Earlier this week a company called Lookout showed how several Android wallpaper apps were accessing user information, including phone number, subscriber identification, voicemail password, browsing history, text messages & the phone’s SIM card number.
The claims were made during a presentation at this week's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas.
In a number of interviews since then the developer, Jackeey Wu, has released a statement denying most of these claims and Lookout has since agreed that only the phone number, subscriber identification & voicemail password (when stored on the phone) were accessed and sent to Wu's server in China.
Wu stated, "I collected the screen size to return more suitable wallpaper for the phone. More and More users emailed me telling that they love my wallpaper apps so much, because that even “Background” can’t well suited the phone’s screen. I also collected device id,phone number and subscriber id, it has no relationship with user data. There are few apps in Android market has the favorites feature. Many users suggest that I should provide the feature so I use the these to identify the device, so they can favorite the wallpapers more conveniently, and resume his favorites after system resetting or changing the phone."
Samsung has said it will introduce a tablet this quarter running Google's Android operating system, joining the stables of tech firms releasing tablets by the end of the year.
Nokia, LG, HP and RIM have confirmed, or unconfirmed tablets set for release by the end of the year, running either Android, WebOS or BlackBerry operating systems.
The market leader, the Apple iPad, sold an astonishing 3 million units in its first 90 days.
LG will launch its Android tablet in the Q4, RIM will release its BlackBerry tablet in the Q4, and Microsoft has said it hopes to release Windows 7 tablets in the Q4, as well.
According to BusinessWeek, RIM is preparing to release its still unconfirmed BlackPad tablet in November.
Earlier in the week, the smartphone company registered BlackPad.com, with the domain being purchased by CSC, a company that specializes in corporate branding, on behalf of RIM.
The two sources claim the BlackPad will have a 9.7-inch screen, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth tech that will allow users to connect to the Web via their BlackBerry smartphones.
"They can’t wait for a second generation of devices from Apple or they’ll fall too far behind," says Rodman and Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar.
Pricing will be "in line" with that of the iPad, which begins at $500 USD.
During his company's latest quarterly earnings conference call, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer spoke about the company's plans for tablets in the near future, but remained very scant on the details.
The company posted its best quarter ever last week, but has been openly criticized for its lack of strategy in the tablet market, as well as in other consumer businesses.
When asked specifically about tablets, Ballmer said Windows has been available on tablets and slates for years, with constant sales. However, none of Microsoft's devices have ever come close to the buzz created by Apple's iPad.
"Apple has done an interesting job of putting together a product," Ballmer said, admitting that "they've certainly sold more than I'd like them to sell."
"For us, the job is to say we have a lot of [intellectual property] and software and we've done a lot of work on ink and touch," he continued, via PCW. "We have got to make things happen. Just like we had to make things happen on netbooks, we have to with Windows 7 on slates. We're in the process of doing that as we speak."
Earlier this week, Yahoo Japan, the biggest portal in the nation, said it would being using Google's search engine to power its search instead of following Yahoo Inc.'s decision to use Microsoft's Bing for search.
The software giant has said today it plans to argue before Japan's Fair Trade Commission that the deal is anti-competitive, as it would give Google almost 100 percent of the search market in the region.
Japan is the world's third-largest market for search queries.
The FTC has already said the deal does not violate anti-monopoly laws in the nation.
Yahoo Japan has 57 percent search market share in the country while Google has 37. Microsoft has 2.8 percent.
Sprint has confirmed today that the Android 2.2 software update will begin hitting HTC EVO 4G smartphones tomorrow, with a full rollout expected August 3rd.
While 2.2 will come with all the standard updates, Sprint says the EVO will also get improved "camera-focused features with better 720p video and options to use the flash as a flashlight or as a focus assist for movies."
Additionally, the update will add new widgets for the calculator, FM radio, messages lists and settings.
Furthermore, 2.2 will close the exploit that allowed users to run free Wi-Fi hotspots after they rooted their device.
It is unclear how long the full deployment will take.
T-Mobile has retained its top billing for best customer service among cell carriers today, receiving the highest marks possible.
JD Power and Associates gave the 2010 Wireless Customer Care Performance Study award to the carrier, after it received 777 points from the company and five-stars from subscribers.
Close behind was AT&T which got 757 points from the company, but just three-stars from its subscribers.
Verizon and Sprint's scores were not available, but the companies only got three and two stars, respectively.
The points work as follows: If a customer is so loyal he refuses to switch carriers, he will be given 827 points. Someone who is actively thinking of changing carriers or is thinking of doing so, normally gets 602 points.
T-Mobile scored very high in the phone support category.
Google has added a licensing server to the Android Marketplace which will allow an app to verify whether the user has purchased it or not before opening.
In order to use the new service an app must be sold through Google's Android Market store and be on a device running Android 1.5 or later which also has the Market app installed. Free apps can't make use of the service.
Communication with the licensing server will be done exclusively by the Market app itself using RSA public-key encryption.
YouTube has reported this week that the streaming video giant will soon increase the video upload limit to 15 minutes, from the current 10.
While most uploaded videos are well under the 10 minute current limit, longer form works, (say an hour long movie) will now only need to be chopped into four installments instead of six, surely a welcome relief for some.
Until now, only YouTube Partners and other content owners were able to upload video longer than 10 minutes, leaving amateur filmmakers on the outside looking in.
Additionally, the site has started a new promotion dubbed "15 minutes of fame."
Says the site: "Imagine that this video is all the world will ever know about you: what would you want to communicate? What will be the enduring stamp you’ve left on us all? Tag your video with “yt15minutes,” upload it by Wednesday, August 4, and we’ll select a handful of people to truly gain their 15 minutes of fame by featuring them on the YouTube homepage in a future spotlight."
iSuppli has done a hardware component tear down of the popular HTC Incredible and found that the smartphone costs $163.35 to build.
It is important to note that the hardware tear down does not include R&D, manufacturing, shipping or advertising costs.
The device sells through Verizon for $200 with contract.
By comparison, iSuppli noted that the Apple iPhone 4, with 16GB of storage, costs about $188 to build.
Most of the cost of the Incredible came from three components, its $31.40 processor, its $31.20 multitouch display, and its $30 memory.
iSuppli manager Andrew Rassweiler says the Incredible"could have been dubbed the Nexus Two" because of its extreme similarities. The Nexus One, which launched in January, cost $174 to make.
Warner Home Video has said this week that it has partnered up with LG and Sony to offer 3D Blu-rays bundled with select Blu-ray 3D players, 3D HDTVs and 3D projectors.
A few of the new 3D Blu-rays being bundled are Imax Under the Sea 3D, Imax Space Station 3D and Imax Deep Sea 3D.
The move marks the first time Warner has bundled 3D titles with third-party products.
Consumers in both the U.S. and Canada who purchase the LG BX580 or BX585 3D network Blu-ray players by the end of the year are eligible for Under the Sea 3D.
Buyers in Europe, Asia, South America and Central America who purchase any LG Blu-ray 3D player, Blu-ray 3D home theater, 3D projector or 3D HDTV will get Space Station 3D.
"Imax is simply the best in 3D, and these visually stunning titles are perfect for consumers who want to take full advantage of and show off their new Blu-ray 3D home theater systems," adds WHV VP Dorinda Marticorena.
Motorola has reported a 600 percent increase in profit for the Q2, thanks mainly to its network equipment division and continued strong smartphone sales.
Droid smartphones, including the original Droid and new Droid X, continued strong sales, and both are well received, critically.
Both devices are sold through Verizon Wireless, the U.S.' largest carrier.
Most of the quarterly profit came from the company's networks equipment unit, which Motorola plans to sell to NokiaSiemens for $1.2 billion.
Overall earnings came to $162 million, up from $26 million last year.
Motorola shipped 2.7 million smartphones during the quarter with 14 million expected for the full year. Co-CEO Jha says he expects the phone business to be profitable by the fourth quarter, for the first time in four years.
Nintendo has posted their first quarterly loss since 2007 this week, citing falling DS and Wii sales alongside a stronger yen causing overseas earnings value to plummet.
For the three months ended June 30th, Nintendo saw a net loss of 25.2 billion yen ($289 million USD), compared to a profit of 42.3 billion yen ($485.6 million USD) in the same period last year.
Nintendo noted it took a one-time currency-related loss of 70.5 billion yen ($800 million USD) for the quarter.
"The foreign-currency fluctuation exposure and sluggish consumer demand in the U.S. add up to a rather bleak outlook for the company,"said Kiyoshi Ishigane, a senior strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management.
That "sluggish consumer demand" is a direct response to falling demand for the Wii and DS consoles, which have long been strong sellers, here in the U.S. and abroad. June saw DS sales plummet 33 percent in the U.S. last month alone. Overall, first quarter sales of the DS fell 47 percent, with software falling 23 percent.
The Court called the carts "game copiers" and ruled they are illegal to import, sell or even advertise in the UK.
Two defendants, Playables Limited and Wai Dat Chan were arguing that the carts simply allowed owners to run homebrew and playback movies and music.
The Justice did not agree: "The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence."
Nintendo was happy with the decision: We are "pleased that the court was not persuaded by the defendant's arguments, claiming that game copiers are lawful, as they allow for the play of 'homebrew' applications. The court affirmed that game copiers first circumvent Nintendo's security systems before any non-infringing application can be played on Nintendo's handheld products."
Apple, trying to deflect some of the bad press from their iPhone 4 'antennagate' debacle has posted videos over the past weeks showing how other smartphones also lose cell reception when held in the "death grip."
Beginning tomorrow, Motorola is striking back at the controversial videos, by placing a full page ad in newspapers mocking the iPhone 4's need for a case to avoid reception issues.
Reads the ad in full: "At Motorola, we believe a customer shouldn’t have to dress up their phone for it to work properly. That’s why the DROID X comes with a dual antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like to make crystal clear calls without a bulky phone jacket. For us it’s just one of those things that comes as a given when you’ve been making mobile phones for over 30 years."
Mozilla has released the second beta of their upcoming Firefox 4 browser, fixing hundreds of bugs and improving speed along with adding support for CSS Transitions.
The company released the first beta at the beginning of July and promised the beta 2 for last week but hit small delays.
Beta 3 is expected to hit August 6th, with the first full release candidate (RC) expected to be released in October.
A main new feature for Firefox 4 is improved tab location, as shown in the picture at left. Beta 2 adds the ability for Mac users. The "tabs are given top visual priority for more efficient and intuitive browsing." just like in Google Chrome.
Additionally, the browser supports full HMTL5 and WebM: "As pioneers of HTML5 video standards, Firefox also supports the WebM format so you can watch open HD quality video."
As for CSS Transitions, part of the CSS3 specification, the browser will support it, thanks to the new Gecko 2.0 page layout engine.
Amazon has announced it will sell two new models of their popular Kindle e-reader beginning tomorrow, with one costing just $139, the cheapest price yet for a Kindle device.
To justify the price of the Kindle Wi-Fi, Amazon has removed the ability to connect to the Internet via 3G cell networks, making it Wi-Fi only.
The second model will replace the Kindle 2 and include 3G access, and will sell for $189.
Each new model is slimmer and include higher contrast screens and "crisper text." Both have six-inch screens, but weigh 15 percent less and are 21 percent slimmer. Each also has twice the storage of the original Kindles, allowing for up to 3500 books to be stored.
Says CEO Jeff Bezos: "The hardware business for us has been so successful that we’re going to continue. I predict there will be a 10th-generation and a 20th-generation Kindle. We’re well-situated to be experts in purpose-built reading devices."
The Kindle Wi-Fi is now cheaper than both the rival Nook and the lesser rival Sony Reader, and over $250 cheaper than the Apple iPad.
Hulu, the United States' long-time second most popular streaming video site saw its viewership nosedive for the month ended June 30th, after comScore changed their measurement methods.
In May, the site had an estimated 44 million viewers, says comScore, with that number falling to 24 million in June.
The giant drop was the largest of any of the top Internet video sites, dropping the site from second to tenth, in terms of online video traffic in the U.S.
While the number drop seems huge, the new numbers mainly underscore a different and lingering problem; the fact that measuring online audiences remains unreliable.
Three companies, ComScore, Nielsen and Quantcast, each measure differently, so numbers may be similar but never equal.
Says one digital media strategist of the difference in numbers, and the overall problem of unreliability: "You would think 15 years on, we would be in a better place. But we're still talking about fundamental discrepancies in things like page counts."
BlackPad.com had been owned by others since 2002, but the domain had been completely unused in that period.
While a domain registration doesn't necessarily confirm a future product plan, many companies will do so to avoid having to purchase a license in the future at a much higher price. Apple registered iPhone.org years before the product was introduced.
That being said, RIM is not often that subtle, with most of their registered domains purchased for products that have since been revealed.
There is nothing known about the still unconfirmed device, but many expect it to have a 1GHz processor, dual-cameras and run BlackBerry OS 6.
Paul Ceglia, the business man suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg over the rights to own 84 percent of the giant social networking site was once convicted for possession of shrooms, Psilocybin-containing mushrooms that cause hallucinations.
Forbes says Ceglia was arrested and plead guilty in 1997 to "felony possession" of over 400 grams of the shrooms. Average recreational users will use about 3 grams.
Ceglia paid a $25,000 fine in Texas, and received a 10-year suspended sentence. He then moved to NY, where he started his business relationship with Zuckerberg.
Terry Connors, Ceglia's lawyer, declined comment "because I do not have any knowledge about it at this time."
While it is unclear if Ceglia was a regular user, or a seller, if he was a user the drugs could have a lasting effect on his brain, says Dr. Mario Ciani, chair of Mercy College's Natural Science Department.
"What happens is if people are using mushrooms on a regular basis, sometimes they have a reduced ability to differentiate between reality and fantasy," said Ciani. "Their experience on the mushrooms sort of overlaps into their daily activities. Particularly if they use them on a regular basis."
As of today, Best Buy Mobile has begun offering free Side Shields for iPhone 4 owners, helping those that are having problems with dropped calls.
The shield is clear and is applied to the outer edges of your device.
ZAGG, the company behind the Shield, says it was designed specifically to address the antenna issues of the smartphone.
The shield, as well as installation, is free to all consumers who purchased the smartphone at a Best Buy, or if you are a BB Reward Zone member and purchased the phone somewhere else.
Best Buy will also sell the shield for $10 if you do not fit the above criteria.
Furthermore, the retailer is offering 20 percent off all iPhone 4 cases until August 7th.
"Consumers are looking for immediate solutions and the Side Shield is a great option,"says Scott Moore of Best Buy Mobile. "At the same time, we know that customers are always looking for ways to personalize and protect their smart phones. That’s why we are so focused on having multiple options—people want to choose what’s right for them."
What was rumored earlier this week is now official; Disney is purchasing social gaming company Playdom, buying up the firm for which it already has an investment stake.
The company will pay at least $563.2 million for the start-up, with the price moving to $763.2 million if certain performance-based incentives are hit.
Playdom says it has over 42 million monthly active users, making it the fourth-largest developer on Facebook based on that metric.
Zynga remains the clear market leader in the space, with over 200 million monthly users on Facebook.
The social site has the most popular game on MySpace, "Mobsters," and a few other popular games such as "Big City Life," "Social City," "Bloodlines," and "Wild Ones."
Says Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey of the deal: "When you look for growth in the near and medium term, it's digital online that will likely be the real contributor. It definitely gives a bit more credibility to the market opportunity."
The popular Amazon Kindle e-reader has sold out online, with no estimated date for availability.
MaximumPC thinks there may be more to the normally common occurrence, saying there may be a system glitch, or even a "stealth launch" of a new Kindle model in the works.
Fans of the system will remember that the last time the Kindle was "sold out," Amazon debuted the Kindle 2.
Bloomberg reported last week that the e-tailer was planning to release the Kindle 3, a slimmer model with the sharper Pearl eInk display used by the new, updated Kindle DX.
Yahoo Japan, the biggest portal in the nation, has said today it will use Google's search engine to power its search instead of following Yahoo Inc.'s decision to use Microsoft's Bing for search.
By teaming up with Google, the venture will control almost 100 percent of the search market in the world's second largest economy.
Yahoo went with Microsoft after U.S. regulators blocked a deal with Google under anti-monopoly laws. Yahoo Inc. owns about 30 percent of Yahoo Japan.
Additionally, Yahoo Japan will "also adopt Google's search-linked advertisement delivery system and feed its data to Google sites," says Reuters.
Yahoo Japan President Masahiro Inoue said they thoroughly looked into both Microsoft's and Google's search technology and they found Microsoft's "not strong" enough for its needs. A main example cited was Japanese language search capabilities.
After months of speculation, Apple has finally, officially introduced their Magic Trackpad desktop companion.
The Trackpad allows desktop users to enjoy multitouch gestures, just like notebook users have enjoyed for years.
Apple's latest device connects to a Mac via Bluetooth, and will work from up to 33 feet away. The Magic Trackpad promises "months" of battery life.
The company says supported gestures are "two-finger scrolling, pinching to zoom, rotating with your fingertips, three-finger swiping, and activating Exposé or switching between applications with four fingers."
AT&T has finally priced the Dell Streak mini-tablet, selling the 5-inch tablet/phone for $300 with two-year contract and $550 without.
It is still unclear when the Streak will hit retail stores, but Dell and AT&T are already accepting pre-orders on the device.
The first colorway available will be black with red.
Dell launched the tablet/phone in the UK in June, to mixed reviews.
The device has a 5-inch display, phone capabilities, browsing capability, runs the Android OS and has a 5MP camera.
Unfortunately, the device uses Android 1.6, the now obsolete software which has been replaced on most new Android devices by 2.1 Eclair. An update to Froyo 2.2 is promised for later in the year, however.
