Web Technology News

Google Voice application is on its way to the iPhone

2010-09-28T03:23:00.000-07:00

The App Store review office at 1 Infinite Loop has officially frozen over: we’ve gotten word that the official Google Voice application is on its way to the iPhone in the next few weeks. In fact, we’ve heard from a source close to Google that it’s already been approved — Google just needs to revamp the application to work with the iPhone 4 and iOS’s multitasking capabilities. If you’re a Google Voice user and you’re on an iPhone, this is great news.
It’s been a long, long road to get here. Last July, we broke the news that Apple had blocked the official Google Voice application, which eventually sparked an FCC inquiry into the matter. Apple claimed that the application “duplicated existing functionality”, which didn’t do much to convince anyone as it subsequently accepted similar apps. Nothing happened for well over a year, and the odds of Google Voice ever making its way to the iPhone, at least as a native application, seemed bleak.
Everything changed on September 9, when Apple published a set of guidelines telling developers which applications would not be allowed into the App Store — and none of the rules seemed to apply to Google Voice. Rumors started swirling that third-party Google Voice apps might soon make their way to the App Store, and sure enough, a handful of applications have since been approved.
But the existing applications, nice as they may be, are all provided by third parties. We haven’t gotten the chance to use the official Google application, but it’s possible that it will include functionality that the others don’t. Namely, push notifications for inbound SMS and voicemail messages (Google doesn’t provide an API for these, so third parties would have to route these messages through their own servers to offer push notifications).
Reached for comment about the upcoming iPhone application, Google offered this non-answer of a statement:

“We currently offer Google Voice mobile apps for Blackberry and Android, and we offer an HTML5 web app for the iPhone. We have nothing further to announce at this time.”

Source

AOL reportedly in talks to acquire TechCrunch

2010-09-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

Points for timing if this rumor is true: Tech blogger Om Malik reports on GigaOm that AOL, the Internet giant struggling to reinvent itself as a Web content powerhouse, is in talks to acquire TechCrunch, the technology-news website currently holding its Disrupt conference in San Francisco.
TechCrunch co-editor Erick Schonfeld declined to comment on the report. Malik said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong might appear at the conference to make an announcement of the rumored deal.
An acquisition by AOL would bring to an end TechCrunch’s spiky independence. Founder Michael Arrington, a former lawyer, is known for stirring up Silicon Valley with his outspoken views on startups and technology investing.
AOL, originally an Internet service provider, has increasingly emphasized Web content since its 2005 acquisition of Weblogs Inc., the parent company of blogs like Engadget and Joystiq. Under Armstrong, that strategy has gotten sharper emphasis. The acquisition of a tech-business site would complement Engadget, a consumer-oriented website which emphasizes hardware, while TechCrunch focuses on consumer-website startups.
AOL had previously been reported to be in talks with Mashable, another rival tech blog, as well as earlier discussions with TechCrunch. But TechCrunch is at a considerably more developed stage than at the last round of talks, with its Disrupt conference series and an expanded writing staff (including VentureBeat alum MG Siegler and witty former SF Weekly editor Alexia Tsotsis, who joked about finding a new job as word of the deal spread. Arrington himself has moved out of Silicon Valley, commuting to the Bay Area from Seattle.
Update: The Wall Street Journal says it also has a source confirming the deal. Meanwhile, Arrington was absent from the stage of his TechCrunch Disrupt conference for the entire afternoon, and we’ve heard that CEO Heather Harde was seen backstage in deep conversation with a lawyer.
Source

Apple shares hit all-time high, bordering on $300

2010-09-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

Shares of Apple this week have been on an absolute tear. Over the past few days, Apple's share price has steadily increased, reaching new all-time closing and intraday highs day after day.

Shares of Apple this week have been on an absolute tear. Over the past few days, Apple's share price has steadily increased, reaching new all-time closing and intraday highs day after day. At the close of trading on Thursday, Apple shares were trading at $288.92. Earlier in the day, Apple shares hit $292.76, marking an all-time high intraday stock price, and for a short while, Apple briefly surpassed PetroChina Co. as the second largest company in the world in terms of market cap, with Exxon Mobil still taking up the top spot.

With Apple shares inching closer to $300, analysts still think Apple's stock price will soar even higher. Earlier this week, analyst Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros. raised his stock target for Apple to $274 citing extremely strong iPad demand and continued iPhone 4 momentum. While Wu doesn't have the most glowing track record when it comes to anticipating the ebb and flow of Apple shares, he's not alone in his bullish outlook on Apple. Writing for CNN, Financial blogger Andy Zaky, who consistently has a stronger track record than most corporate analysts when it comes to predicting Apple's financials and share price, opined a few weeks ago that Apple shares may very well reach $400 by the end of 2011.

Throwing his hat into the ring, analyst T. Michael Walkley of Canaccord Genuity recently opened up coverage of Apple with a stock target of $356. But who are we kidding - stock targets may make nice investor fodder, but they don't mean all that much at the end of the day. One metric, though, that remains impervious to scrutiny is profitability, and in that regard, Apple is in a league all its own.

