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<title>Haaze.com / Julia01 / Voted News</title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com</link>
<description>Test Web 2.0 Content Management System</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<language>en</language>
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<title><![CDATA[Cobra Tag finds your lost keys, phone, other junk]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cobra-tag-finds-your-lost-keys-phone-other-junk</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cobra-tag-finds-your-lost-keys-phone-other-junk</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:10:17 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>yeroppy</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cobra-tag-finds-your-lost-keys-phone-other-junk</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Cobra Tag sensor ties your keys and your phone together via Bluetooth.(Credit:Cobra Electronics)For some odd reason, I put my keys in a different place every time I take then out of my pocket at night. The problem is that I can never remember these unique locations when the time comes to retrieve those keys. The simple solution would be to change my behavior, but I'd rather solve my problems with technology and apps. Enter the Cobra Tag by Cobra, a two-part hardware and software solution to finding your misplaced stuff.The first part of the system is the Cobra Tag sensor, a small electronic dongle that can be attached to a keychain, purse, backpack, or other valuable item that you'd like to keep track of. The second part is the Cobra Tag app foriPhone, Android, or Blackberry that allows your smartphone to communicate with the Cobra Tag hardware via Bluetooth connection.Now, when you lose your keys, simply launch the Cobra Tag app on your phone and activate an audible chime from your keychain. The connection is bidirectional, so in the event that you misplace your smartphone, you can tap a button on the Cobra Tag sensor to ring your phone. Of course, the phone and the tag have to be within Bluetooth range to communicate. However, the extra paranoid can also activate a function called Phone Halo to automatically lock down the smartphone when it gets outside of the range of the Cobra Tag sensor.Of course, if you misplace both your keys and your phone, you'll be without a way of finding either. Plus, you'll have lost the $59.95 Cobra Tag sensor. So, you won't be completely absolved of the responsibility of keeping up with your stuff when the Cobra Tag by Cobra debuts in July 2011.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple sued over location tracking in iOS]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 25 Apr 2011 07:10:09 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>andplot56</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-sued-over-location-tracking-in-ios</guid>
<description><![CDATA[A lawsuit filed against Apple in Florida last week accuses the company of violating privacy laws, as well as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, by keeping a log of user locations without offering a way to disable the feature. The suit, which was first reported by Bloomberg, was filed by Vikram Ajjampur and William Devito, both of whom own Apple products. In the suit, the pair, who seek punitive damages and injunctive relief, cite research from Alasdair Allen and Pete Warden about the tracking files found within iOS as the source for Apple's collection techniques. &quot;Users of Apple's iPhones and iPads, including Plaintiffs, were unaware of Apple's tracking their locations and did not consent to such tracking,&quot; the suit claims. &quot;Apple collects the location information covertly, surreptitiously and in violations of law.&quot; The suit faults Apple specifically for not disclosing that the iOS software records &quot;comprehensive&quot; location data in its iTunes Terms of Service, nor offering end users informed consent of the practice.&quot;If Apple wanted to track the whereabouts of each of its products' users, it should have obtained specific, particularized informed consent such that Apple consumers across America would not have been shocked and alarmed to learn of Apple's practices in recent days,&quot; the suit says. The suit, which is seeking class action status, aims to have Apple completely disable the feature in the &quot;next-released&quot; version of the operating system. Until that happens, the suit claims Apple is in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, state laws comparable to the Federal Trade Commission Act, and &quot;common law rights in uniform ways&quot; of the plaintiffs and class members. Apple, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit, has not officially commented on the location tracking file since it came to light last week. An alleged e-mail exchange between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a reader of MacRumors surfaced this morning. In it, Jobs purportedly says, &quot;we don't track anyone,&quot; and &quot;the info circulating around is false.&quot; Apple has not confirmed or commented on the legitimacy of that correspondence. In addition, Apple and Google were targeted today by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan over location tracking. Madigan seeks a meeting with executives from both companies, as well as answers to her questions about disclosure and purpose of the tracking, and a way to turn the feature off. Madigan's efforts join those of other politicians and government groups who seek to know more about what the companies are doing with the information.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Buck naked coders wanted in Buckinghamshire]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=buck-naked-coders-wanted-in-buckinghamshire</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=buck-naked-coders-wanted-in-buckinghamshire</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 06 Apr 2011 07:10:26 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>nusufmas</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=buck-naked-coders-wanted-in-buckinghamshire</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Many cubicle hounds wish they could work in a more open office environment. You can't get much more open than the office environment at Nude House, an alleged Web software developer in Buckinghamshire, England. If stories currently circulating the Web are to be believed, the company is looking for female coders and salespeople of any gender who are willing to work in a completely naked office setting. That's right, not even shoes are allowed. Now, we're almost willing to bet our skivvies this will turn out to be some sort of viral Internet spoof. If it doesn't, just think of the weight basic office decisions would take on. Aeron chair No way' that mesh material will leave marks. Hot coffee in the break room Maybe something room temperature would be safer. Best to keep that stapler at a distance, too.A more detailed version of this picture appears on Nude House&amp;39's employment opportunities page. Meet your new co-worker. Her eyes are up here.(Credit:Nude House)With a name like Nude House, you might be expecting something titillating like an adult Web content or online strip poker. The company's main product--again, if Nude House doesn't exist just to test the gullibility of the Web-going public--is actually a somewhat old-fashioned technology called &quot;Move Your Mouse&quot; that enables text and additional images to pop up when a mouse is waved over an online picture.Nude House founder Chris Taylor says he has been a naturist for about three years. As the name implies, naturists prefer to be naked outside. You can imagine that might be difficult in England's rainy climate, especially when lots of sensitive computer and electrical equipment is required to do the job.  According to Nude House, the office will feature warm temperatures, showers, and a collection hamper for soiled sitting material. I'll bet Microsoft never has to deal with soiled sitting material.With April Fools' Day so recently upon us, I had to check in directly with Nude House over e-mail. &quot;Yes,&quot; he insisted, &quot;it is for real.&quot; The Nude House Web site looks like it was designed in 1996 by a middle-schooler with a basic HTML manual, so you can see where my skepticism comes from. The photo of a massive CRT monitor and naked salesgirls doesn't exactly project professionalism either.Taylor says he has had some applicants for the coding jobs, but it won't help that his Craigslist job ad was flagged as inappropriate and removed from the site. He has since reposted it with the headline &quot;Nude Female Web Coders wanted.&quot;Click to get a better glimpse at this highly improbable Craigslist post.The population of skilled Web coder naturists may be small, but the offer of a roughly $40,000 yearly salary could be enough to get a potential employee to consider stripping down. &quot;There are no external benefits to having a nude workforce, just pleasure for all concerned,&quot; Taylor said. Purely professional pleasure, I would expect.Taylor told us five staff members are already working at Nude House. He isn't concerned about any issues cropping up in a mixed gender office full of coding geeks in their birthday suits. &quot;There are strict rules to stop any messing about, so I think those, plus their own professionalism, will ease over most problems there could be,&quot; he said.  Plus, Taylor promises that working at Nude House will be &quot;great fun&quot;--unless of course, the newly hired employees are just part of some giant nude pyramid scheme.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Kia debuts EV concept Naimo]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kia-debuts-ev-concept-naimo</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kia-debuts-ev-concept-naimo</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 31 Mar 2011 07:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>joefijfeee</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=kia-debuts-ev-concept-naimo</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Kia Naimo is a four-seat five-door electric concept that debuted at the 2011 Seoul Motor Show.(Credit:Kia)Kia debuted its electriccar concept Naimo (pronounced &quot;Neh-mo&quot;) at the 2011 Seoul Motor Show. Named for its square shape, the Naimo looks a little like a scaled-down Pontiac Aztek without B-pillars. By using carriage doors and a hatchback, the four-seater maintains a small footprint with a length of just under 13 feet, putting its size somewhere between a Mini Cooper and a Mini Clubman. It also forgoes traditional windshield wipers, and instead uses a high-intensity air jet at the base of the windshield to blow off rain and water. You may have experienced similar technology at your local drive-through car wash. The EV offers a 124-mile range from its 27kWh lithium ion polymer battery and a top speed of 93 mph from its 109 horsepower electric motor. Similar to the Nissan Leaf, it's outfitted with a 50-kilowatt fast charger that can recharge its battery to 80 percent of capacity within 25 minutes.The Naimo is the third electric car Kia revealed within the past 12 months. At the 2010 Geneva Motor Show, the carmaker showed the Venga, which is rumored to enter production in 2013. The micro EV concept Pop made its world debut at the 2010 Parti Auto Show. All three electric vehicles are on display at the 2011 Seoul Motor Show.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Privacy: Facebook's Achilles heel]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=privacy-facebooks-achilles-heel</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=privacy-facebooks-achilles-heel</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:10:55 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>mandidmdda</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=privacy-facebooks-achilles-heel</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The folks who run Facebook are laughing all the way to the bank. They're making money hand over fist, and all they have to do is sit back and watch as the people who comprise their product volunteer tons of incredibly personal information. Then they sell access to that information to any advertiser or other business who wants it. Facebook claims the information they surrender to these companies is anonymous, but it's not. Companies can combine the &quot;anonymized&quot; information from your profile with personal data gleaned from tracking cookies and other online traces to create dossiers about you that offer a level of personal detail the National Security Agency would envy. Researchers Balachander Krishnamurthy of AT&amp;T Labs and Craig E. Wills of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute explained how this is done in a paper published in 2009. If you make your date and state of birth available to the public on Facebook or any other online profile, there's a good chance most or all of your Social Security number can be predicted--especially if you were born after 1988 in a state with a small population. Carnegie Mellon University researchers Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross explained how this is possible in a research paper also published in 2009. Even if you prevent anyone but your friends from viewing your Facebook friends list, researchers can infer plenty of personal information about you from any of your Facebook friends who don't keep their friends lists private. That's one of the results of a study conducted by Alan Mislove of Northeastern University and other researchers, who applied an algorithm to the profiles of thousands of Facebook users and were able to determine personal attributes of their friends whose profiles were &quot;private.&quot;The oxymoron of online privacy Facebook users obviously don't care that their privacy has been compromised. They clearly don't appreciate or understand the risk, in large part because Facebook still appears to be magical to them. (Arthur C. Clarke's famous line that &quot;any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic&quot; applies not just to Facebook but to Google's search algorithms and other successful Web services as well.) That point is driven home by the results of a recent Harris Interactive survey that found a large percentage of social-network users willing to friend strangers and trust that their new &quot;friends&quot; would not misuse the personal information in the users' profiles. (CNET's Don Reisinger reported on the survey in a recent post on his Digital Home blog.) Now Facebook is planning to share users' phone numbers and home addresses with third parties, as reported by CNET chief political correspondent Declan McCullagh in his Privacy Inc. blog. This move comes on the heels of Facebook's revamped Like feature, which allows advertisers to post to your wall and otherwise publicize your action. Facebook's Help Center states the following: &quot;As with other connections, the connection will be displayed in your profile and on your Wall and your friends may receive a News Feed story about the connection. You may be displayed on the Page you connected to and in advertisements about that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed and send you messages. You may also share this connection with apps on the Facebook Platform.&quot; McCullagh described the objections to Facebook's policy in a post from last June on the Politics and Law blog. Electronic Privacy Information Center director Marc Rotenberg noted that the organization complained to the Federal Trade Commission that Facebook's social plug-ins &quot;violate user expectations and reveal user information without the user's consent.&quot; Rotenberg is quoted by McCullagh as saying &quot;the recent Facebook changes are too complex and too subtle for most users to meaningfully evaluate.&quot;Say &quot;no&quot; to Facebook Social Ads To disable Facebook's Social Ads, open the Facebook Ads page in your account settings: click Account in the top-right corner of the main Facebook window, choose Account Settings, and select the Facebook Ads tab. Choose &quot;No one&quot; in the drop-down menu next to &quot;Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to.