Amazon has said today that deceased author Stieg Larsson has become the first in the Kindle Million Club, an honor bestowed to authors that have produced over one million Kindle e-book sales.
The Club is only for paid books, not counting the 1.8 million books available for free via the Kindle Store.
Larsson died in 2004 of a heart attack, and was best known for his "Millennium Trilogy" mystery crime novels. All three books, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" are top ten all-time best sellers for Kindle.
Four other authors; Charlaine Harris, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts have each sold over 500,000 Kindle books.
E-books, while increasing daily in sales, still have a way to go before catching up to their print brothers. In the United States, e-books account for 8.48 percent of all book sales, according to the Association of American Publishers.
The Kindle e-reader recently dropped in price from $250 to $190, and Amazon also released an updated Kindle DX for $379, a steep price drop off the first-generation device which sold for $489.
The first ever Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 by HTC, has finally been removed from T-Mobile's online and brick-and-mortar stores, marking the end of an era.
Android's first smartphone launched in September, 2008.
Frankly, it was only a matter of time before T-Mobile decided to drop the device as its 528 MHz processor, 3.2 inch display, and Android 1.6 OS are obsolete. The phone is also bulky.
While you can root your G1 to have Android 2.1 Eclair, it never ran as fast as you would hope, as the device was not made to handle the new software updates.
The G1's likely replacement is the HTC G1 Blaze, which has an expected September 9th release date. The phone will have a 1GHz processor and a 3.7-inch screen, along with a full QWERTY keypad.
Continuing its foray into the digital distribution world, giant video game retailer GameStop has announced it intends to purchase the social gaming site Kongregate for an undisclosed amount.
GameStop has been, for a long time, a brick-and-mortar business, with little pull in the digital distribution world.
Kongregate has 10 million players monthly, each of which uses the site to play Flash games while interacting with other players.
The site charges for virtual items and extra digital content and makes some money through advertisement.
GameStop says the acquisition will complete by August 1st, and founders Jim and Emily Greer will remain to lead the company.
Speaking of the acquisition, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said: "The addition of Kongregate is intended to hasten the transformation of GameStop's website from a purely e-commerce site to a gaming platform."
Pachter believes the company only paid between $12 million and $40 million for the site.
Following yesterday's announcement of a new DMCA exemption for jailbreaking mobile phones, an Apple representative sidestepped questions about whether the company plans to take action against individuals publishing jailbreaking tools.
Based on the company's filing with the Library Of Congress during the DMCA rulemaking process, they consider jailbreaking copyright infringement.
In that filing Apple said modification of the iPhone's bootloader and OS and the installation of that modified code on an iPhone infringes on their reproduction and modification rights under copyright law.
They also claim ownership of even the copy of the iOS on every iPhone.
The iOS license agreement does, in fact, state, "You own the media on which the iPhone Software is recorded but Apple and/or Apple’s licensor(s) retain ownership of the iPhone software itself."
However, in her report recommending adoption of the jailbreaking exemption Register Of Copyrights Marybeth Peters noted differences between iPhone software & the caselaw Apple cited in defense of their ownership claim. She pointed out, "law relating to who is the owner of a copy of a computer program under Section 117 is in flux."
While Facebook users have long complained about the inability to completely delete an account, it appears the social networking giant has taken that into account, testing a full "Delete Account" button in addition to the current "Deactivate Account" button.
In the past, to delete your account required deactivating it and then getting in touch with a Facebook staff member to finally have it truly deleted. After that, you have to not access your page for 14 days for it to stay completely deleted.
One-click will make the process significantly easier.
For now, the button can only be seen by a few select users, as it is part of a test.
Says Facebook: "…We are constantly testing new ideas, including the placement of various features. One of these recent tests included variations of the delete account option for a very small percentage of people."
Developer ZodTTD has added the first ever PS1 (PSX) emulator for the Android Market today, charging $6 for the app that will allow gamers to relive memories of the classic console.
Tested by the boys at Phandroid, it appears the emulator will run best on new Android devices, especially those using 1Ghz processors, as it lags on older devices.
"[Well], it's not the smoothest on all devices - you're definitely going to need a recent high-end handset to make the most out of the experience - but it's definitely more than we could [have] imagined at this point,"says the site.
"[Still], I can't help but [think] this won't be the most elegant experience on a mobile phone: there are just not enough physical buttons on a phone to emulate the original analog stick-equipped DualShock, and the screen real-estate needed to implement a software-based solution might not be the best for everyone."
Dubbed Psx4droid, the emulator's features include:
Support for WiiMote.
Multiple save states.
Support for various file types.
Trackball used as d-pad.
And remember folks, you'll need a PS BIOS file and ROMs in order to use the emulator.
While some lucky users have had the ability for months, Netflix has updated their PS3-based Watch Instantly service to include a Search function for all users.
Until this week, the search function for the PS3 was an assigned random beta.
A search function was easily the most-wanted feature for the service, eliminating the need to find and queue movies on your computer or smartphone before using the service.
The company has said it will add similar functionality to the Xbox 360 (and possibly Wii?) in November.
Additionally, CEO Reed Hastings noted that PS3 users may be able to soon ditch the streamingBlu-ray disc that must stay in their drives to use the service, as a disc-free version of Watch Instantly software for the PS3 could be available in October.
Says Hastings: "We expect to be launching a major new version of our Sony PS3 user interface which doesn't require a disc, and is dynamically updated continuously with the latest Netflix UI improvements."
Apple has noted today that the iPhone 4 will be made available in 17 more nations starting on July 30th.
Beginning on Friday, the device will be available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
The smartphone will be available at Apple Stores in the nations or through carriers and other authorized resellers.
Apple's latest device is currently only available in France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US.
It retails for $199 (16GB model) or $299 (32GB model) in the U.S. with contract.
Apple will announce "many more countries later this year," for iPhone 4 availability.
New DMCA exemptions announced by the Librarian Of Congress make it legal, at least in the US, to jailbreak mobile phones. The new exemption also allows the rooting of Android devices.
The Librarian Of Congress found that jailbreaking is generally done to enable fair use under US copyright law and that the objections of mobile phone providers and vendors were based on business model concerns rather than copyright protection. The exemption for unlocking phones for use on different mobile phone providers' networks was also renewed.
The exemption, which was proposed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and strenuously opposed by Apple, could open the floodgates for iPhone apps from major software vendors which would never have been available otherwise.
Thanks to Apple's use of encrypted code during the boot process it was previously a DMCA violation to reverse engineer the iOS. This has allowed them, through the App Store approval process and SDK Terms Of Service, to tightly control what apps were available for the iPhone and even what tools could be used to create them.
Apple, in an effort to move some of the negative publicity away from their iPhone 4 "antennagate" onto other phone makers, has released a video testing the new Motorola Droid X, which appears to have the same issues when held in the "death grip."
Posting the video on YouTube and their own site, Apple shows off the Droid X being held in two different grips, with the cell signal bars magnified in the corner.
When barely held, the phone has two bars. When held in the "death grip," the bars slowly but surely fall to zero.
While Apple may insist that every other smartphone has the same issues as their iPhone 4, has anyone heard complaints from a real user?
The Internet currently uses IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4), which uses 32-bit numbers, allowing for the availability of a total of 4 billion IP addresses.
According to experts, about 94 percent of those addresses have already been allocated, and the Internet may run out of IP addresses by 2011, at least under the current IPv4 system.
A new system, IPv6, would use 128-bit numbers, allowing for an almost infinite amount of IP addresses. So far, however, adoption has been slow.
If adoption of the new system doesn't happen soon, Google Internet evangelist Vint Cerf warns that a "black market" for IP addresses would start, taking "away from the decentralized nature of the Internet."
YouTube has announced this weekend that they have begun testing a new way of embedding code that would support both HTML5 and Flash.
By using "iframes," the code will either use the Flash plugin or switch to HTML5, depending on what device or browser you are currently using.
If the video has ad overlays, or other features not yet supported by HTML5, it will force Flash, but that is the only time.
Embedded videos should now work on Android and iOS devices, which do not have Flash support yet.
YouTube Mobile already has HTML5 built-in, but now the embedded videos will work on other sites, such as when browsing Afterdawn from your smartphone or tablet.
According to HP Executive VP Todd Bradley, the company has officially dropped any future plans to create smartphones with Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system.
All smartphones will come instead, with WebOS, the mobile operating system acquired by the company when it purchased Palm.
Adds Bradley: "Our intent is to focus those resources and really make webOS the best OS it can be."
HP is one of Microsoft's oldest partners, and the company did not want any bad blood, adding it would still "Microsoft's biggest customer," just not in the smartphone market.
Since acquiring Palm, HP has dropped plans for a Windows 7 tablet, and now for Windows Phone 7 phones.
Motorola, the other major American player in the smartphone market, has also declined to create Windows Phone 7 devices.
Chatroulette, the online video chat room, has announced this week that is taking steps to clean up the service, which has been riddled by sexual perverts, threatening those who regularly expose themselves on the service.
Founder Andrey Ternovskiy said this week that the company is now collecting evidence, and will contact law enforcement if need be.
Says Ternovskiy: "We’ve captured and saved thousands of IP addresses of alleged offenders, along with logs and screenshots which prove wrong behavior."
Continuing: "We’ve blocked thousands of IP addresses, reported offenders and service seems to be much cleaner than before. That is cool. Now give us some time to put new features in place."
Chatroulette, since its start earlier this year, has been criticized for the amount of people who are exposing themselves, especially since many minors use the site regularly.
Ternovskiy has made it clear he is not against nudity on the site, even introducing adult-themed channels, but is very against user exposing themselves to minors. Concludes the founder: "Broadcasting inappropriate content to minors is a violation of both US and UN law. We are actively cooperating with law enforcement agencies."
While Microsoft has long said they want to standardize the user experience of Windows Phone 7, HTC has said today that they plan to bring HTC Sense to their upcoming WP7 devices, skinning the smartphones like they have Android devices.
Additionally, HTC is moving forward with the Sense UI for Android 3.0 (Gingerbread).
Says Drew Bramford of HTC about the Sense UI for WP7: "We won't be able to replace as much of the core Windows Phone experience, but we will augment it."
In regards to Android 3.0, Google is rumored to be creating a user experience that will negate the need for extra skins, making Sense, MotoBLUR and TouchWiz, among others, useless.
Google, however, will likely not prohibit UI skins for 3.0, whereas Microsoft has been a bit more staunch on their stance.
According to a new survey released by the Yankee Group, 73 percent of iPhone owners are very satisfied with their AT&T service.
The overall satisfaction rate for AT&T subscribers is 68 percent, while 69 percent of general smartphone users say they are satisfied with the carrier.
Many will be surprised by the results, especially given the very vocal detractors of the carrier and Apple's recent debacles with privacy on the iPad and "antennagate" on the iPhone 4.
Not to mention that AT&T charges iPhone owners about $12 extra than their other smartphone users, per month.
AT&T says it is the victim of misconceived perception, and really, their network is not as bad as you might hear on the news.
"There's a gap between what people hear about us and what their experience is with us. We think that gap is beginning to close," adds Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman. "It doesn't mean we're perfect; we still have work to do. But that's no surprise to us, because we have a great network."
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Disney is looking to purchase social gaming company Playdom for over $500 million USD, buying up the firm for which it already has an investment stake.
Word of the acquisition comes just days after Zynga, the company behind the blockbuster sensation Farmville (among others) was a hit at the Allen & Co. media mogul gathering.
Playdom has the most popular game on MySpace, "Mobsters," and a few other popular games such as "Big City Life," "Social City," "Bloodlines," and "Wild Ones."
The company says it has over 38 million monthly active users, and its CEO was former president of publishing at EA. By comparison, Zynga has over 200 million active users.
Playdom, just like Zynga, makes most of its revenue from advertising and the sale of virtual goods.
Horatio Toure, of San Francisco, stole an iPhone today off a woman walking down the street and was promptly arrested 9 minutes later.
Why so fast? Toure stole an iPhone that was being used to test software that tracks GPS location in real-time, allowing the company and the authorities to track Toure's exact location everywhere he went.
The woman he stole the iPhone off of was Jordan Sturm, an assistant at Covia Labs, the company designing the software. Sturm was testing "Alert & Respond," the app that allowed for real-time GPS tracking.
David Kahn, the CEO of the company, was following Sturm on a laptop, showing off the "Alert and Respond" software to his PR team. Because Toure was riding a bike when he stole the device, it appeared, in real-time, that Sturm had suddenly grown wings or wheels, leading to suspicions by Kahn.
The suspicions were confirmed when Sturm ran back to the office and informed her boss.
Besides tracking location in real-time, the software can also remotely turn on the phone's camera and take a pic, or turn on the mic and record what is being said.
Verizon, the largest wireless carrier in the United States, reported earnings on Thursday and showed that they added more contract customers in the quarter than rival AT&T did, despite AT&T's exclusive rights to the latest iPhone.
For the quarter, Verizon added a net 665,000 contract customers, thanks mainly to a steady rollout of strong selling Android devices.
AT&T reported a net addition of 496,000 contract customers, even with the launch of the iPhone 4.
Those numbers, which follow a trend, have led many to believe that Apple has almost fully saturated the market for the iPhone with AT&T, with most new buyers being users upgrading from past iPhones.
"We still see a lot of upside here now that we're in a much better position from a device line-up perspective,"added Verizon CFO John Killian.
In the smartphone and "messaging device" market, however, AT&T hold a significant lead, with 53 of its contract subscribers owning such devices. Verizon only has 35 percent for that key stat.
Late last month, a man sued Facebook claiming he owns 84 percent of the social networking giant.
Paul Ceglia says he entered into a contract with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, for a 50 percent share, doing so for $1000 USD. In addition, Ceglia says the deal granted him 1 percent extra of the company for every day until the Web site was completed after January 2004.
The site took 34 days to complete.
Reads the signed contract: In return for the $1000 payment, Ceglia "would own a 50 percent interest in the software, programming language and business interests derived from the expansion of the [Facebook] service to a larger audience."
Facebook has come forward today with a strong denial of businessman Ceglia's claim to 84 percent of the social networking giant, going as far as to call the alleged contract in question a "forgery."
In his interview with "ABC World News" this week, Zuckerberg said: "I think we were quite sure that we did not sign a contract that says that they have any right to ownership over Facebook."
The company backed up its CEO saying: "Mark has made it clear that Ceglia's claims are absurd and we strongly suspect the contract is forged. However, we have not seen the original (no one has, including the court). Thus, we're focusing on the things that are not open to interpretation and are indisputable--Mark could not have given interest in a company that didn't exist or an idea he had not thought of yet and, even if he could, the statute of limitations has expired."
Apple, in the headlines recently for more negative reasons than not, has seen another setback in its upcoming launch of a white iPhone 4 model, which was initially set for a release day launch but was pushed back to "later in the summer."
Summer is here and there was no word about the white model, until this week.
Says Apple: "White models of Apple's new iPhone® 4 have continued to be more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected, and as a result they will not be available until later this year. The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected."
According to the Chinese newspaper 21st Century Business Herald, the delay comes from manufacturing problems in a Chinese factory with the company Lens Technology, which transforms raw glass into iPhone 4 glass panels.
Apple has never confirmed what is causing the delays on the white models.
The Chinese government has unblocked access to online pornography over the past two months, reports the AP, with porn sites and forums now accessible after years of being behind "The Great Firewall."
Pornographic websites have been available now for eight weeks, and there is still no word from officials in Beijing as to whether the move is an official change in policy.
Says Beijing-based internet analyst Zhao Jing: "This has never been done with the (Chinese) internet before." When asked why he believed the government was pulling such a move, he responded: "Maybe they are thinking that if internet users have some porn to look at, then they won't pay so much attention to political matters."
Those political matters are, of course, any website relating to human rights, or any challenge to the communist political authority in the nation.
There are 420 million Chinese connected to the Internet, by far the world's largest online population. It also has the world's most extensive censorship system, including technical filters and even human monitors.
Apple, following the PR disaster that was "antennagate," announced last week that they would be providing free cases to iPhone 4 buyers. The cases are intended to address the growing controversy over the phone's design flaw, which can cause dropped calls when it is held in a particular way.
Today, the have started the iPhone 4 Case Program giving owners a chance to get their free bumpers, while at the same time, getting full refunds for any case or bumper they have purchased since the phone's launch. Apple has set aside $175 million for the program.
If you are an iPhone 4 owner, the process is pretty simple:
1. Download the iPhone 4 Case Program app from the App Store.
2. Launch the app on your iPhone 4 and sign in using your iTunes Store account or Apple ID.
3. Select your Bumper or case.
If you purchased your iPhone 4 before today, you must apply for the program by August 22nd. For future buyers, up until September 30th, you will have 30 days from purchase time to apply.
Recently Howard Berman, chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, called a new customs enforcement operation to shut down P2P websites "innovative," and said he is exploring ways to expand it.
He was referring to the seizure of nine domain names last month which kicked off "Operation In Our Sites," an initiative spearheaded by US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). A number of questions surround the seizures.
The action was announced at a press conference held jointly by ICE head John Morton and representatives of MPAA member studios.
Although the rhetoric about "lost jobs and real hardships for ordinary working people" from piracy has been plentiful, specifics about what crimes were committed by most of the sites have been non-existent. Instead there has been an effort by government officials like Morton and Berman to confuse the issue by conflating unauthorized file sharing with counterfeiting, which seems to be where ICE comes in.
ICE is the agency responsible for dealing with counterfeit goods entering the US from other countries. However their only connection with copyright enforcement is as head of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center), which coordinates anti-piracy efforts between a number of Federal law enforcement agencies.
Researchers from the Tohoku University, in conjunction with Sony have announced the active development of a "blue-violet ultrafast pulsed semiconductor laser" that will be used for disc storage.