The following graphic, courtesy of a research report from Wakley, highlights just how much of a money making machine Apple is in the smartphone sphere. From January to June, the iPhone accounted for 17 million of all the worldwide mobile handsets sold, which comes out to about 2.8%. Profit wise, however, Apple's iPhone during the same period accounted for an astounding 39% of industry profits. The chart below really speaks for itself. When you add in exploding iPad demand, strong Mac sales, and record breaking earnings on what seems like a quarterly basis, Apple at $300 a share almost seems cheap.

Source: Here

Samsung Q1 net profit surges to record high

2010-04-30T09:44:00.001-07:00

Samsung Electronics said net profit surged more than six-fold in the first quarter to a record high on strong demand and higher prices for memory chips as well as increased sales of mobile phones and flat screen televisions.

Samsung earned 3.99 trillion won ($3.59 billion) in the three months ended March 31, the company said Friday. It recorded net profit of 582 billion won the year before.

The latest figure was an all-time high for the company, said spokesman Jason Kim, surpassing 3.81 trillion won in the third quarter of last year.

The company also said sales in the first quarter totaled 34.64 trillion won. That was 20.8 percent higher than the 28.67 trillion won reported a year earlier.

Samsung Electronics Co. is a major force in the global technology industry, ranking as the largest manufacturer of computer memory chips, flat screen televisions and liquid crystal displays. It also stands No. 2 globally in mobile phones behind Finland's Nokia Corp.

Samsung said in a release that sales in its semiconductor business jumped 57 percent to 8.2 trillion won in the first quarter. The company said tight supply and strong demand caused prices for DRAM, or dynamic random access memory, chips to rise. DRAM are used mostly in personal computers.

The company also cited steady demand for NAND flash memory chips in line with consumer purchases of smart phones and mobile application products. NAND are used in devices such as digital cameras, music players and smart phones.

"Strong demand for mobile products continued despite weak seasonality," Samsung said in presentation materials for investors.

In mobile phones, Samsung sold 64.3 million of the devices in the first quarter, up 40 percent from the year before. It predicted demand will increase in the current second quarter in line with the global economic recovery.

The company also sold 8.4 million flat screen TVs in the first quarter, an increase of 47 percent from the year before. Samsung said it expects demand to grow 34 percent in the second quarter.

"In the TV business, we launched aggressive marketing activities focusing on 3D TV as well as LED TV," Robert Yi, Samsung's head of investor relations, told analysts on a conference call. "As a result, our shipment and profit margin improved significantly year on year."

Investors cheered the results, sending Samsung shares 2.9 percent higher to close at 849,000 won. Samsung's stock price, which surged 77 percent in 2009, hit a record high of 870,000 won on April 5 this year.
Source: http://asurl.net/eUe

Man who found — and sold — the missing iPhone unmasked

2010-04-30T09:43:00.000-07:00

Twenty-one-year-old Redwood City, California, resident Brian J. Hogan, the man identified by Wired.com as the guy who found — and later sold — Apple's missing iPhone in a bar last month, has a message for Apple, the engineer who originally lost the precious gadget, and the tech world at large: Sorry about that.
Following a trail of "clues" on social-networking sites and confirming his ID with a source "involved in the iPhone find," Wired named Hogan on Thursday as the bar patron who made off with Apple's top-secret iPhone prototype and then sold it to Gizmodo for $5,000 after an Apple software engineer left the precious phone on a bar stool.

Up until now, Hogan's identity has been a mystery to the public, but the 21-year-old college student (or at least, he was a college student as of 2008) may have sensed that he was in trouble after all the hoopla over Gizmodo's gigantic iPhone scoop last week and the subsequent fallout, including a raid on Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's house by San Mateo sheriff's deputies armed with a search warrant.

Hogan has now lawyered up, and in a statement released through his attorney, the young man says he "regrets his mistake in not doing more to return the phone," and that he thought his $5,000 deal with Gizmodo was only "so that they could review the phone," Wired reports.

According to Hogan's attorney's statement, Hogan didn't see the lost iPhone until another patron at the Redwood City bar came up and asked him if it was his; Hogan apparently then asked a few other patrons if they'd lost the device before heading out, iPhone in hand, according to Wired.

Initial reports had it that the man who'd taken the iPhone tried repeatedly to call the Apple Care support line to return the phone, but according to the statement in the Wired story, Hogan never personally called Apple, although a friend of his offered to. The owners of the bar where the iPhone was lost also told Wired that Hogan never bothered to call them about the lost hardware, although the anguished Apple engineer who mislaid the iPhone "returned several times" to see if it had turned up.

Meanwhile, CNET is reporting that Hogan had help in finding a buyer for the lost iPhone. The "go-between," according to CNET: 27-year-old Sage Robert Wallower, a UC Berkeley student who "contacted technology sites" about the handset. Wallower told CNET that he "didn't see it or touch it in any manner" but knows "who found it," adding, "I need to speak to a lawyer ... I think I have said too much."