&quot;Turn off Facebook&amp;39's Social Ads via this drop-down menu on the Facebook Ads tab of your account settings.(Credit:screenshot by Dennis O&amp;39'Reilly/CNET) It's telling that the text accompanying this setting indicates that Facebook is hedging its commitment to keep your personal information out of the hands of its partners: &quot;Facebook does not give third-party applications or ad networks the right to use your name or picture in ads. If this is allowed in the future, this setting will govern the usage of your information. Because Facebook and other Web services frequently change their privacy policies, it's a good idea to revisit your privacy settings to ensure that you're sharing only the information you want to share with only the people you trust. To adjust your Facebook privacy settings, click Account &gt; Privacy Settings. Next, choose View Settings under Connecting on Facebook. Facebook recommends that you let everyone search for you and send you friend requests. It's safer to allow only friends of friends to search for and contact you. I also allow only friends to send me messages and view my friends list. Facebook warns you that your friends list is shared despite your choice here: &quot;This lets you connect with people based on friends you have in common. Your friend list is always available to applications and your connections to friends may be visible elsewhere.&quot; I have Only Me selected for the last three sharing options: work and education' current city and hometown' and likes, activities, and other connections. This information is released strictly on a need-to-know basis, and anyone who needs to know it will find out via a medium other than Facebook. Return to the main Privacy Settings page and click &quot;customize settings&quot; near the bottom of the window. Make your selections for each category (I choose Friends Only for all of them) and if necessary, click Customize on the drop-down menu to see more choices (such as Only Me). Choose Save Settings for each. Note that my Facebook profile uses a fake birth date and other misinformation, including e-mail addresses that are not used elsewhere. As the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse points out in its extensive Social Networking Privacy fact sheet, be careful not to violate the site's terms of service. The fact sheet provides dozens of tips for safe use of social networks, as well as links to many helpful privacy resources. Especially valuable are the sections on reading a privacy policy (hint: start at the end), social-network pros and cons for job seekers, laws protecting private online information, and fraud on social networks.The social networks most likely to replace Facebook No one can deny Facebook's monster success, which is beginning to rival the preeminent Internet monster, Google. (Note that many of the privacy concerns expressed about Facebook are echoed by Google's many critics--but that's a subject for a future post.) The number-one social network isn't likely to lose its momentum anytime soon, but I consider Facebook's failure to protect its users' privacy a potentially fatal flaw. Eventually, someone will come along who does it better. Despite the daunting head start Facebook has, things can change very quickly on the Web--just ask Steve Case and Rupert Murdoch. A potential Facebook competitor is the concept of federated social networks, which are based on open-source rather than proprietary software and are being designed to link rather than lock in users of various networks. Examples of these open social networks are Diaspora (currently in alpha) and Status.net. Richard Esguarra provides a primer on federated social networks in a post on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's DeepLinks blog. There's no doubt Facebook and other social networks provide a valuable service. The only problem is that the people using the networks don't realize the price they're paying. When we share the details of our lives on social networks, those details become available to any business, government agency, or crook who looks for it--or is willing to pay for or flat-out steal it. Sharer beware.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Cheezburger Network buys Know Your Meme]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cheezburger-network-buys-know-your-meme</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cheezburger-network-buys-know-your-meme</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:10:40 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>XemmelNools</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cheezburger-network-buys-know-your-meme</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Cheezburger Network has bought Know Your Meme(Credit:Know Your Meme)There's money in them thar cheezburgers. At least, there's money for buying other Internet meme sites.The Cheezburger Network, home to hit sites like I can has Cheezburger, the Fail Blog, the Daily What, and many others, has bought the popular meme etymology site Know Your Meme. The deal closed last Monday, Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh told CNET.The deal was first reported by Tubefilter, which said that Know Your Meme, which was a spin-off from Rocketboom, is getting a low seven-figure payday. Huh would not discuss the financials of the deal.Know Your Meme has become famous as a place where people can go to learn about the origins of some of the Internet's most beloved time-wasters. And that's precisely why Cheezburger bought it. &quot;Right now, we're an entertainment destination,&quot; Huh said of the network's many sites. &quot;A lot of the stuff we show doesn't have a lot of content...People require context, history, and origins [which] helps them understand why this is funny or why this isn't funny. And Know Your Meme was probably doing the best job of that out there.&quot;Related links &amp;149' Cheezburger Network to Whitman Campaign: Fail! &amp;149' Cheezburger's Ben Huh: I can has Q&amp;A &amp;149' Ben Huh can has successful business model &amp;149' Timeline tracks history of Internet fads and trendsThe Cheezburger Network has grown rapidly in the last couple of years, and scored a $30 million round of funding in January that Huh said is intended to be used to &quot;figure out how to grow the business.&quot; And while he doesn't know yet precisely what that means, it's actually the point. &quot;A lot of it is going to be wasted on failures,&quot; he said, but &quot;that's what's fun and great about this company, is that we can test&quot; ideas.Huh said that the Know Your Meme acquisition began to percolate in January, right around the time of the $30 million funding. And while the company has a reputation for buying established sites when it can, rather than building them from the ground up, he added that there are no additional acquisitions on the horizon. But Cheezburger is always looking to create new sites, Huh added.Know Your Meme brings four employees to the Cheezburger stable, all of whom are in New York. That means, Huh said, that Cheezburger now has Cheezburger West--Seattle, where the company is based--and Cheezburger East. He also said that he intends to use some of the recent funding money to staff up the larger company in New York.Still, while Cheezburger is intending on adding employees on both coasts, Huh said the Know Your Meme purchase was not directly related to the company's desire to grow its staff. Rather, it was about bolstering the network's ability to do what Know Your Meme does &quot;best, which is to research and document memes and viral phenomena.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Senators tell Biden to push Russia into antipiracy]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=senators-tell-biden-to-push-russia-into-antipiracy</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=senators-tell-biden-to-push-russia-into-antipiracy</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 08 Mar 2011 08:11:03 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>svetalalf</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=senators-tell-biden-to-push-russia-into-antipiracy</guid>
<description><![CDATA[If Russia wants to prove the country is a good trade partner, then the country must be more aggressive in fighting online piracy. That's the message a group of U.S. senators wants Vice President Joe Biden to send during his visit to Moscow this week. A screenshot of file footage of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.(Credit:Screen shot by Greg Sandoval/CNET)In a letter written Friday by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), the group reminded Biden that Russia appears to have once again grown soft on copyright violations and the lawmakers want him to nudge leaders there back on track. For more than a decade, Russia has done too little to protect U.S. intellectual property, says the office of the U.S. Trade Representative and has earned a spot on a list of countries with poor records on enforcing copyright and intellectual property laws. Just last week, the USTR issued a report on &quot;Notorious Pirate Markets&quot; and accused several Russia-based sites of profiting from intellectual property theft. Biden landed in Russia today for talks on multiple issues, including attempts by both countries to reduce nuclear arms and the turmoil in the Middle East. According to Reuters, Biden will meet with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday. The trade groups for the U.S. film and music industries are among the copyright owners who want the U.S. government to close down U.S.-based sites that distribute pirated materials as well as cut off access in this country to overseas pirate sites. For a while, Russia appeared to be cracking down. In 2007, Russia's government shut down Internationally-known Allofmp3.com, a music site accused of selling unauthorized music and later tried to toss the site's founder into jail . But as soon as Allofmp3.com went down a half dozen similar sites went online. The senators noted in their letter that more recently, Russia's communications and press minister said publicly that pirate sites should &quot;be relieved of certain obligations to address piracy problems so long as they agree to take down infringing materials when notified.&quot; In their letter, the senators, who are part of the Congressional International Antipiracy Caucus, suggested that Biden should use the World Trade Organization as leverage. Russia has been trying to win acceptance into the WTO for years. &quot;Addressing these rogue sites will go a long way toward demonstrating Russia's willingness and ability to operate under the rule of law,&quot; the senators wrote, &quot;and therefore its preparedness to take on the obligations of membership in the [WTO].&quot; Biden is a big supporter of tougher copyright protection. Last year he angered many file sharers by declaring online piracy was no different than theft. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Why my friends hate Google Voice]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-my-friends-hate-google-voice</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-my-friends-hate-google-voice</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:10:15 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>dergtyuibdw</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=why-my-friends-hate-google-voice</guid>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;I have too many different phone numbers for you.&quot; &quot;I never know where to reach you.&quot; &quot;Calling you is so confusing!&quot;I wish I could label the words above a hyperbolic chorus that merely points to the perils of being a cell phone reviewer with friends outside of the tech world. Instead, it is a torrent of discontent rushing from the throats of six of my closest friends at a party (my birthday party, no less), gathering momentum as it crashes toward its inevitable destination: me. &quot;It's not my fault,&quot; I demur. &quot;It's Google Voice!&quot;I can see that you're itching to interject. I'm clearly scapegoating poor Google for my own spamming of too many numbers from all my review phones, right That's certainly part of it, but it's not the entire story. Well, then, I must be doing it wrong--especially if you don't have the same issues. And what about now that you can port your mobile number to a Google Voice account The latter will certainly obviate the sticky entanglements I'm about to describe, but dropping carrier support and switching over completely to Google Voice isn't a plunge everyone's prepared to take, myself included.I use Google Voice on the iPhone and multiple Android phones I carry with me, grabbing whichever phone has the strongest signal or battery life, or simply whichever one happens to be in my hand when I need to place a call or answer a text. Google Voice on Android has the bonus of being able to dial out on the native dial pad using the Google Voice number, which certainly makes it less confusing for my friends.That's assuming, though, that the GV app doesn't freeze, and that it ferries text messages back and forth without much delay. After using Google Voice on a daily basis with other heavy Google Voice users, our general consensus is that texting is slower than with conventional SMS since Google routes messages through its servers. If we need to reach others quickly, we GV users, we'll text the old-fashioned way--which means we're back to jockeying more than one number.TheiPhone problemGoogle Voice for iPhone has this neat view of recent and priority contacts.(Credit:Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)Until the official Google Voice app for iPhone came into being last November (after a year and a half of waiting), usability on the iPhone app was limited to a Web-optimized site. Thanks to the app, things are much more smooth and convenient--but still far from perfect. Even four months on, the app frequently freezes, is slow to load new messages, and experiences a delivery delay often enough to cause frustration. As I was writing this article, a GV text landed on the AT&amp;amp'T iPhone 4 about 10 minutes after I received it on Verizon's Android-based Droid Pro. I'm not certain how much is the app's responsibility, and how much is the carrier's.In addition to the delays, Apple won't give third-party developers the kind of deep access to the iPhone's address book that Google gives its own Android apps. As a result, you can't automatically dial out from a GV number using the phone's native dial pad. You can dial out from the GV dialer, but you have to remember to first open the app. If it's acting up, as it is wont to do, I wind up abandoning ship and calling out from the iPhone's default number--it's just simpler and more reliable. My friends will have to deal.Google hasn't significantly upgraded the GV iPhone app since our initial review, but I'm hoping there are new performance enhancements riding high up some coder's sleeve.Cold comfortAll these explanations, while perfectly understandable from the point of view of somebody following the development of Google Voice on mobile, continue to flummox my friends. They don't care about iterations, development cycles, the differences between Google Voice apps on separate platforms, and weaknesses in app implementations. They just want to know which one phone number they can use to reach me every single time, a sentiment made clear during the Jessica's Crazy Phone Numbers Bashfest.&quot;There is!