for e-mail on a daily basis in November, a jump of 40 percent from the prior year.The disparity between mobile and Web was even greater among the younger crowd.People ages 25 to 34 were 60 percent more likely to check mobile e-mail than the average mobile subscriber, while those 18 to 24 were 46 percent more likely. In contrast, the use of Web-based e-mail fell 24 percent among those 12 to 17, while the total amount of time spent checking their Web e-mail dropped 48 percent.ComScore based its results for this study on data from its Media Metrix and MobiLens services.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Samsung responds to claims of holding back Vibrant's Froyo update]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-responds-to-claims-of-holding-back-vibrants-froyo-update</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-responds-to-claims-of-holding-back-vibrants-froyo-update</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>riaterwinqw</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-responds-to-claims-of-holding-back-vibrants-froyo-update</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Samsung Vibrant(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)This post was updated at 5:27 p.m., PT with comment from T-Mobile.There's a story circulating the Web today that's causing an uproar among Samsung Vibrant owners and putting Samsung in the hot seat. According to AndroidSpin, they received a tip from a reliable source that claims that Samsung is preventing T-Mobile from releasing the Android 2.2 Froyo update to Vibrant users in order to push the next-gen Vibrant 4G.The tipster, who appears to be from within the T-Mobile organization, writes:Some disturbing things have happened the last week or so concerning our &quot;Vibrant.&quot; Samsung has NOT allowed us to push the update OTA for 2.2 because they feel it will decrease the value of the upcoming Vibrant4G +. While from a marketing aspect I totally understand, as the Vibrant 4G is what the original Vibrant should have been in the 1st place. But to shun off and bold face lie to customers is NOT what T-Mobile is about.The source goes on to say that the Samsung Vibrant 4G is largely similar to the current model, except it adds a front-facing camera, and new movie and 4G capabilities. We reached out to Samsung for comment and a company spokesperson sent CNET the following response:Samsung Mobile does not comment on rumors or speculation. With regard to the Froyo update, we recently issued the following statement: &quot;Samsung feels it is important to make the Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade available only after we feel that we can give the millions of U.S. Galaxy S owners a simple and reliable upgrade experience. Due to the complexity and unique functionality of each Galaxy S device, we are performing additional testing and are working to make the Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade available to all U.S. Galaxy S owners, including the Samsung Vibrant, as soon as possible.The noncommittal answer surely isn't satisfactory to Vibrant owners, but what I'm more concerned about here is Samsung's general delay in releasing a Froyo update to all of its Galaxy S smartphones here in the States. When the Galaxy series of Android phones was unveiled in late June, Samsung said that the entire portfolio would be upgraded to Android 2.2. Though it never promised a delivery date, some of the models have been out for about seven months now with no sign of an update. Meanwhile, other handsets, including the Motorola Droid X and HTC Evo 4G, have received the Android 2.2 update.It's all a little too reminiscent of the Samsung Behold II fiasco, where Samsung stopped pushing updates after Android OS 1.6. Though the company never officially said it, we suspected the TouchWiz interface was to blame, which is why we were concerned when we saw an even more customized TouchWiz UI on the Galaxy phones, but at the time, Samsung assured us updates would not be a problem. We appreciate the thoroughness in testing, but this doesn't help Samsung's cause. I really hope for its sake that all Galaxy owners get a helping of Froyo soon. When asked for comment, T-Mobile referred us to Samsung's official statement shown above.        Bonnie Cha     Full Profile E-mail Bonnie Cha   E-mail Bonnie Cha If you have a question or comment for Bonnie Cha, 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       Bonnie Cha is a senior editor for CNET, covering smartphones. When she's not testing the latest gadgets, you can find her chasing after her crazy lab or surfing in the chilly waters of Northern California.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Shooting suspect left unsettling artifacts online]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=shooting-suspect-left-unsettling-artifacts-online</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=shooting-suspect-left-unsettling-artifacts-online</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 08 Jan 2011 08:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>aaaronbaldwinu</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=shooting-suspect-left-unsettling-artifacts-online</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The suspected gunman in the shooting today of a U.S. Congresswoman posted disturbing artifacts on YouTube and MySpace, according to various reports, including a photo of a gun on top of a U.S. history book, and videos featuring strange, sometimes political ramblings.Police arrested 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner in connection with the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords that took place this morning during an appearance by Giffords at a supermarket in Tucson.Giffords was shot once through the head and is in critical condition' 18 others were shot as well, with 6 dying, including a 9-year-old girl and John M. Roll, the chief judge for the United States District Court for Arizona, The New York Times reported. Screen capture of a video titled &amp;34'How To: Mind Controller,&amp;34' ostensibly created by shooting suspect Jared Lee Loughner.