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<title>Haaze.com / Gugen / Voted News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:10:45 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Web speed tests: Tablet tournament!]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=web-speed-tests-tablet-tournament</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=web-speed-tests-tablet-tournament</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:10:45 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>bimbemarascaer23535</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=web-speed-tests-tablet-tournament</guid>
<description><![CDATA[<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[BMW's first EV revealed at NY auto show]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bmws-first-ev-revealed-at-ny-auto-show</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bmws-first-ev-revealed-at-ny-auto-show</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:11:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>bobmarley</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bmws-first-ev-revealed-at-ny-auto-show</guid>
<description><![CDATA[BMW will begin leasing 700 all-electric ActiveE vehicles this Fall.(Credit:BMW)BMW ActiveE (photos) BMW unveiled its production version of the ActiveE electric vehicle at the 2011 New York International Auto show. The carmaker plans to ship 700 EVs to the U.S. for long-term customer testing this fall. Priced at $499 per month with a $2,250 down payment for a 24-month lease, the BMW ActiveE is one of the more affordable BMWs on the market. The trade-off, of course, is its limited range.The BMW ActiveE is being billed by the company as a no-compromise electric vehicle. A zero tailpipe emissions vehicle theoretically means zero guilt, and yet you still get the same luxury interior and somewhat similar driving experience for which the BMW brand is known.Thecar is based on the 1-Series, but under the hood of the ActiveE is a 32-kWh lithium-ion battery pack that delivers 170 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. A 7-kW on-board charger provide fast 240-volt charging of the battery with active thermal management that should consistently provide an estimated 100-mile range regardless of weather. Performance-wise, the ActiveE can accelerate from 0-60 in under 9 seconds, which is on par with the Nissan Leaf, maybe even slower. Nissan doesn't provide 0-60 stats for its vehicles, but independent testing by Green Car Advisor clocks the Leaf's 0-60 at 7 seconds. The ActiveE joins the 600 MINI-E electric vehicles already undergoing field testing in the U.S. Test results and feedback will be used to enhance the upcoming i3 electric vehicle produced by BMW under the BMW i brand. If you want to take part in the field test, the reservation process for the BMW ActiveE will begin this summer and is open to drivers in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Boston, and Connecticut.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Toys R Us 'selling' iPad 2, but getting one is a different story]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=toys-r-us-selling-ipad-2-but-getting-one-is-a-different-story</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=toys-r-us-selling-ipad-2-but-getting-one-is-a-different-story</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 17 Apr 2011 07:10:02 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Castellion</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=toys-r-us-selling-ipad-2-but-getting-one-is-a-different-story</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Toys R Us store began selling theiPad 2 today, but only select stores have them. Toys R Us already sells a ton of iPad accessories. But in-store availability of the actual device is very limited.(Credit:Toys R Us)The iPad 2 has been chronically selling out at stores everywhere so news that a new outlet will have the iPad 2 can potentially send shoppers scurrying to that location. But don't expect to waltz into a Toys R Us today and get one. In the Los Angeles area, only select Toys R Us stores got a shipment of iPad 2s. And a store in Tustin, Calif.--a Los Angeles suburb--had already sold out of the iPad 2 by 10 a.m. The store opened at 9 a.m. Best Buy launched an iPad 2 promotion in its weekly flier. Problem is, few stores have any inventory.(Credit:Best Buy)The situation isn't much better at Apple stores. The Manhattan Apple store had no stock on Sunday and a store representative said they generally sell out every day. And Best Buy, despite aggressive promotions (see graphic), has trouble keeping any inventory. Chicago downtown and Thousand Oaks, Calif., stores said they're only taking orders and have none in stock. And a store representative at the Thousand Oaks store apologized for giving the impression that iPads, via a Sunday flier featuring the iPad 2, were in stock, when they weren't. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: U.S. to issue terror alerts via Facebook, Twitter]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-u-s--to-issue-terror-alerts-via-facebook-twitter</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-u-s--to-issue-terror-alerts-via-facebook-twitter</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 07 Apr 2011 07:10:58 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>kerngesund</dc:creator>
<category>Politics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-u-s--to-issue-terror-alerts-via-facebook-twitter</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Department of Homeland Security&amp;39's notoriously perplexing color-coded alert system.(Credit:Wikipedia)The Department of Homeland Security plans to replace its color-coded, five-level system of terrorism alerts with a new two-tiered approach later this month and will issue some public alerts via Facebook and Twitter, according to a report.The Associated Press said it had obtained a confidential, departmental document outlining the plan, which, though not yet finalized, should go into effect by April 27.According to the AP, the new plan will ditch the notoriously perplexing, green-to-red, low risk&amp;8211'to&amp;8211'severe risk system put in place in 2002 with a two-level system that labels threats as either &quot;elevated&quot; or &quot;imminent.&quot;The department is hoping to make the system more usable and accessible. And it seems to be responding, in part, to recommendations such as those made in a report issued in 2009 by the Homeland Security Advisory Council.At that time, hacker Jeff Moss, organizer of the Defcon hacking conference and a then-new appointee to the advisory council, told CNET's Elinor Mills that the council had suggested, among other things, that Homeland Security: reduce the number of threat levels'localize warnings and include more details (without jeopardizing law-enforcement efforts)'automatically lower a status level if no terrorist activity had occurred'and use various avenues, including social media, to spread the word.Moss said then: Let's say there's another [Hurricane] Katrina, a huge weather alert, or a terrorist attack, and you want to get the information out to everybody. Right now the only way to do that is to activate the whole emergency broadcast system or the emergency action system and have everybody's radio tell you--which they didn't even use during the World Trade Center attacks...I have one of those emergency weather radios because we get a lot of storms [in Seattle], and my radio is constantly going off telling me about specific storms. [But] it doesn't go off when there's a terrorist attacking my country I just turned it off and threw it away. It's useless.So what if you could have a feed coming from DHS and other government agencies, say, to Twitter or Facebook or MySpace or whatever And you subscribe to that channel or that feed End users would know it's still the official word' it hasn't been modified or changed. There has to be some official ways of distributing this alert information in many different ways. In criticizing the current style of alert, Moss asked, &quot;How does it give [civilians] any actionable information How should we change our behavior based on it&quot; And the AP report suggests that the department is trying to address such questions. The news agency said that in addition to cutting the number of levels from five to two, and tapping social media for alerts &quot;when appropriate,&quot; the department plans to make its warnings more specific and to issue them to more-specific audiences. If, for example, a plot was discovered to hide bombs inside backpacks at airports, instead of issuing a blanket alert, DHS would limit the warning to airports and ask travellers to be extra vigilant in reporting unattended baggage.The AP said the new &quot;elevated&quot; threat level &quot;would warn of a credible threat against the U.S. It probably would not specify timing or targets, but it could reveal terrorist trends that intelligence officials believe should be shared in order to prevent an attack.&quot; And it said the &quot;imminent&quot; level would be reserved for a &quot;credible, specific, and impending terrorist threat or an ongoing attack against the U.S.&quot;Related links &amp;149' Q&amp;A: Defcon's Jeff Moss on cybersecurity, government's role &amp;149' Pentagon, State Department OK social-network useBoth levels of alert would be called off if no terrorist activity ensued: the elevated level would expire after no more than 30 days, the imminent level after no more than 7. Both, however, could be extended if necessary.Any public warnings issued using Facebook, Twitter, or other such outlets would first be communicated to federal, state, and local officials. And some might not be issued to the public at all, if doing so would undermine efforts to head off any attacks, the AP reported.Again, though, the plan could be modified before its implementation. Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told the AP, &quot;The plan is not yet final, as we will continue to meet...with our partners to finalize a plan that meets everyone's needs.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Sparsh touches cloud for mobile copy and paste]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sparsh-touches-cloud-for-mobile-copy-and-paste</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sparsh-touches-cloud-for-mobile-copy-and-paste</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:10:37 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Erlenex51</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sparsh-touches-cloud-for-mobile-copy-and-paste</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Why didn't I think of this(Credit:MIT Media Lab)Smartphones have been around for at least several years now, but they still have certain limitations. Despite having a plethora of wireless technologies built-in--Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, etc.--there's no simple way to transfer &quot;clippings&quot; of data from one device to another. But a new research project at MIT called Sparsh is aiming to fix that oversight.Sparsh (the Hindi word for &quot;touch&quot;) isn't an app, at least not in the way we generally use the word. It's a tool that's supposed to be part of a mobile operating system, like &quot;undo&quot; or &quot;select all,&quot; running within apps at all times. It creates a virtual cloud-based clipboard where any data, like a phone number or photograph, can temporarily live until it's &quot;pasted&quot; to another device. For it to work, at least two devices need to be Sparsh-enabled. A user wanting to share data becomes, in concept, an avatar for a copy-and-paste-like function. The person touches data on a device, such as a photo or text, and Sparsh sends it to the cloud. The same person then touches another device, and presto! The relevant information is pasted in as if it had been copied from the same machine.Copying pictures from a phone to a tablet computer.(Credit:MIT Media Lab) Sparsh isn't the only tool for transferring small amounts of device-to-device data on the scene. Indeed, a popular iPhone app called Bump allows people to trade photos, apps, contact info, and even music from one phone to another simply by bumping the devices together. Bump is very cool, but it requires both the sender and recipient to be running the app. In addition, it's not open with what it can send or where it can send it--it only works from phone to phone, and while there are many options for things it can send, there are more things it simply can't. Sparsh aims to live in the devices we use at the operating-system level, meaning it would seem intuitive to use and be available within any app for almost any type of data.Right now, Sparsh is just a concept project by Pranav Mistry, a Ph.D. candidate at MIT's Media Research Lab, but we think it's intriguing and potentially useful enough that OS makers could integrate it into next-gen mobile operating systems. With rumors that the forthcoming iPhone 5 (among other handsets) will make extensive use of the proverbial cloud, it follows that wireless copy-and-paste functions should make an appearance, and Sparsh seems to have a clean head start.See it in action in a video below.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[HTC Evo View 4G definitely an Android 3.0 Honeycomb tablet]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=htc-evo-view-4g-definitely-an-android-3-0-honeycomb-tablet</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=htc-evo-view-4g-definitely-an-android-3-0-honeycomb-tablet</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:10:34 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>chipid</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=htc-evo-view-4g-definitely-an-android-3-0-honeycomb-tablet</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)If there was any doubt about which version of the Android operating system the HTC Evo View 4G will carry when thetablet finally hits store shelves, Sprint's Web site dispels it.One CNET reader spotted the spec for the Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system on this Sprint page. The last we heard from Sprint on the matter was at CTIA, when the carrier told us that it would update the Evo View 4G from Android 2.3 Gingerbread--which we saw on demo tablets--to Android 3.0 Honeycomb as soon as Google makes the tablet-optimized OS widely available to manufacturers and carriers. (Right now, Motorola's Xoom is the only tablet on the market with Honeycomb installed, thanks to a partnership with Google.)Papa Android itself could delay HTC and Sprint's aspirations, according to the new word on the street that Google's Andy Rubin is cracking down on fragmentation by more tightly controlling who gets access to operating systems. Regardless, we can say that without a doubt, Sprint is hoping to hop on board with Honeycomb rather than keep the Evo View a maverick Gingerbread device. HTC Evo View tablet (photos) The HTC Evo View is the U.S. version of the HTC Flyer first seen at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It features a 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor, 32GB internal memory, a 5-megapixel rear camera, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, and 4G capability with Sprint. Sprint has not yet released pricing and availability. A representative was not immediately available for comment.