&quot; I always exclaim, pointing to my Google Voice number in their phone's address books, nestled among the other numbers my friends have saved, just in case. &quot;But how am I supposed to know the difference,&quot; they retort, &quot;between that number and any of the other numbers you call me on&quot; Um...That's when the specialized nature of my particular profession comes in. If I had most other jobs, I'd have only one cell phone and only two phone numbers for friends and family to juggle--the phone's default, carrier-given number and my Google Voice line. I could dispose of my confusing phone numbers and streamline to one. Since I'm lucky enough to see many smartphones, my case gets a little more complicated than that of the average Google Voice user, and also harder to solve.Still, I think my particular situation reflects a very real frustration that vexes some recipients who, for whichever reason, are confounded by the free service, especially if that user, too, has a less conventional need of or use for the service. For me, Google Voice apps may be a perfectly useful solution on my end, thanks to its comprehensive visual voicemail and call forwarding features, but only if I'm prepared to guide close friends and family through the initial haze of my multiple phone numbers, particularly if the app freezes and I need to make calls from a phone's default number. One of the reasons I started using Google Voice in the first place was to give out a single number that could reach me on any number of phones that I test. Or, I give up my carrier's network reliability entirely and switch over completely to Google Voice, a system I still find extremely promising, mostly enormously useful, and still buggy.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Microsoft to fix four holes in Windows, Office]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-fix-four-holes-in-windows-office</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-fix-four-holes-in-windows-office</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 03 Mar 2011 08:11:10 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>winlimlim4</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=microsoft-to-fix-four-holes-in-windows-office</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Microsoft)Contrary to last month when Microsoft plugged 22 holes on Patch Tuesday, only four holes will be fixed in the company's monthly security update roundup next week. There will be three bulletins, one of them rated &quot;critical&quot; for Microsoft Windows and the other two rated &quot;important&quot; and affecting Windows and Office, according to the preview advisory released today.  While they are few in number, they are not to be ignored. They all involve remote code execution, which means an attacker could force code to run on a target's machine and could lead to a complete takeover of the computer.  &quot;The upcoming Patch Tuesday includes a fix for a DLL (dynamic-link library) hijacking vulnerability in the Microsoft Groove application,&quot; said HD Moore, chief security officer at Rapid7 and chief architect at Metasploit. &quot;This was one of the hundreds of flaws discovered last year by both Rapid7 and another security firm. I am glad to see that Microsoft is making progress on these vulnerabilities and continuing to fix affected applications.&quot; <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[New HP EliteBooks and ProBooks update their business attire]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-hp-elitebooks-and-probooks-update-their-business-attire</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-hp-elitebooks-and-probooks-update-their-business-attire</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 22 Feb 2011 08:10:38 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>marybellep</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=new-hp-elitebooks-and-probooks-update-their-business-attire</guid>
<description><![CDATA[HP ProBook s-series takes a step closer to its Pavilion consumer cousins.(Credit:HP)Business computers have long been an area where design has started to matter, and HP's newest line of business-oriented EliteBook p- and ProBook b- and s-series laptops do their best to provide some additional style to IT-friendly computers.We've already considered their previous ProBook models to be attractive enough to draw attention away from the rest of the consumer-focused Pavilion lineup, but the new models bridge the gap even more in terms of design. They also incorporate Intel's new second-generation Sandy Bridge CPUs, as well as USB 3.0, upgraded sound options, and HD webcams.New HP ProBook and EliteBooks (photos) The EliteBook p-series comes in both the 14-inch EliteBook 8460p and 15.6-inch EliteBook 8560p' new additions include USB 3.0, SRS Premium Surround speakers, and an optional ultracapacity notebook battery with a promised 32 hours of battery life. Its sleeker metal chassis isn't exactly svelte, but it's an eye-catching step up from EliteBooks past.The ProBook p-series rides in the middle of the pack, in 13-, 14-, and 15-inch models: the HP ProBook 6360b, 6460b, and 6560b. A spill-resistant keyboard and HD DisplaySafe reinforced display panel are paired with a smudge-resistant bead-blasted aluminum cover/magnesium-reinforced ABS chassis. CPUs include the aforementioned Sandy Bridge processors, or Intel Celeron.The HP ProBook s-series most closely resembles high-end metal-clad Pavilion consumer laptops. New models range in size from 12-inch to 17-inch screens: the 12.1-inch HP ProBook 4230s, 13.3-inch 4330s, the 14-inch 4430s, the 15.6-inch 4530s, and the 17.3-inch--you guessed it--4730s. Second-gen Intel Sandy Bridge processors are joined by a spill-resistant keyboard, improved microphones and SRS Premium Surround speakers, an HD Webcam, and optional Power Express Switchable Graphics, as well as a slightly reoriented fingerprint reader that's placed out of the way of accidental swipes.Starting prices for each series are below. All lines will be available starting March 15. While we find ourselves gravitating to the ProBook s-series the most, perhaps your taste varies.HP EliteBook 8460p: $999HP EliteBook 8560p: $1,099HP ProBook b-series: $799HP ProBook s-series: $579<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Tiny Darth Vader stars in VW 'Star Wars' ad]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=tiny-darth-vader-stars-in-vw-star-wars-ad</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=tiny-darth-vader-stars-in-vw-star-wars-ad</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:11:01 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>reednett89</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=tiny-darth-vader-stars-in-vw-star-wars-ad</guid>
<description><![CDATA[If you're a &quot;Star Wars&quot; fan--and who's not--you'll want to be one of the first to check out the new Volkwagen ad that's expected to air during this Sunday's Super Bowl.Thanks to the great mommy blog Tiny Iron Fists, I found the just-posted-on-You Tube ad today. Featuring a pint-size Darth Vader--actually a suburban kid in a Darth Vader suit who is fruitlessly trying to get &quot;the Force&quot; to work for him--the spot at first makes no sense as a VW ad.But with the twist, it all becomes clear, and makes you laugh too. And given the high-level negotiations that must have taken place in order to mix in the original &quot;Imperial March&quot; music and a Darth Vader outfit, you know that VW and Lucasfilm (and Deutsch LA, the agency that created the spot) worked hard to make sure there was a real payoff to the ad.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CNET's full Verizon iPhone coverage]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cnets-full-verizon-iphone-coverage</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cnets-full-verizon-iphone-coverage</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>MassTortAmerica</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=cnets-full-verizon-iphone-coverage</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Josh Miller/CNET)Hello,VerizoniPhone 4. You've been a long time in the works--several years, in fact--but now we know that you officially exist. We're glad to meet you at last, and we're glad that U.S. wireless customers now have a choice in carriers. We know that many of you are also eager to welcome Apple's newest family member. And we know that you have a lot of questions about what the Verizon iPhone is and how well it performs. Hopefully, CNET can answer your queries in the following coverage.CNET's Verizon iPhone 4 reviewIn our full review, we tell you about the Verizon's unique design elements. We put its hot-spot feature to the test, and we compare its overall performance with its AT&amp;T counterpart. Here's a hint: it beats AT&amp;T on many fronts.The Verizon iPhone makes more callsCNET tests the Verizon and AT&amp;T iPhones to see which handset is more successful at making calls. Verizon won the majority of the time, but AT&amp;T put up a fight.Verizon iPhone 4 (photos) Comparing voice quality on the iPhone 4Which iPhone 4 offers better audio quality You be the judge, as CNET takes audio samples from the two handsets and puts them side by side.Verizon iPhone versus AT&amp;T iPhone data speeds: CNET's winner is...Is the Verizon iPhone as fast and as powerful as devotees had hoped CNET's video breaks down timed speed tests against the AT&amp;T iPhone on four counts.Seven things the Verizon iPhone doesn't haveThe Verizon iPhone may answer some peoples' smartphone prayers, but it isn't without its caveats.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Hologram staff to get flyers through security]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hologram-staff-to-get-flyers-through-security</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hologram-staff-to-get-flyers-through-security</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 31 Jan 2011 08:10:47 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>shyhhyhhhh</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=hologram-staff-to-get-flyers-through-security</guid>
<description><![CDATA[For me, it's the American Airlines check-in staff in Miami. For some reason, they seem to function in such chaos that they are desperate for you, the passenger, to have as miserable a time as they seem to be having.&amp;quot'Hello, can my hologram help you&amp;quot' Airport employee Julie Capper poses with a hologram version of herself. (Credit:Manchester Airport)For you, it might be another airport whose staff members make you wish that the nice, but very firm, lady from Tabatha's Salon Takeover would perform a flyover atop their attitude.Now some enterprising, technology-loving Brits are attempting to see if virtual staff can be more helpful than the skin-and-boned.From this week, passengers in Terminal 1 of Manchester airport will be greeted by smiling, happy, and possibly even helpful airport staff. For they will be holograms of the real staff, presumably created to reflect their brightest, most cheerful selves.According to Sky News, the airport was inspired by hologram tricks used by the band Gorillaz into creating staff holograms that will make you feel you are not in a very unpleasant airport jungle.The airport has worked with a company called Musion, which has helped the Black-Eyed Peas and outdid itself when its technology was used to bring Frank Sinatra back from the dead so Simon Cowell could enjoy his singing (and, perhaps, critique it) on his 50th birthday.Julie Capper and John Walsh, the two airport employees chosen to be the models for this new form of passenger-herding, will for now remind passengers about current liquid restrictions, but any message can be recorded. If the pair seem slightly bemused that their virtual selves will be helping passengers have the right amount of liquid in their hand luggage.Perhaps if their virtual versions perform well, Capper and Walsh might secure extra vacation. Indeed, Capper told Sky News: &quot;I wonder if I can send it to meetings in my place and whether anyone will notice.&quot;I wonder if anyone will notice whether they aren't real as they relay the faintly silly rules of engagement to those going through security. Still, if you've ever wanted to walk straight through the sometimes very busy bodies of certain airport staff, now you can go to Manchester and try a dry run.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[The 404 745: Where Ozone shows off the PSP2: Electric Boogaloo (podcast)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-404-745-where-ozone-shows-off-the-psp2-electric-boogaloo-podcast</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-404-745-where-ozone-shows-off-the-psp2-electric-boogaloo-podcast</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:10:45 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>adamroach1980</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-404-745-where-ozone-shows-off-the-psp2-electric-boogaloo-podcast</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Sony Computer Entertainment)Excuse the stormy portmanteau, but last night's snowbotomy has left Jeff stranded in New Jersey, so Joseph Kaminski from CNET's Digital City Podcast takes his spot and lugs in a 21-inch Apple iMac to show his dedication to desktop computers, and Wilson ain't complaining.Oh, and in case you're wondering about today's show title, it's a reference to Joey's nickname &quot;Turbo Thundersnow,&quot; which stems from his undisputed breakdancing skills and the winter phenomenon in which precipitation takes the form of snow instead of rain.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[preGame 38: Nintendo 3DS impressions, Astro A40 Wireless System]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=pregame-38-nintendo-3ds-impressions-astro-a40-wireless-system</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=pregame-38-nintendo-3ds-impressions-astro-a40-wireless-system</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:10:36 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>domingalom</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=pregame-38-nintendo-3ds-impressions-astro-a40-wireless-system</guid>
<description><![CDATA[<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[The robotics route to medical renewal]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-robotics-route-to-medical-renewal</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-robotics-route-to-medical-renewal</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 22 Jan 2011 08:10:28 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>sandrabui</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=the-robotics-route-to-medical-renewal</guid>