(Credit:Screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)Loughner's odd behavior at Pima Community College in Tucson, along with a disturbing Internet video, had caused officials at the school to suspend him in September, pending a mental health clearance, The Times said in another report.&quot;The rambling, disconnected writings and videos he has left on the Web are consistent with the delusions produced by a psychotic illness like schizophrenia, which develops most often in the teens or 20s,&quot; The Times reported.Videos ostensibly posted by Loughner on YouTube contain bizarre screeds about the government.&quot;Reading the second United States Constitution, I can't trust the current government because of the ratifications,&quot; runs one remark. &quot;The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.&quot;Another says:You're a treasurer for a new currency, listenerYou create and distribute your new currency, listenerYou don't allow the government to control your grammar structure, listenerAnd another says:The majority of citizens in the United States of America have never read the United States of America's Constitution.You don't have to accept the federalist laws.Nonetheless, read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws.You're literate, listenerAll those remarks appear in a video titled &quot;Introduction: Jared Loughner,&quot; which opens with the words, &quot;My Final Thoughts: Jared Lee Loughner!&quot; The YouTube page says the video was posted three weeks ago.MySpace pages reportedly posted by Loughner featured a photo of a pistol on top of what looks like a book bearing the title &quot;United States History.&quot; Web site Good reported that the pages had been taken down as of this afternoon, but Good showed a screen shot of a &quot;My Photos&quot; page with the described image.Web site Good posted this screen capture of a MySpace page.(Credit:Good)A former classmate of Loughner's, Catie Parker, posted a series of statements to Twitter today, the Times reported, in which she said Loughner was &quot;oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy&quot; and had &quot;met Giffords once before in '07, asked her a question &amp; he told me she was 'stupid &amp; unintelligent.'&quot;Loughner had tried to get into the Army but was rejected for reasons the Army said it could not disclose for privacy reasons, the Times reported, adding that police officials said the suspect had a criminal record of some sort, though they would not provide further information.Police are reportedly searching for a second man in connection with the shooting.Both Good and the Times said Loughner had posted a farewell message on MySpace this morning. It read, said Good, &quot;Goodbye friends...Please don't be mad at me.&quot;The Times reported that Loughner is refusing to cooperate with authorities and has invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.        Edward Moyer    Full Profile E-mail Edward Moyer   E-mail Edward Moyer If you have a question or comment for Edward Moyer, 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       Edward Moyer has been editing on and off for CNET since the days of the CD-ROM.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Barnes & Noble's Nook server woes rectified]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=barnes--nobles-nook-server-woes-rectified</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=barnes--nobles-nook-server-woes-rectified</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Dec 2010 08:10:19 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>rexmxxeexx</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=barnes--nobles-nook-server-woes-rectified</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Nook owners couldn&amp;39't download e-books on Christmas Day.(Credit:Barnes &amp;amp' Noble)Over the last couple of weeks we've been writing about how all the e-reader manufacturers have been talking up their robust holiday sales. Well, there can be some downsides to success, as Barnes &amp; Noble's servers apparently couldn't handle the influx of new users on Christmas Day and continued to experience trouble into Sunday. This is the second year in a row that Barnes &amp; Noble's server issues have kept new Nook owners from buying e-books on Christmas Day.Across the Web and on Twitter, people were complaining about the problems. For instance, CNET user Ridermom wrote a scathing review of the Nook Color, which received an Editors' Choice award and has had mainly very positive reviews from CNET readers: I have a product that can not be used because Barnes and Noble server is not working. So all I hear from customer service is to be patient and it should be working by Monday afternoon. So I have a $250.00 product that can not be used and Barnes and Noble will not [give] any compensation to their customers. So after 2-days/6 hours of trouble / and 2 hours of phone calls. I think the Nook is going back to the store tomorrow!!!!We can't tell you why this inexplicable snafu happened again. But suffice to say that while Barnes &amp; Noble was presumably prepared for the onslaught, the technology didn't cooperate as planned. The good news for Nook owners is the system is working fine now, a day or two late for some.