Say the researchers: "This latest successful development is an all-semiconductor laser picosecond pulse source with a laser wavelength of 405 nanometers (1 nm = one-billionth of a meter) in the blue-violet region. It is capable of generating optical pulses in the ultrafast duration of 3 picoseconds (1 picosecond = one-trillionth of a second), with ultrahigh output peak power of 100 watts and repetition frequency of 1 gigahertz. Advanced control of the newly-developed and proprietarily-constructed GaN-based mode-locked semiconductor laser and semiconductor optical amplifier have enabled peak output power in excess of 100 watts to be achieved, which is more than a hundred times the world’s highest output value for conventional blue-violet pulse semiconductor lasers."
Dell and its founder Michael S. Dell have agreed to pay over $100 million in penalties to settle charges of accounting fraud brought forward by the SEC.
The computer maker was accused of misleading investors after it used money received from Intel to pad its bottom line. Without the money, the company would have likely fallen short of analyst expectations, thus leading to a hit on their stock price.
Intel paid Dell the money as "rebates," part of shady agreement that would ensure Dell used Intel processors in their computers and not rival processors from AMD.
Dell eventually started offering computers with processors from AMD, and Intel cut the rebate checks. This led to a downturn in the computer maker's finances, and a hit on the stock share price, losing investors money.
"Dell manipulated its accounting over an extended period to project financial results that the company wished it had achieved but could not,"says Christopher Conte, associate director of the S.E.C.’s enforcement division. "Dell was only able to meet Wall Street targets consistently during this period by breaking the rules."
Steven Bird, the dev who goes by the alias "Birdman" has posted today that he has successfully rooted the Motorola Droid X, just six days after launch, easing worries that the locked-down smartphone would take weeks or even months to root.
There have been no custom ROMs created yet, but those are likely in the works over the next few weeks.
Says Phil Nickinson of Android Central: "We're talking root access, not custom ROMs just yet. But it's a big step. You'll need to be handy with the command line (and if you can copy and paste, you should be) and read the instructions, because everything on the Droid X will have root access after this."
Root access, and eventually custom ROMs, will give Droid X owners the advantages that other rooted Android device owners have, including the ability to backup your system to the SD card, superuser access to the Android operating system, running apps that require root, the ability to remove all apps installed on your phone (including MotoBLUR) and the ability to save apps to the SD card, to save internal memory space.
Microsoft has set the lofty goal of selling 30 million Windows 7 phones over the next few years, and the company has apparently gotten off to a quick start, purchasing a handset for all of their 90,000 employees.
Mary Jo Foley, the Microsoft guru behind ZDNet, tweeted the move today, retweeting a Microsoft employee: "90K down... just under 30 million to go: RT @simchabe: Woot. Every single microsoft employee will get a windows phone 7 #mgx"
Earlier in the day, senior product manager for Microsoft Greg Sullivan confirmed that Dell, Asus, LG, HTC and Samsung each have Windows Phone 7 devices in the pipeline.
Dell has already announced theirs, the extremely elegant Lightning, which uses Windows Phone 7, has a large 4.1-inch OLED screen, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a full QWERTY keypad, 512MB RAM, 1GB ROM, 8GB of internal storage for music, movies, etc, a 5MP camera with LED flash, and Adobe Flash, DivX and Microsoft Silverlight support.
AT&T, the second largest wireless carrier in the United States posted their quarterly earnings today, announcing a 26 percent jump in profit on a slight increase in revenue.
The company said they activated 3.2 million iPhones and an overall net wireless subscriber gain of 1.6 million.
Profit rose from $3.02 billion to $4.01 billion year-on-year, with revenue staying about even at $30.8 billion, up from $30.7 billion.
AT&T added that its U-verse TV revenues exceeded $1 billion for the first time, with subscribers jumping to 2.5 million, a 60 percent gain.
"We continue to see positive signs of growth in almost every customer segment of our business, especially wireless, which speaks to the quality of our execution and our leadership in the industry's most powerful growth driver -- mobile broadband,"says Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO.
Microsoft reported their latest quarterly earnings today and the company had its best quarter ever, thanks mainly to incredibly strong sales of the Windows 7 operating system.
The software giant says they have sold about 175 million licenses of Window 7, making it easily the fastest selling operating system in the company's history.
Furthermore, consumers and especially corporations have increased their purchases of Microsoft software.
Microsoft posted revenue of $16.04 billion, on 22 percent growth. Earlier this week, rival Apple posted their best quarter ever as well, seeing revenue of $15.7 billion.
The company had net profit of $4.52 billion, a 33 percent jump year-on-year.
Sales of Windows rose to $4.55 billion from $3.17 billion and sales of Office and other software rose to $5.25 billion from $4.57 billion.
The company's Entertainment and Devices group, which includes the Xbox 360 and Zune players, lost $172 million, closing in on profitability.
During the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference this week, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein has confirmed that the company, under the new management of HP, will also be creating WebOS netbooks, alongside tablets, smartphones and printers.
Says Rubinstein: "We're working a wide variety, as Todd said, smartphones definitely, slates, netbooks, working with the guys in the printer group. webOS [...] will have a unified user interface across all of these, will have a unified developer environment, and it's all based on the foundation that we build in webOS from day one.
When we developed webOS, we thought about making this scalable across a variety of mobile devices; that's what we'll be delivering going forward."
While tablets, printers and smartphones had been confirmed in the past by either HP or Palm, netbooks had only vaguely been mentioned.
In April, HP purchased Palm for $1.2 billion, after outbidding RIM, Apple and Lenovo.
Yesterday Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced plans to update the streaming video client for the PS3.
The update, which he expects to be available before the company's third quarter earnings are released in October, will eliminate the requirement for a disc. Besides the obvious convenience for customers, this will allow them to continually update the interface as the Netflix Watch Instantly UI is improved.
In the second quarter of 2010 year on year subscriber growth grew to an impressive 42%, which Hastings attributes primarily to the growing popularity of streaming. Although disc shipments continue to increase, they are being replaced by streaming more quickly than Netflix had forecast previously.
Pandora has announced today that they have reached 60 million registered listeners, seeing strong growth thanks to availability on a plethora of devices.
When 2009 began, the streaming music recommendation service had 20 million users. By the start of 2010 they had 40 million. It took until April to reach 50 million, and just over 3 months from that point to tack on another 10 million registered listeners.
Pandora says the growth is mainly thanks to expansion on mobile devices. Apps on the iPhone and Android devices are regularly the most popular free apps available and Apple finally updated to mutli-tasking with iOS4, giving users the ability to stream the music in the background, via 3G or Wi-Fi.
Android users have always had that ability.
Furthermore, Pandora is now becoming a standard on set-top boxes from many different device manufacturers.
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the syndicate of technology, cable and entertainment companies has introduced their long awaited cloud-based digital locker today, dubbing the service Ultraviolet.
Consumers would create an Ultraviolet account which would allow them to purchase movies, TV shows and music and access it from any web-connected device like HDTVs, Blu-ray players, smartphones, tablets and gaming consoles.
Googleannounced last week that HTC had shipped out the last batch of Nexus One smartphones, and the phone would reach the end of its lifespan once Google sells the remaining stock.
That day has come and Google has stopped selling the devices, effectively ending their "superphone" experiment.
Google had offered the device for $530 unlocked or $180 with contract through T-Mobile.
Would-be buyers visiting the Nexus One online store are now greeted with this message: "Sorry, folks. The Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly from Google."
The Nexus One was supposed to "fundamentally change the way phones are sold," but it never really did. Buyers were not satisfied with the 360 degree virtual tour of the phone, preferring to feel and actually see the device before purchasing it.
In their most recent report on the status of broadband internet in the US, the FCC has finally admitted "broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion."
Although this is the sixth Broadband Deployment Report to be issued by the agency since 1999, it is the first to reach this conclusion. Previous reports have been widely criticized for both the benchmark by which broadband was defined and the methodology for determining service areas.
For example, in the last report, from 2008, 200kbps downstream (download) speed was still considered broadband. Additionally, a single address capable of broadband service was equated to the entire zip code being served.
In the current report notes, "Our examination of overall Internet traffic patterns reveals that consumers increasingly are using their broadband connections to view high-quality video, and want to be able to do
so while still using basic functions such as email and web browsing."
In order to more accurately reflect that reality the standard for broadband has been raised to 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Service areas were based on numbers from the National Broadband Plan, published earlier this year.
Marking a first, an unemployed 31-year old has been arrested in Japan this week for sharing unauthorized TV shows via BitTorrent.
The arrest is the first ever in Japan for torrent use.
Shuichiro Tanaka of Saitama Prefecture was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department’s cyber crimes division for allegedly uploading and sharing TV shows.
The authorities said that from June 4th to 9th, Tanaka captured the programs using his computer then uploaded them via BitTorrent.
Over the course of the year, Tanaka allegedly uploaded 165 episodes of different shows such as "Waratte Iitomo" and "Genius! Shimura Zoo."
When asked why he uploaded the shows, Tanaka plainly said: "I did it for people who missed the programs. Because there is a potential for viruses on Winny [another popular Japanese peer-to-peer file sharing program] and others, I used BitTorrent, which I heard police weren’t investigating."
Yesterday, after the market closed, Apple crushed their quarterly earnings, having its best quarter ever.
Apple reported revenue of $15.7 billion, a 62 percent jump, year-on-year (YoY). Analysts had expected revenue of $14.75 billion for the quarter.
Net profit rose to $3.25 billion a massive 78 percent jump YoY.
While the numbers were impressive, most fans were more intrigued by Apple's implication that it was releasing multiple new products by the end of the year.
Said CEO Steve Jobs: "It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around. And we have amazing new products still to come this year."
Jobs stopped there, but the comments have gotten the rumor mill in full swing. Most believe the new products are a rehauled iPod Touch with multiple cameras and a completely rehauled Apple TV.
At the time, Jobs said: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace."
Two years later and Blu-ray is mainstream but Jobs is still anti-Blu. Last month he said the following: "Blu-ray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD - like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats."
This week, the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) has responded, saying Jobs is wrong in his assertions that Blu-ray is just for a niche market and that it will soon be replaced by streaming and HD downloads.
Google has said today that 55.5 percent of all Android smartphones are now running 2.1 Eclair.
22.1 percent of Android users are still running 1.6 Donut and 18.9 percent are still using a variant of 1.5 Cupcake.
The numbers are moving quickly, however, as in May in the figures were 37.2 percent for 2.1, 28 percent for 1.6, and a huge 34.1 percent for 1.5.
Although it has not officially released the latest software update, 2.2 Froyo, to any device besides the Nexus One, Google says 3.3 percent of all handsets are running the advanced update, likely meaning a decent portion of Droid, Incredible, EVO 4G and other owners are running rooted devices with Froyo.
Froyo has been promised, officially, for the above mentioned devices, and others like the MyTouch 3G Slide and Samsung Galaxy S by the end of the year.
Late last month, a man sued Facebook claiming he owns 84 percent of the social networking giant.
Paul Ceglia says he entered into a contract with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, for a 50 percent share, doing so for $1000 USD. In addition, Ceglia says the deal granted him 1 percent extra of the company for every day until the Web site was completed after January 2004.
The site took 34 days to complete.
Reads the signed contract: In return for the $1000 payment, Ceglia "would own a 50 percent interest in the software, programming language and business interests derived from the expansion of the [Facebook] service to a larger audience."
Facebook immediately called the suit "frivolous" and said it expected it to be thrown out.
This week, a lawyer for Facebook has said she was "unsure" whether Zuckerberg signed the contract, giving credibility to Ceglia's case.
Last month, AT&T killed off the popular "unlimited" data plan for new smartphone users, instead creating tiered, capped plans.
Verizon confirmed last month they were considering doing the same, and it appears they may be ready to do so before the end of the month, killing off their "unlimited" 5GB data plan in exchange for tiered plans.
Engadget has reported that Verizon will introduce the new scheme on July 29th.
Reportedly, the plan will be $15 for 200MB of data per month, and $25 for 2GB.
For those that want to keep their unlimited plans and not worry about paying expensive premiums for less data, T-Mobile and Sprint have said they have no intention of capping connections.
Verizon official tech reps have confirmed today via Twitter that the HTC Incredible will be receiving the Android 2.2 Froyo update soon, either during the end of this month or at the beginning of August.
Says the original Tweet: "HTC DROID Incredible to be updated to Froyo end of July, early August [ link ]
Furthermore, Incredible owners will finally get 720p video recording support, 802.11n Wifi, Verizon's 3G Wifi hotspot, Amazon's MP3 store and a couple of other apps and widgets.
Although the Twitter account is not corporate, the guys behind the VZWTechSupport account say the following: "Officially unofficial. We are official technical reps but are not endorsed directly by corporate. Which may be a good thing? :)"
Additionally, the reps say the Motorola Droid will likely get the OTA update in early August, as well.
A New York judge rejected a plea for lenient sentencing when he determined photos of the defendant performing various charitable works were altered.
Instead he sentenced Daryl Simon, convicted of credit card fraud, to almost 24 years (285 months) in prison. The sentence was more than 4 years more than the maximum under sentencing guidelines.
According to prosecutors, "Evidence that his image was inserted and flipped can be seen by examining the single detail on his shirt above his fingers -- that detail appears on the left side of the shirt in the top photograph, and on the right side of the shirt in the bottom photograph."
In addition to the digitally altered photos, Simon also presented fake letters from various charitable organizations.
Although the Microsoft store and many retailers have had the motion control system priced at $150 for some time, the company had refused to confirm the price, officially.
Today, the mystery is no longer a mystery, as Microsoft has confirmed the official price is in fact $150. The system will ship November 4th as leaked, and will come bundled with "Kinect Adventures."
NokiaSiemens has said this week it will purchase Motorola's wireless-network equipment division for $1.2 billion in cash.
The company is a joint telecommunications venture between Nokia and Siemens and the division being purchased supplies carriers with equipment needed to build LTE, WiMax and 3G infrastructure.
Nokia says the acquisition will help it improve its position in the United States and Japan, two nations where sales have been low and brand recognition is low as well.
"First and foremost, this deal is about customers,"says Rajeev Suri, CEO of Nokia Siemens. "We expect to gain an incumbent position with many new customers and strengthen our position with others."
With the acquisition, Suri says Nokia will establish new relationships with China Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Clearwire.
The deal will close by the end of the year, and Nokia will bring on 7500 Motorola employees.
Sharp has announced today that they plan to enter the crowded e-reader/e-book market, hoping to take a piece while the market is still in its toddler years.
The company will offer an e-book distribution service by the end of the year, and a reader that will allow users to playback audio and video content.
Later this year Netflix will be expanding their Watch Instantly streaming video service, making it available to Canadian residents.
In addition to being the first service offered by the home video rental giant outside the US, it will also mark the first time they have offered streaming by itself. To date their streaming video offering has been an add on to their popular rent by mail DVD and Blu-ray service.
That's not likely to be changing any time soon for US customers. When the plan for streaming outside the US was first mentioned last October, CEO Reed Hastings was clear that it was purely due to the logistical issues of shipping discs internationally.
And selling the exclusively online service to Canadians isn't a sure winner either. Although Netflix has made some headway in licensing new releases and increasing their selection of recent TV episodes for streaming, such arrangements are still the exception.
Canadians interested in the service can go to www.netflix.ca and sign up for email notification when the service launches.
Wired has written a very interesting exposé this week on the relationship between AT&T and its star player in the smartphone market, Apple, with the site claiming Apple actively considered pulling the iPhone from the carrier at least five times.
In 2007, with the launch of the original iPhone, AT&T asked Apple to start limiting use of the YouTube app via 3G, asking them to limit it to only Wi-Fi. Apple refused, saying it would not "gimp" its device to help the overburdened network.
That fight was the first of many, and allegedly Apple CEO Steve Jobs began looking into a jump to Verizon at that point, very early into the relationship.
While the company looked into Verizon "seriously," the move would have required developers to build the smartphone "from scratch" all over again, moving from GSM to CDMA. There was also, of course, the exclusivity pact with AT&T.
Additionally, there were other battles, such as over tethering, where AT&T wanted to charge, and Apple wanted it included in the monthly data plan. The ability to tether now costs $20 extra per month.
Amazon has said today that Kindle e-reader sales have tripled since the e-tailer dropped the price of the device last month.
E-books sales now out pace that of physical books, as well, adds the giant e-tailer.
The Kindle dropped in price from $250 to $190, and Amazon also released an updated Kindle DX for $379, a steep price drop off the first-generation device which sold for $489.
As has been policy, Amazon did not release any specific numbers on how many units were sold.
Rival Barnes & Noble last month also lowered the price of the popular Nook e-reader.
"In addition, even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format,"added CEO Jeff Bezos. "Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books -- astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months."
If Apple continues its trend of strong revenue growth for the upcoming quarter, the company will surpass Microsoft in overall revenue, for the first time ever.
Apple is expected to report a massive $14.62 billion in revenue for the quarter, but some analysts expect revenue as high as $15.74 billion. Microsoft, on the other hand is expected to report $15.25 billion in revenue with a high estimate of $15.73 billion.
Microsoft dominates the personal computing world, with Windows found on 90 percent of computers worldwide and Office or Works found on nearly all computers that require a word processing suite.
Apple, on the other hand, completely dominates the MP3 player market with the iPod, the tablet market with the iPad and a decent chunk of the smartphone market, with the iPhone.
In April, Apple reported that revenue jumped to $13.50 billion, thanks to strong Mac computer and iPhone sales.
If you are an active Twitter user, you have undoubtedly used or seen the URL shortener bit.ly.
Gigaom is reporting today that Yahoo is actively considering acquiring the shortening service, with interest growing over the past two months.
Bit.ly is said to have raised up to $5 million in venture capital since its launch in early 2009.