[Thanks, HurricaneFreak.]<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[PopCap Games unveils 'experimental' game studio]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=popcap-games-unveils-experimental-game-studio</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=popcap-games-unveils-experimental-game-studio</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 05 Apr 2011 07:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dabenitezb</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=popcap-games-unveils-experimental-game-studio</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Unpleasant Horse will be the first title from 4th &amp; Battery.(Credit:4th and Battery)PopCap Games has created a new development studio aimed at delivering fast-to-market titles, the company announced today.Dubbed 4th &amp; Battery, the new &quot;experimental&quot; studio is made up of current PopCap developers who want to &quot;create smaller, simpler, and sometimes edgier games,&quot; the company said. PopCap pointed out that in traditional gaming development models, creating a title can take a long time. And in the process, fewer titles are actually released. With 4th &amp; Battery, the company hopes to get more titles to the market far more quickly.PopCap Games is no slouch in the gaming business. The company's most notable title is Bejeweled, which according to the company, has sold more than 50 million units. PopCap's selection of games has been downloaded more than 1.5 billion times since its founding in 2000. 4th &amp; Battery, however, won't face the pressure of continuing PopCap's successful track record in the gaming business.&quot;4th &amp; Battery is a purely experimental, creative label with none of the typical concerns like schedules, profitability, or even target audience,&quot; PopCap's CEO Jason Kapalka said in a statement. &quot;It's kind of the video game equivalent of B-sides or short films. Expect weirdness.&quot;His sentiment was echoed by the company's executive vice president.&quot;4th &amp; Battery gives us a way to quickly try really strange or marginal ideas, and to give our designers a safe area to hone their chops,&quot; PopCap Executive Vice President Ed Allard said in a statement. Prior to its public launch, 4th &amp; Battery was working on a game called Unpleasant Horse. That title, which puts the player in the role of &quot;a strikingly unpleasant horse that sports wings&quot; and targets enemy birds, is scheduled to launch in Apple's App Store &quot;later this month.&quot; It's aimed at &quot;mature audiences.&quot;PopCap said that future 4th &amp; Battery titles will be made available on Facebook, PCs, and iOS-based devices.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Must-have restartless Firefox add-ons]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=must-have-restartless-firefox-add-ons</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=must-have-restartless-firefox-add-ons</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 04 Apr 2011 07:10:02 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Cabiness</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=must-have-restartless-firefox-add-ons</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The future ofFirefox's add-ons arrived in Firefox 4 with the introduction of &quot;restartless add-ons&quot;. Based on the new Jetpack API and Add-on SDK, restartless add-ons--also known as bootstrapped add-ons--don't require a restart to be used or removed. Not coincidentally, they also provide Firefox with a venue for competing directly with other browsers, which use add-on frameworks that were created after the technology that supports restartless add-ons was created.Mozilla Home Dash re-imagines the Firefox interface.(Credit:Mozilla)Firefox doesn't offer many restartless add-ons just yet. At the time of writing, there were only 143 restartless add-ons. Also, there's been documented problems by existing add-on authors in making their add-ons restartless, but that doesn't mean that the ones available are worthless. In fact, some of them add some impressively useful functionality to the browser. Here are 13 of the best.The entire collection of Prospector add-ons from Mozilla are a great way to take advantage of the flexibility of restartless add-ons. Install one, test it out quickly, and if you don't like it you can remove it as fast as you installed it.The most interesting Prospector experiment is Home Dash. It's possibly the most annoying, too. Home Dash is a complete re-envisioning of the browser interface, presenting a workflow unlike any other browser out there today that attempts to emphasize tab previews and search queries. It's not for everybody, but it's definitely worth checking out.The current crop of Prospector Experiments includes Speak Words for location bar search completion' Instant Preview for faster page loading from location bar suggestions' Find Suggest for search suggestions when using the in-page Find tool' and Start Faster makes a customization tweak to how Firefox starts when you've just turned on the computer. The short version is that it does what it says it does: Firefox will start faster when you've got it running, at least after you immediately restart your Windows box.The slightly more technical explanation is that it bypasses the Windows prefetch feature. The add-on will install a Faster Firefox icon on your desktop, which has to be used to start the browser after a Windows reboot. To double-check that it's working properly, the developer recommends using the About:Startup add-on, which is also restartless.Type &quot;about:startup&quot; into your location bar and you'll get, in milliseconds, how long Firefox's main process takes to start' how long it takes for XRE_main to be called, one of Firefox's first called functions' how long it takes the tabs from the previous session to be restored but not reloaded' and how long the firstPaint takes, which is time it takes for the the first tab you're looking at to fully load.Note that About:Startup, while technically a restartless add-on, will not be able to display information from before it was installed. In other words, you have to have it installed before Firefox starts to get information from it.While we're on the subject of restarting, Restartless Restart adds a menu button and keyboard hot key combination to allow you to restart the browser. It currently lacks a toolbar icon, yet the core function, on-the-fly restarting, is effective and smooth.LuckyBar restores the &quot;I'm Feeling Lucky&quot; functionality to Firefox 4. The feature was present in Firefox 3, but removed because of Mozilla's concerns over privacy issues relating to accidentally sending search queries to your default search engine instead of restricting the search to your personal Firefox data.Tab Badge provides an unread count for sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as your RSS feed and webmail.(Credit:Mozilla)Easy App Tabs helps you create and remove App Tabs, the permanently pinned tabs on the left side of your tab bar. Double-click on a tab to set it as an App Tab, or return it to normal status. The feature was left out of Firefox because Mozilla found that users were accidentally creating app tabs when they didn't want to.Another smart and simple tab-focused add-on is Tab Badge. This add-on shows you an unread count on your social networking and e-mail sites as long as the number of unread messages is programed to appear in the site's titlebar. So, if your Gmail title is &quot;Priority Inbox - 10&quot;, the number &quot;10&quot; will appear in a red circle on the tab. While Gmail has the feature available as a lab experiment you can activate, this is a clever way to get it on all your communication sites.Developed by Diigo.com, Read Later Fast saves URLs to be read later. It can be synced locally and with the cloud storage at Diigo, and presents an interesting alternative to other &quot;save-for-later&quot; services. However, this feature is built into Firefox 4 in a very basic way. You can use the bookmark star to quickly mark pages, close the tabs, and then using Firefox Sync re-open the starred pages on a different device. That doesn't mean Read Later Fast isn't useful, though.Long one of my favorite Firefox add-on features has been the ability to drag items from Windows Explorer directly into a text field to upload them. Drag2Up provides that functionality in a restartless add-on, which is great for toggling it off on the rare occasion when the feature interferes with text box functionality.If you've got a favorite restartless add-on not mentioned here, tell me about it in the comments below.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Why is Google doodling about ice cream sundaes]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-is-google-doodling-about-ice-cream-sundaes</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-is-google-doodling-about-ice-cream-sundaes</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 03 Apr 2011 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>suzigoosey</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-is-google-doodling-about-ice-cream-sundaes</guid>
<description><![CDATA[I had barely woken this morning when I discovered that someone had spilled last night's dessert all over my MacBook.Looking a little more closely (it helped to open the eyes a little after a night on the petite sirah), I discovered that it was the Google logo that had been adorned with an ice cream sundae.Rolling over in my bed--and then rolling over the logo--I discovered that Google was celebrating the 119th anniversary of the first documented ice cream sundae.Somehow, this didn't seem the most obvious thing to be celebrating, though Google seems to believe that the ice cream sundae was invented first by someone in Ithaca, N.Y.That someone is alleged to have been a pharmacist. (Credit:Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)However, this all seems so randomly obscure that some, naturally, have attempted to claim an insider's knowledge of this Google ruse.Search Engine Watch, for example, is sniffing that &quot;Sunday's sundae is Google's way of whetting the world's appetite for the latest Android update, nicknamed Ice Cream.&quot;Yes, of course. The world can barely contain its breakfast, given its fevered feelings over the latest Android update.But might this doodle have other intentionsMight it, for example, be the work of worried Google staffers, encouraging new CEO Larry Page to eat a little more as he attempts to drive Google beyond its current, slightly static stateMight it also be worried Google staffers expressing their need for a little cherry atop their lives, as the drive to become a new Google is taking its toll on their fun quotientMy own view is that this is a symbolic recruiting tool. Google is trying to tell engineers out there that it is tired of its vanilla image. What is the company now looking for Engineers with a little more sauce. Oh, and more nuts.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Top Apple marketing exec to depart]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-top-apple-marketing-exec-to-depart</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-top-apple-marketing-exec-to-depart</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>BritoutT</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-top-apple-marketing-exec-to-depart</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Allison JohnsonAllison Johnson, Apple's vice president of worldwide marketing, is said to be leaving her post at the company to co-found a new marketing firm.All Things Digital reports that Johnson, who came to Apple from Hewlett-Packard back in 2005, is still in the process of negotiating her exit. Johnson's new gig is said to be co-founding a new marketing firm with former Facebook PR executive Brandee Barker.This would mark Johnson's second departure from Apple, where she had worked previously. During the 1990s, Johnson held the position of director of media relations both at IBM then later Netscape Communications.Prior to joining Apple for the second time, Johnson had spent six years at HP as the senior vice president of marketing, where she was said to be one of then-CEO Carly Fiorina's closest advisers. News of Johnson's reported departure comes just a day after Microsoft Senior Vice President Mich Mathews announced her plans to leave the company later this year. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Bing adds tweets to its news page]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bing-adds-tweets-to-its-news-page</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bing-adds-tweets-to-its-news-page</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:10:13 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Crissy6d6</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=bing-adds-tweets-to-its-news-page</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft's Bing just added Twitter feeds to its news pages, giving readers the ability to quickly scan the latest buzz about the biggest events.When Web surfers search Bing News for a story, tweets now show up in a scrolling column on the right side of the page under the heading &quot;Public updates.&quot; So news links today about Elizabeth Taylor's funeral were accompanied by brief tributes from fans as well as promotions from publications linking to articles about the actress.Bing News Twitter feed, circled(Credit:Screenshot by CNET)The idea behind the new Twitter feed is to give readers yet another source of information. &quot;As we've seen with the tragedy in Japan or political turmoil in the Middle East, real people are relaying timely and compelling items not captured by traditional outlets,&quot; Betsy Aoki, a Bing senior program manager, writes on the Bing blog.The Twitter feed adds a bit of clutter to a page that also includes related video to the news topic as well as links to people in the news related to the search. But it also differentiates Bing News from its much larger rival, Google News.Microsoft also expanded its &quot;Liked Results&quot; feature, highlighting links that Facebook friends have &quot;liked&quot; directly in Bing's search results. Users have to be signed into both Facebook and Bing for the feature to work.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Apple mulling video license for AirPlay]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-mulling-video-license-for-airplay</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-mulling-video-license-for-airplay</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:10:20 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Leeta</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-mulling-video-license-for-airplay</guid>