No one has been charged yet in the case of the lost iPhone, but a deputy district attorney for San Mateo County tells Wired that Hogan is "very definitely ... being looked at as a suspect in theft." (In California, finding a piece of lost property isn't a case of "finders keepers"; if you find a lost item and keep it without making "reasonable" efforts to find the real owner, you could be charged with a crime.)

Gizmodo's Jason Chen also has yet to be charged; law-enforcement officials have reportedly said they'll hold off on searching the computers and servers seized from Chen's house until they decide whether California's shield law for journalists applies to him.
Source: http://asurl.net/euJ

Adobe Creative Suite 5 starts shipping

2010-04-30T09:37:00.000-07:00

Adobe Creative Suite 5, the massive overhaul to the software maker’s collection of print, Web, and video applications announced earlier this month, has begun shipping. Adobe says its CS5 products will be available starting Friday.
Adobe CS5 features new versions of 14 products and their assorted applications, four new online services, and a brand new interactive Web design product. All told, Adobe promises more than 250 new product features in its suite, which the company aims at creative professionals working with print, Web, and video.
The CS5 lineup features five versions: a Design Standard edition ($1299; upgrade, $499) that includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat 9; a Design Premium edition ($1899; upgrade, $599) featuring Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, InDesign, Adobe 9 Pro, Flash Catalyst, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, and FireWorks; a Web Premium edition ($1799; upgrade, $599) with nearly the same applications as Design Premium, but swapping out InDesign, in favor of Flash Builder 4 Standard, Flash Catalyst, and Contribute; a Production Premium edition ($1,699; upgrade, $599) featuring Premiere Pro, After Effects, SoundBooth, OnLocation, and Encore along with Photoshop CS5 Extended, Illustrator, Flash Catalyst, and Flash Professional; and Adobe’s Master Collection ($2599; upgrade, $899), which offers all CS5 programs except for Photoshop Standard. Standalone versions of the Creative Suite tools—including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash Catalyst, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro, and After Effects, among others—are also available.
Look for full reviews of the CS5 offerings at Macworld.com starting on Friday and continuing through May.
Source: http://asurl.net/eNb

Sony Sued for Removing Linux Support in PS3 Upgrade

2010-04-30T09:36:00.000-07:00

Sony Computer Entertainment is under fire by PlayStation 3 owners. A class-action suit has been brought against Sony for removing Linux support from PS3 consoles in its latest upgrade.
An attorney for PS3 owner Anthony Ventura filed the suit against Sony in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Wednesday after Sony removed support for Linux in its PlayStation 3.21 software update.
After Sony announced the update on March 28, unhappy PS3 owners took their frustrations to the web by flooding Sony's official PlayStation blog with angry comments. A total of 7,454 comments were posted as of Thursday. While some are upset with losing Linux support, others are more angry with Sony for removing a feature for which they paid.
Ventura, however, took his frustrations straight to a lawyer who filed the class-action suit on his behalf.
No Joke
PlayStation 3 owners were anticipating the PlayStation 3.21 upgrade slated for April 1, but thought Sony was playing an April Fools' Day joke when it said the upgrade would remove support for Linux.
Sony quickly warned users that the upgrade was no a joke and, in fact, was an attempt to protect the intellectual property of the content offered on the PS3 system as well as to provide a more secure system. PS3 owners who chose not to upgrade risked losing other PS3 features, according to Sony, including access to the PlayStation Network, newer games, and Blu-ray movies. Gamers who decided not to upgrade also risked losing playback of copyright-protected videos stored on a media server, the company warned.
If Judge Edward Chen allows the class-action suit, it would include all individuals who bought a PS3 between Nov. 17, 2006, and March 27, 2010, according to reports. The suit does not specify any amount in requested damages, but does state damages will not exceed $5 million.
Julie Han, a spokesperson for Sony, said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Rebecca Bedwell Coll, who is listed as Ventura's lawyer, did not respond to requests for comment.
Little To No Impact
Sony Entertainment has had great success with its PS3, with 12 million units sold in the U.S. to date, according to the company. Except, however, for a few bumps in the legal road.
In October 2009, Sony faced a class-action suit brought by John Kennedy, who said a firmware update caused damage to thousands of PS3 systems. After downloading the update, owners said it caused the system to malfunction. The damage resulted in Kennedy having to cough up $150 in repair fees.
Analysts don't expect the new class-action to negatively impact Sony PS3 sales. "I doubt it'll have much impact -- certainly a nuisance and cost, but having Linux on a PS3 was always way down the list of priorities for most gamers," said Lewis Ward, an IDC analyst.
Source: http://asurl.net/eOm

Symantec Embraces Encryption with New Acquisitions

2010-04-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

Symantec announced two new acquisitions--PGP Corporation for approximately $300 million, and GuardianEdge Technologies for around $70 million. Purchasing these two established encryption providers will enable Symantec to take a more comprehensive approach to protecting data.