Although unconfirmed, Bit.ly was reportedly asking for up to $100 million in a sale to Google.
Says the source: "What Yahoo wants to do is aggregate its users’ activities from around the web. The Facebook Connect integration is the first in a string of coming deals with other social sites… And now, at the center of Yahoo’s new open social strategy, is a product called Yahoo Updates, which consists of activity streams shown in Yahoo Mail, on its front page, in Yahoo Messenger clients and on its toolbars."
The larger question remains, however, whether Bit.ly, which tracks the click-performance of the shortened URLs, and any conversations linked to that URL, is worth the multi-million dollar valuation.
Apple has confirmed today that the popular iPad will be launched in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore starting this Friday.
All 3G and Wi-Fi models of the tablet will be available in each nation.
As of today, the tablet is available in the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland.
In the United States, the device retails for between $499 and $829, depending on the model.
Apple announced in late June that they had sold 3 million units of the iPad, in just 80 days.
HP has filed for a trademark application for the term PalmPad, which has led many observers to suggest that the company will name their upcoming WebOS tablet by the name.
Even on the simplest level, the name implies use of WebOS, which was created by Palm on a tablet, although everything is speculation at this point.
Gawker, the parent company behind tech site Gizmodo, has said this weekend that they have reached an agreement with authorities in California where they will give all material relevant to the investigation, in exchange for receiving back items seized from editor Jason Chen's home.
In April, Gizmodo leaked a prototype iPhone 4 model to the world, and within the month, California's Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team had seized Chen's computers, working on a warrant from the Superior Court of San Mateo.
The iPhone 4 model was dropped in a bar by Apple developer Gray Powell, and eventually purchased by Gizmodo for $5000 USD.
On request from Apple, the district attorney's office had opened an investigation into whether Gawker had done anything illegal in the matter.
In late June, Microsoft confirmed they were pulling the plug on the Kin One and Kin Two smartphones, after sales fell well below expectations.
Additionally, the Kin phones will not make it to Europe as promised, and the entire Kin team has been moved over to the company's Windows Phone 7 division.
Today, the devices have seen the last nail in their respective coffins, as Verizonhas opted to return all unsold devices to Microsoft, with online and in-store sales suspended as of this weekend.
Although it is still unclear how many Kin devices were sold, but nearly all estimates put units sold between 503 and 9000, an incredibly low number for a device sold on the nation's most popular network.
Verizon is now only selling some accessories for the phones.
Facebook will announce this week that the social networking giant has reached 500 million members, a gigantic milestone projected for 2010 earlier in the year.
As a way to celebrate the achievement, the company will launch "Facebook Stories," a "visual memorial" to the ways that the site has changed people's lives for the better.
The figures come from Facebook marketing boss Randi Zuckerberg last week, who says while past announcements have just been about the numbers, this announcement will be "about the users."
Facebook Stories will sort user-submitted stories by location and theme.
A few of the themes are "finding love" and "natural disasters," and the stories will be capped at 420 characters, the same as a status update.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has said this weekend that the company must delay its South Korean launch of the iPhone 4, as they still cannot secure government approval in that nation.
"It's going to take just a little bit longer to get government approval there,"notes Jobs.
South Korea was one of the eighteen nations that had a July release date for the popular smartphone.
The other 17 still have active July release dates set.
KT, the exclusive carrier for the device in South Korea would not give a time frame for release: "I believe you were confounded by the news that the iPhone 4 launch is delayed. But it does not change (the fact) that the iPhone 4 will be launched."
The nation saw their first iPhone, the 3GS offered in 2009, almost three years after the launch of the original iPhone.
Voltage sued 5000 unidentified pirates accused of downloading the 2009 Best Picture, and the company said a lot more were coming.
The movie was leaked to the Internet, in full DVD quality, about 6 months before its nationwide release in the U.S. Despite winning Best Picture, the film only grossed $17 million USD domestic in theaters.
Voltage is backed by the U.S. Copyright Group, a group devoted to suing alleged pirates on behalf of independent film production companies.
After the pirates were identified by their IP addresses they were sent letters demanding $1500 to settle. If the case eventually goes to court, Voltage says it will be seeking $150,000 in damages.
The U.S. Copyright Group will begin the second round of lawsuits starting August 1st, says THR, with up to 45,000 more suits expected.
Boxee CPO Zach Klein has released a video today showing off a production model of the highly anticipated Boxee Box.
The video implies that Boxee will begin mass production on the box now, with a release date not too far in the future.
Boxee's "sinking box" design is still intact, but it has been given a slightly more refined look and a more fingerprint-resistant finish.
The Box is a media hub, as well as a set-top box, whose primary purpose is to stream music, photos and video from within a local network or use streaming services such as Pandora and video sites.
Boxee Box uses a fast NVIDIA Tegra chipset, which will allow for 1080p video playback and hardware-accelerated Flash 10.1.
If you have been following AfterDawn over the past two weeks, you have undoubtedly read about "antennagate," Apple's ongoing iPhone 4 situation.
The iPhone 4, due to flawed hardware engineering, drops phone calls when held in the left hand, as your hand covers the antenna.
Yesterday, CEO Steve Jobs announced the company would be providing free cases to iPhone 4 buyers, as the bumpers would eliminate the antenna issues.
Jobs says the number of dropped calls per dials is tiny, but so far the problem has been a PR disaster for Apple.
Whoopi Goldberg, of the popular TV show "The View," went on a rant yesterday about the iPhone and its dropped calls, saying it made her so angry that she threw the phone out of her car, "murdering" it.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who left the company as an executive in the 80s while fighting cancer, has pledged $7 billion of his $13.5 billion fortune to philanthropy after he dies.
The decision follows the footsteps of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who have both pledged billions to philanthropy.
Allen and Gates founded Microsoft in 1975, and the company was long the largest tech company in the world, only recently overtaken by Apple in terms of market cap.
Over the last twenty years, through his Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, the billionaire has handed out $1 billion in grants.
"Today I also want to announce that my philanthropic efforts will continue after my lifetime,"said Allen. "I've planned for many years now that the majority of my estate will be left to philanthropy to continue the work of the Foundation and to fund nonprofit scientific research."
There was no word on how the money would be directed after his death.
During his Q&A session yesterday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs revived the iPhone on Verizon rumors for the United States.
When asked about how the Apple headquarters in Cupertino has such good cell and data reception, Jobs said: "We’ve got strong signal here. We have AT&T and Verizon cell sites on campus."
While the comment could be innocent given the fact that Verizon is the most popular carrier in the United States, the flames of Verizon iPhone rumors over the years have been rekindled thanks to the comment.
Apple could be in development of a Verizon iPhone, and needs the cell site, no one outside of Apple knows.
Last month, Bloomberg cited sources that claimed Apple will make a Verizon iPhone 4 available starting in January. That rumor is of course still unconfirmed.
Although hardware saw a nice jump for the month, NPD has reported that June U.S. video game industry sales continued the long term downtrend, with overall sales falling 6 percent year-on-year (YoY), to $1.1 billion USD.
Hardware sales saw a nice five percent pop, to $401.7 million, and accessories saw a similar jump to $169.6 million.
Software dragged the entire industry down, falling 15 percent YoY to $531.3 million.
On the hardware side, the DS series led the way, at 510,700 units sold. The Xbox 360 saw a nice boost, moving to 451,700 units sold, beating out the Wii, which sold 422,500 units for the period.
Following behind were the Sony consoles, with the PS3 at 304,800 and the dying PSP handheld at 121,000.
On the software side, Red Dead Redemption continues to be a blockbuster, selling almost a million more units in June.
According to Google CFO Patrick Pichetter, the search giant had to spend about $100 million to defend itself from Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit against video giant YouTube.
It is important to note that the case did not even make it to trial so the expected attorney's fees would likely have been much higher.
Last month, a judge threw out the case, saying Google was protected under the DMCA's "safe harbor" provision.
Viacom has promised an appeal, but their chances of a victory seem slim, at best.
"Safe Harbor" protects sites such as YouTube from being sued for copyright infringement, as long as they are actively taking down infringing material when asked by content holders. In his judgement, the judge pointed to a day when Viacom gave Google a takedown notice with 100,000 URLs, and the site took down all the videos within 24 hours.
According to Verizon, the wireless carrier has sold out of their first batch of Motorola Droid X smartphones, with would-be buyers needing to wait for at least a week for the next shipment.
The site says anyone who orders now will not receive their phone until the 25th.
Additionally, brick-and-mortar sites seem to be in low stock, as well, with most retail stores called saying they are out of stock.
Most stores were given 50 of the device, which sold out before noon on launch day.
The device has a 4.3-inch, 16:9 multitouch display with 854x480 resolution, a 1GHz OMAP processor, 512MB RAM, HDMI-out, DLNA support, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Hotspot tethering.
Google has confirmed today that the Android Market has hit 70,000 apps available, well on its way to 100,000 before the end of the year.
Google's Senior VP of Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg confirmed the number during the search giant's Q2 earnings call this week.
Furthermore, Android search grew by 300 percent in the first half of 2010, with strong growth expected to continue in the second half. Overall revenue jumped by 24 percent year-on-year and profit increased by 19 percent, as well.
Google has announced that HTC has shipped the last batch of Nexus One superphones, meaning the phone has reached the end of its lifespan once Google sells the remaining stock.
"Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google," adds the search giant.
Due to lack of interest, the company will move sales from online to some brick-and-mortar retailers. A few of these locations are Vodafone stores in Western Europe, I Wireless in the U.S. and KT store in Korea.
Developers would still be able to access the phone through a "partner," although it is unclear who.
The Google Nexus One is one of the few phones to officially receive the Android 2.2 Froyo update.
Google offered the device for $530 unlocked or $180 with contract through T-Mobile.
Speaking at Apple's Cupertiono, California headquarters this morning, CEO Steve Jobs announced the company will be providing free cases to iPhone 4 buyers. The cases are intended to address a growing controversy over the phone's design flaw, which can cause dropped calls when it is held in a particular way.
Although the problem has only affected a small percentage of users, the controversy surrounding Apple's response has been a PR disaster.
While still not admitting there is anything wrong with the phone's design, Jobs did admit that iPhone users on AT&T have experienced slightly more dropped calls with the new model compared to the previous one.
The increase isn't anywhere near what you might expect given the amount of coverage this issue has received. However, it does seem to contradict Apple's claims that, "the iPhone 4’s wireless performance is the best we have ever shipped."
A company spokesman told the Wall Street Journal, "We challenge Bloomberg BusinessWeek to produce anything beyond rumors to back this up. It's simply not true."
As with many Apple statements, this one doesn't necessarily mean what it appears to on the surface.
For starters, Apple doesn't allow employees to disclose what goes on inside the company. In particular, they declined any comment on the story when approached by Bloomberg & denied their request for an interview with the antenna engineer who supposedly reported the issue to Apple management.
Apple's claim is disingenuous at best, & perhaps downright dishonest. It would be impossible for Bloomberg, or anyone else for that matter, to prove much of anything that goes on behind the scenes at Apple thanks to their nigh impenetrable wall of non disclosure agreements.
The latest rumor today circulating the Internet is that HP has discontinued development of its Android tablet, instead moving all those resources towards its WebOS tablets.
Says AllthingsD: "Sources in position to know tell me that HP's Android slate has been delayed and won't ship before the end of the year as planned."
While that could mean the tablet simply is just delayed, most likely HP has scrapped it.
Futhermore, the site says LG has abandoned their Windows 7 tablet in favor of an Android model.
Says an LG source: "The Windows 7 tablet was always sort of a concept exercise and should never have gone public at Microsoft's stand at Computex. As you can imagine, Microsoft was very eager to show off this device even though it has never been green-lighted for production at LG."
Earlier in the year, HP scrapped plans for the Windows 7 tablet dubbed "Slate."
The BusinessInsider has reported today that both Apple and RIM bid on Palm before HP eventually purchased it in April for $1.2 billion.
Citing talks with someone close to the discussions, the site says Apple wanted Palm's library of intellectual property and their patents. Palm has 450 patents on file and 400 more applications on file.
Furthermore, Apple seemed willing to leave Palm independent, funding their operations. It is believed that Apple wanted to take a bite of rival RIM's dominance of the smartphones with keyboards market.
On the other end, RIM had the deal locked up but "had to work incredibly hard to blow it," and they did.
Other giants, like Nokia and Google, did not get into the bidding although it appears Google looked into it when it became clear Apple was interested as well.
According to AndroLib, the Android Market has reached 1 billion downloads in just under two years since the app store was launched.
For comparison's sake, Apple's App Store has just over 5 billion apps downloaded since the store launched in 2007.
Google says there are 160,000 Android-based devices being activated daily, and the Android Market continues to expand on its way to 100,000 apps available. Once again, for comparison's sake, the Apple App Store has 225,000 apps available. The Android Market has added 11,000 new apps already in the first two weeks of July, for a total of 93,000.
61 percent of the apps are free compared to 39 percent paid, but a strong majority of the apps downloaded are free ones.
With the launch of the Droid X there are now over 60 Android models available globally.
According to a report in the Chinese-language Commercial Times, HTC will launch six new smartphones in the Q4 which will boost sales to 8.5 million, a record quarter.
The devices will be launched in the U.S. and Europe.
Citing sources within the industry, the report implied that HTC will be launching the HTC Vision in Europe later in the year (possibly October), an Android device that runs on dual 1.2GHz processors.
Additionally, the company will be launching its first Windows Phone 7 smartphone, codename "Mondrain."
Mondrain is expected to have a 1.3 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Current high-end phones have 1GHz processors.
For T-Mobile in the U.S., two mid-end phones, the "Vanguard" and "Emerald" are expected in November.
Palm's updated WebOSfirmware, version 1.4.5, has now made it to three countries in Europe, via O2 in Germany, France and the UK.
However, there appears to be a bug in the software that causes the "media/internal drive to be marked as read-only for PDK applications," says MobileBurn.
Despite the bug, Palm will continue a full European rollout of the update.
1.4.5 is expected to hit Bell in Canada in the upcoming weeks, also, while American fans are still waiting.
Says Palm, of the bug: "We've spent the last week attempting to address this issue in a way that would not require restarting the carrier certification process, but we've concluded that this is not possible. Restarting certification would delay 1.4.5 substantially and could result in some wireless operators not taking the update at all."
In late April, HP announced it was purchasing the struggling smartphone maker Palm for $1.2 billion, including all patents, licenses, and the rights to WebOS.
Amazon's German-language site has posted an Xbox 360 4GB Arcade bundle today for pre-order, a unit that is likely the cheaper slim hardware that Microsoft promised last month.
The 4GB means the system will include that amount of storage, likely as a USB flash drive or built-in NVRAM.
Microsoft's current Xbox Arcade model only has 512MB of NVRAM.
Amazon's listed system is priced at €148.99 (about $190 USD), which will make it the cheapest Xbox 360 console to date.
There is also the addition of "bundle" into the name, which means there is the possibility of a game bundled, or at least some Xbox Arcade credit.
The e-tailer has the street date listed as August 20th, 2010, which is during the Gamescom 2010 event.
While users have been able to playback Audible audiobooks on their iPhones/Touches for some time, the company has finally launched a standalone app for the devices.
The new app, available in the Apple App Store, is also available for the iPad. The app features Wi-Fi delivery of the Audible books, iOS4 multitasking, listening stats, and other smaller features.
Included is the standard audiobook features of chapter navigation, bookmarks, viewing/listening controls and the ability to control audio playback with gestures, eliminating the need for buttons.
Using iOS 4 to the fullest, the app has background audio playback and downloading.
As an incentive to get non-members to sign up, if you create an account through the app, you will get a free excerpt of David Kirkpatrick’s The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World
According to an article from Bloomberg, anonymous sources are claiming Apple was aware of the iPhone 4's antenna design problem months before it went on sale.
One source at Apple, reportedly said senior Apple enginner and antenna expert Ruben Caballero brought the issue to the attention of management as early as last year. Another source indicated that one of Apple's carrier partners raised similar concerns prior to last month's launch.
Apple has declined to make Caballero available for comment on the matter. Hardly surprising considering the company's long established policy of secrecy regarding all internal matters.
Since the iPhone 4's debut there have been numerous complaints about reception problems related to its external antennas. To date they've characterized it as nothing more than a typical issue experienced with all mobile phones despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Every iPhone launch has been followed by a certain number of people complaining of reception issues. But in this case those voices are being joined by more influential sources like Consumer Reports.
Netflix is expanding its lineup of TV shows available for streaming through their Watch Instantly service thanks to a new agreement with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. The deal will make all 100 episodes of Nip/Tuck available to Netflix subscribers for the next four years.
Also included in the agreement, which really just extends the two companies' existing arrangement, are other TV series, including Veronica Mars, Pushing Daisies & Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
The existing license for streaming a selection of Warner's catalog movie titles has also been renewed for the same four year period.
A deal made earlier this year, which forces Netflix customers to wait 28 days from the DVD/Blu-ray release date to get Warner Bros. new releases on disc remains in place. In fact, increased availability of streaming content was almost certainly a factor in Netflix's decision to make such a deal.
As they continue to improve their streaming lineup this is likely to be less and less important to them. Although disc rentals continue to be the cornerstone of their business, Netflix executives have made it clear in recent years that they believe streaming will eventually replace it.
Consumer Reports has tested out a case sold by Apple Inc. and confirmed that it does fix antenna problems with the iPhone 4. The antenna problems affect signal levels when the iPhone handset is held in a certain way. The problem particularly affects lefties. Apple has called a press conference for Friday that is expected to address the issue.
The influential publication has refused to recommend the iPhone 4 to consumers until Apple comes up with a free fix for the antenna problem, even though it praised the handset for other features such as its high quality display and video camera. It tested a "Bumper" with the iPhone 4, which is sold by Apple for $29, and confirmed that it works.