<description><![CDATA[AirPlay in action with an iPad and a TV with an Apple TV unit. (Credit:Apple)Apple's AirPlay video streaming technology could be making the leap from the Apple TV set-top box to non-Apple living room hardware.A report by Bloomberg, which cites anonymous sources, says Apple is weighing a licensing program for the video component of its AirPlay technology that would let gadget makers incorporate the wireless streaming into televisions and set-top boxes.Apple introduced AirPlay late last year as the successor to its AirTunes wireless audio streaming technology. The renaming was also meant to explain to consumers that, with the incorporation of video streaming, the technology was no longer just for audio. With AirPlay, users of iOS devices like theiPhone, theiPad, and theiPod Touch can wirelessly send videos to Apple TV for watching on the big screen. Since AirPlay's launch, Apple has licensed the technology's audio portion to device makers, for what one of Bloomberg's sources said is $4 per device. What's been missing is the video component, thus requiring users to buy an Apple TV device in order to stream, leaving third-party video device makers out of the market. As far as timing on any licensing goes, Bloomberg says it could be here as early as this year. That time frame could coincide with Apple's annual music and iPod event, which usually takes place in September. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[How to configure IE9 tracking protection]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-to-configure-ie9-tracking-protection</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-to-configure-ie9-tracking-protection</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:10:01 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>jlaysonoll</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=how-to-configure-ie9-tracking-protection</guid>
<description><![CDATA[<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Windows Phone update for Samsung users fixed]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=windows-phone-update-for-samsung-users-fixed</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=windows-phone-update-for-samsung-users-fixed</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:10:39 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>anybgado</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=windows-phone-update-for-samsung-users-fixed</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET)Microsoft says it's fixed an issue with theWindows Phone 7 system software update that had caused some users headaches, and left others with unusable phones.The problem first cropped up shortly after Microsoft began rolling out a phone software upgrade to ease the installation of an update it plans to release to users in the next few weeks that will add new features like copy and paste, better Marketplace search, and faster application load times. For users on Samsung phones, the installation could hang shortly after the midway point, leading Microsoft to temporarily pull the update for just those users. &quot;During the past week, the engineering team has pinpointed and fixed problems that were preventing a small percentage of Windows Phones from installing the February software patch,&quot; said Michael Stroh, a technology writer in Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 team on the company's Windows Phone blog. &quot;We apologize again for the delay and continue looking for ways to improve the update process,&quot; he continued.Stroh said the update continues to be sent out to users in waves, meaning some handsets have not yet received the notification to grab the newer software. Once they do, that process requires plugging into a PC running theZune software, or aMac running the Windows Phone 7 Connector tool. Microsoft continues to urge users who may have encountered problems that left their phone incapacitated to get in touch with their mobile carrier or device manufacturer for guidance. That said, the company had originally stated that roughly 10 percent of Windows Phones had encountered problems, and not all of those were related to the same bug that affected Samsung users.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Do you secure your PC for free]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=do-you-secure-your-pc-for-free</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=do-you-secure-your-pc-for-free</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 25 Feb 2011 08:10:50 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>unfortes</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=do-you-secure-your-pc-for-free</guid>
<description><![CDATA[With Avast 6 fresh out of the gate and CNET's opinion on record, it's time to ask you which of the many free security suites available is your favorite. The big three on Download.com are AVG, Avast, and Avira, although it will be interesting to see if the download counts are reflected in popularity. We aimed to have all the major players represented here, although we left out certain choices like ClamWin Antivirus, technically still in beta. The poll will remain open until 11 p.m. PT March 3, and we'll look at the results March 4.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Nokia baits developers with free Windows Phones]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-baits-developers-with-free-windows-phones</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-baits-developers-with-free-windows-phones</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:11:12 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>odobbyLoyat</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=nokia-baits-developers-with-free-windows-phones</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Pretty soon, this could be a Nokia phone.(Credit:Josh Miller/CNET)Microsoft and Nokia may have spent much of Mobile World Congress trying to convince attendees of the merits of their fresh, new partnership, but the harder step will perhaps be urging Nokia's loyal Symbian developers to shift alliances.There's nothing like free stuff to help change one's mind. To that end, Nokia will be giving away one E7 smartphone and one Nokia-made Windows Phone to each developer in Launchpad, it's program for mobile app developers, according to information procured by SlashGear.In addition, Nokia will waive its tech support charges for developers for the next three months.&amp;nbsp'Developer support is one key to make Nokia's Microsoft pairing successful, especially as the two companies are poised to battle Canada's Blackberry maker RIM for market relevance behind Apple's iOS and Google's Android platforms. On the handset front, Nokia will also feel pressure from Sony Ericsson, as both brands will keep a hungry eye trained on the US smartphone market. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[With 'Arctic Sea,' Google offers a Web-app boost]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-arctic-sea-google-offers-a-web-app-boost</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-arctic-sea-google-offers-a-web-app-boost</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:10:26 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>lingInibunk</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-arctic-sea-google-offers-a-web-app-boost</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Google has passed a significant milestone with the release of its first version of Native Client, a software foundation designed to let Web-based applications tap into a person's computer chip.The software, called Arctic Sea, is available built into Chrome 10, which entered beta testing yesterday. &quot;A big goal of this release is to enable developers to start building Native Client modules for Chrome applications,&quot; product manager Christian Stefansen said of the Native Client release in a blog post today.Native Client--NaCl for short--is an unusual approach to the challenge of letting people download software over the Web. Web applications today often use JavaScript, an increasingly powerful language but one that still limits a program's performance compared with those running natively on a computer--Skype or Photoshop, for example.Google's NaCl project lets such native software be downloaded directly from a Web server but includes specific security mechanisms to keep out malicious code. Native Client modules must be written with specially modified tools to restrict use of potentially harmful instructions, and the browser examines the software in advance to ensure it executes only the safe operations. NaCl also confines software to a &quot;sandbox&quot; with limited privileges.Native Client could let code libraries written in the C programming language be relatively easily adapted for browser-based applications. That could make it easier, for example, to build into Web applications the codecs Skype uses for compressing and decompressing video and audio or for the processor-intensive tasks used in Photoshop's image processing. One company that's committed to Native Client is Unity 3D, whose video-game engine can use NaCl for things like simulating physics.Why is that important Because Google is a huge believer in cloud computing, in which the state of an application is stored on a central server on the Internet and a browser acts as a vessel to run it. With Native Client, Google thinks it can get to within just a few percentage points of the performance of ordinary native applications, removing a major impediment to the cloud-computing technology.That is, as long as Google can convince the rest of the world to adopt it. Fortunately for Google, it's got Chrome as a vehicle to deliver such technology into people's hands--and with more than 10 percent of people on the Net using Chrome, Google has a real foothold. With Native Client, Chrome OS could become significantly more capable, too, and with a variation called PNaCl still in the works, it works on the ARM processors that power virtually all smartphones today. Today Native Client works only on 32-bit and 64-bit x86 processors.A major part of Google's recent NaCl work has been rebuilding it to use a new browser plug-in interface called Pepper, or PPAPI. (NaCl is the chemical abbreviation for sodium chloride--table salt--and is paired with Pepper. Get it) With this release and Chrome 10, NaCl now uses Pepper. Native Client remains turned off by default for now, since its own interface isn't quite finished, but it can be enabled through Chrome's about:flags mechanism.One reason Google is pitching NaCl to developers is that it's finished some security work that had been incomplete. An outer sandbox, not just an inner one, is working for additional protection. And an auto-update mechanism lets Google more quickly replace a version if it's found to have a security problem, the company said.How far NaCl will spread beyond Chrome remains to be seen. But to be truly useful, it needs programmers writing code.That's quite possible, of course. One indicator of interest came in a draft Firefox road map for 2011. Regarding Native Client support, Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's outgoing director ofFirefox, had this to say: &quot;Some vendor push here, mostly from Adobe.&quot;Google still has some convincing to do. &quot;I don't think Native Client is going to be a very big deal, but Google does, so we'll see how that plays out,&quot; Mike Shaver, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, said in a 2010 interview.And to use NaCl, browsers need a design that isolates plug-ins into separate memory compartments. &quot;We aim to support multiple browsers. However, a number of features that we consider requirements for a production-quality system are difficult to implement without help from the browser. Specific examples are an out-of-process plug-in architecture and appropriate interfaces for integrated 3D graphics. We have worked closely with Chromium developers to deliver these features and we would be eager to collaborate with developers from other browsers,&quot; Google said on a NaCl FAQNative Client has support now for computing, audio, and 2D graphics. In addition, Google reworked NaCl so that programmers need not worry so much about specifying which particular processor NaCl is running on.For those who want to give it a try, Google offers a few NaCl demos.Coming up will be support for 3D graphics, local file storage, the Web Sockets technology for fast server-to-browser communication, and peer-to-peer networking, Google said. Some of that doubtless will wait for the second-generation &quot;Baltic Sea&quot; release.&quot;We are excited to see Native Client progressively evolve into a developer-ready technology,&quot; Google said. Next up will be seeing if programmers share the excitement.Updated 10:48 a.m. PT and 12:24 p.m. PTwith more detail on other browser support and to correct Mozilla's lack of involvement in Pepper work.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Wal-Mart to sell Verizon iPhone starting tomorrow]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wal-mart-to-sell-verizon-iphone-starting-tomorrow</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wal-mart-to-sell-verizon-iphone-starting-tomorrow</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:10:20 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Peplyclere</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wal-mart-to-sell-verizon-iphone-starting-tomorrow</guid>
<description><![CDATA[                                Those looking to get their hands on the Verizon iPhone in stores tomorrow will have another place to go.Big-box retailer Wal-Mart announced today that it will be carrying the Verizon iPhone in approximately 600 of its stores starting tomorrow. Wal-Mart will be selling the 16GB model for $199 and the 32GB offering for $299 with a two-year contract--the same price offered through Verizon and Apple.By bringing the Verizon iPhone to its stores, Wal-Mart will round out a selection of smartphones it currently sells, including the Motorola Droid X, the HTC Droid Incredible, and the HTC Evo 4G, among many others. Wal-Mart also sells the iPhone 4 running on AT&amp;T's network in some of its stores around the U.S.The Verizon iPhone was unveiled last month at a special event. Verizon allowed existing customers to preorder the device last week, but suspended preorders after supplies were exhausted. The carrier said in a statement following that decision that the company sold enough iPhone units in two hours to best sales on any other device's launch day.Customers who pre-ordered the iPhone before the cut-off started receiving the smartphone earlier this week, ahead of its official February 10 release date.Wal-Mart won't be the only third-party retailer selling the Verizon iPhone. Best Buy announced last week that it would be carrying the device in its stores, as well.                 <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[The Android Era: From G1 to Honeycomb (and beyond)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-android-era-from-g1-to-honeycomb-and-beyond</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-android-era-from-g1-to-honeycomb-and-beyond</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:10:41 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dmasloakkas</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-android-era-from-g1-to-honeycomb-and-beyond</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:CNET)There's no doubt that Google's Android mobile operating system has exploded from its first foray in October 2008 to become--for many--the everyman's smartphone OS. Google's breakneck development speed has paid off since it acquired Android, then a start-up, in 2005. The mature Android now accounts for 53 percent of smartphone sales as of the final quarter of 2010, according to research from Canalys--and there's no slowdown in sight.