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Australia begins test of Wi-Fi via TV antenna]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=australia-begins-test-of-wi-fi-via-tv-antenna</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=australia-begins-test-of-wi-fi-via-tv-antenna</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 17 Dec 2010 08:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sowviawina</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=australia-begins-test-of-wi-fi-via-tv-antenna</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This laptop screen shows six users sending data simultaneously.(Credit:CSIRO)Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization has started testing its wireless broadband technology, which uses existing TV antennas, at the first National Broadband Network roll-out site of Smithton in Tasmania.The system, named Ngara, works by installing antennas on existing TV broadcasting towers that transmit wireless broadband to households through their existing TV antennas, although slightly modified as some components in existing antennas don't allow them to be used as transmitters.While the uplink test was a success, getting data downloaded was still a work in progress. &quot;The team is only able to beam form to one user at the moment, but this is an experiment, not everything is going to work on the first go. We are confident we will get there soon,&quot; Ian Opperman, CSIRO's ICT center director, said in a statement.Read more of &quot;CSIRO trials TV aerial Wi-Fi broadband&quot; at ZDNet Australia.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Awareness app: Upgrade your mental software]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=awareness-app-upgrade-your-mental-software</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=awareness-app-upgrade-your-mental-software</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>lilangelab</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=awareness-app-upgrade-your-mental-software</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Not to be confused with the Awareness! app (note exclamation point) that filters outside noises into your headphones, the new Awareness app (note lack of exclamation point) asks a simple question--What are you feeling right now--at random intervals.The prompt is made via a &quot;gentle reminder sound&quot; that will &quot;intercept&quot; (as opposed to &quot;interrupt&quot;) the user's routine, unless of course there is a scheduled iCal meeting (perhaps they should consider enabling users to block out times for such activities as sleep and sex, but for now the simplest workaround is to simply schedule said activities on iCal, or maybe even turn one's phone off).Users can choose from 115 possible answers that are grouped into eight mood categories and one sensation category (&quot;body feelings,&quot; such as tired, sore, etc.). Once the user answers the feeling question, &quot;brief video clips guide you back to the present moment,&quot; and &quot;400 inspirational quotes tied to what you are feeling&quot; are displayed, presumably not all at once.Daily, weekly, monthly, and annual reports help assess which activities lead to which feelings, arming the user with the data necessary to &quot;distract yourself from unpleasant feelings.&quot;Best of all, there are no ads, and the app works regardless of network connection. So yes, even when you are out at the cabin trying to get away from it all, you can still be, well, intercepted.It's easy to poke a little fun at the app and its corresponding Web site, which arrive on the app scene on the heels of similar happiness apps and was developed by Ronit Herzfield, a psychotherapist in New York who calls herself &quot;ambassador of the heart.&quot;Ronit Herzfield(Credit:ronitherzfeld.com)But it's getting rave reviews. Among them, Arianna Huffington says: &quot;This is wonderful...I have been asking people to begin thinking about how to use technology in order to help us to disconnect from technology and connect with ourselves.&quot;Presumably she sees the irony. But while initial reports on one's actual moods might be as alarming as initial reports when one first starts tracking one's budget, Awareness has great potential to bring attention to how people handle various situations.The app is compatible with theiPhone,iPod Touch, andiPad, and requires iOS 4.1 or later. It's available via iTunes for $3.99, and is rated 12+ for &quot;Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References.&quot; <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[LastPass takes the pain out of passwords]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=lastpass-takes-the-pain-out-of-passwords</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=lastpass-takes-the-pain-out-of-passwords</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Nov 2010 08:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Naina</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=lastpass-takes-the-pain-out-of-passwords</guid>
<description><![CDATA[<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[AT&T spins post-Thanksgiving deals]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=att-spins-post-thanksgiving-deals</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=att-spins-post-thanksgiving-deals</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 19 Nov 2010 08:10:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Kareena</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=att-spins-post-thanksgiving-deals</guid>