<description><![CDATA[<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Xiph resumes work on Ghost audio codec]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=xiph-resumes-work-on-ghost-audio-codec</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=xiph-resumes-work-on-ghost-audio-codec</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:10:13 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>maralyn45</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=xiph-resumes-work-on-ghost-audio-codec</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Xiph.Org Foundation, creator of the royalty-free Vorbis audio encoding technology made suddenly relevant by Google's WebM project, is nearing completion of a next-generation codec called CELT and has resumed development of one due after that called Ghost.&quot;Ghost research was postponed until recently to devote more resources to improving video,&quot; said Monty Montgomery, who worked on Vorbis and CELT, in a blog post last week. &quot;Ghost development now resumes where it left off in 2007.&quot;Vorbis, CELT (Constrained Energy Lapped Transform), and Ghost all are audio codecs, meaning that they're designed to compress sound data for more compact storage and easier streaming over a network. Codecs must balance compression with quality and rely on a combination of mathematical processing techniques and tricks to discard data that a human audience won't notice is missing.Vorbis, which competes with codecs such as MP3 and AAC that come with patent royalty fees, came to fruition in combination with the Theora video codec. The latter wasn't much of a success, but a more modern cousin called VP8 from Google has more potential. And Vorbis, combined with VP8, are part of the open-source, royalty-free WebM technology with which Google hopes to lower barriers to video on the Web.The Google backing has helped move the largely overlooked Vorbis toward the mainstream. And it's possible that CELT and Ghost could follow in Vorbis' footsteps as a relevant technology.CELT is getting closer to one critical step in completion, freezing the bitstream, which defines the sequences of data as it's streamed over a network.&quot;As of December 2010, CELT is nearing bitstream freeze and has been submitted to the IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force] codec working group as an input codec,&quot; Montgomery said in a December update. Specifically, he's hoping to freeze the bitstream in January.CELT is designed to use less processing power than Vorbis to decode and to suffer less of a delay from when data starts arriving to when audio is decoded. With Vorbis, there's a lag of a tenth of a second, but CELT is designed to have a delay of only a twentieth that long--5 milliseconds.Short delays are important for natural conversation to avoid the alternating problems of awkward pauses and speakers talking at the same time that afflict high-latency communications.Ghost, in comparison, is designed with Vorbis' higher 100-millisecond latency. And it's far from completion.&quot;First and foremost, Ghost is vaporware,&quot; Montgomery said. &quot;At present it is merely a collection of ideas and some early-stage research. Eventually, it is intended to be a codec that improves upon and supersedes Vorbis in its current niche.&quot;A hiatus of more than three years may sound crippling in the fast-paced technology world, but codecs have a long lifespan. Vorbis was designed for a 20-year run, and it's halfway through.One improvement planned for Ghost is a wider range of useful bitrates, meaning that the codec would make audio sound better low-bandwidth and add more quality on high-bandwidth connections. Another is elimination of &quot;pre-echo,&quot; in which sound compression artifacts arrive before the actual sound is supposed to arrive.And Ghost is intended to break from the past. Codec gurus might be interested in Montgomery's words:Ghost will be a hybrid tone + noise codec that splits and separately encodes strong sinusoids [sine waves representing pure tones] from the time-domain 'toneless' signal [that's less regular]. It attempts to abandon the lapped transform techniques that have had a stranglehold on audio codec design for the past 20 years, beginning with MP3 and continuing on to AAC and Vorbis (and CELT).The work is funded by Linux and open-source software specialist Red Hat, so it's no surprise Ghost continues with Vorbis' intellectual property freedoms: no licenses are necessary to use the technology.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[EU locks carbon market after security breach]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=eu-locks-carbon-market-after-security-breach</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=eu-locks-carbon-market-after-security-breach</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>suppyhere</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=eu-locks-carbon-market-after-security-breach</guid>
<description><![CDATA[ LONDON/BRUSSELS--The European Union locked all accounts in its carbon market today, after a security breach, seeking to protect the battered reputation of the EU's main weapon against climate change.The United States, Japan, and Australia have all delayed implementing similar cap-and-trade programs, and the latest glitch to the EU system could detract further from carbon trading as a global policy.The trading scheme limits the carbon emissions of all big EU factories and power plants by issuing permits for each tonne of carbon emitted, which companies can then trade among themselves.The European Commission suspended much of its Emissions Trading Scheme, the hub of a 92-billion-euro ($124 billion) global market, following the suspected theft of about 7 million euros of emissions permits from the Czech Republic's carbon registry.This theft and a hacking attack on the Austrian registry on January 10 follows a raft of scandals to hit the market in the past two years, including VAT fraud, a phishing scam, and the resale of used carbon credits.&quot;All traders have left the market--this is serious,&quot; said one emissions trader.Europe's top climate official, Jos Delbeke, told Reuters that the market's integrity was not at risk, but European governments had failed in their duties.&quot;I am a bit speechless about the negligence some member states have been showing,&quot; he said.&quot;We have been hammering on the door of a number of member states alerting them to this issue,&quot; he added. &quot;Seemingly half of the member states have not taken our message seriously.&quot;SuspensionThe European Commission's suspension of spot trades until January 26 allowed trade in futures and other derivatives to continue. This accounts for about 75 percent of the market, traders said.The Czech Republic, Greece, Estonia, and Poland closed their carbon-trading registries earlier today, joining Austria, which shut on Tuesday until further notice.France's BlueNext spot emissions exchange halted trade, citing problems with filtering out the stolen permits in circulation.&quot;There could be a psychological effect on prices but I do not see the market melting down in terms of prices unless everyone liquidates their positions through panic,&quot; said Emmanuel Fages at Societe Generale/Orbeo.Delbeke said his team would be busy in the week ahead repairing the system, and from 2013 the EU would move to a safer centralized registry that he hoped would benefit from tough market oversight.&quot;In the week that we are shutting down the market, we are asking member state by member state what they have done to protect themselves against the attacks and the thefts,&quot; he said. &quot;We have to repair the system.&quot;The EU plans a major overhaul of the carbon market in 2013 including scrapping some disputed offsets.Missing permits Today a market participant, Blackstone Global Ventures, told Reuters 475,000 carbon permits had vanished from its account in the Czech Republic.&quot;We are treating them as stolen,&quot; Daniel Butler, the firm's broker, told Reuters. &quot;We do know that the first delivery point for the EUAs (permits) was Estonia. After that we have no other information.&quot;The European Commission confirmed that Greece had closed its national registry, while the Poland and Estonia registries said theirs were also shut.&quot;It is too early to pin me down on any figure,&quot; said Delbeke, when asked the value of missing permits. &quot;We are still in full investigation. We have not yet a coherent idea.&quot;Registries have been on alert since 1.6 million carbon permits went missing from the Romanian registry account of cement-maker Holcim in November.&quot;Suspending the Emissions Trading Scheme is the right thing to do, but it should only be the start,&quot; said Sanjeev Kumar of environment consultancy E3G. &quot;They need to come down on this like a ton of bricks and that will help restore confidence.&quot; Story Copyright (c) 2010 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Pulled iDOS app returns, update if you dare]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=pulled-idos-app-returns-update-if-you-dare</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=pulled-idos-app-returns-update-if-you-dare</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:10:28 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>eladiab4</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=pulled-idos-app-returns-update-if-you-dare</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The updated version of iDOS now comes with a virtual game pad for playing one of the six included shareware titles.(Credit:FAST Intelligence)The controversial iOS app that let users run an emulated version of the DOS prompt has returned to the App Store, more than two months since it was pulled by Apple.The app, which reappeared earlier this morning, has come back missing one key feature--the capability to use the file-sharing tool built into iTunes. This is what allowed users to add executables--including a full-blown Windows installer--into the app, turning theiPhone andiPad into nearly workable PC emulators. To make up for this deficiency, iDOS' developer Chaoji Li has added six shareware games from 3D Realms as well as built a simplified game launcher that will load up any of those titles without the user having to peck out commands on the virtual keyboard. And for those who do not want to use the virtual keyboard, and use the full real estate of the screen, the app now supports Bluetooth keyboards, however this only works in text-based games, Li says.Users who downloaded the app back when it was first available will get a notification to update from within the App Store. Li is urging users who want to get some of the new features, but who want to be able to come back to an earlier version of the app to retain the file-sharing feature, to first make a backup of the app file.Update at 1:16 p.m. PDT: iOS games blog Touch Arcade points out that there's still a way to add files to the application using Macroplant's cross-platform iPhone Explorer utility. This solution does not require jailbreaking of the iOS device, though it may lead to the app getting yanked again. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Roku adds first linear feed cable channel]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=roku-adds-first-linear-feed-cable-channel</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=roku-adds-first-linear-feed-cable-channel</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:10:47 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>maxhillbert</dc:creator>
<category>Marketing and advertising</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=roku-adds-first-linear-feed-cable-channel</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Roku)Roku has inked a deal with WealthTV to bring a linear feed of the television network's programming to its set-top boxes.If you're unfamiliar with the term, &quot;linear feed,&quot; it's because Roku hasn't had anything of the sort until now. Unlike the other channels on the company's platform that provide on-demand access to programming, WealthTV's offering, which costs $2.99 per month, will act as a television channel, letting users drop in to see what's on. The network will be sending out its programming to Roku devices 24 hours a day, seven days a week just as it does on Verizon's Fios TV service, among others.Roku, which recently announced that more than 1 billion pieces of content have been streamed through its set-top boxes, said that those who prefer on-demand programming from WealthTV will be able to access that, as well.The addition of WealthTV might not be enough to get users to jump at buying a Roku--the channel is hardly known to television viewers, since its programming isn't available to Time Warner Cable or Comcast subscribers. However, its impact on television providers and the way in which consumers access programming could be profound. If more linear feed programming comes to set-top boxes, the need for cable or satellite service could diminish. More importantly, such a shift could cut out cable and satellite operators, and create a more direct business relationship between networks and consumers.At least for now, the chances of that happening anytime soon seem slim, since WealthTV is just one of several providers that would need to make the jump to have any sizable impact on the industry. But in the coming months, more networks might follow WealthTV's lead. A Roku spokesperson said in a phone conversation with CNET today that the company is confident that it will ink similar deals with providers in 2011.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: AOC shows 0.3-inch thick monitor]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-aoc-shows-0-3-inch-thick-monitor</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-aoc-shows-0-3-inch-thick-monitor</comments>
<pubDate>Sun, 09 Jan 2011 08:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>parwinrestalk</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-aoc-shows-0-3-inch-thick-monitor</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Thin.(Credit:AOC)LAS VEGAS--It appears the ultrathin monitor wars have begun. AtCES this week, LG showed off its 0.28-inch thick E2290V monitor. And not to be outdone, or at least in an attempt to not be outdone, AOC revealed its i2352Fh monitor with a 0.37 profile length. Not quite as thin as LG's offering, but still thinner than anything else we've yet seen in monitors.The 23.6-inch AOC monitor is, however, wall-mountable--unlike, as far as we could tell, the E2290V. Also, the AOC comes with two HDMI ports.No pricing or release date info has been confirmed yet by AOC.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[CES: Verizon at CES: No iPhone yet, but 10 first-wave 4G LTE devices]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-verizon-at-ces-no-iphone-yet-but-10-first-wave-4g-lte-devices</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-verizon-at-ces-no-iphone-yet-but-10-first-wave-4g-lte-devices</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jan 2011 08:10:43 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>brittabiti</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=ces-verizon-at-ces-no-iphone-yet-but-10-first-wave-4g-lte-devices</guid>
<description><![CDATA[HTC&amp;39's Thunderbolt: One of the devices in the first round of 4G LTE products for Verizon.(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)As expected, Verizon unveiled its first 4G devices today--and it used grand language to do so. &quot;The speed of thought is now the speed of action,&quot; a voice boomed over the speakers at the beginning of Verizon's CES press conference. &quot;For the first time, mobile is in real time.&quot;  Earlier in the day, Verizon used its keynote to hail its new 4G LTE broadband infrastructure. At the press conference a few hours later, partners including Alcatel-Lucent, HTC, and LG Electronics talked up the endless possibilities of LTE. Then Verizon trotted out new devices that are ready for the network.  But first, let's get this out of the way: Verizon did not announce that it would be carrying Apple'siPhone!  With rock music blaring in the background, Verizon execs stood before a table displaying the first suite of 4G LTE consumer devices: four smartphones, twotablets, two mobile hot spots, and two notebooks, all coming in the first half of the year, and some as early as March. &quot;It's not just about doing things faster, it's about doing things you couldn't do before,&quot; said Marni Walden, chief marketing officer. The devices that got stage time (details on pricing and rate plans were not announced today) include: The LG Revolution, LG's first 4G smartphone (see CNET's hands-on photos here). The Revolution has HD support for streaming, playing, and recording video' a 4.3-inch touch screen' Android 2.2' video telephony support with front-facing camera and mobile hot-spot capability to share a 4G connection with up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices. HTC's first 4G LTE smartphone, the HTC Thunderbolt. &quot;Let me tell you, it's blazing fast,&quot; said HTC CEO Peter Chou, who noted that he has been using the phone as his &quot;personal device&quot; and specifically touted Skype video chat and video streaming over LTE. The Thunderbolt features HTC Sense 2.0, Skype mobile with video, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 4.3-inch WVGA display, Dolby surround sound, an 8-megapixel camera and HD video recording, and wireless DLNA capability.Samsung's Galaxy Tab, 4G LTE Smartphone (previously called the Inspiration), and 4G LTE mobile hot spot, which is small enough to fit into a pocket or purse. The Motorola Droid Bionic, which has Android with Adobe Flash and HTML5, a front-facing VGA camera, a rear-facing 8-megapixel camera, 4.3-inch HD quality screen, HDMI connectivity, dual-core 1GHz processor, and 512 DDR2 RAM.The Motorola Xoom. The 10.1-inch tablet runs on Android Honeycomb, plays 1080p HD video, has an Adobe Flash Player, a front-facing 2-megapixel camera for video chats, and a 5-megapixel camera to capture video in 720P HD. Mobile hot-spot capability provides connection for up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices. The HP Pavilion and HP Compaq notebooks in their 4G incarnations.  And then, questions from reporters in the audience.  Will devices support simultaneous voice and data &quot;Some of them, but not all.&quot; Pricing data caps Not sure yet. Will the network experience degradation once people start using the new devices  Verizon CTO Tony Malone said original claims of 5Mbps to 12Mbps down were &quot;based on a loaded network,&quot; suggesting there shouldn't be drops once the masses get in on 4G LTE.  And, of course, many have also expressed concerns about battery life on the 4G devices.  &quot;We've spent a lot of time working with our suppliers making sure we optimize the devices and the network to give the battery life that our customers expect,&quot; Malone said. &quot;We feel very confident that the battery performance will meet expectations.&quot;  He also said global roaming won't be an issue. Our CNET Reviews team, of course, will be putting the 4G devices to the test, so keep an eye out for those results.Verizon says some customers report that 4G speeds are 10 to 20 times faster than what they got on 3G.(Credit:Sarah Tew/CNET)CNET's Marguerite Reardon contributed to this report. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Plane to catch tomorrow Beware iPhone's alarm]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plane-to-catch-tomorrow-beware-iphones-alarm</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plane-to-catch-tomorrow-beware-iphones-alarm</comments>