Symantec's press release announcing the acquisitions states "Encryption technology is an important element of an information-centric security solution, as critical information is increasingly on mobile devices and in the cloud. State and national governments are enacting more stringent and costly compliance mandates, such as the HITECH and UK Data Protection Acts, which are driving the need to encrypt sensitive information and protect an individual's privacy. Also, the increased costs and frequency of data breaches are driving the adoption of encryption as companies strive to mitigate risk and protect their critical information from cybercriminals."

"As information becomes increasingly mobile, it's essential to take an information-centric approach to security. Our market-leading data protection solutions provide the intelligence for customers to better understand what data is important, who owns it and who accesses it," said Francis deSouza, senior vice president, Enterprise Security Group, Symantec in the press release. "With these acquisitions we can further protect information by using encryption in an intelligent and policy-driven way to give the right users access to the right information, enabling the trust that individuals and organizations need to operate confidently in an information-driven world. We're now able to offer the industry's most comprehensive solution across encryption and data loss prevention for protecting confidential data on endpoints, networks, storage systems and in the cloud."
With PGP and GuardianEdge, Symantec can expand the scope of the security services it offers--providing customers with critical data encryption. Lost or stolen laptops, or servers are breached by unauthorized access do not also have to lead to compromised information if the data stored on them is encrypted.
Cloud data storage also requires encryption. Not only should the data be encrypted to protect it from unauthorized access, and as an additional layer of defense in the event that the third-party cloud storage provider's network is breached, but encrypting data implies an expectation of privacy and could be crucial in establishing Fourth Amendment protection for your data in the event that the cloud storage provider's assets are seized.

While Massachusetts and Nevada are unique in actually requiring sensitive information to be encrypted, almost every state has some form of data breach disclosure law in place. In many cases, encryption of data is at least implied in the requirements under the data breach disclosure laws, and even where not implied having encrypted data may obviate the need to disclose a data breach occurrence.
"What I really like about these acquisitions is that they go well beyond PC full-disk encryption alone," said Jon Oltsik, Principal Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group--quoted in the Symantec press release. "With PGP and GuardianEdge, Symantec gets a geographically-dispersed install base, a leading standards-based key management platform, a PKI SaaS offering, a strong government presence, and encryption coverage from mobile devices to mainframes. Yesterday, Symantec was lagging in encryption and key management and today, with PGP and GuardianEdge, it is now able to provide leading solutions worldwide."

Symantec has built its security software and services empire on a foundation of mergers and acquisitions. Acquiring established entities can be a shortcut to providing new technologies for customers, but the integration doesn't always go as smoothly as initially envisioned.

Reinventing the wheel and building an in-house solution from the ground up ensures a more seamless fit with the existing inventory, but it can take a substantial amount of time and money to invest in R&D to develop something similar to what an existing provider is already delivering. There are certainly pros and cons to both in-house R&D, and to mergers and acquisitions.
The Symantec acquisitions have to go through the standard shareholder and regulatory approvals before becoming official. Symantec expects the deals to be finalized during the June quarter.

Source: http://asurl.net/e4j

Google: Now Recommending Brands For Searches

2010-04-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

First Google rolled out recommendations for “pages similar to” earlier this week, now they also appear to be testing brand recommendations in response to certain queries. As I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable, some users are seeing “brands for” recommendations for searches such as [digital cameras], [cheap laptops], [label printers], [fishing rod] and others.

This does seem to be using similar functionality to what Google launched in November, for their product search expansion, but here the brands are listed at the top of the results. The big brands are getting more exposure in the Google search results than possibly ever before.
I have asked Google for a comment and all I have yet to receive is:

As before, on questions about testing and this design, this is just a test and at this point we don’t have more to share. But, please do stay tuned. We’ll be sure to keep you in the loop about any new developments.

What I really want to know is how do brands get the ability to show up in these brand boxes? Are they reserved for only large brands? If so, what is the rational behind Google testing this feature?
Postscript From Danny Sullivan: It’s worth noting a some things over the past year that Google has done in terms of brands.
About a year ago, Aaron Wall of SEO Book reported on an amazing trend where web sites from notable brands appeared to perform much better in search results than in the past. Google suggested this wasn’t brand-specific but rather related to new “trust” metrics (see Google’s Vince Update Produces Big Brand Rankings; Google Calls It A Trust “Change”).
Also last year, Google CEO Eric Schmidt reiterated comments he had made in the past about about the idea of the web as a “sewer” where “brands” represent quality that stands out.
Source: http://asurl.net/kt1

Google To Phase Out Old Keyword Tool In Exchange For New Version

2010-04-30T07:53:00.000-07:00

If you try to access Google’s external keyword tool, you may notice that you are sent to the new keyword tool Google began offering in September 2009. A Google spokesperson told me that they are now encouraging users to use the new tool over the old tool and have decided to direct a portion of those users to the new tool.
I asked Google if they plan on phasing out the old tool. Google told me that the old tool is still available from the new tool via a link at the top right that reads, “previous interface.” Google told me they do plan on phasing out the old tool for the new tool, but would not give me an estimated date for that to occur. It is my understanding that Google wants to wait to hear any feedback prior to making that decision.
The new external keyword tool is still available to any user, without a login required, but there is an immediate captcha that is required before you utilize the tool. There was an captcha on the old tool as well.
Here are screen captures of the new and old tool:
New Tool:

Old Tool:

Source: http://asurl.net/kSC

Adobe confirms plans to move away from Apple

2010-04-30T07:40:00.001-07:00

Adobe has posted a short response to the letter Apple boss Steve Jobs has written about Flash technology.