"The Bumper solves the signal-strength problem,"Paul Reynolds of Consumer Reports said in a blog posting. "So does a piece of duct tape, as we reported earlier, or just being careful how you hold the phone. But these options all put the onus on consumers to solve or pay for a fix. We're still calling on Apple to provide an acceptable free solution to the iPhone 4's signal-loss problem."
Apple has announced that it will hold a surprise press conference on Friday to address antenna issues with the iPhone 4 handset. The issue has plagued the iPhone 4 launch, which originally looked like a complete success. Whilst features like its display and video recording quality have received considerable praise, the antenna issue has been a thorn in Apple's side and a threat to its sales.
Apple spokesman Steve Dowling made the announcement late on Wednesday. The press conference will be held at 10am on Friday at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino. He declined to give any details about how Apple plans to address the problem. The company is facing at least three lawsuits related to the issue, which causes signal loss when the device is held in a certain way.
After appearing to dismiss or ignore the problem, the company has only caused itself more public relations damage, turning a possibly minor issue into global headline news. Analysts don't expect Apple to announce a full recall, but urge the company to at least offer free iPhone cases that will fix the antenna issues or find another way to make the problem go away for end users.
The NPD Group has conducted research that shows a significant amount of interest in a cloud-based music subscription service using the iTunes platform in the United States. It surveyed users of iTunes, iPod and iPhone models about various music subscription model concepts.
The "iTunes usage report" showed that more than a qaurter of respondents expressed "strong interest" in a free cloud-based music option, while "many others were willing to pay to access their music libraries from multiple devices or platforms."
"Between 7 million and 8 million iTunes users in the U.S. would have strong interest in one of the paid subscription options,"NPD concluded. "These consumers indicated a willingness to pay a minimum monthly fee of $10--either for streaming music or access to their personal music libraries on multiple devices."
Apple is rumored to be working on a music subscription service and had already spoken to several executives from the four major record companies in January. Meanwhile, Apple's growing arch-rival Google Inc. is also working on its own music services.
Google Inc. has announced on one of its blogs that it is testing mutliple accounts sign-ins using a single browser. The post admits that it has big limitations for now, such as only being available for Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Code, but said it is likely more services and support will be added in the future.
If you use a service that doesn't support multiple sign-in, it will default to the first account that you signed in using your browser. Another limitation is that Gmail's offline mode is disabled if you turn on multiple sign-in.
Multiple sign-in will let you open Gmail in multiple tabs, log in using different accounts and read the messages from all your accounts without opening another browser. Right now, you have to log out before logging in to a different account.
After being shown to an audience at E3 2009, the virtual character "Milo", who can be interacted with using Microsoft's Kinect, was not seen again until now. At the TED Global conference in Oxford, Microsoft showed off the virtual boy and how he reacts to a person's emotions, body movements and voice.
"I want to introduce a new revolution in storytelling," games designer Peter Molyneux told the audience. He declared that films, television and books were rubbish to him because they do not involve the audience, adding that he wanted to make a character that seemed alive, and that would "look me in the eyes and feel real."
An assistance conducted a demo showing Milo exploring a garden. "We're changing the mind of Milo constantly," he said. "No two people's Milos can be the same - you are actually sculpting a human being. Some of the things you are doing will change the course of his life."
He said Milo was built using artificial intelligence technology developed by his firm, as well as technology "hidden away in the dusty vaults of Microsoft." Milo exploits psychological techniques to make a person feel that he is real. "Most of it is just a trick - but it is a trick that actually works,"Molyneux said.
Microsoft's latest "Patch Tuesday" updates will be the last offered for Windows XP SP2 or Windows 2000 as had been previously announced. The Redmond-based giant issued four security-related advisories addressing several security bugs. One of the patched vulnerabilities was controversially described by a Google engineer, Tavis Ormandy, before Microsoft has a chance to push out a fix for the issue.
That particular bug, which was exploited quickly by criminals, affected the Windows Help and Support Center. Another two updates cover laws in the Microsoft Access ActiveX component and the CDD display driver foe Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7. Overall, the Patch Tuesday load was about the norm.
"The most interesting vulnerability for the enterprise is MS10-045, which lets an attacker use a specially-crafted UNC path in an Outlook attachment to bypass Outlook’s warning about opening potentially malicious attachments," Tyler Reguly, senior security engineer at security firm nCircle, said.
Intel Corp announced its anticipated quarterly results this week with analysts hoping to sample the pulse of the technology sector amidst recovery. The infamous chipmaker did not disappoint, with chief executive Paul Otellini celebrating what he called the "best quarter in the company's 42-year history," and providing figures that fueled hopes that enterprise recovery has arrived.
While the consensus in the financial world was that Intel would report revenues of $10.25 billion and 43 cents per share, Intel announced that revenue for the quarter amounted to $10.8 billion and 51 cents per share. Net income for the quarter was $2.9 billion, up by $445 million from the first quarter and a noteable $3.3 billion from the same period of 2009.
"The PC and server segments are healthy,"said Otellini, "and the demand for leading-edge technology will continue to increase for the foreseeable future." While revenue from the PC Client Group jumped 2 percent, revenue from the Data Center Group jumped 13 percent. The second quarter also witnessed record mobile and server processor revenues.
Social networking giant Facebook has hit yet another milestone, this time with its mobile phone users. According to Eric Tseng, head of mobile products at Facebook, the service now has 150 million mobile users, up from 100 million in April 2010. Tseng said Facebook is now focusing on mobile phones as the key platform for Facebook services in the future.
"Mobile is fast becoming our growth lever,"Tseng told attendees at the MobileBeat 2010 conference in San Francisco. Overall, Facebook claims to have about 500 million users across all platforms, and over the next six months, it predicts its mobile platforms will catch up with traditional web browser users.
In developing countries, Facebook sees mobile phones as the first route to the Internet for many potential users, and it hopes to attract new users that may never have even turned on a PC in their lives. It is working with Airtel in India on a Facebook mobile-only experience, allowing subscribers to join Facebook by phone. Even without data plans, the company is experimenting offering access to Facebook's text-only service for free.
Toshiba and SanDisk have announced a new joint venture to create an advanced NAND flash memory chip factory in Japan, as a way to keep ahead of strong growth in the market for the chips.
For their part, SanDisk will "pay for part of the production equipment at the factory," which will be overall run by Toshiba.
Both companies will share output from the factory. The companies have worked very closely together in the past in similar agreements, including NAND flash plants.
"Construction of the new fab reflects expectations for increasing demand for NAND flash memory for existing and emerging applications, such as smartphones and solid-state drives," reads a joint statement.
The factory will be called Fab 5 and is already in construction.
It is unclear how much the companies are investing to create the factory.
Earlier in the month, Hulu announced the launch of Hulu Plus, a premium version of the popular streaming site that will cost $10 per month.
Buyers of the subscription get expanded content, and the ability to play the shows on their HDTVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox 360 (with Gold subscription), PS3 and iPad and iPhone.
Hulu Plus gives users season passes for most current shows, which is a massive improvement from only being able to watch the trailing five episodes of a given show. You will also be able to watch back seasons of the shows.
Sony has announced today that the PS3 will be the only console with the ability to stream Hulu Plus in 2010, and select users will be given the ability within weeks.
Sony has said today that their PSP, PS3 Minis have reached one million downloads.
The Minis are low-priced games available via the PlayStation Network on either the home console or the handheld.
It is unclear whether the number includes free demos, but if it does, the number is even more insignificant than it already is.
Only 1.7 percent of all PSP owners have downloaded a Minis game, compared to 51 percent of iPhone owners and 54 percent of BlackBerry owners.
Minis were released 9 months ago, and there are over 60 million PSP owners, in all variations.
Of the 86 games available, PocketGamer says the following 10 are the best-selling:
Age of Zombies (Halfbrick)
Monopoly (EA)
Fieldrunners(Subatomic)
Zombie Tycoon (Frima)
Bloons(Hands-on)
Spot The Differences! (Sanuk)
Pinball Fantasies(Cowboy Rodeo )
Mahjongg Artifacts: Chapter 2 (G5)
Yetisports Pengu Throw (Xendex)
Breakquest (Beatshapers)
Kevin Turner, Microsoft's COO has compared Apple's recently launched iPhone 4 to their own Windows Vista, which was plagued with problems from the start, eventually becoming one of the company's worst operating systems, ever.
"It looks like the iPhone 4 might be their Vista, and I'm okay with that,"says Turner.
Vista launched in 2007, and users instantly berated how much memory the operating system used, as well as other glaring problems like software and driver compatibility issues.
Turner took a small shot at the iPhone 4 and its antenna issues when asked about the company's upcoming Windows Phone 7: "One of the things I want to make sure you know today is that you're going to be able to use a Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you're holding it to make a phone call."
Last week, Consumer Reports, the respected nonprofit organization that publishes guides on all kinds of products and makes recommendations to consumers said yesterday it could not recommend the Apple iPhone 4, due to the antenna issues.
Federal agents have arrested another alleged Russian spy this month, the twelfth this year in a sting to break a spy ring that has reached across the United States.
The alleged spy, Alexey Karetnikov was a Microsoft employee, working right out of the company's headquarters in Redmond.
Despite working at the company for some time, officials say Karetnikov was just in the "early stages" of his spying, without obtaining any useful information.
The alleged spy was part of the Microsoft Software Design Engineer in Test (SDET) team, in charge of testing code run in Microsoft products such as Windows.
Of the twelve spies, most had day jobs at tech companies, and some even had families here in the States. The first ten were returned to Russia in a prisoner swap, while the eleventh remains in hiding.
Opera has announced the release of a stable Opera Mini, version 5.1 for Android devices, replacing the 5.0 beta which has been available for a couple of months.
The stable update will offer an improved user experience and browsing performance, but otherwise is mainly a grouping of bug fixes.
Opera says there are 61 million users globally using Opera Mini, making it the world's most popular mobile phone browser.
When 5.0 launched, it almost immediately saw 1 million downloads for the iPhone, with the browser topping the charts. It did similar numbers for Android.
Opera Mini uses Opera's servers to render and compress pages, thus increasing speed for the end user.
Updated 5.1 offers improved page layout, and the ability to make the browser the default.
Adds Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software: "Opera Mini 5.1 for the Android platform is the next step in bringing the world’s most popular mobile web browser to all major platforms, offering improved performance and great web experience to almost any handset. Opera Mini is used by over 61 million people on more than 3000 handset models and with today’s release Opera continues its mission to provide the best web experience on any device and on any platform."
Recording Industry vs The People has posted today that the RIAA lost an incredible amount of money on attorney's fees in 2008, while recovering practically nothing from its lawsuits.
The trade group paid firm Holmes Roberts & Owen $9,364,901, firm Jenner & Block over $7,000,000 and Cravath Swain & Moore about $1.25 million for 2008. Each was in charge of pursuing copyright infringement claims.
Apparently 2008 was a bad year for the RIAA though as they only recovered $391,000 from their suits.
The average settlement for copyright infringement cases is $3500 meaning the RIAA only settled with just over 110 people.
On the other hand, 2008 was an improvement on 2007, when the RIAA spent $21 million on legal fees and an additional $3.5 million to pay watchdog MediaSentry. The group only recovered $516,000 in 2007.
Rdio has launched the beta version of their Android app which will allow for unlimited music streaming on Android devices.
In October 2009, billionaires Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, the creators of the Kazaa P2P client as well as Skype, announced that they had developed and financed the unlimited music subscription service, and the company introduced the service last month.
Separating the service from others like Rhapsody is the fact that Rdio allows users to listen from anywhere in "the cloud," including through their phones, instead of needing to download DRM-laced music locally.
Furthermore, Rdio has many social networking features connected to Facebook and Twitter.
Rdio has over five million tracks available from the major labels and thousands of indies.
To have access at home and via your phone, the service costs $10 per month. The beta is currently private,but TechCrunch has some.
XPRT Ventures has sued eBay for $3.8 billion this week, accusing the auction giant of infringing on six patents used by the PayPal payment system.
The company says eBay stole confidential information from the inventors of XPRT's patents and used them to create certain features in PayPal and PayPal Later.
eBay filed a patent application in 2003 dubbed "Method and System to Automate Payment for a Commerce Transaction." It failed, according to XPRT, however, to disclose that it knew of XPRT's own similar patent applications.
"This involves a trade secret theft, along with sheer patent infringement,"adds Steven Moore, who is representing the plaintiff. "It is bad enough to take someone's technology, but it is a bit much to use it in your own patent application."
XRPT is seeking $3.8 billion in monetary damages, based on current and future earnings thanks to PayPal.
Consumer Reports, the respected nonprofit organization that publishes guides on all kinds of products and makes recommendations to consumers said yesterday it could not recommend the Apple iPhone 4.
The organization also said that AT&T was not to blame for the model's left hand antenna issues, placing the blame on Apple's hardware design.
Consumer Reports has said that the design flaw is temporarily fixed by using a sliver of duct tape, and CNN has tested the method.
"When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side -- an easy thing, especially for lefties -- the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal," Consumer Reports adds.
Apple has said an upcoming software update will fix the antenna issues, but seeing is believing in that case.
Last week, Fring released an updated iPhone app that allowed users of the new iPhone 4 to video conference over Wi-Fi and 3G with other iPhone, Android and Symbian smartphone owners.
The app got massive publicity, because Apple's own FaceTime app only allows conferencing between iPhones and only over Wi-Fi.
Fring said, later in the week, that it had to "temporarily reduce support" to Skype, which had supported it for years.
Earlier this week, Fring made it public that Skype was blocking the app, and threatening legal action against them.
Said Fring: "They are afraid of open mobile communication. Cowards. Needless to say, we are very disappointed that Skype, who once championed the cause of openness is now trying to muzzle competition, even at the expense of its own users. We’re sorry for the inconvenience Skype has caused you. We’ve contacted Skype and are awaiting an official response from the company."
Skype has responded, and with force. Says legal chief Robert Miller (via TechCrunch): "An hour or so ago, Fring reported on its blog that we had blocked their access to Skype. I want to make one thing absolutely clear: this is untrue. Fring was using Skype software in a way it wasn’t designed to be used – and in a way which is in breach of Skype’s API Terms of Use and End User License Agreement. We’ve been talking with Fring for some time to try to resolve this amicably.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, talking to the Financial Times, has said today that the carrier is now actively considering deploying WiMAX and LTE for their 4G networks.
Currently, the company only offers 4G through WiMAX.
That decision is leading many to speculate that a long rumored merger between Sprint and T-Mobile USA is a possibility, given that both would use LTE for their 4G needs.
The merger makes no sense now, as T-Mobile uses GSM/UMTS for 3G while Sprint uses CDMA. Deutsche Telekom, the parent of T-Mobile has entertained offers to sell its American unit.
T-Mobile is the fourth biggest carrier in the U.S., with 34 million subscribers, while Sprint is third at 48 million. Both trail leaders Verizon and AT&T by a large margin.
When asked about a merger, Hesse said there was "logic" behind a move like that: "I don't see a need to scale larger, but if there's an acquisition that makes sense for us, I do want to have a balance sheet that would give me the flexibility of making good acquisitions when we see them."
Wal-Mart has started pre-orders on a new Microsoft Kinect bundle today, adding more question marks to the still unofficial price tag on the system.
Priced at $200, consumers get the Kinect system, a $30 Wal-Mart eGift Card, and one of the launch titles.
Those titles (Sports is pictured) are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One, Dance Central, Joy Ride, Kinectimals, Kinect Sports and Kinect Adventures.
You can also add an additional game for $50-60 if you want to get more for your new bundle.
The Microsoft Store has the system priced at $150, but with a note that price is still subject to change. GameStop and Amazon have similar pricing, and similar notices.
Wal-Mart's latest deal is the most cost-effective, especially given the discount off the game and the addition of the gift card, but we will see if the price sticks when the device launches in early November.
Last week, noted hacker Geohotposted to his blog that he had jailbroken the Apple iPhone 4 but quickly stated that he would not be releasing the tool to the public anytime soon.
Today, icons MuscleNerd and Planetbeing have posted that they have jailbroken and unlocked the iPhone 4, with the tools likely coming after Apple releases their iOS 4.0.1/4.1 update in the coming weeks.
The update should help solve the problem behind that aptly named "antennagate," where iPhone 4 users continuously lose reception when holding the phones in their left hands, covering the antenna.
Planetbeing tweeted this morning: "Looks like I now have an unlocked iPhone 4 :)"
The hacker then posted a picture of his phone running Cydia, the jailbroken phone App Store, while connected to Bell Canada. It seems he used "code of @comex’s userland jailbreak method."
If Apple keeps the exploits unpatched, expect the tool out when the firmware update hits.
Samsung's first Bada smartphone, the Wave, has sold 1 million units in its first month, says the company, making it an official success.
The Wave S8500 launched globally in June.
Justin Hong, Bada OS project leader and architect, Tweeted the results this morning.
Samsung's Wave is considered a high-end smartphone, but the price is attractive with some carriers selling it for as low as $300 without contract.
The touchscreen device has a 3.3-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1GHz processor, 5MP camera, 2GB internal memory, and 802.11n Wi-Fi. The display is said to be "incredibly" vibrant and removes all outdoor visibility issues.
Bada has the apps menu, contacts, and calling always pinned on the homescreen, and widgets are available for news, weather and more. Multi-touch is standard.
Larry Page, co-founder of search giant Google has accused Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs of attempting to re-write history, and asserted that Google did not "follow" Apple into the mobile phone market. Page is referring to comments made by Jobs in February at an Apple town hall meeting, in which he blasted Google's "don't be evil" mantra as "bullshit" and accused the company of trying to kill the iPhone.