<pubDate>Sat, 01 Jan 2011 08:10:02 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>healthmedicine</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=plane-to-catch-tomorrow-beware-iphones-alarm</guid>
<description><![CDATA[In the &quot;early bird catches the worm, unless itsiPhone has caught a bug&quot; department, Apple's beloved gadget reportedly has a glitch that means if users set a one-time alarm to wake them tomorrow, they may well end up sleeping in.Engadget and other media outlets are reporting that Twitter lit up today with lots of grumpy comments from people who were cheated out of greeting the New Year in their desired fashion because their iPhone alarm clocks failed to ring.The bug reportedly could ruin your plans for January 2 as well, if you let it. But there's an easy fix, and come the 3rd, the glitch should evaporate. Apple told Engadget:&quot;We're aware of an issue related to nonrepeating alarms set for January 1 or 2. Customers can set recurring alarms for those dates and all alarms will work properly beginning January 3.&quot;So you need only set a recurring alarm to sidestep the problem and get a good night's rest.In November the iPhone's alarm was off by an hour, in a mix-up related to Daylight Savings Time. Judging from this latest error, iPhone users weren't the only ones affected then: Apple itself apparently didn't get the, ahem, wake-up call. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Road Trip Pic of the Week, 12/30: What is it]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=road-trip-pic-of-the-week-1230-what-is-it</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=road-trip-pic-of-the-week-1230-what-is-it</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:10:27 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>liesourse</dc:creator>
<category>Gaming</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=road-trip-pic-of-the-week-1230-what-is-it</guid>
<description><![CDATA[If you know what this is and where it was taken, you could win a prize in the Picture of the Week challenge.(Credit:Daniel Terdiman/CNET)That is some seriously colorful glass--and what interesting shapes. But what is it And where is it locatedIf you know, you could win a prize in the CNET Road Trip Picture of the Week challenge.If you have the answer, please e-mail it to me no later than 6 p.m. PT Friday (to daniel--dot--terdiman--at--cnet--dot--com, and PLEASE include &quot;Picture of the Week&quot; in the subject line). I'll choose a winner at random from among everyone who sends in the correct answer by the deadline. However, I'm going to be on vacation until January 11, so until then, I won't update this post and that person won't hear from me. Please forgive me if you don't hear from me if you're not a winner. I get dozens of responses for each challenge. Also, I've turned off comments because some people would post the correct answers there. I hate to shut down discussion, but I want you to figure out the answer on your own.One caveat: no individual can win more than two prizes. The Road Trip Picture of the Week challenge takes place each Thursday, and the photos could come from anywhere, not just Road Trip 2010 locations. Plus, they might be related to stories I've written in the past. So, please have fun playing today, and then come back each Thursday. For most of the summer, Geek Gestalt was on Road Trip 2010. After driving more than 18,000 miles in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last four years, I drove 5,266 miles this summer looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more throughout the American Northeast. You can follow me on Twitter at @GreeterDan and @RoadTrip and find the project on Facebook.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Mozilla exposes older user-account database]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mozilla-exposes-older-user-account-database</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mozilla-exposes-older-user-account-database</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 28 Dec 2010 08:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>EffoxDeek</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=mozilla-exposes-older-user-account-database</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Mozilla has disabled 44,000 older user accounts for its Firefox add-ons site after a security researcher found part of a database of the account information on a publicly available server.The file had passwords obscured with the now-obsolete MD5 hashing algorithm, which has been rendered cryptographically weak and which Mozilla scrapped for the more robust SHA-512 algorithm as of April 9, 2009. The older database didn't end up anywhere dangerous, Mozilla believes.&quot;We were able to account for every download of the database. This issue posed minimal risk to users, however, as a precaution we felt we should disclose this issue to people affected and err on the side of disclosure,&quot; said Chris Lyon, Mozilla's director of infrastructure security, in a blog post about the database exposure yesterday.Mozilla notified affected users of the problem by e-mail yesterday, it said. &quot;Current addons.mozilla.org users and accounts are not at risk,&quot; Lyon said.Password security has become a more prominent concern after a hack of Gawker blog sites earlier this month. Even with passwords obscured by strong hash algorithms, user names can be valuable in further hack attempts, especially when people reuse the same password on multiple sites.&quot;Unique passwords are a requirement, not a luxury,&quot; said Chester Wisniewski of security firm Sophos in a blog post about the event.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Google proclaims Chrome business-ready]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-proclaims-chrome-business-ready</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-proclaims-chrome-business-ready</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 15 Dec 2010 08:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Sheree</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=google-proclaims-chrome-business-ready</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:Google)Chrome is ready for corporate use, Google argued today in blogposts.&quot;Today, we're announcing that Chrome offers controls that enable IT administrators to easily configure and deploy the browser on Windows,Mac, and Linux according to their business requirements,&quot; product manager Glenn Wilson and programmer Daniel Clifford said.Of course, it'll be up to those administrators to decide whether it really is ready. But Google has added several features, most notably Windows policy template support that lets administrators control Chrome settings across an organization.And for those not satisfied with poking around help files and exercising search engines to get support, there's phone and e-mail support through Google Apps for Business, Google said.Google also announced some organizations that have installed Chrome: Vanguard, Boise State University, and Procter &amp; Gamble. That's not much compared to the broader adoption ofFirefox and of course Internet Explorer, but it's notable.Chrome has spread to account for nearly 10 percent of browser usage worldwide, but Google would like more' Chrome fuels its ambitions to make the Web a faster, more powerful foundation for applications, and it also helps the company propagate its technology ideas.Corporate administrators are notoriously conservative. One modern-day trend, exhibited by technologies such as the iPhones and Google search, is the &quot;consumerization of IT.&quot; And Google evidently would like some help from consumers spreading Chrome: &quot;let your administrator know to give it a try and let us know what they think,&quot; Wilson and Clifford said.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Survey: Consumers warming to efficient lighting]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=survey-consumers-warming-to-efficient-lighting</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=survey-consumers-warming-to-efficient-lighting</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 14 Dec 2010 08:10:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>coloncleanse23</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=survey-consumers-warming-to-efficient-lighting</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Compact florescent lights are the top choice for energy-efficient lighting but there's a high level of awareness for LEDs, according to a survey from Osram Sylvania.The lighting company on Wednesday is expected to publish its third &quot;socket survey&quot; of consumers to measure the level of awareness around a government mandate for efficient lighting. Three hundred and nine consumers were surveyed by phone last month. Consumers indicated they plan to switch from incandescent bulbs to CFLs, halogens, and LEDs. In terms of product features, these consumers valued brightness first, then longevity, and then energy efficiency.LED bulbs creep into the home (photos) The 2007 energy law required manufacturers to produce bulbs that are more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs. In 2012, bulbs in the 1490 lumen to 2600 lumen range--the equivalent of a 100-watt incandescent--cannot consume more than 72 watts. In 2013 and 2014, efficiency levels for less-bright bulbs go into effect.The Osram Sylvania-sponsored survey found that consumer awareness around the mandate has grown over the past year. Thirty-six percent of respondents said they were aware of the mandate, a 10 percent increase from last year. Over half of respondents have evaluated bulbs other than incandescents and 81 percent have heard of LEDs, with about 9 percent using them. After incandescents, CFLs are the most-used type of bulb, followed by halogens. Thirteen percent of respondents said they plan to hoard 100-watt incandescent bulbs and 28 percent expressed worry about losing these traditional bulbs. The trend toward more efficient lighting is stronger among business customers, according to a survey published in September by Osram Sylvania. Over 70 percent have evaluated efficient lighting and 73 percent said they are evaluating or plan to use LED lighting. Lighting manufacturers are embracing LED technology because it offers a promising path toward steady efficiency improvements. The light quality of general-purpose LEDs and brightness has gotten to the point where manufacturers can market them for many uses. Compared to EnergyStar-certified CFLs, LED bulbs are slightly more efficient when measured on lumens per watt and are designed to last much longer--sometimes over 20 years.The price of LEDs, however, remains much higher than other technologies. Sylvania's 60-watt incandescent equivalent is expected to be available at Lowe's stores next month for just under $40.The price of LEDs is expected to fall. On Monday, Lighting Sciences Group introduced a 60-watt equivalent LED bulb, available through lighting stores next month and Home Depot in March, priced at $30.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[WikiLeaks fans should think before they botnet]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-fans-should-think-before-they-botnet</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-fans-should-think-before-they-botnet</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 10 Dec 2010 08:18:08 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>debqowoga</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-fans-should-think-before-they-botnet</guid>
<description><![CDATA[There are several versions of the software that allow people to volunteer their computers to be used in pro-Wikileaks denial-of-service attacks.(Credit:Operation Payback)Do you support WikiLeaks Are you mad at critics trying to snuff it out Maybe you're thinking about joining the online protests aimed at shutting down the Web sites of its opponents. Don't.  A loosely organized group of vigilantes under the name Anonymous have turned the botnet guns of their Operation Payback campaign, which previously targeted antipiracy organizations, on PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, Senator Joe Lieberman, Sarah Palin, and others who have criticized WikiLeaks or stopped doing business with the document-sharing project. The WikiLeaks fallout has hit a frenzy since the site began releasing diplomatic cables last month that have proved embarrassing for the U.S. government's diplomatic efforts. The modern-day equivalent of walking the picket line with a sign is launching denial-of-service attacks against target Web sites in order to send a message and try to interfere with their business. But the electronic version is illegal. &quot;Participating in a botnet with the intention of shutting down a Web site violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act,&quot; said Jennifer Granick, a lawyer at Zwillinger Genetski who specializes in Internet law and hacking cases. &quot;The thing people need to understand is that even if you have a political motive, it doesn't change the fact that the activity is unlawful.&quot; &quot;There may be strength in numbers...There's only so many people the police could go after. But that doesn't mean that they couldn't find out who is behind the unmasked IP numbers and file computer charges against them.&quot;--Jennifer Granick, attorney, Zwillinger Genetski One person accused of being connected with the attacks has already been arrested. Police in the Netherlands arrested a 16-year-old hacker earlier this week. It's unclear what his role allegedly was.  Typical botnets are created by criminals who use viruses and other methods to sneak malware onto computers that then allows them to commandeer the machines for distributed denial-of-service (DOS) attacks without the computer owners knowing it. Hijacked computers are being used in the Operation Payback campaign, but the focus has been getting individuals to voluntarily join. Thousands of people from around the world are downloading the LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon) software so that their computer will attack the targets the Anonymous organizers specify. New versions of the DOS tool have emerged this week. There is a version for Linux and a Windows version that includes a &quot;Hivemind&quot; feature to connect to an Internet Relay Chat server and allow the organizers to control what site the computer targets.  