<description><![CDATA[AT&amp;T will sell the RIM BlackBerry Torch for 1 cent next Saturday.(Credit:Josh Miller/CNET)We've already told you about Amazon Wireless' cell phone deals for the holiday shopping brouhaha, but now AT&amp;T is getting in on the act as well. From Black Friday through Cyber Monday, the carrier will be offering a deal a day for many if its phones. Here's what you'll see. November 26: AT&amp;T says it will offer &quot;some of the best prices ever&quot; on its &quot;most popular&quot; touch-screen devices. At this point, we don't exactly know which handsets that includes, so we'll have to wait and see.November 27: For 24 hours, a selection of the carrier's refurbished devices, including the RIM BlackBerry Torch, will be available for just one penny with a service contract.November 28: Four AT&amp;T messaging handsets, the Pantech Link, the LG Vu Plus, the Sharp FX, and the Pantech Pursuit. Keep in mind that you'll need an unlimited messaging plan or a $20 combination of messaging and data plan.November 29: In what is perhaps the carrier's best deal, AT&amp;T will offers a few smartphones for just one penny if you sign a new contract. The devices list, which will rotate every three hours, will include the HTC Aria, the RIM BlackBerry Curve 3G, the Motorola Flipout, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10, and the Motorola Bravo.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Kinect power adapter appears in Microsoft's store]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kinect-power-adapter-appears-in-microsofts-store</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kinect-power-adapter-appears-in-microsofts-store</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 09 Nov 2010 08:10:20 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>winmansufes</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kinect-power-adapter-appears-in-microsofts-store</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Kinect&amp;39's power adapter.(Credit:Microsoft)It only took a few days, but Microsoft's power adapter for the Kinect has become available at the company's online store. The adapter powers the Kinect unit for users with older (read: not slim)Xbox 360s, and is unnecessary for users of the newer Xbox hardware, which has a special powered Kinect port on the back. The adapter is included for users who bought the standalone Kinect accessory, but not in either of the two Kinect Xbox 360 bundles, since they both feature the Kinect port.As noted in our story about the Kinect's launch last week, not having the power adapter only becomes a problem for people who intend to bring the console bundle variant of the Kinect over to a friend's house, or a different room where only the older hardware is present. The adapter sells for $34.99, though it's currently listed as being out of stock.(Via Joystiq)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Get free e-mail reminders from NudgeMail]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-free-e-mail-reminders-from-nudgemail</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-free-e-mail-reminders-from-nudgemail</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 03 Nov 2010 07:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Lillian</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-free-e-mail-reminders-from-nudgemail</guid>
<description><![CDATA[On a typical morning, I wake up to more than 80 new e-mails in my in-box--and that doesn't even count the many more that are automatically filtered to several sub-folders, one of which receives around 70 messages per day alone.  Nor does that encompass the dozen or so messages sitting in my personal account. That's quite a lot of e-mail to sift through, especially for a person who cringes at the sight of unread messages in her in-box. But once I've marked them as read, it then becomes a chore to keep track of what needs a response and when. Incidentally, this is precisely the reason that NudgeMail caught my eye.This handy service, developed by San Francisco-based consumer product experience firm Stage Two, is about as straightforward as they come, which is an integral part of its appeal (disclosure: Jeremy Toeman, a founding partner of Stage Two, is also a columnist for CNET). NudgeMail provides one feature: it turns any e-mail client into a reminder system. So say you receive a message that necessitates a reply, but not until Friday. Simply forward the e-mail to &quot;friday@nudgemail.com&quot; and, on Friday, the message will be sent back to you for response. You can also schedule items for particular dates' for example, for the 22nd of November, you would forward the message to &quot;11222010@nudgemail.com.&quot;A simple forward sent to thursday@nudgemail.com provides the above results.(Credit:Screenshot by Jasmine France/CNET)It's really as simple as that. There are no registrations, no users, no widgets to toy with--just e-mail. And as many of us know, forwarding an e-mail is about the quickest and easiest process there is. Better yet, NudgeMail works from pretty much any platform--Android, BlackBerry,iPhone, Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail...the list goes on and on. And it's completely free, at least for now. The service is currently in beta' once it goes live in prime time, the developer asserts that free users will still get a &quot;limited but useful quantity of monthly nudges,&quot; while those who subscribe to the premium service will get unlimited nudges and extra features.