In a videotaped conference in June, Jobs echoed the same comments. However, Page has told Reuters that Jobs words are a "little bit of re-writing history."
"We had been working on Android a very long time, with the notion of producing phones that are Internet enabled and have good browsers and all that because that did not exist in the marketplace,"Page said. "I think that characterization of us entering after is not really reasonable."
Google acquired Android Inc., a mobile startup, in 2005 and announced its Android mobile operating system in November 2007. The iPhone had debuted in January of that year. After the Android OS was announced and handsets rolled out that featured the operating system, relations between the two tech giants soured increasingly.
Microsoft Corp. and Fujitsu have announced a partnership in global cloud computing services. The Japan-based hardware and IT services company will deploy the Windows Azure platform at its data centers. Cloud computing allows the storing and use of data and programs on servers that can be accessed globally, and is increasingly used by clients to avoid having to pay for expensive software or more powerful computers to run the latest applications.
The first Fujitsu data center to use the Azure platform will be the Tatebayashi centre near Tokyo by the end of 2010, with data centers around the world following suit. "Through this alliance, we are providing our customers with a new array of possibilities in cloud computing," said Kazuo Ishida, corporate senior executive vice president for Fujitsu's ICT Services Business.
"Our partnership with Microsoft truly reflects Fujitsu's cloud strategy and will no doubt break new ground in contributing to the creation of an IT-networked society."
Fujitsu has made cloud computing services a cornerstone of its strategy, aiming to generate 1.5 trillion yen ($17 billion) by March 2016. It will invest 100 billion yen this year in cloud-related businesses, and will train 5,000 engineers by 2012.
Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office in China, reportedly called for a system that would reduce Internet users' anonymity even further in China, according to a human rights group. Human Rights in China retrieved the text of a speech given by Chen to the national legislature in April, which it says was reported only briefly at the time.
Additionally, the transcript of the speech was also removed from the legislature website quickly. Wang said that holes needed to be plugged, such as the ability for people to post comments or access information anonymously.
"We will make the Internet real name system a reality as soon as possible, implement a nationwide cell phone real name system, and gradually apply the real name registration system to online interactive processes,"Wang is quoted as saying.
Under the "real name" system, anonymous quotes on news articles would not be allowed. Wang's comments come amid growing international attention on Internet censorship. China recently renewed Google's license to operate after the company shut its Chinese search engine earlier this year in a row over censorship and hacking.
An Israeli developer is crying foul after Apple reportedly rejected an application that warns users of radiation levels. Tawkon, the developer of the software, says it measures radiation levels in real time, which is something a lot of users might like. "It doesn't use Flash, and it's not porn, so why the ban?" asks Scott Piro, a spokesman for Tawkon.
It is already available for BlackBerry however, and an Android version of the application is also set to be released. Tawkon is hosting a petition on its website, hoping to pressure Apple into changing its mind.
At the same time however, the company also says that it was informed by Apple execs that all it needs to do is make a few minor API modifications, so the petition is probably aimed more at generating publicity for the company.
The Register questions exactly what the application even does. The company claims that: "RRI ~(real-time radiation indication) leverages unique smart phones capabilities such as GPS, accelerometer, proximity sensors and more to help minimize radiation exposure during mobile phone usage."
According to data from Chart-Track, ELSPA and ISFE, sales of video game hardware in the United Kingdom were down 32 percvent to £256 million in the first half of 2010. The total hardware sales for the same period of 2009 added up to £378 million. Additionally, video game software sales fell 10 percent from last year's £592 million to £533 million, according to the data.
Total sales generated in the UK from the first 26 weeks of the year hit £963 million, down 16 percent from £1.143 billion last year. "UK consumers are still facing economic uncertainty and everyone is looking to how they can make savings, which has naturally impacted on the entertainment industry as a whole,"commentedMichael Rawlinson, director general of ELSPA.
It is worth noting that the figures do not include sales made for console or PC games by way of digital distribution services. "UK consumers are getting their gaming entertainment now in a variety ways," said Rawlinson.
"Consumers are increasingly downloading videogames from websites, and are also increasingly playing games not only on consoles, but also on their mobiles or through social networking sites, such as Facebook. This is proof that interactive entertainment is expanding way beyond its traditional boundaries."
Consumer Reports has revealed that it cannot recommend Apple's iPhone 4 handset following tests on the model's reported signal problems, adding that AT&T Inc. is not the main culprit. The respected nonprofit organization publishes guides on all kinds of products and makes recommendations to consumers.
The publication tested the iPhone 3GS, Palm Pre and other handsets too and said none of them experienced the same kind of signal problems as the iPhone 4. "Consumer reports is a respected publication. This could have an impact on iPhone sales,"Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu said.
Apple has been sued by customers in at least three complaints related to the antenna problems with the handheld. "When your finger or hand touches a spot on the phone's lower left side -- an easy thing, especially for lefties -- the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak signal," contributor Mike Gikas said in a post on the Consumer Reports website.
A new report from security firm Secunia has listed Apple on top of the list of companies whose software for PCs has the most security vulnerabilities in H1 2010. The report claims that the number of security vulnerabilities overall in the first half of 2010 was close to the number recorded for the entire of 2009.
During the first 6 months of 2010, Secunia recorded 380 vulnerabilities within the top 50 prevalent packages on end-user PCs. While Apple topped the list, it was followed by Oracle and then Microsoft.
The report says the threat landscape has shifted from operating system bugs to third-party applications in recent times, stating that a typical end-user PC with the 50 applications would face 3.5 more times bugs in 24 of those applications which are third-party, than the 26 Microsoft programs installed.
The firm expects the ratio to rise to 4.4 this year. The report also highlighted complications with patching, with its typical end-user PC example having 13 different software update mechanisms.
NVIDIA's latest DirectX 11 GPU, the GeForce GTX 460, has debuted to considerable praise among game developers and tech reviewers for its performance and more importantly, its price. The GeForce GTX 460 contains 336 NVIDIA CUDA cores and 56 texture units, and is available in two flavors; 768MB with a 192-bit memory interface for $199 and 1GB with a 256-bit memory interface for $229.
NVIDIA's release declared the $199 as the "sweet spot for gamers". The new GPU has full support for NVIDIA 3D Vision technology for 3D Blu-ray and video game titles. "With the GeForce GTX 460, NVIDIA is really upping the ante with an amazingly fast DirectX 11 GPU available at a great, mainstream-friendly price. Its new hardware tessellation support will enable games to reach an entirely new caliber of graphics." -- Tim Sweeney, Founder of Epic Games, said.
The GeForce GTX 460 768MB version is available currently from NVIDIA's add-in card partners, including ASL, ASUS, Colorful, ECS, EVGA, Gainward, Galaxy, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, Jetway, KFA2, Leadtek, MSI, Palit, Point of View, PNY, Sparkle, Zotac and others. The GeForce GTX 460 1GB is expected by July 26, 2010.
The WSJ has uncovered a new suit filed by a man in New York, who claims he owns 84 percent of the social networking giant Facebook.
Paul Ceglia says he entered into a contract with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, for a 50 percent share, doing so for $1000 USD.
In addition, Ceglia says the deal granted him 1 percent extra of the company for every day until the Web site was completed.
The site took 34 days to complete.
Ceglia's suit included a copy of the "work for hire" contract the two men allegedly signed in 2003.
In return for the $1000 payment, Ceglia "would own a 50 percent interest in the software, programming language and business interests derived from the expansion of the [Facebook] service to a larger audience."
Mashable is reporting today that visitors to Netflix's site have jumped 46 percent year-over-year for the month of June.
The growth is thanks to the increasing popularity of the Watch Instantlystreaming service, and Netflix's decision to add their native service to set-top boxes, Blu-ray players and HDTVs.
Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney adds that Netflix's explosive growth is the "fastest year-to-year growth [he] has seen in over five years."
For the entire second quarter, Netflix’s web traffic was up 34 percent year-over-year. In the first quarter, YoY growth was 19 percent.
Netflix has added 1.7 million subscribers in the Q1, ending with 14 million customers.
Microsoft has extended the downgrade period for Windows XP until 2020, allowing owners of some Windows 7 versions to "downgrade" to the aging operating system if they choose to.
In the past, Microsoft killed off downgrade rights within months of releasing a new OS, so the new move is somewhat surprising.
Microsoft had limited 7-to-XP downgrades to six months when 7 was released, but extended the rights almost immediately after. It changed the date until July 2010, but that day has now come and gone, with Microsoft doing the lengthy extension.
The new downgrade rights are for users of Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, who can downgrade to XP Pro.
"Our business customers have told us that the removing end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional could be confusing,"adds Microsoft spokesman Brandon LeBlanc.
Furthermore, downgrade rights are only available on OEM copies of Windows 7, meaning it had to have come pre-installed on your new PC.
In April, AOL sold one of the pioneers of instant messaging, ICQ, to Digital Sky Technologies Limited (DST) for $187.5 million USD.
Today, AOL has completed that sale, with Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AOL saying the company will use the proceeds to either buy media properties or hoard the cash for emergencies.
Despite losing popularity in the United States to other services such as MSN Messenger and AIM, ICQ remains the most popular IM service in Russia and other smaller international markets.
"The acquisition of ICQ is a strategic enhancement of our business in Russia and Eastern Europe. ICQ’s long-standing brand name and its sizeable loyal customer base together represent a very attractive opportunity to further strengthen our position in the region," added Yuri Milner, Chief Executive Officer of DST.
Microsoft has finally, officially launched the public beta of Windows 7 SP1, giving users a chance to download the service pack.
In late June, the SP1 was leaked online, and is still circulating on torrent, P2P and warez sites. Additionally, a beta of the Windows Server 2008 R2 was leaked as well.
The SP1, as stated by Microsoft, is mainly a rollup of already-released hotfixes.
Says Microsoft's Tammi Reller: "I am quite pleased today to announce the public beta availability of service pack 1 both for Windows Server 2008R2 as well as Windows 7. [For Windows 7 ] mostly it is minor updates that are available through Windows update."
Businesses will be the main beneficiaries of the update, as they will finally be free to upgrade their corporate systems to a fully stable Windows 7, from XP and Vista.
Google has launched the App Inventor this week, a tool that will given anyone the chance to create apps for Android phones.
The software tool is in beta, and Google Labs has created videos and screenshots to help new users.
"To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge," says the site.
The code is written inside the software.
Additionally, the tool offers suggestions and options for app creations, like how to build apps that will link to social networking services, or a new SMS app.
The move should give Android another leg up on the Apple iOS, which requires people to have software coding skills to make apps, and then Apple has to accept the app to their App Store.
According to a new research note from Rodman and Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar, the rumored RIM tablet may have a 7-inch screen, a 1GHz processor and dual cameras, allowing for picture taking and video conferencing.
The tablet will also have a 3G chip from Marvell, meaning you will not need a tethered BlackBerry to access cell networks.
Kumar's note says the Armada 618 is the leading candidate for the processor, meaning 1080p video will be supported as well as hardware acceleration.
While the still unconfirmed tablet had a rumored "early" 2011 launch, Kumar says the company wants it out for Christmas this year.
RIM has still not committed to the tablet, but has said such devices are a great bridge between a smartphone and a computer.
A federal judge has cleared a class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T, and the suit will consolidate a few filed over the years.
The complaint takes aim at Apple's practice of locking iPhones to AT&T and Apple's practice of controlling what applications can be download to said smartphones.
Furthermore, the suit also complaints that Apple secretly made AT&T its exclusive iPhone partner for five years, effectively locking customers into a five-year deal with AT&T if they want to keep their phone, while they had only paid for two-year contracts.
Additionally, the deal hurt competition and drove up prices.
Judge James Ware has said those parts of the lawsuits can continue as class action. The suit is available to anyone who purchased an iPhone with a two-year contract since June 2007.
If successful, the suit will force Apple to sell all phones unlocked and with the ability to download any programs they want.
After jailbreaking the iPad in early April, the noted hacker Geohot went on a small hiatus.
Today, however, the hacker has posted again to his blog, showing off a picture of the iPhone jailbroken, with access to Cydia, the app store available to users with jailbroken devices.
That being said, it does not look like he will be releasing the jailbreak software anytime soon.
Says Geohot: "Got one of these in the mail today and figured I'd give it a shot.
As far as a release goes, it probably won't happen from me. limera1n is little more than a raindrop on a website; it was never mentioned by me previous to this post. pwned4life is a complete invention of some blogger in a basement somewhere. When I said pwned for life, I was referring to the original iPhone, 3G, and Touch; which of course are, by the aptly named PwnageTool.
Again, please don't ask for release dates. Every person that does makes me want to release a little bit less."
For those with the new device, and in need of a jailbreak, your best bet is waiting on Comex’s Spirit tool, which should be released once the iOS 4.0.1 is launched.
China shut down the Xiaoshan Airport early this morning after a UFO flew through the night sky, leaving a bright trail of light in its wake.
Over 30 flights had to be redirected or cancelled.
The UFO was first seen flying over the Zhejiang provincial capital Hangzhou.
Witnesses called local authorities claiming they had seen a "comet-like" fireball in the sky.
Says one witness: "The thing suddenly ran westwards fast, like it was escaping from something."
Some experts have already said the sight was debris from U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile, and Chinese officials have stayed mum, given the "military" connection.
A federal judge has significantly reduced the penalty against Joel Tenenbaum, the graduate student that was convicted of sharing 30 unauthorized tracks online.
Last July, Tenenbaum was found guilty and told to pay $675,000 to the RIAA and record labels.
The judge has now reduced the verdict to $67,500, saying the damages award was "unconstitutionally excessive" given the fact that Tenenbaum made no money off the sharing of the music.
Judge Nancy Gertner added the following of the new verdict: The new damages "not only adequately compensates the plaintiffs for the relatively minor harm that Tenenbaum caused them; it sends a strong message that those who exploit peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully download and distribute copyrighted works run the risk of incurring substantial damages awards."
$67,500 is three times the statutory minimum.
Despite being grateful, Tenenbaum still called the new verdict 'ridiculous:' "I still don't have $70,000 — and $2,000 per song still seems ridiculous in light of the fact that you can buy them for 99 cents on iTunes," Tenenbaum said. "I mean $675,000 was also absurd."
T-Mobile released the first Android-powered Garmin smartphone in May to mixed reviews, and slow sales.
This week, the wireless carrier has dropped the price of the phone, from $200 to $130, looking to keep the price competitive in a world where Froyo will soon be the norm.
The phone has a 3.5-inch screen, 3MP camera with autofocus, and because of the GPS, the pictures can be geo-tagged. The GPS, as standard, works over 3G and Wi-Fi.
While those specs are not impressive, the Garminfone is notable because of its GPS system, which has on-board US maps, text-to-speech, full driving/walking/public transportation directions, real-time traffic, weather, local events, movie listings and even gas prices.
The next best feature is "Garmin Voice Studio" which lets users "record and customize voice directions which can also be shared with family and friends."
Because it is more a GPS with phone capabilities than anything else, the device will come with a charging window and a dashboard mount for the car.
Apple.pro has shown off a couple of new photos today of an Apple-branded touchscreen that is only a bit bigger than 1x1 inches, leading to speculation that the upcoming revised Shuffle will use the display.
Although less plausible, the site speculated that Apple may be making a foray into the wristwatch market, releasing a large touchscreen watch.
The display is too small for an iPod Nano, unless Apple completely changes the design.
In the past, Apple.pro has shown off parts for Apple products before they launch, like leaking white iPhone 4 parts earlier this year.
Apple has been negatively in the news recently, thanks to antenna issues with the newly launched iPhone 4.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said this week that he expects China to renew the company's Web license, as it has been recently revised.
China had threatened to not renew the license, saying it disapproved of the way the search giant tried to sidestep Google's censorship rules by directing its domain to Hong Kong, where searches were unfiltered.
While Schmidt believes the license will be renewed, he admitted the ball is fully in China's court.
"Our operations in China are completely at the discretion of the Chinese government," he added.
The situation began in January when Google said it would stop censoring search results, which violates Chinese law.
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology spokesman Wang Lijian says the decision could take months, however.
Today during the VidCon 2010 conference, Google has announced that YouTube will now support video with 4k resolution, over double what the current 1080p standard allows for.
4k has a pixel resolution of 4096 x 3072, whereas 1080p has resolution of 1920 x 1080.
"To give some perspective on the size of 4K, the ideal screen size for a 4K video is 25 feet; IMAX movies are projected through two 2k resolution projectors," says Ramesh Sarukkai, a YouTube engineer.
Many users will not be able to even run the videos at this point, as it requires "super fast broadband," likely with 15Mbps as a bare minimum.
You can test out streaming a 4k video here (click on the link and switch resolution to "original"):
The intellectual property holding company NTP has sued giants Apple, Google, HTC, LG, Microsoft and Motorola this week over patents pertaining to the delivery of email on smartphones.
Each company either makes smartphones, or creates the software used on them.
NTP is alleging that each company has infringed on up to eight patents.
The holding company won over $600 million in damages from BlackBerry maker RIM in 2006 for a similar suit.
NTP has been called a "patent troll" by the industry, one that is making money off the innovation of others. NTP does not agree.
"Use of NTP's intellectual property without a license is just plain unfair to NTP and its licensees," said Donald E. Stout, NTP's co-founder, via CNet. "Unfortunately, litigation is our only means of ensuring the inventor of the fundamental technology on which wireless email is based, Tom Campana, and NTP shareholders are recognized, and are fairly and reasonably compensated for their innovative work and investment. We took the necessary action to protect our intellectual property."
Apple has banned That Nguyen, the popular app developer, from iTunes and the Apple App Store, after it was discovered he hacked 400 iTunes accounts, and used them to boost sales of his comic book apps.