There is even a JavaScript version that runs on any device, including smart phones. &quot;The JavaScript one, you just point the browser at a site and say 'go,'&quot; said Jose Nazario, senior manager of security research at Arbor Networks. As many as 3,000 computers voluntarily participated in attacks earlier this week, and an estimated 30,000 others appeared to be hijacked, according to Sean-Paul Correll, a threat researcher at Panda Labs who has been following the attacks closely and communicating with Operation Payback organizers.  There's a snag, however, for the volunteer botnet protesters--their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are not masked, so the attacks could ultimately be traced back to the computers launching them, experts say. Of course, it's up to the discretion of prosecutors as to whether or not individual botnet volunteers will be fingered by authorities.  &quot;There may be strength in numbers,&quot; said Granick. &quot;There's only so many people the police could go after. But that doesn't mean that they couldn't find out who is behind the unmasked IP numbers and file computer charges against them.&quot; Operation Payback is fending off DOS attacks that have scuttled its efforts. The servers being used to provide the infrastructure for Operation Payback have been taken offline intermittently. No one has taken responsibility for those attacks. &quot;Right now it appears they are regrouping and strategizing for future attacks,&quot; said Correll. (Anonymous explains that its goal is to raise awareness not interfere with targets' critical infrastructure.) Meanwhile, a separate campaign sprang up out of nowhere that could give WikiLeaks fans a more legal way of expressing their support for the cause. An online flyer for &quot;Operation Leakspin&quot; published by Boing Boing encourages people to find juicy bits in the leaked cables and spread them virally on the Internet in blog posts and YouTube videos and use unrelated tags that will ensure broad interest.  It's unclear who is behind Operation Leakspin. &quot;There's no hierarchical structure (to the Anonymous collective), so when things happen, like their server infrastructure is under attack, people tend to want to take control of the campaign,&quot; Correll said.  &quot;Even though thousands of people want to participate there doesn't seem to be a cohesive plan about what to do next,&quot; he said. &quot;It's fizzling out.&quot; <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Report: Euro telcos want tech companies to pay]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-euro-telcos-want-tech-companies-to-pay</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-euro-telcos-want-tech-companies-to-pay</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:10:29 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>csandaussu</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=report-euro-telcos-want-tech-companies-to-pay</guid>
<description><![CDATA[European telcos say companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook should pay to help them keep up with growing demand for data on their networks, according to an article published by Bloomberg today. France Telecom-Orange, Telecom Italia, and Vodafone Group would like to charge content providers fees linked to usage to help cover the cost of upgrading wireless broadband networks. France Telecom-Orange Chief Executive Officer Stephane Richard discussed the issue at the &quot;Le Web&quot; conference in Paris Wednesday. Richard said the current mismatch between revenue and investment for Internet infrastructure providers is not sustainable.&quot;Service providers are flooding networks with no incentive&quot; to cut costs, Bloomberg quoted France Telecom CEO Stephane Richard as saying said last month. &quot;It's necessary to put in place a system of payments by service providers as a function of their use.&quot;The problem Richard and other European telecommunication CEOs face is that as data connections and traffic grow on their networks, revenue is falling. The problem is particularly acute for wireless networks. For example, IDC estimates that the number of mobile data connections in Western Europe is expected to grow 15 percent a year to 270 million in 2014. But during this same period revenue is expected to fall 1 percent. Meanwhile, carriers are expected to increase capital spending by 28 percent to $3.7 billion, according to Canalys, Bloomberg said.U.S. broadband and wireless carriers face similar problems. Executives on this side of the Atlantic have in the past complained of content companies getting a free ride on their networks. In 2005, Ed Whitacre, then CEO of SBC Communications which later became AT&amp;T, said that he didn't think that Google should be given a free ride on his network. The remark ignited a firestorm of protest. Since then, consumer groups and content companies, many of which are based in the U.S., have fought back lobbying for regulations that would keep networks &quot;open.&quot; The Federal Communications Commission is in the final stages of drafting its so-called Net neutrality rules, which are aimed at doing this. The FCC will vote on these rules later this month.Network operators are not just asking content providers to pay more of the cost of upgrading wireless networks, but they are also asking consumers to pay for what they use. Wireless operators both in Europe and the U.S. say that the time for flat-fee unlimited data plans is drawing to an end. Instead, consumers will pay for what they use.In the U.S. AT&amp;T has already eliminated its unlimited data plan for its smartphones. And Verizon Wireless has been experimenting with tiered service offerings. France Telecom is also considering tiered pricing.&quot;We are progressively going to switch from the unlimited approach that has been the trademark of our industry to something which is more sophisticated,&quot; Bloomberg quoted the Richard, France Telecom's CEO as saying on Wednesday.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[DivX plug-in does Flash video better than Adobe]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=divx-plug-in-does-flash-video-better-than-adobe</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=divx-plug-in-does-flash-video-better-than-adobe</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:10:02 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>artwhale</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=divx-plug-in-does-flash-video-better-than-adobe</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Who says Flash video has to monopolize your laptop and drain its battery at scary rate Aside from Steve Jobs, that isDivx, the video technology company whose software is in dozens of Blu-ray players and other devices, is releasing today a browser plug-in, DivX HiQ, that replaces the video engine in Adobe's own Flash player with what they say is its own, lighter, faster, better, stronger player. The pitch: now you can get a good video experience even on your underpowered old computer, or your Netbook.Once installed -- it comes as part of the DivX Plus Web Player, available on Download.com -- when you hit a video on a site that the player knows about, like YouTube, you get a second &quot;play&quot; button under the usual player. I tested the beta of HiQ on a few systems--a worn-out old ThinkPad, a 2-year-old MacBook, and a screaming fast desktop--and found the biggest gain on the ThinkPad. Videos played more smoothly, especially when I selected high-definition streams (720p or 1080p). I was able to play all videos in full-screen mode, too, something I haven't attempted on this PC for a while. I didn't notice much of a performance difference on my MacBook or my desktop PC. The DivX HiQ add-on gives you a supplementary Play button on selected sites. YouTube shown.(Credit:Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET) DivX rep Ryan Taylor told me that his company's video decoding technology is just better, which means devices running it can do more video with less horsepower, leading to better-looking movies, better battery life, and cooler laps. The HiQ product can also use the graphics processor of the computer it's running on, to put the video decoding on the chip best designed to do it.  Adobe, though, is currently beta-testing its own Flash Player 10.2, which also uses the graphical processing unit. Why Adobe is still, in 2010, in beta on GPU-accelerated video decoding is an open question' this feature should have been baked into the player at least a year ago. DivX's little freebie add-on is a bit of a marketing play. The download will come with an optional codec pack and a converter tool. But mostly, as Taylor says, &quot;it identifies and links our brand the highest-quality playback possible.&quot; The company has not discussed this add-on with Adobe or with Apple. You can get DivX technology running on several tablet computers today, including the hot new Galaxy Tab. But it won't work as an end-run around Apple's Flash block for theiPhone oriPad. (It also won't work on sites that apply DRM to streams, like NetFlix or Hulu.) If you want to watch full-screen videos on your Netbook today, the DivX HiQ player is a good bet. I'd recommend it over the Flash 10.2 beta, since it's released code, and since as an add-on to your already-installed Flash player it can easily be ignored if it doesn't work better. But once Adobe pushes the 10.2 update out of beta, DivX will have to rely on the attraction of the other parts of the download bundle to get people to even know about it. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Internet Explorer 9 to get tracking protection]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=internet-explorer-9-to-get-tracking-protection</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=internet-explorer-9-to-get-tracking-protection</comments>
<pubDate>Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:10:19 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>gaylordsty</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=internet-explorer-9-to-get-tracking-protection</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft this morning detailed changes to Internet Explorer 9's security features that will better enable users to keep sites from tracking their activity across browsing sessions. The feature, which is set to arrive in the first release candidate of IE9 early next year, uses a list to tell the browser which third-party page elements sites can and cannot be blocked from tracking. This includes elements ranging from advertisements to more mundane things like embedded widgets from particular providers.On Microsoft's IE blog, Dean Hachamovitch, head of Internet Explorer development, explained how it works:A Tracking Protection List (TPL) contains Web addresses (like msdn.com) that the browser will visit (or &quot;call&quot;) only if the consumer visits them directly by clicking on a link or typing their address. By limiting the calls to these Web sites and resources from other Web pages, the TPL limits the information these other sites can collect.You can look at this as a translation of the &quot;Do Not Call&quot; list from the telephone to the browser and web. It complements many of the other approaches being discussed for browser controls of Do Not Track.In a Webcast announcing the feature, Hachamovitch said most users have &quot;little awareness of who can track their activity,&quot; and that the feature stemmed from that. Hachamovitch also attributed the creation of the feature to the company's more open approach to developing features for IE9. Microsoft&amp;39's tracking protection tool gives users control over which site elements can track your activity during a browsing session. Green ones in this shot can, while the red cannot.(Credit:Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)Microsoft is letting users and third-parties alike author protection lists and host them on their sites. Users can then download them to their browser. Microsoft has also created lists to resemble what Hachamovitch likened to an RSS feed, so that if additional sites are added or removed, it can be updated without the user having to seek out, or manually update. Hachamovitch said tracking protection will not replace InPrivate filtering, a feature Microsoft added to IE in version 8. Instead, Hachamovitch referred to it as complementary, given that InPrivate filtering uses algorithms to control tracking, along with not persisting from session to session. Tracking protection, on the other hand, will remain on once a user turns it on.Microsoft says tracking protection will not be on by default when it arrives next year. Users will need to opt-in to enable it, as well as seek out lists of sites, which will not ship with the browser once it's released.So far, Microsoft's IE9 beta has been downloaded in excess of 15 million times since its release back in September. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[WikiLeaks, Assange feel the heat (roundup)]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-assange-feel-the-heat-roundup</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-assange-feel-the-heat-roundup</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 03 Dec 2010 08:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Lillian</dc:creator>
<category>Politics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=wikileaks-assange-feel-the-heat-roundup</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Whistle-blower site continues to face heavy criticism and a criminal probe, while founder Julian Assange, sought by Swedish authorities, remains in hiding. WikiLeaks reappears on Swiss Net domain The publisher of classified information disappeared from the Net yesterday when an address service cut the group off. It's back with new Web site hosted in Switzerland.&amp;149' Amazon cuts off WikiLeaks&amp;149' Amazon: U.S. played no role in WikiLeaks disconnect(Posted in Deep Tech by Stephen Shankland)December 3, 2010 3:03 AM PT WikiLeaks faces more U.S. demands for prosecutionWikiLeaks encounters another round of criticism as heads of Senate Intelligence Committee call for espionage prosecution of Julian Assange and &quot;possible accomplices.&quot;&amp;149' Republicans slam White House over WikiLeaks response&amp;149' AG says WikiLeaks criminal probe is 'ongoing'&amp;149' Congressman wants WikiLeaks listed as terrorist group(Posted in Politics and Law by Declan McCullagh)December 2, 2010 4:56 PM PT WikiLeaks files detail U.S. electronic surveillanceIncluded in today's leak of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables: U.S. ordered surveillance of U.N. leaders, and China's Politburo ordered penetration of Google's network.&amp;149' WikiLeaks has U.S. scrambling to plug holes&amp;149' WikiLeaks: We are under denial-of-service attack(Posted in Politics and Law by Declan McCullagh)November 28, 2010 1:27 PM PT Sweden issuing arrest warrant for WikiLeaks' AssangeStockholm court says Julian Assange will be &quot;detained in his absence&quot; on rape and molestation charges, which his lawyer says are false and politically motivated.&amp;149' Sweden reopens rape probe of Wikileaks founder(Posted in Politics and Law by Declan McCullagh)November 18, 2010 10:58 AM PT Amid criticism, WikiLeaks shifts focusWikiLeaks, which grew out of the cypherpunks list over a decade ago, has left its early days as an informal collaboration far behind.&amp;149' Reporters' Roundtable 53: Can you trust Wikileaks (video) (Posted in Privacy Inc. by Declan McCullagh)October 28, 2010 4:00 AM PTHas WikiLeaks landed in cyberattack crosshairsConservative commentators call for WikiLeaks' Iraq files, actually hosted on Amazon.com servers in California, to be electronically &quot;assaulted.&quot; &amp;149' U.S. denies asking other nations to attack Wikileaks(Posted in Politics and Law by Declan McCullagh)October 27, 2010 4:00 AM PTprevious coverageWikileaks defies feds, releases Iraq war filesDespite stern warnings from U.S. military and government officials, site releases a massive trove of secret documents from the Iraq war to the media.