&amp;nbsp' Despite an earlier promise that Android updates would be reduced from about twice per year to once per year, Google has recently released Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and thetablet-specific Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), and hinted at the next treat in its enticing alphabet of releases, Ice Cream Sandwich. Meanwhile, many people are still waiting to see their Android 2.2 (Froyo) updates, some of which will no longer arrive. Here's a look at milestones in Google's Android operating system, from its humble beginnings to its current ambitions in tablet domination.mytable body {font: normal 11px auto &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'color: 4f6b72'background: E6EAE9'}mytable a {color: c75f3e'}mytable {width: 620px'padding: 0'margin: 0'}mytable th {font: bold 13px &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'color: 4f6b72'border-right: 1px solid C1DAD7'border-bottom: 1px solid C1DAD7'border-top: 1px solid C1DAD7'letter-spacing: 2px'text-transform: uppercase'text-align: center'vertical-align:middle'padding: 6px 6px 6px 12px'background: CAE8EA'}mytable .nobg  tbody {    border-top:none'}mytable td {border-right: 1px solid C1DAD7'border-bottom: 1px solid C1DAD7'background: E6EAE9'padding: 6px 6px 6px 12px'color: 4f6b72'}mytable th.spec {border-left: 1px solid C1DAD7'border-top: 0'background: fff'font: bold 11px &quot;Trebuchet MS&quot;, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'}Android versionSDK release*Notable updates1.0 (G1)February 2008GPS and Bluetooth (but not stereo Bluetooth)MultitaskingTight integration with Google services like Gmail, Google Maps (with Street View), and Google CalendarApps: Amazon MP3 Store' YouTubeAndroid Market (about 35 apps at launch)No Microsoft Exchange Server' no camcorder1.5 (Cupcake) April 2009Universal search box (search had been limited to the Web)Revamped Android Market: Browsing categories (Apps, Games, Downloads) and filters (Top Free, Top Paid, Just In)Camera: Toggle between camera and video modes' integrated photo gallery and camera with bulk photo deletingSDK expands support for gestures, voice-to-text1.6 (Donut)September 2009Virtual, onscreen keyboardCamcorder mode for recording (and watching) videoStereo BluetoothHome screen widgets and foldersCopy/paste and search within the browserDirect upload to YouTube and Picasa2.0 (Eclair)October 2009Multiple user accountsExchange support' universal e-mail inboxQuick Contact pop-up widget to launch communications with friends in the address bookSearch saved SMS and MMS messagesCamera improvements include support for flash and digital zoomBluetooth 2.1Keyboard improvements: Adaptive dictionary that includes contact names in suggestions2.1 (Eclair, second helping)January 2010Live Wallpaper' five home screensSpeech-to-text added to any text field' microphone icon for voice dictation in e-mails, texts, and so on2.2 (Froyo)May 2010Multiple user accountsSpeedier OSUSB tethering and hot-spot supportAndroid Market update: Batch and automatic updates' installing apps to the SD cardAdobe Flash 10.1File uploading in the browserImproved Microsoft Exchange support: Security policies, global address lookup, calendar sync, remote wipeBluetooth support for voice dialing and contact sharing2.3 (Gingerbread)December 2000Redesigned copy/pasteWebM video compression supportNFC (near field communication) supportSwitch to front-facing camera from camera appVirtual keyboard shortcuts3.0 (Honeycomb)Preview SDK 20113D graphics supportSide-by-side browser tabs' private browsingDual-pane modes for address book, e-mailRedesigned UI includes program thumbnailsVideo chatting with Google TalkFull-screen-mode photo galleryBluetooth tethering* We list the date of the SDK release rather than the over-the-air (OTA) update timeline since OTA release dates vary by carrier and handset model.Gingerbread (Android 2.3) The Nexus S is the only Android phone to currently run on Gingerbread. Indeed, Android 2.3 included a few of the feature upgrades we expected, like support for video playback using Google's WebM video format. We also saw progressive improvements to copy/paste.An online Android Market did arrive to shower Android users with over-the-air installations, but it came independently of the OS release cycle, and after the Nexus S debuted.&amp;nbsp'Honeycomb (Android 3.0)We've taken several looks at Google's Honeycomb OS on CNET's topCES product, the Motorola Xoom. So far the tablet optimization impresses, especially when held up against other Android tablets running Android 2.2.Google made its heavy investment in Honeycomb evident at its special demo event this month. There, The Goog showed off two-way video chatting with Google Chat and a new interactive app called Google Body that takes a Google Earth approach to human anatomy. CNET will have much more on Honeycomb when we get the Xoom in-house.Ice Cream Sandwich (Android .) There isn't much known about Google's next Android release, not even a confirmation of the name. We're unsure if Ice Cream Sandwich will pick up where Gingerbread left off, as Android 2.4, or if it will follow in Honeycomb's footsteps as Android 3.1. It could roll out as soon as Google's annual I/O conference this May.What about Google Music Speaking of I/O, we're also waiting for Google's Android Market music store to rival iTunes, something we've been looking out for since Google acquired Simplify Media. At this point, it's more probable we'll see Google Music announced and demoed there than at another special event like the Honeycomb demo. Watch out, Apple. It's getting to be a Google World.Update, February 7, 2011: Gingerbread and Honeycomb added.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[The Verizon iPhone makes more calls]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-verizon-iphone-makes-more-calls</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-verizon-iphone-makes-more-calls</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:10:46 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>tithasperie</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-verizon-iphone-makes-more-calls</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Now that Verizon finally has the  iPhone 4, we know that you have one question at top of mind. And it's not, &quot;So what's the Wi-Fi hot spot like&quot;Rather, you want to know how well Verizon's handset performs. And better yet, is it better than the AT&amp;T iPhone 4 We don't blame you for asking either question, particularly in light of the widely-held belief the AT&amp;TiPhone experience is great until you need to make a call. I've never agreed with that theory completely, but CNET editors have endured their share of connectivity drama. So like you, we wondered if Verizon could do better. At the very least, it couldn't possibly be any worse.After a few days of use, we can report that Rig Red's handset has the overall advantage. We've already told you about our data speed tests, but Verizon also beat AT&amp;T in our tests for signal strength and connectivity. It didn't always win, and it didn't always win by a lot, but it usually connected first and offered more bars on the display. What's more, there were a couple of occasions where AT&amp;T was unable to connect at all.MethodologyTo conduct the test I went to five trouble-prone locations in San Francisco to check the number of bars on the display to see if I could make a call. In each location I dialed the same phone number and timed the connection speed. I know I looked pretty silly holding two iPhones to my head, but stranger things have happened in San Francisco. Before I get to the detailed results, there are a few caveats. Though the test wasn't entirely scientific, it mimics what real-world users will experience. Also, though the number of bars on the display is arbitrary and often unrepresentative of true signal strength, it is a measure on which most users rely (we would have used the Field Test app available on the AT&amp;T handset, but Verizon appears to have left that feature out). Finally, we were using theVerizon iPhone during a period when just a handful of such handsets were in the wild. Other Verizon smartphones were using the network, too, but our AT&amp;T phone was competing with thousands of other Apple devices in the immediate area.Stop 1: Traffic jamMy first stop was an onramp of the Bay Bridge during the afternoon rush. Though I don't live in the East Bay, I know the traffic streaming onto the bridge can be horrendous. And as drivers inch along, many have nothing else to do than talk on the phone (hands-free, of course).Verizon iPhoneNumber of bars: 5Connection time: 15 secondsAT&amp;T iPhoneNumber of bars: 3Connection time: Could not connectUnder the overpassThe next stop was a nearby pedestrian tunnel under a street. It's at ground level, but there was plenty of cement above my head to act as a barrier.Verizon iPhoneNumber of bars: 5Connection time: 5 secondsAT&amp;T iPhoneNumber of bars: 3Connection time: 7 secondsIn the boxI then tried calling from a closed elevator in CNET's offices. Though I've found our building to be wired fairly well, even the elevator (big metal boxes aren't great for a cellular signal) can be problematic.Verizon iPhoneNumber of bars: 4Connection time: 3 secondsAT&amp;T iPhoneNumber of bars: Never found a signalConnection time: Could not connectRiding on the metroI used my commute home for the fourth location and stopped on the second level of the Montgomery Street transit station. Though the BART tunnels inside San Francisco can offer good coverage, signal strength in the tunnels for San Francisco's own Metro trains is variable.Verizon iPhoneNumber of bars: 5Connection time: 3 secondsAT&amp;T iPhoneNumber of bars: 3Connection time: ImmediatelyAt homeThe last stop was an interior hallway in my apartment building. Most of the time I can't pass through without my call cutting out temporarily.Verizon iPhoneNumber of bars: 3Connection time: ImmediatelyAT&amp;T iPhoneNumber of bars: 2Connection time: 4 secondsSo on the whole, the Verizon Wireless iPhone performed better than its AT&amp;T counterpart. We had more success in making a call and the calls usually connected faster. We didn't experience dropped calls on either phone, though we know that's a sore spot for AT&amp;T users. The Verizon iPhone also won the majority of our data speed tests, but comparing voice samples wasn't quite as clear. We invite you to listen for yourself and make your own decision. And of course, be sure to check out our full Verizon iPhone 4 review.Lastly, I have to leave you with one word of caution. Though we enjoyed a better iPhone 4 on Verizon, your experience may be different. You're still using a cellular network that can vary widely by a number of factors. Also, as Verizon adds more iPhone users, performance will change. The key is to keep your hopes in check and not expect the Verizon iPhone to be without any problems. Big Red's network does have some advantages, but nothing is guaranteed.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Portable device lets travelers make mobile calls over the Net]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=portable-device-lets-travelers-make-mobile-calls-over-the-net</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=portable-device-lets-travelers-make-mobile-calls-over-the-net</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:11:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>albertabbb</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=portable-device-lets-travelers-make-mobile-calls-over-the-net</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The new personal femtocell from Ubiquisys.(Credit:Ubiquisys)A new portable device will soon be able to help people make cell phone calls in other countries without relying on local 3G networks.That bit of technical magic comes courtesy of a new device called an attocell, or a personal femotcell. Created by U.K.-based femtocell company Ubiquisys, the device is a small base station that can provide broadband Internet access to aniPhone, BlackBerry, Android phone, and virtually any other 3G mobile phone. But since it's smaller than a traditional femtocell, the attocell is designed to be portable.The attocell from Ubiquisys connects to a laptop through a USB port, providing both the juice and the Internet access, according to Ubiquisys. From there, the device figures out which country it's in so it can determine the allowable 3G power consumption, which then dictates the range of the attocell to the phone. Depending on the country, the 3G range of the device could be as small as a fraction of an inch or as large as an entire room.If the range is small, the user can place the phone on top of the device and make calls via a headset or speaker. Otherwise, the caller is free to roam around the room.Through the attocell, the phone can bypass local cellular networks and hop onto the Internet to make and receive calls, thus allowing for calls both locally and abroad where reliable 3G connections aren't available.To learn more about the attocell, I spoke with Keith Day, the vice president of marketing for Ubiquisys. Day explained the benefits of the device, especially for travelers.&quot;If you're a U.S. citizen and you're doing a phone call from a hotel in Rome, for example, the call will be indistinguishable from a call in the U.S,&quot; he said.Beyond bypassing local 3G networks, the device could also potentially mean no more roaming charges. Though the technology makes that a possibility, Day said that the decision on roaming charges and other costs will be up to the carriers that offer the product. But he did acknowledge that when he himself travels, he'll use a VoIP service such as Skype to make calls rather than rely on mobile calls with expensive roaming charges.Ubiquisys considers the attocell a working product and is talking to different mobile carriers interested in selling it. The price of the attocell will be up to the carriers, but Day confirmed that it costs no more to manufacture than low-cost residential femtocells. Prices for traditional residential femtocells dropped below $100 last year, according to Ubiquisys.Other tech companies have been jumping onto the femtocell bandwagon, often as a way to reduce the strain on their overtired cell networks. Last year, AT&amp;amp'T rolled out its 3G MicroCell &quot;signal booster&quot; as one solution for subscribers disgruntled over poor cellular coverage. Sprint and Verizon Wireless also offer their own femtocell devices.Ubiquisys plans to demo the new attocell at next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona .<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple creates App Store Twitter account]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-creates-app-store-twitter-account</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-creates-app-store-twitter-account</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 24 Jan 2011 08:11:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>lasidigo</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-creates-app-store-twitter-account</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Though the App Store has several methods for keeping track of the newest and most noteworthy Apps, Apple has decided that a dedicated Twitter account would further promote some of its favorite applications foriPhone,iPad, andiPod Touch. (Credit:Screenshot by Joe Aimonetti/CNET) The @AppStore account has just been verified by Twitter as officially as the first post, &quot;Welcome to App Store on Twitter! Follow us to discover new apps, get exclusive offers, and share with friends. appstore&quot; was retweeted by the verified @iTunesTV account (and several other accounts). The second tweet from @AppStore promotes the Nike Training Club App, &quot;Motivation. Full-body workouts. On-demand instruction. It's all available on Nike Training Club. http://tw.appstore.com/4zo appstore&quot;. Apple asks users to &quot;follow us for official App Store tweets including our featured apps, exclusive offers, and more.