The company also said it has now tightened security, and similar situations will not occur again.
Nguyen had, at his peak, 42 of the top 50 book apps in the market.
All apps have now been removed and the developer banned due to violations of the "developer Program License Agreement including fraudulent purchase patterns".
Apple also recommended that users with compromised accounts should contact their banks and change their passwords.
As part of strengthening their security, iTunes users will likely be asked to enter their credit card security code more often when making purchases.
ComScore has released their latest U.S. market share figures for the smartphone market, and Google's open-source Android platform has seen explosive growth since March, when the previous results were released.
RIM remained the clear leader with 41.7 percent share, although the BlackBerry maker lost some share, falling from over 42 percent in the previous period.
Apple stayed stuck in second, with 24.4 percent, a noticeable drop from their 25.4 percent share at the end of February.
Continuing its multi-year trend, Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform fell significantly, from 15.1 percent to 13.2 percent.
The big winner was Android which jumped almost 40 percent, from 9 percent to 13 percent. Android is expected to see a similar jump in the next quarter.
ComScore adds that about 235 million Americans over the age of 13 have mobile devices.
Hulu announced last week the launch of Hulu Plus, a premium version of the popular streaming site that will cost $10 per month.
Buyers of the subscription get expanded content, and the ability to play the shows on their HDTVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox 360 (with Gold subscription), PS3 and iPad and iPhone.
Hulu Plus gives users season passes for most current shows, which is a massive improvement from only being able to watch the trailing five episodes of a given show. You will also be able to watch back seasons of the shows.
The major complaint of the service, so far, is that there are still ads, just like in the free version.
Today, CEO Jason Kilar says the company is considering offering a more expensive version of the service, one that will completely ad-free.
Kilar also noted that there would be "many" models for the distribution service, but did not elaborate.
Any ad-free model would likely cost $15-20 per month.
According to sources cited by NewTeeVee, Apple is looking to take the unpopular Apple TVset-top box to the next level, bringing TV episode rentals down to .99 cents, half the current pricing model on iTunes and elsewhere.
Apple is currently trying to get TV programmers to drop the price on rentals, with mostly everything else remaining the same. Once purchased, consumers have 30 days to watch the video with rentals then expiring 24 hours after you start.
What will be different, besides the pricing, will be that episodes will now be streamed, within the cloud, and not downloaded, following the broader industry trend led by Netflix and Hulu.
Although still unconfirmed, the upcoming Apple TV is said to use iOS 4, the operating system used on the iPhone. It will also use flash memory, moving away from the HDD seen in the original model.
UK retailer John Lewis has presented info given to them by suppliers, and it appears that in September the iPod Touch will finally get a much-needed refresh, adding new hardware and software features.
The media player will add a 5MP camera with flash, which will also be able to shoot 720pHD video.
Furthermore, the device will get a gyroscope and accelerometer, as well as FaceTime for video conferencing.
Rob Hennessey of the retailer also says the new iPod will be marketed towards "teens" and "youths," moving slightly away from previous marketing directives.
Additionally, social networking will be a centerpiece, likely meaning Facebook and Twitter apps will be pre-installed.
Last week, Best Buy employee Brian Maupin was suspended for posting viral videos spoofing iPhone 4 and HTC EVO 4G zealots.
The iPhone video is so popular it has topped 3.4 million views.
Best Buy suspended Maupin while they investigated the situation, although neither video directly names or even implies the retail giant. Maupin went as far as to say that he expected to be fired completely this week.
Today, Best Buy has concluded their investigation, and Maupin is free to head back to work in the morning.
Says the company: "We have completed our investigation into the videos created and posted by Brian Maupin, the aspiring film-maker and Best Buy employee. This is an important situation for us because it involved balancing our social media guidelines with a commitment to creating a supportive environment for our employees. It's important to note that our investigation involved three videos that were posted in late June because they were openly disparaging of our employees, our customers and our vendor partners. Our investigation is over, and these videos are no longer on the web. Contrary to rumors, Brian has not been fired, and is scheduled to return to his job at Best Buy this Friday."
Yesterday, complaints began surfacing online that AT&T was "capping" upload speeds for iPhone 4 users, slowing upstream bandwidth to a crawl in Metropolitan areas such as New York City and Boston.
Today, the wireless carrier has blamed software from Alcatel-Lucent for the issues, saying a fix is in the works.
Additionally, the company says only 2 percent of users are affected by the defect.
Lucent declined to offer a timetable for the fix, and would not reveal which areas were being affected.
Customer complaints have been filed from NYC, Central Jersey, Boston, Orlando, Seattle, South Jersey/Philly, Columbus, Cleveland, West Houston, Phoenix, Northern Colorado, St. Paul/Minesota, Suffolk County/Long Island, Quad Cities, South Jersey, Denver, Detroit Metro, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Fairfax, and Minneapolis, so far.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Microsoft'sXbox Live service brought in $1.2 billion revenue for the fiscal 2009 year.
For the year ended June 30th, about 12.5 million Xbox Live users paid an annual fee to play games online which Bloomberg says would account for about $600 million in revenue. Xbox Live COO Dennis Durkin says on top of that, sales of DLC, movies and TV topped subscription revenue for the first time ever, and by a significant margin, leading us to the final $1.2 billion figure.
Success with Xbox Live is key to Microsoft's Entertainment division, which has seen slow sales of Zune media players, slow smartphone sales, and a barely profitable Xbox 360 console, which sees most of its profit from software and accessory sales.
Adds Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft: "Xbox Live has helped sell a lot of consoles and created a lot of loyalty. Everyone has been talking about Microsoft’s inability to innovate, but this is a pretty good example where they have innovated. They timed it just right with this one."
Google is readying orientation detection for the upcoming Chrome OS, giving the Chrome browser the ability to use accelerometer data to keep track of which way is up.
Furthermore, upcoming apps and games can use the tweak as a method of control.
There are no current browsers with the capability, although Mozilla has promised a stable version of it for Firefox 4.0. Safari is likely to add it as well, as it is part of WebKit.
Chrome OS, for the most part, still remains a mystery to the general consumer, although Google took time to explain the cloud OS in a series of videos.
Hulu announced last week the launch of Hulu Plus, a premium version of the popular streaming site that will cost $10 per month.
Buyers of the subscription get expanded content, and the ability to play the shows on their HDTVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox 360 (with Gold subscription), PS3 and iPad and iPhone.
Hulu Plus gives users season passes for most current shows, which is a massive improvement from only being able to watch the trailing five episodes of a given show. You will also be able to watch back seasons of the shows.
After the announcement, a Google search found that Hulu Plus for the PS3 appeared to need a PlayStation Plus subscription, which also costs money.
Today, those fears have been put to rest, with Hulu confirming that a PlayStation Plus subscription is only required, temporarily, while Hulu Plus is still in its "preview phase."
HTC has explained this week why the company's phones are seeing a "slow" rollout of the upcoming Android 2.2firmware update, going as far as to say that the Gingerbread 2.5/3.0 update may be pushed back until 2011.
Says Eric Lin, HTC's global PR and online community manager: "It takes time to port all of our applications over to Froyo and then make sure that it is running well on each of our devices. That’s not like a one week kind of project. We need to make sure that our applications are taking advantage of the Froyo features. To make sure that they’re all running properly on the OS now that it’s a new version. And then to make sure that it's running on our hardware as well as we expect".
Lin did promise that the update would be quicker than past updates, like from 1.6 to 2.1: "I don’t think you’re going to see that really long six month, seven month lag, like you saw in the updates from 1.6 to 2.1, simply because it’s a less severe change. Switching from 2.1 to 2.2, they made a lot of tweaks, but they didn’t make any gigantic changes, so it should be a much swifter process."
If a leaked AT&T retail memo sheet is accurate, then a couple of smartphones with Windows Phone 7 should be hitting the carrier by the end of the summer.
On the other end of the world, Australian carrier Telstra is expected to launch the devices in October.
The two phones on AT&T are expected to be from LG and Samsung.
Microsoft has a lot riding on the phones, especially after the recent failure of the Kin devices.
Aiming to differentiate itself from the iPhone and Android phones, which use home screens of widgets and icons, Microsoft says it has tried to blend applications together for a more "integrated experience," allowing the OS and applications to "share information with the user in a natural and seamless fashion."
According to Gizmodo and other sites, AT&T has begun capping upload speeds on the Apple iPhone 4, containing the speeds to as low as 100kbps in metropolitan areas like New York City.
When the phone launched, users were reporting upload speeds as high as 1500kbps.
A few of the other reported affected areas are: "NYC, Central Jersey, Boston, Orlando, Seattle, South Jersey/Philly, Columbus, Cleveland, West Houston, Phoenix, Northern Colorado, St. Paul/Minesota, Suffolk County/Long Island, Quad Cities, South Jersey, Denver, Detroit Metro, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Fairfax, and Minneapolis."
Users in other regions have reported fast upload speeds, so the situation appears to be isolated to certain places.
AT&T has not responded but most speculate the drop in speeds are related to maintenance to the HSUPA network.
Netflix has expanded its Watch Instantlystreaming catalog today, striking a major content deal with Relativity Media.
The deal will allow Netflix to compete more directly with premium TV channels such as HBO and Starz, as Relativity Media films will be "licensed directly and exclusively to Netflix for streaming to its subscribers during the "pay TV window."'
Many of the blockbuster films will hit Netflix months after they become available on DVD, just like they hit premium stations.
Netflix says "it will be the first time that studio quality theatrical feature films will be streamed via subscription by Netflix instead of being broadcast by the traditional pay providers, and it opens up a new revenue stream for such movies."
Some of the first movies available under the new deal are "The Fighter," and "Skyline," both of which are set for a 2010 release date in theaters and set for a Netflix streaming launch in early 2011.
Citing sources "familiar with the plans," the LATimes is reporting that Sony Pictures Television is set to launch two new movie channels by the end of 2010.
The first channel, dubbed Sony Pictures Movies HD for now, would be the company's first cable channel completely devoted to movies
Says television analyst Derek Baine: "They have been very successful internationally with their channels, but in the U.S. they have not had the leverage of the other media conglomerates, which have a bunch of different cable channels. Perhaps they are doing this because the market to sell movies to broadcast and cable networks has been so bad."
The channel has a tentative launch date of October 1st.
Sony's venture would be very similar to the popular Universal HD and MGM HD channels that are currently available to most cable subscribers.
The second channel would be the widely popular FearNet station, which is a joint venture between Comcast, Sony and Lionsgate. FearNet is currently available as a VOD channel through Comcast, FioS, and Cox and offers a plethora of horror films.
Following in the footsteps of the ridiculous £200,000 Supreme PS3 and the even more ridiculous $3 million iPhone 3GS Supreme, jeweler Stuart Hughes has begun offering a diamond-encrusted Apple iPhone 4 for the reasonable price of $20,000.
Unfortunately, only 50 of the special devices will be made, so you better get your order in quickly.
The smartphones are unlocked, and come with "6.5 carats of VVS quality, F-color diamonds" and a carrying case made of ostrich.
Apple's logo on the back is now a solid platinum and diamond version of itself.
StuartHughes also sells a $20,000 diamond-encrusted iPad, which has 11.43 carats.
This week, Verizon has started a new ad campaign picking at the iPhone 4's antenna issues.
The iPhone 4 has been in the news, negatively, over the past week as more and more users complained about losing their calls and data plan when gripping the phone with their left hand.
Apple first told users to hold the phone in their right hand, or to buy a case. The company then flipped their story, instead arguing that an algorithm was misrepresenting the amount of service the phone was receiving. Firmware update 4.0.1 will update that algo.
Verizon, seeing an opportunity, has bought a full page ad in the New York Times for the upcoming Motorola Droid X, praising the Android device while also taking a shot at the iPhone.
On the bottom of the ad is the following statement: "And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls."
The Y560d features a 15.6-inch 16:9 high-definition screen. The TriDef 3D technology (TriDef Media Player) software can transform a standard movie into a 3D experience (the software does not support transforming Blu-ray or HD-DVD content though), while TriDef Photo Transformer can turn standard photos into 3D as well.
TriDef 3D technology solution includes a 3D screen and 3D glasses, as well.
In the future, Lenovo will offer a separate configuration, with an i7 at 1.86GHz, a Blu-ray drive, and "RapidDrive," a hybrid 64GB SSD and 750GB HDD for quicker booting.
Despite saying they would "double down" on WebOS, it appears HP has been laying off numerous Palm staffers over the past few weeks.
Says a now former-Palm staff member, speaking to Barron's:
"We were given our exit envelope Tuesday morning. Our badges stopped working and we were removed from the computer network at 2:00pm that day.
On Thursday, June 17th, those at the working level who were going to be kept, were given “welcome to HP” letters. On Friday June 18th, those of us who were subsequently let go, were given a succinct letter that stated in part “the company is determining whether there is an appropriate role for you once the acquisition with HP is completed. Our expectation is that a final decision will be made and communicated to you the week of June 21st.” We were however told nothing about our status during the week of June 21st, nor Monday June 28th. Adding to this, during the week of June 21st, at a WebOS team meeting, attendees were told that there were 33 current open positions and that the plan was to grow the team by over 100 during the next year."
Twitter was alight this morning with complaints that Justin Bieber videos on YouTube were hacked, with a good portion of the singer's videos hacked to say "FAIL" or other messages.
The attack came from Internet community 4chan, which has been waging a small "war" against the teenager for a couple of months.
Earlier in the month, the community rigged the voting system for the Justin Bieber My World Tour Contest, where fans are supposed to vote for their country to get Bieber to come and perform a concert. As of today, North Korea is leading the contest, although it is likely the votes will be tossed out and Israel will be the real victor.
The hack involved using a vulnerability in the site's comment system.
Explains Mashable: "The bug allowed users to inject HTML (the code that most websites are built with) that could be executed on the site, whereas HTML within comments is supposed to be restricted. The hackers did everything from force pop-up messages to appear over the site declaring that it had been hacked to redirecting Bieber video pages to sites hosting pornography and malware."
In March 2009, Nine Inch Nails went around the U.S. for the Lights In The Sky Tour and because they somehow could not get a professional capture team for a commercial release, they released 405GB of free raw HD footage from the tours to their fans, allowing them to do what they please with it.
In January, the fan group This One Is On Us released their creation, in literally every format you could ever need, for free, with the exception of full Blu-ray.
Syabas has announced July 23rd as the shipping date for the highly-anticipated Popbox media player.
Pre-order began in May with a July 4th tentative release date. The company decided to delay the launch to work on some final tweaks for the Popbox software.
Among the first Popapps to ship with the box are Picasa, YouTube, Photobucket, Twitter, Next New Networks and Revision3.
The interface also includes a cover-flow-esque visual thumbnails selection for videos, music and other data, as well as universal search.
More notably, the interface can handle Flash, Java and QT meaning Netflix will be available eventually. Also available in the future is Hulu, CBS and ABC content, which can now include the in-video ads required for playback. Facebook ShoutcastMP3, and other Popcorn Hour content will rollover to the new box eventually, as well.
For video, full 1080p at 100Mbps is now supported, along with the standard MPEG formats, H.264, VC-1, WMV, MKV, XviD and other containers. The player can also support most subtitle files, including Microsoft's proprietary one. For streaming, the Popbox can recognize iTunes via Bonjour, and DLNA and UPnP sources.
Apple has waived the 10 percent restocking fee for iPhone customers who return their phones, following the revelation that their devices have had a flawed signal strength indicator for years now.
The company added buyers could return the smartphone for a "full refund" within 30 days if they were not happy with it.
Until the announcement, Apple was charging $20 for a returned 16GB iPhone 4, and $30 for a 32GB model.
The decision to drop the fee is likely in conjunction with a recent class action lawsuit filed by angry customers who say the company shipped defective iPhone 4s and have been collecting on the restocking fee.
Says the suit: Apple is willingly selling defective products and consumers "are unable to return the phone without incurring a substantial restocking fee."
In general, Apple is facing a growing number of complaints about signal strength, and dropped calls, which appears to occur when you hold the phone in the lower left corner. Apple even had the audacity to tell buyers to purchase a case for their phone to avoid the problem.
Droid-Life has gotten an early build of Adobe AIR for Android, along with some early apps that can be used with it, and posted it to their site.
AIR allows developers to create applications or tools that can then be used on multiple operating systems.
Explains Adobe: "Adobe Air will let you publish ActionScript 3 projects to run as native applications (.apk) for the Android OS. These AIR applications can be delivered to Android devices through Android application stores such as the Android Market.
Developers can write new code or reuse existing web content to build AIR applications for the Android OS. Because the source code and assets are reusable across the Flash Platform runtimes, Adobe AIR and Flash Player, it also gives developers a way to more easily target other mobile and desktop environments."
According to a new metrics report from mobile advertising giant AdMob, the Motorola Droid is the most popular Android device, followed by the HTC Hero.
It is important to note that the data is based on 12.7 million Android phones as of May 31st. The MyTouch 3G Slide and HTC EVO 4G were released in early June and are therefore not included.
The Droid, which launched last November, has 22 percent market share, with the Hero having 16 percent. Rounding out the top 5 are the HTC Magic, Dream (G1) and Droid Eris, each with between 8-10 percent share. Google's flagship Nexus One has just 2 percent share.
While still unconfirmed, the latest rumor has Verizon rolling out Android 2.2 Froyo for the Motorola Droid starting in two weeks, making the device the second smartphone to get the update, behind the flagship Google Nexus One.
The leaked Verizon memo shows the roll out starting July 13th, which makes sense given the increase in stable versions of 2.2 floating around the Web currently.
Motorola's Droid remains the best selling Android device of all-time.
There are many new features that most users have been expecting and wanting. The main two are the addition of Flash (built-in) and the addition of Wi-Fi tethering. Additionally, Apps2SD, desktop to handset music streaming and a "one-handed camera UI" are part of the update.