(Posted in Politics and Law by Declan McCullagh)October 22, 2010 3:02 PM PT Ex-DOJer helped expose alleged Wikileaks sourceMark Rasch, previously the head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit, helped to turn in alleged Wikileaks source Bradley Manning. (Posted in Privacy Inc. by Declan McCullagh)August 9, 2010 4:00 AM PT Defense Dept. demands that Wikileaks return filesThe U.S. Defense Department formally demands that Wikileaks return all classified military records, and it leaves open what might happen to the group's principals, if they refuse. &amp;149' Wikileaks' war files disclosure roils Washington&amp;149' Wikileaks draws criticism, censorship threats(Posted in Privacy Inc. by Declan McCullagh)August 5, 2010 1:25 PM PT Wikileaks releases massive set of Afghan war filesDocument-leaking group releases tens of thousands of classified files to newspapers including the U.K. Guardian, which calls it a &quot;devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan.&quot;&amp;149' Wikileaks denies receiving classified State Dept. cables(Posted in Security by Declan McCullagh and Steven Musil)July 25, 2010 4:13 PM PTAlleged Wikileaks source charged with leaking classified filesArmy intelligence analyst faces criminal charges connected to leaks of thousands of diplomatic cables and a video showing U.S. troops firing on a Reuters reporter. (Posted in Security by Declan McCullagh)July 6, 2010 9:11 AM PTHacker turns in soldier in Iraq airstrike video leakWhile sympathetic, former &quot;homeless hacker&quot; Adrian Lamo says the Army intelligence analyst who confided in him crossed the line by exposing compromising data on U.S. foreign policy. &amp;149' Soldier leaked Google attack investigation details, hacker says(Posted in Insecurity Complex by Elinor Mills)June 7, 2010 5:11 PM PT Wikileaks releases video of Iraq journalist shootingAnti-secrecy activists release video showing Reuters journalists being shot by Apache gunship, which may call into question the U.S. military's official account. (Posted in Politics and Law by Declan McCullagh)April 5, 2010 6:52 PM PT .postBody h3, .postBody h4{font-size: 1.2em'margin: 10px 0 0 0 'padding: 0px'font-weight: bold'border-bottom: none'}<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Previewing Microsoft's Office 365]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=previewing-microsofts-office-365</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=previewing-microsofts-office-365</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 24 Nov 2010 08:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Preety01</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=previewing-microsofts-office-365</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microsoft's Office 365, the next piece of a broader play by Microsoft to bring its suite of Office server tools and collaboration work flows onto the cloud, is expected to launch sometime next year.The company is already in the stages of testing it with small businesses and has a list of some 60,000 organizations, which are waiting to get access. In the meantime, Microsoft is continuing to fine-tune the product and expand its testing group--both in scale and the size of the companies that are being allowed in. CNET was lucky enough to get early access to Office 365, which has been designed to work on a number of Web browsers, includingFirefox andSafari--though not yet Chrome, which will work when the product is finalized. Office 365 is also cross-platform, so it works with both Macs and PCs. The good news is that in our brief testing, everything worked as advertised. The bad news is that you can't get it right now, and it's still a long ways off from something that lets you every feature out of the Office ecosystem without installing software. What it is and what it isn'tThe first thing we should say up front is that Google Apps this is not. That's not to disparage the service, which hasn't even hatched yet, rather it's to point out that its core offering takes some of Microsoft's on-premises software tools and hosts them for companies. Microsoft still maintains consumer-facing Office and collaboration tools with its Windows Live services, Docs.com, and Office Web Apps, but Office 365 is a different animal. What that means to the end user is that you get things like a hosted version of Outlook, Sharepoint (which has been nicknamed &quot;Team Site&quot; in the small business Office 365 variant), and Lync--the latest version of the recently rebranded Office Communicator platform--all without having to buy your own servers or worry about keeping them up to date. As such, Microsoft is positioning it as a subscription service that runs anywhere from $2 to $27 per user per month, depending on what size of a company you're running and what services you decide to include. Notably absent from Office 365's overall interface is Microsoft's suite of Office Web Apps, which is where many of those comparisons to Google Docs have centered. The Office Web Apps only take center stage when working in the hosted version of SharePoint, where shared documents can be viewed and edited in its Office Web App counterpart. If you actually want to create something, there's still a reliance on having to have the Office software, or go off to the Office Web apps site itself, where users can save to their SharePoint.Microsoft's current alternative for this is to send small-business users to its Office Web Apps site to do things like pen documents and put together presentations, while those who subscribe to a particular Office 365 tier can opt in for a subscription of Microsoft's Office 2010 plus software that can be installed locally, which ties into things like the Office 365 Team Site and Outlook through the Backstage menu in Office applications. The net result of all of this is that Office 365 is not yet quite the true jump to a cohesive set of all of Microsoft's services, gone online and tied together in a way where you can hop from task to task between different 365 components. There is still an incredible reliance on the software itself, which is bound to change down the road, but for now makes basic workflows like creating a document and getting feedback from team members a hybrid experience, or one that involves juggling products. It's getting cloudy The core of Office 365's UI centers on breaking up the hosted services into three chunks: home, Outlook, and Team Site. The links to these items stay the same no matter what you're doing, except if you hop over to Team Site, which jettisons you off to your own Sharepoint site. Office 365&amp;39's home screen lets you hop to Outlook and your team&amp;39's &amp;34'Home Site.&amp;34'(Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET)Of the bunch, one of the most obvious draws is the the hosted version of Exchange, which companies can move all their mail to, or run alongside on-premises deployments. In our preview with it, the Web client of Outlook was fast loading and had a few nice tricks up its sleeve, like letting you open up Office attachments in a pop-up Window--something that's quite useful if you're on a public computer that does not have Office installed. It's also keyboard shortcut friendly, letting you cruise through a large group of unread messages.Outlook&amp;39's Web app shouldn&amp;39't look all that different from what people are used to. Users get all the usual trimmings like e-mail, calendars, and contacts.(Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET)We couldn't perform a large-scale test on Lync, formerly known as Office Communicator, but we got a thorough demo last week as part of its launch. Lync is Microsoft's an instant messaging system with presence' an audio and video conferencing tool' and a voice call service. By design this is something that users install and run locally, so it sits outside of whatever software program you're using, though over time it's been built into more and more facets of the Office software. How Lync translates to the Web experience is that users can get a slightly less capable version of it inside a browser window--all without having to install the software client. This has been implemented with a presence setting you can toggle that stays with you in both Office 365's home screen and Outlook, so if you're busy working on something, you can make a note of it from your inbox. You're also able to chat in the hosted Outlook Web app with anyone who is online.One thing that was not yet available for a spin was Lync's planned client for Windows Phone 7 and theiPhone. This would let you see people's presence, and chat from your phone. When combined with Microsoft's Office software on Windows Phone 7, this will open things up for a more cohesive hand-off for people going back and forth between a computer and a phone. The third branch of Office 365 is the Team Site, which should be quite familiar to SharePoint users, as it's got the same exact features and workflows. It's also one of the places where Office 365 shows its strengths, since you can get into a shared group of documents and very quickly give them a read and an edit in the same place without leaving the page to go off to some other property. This is what a cohesive Web office experience should feel like, though like we mentioned earlier, it still feels like its on its own island instead of being more tightly knit with the Office 365 start page, and Outlook client.  Team Sites should also not look too unfamiliar to SharePoint users. (Credit:Josh Lowensohn/CNET) Not so cloudy, yetWhile really impressive, there are still some questions over Microsoft's vision of making Office 365 less of a jump-off point for its software and more of a one-stop solution for getting things done from any computer, anywhere. Some of these issues have been alleviated, though in most cases, it depends on what tool you're in and how you're using it.Another issue--though one that is arguably of smaller concern as a growing number of devices have gotten an always-on Internet connection--is that Office 365 still relies on an active connection to use it. Microsoft's trump card in this respect is that unlike Google, it's already got the software part of the equation taken care of, so that work can be done locally when need be. The only problem comes when you're asking people to jump between those two experiences. It also puts into question the utility of the package for workers who want to go software-free, yet stay as mobile as possible. These items are likely to be addressed as the platform grows. In the meantime, it's worth looking at Office 365 for what it is, which is Microsoft continuing to move some of the very complicated pieces of its Office software ecosystem into the cloud--in part to make it easier for businesses large and small to get going. The Office software itself is a separate part of the equation--one that's well on its way in that direction. Updated at 10:15 a.m. PDT to include additional pricing information, and clarification about SharePoint's nickname for the small business edition of the Office 365 product. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Amazon gets Kiva robots via Zappos, Diapers buys]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazon-gets-kiva-robots-via-zappos-diapers-buys</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazon-gets-kiva-robots-via-zappos-diapers-buys</comments>
<pubDate>Thu, 11 Nov 2010 08:10:36 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>bigescau</dc:creator>
<category>Social</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=amazon-gets-kiva-robots-via-zappos-diapers-buys</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Even those of us who cover e-commerce often overlook the reality of connecting the &quot;e&quot; part of the equation to the real world. Webvan and Kozmo.com were great online services, but it was the unavoidable and nonvirtual expenses of moving goods around that did them in. Former Webvan business process guru Mick Mountz said the company lost $20 an order, due to the cost of physical logistics.  In 2003, having left Webvan and moved to the East Coast (to escape Webvan's investors, I would guess), Mountz started Kiva Systems, a robotics company that rethought warehouse logistics for the world of e-commerce. Kiva could have saved Webvan, Mountz believes, it if had been around in 1999. A Kiva-powered warehouse looks like a jumble to a human, but the software sees order in the location of every good tracked. Kiva is not new, and we've covered it before, but I find it interesting, since it's one of the few U.S. tech companies to take advantage of the our trade imbalance with Asia without actually manufacturing goods in cost-competitive overseas plants.  To recap, the company makes what looks like giant Roomba robots. These big puckbots can lift 3,000 pounds each. Swarms of them live in pick-and-pack warehouses. They move entire shelving units to the employees packing boxes by scooting under the shelves, lifting them on jacks, and then rolling to workstations. At the workstations, humans (who have the &quot;world's best end effectors,&quot; says Mountz), pick items off shelves and pack them into boxes. Then the robots park the shelves out of the way of other shelves in motion.  The control systems in each warehouse monitor orders to make sure shelves with the most popular items stay close to the front of the shop and that items that are usually sold together are on single shelving units. This reduces travel time of goods. As Kiva engineers learn more about how their systems work, they tweak the software to improve efficiency. One recent software upgrade: parking shelving units two shelves deep. If a parked-in shelf is needed, it takes a &quot;buddy bot&quot; to move a shelf facing an aisle out of the way, but this scheme dramatically increases warehouse storage density.  As I said, current trade economics work in Kiva's favor. So much U.S. consumer material arrives here via ports now. At docks, shipments are broken down into still-large shipments that get sent to U.S. distribution centers. From many of those centers, shipments get broken down again, either into store-size loads headed to regional brick-and-mortar retail stores, or into individual orders that contain items combined into boxes for e-commerce delivery to consumers. The long consumer supply chain, and the resultant growth in distribution warehouses, is a shift in U.S. retail, driven by both global economics and the growth of the Web. Kiva is riding both waves, as are Amazon and other e-commerce retailers.  Amazon, of course, began experimenting with methods to improve pick-and-pack efficiency early in its existence. But the Web retailer never bought a solution from Kiva Systems--at least not directly. As it happens, two companies Amazon recently decided to buy--Zappos.com and Diapers.com--have been Kiva users. Through those buys, Amazon now owns four Kiva-powered warehouses (Diapers.com has three, Zappos one).  Mountz said Kiva's systems have replaced traditional serial pick-and-pack logistics, such as conveyor belt systems, or warehouses where people move around with totes, with a parallel and fault-tolerant system that takes advantage of the efficiency of a lot of automated and cheap-to-maintain small moving parts (its robots) to overcome the inherent inefficiency of moving 3,000 pounds of shelving and unwanted products around, when all a customer wants is one 6-ounce tube of toothpaste. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[U.S. wind power posts slowest quarter since 2007]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=u-s--wind-power-posts-slowest-quarter-since-2007</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=u-s--wind-power-posts-slowest-quarter-since-2007</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 01 Nov 2010 07:10:20 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>vxjkzhygoohxya</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=u-s--wind-power-posts-slowest-quarter-since-2007</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The U.S. wind power industry had its slowest quarter since 2007 in the just-ended third quarter, as investors turned away from the sector after Congress did not pass a renewable power mandate, an industry group said. The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said U.S. developers added 395 megawatts of electricity capacity at wind farms in the third quarter--the slowest quarter since 2007. Year-to-date installations of 1,634 MW, were down 72 percent versus the same period last year. The U.S. Senate has not passed a national renewable energy mandate that would have required power utilities to generate minimum amounts of power from sources like wind and solar power. Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat who in September introduced a bill with a Renewable Electricity Standard, has said it has picked up support from Republicans.But it could be tough to pass the legislation this year as Congress will have a full schedule after it returns following elections on Tuesday.China and Europe already have mandates for renewable power which AWEA said will help lead to $35 billion in investment in 2010, or four times the amount that has been invested in the United States. &quot;U.S. wind energy can again lead the world,&quot; said Denise Bode, AWEA's chief executive. &quot;But if federal policymakers do not act quickly to provide investment certainty...the U.S. wind industry will stall out.&quot; Wind power supporters also want Congress to pass long term tax incentives that they say would give investors more confidence.Story Copyright (c) 2010 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Laptop nightmares: Scary systems with fatal flaws]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=laptop-nightmares-scary-systems-with-fatal-flaws</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=laptop-nightmares-scary-systems-with-fatal-flaws</comments>