&quot; No exclusive offers have been posted, though following certainly can't hurt. What are your favorite follows on Twitter Let me know in the comments! (And follow me, @ammojoe, for peculiar insights mostly derived at coffee shops.) <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[EPA to approve E15 for cars built in 2001 and later]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=epa-to-approve-e15-for-cars-built-in-2001-and-later</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=epa-to-approve-e15-for-cars-built-in-2001-and-later</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:10:49 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>resbimmarlk</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=epa-to-approve-e15-for-cars-built-in-2001-and-later</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Pro-ethanol group Growth Energy says the current 10 percent ethanol cap in gasoline is slowing the growth and development of the renewable fuels industry.(Credit:Growth Energy)The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to approve the use of E15 for vehicles built in 2001 or later, according to a Bloomberg article. E15 is a blend of 85 percent gasoline and 15 percent ethanol, and is opposed by automotive manufacturers that say the increased ethanol amount could harm vehicle engines and fueling systems.The EPA's anticipated decision, which could be announced today, builds upon the temporary waiver the agency granted last year to Growth Energy, a pro-ethanol group comprised of alternative fuel manufacturers and suppliers. At present, gasoline can be blended up to 10 percent with ethanol for all vehicles, but the waiver allows the use of E15 in vehicles built in 2007 or later. Manufacturers are appealing the decision, arguing that more testing is needed to prove the blend is safe for vehicles. The EPA was waiting for additional testing on vehicles built from 2001 to 2007 until it granted the use of E15 for those vehicle model years. The testing was completed in November, but the findings have not yet been released. Increasing the number of vehicles on the road that can use the higher ethanol blend will help the U.S. comply with its mandate to consume 13.95 billion gallons of ethanol in 2011. It's also going to help bolster the weak ethanol market, which sent a lot of alternative fuel producers and suppliers to bankruptcy court over the last 18 months, according to Bloomberg.But what about the consumer Approving the use of E15 in morecars probably means that the EPA's testing didn't find damage in engines or fueling systems. But ethanol has lower energy density than gasoline, and drivers could experience a small decrease in fuel economy from the increased amounts of ethanol.A potential upside is that it could help stabilize fuel prices for consumers as oil prices rise. Refiners receive a 45-cent tax credit for each gallon of ethanol they use. By using more ethanol to increase the number of gallons of gasoline produced from a barrel of oil, refiners could theoretically offset the rising oil prices. The average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. has risen slowly but steadily since last fall with an average price of $3.10 for a gallon of regular gas last week. Source: Bloomberg<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[With medical leave, more questions about Jobs' successor]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-medical-leave-more-questions-about-jobs-successor</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-medical-leave-more-questions-about-jobs-successor</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:10:04 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>maxhillbert</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=with-medical-leave-more-questions-about-jobs-successor</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Steve Jobs has increasingly been sharing the stage with Tim Cook (left) at major events. Here the two, plus Bob Mansfield (right), take questions during a press conference regarding the iPhone 4&amp;39's antenna.(Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET)Though Steve Jobs' presence at Apple is almost universally regarded as essential to the company's long run of amazing success, we've seen that--in small doses, at least--it can do pretty well without him. Back-to-back blowout quarters in early 2009, a successfuliPhone 3GS launch, and the finishing touches on a new iPhone OS, Mac OS, and new lineup of iPods all took place while Jobs stepped away from the company for six months beginning in January 2009 to get a liver transplant. The man credited for making Jobs' absence minimally felt was Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.In an e-mail to employees today announcing an indeterminate break to focus on his health, Jobs has again tapped the same man to take the reins for him temporarily. While Jobs is gone, Cook will handle the day-to-day duties of running Apple--which is what he basically does anyway--which will in all likelihood make the adjustment inside the company very small. Jobs is the founder, the visionary, the public face of the company. (In today's e-mail, Jobs said that he would be involved in strategic decisions during his leave.) Cook is the one who makes sure Jobs' very specific, detailed, often grandiose, and always secret visions for consumer technology are turned into products that people want to buy and that continue to add to the company's sizable cash pile.&quot;Tim Cook did a good enough job covering for Steve for his leave of absence in 2009 to the point that Apple recognized that with a bonus,&quot; Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi said today. &quot;I think this speaks of how pleased the company was with his work. There is a lot of respect for Tim Cook internally at Apple and externally and he has proved to be able to drive the company well.&quot;But the next obvious question then becomes, is this the person who could, if called upon, take over entirely for Jobs someday While Cook has the full confidence of his boss and has demonstrated an ability to execute on Jobs' big-picture plans already in place, it's the long-term prognosis for the eventual reality of an Apple without Jobs that makes investors nervous. Cook focuses on the nuts and bolts of operations, like cost management, supply chain, and sales. He very likely does not sit up late obsessing over concept designs, natural user interfaces for computers, how technology and liberal arts are intersecting, or envisioning the next move by Google, Amazon, or Research In Motion. That's what makes Jobs who he is and Apple what it is.And that is what gives investors pause when considering how Cook or anyone else will take over for Jobs someday. &quot;I think it's more of a longer-term question,&quot; DisplaySearch analyst Richard Shim said. &quot;There's a lot of indication that Apple is set up for the future. They have a lot of talented personalities. The problem is that all these talented people report to one of the most charismatic and influential guys in technology.&quot;How good they as a group--that can only be determined over a long stretch of time without Jobs in the mix. Besides Cook, that group includes Phil Schiller, the head of marketing, who hones Apple's sales pitch' CFO Peter Oppenheimer who manages Apple's bottom line' Jobs' design guru, Jonathan Ive' the senior vice president of Apple's vast retail operation, Ron Johnson' and the men who head up hardware engineering (Bob Mansfield) and software engineering, (Bertrand Serlet).  In the near term, some Apple investors may want to take a break while Jobs is out, Greg Taylor, a money manager at Aurion Capital Management in Toronto, told Businessweek. Jobs did not say how long he would be away, and it's not clear that Cook--or anyone else off the bench--can replicate what Jobs does, putting Apple far ahead in what consumers want from tech products.  &quot;As much as any company has been associated with one person, it's Apple,&quot; Taylor told the magazine. &quot;He has portrayed himself as the guiding light behind the company and one of its key innovators. The fact that Steve Jobs is taking some time off could be enough of a concern that people want to take some money off the table ahead of this quarter.&quot;  Wall Street will likely react negatively tomorrow when the stock market opens following today's public holiday.Tomorrow is also the day that Apple is due to report its fiscal first quarter 2011 earnings, after the close of trading on Wall Street. Investors will have opportunity to ask Cook and other executives about what Jobs' specific health concerns are now, and when he will return. If it's anything like last time, Apple probably won't take many questions on the matter. But Cook's recurring prominence at major Apple events, his solo turn as the face of Apple at the high-profile New York City introduction of the Verizon iPhone last week, and his by-now familiar and calming southern drawl on earnings calls should also serve to make him a reassuring presence for investors who could somewhat dampen the blow to their confidence in Apple's immediate future.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[New King of Kong crowned, but battle not over]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-king-of-kong-crowned-but-battle-not-over</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-king-of-kong-crowned-but-battle-not-over</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 12 Jan 2011 08:10:25 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>termonria74y</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-king-of-kong-crowned-but-battle-not-over</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Hank Chien: This man is projecting serious swagger.(Credit:Twin Galaxies)A full 30 years after Donkey Kong's release, gamers are still holding tight to ancient arcade joysticks in a quest for the next high score.  The latest King of Kong  Hank Chien, according to video game score certification organization Twin Galaxies. The 35-year-old doctor from Queens, N.Y., has set a new Donkey Kong arcade world record by tallying up a mesmerizing score of 1,068,000 points on the classic 1981 game in 2 hours and 45 minutes. Chien beat out the previous record held by competitor Steve Wiebe (1,064,500 points).  Now the heat is on for Wiebe, a teacher, to strike back (Wiebe, true Donkey Kong afficionados may recall, was filmed in his pursuit of the DK high score in the 2007 documentary &quot;The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters&quot;).  The DK arcade scene is actually pretty fierce, with Chien competing not only against Wiebe, but others such as his predecessor, hot-sauce magnate Billy Mitchell. The fate of the barrel-tossing high score will be decided in the upcoming &quot;Kong-Off&quot; competition on March 19-20, where another player could beat Chien's latest score. In an epic battle with the top 10 DK players, the arma-kong-eddon will determine the real King of Kong. The event will be hosted at Richie Knucklez' Arcade Games in Flemington, N.J. Richie Knucklez I feel like I should go watch &quot;Out for Justice&quot; now. Hey, Richie!<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Supreme Court won't block antitrust suit against labels]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-wont-block-antitrust-suit-against-labels</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-wont-block-antitrust-suit-against-labels</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:10:53 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>grydladziepo</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=supreme-court-wont-block-antitrust-suit-against-labels</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The U.S. Supreme Court says an antitrust suit against major record companies can go forward.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that a lawsuit, filed by a group of online music buyers who allege the four largest record companies conspired nearly a decade ago to fix prices of songs sold online, can now move forward. The high court on Monday declined to hear an appeal by the labels--Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and EMI Group--to block the suit, according to reports by Bloomberg and Reuters. Instead, the decision by a federal appeals court that the plaintiffs had supplied enough evidence to sue the labels will stand. The lawsuit by the music buyers alleged that the record labels agreed to set a wholesale price floor of about 70 cents per song when competitors were offering songs on the Web for less. A spokeswoman for Warner Music declined to comment. Representatives from the other labels and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) did not immediately respond to interview requests. The roots of the case can be traced to 2001, when the top labels were preparing to try their hand at selling digital music out of their own Internet stores. Bertelsmann, Warner Music, and EMI had backed a service called MusicNet. Sony and UMG built Pressplay. &quot;All defendants signed distribution agreements with MusicNet or Pressplay,&quot; according to the consumers' group. The labels &quot;sold music directly to consumers over the Internet through these joint ventures. Both the joint ventures and the (RIAA) provided a forum and means through which defendants could communicate about pricing, terms, and use restrictions.&quot;&quot;[The labels] sold music directly to consumers over the Internet through these joint ventures. Both the joint ventures and the (RIAA) provided a forum and means through which defendants could communicate about pricing, terms, and use restrictions.&quot; --Plaintiffs suing labels&quot;To obtain Internet Music from all major record labels,&quot; the consumer group continued, &quot;a consumer initially would have had to subscribe to both MusicNet and Pressplay at a cost of approximately $240 per year.&quot;The plaintiffs also noted that the labels were investigated about four years ago by the office of the New York State attorney general regarding wholesale prices charged for digital music and were the focus of an inquiry by the Department of Justice into possible &quot;collusion and price fixing&quot; and to determine whether &quot;defendants misled DOJ about the formation and operation of MusicNet and Pressplay.&quot; None of the investigations appeared to go anywhere. In court documents, the plaintiffs accused MusicNet and Pressplay with being anticonsumer and attempting to restrict access to online music. Even after those services began selling songs, the labels required these other outlets to &quot;only sell defendants' music if they contracted with MusicNet to provide Internet Music for the same prices and with the same restrictions as MusicNet itself or other MusicNet licensees. If the licensee attempted to license music from another company, defendants forced them to pay penalties or terminated their licenses.