In its, Adobe said the legal terms Apple imposed on software developers had led it to shift its focus away from Apple.
Mr Jobs used the open letter to defend Apple's decision not to allow Flash on many of the firm's products.
In it he criticised Flash, saying it was not fit for an era of smartphones and touchscreen devices.
Critical stance Kevin Lynch, Adobe's chief technology officer, wrote in a blog posting: "We feel confident that were Apple and Adobe to work together as we are with a number of other partners, we could provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch."
Adobe will concentrate on Android and other devices. Currently, none of these products can run the Flash technology which is used on many websites to power media players, games and other animations.
However, added Mr Lynch, Adobe has decided to shift its focus to get Flash working well on gadgets made by Google, RIM, Palm, Microsoft, Nokia and others.
He said Adobe expected to release Flash Player 10.1 on Google's Android operating system in May and then for it to be on general release in June.
"From that point on," he wrote, "an ever increasing number and variety of powerful, Flash-enabled devices will be arriving which we hope will provide a great landscape of choice."
The letter came soon after Adobe announced it would stop making tools that allow developers to quickly translate Flash code to run on Apple gadgets.
These allowed developers to make applications once and then distribute them for use on various phones and operating systems, including Apple's iPhone.
Adobe's announcement followed a change to the terms and conditions of the licence that software developers must sign when writing code to run on Apple products.
That change banned developers from using automatic translation tools, effectively forcing them to develop two applications - one for Apple products and one for everything else.
Hypocrisy Other Adobe executives have commented on Mr Jobs' letter.
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that "when you resort to licensing language" to restrict development, it has "nothing to do with technology".
He said it was now "cumbersome" for developers who were forced to have "two workflows".
Mr Narayen said the problems highlighted by Mr Jobs were "a smokescreen".
He added that if Flash crashed Apple products it was something "to do with the Apple operating system".
He said he found it "amusing" that Mr Jobs thought that Flash was a closed platform.
"We have different views of the world," Mr Narayan told the Wall Street Journal. "Our view of the world is multi-platform."
Crashing Macs In his lengthy open letter titled Thoughts on Flash, Mr Jobs said the reason Apple did not want people to use Adobe's automatic translation tools was because experience had shown it results in "sub-standard apps".
He described Flash as a closed system and said that it was bad for the smartphone era because it did not support multi-touch systems and helped drain battery power unnecessarily.
He also pointed out that there were now alternatives to Flash technology, particularly for web video.
The Apple boss added that Flash fell short on security and was "the number one reason Macs crash".
The letter provoked an avalanche of comments online, with many saying Apple's restrictions on what can be done with its software go far beyond those on Flash.
In an editorial on OS News, Tom Holwerda said Mr Jobs' letter was "hypocritical" because Apple was guilty of many of the faults it levelled at Adobe.

Source: http://asurl.net/kl7

One Laptop per Child targets Middle East and E Africa

2010-04-30T07:39:00.001-07:00

The group behind the "$100 laptop" has formed a partnership which it hopes will deliver computers to every primary school child in East Africa.

The partnership between One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and the East African Community (EAC) aims to deliver 30 million laptops in the region by 2015.
OLPC has also announced a partnership with a UN agency which aims to deliver 500,000 machines in the Middle East.
Both the UN agency and the EAC first need to raise cash for the laptops.
The two groups aim to find donors to help pay for the machines, which currently sell for more than $200, despite intentions to sell them for less.
"At the end of the day, it all comes down to money," Matt Keller of OLPC told BBC News, talking about the EAC partnership.
"Ideally, we would live in a world where governments can equip every kid to be educated, but that's not the case."
Tech trials He said the EAC was currently drafting a letter to US President Barack Obama to ask if the US could provide assistance to pay for the project. The countries were also exploring links with the aid community, he said.

Laptops given to Gaza's children

"This is a very ambitious project for which we will have to partner with various people and institutions to mobilise and fund the resources required to meet our objectives by 2015," said Ambassador Juma Mwapachu, secretary general of the EAC.
The organisation represents the governments of Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi.
Some of the countries have already run small trials with the machines, including Rwanda which has more than 20,000 pupils using them.
Mr Keller said the country already had an order for 70,000 more and had shown the other countries in the area the benefit of technology in schools.
The partnership with the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aims to distribute half a million laptops to Palestinian children throughout the Middle East.