<pubDate>Fri, 29 Oct 2010 07:10:18 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Catherine</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=laptop-nightmares-scary-systems-with-fatal-flaws</guid>
<description><![CDATA[The Halloween season my be winding down, but that doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of scary laptops out there. Of course, the vast majority of laptops we review are pretty decent examples of technology. After all, there are only a handful of common components used in most systems, and things such as speed and battery life are, if not standardized, at least largely predictable based on the list of what's inside the box. That said, we occasionally run into a laptop that just rubs us the wrong way. Maybe it's a key missing feature, or terrible design, or an unusable touch pad--or sometimes products simply don't work as advertised. We've compiled our own list of the scariest laptops of 2010, the models that either had one or more frightening flaws, or else were just dogs. Some of these are bargain basement budget systems, but don't think we're just picking on laptops that are cheap. We love inexpensive laptops, but not ones that cut so many corners that they're not a bargain at any price. Peruse our list below, and feel free to weigh in via the comments section with your own picks. Laptop nightmares: Scary systems with fatal flaws (photos) <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[iMainGo X: An all-in-one speaker case for iPods]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=imaingo-x-an-all-in-one-speaker-case-for-ipods</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=imaingo-x-an-all-in-one-speaker-case-for-ipods</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:10:16 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Michle</dc:creator>
<category>Technology</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=imaingo-x-an-all-in-one-speaker-case-for-ipods</guid>
<description><![CDATA[(Credit:iMainGo)Anyone who has ever shopped for aniPod speaker knows that there is no shortage of models from which to choose' options range from giant party speakers in the form of old-school ghetto blasters to tiny units about the size--and shape--of a goose egg. Indeed, you can even find portable device cases with speakers built right in.Portable Sound Laboratories started cranking out its original iMainGo speaker case back in 2007 and followed it up about a year and a half later with the impressive--and cheap--iMainGo 2. Since reviewing that unit, I've been eagerly awaiting the next offering from the company. It arrived not long ago in the form of the iMainGo X, which offers more features--and a noticeably higher price tag--than its sibling.In fact, the X isn't a replacement for the iMainGo 2 but an addition to the line. While not entirely unwelcome, the iMainGo X is tougher to recommend at its current price of $69.95, since you get the same volume boost, audio quality, and case enclosure as the 2. However, there are a smattering of useful extras that some users might find compelling enough to warrant the $30 jump in price.(Credit:iMainGo)For one, the iMainGo X features dual-headphone jacks on the front, so in addition to letting you share tunes out loud on the go, it also acts as a splitter in a pinch. You can also daisy chain several units together using headphone port number two, as plugging into that jack alone will not silence the speakers. In addition, there's a mic input, which can presumably turn the unit into a portable karaoke system or, apparently, an amp for an electric guitar.As for the rest, the X functions in the same way as the 2. A power button (which is a little too recessed for my tastes) turns the unit on and off, but you can continue to access the remainder of your music controls on whatever device you have attached. Most MP3 players and music phones will fit into the case compartment, which features a clear, plastic window for operating playback--and it does work for touch screens as well as tactile controls. There are a couple foam pieces to help with a snug fit, and an integrated 3.5mm plug serves to pipe tunes from the audio player to the speakers.Sound quality is pretty decent for a unit this size' it's clear of any background hiss and not hollow-sounding at all. Bass isn't going to blow your socks off, and the highs aren't sparkly, but audio is solid enough for portable use. My only major complaint is that the speaker doesn't like to stand up on its own, so music often must be piped straight up. Also, it's kind of heavy overall, so even though it's compact, you'll probably notice the difference to your carry-on.In addition to the iMainGoX unit, the package includes a removable strap and soft pouch for travel purposes. There's also an AC adapter for charging the internal battery, which is rated for 12 hours of playback.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Apple Store opens online in China]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-store-opens-online-in-china</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-store-opens-online-in-china</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 27 Oct 2010 07:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Neha</dc:creator>
<category>Mobile &amp; Electronics</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=apple-store-opens-online-in-china</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Apple&amp;39's new online store for China.(Credit:Apple)Apple has launched an online Apple Store in China.Opening for business yesterday, the new Chinese version of the Apple Store lets customers in China buy iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other Apple products online. Beyond providing the traditional Apple lineup, the store is also selling certain third-party products. Apple is offering free shipping and discounts for students and teachers.Shoppers can also get free personalized engraving on aniPod oriPad and can configure Macs with the options and features they want, Apple said. And prepping for the holiday season, Apple is offering personalized gift wrapping on theiPhone, iPad, iPod, and other products. &quot;We are thrilled to open our newest online store in China,&quot; Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said in a statement. &quot;With personalized engraving, configure-to-order options, and free shipping on everything, the Apple Store is a great destination for our customers in China.&quot; Beyond the new Apple Store, users in China can now access Apple's App Store in Simplified Chinese, featuring local apps and charts of China's most popular paid and free apps. The iPhone without Wi-Fi capability has been available in China for the past year. But it wasn't until last month that Apple introduced a Wi-Fi-enabled version of the iPhone 4 and the Wi-Fi-only edition of the iPad. Liu Chuanzhi, chairman of China-based PC maker Lenovo, told the Financial Times in July that Apple is missing a tremendous opportunity in China. Chuanzhi was quoted as saying: &quot;We are lucky that Steve Jobs has such a bad temper and doesn't care about China. If Apple were to spend the same effort on the Chinese consumer as we do, we would be in trouble.&quot; But Apple has been pushing to make a greater dent in the Chinese market. In addition to its new online store, the company has launched retail outlets in China this year. Starting with its two existing stores in Shanghai and Beijing, Apple has said it plans to open up a total of 25 retail outlets in China by the end of 2011. <br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[SiOnyx 'black silicon' boosts solar cells with lasers]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sionyx-black-silicon-boosts-solar-cells-with-lasers</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sionyx-black-silicon-boosts-solar-cells-with-lasers</comments>
<pubDate>Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:25:48 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>James01</dc:creator>
<category>Eco</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=sionyx-black-silicon-boosts-solar-cells-with-lasers</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Harvard University spinoff SiOnyx has raised money to commercialize a semiconductor technology with the potential to improve solar-cell efficiency and light sensors in digital cameras.The Beverly, Mass.-based company today announced its $12.5 million series B round of funding which brought in laser manufacturer Coherent and Vulcan Capital, the venture investment firm started by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. SiOnyx&amp;39's black silicon process treats the surface of silicon so it can capture more light.(Credit:SiOnyx)With the money, SiOnyx will be seeking to hire more people to commercialize its &quot;black silicon&quot; technology in consumer electronics and solar-cell manufacturing, CEO Stephen Saylor.The company is developing a semiconductor process to blast silicon with a series of laser pulses in a controlled gas environment. The effect is to re-form the crystalline structure of silicon so that the surface captures more light, explained Saylor.&quot;It makes it almost a totally antireflective surface. Almost no light bounces off the stuff, so it's a very efficient way to capture more light in a layer of silicon,&quot; he said.With changes to the manufacturing process that incorporate its technology, solar-cell efficiency can improve by about 1 percent. The laser treatment can also lower manufacturing costs and eliminate the need to use nasty chemicals used to treat silicon during solar manufacturing, he said.The company intends to sell its chips to partners in solar manufacturing, consumer electronics, and other industries where there is need for more light-sensitive electronics. Its first products will be ready for consumer electronics and solar next year, but when they go to market depends on its partners, Saylor said.Many companies have techniques to improve the efficiency of solar cells and bring down the manufacturing costs. Silicon Valley-based Innovalight, for example, has signed deals with solar manufacturers to use its &quot;silicon ink&quot; technology which treats silicon material so that it produces more electricity. One of the challenges for getting SiOnyx's technology into production is the cost of changing solar manufacturing equipment, but even a small efficiency improvement is very significant.&quot;The history of the solar market is incremental improvements,&quot; said Saylor. &quot;But these small efficiency increases are dramatic given the overall scale of the energy industry.&quot;<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[&''The tweets must flow!&'' says Twitter amidst Egyptian unrest]]></title>
<link>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=8220the-tweets-must-flow8221-says-twitter-amidst-egyptian-unrest</link>
<comments>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=8220the-tweets-must-flow8221-says-twitter-amidst-egyptian-unrest</comments>
<pubDate>Mon, 30 Nov -001 00:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
<dc:creator>gamesqjrhzjx</dc:creator>
<category>Latest News</category>
<guid>http://www.haaze.com/story.php?title=8220the-tweets-must-flow8221-says-twitter-amidst-egyptian-unrest</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Microblogging service Twitter is taking on the recent decision by Egyptian authorities to shut off access to the Internet amidst massive unrest in the country, saying that no matter how threatening online organization may seem, the &amp;''tweets must flow.&amp;''Egypt shut down all routes to the Internet at 12:34 am Egyptian time on Thursday, according to Renesys, an internet intelligence authority.Twitter cofounder Biz Stone (pictured) and company lawyer Alexander Macgillivray responded to the move with a blog post Friday, in which they noted Twitter&amp;'s importance as a channel for political discourse and change.Here&amp;'s an excerpt from that blog post:Our goal is to instantly connect people everywhere to what is most meaningful to them. For this to happen, freedom of expression is essential. Some Tweets may  facilitate positive change in a repressed country, some make us laugh,  some make us think, some downright anger a vast majority of users. We  don&amp;'t always agree with the things people choose to tweet, but we keep  the information flowing irrespective of any view we may have about the  content.The open exchange of information can have a  positive global impact. This is both a practical and ethical belief. On a  practical level, we simply cannot review all one hundred million-plus  Tweets created and subsequently delivered every day. From an ethical  perspective, almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of expression is a human right.The use of Twitter as an agent for political and social change will only increase in upcoming years as the service continues to reach more people in real-time, cofounder Evan Williams predicted in October at a public debate.a4AIta4a4s always been our goal to reach the a4weakest signalsa4a4 all over the world, such as the recent usage in Iran and Moldova,a4 when those countries were undergoing violent unrest and saw little local media coverage of protests, Williams said at the time.Previous Story: Doodle Jump game maker Lima Sky goes Hollywood with movie dealPrintEmailTwitterFacebookGoogle BuzzLinkedIn      DiggStumbleUponRedditDeliciousGoogleMore&amp;8230'          Companies: rensys, TwitterPeople: alexander macgillivray, Biz Stone          Companies: rensys, TwitterPeople: alexander macgillivray, Biz StoneRiley McDermid is a contributing reporter to VentureBeat. She was previously the online editor at institutional investing and trading forum Markets Media, which she joined in 2008 from Dow Jones/MarketWatch in New York. Her work has appeared in the The New York Times, the Associated Press, Portfolio Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and Barrona4a4s. She has won awards from the American Society of Business Publishers and Editors, the Magazine Association of the Southeast, the Mississippi Press Association and the Atlanta Press Club, and was a finalist for the Pacemaker Prize for excellence in news reporting. Have news to share Launching a startup Email: tips@venturebeat.comVentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters.  Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.<br/><br/>0 Vote(s) ]]></description>
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