&quot; Rick Boucher, former congressman from Virginia.(Credit:U.S. Congress)Pressplay and MusicNet were the music industries responses to Napster and illegal file sharing. They were attempts to seize back control of distribution and cram the toothpaste back into the tube. They didn't work. Large audiences that were then just going online gravitated towards the now-defunct LimeWire and other peer-to-peer networks. From their start, MusicNet and Pressplay drew a lot of criticism. Critics, who included then Congressman Rick Boucher, warned that the labels' direct-to-consumer services could violate antitrust laws. At a tech conference in 2002, Boucher predicted that there would be trouble. &quot;That level of duopoly...of content ownership and the ownership of distribution is threatening to the arrival of competition in the delivery of music on the Web,&quot; Boucher said then. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Charles in charge: Nav system knows how you feel]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=charles-in-charge-nav-system-knows-how-you-feel</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=charles-in-charge-nav-system-knows-how-you-feel</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>carrolploo</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=charles-in-charge-nav-system-knows-how-you-feel</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Charles is an experimental GPS navigation system that uses camera and sensors to tell how you feel.(Credit:Video screenshot by Liane Yvkoff/CNET)A Cambridge University professor is developing a navigation system that does what most boyfriends can't: read your emotions, sense what's going on, and adapt to the situation.Just kidding about the boyfriend part.Charles is a robot that is more co-pilot than GPS device. Frustrated by unintuitive gadgets that aren't helpful--let alone interactive--Professor Peter Robinson, who leads the Rainbow Group working on computer graphics and interaction at Cambridge, developed an emotionally intelligent navigation system that can tell how you're feeling and respond accordingly.The system uses sensors and algorithms of predefined mental states to track facial cues, tone of voice, body language, and posture. Using this information, Charles can read human emotion with a 70 percent accuracy rate, which is on par with human ability, Robinson says in a YouTube video demonstrating his project.But reading emotion is only one aspect of the robot's capability. Charles can also respond with human-like emotion.With cameras for eyes and 24 motors for muscles, the robot's head and mouth moves as it gives directions and mimics human expressions. Unlike current GPS systems, Charles politely tells you where to go based on conversation. Should you not agree with the directions Charles provides, you can suggest an alternate route. Instead of saying it's recalculating or insisting on the programmed route, the robot actually agrees with your decision.Despite the obvious advantages, Charles is a long way from replacing TomTom as your GPS device. However, the system could also end up as part of a next-generation safety feature. A navigation system that senses your emotions may be able to block calls if it detects the driver is stressed, the professor said in an interview with The Telegraph. Call-blocking capability is already available in Ford's MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch system, and it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that feature integrated with an emotion-sensing GPS system. Audi is testing in-cabin cameras and sensors that track head position to assess drivers' attentiveness. If the system detects that a driver isn't paying attention, it may activate emergency braking earlier to avoid crashes. To reduce road rage, a system like Charles could limit speed or take over driving all together--should autonomouscars ever become the norm.It may sound invasive, but the polite, human-like personality of Charles makes it seem less threatening. To see what the future of emotion-sensing navigation systems looks like, watch the professor's video of his project:(Source: The Telegraph via AutoBlog)        Liane Yvkoff     Full Profile E-mail Liane Yvkoff   E-mail Liane Yvkoff If you have a question or comment for Liane Yvkoff, 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       Liane Yvkoff is a freelance writer who blogs about cars for CNET Car Tech. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. E-mail Liane.  <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Breath sensor could offer on-the-spot cancer report]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=breath-sensor-could-offer-on-the-spot-cancer-report</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=breath-sensor-could-offer-on-the-spot-cancer-report</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 28 Dec 2010 08:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>nanoensure</dc:creator>
<category>Social</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=breath-sensor-could-offer-on-the-spot-cancer-report</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Researchers say they've used nanoparticles to create a material sensitive enough to analyze a patient's breath in real time and detect indicators of cancer, diabetes, and other diseases.In a statement released today, scientists at Purdue University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology said that though diagnostic breath-analysis tools have been around for several decades, this is the first time a material has been developed that's sensitive enough to deliver on-the-spot results.&quot;We are talking about creating an inexpensive, rapid way of collecting diagnostic information about a patient,&quot; Carlos Martinez, an assistant professor of materials engineering at Purdue, said in the statement. &quot;It might say, '... you are metabolizing a specific compound indicative of this type of cancer,' and then additional, more complex tests could be conducted to confirm the diagnosis.&quot;These sorts of breath-analysis tools detect changes in electrical resistance or conductance as a gas--i.e., the patient's breath--passes over sensors. The changes can point to the presence of &quot;biomarkers,&quot; substances that serve as red flags for various ailments and physical conditions.The Purdue and NIST technologists basically produced a more effective sensor by increasing its surface area. They replaced a flat surface with a material created using a coating of metal oxide nanoparticles, which introduced lots of nooks and crannies, and made for an extremely porous metal-oxide film.Replacing a flat surface with a porous one lets researchers increase the &amp;34'active sensing surface area&amp;34' to improve sensitivity.(Credit:Purdue University and NIST)They then used the material to detect acetone, a biomarker for diabetes, in a gas that mimicked a person's breath. They were quickly able, they said, to pick up on biomarkers in the parts per billion to parts per million range--at least 100 times better than earlier breath-analysis tools.&quot;People have been working in this area for about 30 years but have not been able to detect low enough concentrations in real time,&quot; Martinez said. &quot;We solved that problem with the materials we developed, and we are now focusing on how to be very specific, how to distinguish particular biomarkers.&quot;&quot;The fact that we were able to do this in real time is a big step in the right direction,&quot; Martinez said, though tools like this for real-world use are likely a decade away, if not longer, in part because precise manufacturing standards haven't been developed for the new approach.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Apple invests in Toshiba LCD plant]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-invests-in-toshiba-lcd-plant</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-invests-in-toshiba-lcd-plant</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 13 Dec 2010 08:10:12 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Dakota01</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-apple-invests-in-toshiba-lcd-plant</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Will Toshiba be supplying the display for future generations of the iPhone(Credit:Josh Miller/CNET)Toshiba's building a $1.2 billion LCD plant, but it's reportedly not alone in footing the bill.Nikkei, a Japanese business news outlet, today reported that Apple will be investing in the factory, which will be cranking out small mobile phone displays for future iPhones, according to Reuters.Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The factory is set to be built starting early next year in Ishikawa Prefecture, an area on the west side of the country about 200 miles from Tokyo. The plant will be run by Toshiba Mobile Display, an arm of Toshiba that makes low-temperature polysilicon LCD panels at another factory in the same region. Once the new factory is up and running at capacity, it should double the current plant's production of 8.5 million panels per month. Apple uses many different suppliers for the myriad parts that go into constructing itsiPhone. In the past, Sharp and Sanyo Epson have been said to have supplied LCD panels for the smartphone. Apple isn't shy about switching suppliers to get the best deal--and is in fact known for the great component pricing it is able to wrangle from suppliers--but investing in the factory hasn't been standard practice for the Cupertino, Calif., company.Still, it's not a surprising turn of events, if the report is indeed true. Apple is sitting on an enormous pile of cash (rather controversially too, if you ask some investors), and is moving toward a model where it has a lot of leverage over the production of its flagship products.Just in the last few years, Apple has bought up chip design firms Intrinsity and PA Semi, has invested in Imagination Technologies, a mobile graphics chip designer, has laid out huge sums of cash to buy up LG Display's future production of displays presumably for iPads and Macs, has created its own battery technology for theiPad, and designed its own custom unibody construction process to create its MacBook line.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Samsung ships 3 million Galaxy S smartphones]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-ships-3-million-galaxy-s-smartphones</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-ships-3-million-galaxy-s-smartphones</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:10:37 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>robozevalo</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=samsung-ships-3-million-galaxy-s-smartphones</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Four of the seven Galaxy S smartphone models.(Credit:Samsung)Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones have reached another milestone.The company said today it has now shipped 3 million Galaxy S smartphones. The figure comprises sales of the seven models of Galaxy S smartphones, including the Fascinate, Captivate, and Vibrant, currently available from all the major carriers. The announcement comes about three months after Samsung said it had shipped 1 million of the phones, which run on the Android operating system.Samsung also noted today that it plans to upgrade the phones to Android 2.2 &quot;in the near future.&quot; It wouldn't provide an exact time frame for the update. On a related note, reports have been swirling that Samsung has sold 1 million units of its Galaxy Tab tablet. After initially telling CNET today that Samsung had not officially announced sales or shipments of its tablet, a company spokesperson then contacted CNET again and confirmed that sales figure.Samsung's Galaxy Tab features a 7-inch display and runs Android 2.2. The device has been on store shelves for about three weeks.Updated at 12:19 p.m. PTto include confirmation of Galaxy Tab sales figures.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[WikiLeaks faces more U.S. demands for prosecution]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-faces-more-u-s--demands-for-prosecution</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-faces-more-u-s--demands-for-prosecution</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:10:33 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>buildmix5</dc:creator>
<category>Politics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-faces-more-u-s--demands-for-prosecution</guid>
<description><![CDATA[WikiLeaks encountered another round of criticism in Washington political circles today as the two senators who head the Senate Intelligence Committee called for the espionage prosecution of editor Julian Assange.Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Kit Bond (R-Miss.) said that Assange--and, in wording that was likely designed to intimidate programmers and other volunteers aiding WikiLeaks--any of &quot;his possible accomplices&quot; should be charged with federal crimes.&quot;We believe that Mr. Assange's conduct is espionage and that his actions fall under the elements of this section of law,&quot; the senators told Attorney General Eric Holder in a letter today. &quot;Therefore, we urge that he be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.&quot;This follows increasingly loud criticism from other U.S. politicians as WikiLeaks continues to dribble out confidential State Department cables, a few dozen at a time on its &quot;cablegate&quot; Web site, in a manner that seems optimized to provoke Washington officialdom the most. Earlier this week, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the incoming head of the House Intelligence Committee, also called for criminal charges under the Espionage Act as well as putting WikiLeaks on the list of &quot;terrorist&quot; organizations that includes Al Qaeda.Also today: &amp;149' Seattle-based Tableau Software bowed to pressure from Sen. Joseph Lieberman (an independent who caucuses with Democrats) and removed a visualization of the State Department cables that did not include the actual text. A U.K.-based WikiLeaks volunteer said they &quot;contained no sensitive info.&quot;&amp;149' The ACLU warned that prosecuting Assange would be little different from prosecuting news organizations and raise substantial First Amendment problems: &quot;If newspapers could be held criminally liable for publishing leaked information about government practices, we might never have found out about the CIA's secret prisons or the government spying on innocent Americans.&quot;&amp;149' Some of the cables are starting to leak to additional news organizations in advance of their publication on WikiLeaks' Web site. Here's one that appeared in an Egyptian paper about the creation of a steel wall along the country's border with Gaza.&amp;149' Lieberman's staff--which managed to persuade Amazon.com to remove WikiLeaks from its hosting service yesterday--hasn't contacted other sites such as Twitter.com, according to one report.Pfc. Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks' alleged source for the Iraq and Afghanistan war files, was charged in July with a series of crimes including violations of the Espionage Act. If Assange or other WikiLeaks editors worked with Manning to convince him to (allegedly) release the documents, that would implicate 18 USC 793(g), which punishes conspiracies to transmit national defense information.The Espionage Act also makes it illegal to disclose &quot;information relating to the national defense,&quot; if that information could be used &quot;to the injury of the United States.