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[iPad's newest retailers: Verizon, AT&T]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipads-newest-retailers-verizon-att</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipads-newest-retailers-verizon-att</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 28 Oct 2010 07:10:20 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Arvinda</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ipads-newest-retailers-verizon-att</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The iPad(Credit:Apple)Apple'siPad is available through Verizon Wireless and AT&amp;T as of today.Verizon is selling the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad bundled with a MiFi Mobile Hotspot that lets people connect to the carrier's 3G network on the tablet computer. Verizon is offering the 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB iPad models for $629.99, $729.99, and $829.99, respectively. Verizon is also selling the iPad without the MiFi bundle for $499, $599, and $699, depending on the desired capacity.According to Verizon, the carrier is offering four data plans. The cheapest option offers 1GB of monthly data for $20. The prices go up to $35, $50, and $80 per month for 3GB, 5GB, and 10GB of monthly usage, respectively. Verizon said that its plans are month-to-month, so people are not required to sign a contract to access its 3G network.Although AT&amp;T has been the carrier for iPads with 3G access, it hadn't directly sold the tablet computers until today. Unlike Verizon, AT&amp;T is offering the iPad with Wi-Fi and 3G, which means customers won't need an additional device to access 3G. AT&amp;T is offering the iPad with Wi-Fi and 3G for $629, $729, and $829, depending on the customer's desired capacity. AT&amp;T is offering two data plans: a 250MB option for $15 per month and a 2GB plan for $25 per month. Like with Verizon, AT&amp;T customers do not need to sign a contract to access the carrier's 3G network.More significant than the fact that Apple is getting the iPad into more retail stores before the holiday-shopping season is the speculation created by Verizon selling the iPad. For years, people have been speculating about when Verizon will break AT&amp;T's exclusive hold as the iPhone carrier. Verizon actually selling the iPad gives consumers some hope that aniPhone running on Verizon's network isn't so far off.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[T-Mobile to add tethering for $15]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-to-add-tethering-for-15</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-to-add-tethering-for-15</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sophia004</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-to-add-tethering-for-15</guid>
<description><![CDATA[T-Mobile USA wireless subscribers will soon be allowed to use their smartphones as modems to bring Internet access to other devices including laptops, a T-Mobile representative confirmed today. The blog the Boy Genius Report first reported the news, citing an internal memo from T-Mobile that outlined the new plan. According to the memo, starting November 3, smartphone subscribers with an HSPA or HSPA+ phone will be able to get up to 5GB of data service per month for an additional $14.99 a month. Once users exceed the 5GB threshold, T-Mobile will throttle and slow down the traffic, the memo says. To be eligible for the new service, customers will have to sign up for a $19.95 data plan or higher. It will be available for both postpaid customers on a contract and people subscribed to the FlexPay service.A T-Mobile representative confirmed that the company plans to introduce a tethering plan, but was unable to confirm timing or pricing for the new service.Up to this point, T-Mobile has not offered an official tethering service. But some customers have configured their devices to use their phones as a modem. Now those customers will be required to purchase a new plan, according to the report.The new tethering option puts T-Mobile on par with some of its competitors, notably Verizon Wireless and AT&amp;T, which also offer tethering options. But for consumers who can get access to T-Mobile's network, T-Mobile's plan could offer a much better deal.Verizon offers its &quot;Mobile Broadband Connect&quot; service for smartphone users and advanced feature phone customers. Smartphone customers can get 2GB of data for an additional $20 per month. This service allows Verizon customers to connect up to five devices via Wi-Fi, but all these devices share the 2GB worth of data every month. Customers who exceed this cap are charged additional usage fees. Customers with advanced feature phones can also tether their devices. This package starts at $30 per month on top of an existing voice and data package and offers users 5GB of data. For $50 per month, subscribers can get up to 5GB of data on top of an existing voice package.AT&amp;T wireless customers can add tethering to their $25-a-month data plan for an extra $20 a month. This service will allow customers to share up to 2GB of data for the month between the smartphone and whatever device is tethered to the Internet via the smartphone.