We want [these computers] to be as a fundamental as electricity

Matt Keller OLPC

UNRWA looks after more than four million Palestinian refugees in five countries
It has been conducting trials with 1,500 machines in the region and has begun to distribute a further 2,100 to a school in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza strip.
"For us it is vital to get computers to our kids," Adnan Abu Hasna of UNRWA told BBC News.
"We think many people and individuals will support the idea."
'Tipping point' OLPC has had difficulty selling its computers and its alternative vision of education around the world.
The organisation - a spin out from US university MIT - originally aimed to sell the low-cost laptops in lots of one million to governments in developing countries for $100 each.
However, it had difficulty getting governments to commit to bulk orders.
The rugged machines - which are designed specifically for children in the developing world and run both Linux and Microsoft Windows - are now offered in single units for around $200 each.
Mr Keller said that there were currently around 1.6 million machines distributed around the world, with commitments for another 400,000.
He admitted the project had still not reached its "tipping point", but said if the EAC was successful it may prove to be the decisive moment for the project.
"We want [these computers] to be as a fundamental as electricity," he said.
Source: http://asurl.net/kB6

Why HP Buying Palm Is Good for You

2010-04-30T07:38:00.001-07:00

Rejoice: HP is buying Palm! If the boring beigeness of HP doesn't kill it in the process, this could only be good for anyone looking for a neat, solid smartphone that beats Google and Apple in many areas.

What Happened

It's not the first time Palm has come back from the dead. After Palm PDAs went down, Treo and Handspring temporarily resuscitated the business. WebOS arrived late, but it looked like it may save the day for a while. The third time may be the charm: After a precipitous decline in Palm's business and several weeks of speculation, HP announced today that they're acquiring the beleaguered phone company for $1.2 billion. The deal is expected to close by July 31, the end of HP's third fiscal quarter. Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein will remain with the company, though it's not clear in what capacity.
The announcement comes as a huge surprise, after rumors had linked everyone from HTC to Lenovo as possible suitors, and after Rubinstein insisted that they'd be fine on their own. For Palm, it's the lifeboat they've desperately needed ever since their stock price was targeted at zero earlier this year. For HP, it's an opportunity to instantly become an major smartphone player.
It's also a relative bargain for HP; the purchase price of $5.70 is a decent premium over where Palm was trading yesterday, but this is a company that was valued at twice that not very long ago. And HP's not just acquiring Palm's hardware; the real crown jewel here is webOS, which HP SVP Todd Bradley made a point of saying could apply to a number of mobile devices. Most enticingly: tablets.
Why, though, not just stick with Windows Phone 7, or Android? Palm's webOS might be a robust platform, but it's lacking a robust developer community—its 2,000 apps pale in comparison to what the Apple App Store and Android Market offer. The answer is that HP's hedging: they'll continue to work with other platforms, while hoping that their scale will help ramp-up dev interest in broadening the webOS ecosystem.

Worst Case Scenario

The real challenge might come in reconciling the brand personalities. Palm's products, regardless of how well they've sold, have always been innovative—the Pre was a breath of fresh air when it was released. HP, on the other hand, has tended to paint in broad beige strokes. And their products that do stand out, like the Envy laptop, have come across as derivative. There's also the unfortunate case of iPaq—another HP acquisition that was left to rot.
So will Palm fuel HP's creative capabilities? Or will HP stifle the ingenuity that's made Palm worth buying in the first place?

Best Case Scenario

HP has the resources to fully leverage Palm's software and hardware, and not just on smartphones. And while Palm's problem was never that it couldn't keep up with demand, its main issue—generating demand in the first place—is no longer a problem with HP's reach and marketing budget. HP's made a significant investment thus far in their TouchSmart interface, and while it's a fine skin it can only stand to gain from webOS insights. Can you say webOS tablet?

What May Happen

As for when we'll actually start seeing webOS in HP products, HP's being mum. It's reasonable to expect we won't hear anything more official until the transaction is complete, but there are some very clear paths they can (and probably will) take:
• Phones—Whither the iPaq? Ha, who cares! It's doubtful that HP would spend this kind of money on an established brand like Palm just to murder it in service of a flimsy brand like iPaq. HP's phone line has always been undistinguished, so for them to buy Palm is effectively to install a pre-made, well-regarded mobile division into their company. So, what does this mean in terms of actual phones?
There will probably be another generation of webOS phones. Yesterday, I wouldn't have felt certain about this; today, it's a good bet. Palm was living and dying by the Pre and Pixi, which were first-gen products running a first-gen operating system. HP's massive resources will give the OS the kind of time it needs to spread its wings on time-appropriate hardware. Imagine a webOS phone with WVGA resolution; with a Snapdragon processor; with a genuinely responsive interface. That's what we're talking about here. Forget the Pre Plus—it's time to start waiting for the Pre II.
The only awkward point here is that HP is an official partner with Microsoft for Windows Phone 7. They've committed to continue working with Windows Phone 7, although one might imagine that their interest in Microsoft's platform diminishes significantly now that they've got their own in-house mobile operating system.
• Computers—With this purchase comes a wealth of intellectual property (patents) spanning decades, much of which concerns touch interfaces. HP has been very, very aggressive in developing touch interfaces for Windows machines with its TouchSmart line, and could easily incorporate some of Palm's mobile tricks into its software. By and large, though, HP's expansive computer lineup will remain unchanged.
• Tablets—HP's tablet strategy is heading in a dangerous direction. The anticipated HP Slate runs Windows 7, a desktop OS, while much of the rest of the industry seems to have opted for mobile OSes. HP hasn't shown a ton of interest in Android in the past, and their tablet plans have so far ignored Google's OS—the presumed competitors to the iPad's iPhone-based OS. Which brings me to what is quite possibly the most exciting possibility here: The webOS tablet.
No, seriously—think about it. WebOS has a more intuitive interface than Android, and better notification system than anyone else, and prodigious social networking abilities. It has a fair amount of apps. It's compatible with the same mobile hardware that's powering many of the first wave of Android tablets. This—this—would be awesome.