&quot; (See previous CNET article.)On the other hand, indictments and arrest warrants aren't very helpful unless police can track someone down. Not only is Assange not exactly eager to visit the United States, but he's now giving interviews from what is being referred to as an &quot;undisclosed location,&quot; which some reports have put as outside of London.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Windows Phone 7 home-brew app tool pulled]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=windows-phone-7-home-brew-app-tool-pulled</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=windows-phone-7-home-brew-app-tool-pulled</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:10:23 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>paulsmith385</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=windows-phone-7-home-brew-app-tool-pulled</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Just a few short days after its debut, a tool that would allow anyone to install and run unauthorized applications on theirWindows Phone 7 devices has been pulled.ChevronWP7, which was the creation of developers Rafael Rivera, Chris Walsh, Long Zheng, was released late last week and offered those who were not enrolled in Microsoft's Windows Phone developer program a way to install applications onto Windows Phone 7 devices without going through Microsoft'sZune software or the phone's built-in application installer.According to the trio, the decision to pull down the software was done in order to &quot;fast-track&quot; discussions with Microsoft, particularly Brandon Watson, director of developer experience for the Windows Phone 7 platform, who got in touch with the group about the tool. &quot;To pursue these goals with Microsoft's support, Brandon Watson has agreed to engage in further discussions with us about officially facilitating home-brew development on WP7,&quot; a post on ChevronWP7's site said. &quot;We are excited to explore the opportunity to become more involved with the shaping of the platform and to build a feedback channel for developers around the world,&quot; it continued. Even though the &quot;unlocking&quot; program is no longer available, the group continues to offer a custom ringtone management application, which can take up to five WMA files and send them to Windows Phone 7 devices for use as ringers--a feature not currently available as part of the phone's system software.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Study: Fleet buyers can jump-start plug-in vehicles]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-fleet-buyers-can-jump-start-plug-in-vehicles</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-fleet-buyers-can-jump-start-plug-in-vehicles</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Nov 2010 08:10:30 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>paulsmith385</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=study-fleet-buyers-can-jump-start-plug-in-vehicles</guid>
<description><![CDATA[While it's unclear how many consumers are willing to pay more for plug-in electriccars, the case for fleet operators is a lot simpler to make, according to advocacy group the Electrification Coalition.The group, made up of CEOs from the auto and electric power industries, today released a road map for fleet electrification in which it argues that corporate fleets can help make plug-in vehicles more commonplace. The document, prepared in an effort to influence policy, was released by members at a press conference in Washington, D.C.Electrifying transportation offers the best means for reducing oil consumption, but there are significant barriers to bringing plug-in vehicles onto the road, including cost, said FedEx CEO Frederick Smith at the press conference. Combined with fuel efficiency mandates, the U.S. could decrease its oil consumption of light-duty vehicles from about 10 million barrels of oil today to 4 million barrels of oil in the next 25 years, Smith said. With just the fuel efficiency mandates, consumption in the U.S. will go to about 16 million barrels of oil a day by 2035, one factor leading to anticipated higher oil prices and price spikes. The cost of electrical components, notably the batteries in electric vehicles, is a very difficult barrier to overcome. But fleet operators have a few characteristics that make them more likely buyers than consumers, according to the Fleet Electrification Roadmap report, which was done in conjunction with management consulting company PRTM. Photos: Alt wheels for fleet drivers  Fleet operators tend to consider the total cost of ownership, rather the upfront costs, and pay higher electricity rates than consumers. And they tend to run predictable routes and often have centralized fueling. Buying is also centralized: the top 50 fleet operators manage more than half a million cars and trucks. There were 16.3 million fleet vehicles in operation in 2009.&quot;Fleets (offer) a possible pathway to get early adoption of electric vehicles that will drive scale and bring down the price of batteries for everyone,&quot; said Robbie Diamond, the CEO of the Electrification Coalition. He said the policy recommendations should appeal to both political parties because they address national security as well as economic and environmental issues.The analysis in the fleet road map document finds that EVs are cost-competitive in many fleet applications today without government subsidies. Traditional hybrids driven more than 20,000 miles per year are expected to be more cost-effective than internal combustion engines by 2012, it said. As the cost of batteries goes down in the next five to eight years, EVs become the most cost effective option, according to the report.Still, many fleet operators will find it difficult to get a return on investment or be willing to consider a multiple year payback. Also, some could find daily charging disruptive to their operations, according to the report.Some of the policy recommendations include tax credits for plug-in vehicles deployed in fleets and having federal agencies, such as the Postal Service, invest in electrification. Other recommendations including research and development spending on advanced batteries and a program to guarantee the residual value of large-format batteries put into service in the next three years. Used auto batteries can be recycled or refurbished for use as grid storage, but there is no marketplace yet established for handling spent lithium ion batteries used in the latest generation of plug-in vehicles.Last week, General Electric, which is a member of the Electrification Coalition, announced that it plans to purchase 25,000 electric cars for its sales people and to lease to its fleet management customers. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Firefox 4 gets much, much faster]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=firefox-4-gets-much-much-faster</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=firefox-4-gets-much-much-faster</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:10:04 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>ArjunSahker</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=firefox-4-gets-much-much-faster</guid>
<description><![CDATA[One of the major components essential for the future ofFirefox just landed in the beta build of the browser, and it gives the open-source browser the page-rendering speed boost that it had been lacking.Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Firefox 4 beta 7 introduces JagerMonkey, Mozilla's next-generation JavaScript engine that puts the browser in the same ballpark as its high-speed competitors. The old TraceMonkey engine was slow enough to no longer be in the same league as Chrome, Opera,Safari, and the Internet Explorer 9 beta.Mozilla&amp;39's internal benchmarks show significant JavaScript rendering improvements for Firefox 4 beta 7&amp;39's new JagerMonkey engine.(Credit:Mozilla, Inc.)Mozilla describes the improvements as incorporating the JagerMonkey JIT compiler into the new SpiderMonkey engine, and says that users can expect to see significantly faster start-up times, page-load speed, and JavaScript-intensive Web tasks such as running apps and playing games. The company's internal benchmarking shows Firefox 4 is three times faster than the current Firefox 3.6.12 on both Kraken and Sunspider JavaScript benchmarks, and five times faster than Firefox 3.6.12 on the V8 benchmark. Engineer David Mandelin stated in a blog post that Firefox 4 will be &quot;a little bit faster&quot; by the time it's finished.Although speed is definitely a major part of a successful modern browser, there's more that's changed in the latest Firefox 4 beta besides JavaScript rendering. Firefox was one of the first browsers to incorporate hardware acceleration, and Firefox 4 beta 7 can use your computer's graphics card to load pages faster if the card is supported. The new beta will work on Windows XP, something most other hardware accelerated browsers can't do, and it will work on Macs. TheMac version is powered by OpenGL, while DirectX fuels the Windows version.Fonts received a boost in this beta, as Firefox 4 now supports the OpenType font format. This will allow designers to control kerning, ligatures, cap variants, and alternative characters. Graphics rendering for developers also got some attention, with the addition of support for 3D graphics rendering via WebGL. Running it currently requires an OpenGL-enabled graphics card, with support planned for other cards in the future.Panorama now has a tutorial video, a dedicated search button instead of a search field, and a button to quickly jump back to where you were.(Credit:Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)There's also a nifty about:config tweak that comes in Firefox 4 beta 7. Instead of installing the Bar Tab add-on to better manage Firefox's open session memory, advanced users can go to about:config and set browser.sessionstore.max_concurrent_tabs to 0. This will prevent Firefox from holding in memory all but your most recently-used tabs. Clicking on a tab will automatically refresh it.The Panorama feature received some small changes, too. It now comes with a &quot;how-to&quot; video that must be manually removed, and there's a dedicated search button that wasn't there before. There's a new button to jump you back to the site you were looking at when you jumped into Panorama, a convenience that was sorely missing from the previous beta.The speed improvements in this beta are instantly noticeable, but the browser remains in beta and it's not expected to be ready until January 2011. The full changelog for Firefox 4 beta 7 can be read here. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Get extra cool with the hot Camaro computer]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-extra-cool-with-the-hot-camaro-computer</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-extra-cool-with-the-hot-camaro-computer</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 05 Nov 2010 07:11:24 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Jeny01</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=get-extra-cool-with-the-hot-camaro-computer</guid>
<description><![CDATA[So hot!(Credit:Chevy Mall)&quot;Transformers&quot; fans, I've just run into something at Chevy Mall that probably won't get you Megan Fox but will likely make your nerdy friends envious, nonetheless. It's a personal computer that's a replica of the hot Chevy Camaro. The computer starts at around $1,240 and comes in a variety of colors, including the same color as thecar used in the movie: bright yellow. The machine is relatively loaded, with two USB ports on the grille of the car, a slot-load DVD drive at the front bumper, and two more USB ports on the back, together with a VGA port, a Gigabit LAN port, and an HDMI port as well as audio out and a mic. It even has built-in Wireless-N. Unlike the muscle car, however, the computer is equipped with rather modest hardware, running an Intel Atom N330 dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and it has a 250GB hard drive. You can upgrade the RAM to 8GB and the hard drive to 500GB, however. As far as how the replica works, according to Chevy Mall, the computer has ultrabright LEDs illuminating the headlights when the power is on' the taillights flash when the hard disk is active. It's unclear if there are options to turn these lights down or off. The power button is a uniquely designed hood ornament, and the entire machine is painted in lead-free paint.The Camaro computer runsWindows 7, which unfortunately doesn't have a feature that transforms the computer into a made-in-Japan robot, at least not in this version. A mouse, keyboard, and a monitor are not included in the price, either.The Camaro computer comes rather loaded, with USB ports, HDMI, surround sound, Gigabit Ethernet, slot-load DVD drive, and built-in Wireless-N.(Credit:Chevy Mall)<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft to fund Russian tech center]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-fund-russian-tech-center</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-fund-russian-tech-center</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 02 Nov 2010 07:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Celina</dc:creator>
<category>Business &amp; Finance</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-fund-russian-tech-center</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ Microsoft will build a major software development center in Skolkovo, Russia's would-be Silicon Valley.  Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive officer, signed a memorandum of understanding yesterday with Viktor Vekselberg, the president of the Skolkovo Fund, the software maker said.  In addition to building the software development center for its own efforts, Microsoft will embark on a series of collaborative research projects with Russian and foreign universities, provide further assistance for Russian technology start-up companies, build a technology testing center for companies in Skolkovo, and help to support and develop aspects of the Skolkovo technology university's curriculum. Read more of &quot;Microsoft puts funds into Russian technology centre&quot; at ZDNet UK. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[T-Mobile MyTouch 4G arriving Nov. 3 for $200]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-mytouch-4g-arriving-nov--3-for-200</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-mytouch-4g-arriving-nov--3-for-200</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>glaucomanbqdeh</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=t-mobile-mytouch-4g-arriving-nov--3-for-200</guid>