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Travel companies band together against Google]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=travel-companies-band-together-against-google</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=travel-companies-band-together-against-google</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 26 Oct 2010 07:10:06 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Simontufell</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=travel-companies-band-together-against-google</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Travelocity, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Sabre Holdings, and several other online travel companies have created the FairSearch.org coalition to try to block Google's acquisition of ITA Software.In a blog post announcing its launch, FairSearch said that Google &quot;presents a threat to competition and transparency in online travel search, and could lead to higher travel prices and less choice for consumers.&quot;Back in July, Google announced that it intended to acquire ITA for $700 million. The search giant said at the time that ITA, which collects flight, seating, and pricing data from airlines and provides them to online travel search companies, would be used to help people shop for airfare via Google.Google&amp;39's representation of the online travel industry.(Credit:Google)On a site detailing its intentions for ITA, Google states that it wants to &quot;create a new, easier way for users to find better flight information online, which should encourage more users to make their flight purchases online.&quot;Google asserts that its ITA acquisition &quot;will benefit passengers, airlines, and online travel agencies.&quot;But the FairSearch coalition members disagree and specifically cite &quot;The Google Problem.&quot; &quot;If the transaction is approved, consumers should expect to face higher prices and less choice when searching for travel online,&quot; FairSearch states on its site. &quot;This anticompetitive deal represents a broader pattern in Google's acquisition strategy--a strategy that threatens online competition, innovation, and economic growth.&quot;In addition to establishing a coalition, the companies are rallying together in a lobbying effort to urge Congress members to block Google's bid for ITA, The Wall Street Journal reported.But those companies aren't the only stakeholders concerned about Google's intentions for ITA.Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice broadened its review of Google's ITA acquisition. The Justice Department is concerned that Google would keep travel companies from using ITA's services. The federal government also wants to ensure that Google won't use ITA to push people toward its own travel offering, rather than direct them to search sites.For its part, Google has said that the &quot;deal will not change existing market shares.&quot; It also plans to &quot;honor all existing agreements&quot; ITA Software has with travel search companies.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google Finally Updates FeedBurner To Focus On Real Time Stats And&nbsp'Twitter]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-finally-updates-feedburner-to-focus-on-real-time-stats-andnbsptwitter</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-finally-updates-feedburner-to-focus-on-real-time-stats-andnbsptwitter</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-finally-updates-feedburner-to-focus-on-real-time-stats-andnbsptwitter</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Three and a half years ago, Google made what seemed to be a pretty big $100 million acquisition: FeedBurner. You remember that company, right They&amp;'re the ones that dominated RSS management before all of that real time tech came along and rendered it obsolete for many people. Today, Google is putting the real time paddles to FeedBurner&amp;'s heart in an attempt to rivive it.If you visit FeedBurner today, you&amp;'ll see a &amp;''Try out our NEW (beta) version!&amp;'' message in the top menu. Clicking on this will take you to the new version. So what&amp;'s new The entire look and feel has been revamped. The new Home screen is loaded up with overview stats and alerts for the sites you run. But the real key, of course, is in the Feeds area.Here&amp;'s you&amp;'ll see a completely new way of looking at your subscribers and data. In a move that should surprise no one, it looks a lot more like Google Analytics. But the key is what&amp;'s going on behind the scenes. As Google notes:The real story is whata4a4s new under the hood, however: the new interface provides real time stats for clicks, views, and podcast downloads, which means you can start seeing what content is drawing traffic from feed readers, Twitter, and other syndicated sources as it happens.In fact, Google mentions Twitter a couple times in their post about the update a4&quot; more than they mention their own RSS reader product, Google Reader. Clearly, they see where the future of content consumption is heading.And it&amp;'s interesting that Twitter is so vital here. One of FeedBurner&amp;'s co-founders and CEO was Dick Costolo a4&quot; yes, the same man who is now the CEO of Twitter.Costolo left Google in July of 2009 after he had already moved on from the FeedBurner team. It seemed pretty clear to many of us that after thea4sacquisition, Google wasn&amp;'t putting the resources it should have into the product. And its time at Google has been filled with bugs, problems, and a general growing disinterest from most users.Maybe that will change now. Maybe. This update is about two years too late.