Winners and Losers

We'll have a lot of time to see how this plays out in the long run, but for now it's pretty clear who's gaining the most from this scenario—and who's not.
The losers, predictably, end up being pretty much every other company with a smartphone OS. Microsoft, though, must be feeling the blow in particular. While HP may continue to make Windows Phone 7 products, they've gone from being a key partner to a serious competitor in a single afternoon.
The winners: Palm, who gets the white knight they've been praying for. But specially, the winner is you, the consumer, who will get the dual benefits of a healthy, broadly supported webOS and increased competition.

Source: http://asurl.net/kQe

Next Mars Rover to Include 3D Camera Thanks to James Cameron

2010-04-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Avatar put me to sleep, but I admire James Cameron's thirst for new film technologies. Now I admire him even more after he convinced NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to put back the 3D camera in Curiosity, the next Mars rover.

The new camera will sit on top of Curiosity's mast filming at ten frames per second in high definition 3D video. It will share space with the Mastcam 100, a fixed 100-millimeter camera (above) and the Mastcam 34, which offers a wider angle at a fixed 34-millimeter (below). The 3D eyes were originally scrapped from the project because of budget cuts. Cameron talked with Bolden and made the perfect case: It will make the public connect better with the mission.

Cameron is right. NASA should do a better work at marketing their science to normal people. High definition three-dimensional video could be perfect to transmit the magnificent desolation of Mars' surface. The best thing next to actually going there.

Source: http://asurl.net/k0J

Japanese Scientists Invent 'Elastic Water'

2010-04-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

This is "elastic water," a substance researchers have created in Japan that's 95% water yet retains a jelly-like texture that's perfect for sticking tissues together.
The stuff is made by adding two grams of clay and "a small quantity of some organic matter" to regular old water. And if they're able to figure out how to increase its density, it could produce eco-friendly plastic materials. Also, I bet it feels real weird when you squeeze it. [Japan Science and Technology Agency via Akihabara News]
Source: http://asurl.net/kbb

Opera Software Acquires Email Service Provider FastMail.FM

2010-04-30T07:32:00.000-07:00

The Norwegian software company has yet to make any announcements of its own, but Opera has acquired email service provider FastMail.FM, according to a message posted on the latter’s company blog.

The terms of the agreements are not disclosed, but the Australia-based company in a notice said it will continue to run its email service, which has been in operation for over 10 years.

Here’s the announcement:

Some exciting changes will be occurring with FastMail.FM. FastMail.FM has been acquired by Opera Software, the developers of the Opera web browser. For more information about Opera, please visit www.opera.com.

This is great news for FastMail.FM users. FastMail.FM will continue to run and grow as the reliable email service you’ve known for over 10 years. We’ll be combining forces with Opera’s technical teams, expertise and products to develop new and innovative products.

FastMail has included a FAQ, in which it says that users who wish to NOT transfer their accounts over to Opera have to go into settings and indicate just that. Not acting upon the email the company sent out to its users or actively accepting the transfer will result in Opera assuming control over the mailbox and the account registration details.

As to the reason for selling, FastMail says the market was getting increasingly competitive and that Opera’s expertise in web browsers and especially the mobile market would help the company grow and take on the next big challenges in running and building an email service.

Some FastMail.FM staff will be making the move to Norway, and the company says it has already been working with Opera’s technical teams to exchange expertise, and to develop new products. It will be interesting to see what eventually comes out of this deal.

This is Opera’s second acquisition this year – it had earlier spent $8 million in cash to buy mobile advertising startup AdMarvel.

Source: http://asurl.net/kZm

Apple To Shut Down Lala On May 31, iTunes.com Launch Impending?

2010-04-30T07:31:00.000-07:00

Lala – where music will stop playing …

In a brief message that was just posted on the Lala.com website, Apple has announced that the service will be shut down on May 31st, 2010. Apple will not be accepting new users, and existing users will be able to log in only until the end of next month.

Does this mean we can start raising our hopes for iTunes in the cloud?

At the bottom of a Wall Street Journal piece published back in January 2010, the paper suggested that Apple was gearing up to launch iTunes.com as soon as this June, citing sources familiar with the matter.

For an extensive view on how far-reaching that could prove to be, check out this guest post by Michael Robertson, the former CEO of MP3.com, who laid out Apple’s cloud-based media strategy going forward.