On the performance end, a new Dalvik JIT compiler will give 2.2 users a 200-500 percent performance boost over those using 2.1. The HTML-5 supportive browser will give 300 percent performance boosts for JavaScript.
In December of last year we reported that a 22-year old woman was arrested in Chicago for recording three minutes of the newest "Twilight" film with a digital camera at the movie theater, and was forced to spend two days in jail awaiting a hearing.
Samantha Tumpach faced up to three years in jail after being charged for criminal use of a motion picture exhibition.
Making the situation worse was the fact that Tumpach wasn't filming the movie and was instead taping parts of her sister's birthday party, which was taking place at the movie theater. Although the movie is in the background in clips, there are longer clips of family and friends singing happy birthday to Tumpach's sister at the theater. The situation was met with justifiable outrage from almost everyone who read about it, including the director of "Twilight: New Moon," who said the woman should have the charges dropped.
Fortunately, a week later, the prosecutors tossed out the case against her, and apologized for the time she had to spend in a holding cell.
The 25-year old Best Buy employee who posted a viral video spoofing iPhone 4 and HTC EVO 4G zealots has been suspended from his job this week, and says he expects to be fired after the July 4th holiday.
Brain Maupin, a long-time employee at a branch in Missouri, posted the two YouTube videos in late June, and the first video has over 2 million views.
Each video slams fanatics of the two popular smartphones, but neither video even mentions Best Buy.
"They felt it disparaged a brand they carried (iPhone/Apple) as well as the store itself and were fearful of stockholders & customers being turned off to Best Buy Mobile," said Maupin.
Maupin was asked to quit, but refused.
"I issued a statement to them explaining that the video was intended to be comedic and hence, not taken seriously by them or all these stockholders & customers they are worried about [being] turned off to buying from them due to the video," Maupin added.
World of Warcraft lead designer Tom Chilton has suggested this week that Blizzard may eventually move the extremely popular game to a free-to-play model.
Says Chilton: "At some point, it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee."
That being said, the developer was quick to note that his suggestion was on a very long time frame, if it was to happen at all. "We’re not spending a lot of time thinking about it. It’s not something that’s a reality for us in the near future."
Other major MMO games such as The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online have recently moved to a free-to-play model, choosing to make money off weapon and clothing upgrades for characters as well as other digital items.
When asked about their movies, Chilton responded: "I feel like they’re doing that to compete with other games that are on a similar subscriber level to what they were at. I imagine that when one of them went free to play it cannibalised some of the other subscribers. I can definitely imagine that being the case with World of Warcraft. If another game comes along and blows us away it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee. Or even further down the line, when we have another MMO out."
Microsoft has sold 15,000 of the new slimmer Xbox 360 units during launch week in Japan, giving the console its strongest week in the region in a very long time.
Overall, 17,370 Xbox 360s were sold in the nation.
The previous week saw sales of just 2060, weak even by the Xbox's normal Japanese standards.
Because the console went on sale on the 24th, the weekly figure only accounts for four days worth of sales. The slim model sells for ¥29,800, while the Elite sells for ¥24,800.
In Japan, the DS line remains very strong, with the DS Lite, DSi and DSi LL selling a combined 61,141 units.
Full chart via GI:
DSi LL: 41,676
PSP: 23,257
PS3: 19,578
Wii: 19,115
Xbox 360: 17,370
DSi: 17,306
DS Lite: 5209
PS2: 1530 PSPgo: 845
The latest mega-rumor, fueled by Digg CEO Kevin Rose, is that Google is quietly creating a social networking site dubbed Google Me that will openly compete with the Facebook behemoth.
Rose tweeted yesterday (it has since been taken down): "Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon ‘Google Me’, very credible source."
Furthermore, former Facebook CTO Adam D'Angelo blogged that he heard from reliable sources that Google has made the project its highest priority outside of Android.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt would not deny the rumor. When asked, he responded: "That would be a product announcement and I won’t say."
If accurate, the attempt will be Google's third foray into social networking. Orkut, its first attempt, is extremely popular in Brazil, but nowhere else. Google Buzz, launched in 2010, has received more criticism than praise.
Google could create a monster, however, rolling YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, Maps, Google Profiles and more into a single platform.
After a more than a week of dismissing iPhone 4 user complaints about reception problems and dropped calls as a non-issue, Apple has announced they're working on an update to the phone's OS.
The announcement follows an interesting report on AnandTech showing the actual difference in Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) for each additional bar of signal displayed on the phone varies wildly. SNR is essentially an indicator of the phone's signal quality.
In the article, published earlier this week, Brian Klug & Anand Lal Shimpi showed that the signal quality increas from 4 bars to 5 is greater than the difference going from 1 bar all the way up to 4.
An update to solve the problem sounds like just what iPhone users were demanding. Except that the fix is only cosmetic.
While it should make the number of bars displayed more meaningful, that doesn't address the actual reception. Also in the AnandTech article is a comparison of signal loss (attenuation) between the iPhone 4 and other handsets when held in various ways.
Steve Jobs has noted in some tersely worded emails to dissatisfied customers that all phones suffer from attenuation when you hold them in your hand. But AnandTech's data shows the external antennas on the iPhone 4 drastically increase the effect.
According to DisplaySearch, global TV shipments are expected to jump 15 percent this year, to about 242 million.
In 2009, shipments stalled, seeing a small 2 percent growth.
LCD HDTVs continue to lead the way, with 29 percent growth expected, for a total of 188 million units. Despite being "aging" technology, both plasma and CRT televisions have seen their outlooks upgraded.
LED-backlit LCDs would have the strongest growth in the market, however acute supply chain shortages are keeping those numbers down. CCFL LCDs have no supply issues.
Overall, LCD TVs are the dominant technology, with shipment share over 50 percent in all regions except for "Asia Pacific" which is in the high 40's, with the 50 percent barrier expected to be crossed within months.
China remains one of the strongest growth area for LCD TVs, seeing 35 percent year-over-year growth in 2010, after a massive 120 percent growth in 2009. Shipments to Japan are expected to rise 36 percent in 2010, as well.
Because LED-backlit LCDs remain on the more expensive side, plasma TVs should see a boost, as consumers search for the "best bang for the buck," says the report.
The NPD Group has released their latest U.S. video game industry sales figures, and unsurprisingly the industry was down again for the month of May.
Overall sales fell 5 percent year-over-year (YoY), with hardware dragging the numbers down with a 20 percent plummet. Software, on the other hand, rose 4 percent for the period.
Sales of software, hardware and accessories fell to $823.5 million, hardware fell to $241.5 million, and software rose to $466.3 million.
Software was given a big boost by Red Dead Redemption, which sold 1.51 million units for the month. Super Mario Galaxy followed at 563,000 units sold.
On the hardware side, the normally strong DS and Wii sales were sluggish, and the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 continued their sluggish 2010 pace. The PSP practically fell off the map, having one its slowest months in history.
Palm had put itself up for sale in March after it became clear that the company's phones were not selling and it only had enough cash to last the next 12 months.
Today, HP has completed that acquisition, while at the same time confirming WebOS-based tablets, smartphones and netbooks coming in the future.
"Palm will be responsible for WebOS software development and WebOS-based hardware products, from a robust smartphone roadmap to future slate PCs and netbooks," says the company.
Yesterday, the MeeGo Project officially started its "Day 1" launch, making the baseline source code available to developers.
October should see the release of MeeGo 1.1, on Nokia smartphones.
Furthermore, the MeeGo UI team has said they are actively creating the "handset reference user experience."
Day 1 marks the final merger of Moblin and Maemo, a joint effort by Intel and Nokia.
The MeeGo Project Handset Day 1 includes:
MeeGo APIs, incorporating Qt and MeeGo Touch UI Framework (MTF)
Subset of the handset reference UI and applications
Status Bar: clock, network, Bluetooth, 3G connection, notifications, and battery charge
Home Screen
Lock Screen
Application Launcher
Virtual Keyboard
Applications: Dialer, SMS, Browser, Contacts, and Photo Viewer
MeeGo Core OS (including the middleware components)
Hardware adaptation support for Intel Atom-based handset (Moorestown) and ARM-based Nokia N900
RIAA President Cary Sherman recently posted a statement responding to last week's summary judgement in the Viacom lawsuit against YouTube decrying the decision as a "dangerously expansive reading of the liability immunity provisions of the DMCA." He also called it "bad public policy."
He went on to claim the decision will "will actually discourage service providers from taking steps to minimize the illegal exchange of copyrighted works on their sites."
This is nothing surprising coming from the RIAA. Like the MPAA and Business Software Alliance (BSA), they have consistently argued service providers should be responsibile for identifying copyright infringement rather than the content owners themselves.
But as Judge Louis Stanton pointed out in his decision on YouTube's DMCA defense, this responsibility falls solely on the shoulders of the content owners except in rare cases where the infringement is obvious without any investigation.
He wrote, "The DMCA is explicit: it shall not be construed to condition "safe harbor" protection on "a service provider monitoring its service or affirmatively seeding facts indicating infringing activity.""
Google has said today that it will purchase travel comparison firm ITA Software for $700 million, but did admit that there is a chance that regulators will not let the deal pass.
The search giant outbid Kayak, an ITA rival, for the company.
ITA is widely used by airlines, travel agents and sites such as Expedia in an effort to bring the easiest comparison of flight times, prices, and availability.
Google says the deal will benefit consumers as it gives them a "new, easier way to find better flight information online, which should encourage more users to make their flight purchases online."
Reveals CEO Eric Schmidt: "Airline tickets online is a very large business, and of course a global business but I don’t know about you all, but when I do it, I find it sort of frustrating. The prices are changing constantly. The availability is changing all the time. There’s so many thousands of options, even for a simple itinerary. Users are going between multiple websites and ultimately not a very good user experience, although people trying make this better. So when we looked at it, we said we still had more room for competition here and innovation."
As of today, Finland has become the first nation in the world to make broadband Internet a legal right, with every citizen guaranteed the right to at least a 1Mbps connection.
Furthermore, the Finnish government has promised guaranteed speeds of 100Mbps for all of its citizens by 2015, a feat that will likely not be matched by most other nations.
97 percent of the Finnish population currently has access to a broadband connection.
Finland passed the legislation last year, and Spain followed in November with a similar bill.
Says Fninish communication minister Suvi Linden: "We considered the role of the internet in Finns everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment. Finland has worked hard to develop an information society and a couple of years ago we realised not everyone had access."
The British government has also committed to giving all citizens a minimum 2Mbps broadband connection by 2012 but that is not a legally binding ruling.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced the shut down of nine movie piracy sites, the first sites in a major crackdown from federal officials.
The anti-piracy initiative is dubbed "Operation in Our Sites," and is aimed at taking down sites that stream or offer downloads of films that are currently in theaters.
Movies-links.TV, nowmovies.com, thepiratecity.org, filespump.com, planetmoviez.com, zml.org, tvshack.net, ninjavideo.net and thisninja.net were all taken down.
Each site generated revenue from ads and some accept donations. All assets from the sites were seized, including PayPal and advertising accounts.
ICE president John Morton says the amount of illegal movie sites is rising rapidly, with organized crime behind a number of the bigger sites.
Morton added that the sites taken down combined for "millions and millions of hits on a monthly basis."
Microsoft has confirmed today that Xbox Arcade games will be easily ported to Windows Phone 7, using the XNA framework.
Says Oded Ran, head of Consumer Marketing for Windows Phone: "There are four million Xboxes in the UK compared to 2.5 million iPhones; we're now working with developers who know how to make games, and they're able to port Xbox Arcade games to mobile phones easily."
Furthermore, Ran says: "Of course we're not talking about bringing Halo 3 to your mobile phone - users want a 42-inch LCD TV and surround sound to play games like that - but our XNA framework is a big part [of the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 launch devices]."
Ran says Microsoft wants to become a leader in mobile gaming.
Moreover, TR says the "same framework is used to create games on Windows 7 PC games, so it's entirely feasible that multi-platform gaming will play an even bigger part of the launch than previously thought."
TechCrunch has reported today that Disney has purchased iOS game developer Tapulous, the maker behind the very popular Tap Tap Revenge game for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
In addition, Tapulous founder Bart Decrem will join Disney as a VP.
Tap Tap Revenge, which started as a game available only to those that had jailbroken their devices, has quietly become one of the most popular games in the Apple App Store, with millions upon millions of downloads. The game is billed as a Guitar Hero-esque music game, for your fingers.
There are multiple versions of the game, with some being general while others are aimed specifically at certain artists, and cost money to purchase, such as Lady Gaga Revenge.
Recently, the company introduced Tap Tap Radiaton for the iPad.
Buying the developer gives Disney a quick "in" the music game business, especially for handheld gaming.
IBM has announced today that the company is "moving to Firefox as its default browser," mainly because the browser is "stunningly standards compliant" and not "beholden to one commercial entity."
The giant corporation has about 400,000 employees so Mozilla is likely to see a small jump in market share over the coming months, as employees move to the browser at work, and then most likely back at home, as well.
Statcounter recently reported that Internet Explorer has 55 percent worldwide market share, with Firefox in second at 29 percent. Google's Chrome continues to see strong growth, but remains far behind at 8 percent.
When asked why the company-wide move, VP of open source and Linux Bob Sutor said: "Firefox is stunningly standards compliant, and interoperability via open standards is key to IBM's strategy. Firefox is open source and its development schedule is managed by a development community not beholden to one commercial entity. Firefox is secure and an international community of experts continues to develop and maintain it. Firefox is extensible and can be customized for particular applications and organizations, like IBM. Firefox is innovative and has forced the hand of browsers that came before and after it to add and improve speed and function."
According to mobile phone journalist Eldar Murtazin, Android 3.0, aka Gingerbread, will be aimed only at the high-end market, leaving out a bunch of current models, and upcoming low-end models, as well.
To be able to use Android 3.0, your phone must have a 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and a 3.5-inch display, or larger.
For any device with 4-inch displays or larger, 1280×760 resolution will be available.
Most importantly, Google is creating a whole new 3D interface for 3.0, one that will be like the Gallery App on the Nexus One, just as an entire UI.
Third-party UI shells, like the popular HTC Sense, and the less popular MotoBLUR, will be killed off by 3.0, but will continue on in Android 2.1 and 2.2 Froyo.
Giant e-tailer Amazon has announced that it will be introducing a new, cheaper version of its Kindle DX e-reader, lowering the price to remain competitive.
The updated model will also have a sharper screen.
Amazon charged $489 for the first generation DX, but the new generation model will sell for $379.
Additionally, Amazon says the new DX will handle PDFs better, including the ability to zoom, which was the top complaint for the original device.
The Kindle DX is different from its brother Kindle device because it has a large 9.7-inch screen. Amazon had hoped the DX would eventually replace textbooks on college campuses.
At the time, Jobs said: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace."
Two years later, Blu-ray has become more mainstream, but Steve Jobs seems to have the same distaste for the HD format.
A MacRumors reader sent an email to Jobs asking about the future of Blu-ray on Mac computers.
Reads his response: "Blu-ray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD - like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats."
Hulu announced yesterday the launch of Hulu Plus, a premium version of the popular streaming site that will cost $10 per month.
Buyers of the subscription get expanded content, and the ability to play the shows on their HDTVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox 360 (with Gold subscription), PS3 and iPad and iPhone.
Hulu Plus gives users season passes for most current shows, which is a massive improvement from only being able to watch the trailing five episodes of a given show. You will also be able to watch back seasons of the shows.
Today, Technologizer is reporting that Hulu Plus will only be available to PS3 users who have a PlayStation Plus subscription, which costs $50 per year, or $18 for 90 days.
On top of that, Hulu Plus is still ad-supported, meaning if you want the service on your PS3 (or Xbox 360) you will need to pay for two premium subscriptions and still see ads.
Amazon has announced it will purchase the popular site Woot.com, the site that became famous for selling just one item at a time, usually at a large discount from its normal prices.
Retailers use sites like Woot to either dump excess inventory or introduce new customers to their brand of products.
Consumers, on the other hand, get the thrill of racing other would-be buyers for a sharply discounted item.
Woot launched in 2004 and now has 2.75 million registered users. The site sells all types of items, but mostly electronics. For example, today's Woot item is the Apple iPod Nano 8GB, 5th Generation , selling for $99 USD, a big discount from even Amazon, which has the same item listed at $125.
Amazon was Woot's only outside investor, when they bought a piece in 2006.
The NYTimes explains that Woot is also a wholesale distributor, which distributes to Target, Amazon, and others.
Starbucks says its free Wi-Fi program will go live tomorrow in U.S. and Canadian stores, allowing users to access free Internet from over 7500 shops in the nations.
There are about 6750 U.S. locations and 750 in Canada.
Until now, free Wi-Fi at Starbucks was limited to two hours, and you had to be part of the company's Rewards program. The new, unlimited offering is simple one-click, removing the need for a username and password.
"Our customers were asking for a simplified Wi-Fi offering, and free Wi-Fi has been a top request on MyStarbucksIdea.com. We’re excited to turn this feedback into action and believe our customers will be delighted with the enhanced experience they’ll find in Starbucks stores,"adds Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.
In the fall, Starbucks will introduce the Starbucks Digital Network, a partnership with Yahoo! that will give consumers "free, unrestricted access to a collection of paid sites and services, exclusive content and previews, free downloads and local community news."
Earlier this week a company called Lookout showed how several Android wallpaper apps were accessing user information, including phone number, subscriber identification, voicemail password, browsing history, text messages & the phone’s SIM card number.
A web based alternative to the iPhone app store called OpenAppMkt opened today. Instead of native iOS apps, it offers a selection of HTML apps.