[thanks Michael]CrunchBase InformationFeedBurnerGoogleTwitterInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Verizon pushes for rewrite of &''antiquated and anti-competitive&'' US telecom law]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-pushes-for-rewrite-of-8220antiquated-and-anti-competitive8221-us-telecom-law</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-pushes-for-rewrite-of-8220antiquated-and-anti-competitive8221-us-telecom-law</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sarah01</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=verizon-pushes-for-rewrite-of-8220antiquated-and-anti-competitive8221-us-telecom-law</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Tell us what you really think, Verizon. The company yesterday issued a press release titled &amp;''Congress Needs to Update the Nation&amp;'s Antiquated and Anti-Competitive Telecom Rules&amp;'' &amp;8212' which, as you can guess, isn&amp;'t exactly a love letter to the FCC.Verizon executive vice president of public affairs Tom Tauke is quoted as saying in the release: &amp;''The grinding you hear are the gears churning as policymakers try to fit fast-changing technologies and competitive markets into regulatory boxes built for analog technologies and monopoly markets.&amp;''The company&amp;'s frustration isn&amp;'t unwarranted. The FCC is still fighting for authority when it comes to regulating the internet, mainly because current telecom rules aren&amp;'t suited to the issues we&amp;'re facing today like net neutrality. The agency tried to reclassify internet communications in a &amp;''third way&amp;'' that gave it more authority earlier this year &amp;8212' after a US court declared that the FCC didn&amp;'t have the authority to impose net neutrality on providers.Verizon&amp;'s position now is even more extreme than its stance earlier this year, when it proposed its policy for an &amp;''open internet&amp;'' together with Google. The company is now proposing four components that it feels are necessary for a new policy to guide the internet: It should be a federal framework' allow for case-by-case rulings' government intervention should be allowed only to protect consumers from harm or to stop anti-competitive activity' and perhaps most importantly, a single federal agency should be given clear jurisdiction.As Engadget points out, Congress already started looking into a revamp of the Telecommunications Act earlier this year. Perhaps Verizon&amp;'s prodding will move things along even more quickly.Via EngadgetNext Story: Zynga and Playdom settle their trade secret theft lawsuit Previous Story: Social media tracker Tynt gives developers content in real-time data streamsPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Internet, net neutrality, policyCompanies: FCC, Google, VerizonPeople: Tom Tauke          Tags: Internet, net neutrality, policyCompanies: FCC, Google, VerizonPeople: Tom TaukeDevindra Hardawar is VentureBeat's lead mobile writer and East Coast correspondent. He studied philosophy at Amherst College, worked in IT support for several years, and has been writing about technology since 2004. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York. You can reach him at devindra@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @Devindra.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Is Groupon worth $25B (Poll)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-groupon-worth-25b-poll</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-groupon-worth-25b-poll</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>UrsulaPenn</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=is-groupon-worth-25b-poll</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Daily deals giant Groupon might be in talks with several banks to file for an initial public offering later this year that would value the company at $25 billion, according to sources familiar with the discussions.Groupon works with local businesses to offer steep discounts a4&quot;sometimes anywhere from 50 to 90 percent. For example, it offered a yeara4a4s subscription to car-sharing service Zipcar along with $30 in driving credit for $30 a4&quot;down from the typical cost of around $115.The business model has proven it works well. Groupona4a4s success has inspired a number of a4Ame-tooa4 companies that focus on daily deals. Savings.com, for example, launched at the Launch Conference in San Francisco last month and aggregates a large number of deals from multiple sites. But none are more compelling than LivingSocial, which raised $175 million from online retailer Amazon.com in December.It was clear that Groupon had its eyes set on going public after it spurned a $6 billion buyout offer from Google. The company said it expanded from 1 to 35 countries and grew from 2 million to more than 50 million subscribers in the past year when it announced its most recent funding round.The daily deal site recentlyraised nearly $1 billion in a funding round closed in January. The site is backed by venture capital titans like Kleiner Perkins Caufield &amp;amp' Byers, Andreessen-Horowitz and Greylock Partners. The most recent funding round valued Groupon at roughly $4.75 billion. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have spoken with Groupon about taking the company public at a valuation of $15 billion, according to the Bloomberg report.Is Groupon worth $25 billioncustomer surveysNext Story: Android vs. iPhone browser speed test sparks dispute Previous Story: Noteleaf texts you quick info on the person you&amp;'re about to meet withPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Andrew Mason, daily deals, deals, initial public offering, IPOCompanies: Groupon, Livingsocial, Savings.com          Tags: Andrew Mason, daily deals, deals, initial public offering, IPOCompanies: Groupon, Livingsocial, Savings.comMatthew Lynley is VentureBeat's enterprise writer. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he studied math and physics, in May 2010. He has reported for Reuters. He currently lives in San Francisco, California. You can reach him at mattl@venturebeat.com (all story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), and on Twitter at @logicalmoron. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Disney Mobile throws its weight behind Android tablets (video)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=disney-mobile-throws-its-weight-behind-android-tablets-video</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=disney-mobile-throws-its-weight-behind-android-tablets-video</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>jajtsotest</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=disney-mobile-throws-its-weight-behind-android-tablets-video</guid>
<description><![CDATA[By fixing problems with earlier versions of Android, Google has a chance to win over loyal iPhone developers to its mobile operating system, which can now support tablet computers.One former Apple loyalist is Bart Decrem, former head of Tapulous, which was purchased by Disney last year. Tapulous has had more than 50 million downloads of its Tap Tap Revenge music rhythm games on the iPhone alone.Today, Decrem, now an executive in charge of Disney Mobile, announced that Disney is doing three mobile apps for the tablet-focused Honeycomb version of Android, which Google showed off today. Disney will release the Jelly Car game, Radio Disney music app, and Tap Tap Revenge 4 for Honeycomb. The apps will debut whenever Honeycomb-based devices, such as the Motorola Xoom, are released into the market. That&amp;'s going to be a matter of days or weeks.Decrem said that Disney waited for Google to make much-needed changes for Android, including a new Android Market that supports in-app purchases, or the ability for users to buy a virtual good or premium content from within an application, while the app is running. That is the entire business model for Tap Tap Revenge, which has seen more than 25 million downloads of songs for use in the game, where you tap on the screen to the beat of a song.Check out our video interview with Decrem, who was showing off the new apps at Google&amp;'s Honeycomb event today.Next Story: Honeycomb: Up close with Google&amp;'s Android 3.0 for tablets (video) Previous Story: Low-tech Canadian Download finds a smarter way to ship dataPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Android, Disney Mobile, Honeycomb, Jelly Cars, Tap Tap Revenge 4Companies: Disney, Disney Mobile, Google, TapulousPeople: Bart Decrem          Tags: Android, Disney Mobile, Honeycomb, Jelly Cars, Tap Tap Revenge 4Companies: Disney, Disney Mobile, Google, TapulousPeople: Bart DecremDean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Mobile sharing startup Bump raises $16M]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mobile-sharing-startup-bump-raises-16m</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mobile-sharing-startup-bump-raises-16m</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>DimaFGert</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mobile-sharing-startup-bump-raises-16m</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Bump Technologies, the startup that first grabbed attention by allowing users to a4Abumpa4 their phones together and share contact information, just raised $16 million in a second round of funding.The company has an impressive lineup of investors &amp;8212' Andreessen Horowitz, the firm co-founded by Netscape creator Marc Andreessen, led the current round. Past backers Sequoia Capital, Ram Shirama4a4s Sherpalo Ventures, and Ron Conwaya4a4s SV Angels also participated. Andreessen is joining the Bump board.Although I still think of Bump as a contact-sharing company, chief executive David Lieb and co-founder Jake Mintz told me that Ia4a4m a little behind the times. They said that after observing that Bump was mostly used on nights and weekends in social contexts, they added other kinds of sharing like music and photos. Now photos are the most-shared item on Bump, with 20 photos shared every second.The app (which is available for iOS and Android devices) now has 25 million users, with 1 million users added in the last two weeks alone. The app is free, and Lieb said the company is focused on improving the product for now, then adding features to make money later on.As for future plans, Lieb said Bump is looking beyond person-to-person interactions. Ita4a4s too early to talk about new features, he said, but one of the most-requested additions has come from musicians who want to find ways to share music and other media with their fans.Bump was incubated by Y Combinator. Don&amp;'t confuse it with another company called Bump, which has created social networking tools around license plates.Previous Story: Motorola&amp;'s Xoom is the Android tablet to beat (video)PrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Tags: Bump, mobile sharingCompanies: Andreessen Horowitz, BumpPeople: David Lieb, jake mintz, Marc Andreessen          Tags: Bump, mobile sharingCompanies: Andreessen Horowitz, BumpPeople: David Lieb, jake mintz, Marc AndreessenAnthony is a senior editor at VentureBeat, as well as its reporter on media, advertising, and social networks. Before joining the site in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. (All story pitches should also be sent to tips@venturebeat.com) You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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