<description><![CDATA[It's been almost a month since T-Mobile first introduced the latest member of the MyTouch family, and now we finally have a launch date, pricing, and a new name.The T-Mobile MyTouch 4G (previously known simply as the T-Mobile MyTouch) will be available starting November 3 for $199.99 with a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate. The Android 2.2 device is the carrier's second smartphone to offer HSPA+ support and will also offer Wi-Fi calling. The MyTouch 4G also has a 1GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera and a front-facing VGA camera for video chat, and a features called Media Room, which will service as a hub for all the phone's multimedia capabilities.We're actually at a media event for the T-Mobile MyTouch 4G right now, picking up a review unit, so be sure to check in at the end of the week for our full evaluation.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Rocket scientist aims to relaunch propulsion technology]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rocket-scientist-aims-to-relaunch-propulsion-technology</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rocket-scientist-aims-to-relaunch-propulsion-technology</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:24:27 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allena</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=rocket-scientist-aims-to-relaunch-propulsion-technology</guid>
<description><![CDATA[This is a concept sketch for new technology that could power rocket launches through beamed microwave energy.(Credit:Escape Dynamics)The time has come to jettison the traditional chemical rocket propulsion system and move to one powered by beamed microwaves, say a group of researchers.For decades, even as rockets have gotten lighter and more powerful, the basic system for putting them in space hasn't changed. A combustion chamber is loaded with propellants, which are put through a chemical reaction, causing hot gases to accelerate and be ejected through a nozzle at very high velocity, which in turn, provides momentum to the rocket's engine.But a team led by 25-year-old CalTech Ph.D. student Dmitriy Tseliakhovich thinks that the time has come for a new rocket propulsion paradigm, one that requires no chemical explosions, which could cut the cost of putting payloads in space by a factor of ten or more, and which could dramatically reduce the environmental impact of a launch.The technology is being looked at by some as a major key to making affordable private space flights--particularly those geared towards getting cargo outside the Earth's atmosphere--for small- and medium-sized businesses that would like to explore the resources of space, but which are today unable to get off the planet.And while there is clearly a long way to go before a propulsion system powered by microwave beams or any other external source is ready for prime time, those involved in the research believe that all the required technology is already here.To Tseliakhovich, the major rationale for pursuing external propulsion is the fact that the price for putting payloads in space hasn't changed in decades. He explains that in 2005 dollars, the cost has stayed constant for at least 50 years at around $10,000 per kilogram, mainly because so much of a rocket's space and weight is devoted to the fuel that gets it off the ground.In order to overcome that threshold, he argued, it is necessary to develop a fundamentally new system capable of delivering the 7 kilometers per second velocity required to get a rocket out of the atmosphere. This is a schematic for the propulsion system behind the new rocket launch technology.(Credit:Escape Dynamics)&quot;What we propose,&quot; said Tseliakhovich, who is the founder of Escape Dynamics, a start-up devoted to solving the problem, &quot;is, let's get rid of producing energy on board the launch vehicle and delivery energy by way of microwave beams.&quot;To many, that idea may sound like pure science fiction, but there are some very accomplished people in the space industry who believe that beamed microwaves could very well become the propulsion system of the future. &quot;What's been really evident to me [is] that today's rockets really are the same line of evolution as Chinese rockets a thousand years ago, [where you have] a hot tube, and hot gases come out the other end,&quot; said Peter Diamandis, the chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation and co-vice chairman of Space Adventures. &quot;There's been no leap from the propeller to the jet, as we had in aviation. I had read about beamed power, and as I looked at it...what became evident to me was that the technology to implement it was here today. Nothing magical needed to be created.&quot;Indeed, Diamandis had already been thinking about creating an X Prize or possibly an X Challenge dedicated to coming up with a next-generation propulsion system, perhaps, he said, using some new system to get something like 10 kilograms of cargo up to 30 kilometers in space. So when Tseliakhovich came to him at a conference full of ideas about future versions of propulsion, it was Diamandis who first turned the young Ph.D. student onto the idea of beamed power.How it would workAccording to Escape Dynamics, &quot;the key operational components of the microwave beam power launch system are a ground-based microwave array and an engine based on the heat exchange between the hydrogen propellant and the incoming microwave radiation. Hydrogen heating is achieved with the heat exchanger, which heats the propellant to a temperature above 2,000 [degrees Kelvin], which is necessary for efficient operation of the engine.&quot;Essentially, the idea is that microwaves beamed from the ground would heat hydrogen, which would then flow through a heat exchanger and out through the rocket's nozzle. This system would allow for a single-stage launch vehicle that would be both reusable, and highly reliable, Tseliakhovich said.One of the major advantages of a beamed microwave external propulsion system, said Kevin Parkin, the deputy director of the Mission Design Center at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., is that it can bypass some of the typical constraints of a traditional propulsion engine.According to Parkin, who is an Escape Dynamics adviser and who wrote his own Ph.D. thesis on microwave thermal propulsion, a beamed energy propulsion system is capable of producing 2.5 times as much thrust as a traditional chemical-based system. He said that the standard system tops out at an energetic reaction of 16 megajoules per kilogram, while the beamed energy approach can reach 40 megajoules per kilogram.&quot;So you get a higher performance out of the rocket by sending the same amount of mass out the back,&quot; Parkin said. &quot;So that translates to a rocket with a bigger payload.&quot;And what that means, Parkin added, is that a rocket launched under this paradigm could have more of its mass devoted to structural integrity, a key component in getting to a reusable launch vehicle that requires being inspected only once over 100 flights or so. &quot;It's more akin to an airliner than a rocket,&quot; he explained.Not a new conceptTo be sure, the idea of using beamed energy to get a rocket off the ground is nothing new. Parkin said that Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first proposed the idea in 1924. But back then, Parkin added, there was no such thing as beams or lasers, let alone those powerful enough to launch a vehicle into space.Today, that's no longer the case, argued Tseliakhovich. &quot;Until five years ago,&quot; said Tseliakhovich, &quot;we could not produce enough output of the microwave power. We did not have efficient enough gyrotrons.&quot;Today, however, it's possible to produce more than a megawatt of energy per gyrotron, Tseliakhovich said, speaking of devices that, according to Wikipedia, are &quot;high-powered vacuum tubes which emit millimeter-wave beams by bunching electrons with cyclotron motion in a strong magnetic field.&quot;And Parkin said his own research demonstrated five years ago that it was possible to heat hydrogen to high enough temperatures using microwaves to create high-performance propulsion.So why has no one come along since then to try to take the technology where Tseliakhovich now wants toIn part, said Parkin, it's because not many people know about the technology, and because it often takes the scientific community 10 years or more to cotton to a radical change in philosophy. Further, he said, there are those who are critical of the very concept of beamed energy propulsion, mainly because they worry that the technology is not really capable of producing enough of an increase in propulsion efficiency to make investing time and money in it worthwhile.But to Diamandis, bringing high technology into the equation means that for the first time, Moore's Law could be applied to the science of propulsion, and that could mean that the cost of putting payloads in space could very well drop rapidly as does the price of computer components.Diamandis acknowledges that there are those who don't believe in the idea of beamed energy-based propulsion, and said there are others who oppose investing in it because they fear it threatens current infrastructure.But NASA is already looking into the technology, Parkin said, pointing to a research project under way at the U.S. space agency's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. For his part, Tseliakhovich said he believes it will be technologically possible to build a prototype beamed microwave infrastructure and launch vehicle in as little as seven years, though he admits that the psychological shift required to back such an effort might take longer. That's particularly true, he said, because sending such a rocket into space would require enough land to build a functional beamed microwave array and the support of a government interested in the technology.But both Parkin and Diamandis--who, of course, have a stake in the technology's success--think that Tseliakhovich's time frame is realistic. The only question, said Diamandis, is how big a rocket built using the technology in that time frame would be.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Oodle Widens Its Social Reach On Facebook&nbsp'Marketplace]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oodle-widens-its-social-reach-on-facebooknbspmarketplace</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oodle-widens-its-social-reach-on-facebooknbspmarketplace</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sharmeen</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=oodle-widens-its-social-reach-on-facebooknbspmarketplace</guid>
<description><![CDATA[When Oodle started out six years ago as a classifieds search engine, it&amp;'s focus was all around search and bringing together the best classified ads from all over the web.  Today, it still does that, but increasingly it is moving more and more towards social classifieds.  &amp;''We are 100 percent committed to social,&amp;'' CEO Craig Donato tells me.  Oodle already powers the Facebook Marketplace, perhaps the largest business app on the social network.  Of the company&amp;'s 14 million total users a month, 6 million are on Facebook.  And tonight it plans to roll out a slew of new social features.In addition to seeing what items for sale your friends are listing on Facebook, you can also see items from friends of friends, and from people who belong to the same networks.  (Some of these group buying features come from its recent acquisition of Grouply).  You can now also post items just to your friends, and you have the option to lend items or give them away.  Donato recently posted that he was looking for a car for his foster daughter.  A friend from grad school saw the request and just gave her his old car that he was going to try to sell.Adding real identities and tapping into your social networks changes the nature of many of these transactions.  Donato explains how Oodle is different than other forms of social commerce: &amp;''The majority of social commerce is getting recommendations from friends about what to buy.  What we are doing is differenta4&quot;who you are buying from matters as much as what you are buying.&amp;''Every listing is tied to a real Facebook identity, and the listings pages are redesigned to better show who that person is and how you are connected.  Email communications similarly will display summarized profile information and pictures of common friends.Oodle is facing increasing competition from younger startups such as Yardsellr to become the eBay of social, but with Facebook Marketplace Oodle has the scale to become the default for social classifieds.  How does Oodle plan to make money off of social classifieds where there are no listing fees  Off of businesses, of course.  Oodle charges small businesses for premium services such as reporting and linking listings to their Facebook pages  Whereas the Web and e-commerce has helped to &amp;''has really dehumanized local transactions,&amp;'' Donato believes that social classifieds will help reverse that trend because they usually result in a face-to-face transaction where reputations matter more than on the web.  He also believes that getting rid of anonymity helps to eliminate bad behavior such as scams or people simply not holding up their end of the bargain.CrunchBase InformationOodleInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Greed No, Video Is Good, As Oliver Stone Invests In Platform]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=greed-no-video-is-good-as-oliver-stone-invests-in-platform</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=greed-no-video-is-good-as-oliver-stone-invests-in-platform</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>parriaminkak</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=greed-no-video-is-good-as-oliver-stone-invests-in-platform</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Vzaar, an online video platform aimed at SMEs that want to publish video, has been plugging away since 2007, but seemed to go in an odd direction &amp;8211' aiming at eBay sellers who wanted to sex-up their auctions. Needless to say it was the low end of the market and eBay auctioneers tend not want to spend money on a dedicated video platform outside of free ones like YouTube. But after bringing in new management, new CEO Stephen McCluskey, formerly with PA consulting group, has pivoted the company towards a more upstream market and gone out looking for new funding. Through various twists and turns on that funding road it&amp;'s now found further funding &amp;8211' terms undisclosed &amp;8211' through a slightly left-field source, namely Hollywood director Oliver Stone, famous for movies on The Doors, JFK and Wall Street. He&amp;'s invested alongside existing investor Sophrosyne Ventures LLP.The investment came about through Stone&amp;'s longstanding relationship with John Moreton, one of vzaar&amp;'s major investors. Normally that&amp;'s where the story peters out, but Stone has gone one further than most investors &amp;8211' filming an actual commercial for the company when he was in London attending the premiere of &amp;8216'Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps&amp;'Apparently, Stone&amp;'s rational was that even though there is a rivarly between online video and cinema, he is interested in the issues around wider content distribution.Vzaar natural competitors are now Kyte, Kaltura, Viddler, LongTailVideo and new arrival 23 Video, but, I&amp;'m told Vzaar&amp;'s sales are up in their new $50 up to $1500 offering. It now has 1,200 customers worldwide.Just don&amp;'t mention &amp;''greed is good&amp;'' or even &amp;''I liked it so much, I bought the company&amp;''.      CrunchBase InformationvzaarInformation provided by CrunchBase<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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