An iTunes-in-the-cloud offering – which is basically what Lala’s value proposition boils down to – is the central part of such an endeavor. Late last year, we wrote about how a move to the cloud was inevitable for iTunes. With the imminent shutdown of Lala, it’s safe to assume something is brewing at Cupertino.

Will Apple be the first company to turn online music subscription services into a sizable business?

Perhaps Apple, which acquired Lala late last year, will be making an announcement at its Worldwide Developers Conference, which will be held June 7 in San Francisco.

Update: here’s what it says when you’re logged in (click for larger image)

For Updates: http://asurl.net/kaj

Odd YouTube Banners Mislead In The Facebook/Google Identity War

2010-04-30T07:29:00.000-07:00

Early this morning we got word of what sounded like a pretty major change for YouTube: some users are seeing banners inviting them to “Sign up for YouTube with your Facebook account!“.
That sounds a whole lot like YouTube is allowing users to skip having to create a Google account by letting them simply log in with their Facebook accounts, which would be a strange move strategy-wise. As it turns out, it’s simply a case of some questionable wording.
I’m not seeing the banner myself, but a YouTube spokesman says that clicking it will take you to the standard YouTube registration screen, where you fill out your information as usual. Once you’ve done that, your newly created YouTube/Google account will automatically be connected to Facebook via Facebook Connect, so that it pulls in your friends’ shared items. But you aren’t actually logging in using Facebook’s Single Sign-on feature, which is an important distinction.
And YouTube probably won’t be doing that any time soon — Facebook and Google are increasingly fighting over the future of identity on the web; accepting Facebook logins on YouTube would hurt Google’s cause and bring Facebook one step closer to becoming the web’s ubiquitous login standard.
That said, YouTube has been gradually integrating some Facebook Connect features since last summer, beginning with an autoshare feature in June 2009 and more recently allowing users to see what their friends have shared from YouTube to Facebook. In other words, YouTube is embracing Facebook’s sharing functionality, but it isn’t going all the way.

Source: http://asurl.net/kKl

HTC Incredible vs. HTC HD2

2010-04-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

We break down HTC’s latest newsmaker, the Droid Incredible, against the tried-and-true HD2, stat by stat.

Comparing the HTC Incredible and HTC HD2 is a bit like comparing brothers. In many ways, they’re practically the same phone. They share the same mother, the same processor, and the same slab-like touch form-factor. In other ways, like the operating systems, they couldn’t be more different.
We won’t sit here and try to compare the intangible or subjective aspects of both phones, like build quality, style and value on their respective networks, but when you get down to the meat and bones of both phones, you’ll find some clear winners and losers. Here’s how the HTC Incredible and HTC HD2 break down.

Display

Winner: HTC HD2
Bigger is better. Although both phones sport WVGA screens with 800-by-480-pixel resolution, the HD2 offers 4.3 inches of screen where the Incredible musters only 3.7. Practical for carrying? Debatably not, but that’s not what we’re discussing here. For viewing photos, watching movies, and generally carrying out everyday tasks on a phone, the HD2’s huge, cinematic screen wins, hands down. Though OLED technology may make the Incredible look more vibrant, we suspect few users would trade a little extra color for a wide swath of screen real estate when offered either phone to watch Transformers 2 on a plane ride.

Processor

Winner: Tie
With the same 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor beating inside each phone, it’s hard to draw a line between the nearly identical HTC Incredible and HTC HD2. We could point out that the Incredible offers 512MB of RAM where the HD2 offers 448MB, but that’s counting grains of sand in a comparison between two beaches. Differences in operating systems aside, both phones should perform very closely: Blazing fast.

Keyboard

Winner: HTC HD2
The default Windows Mobile 6.5 keyboard has never made fingers happy, but that’s not what you’ll find on the HD2. HTC’s Sense user interface includes a reworked keyboard that most reviewers actually found superbly comfortable when you spread it across a luxurious 4.3 inches of screen – a difference that becomes especially pronounced in portrait mode. The Sense keyboard happens to be the same one splayed across the Incredible, meaning you’re looking at the same keyboard in two different sizes. While close in functionality, we have to hand the title to the HD2 for those extra fractions of an inch.

Camera

Winner: HTC Incredible
Both cameras offer autofocus, dual-LED flash, and plenty of adjustments, but the HD2 uses a 5-megapixel sensor while the Incredible offers a full 8 megapixels. As we’ve always pointed out, resolution alone doesn’t determine image quality, but given the otherwise even features, it’s a leg up here. Perhaps a bigger advantage: The Incredible shoots high-quality video at 800 x 480 resolution, while the HD2 only shoots VGA (640 x 480) clips.

Software

Winner: HTC Incredible
No contest: Android crushes Windows Mobile 6.5. Even with HTC’s valiant effort to reskin the decrepit operating system with its Sense user interface, Windows Mobile is clumsier, has fewer apps, and lacks the fluid, touch-savvy interface of Android.

Battery Life

Winner: HTC HD2

As we noted in our review, the relatively poor battery life of the HTC Incredible took us off guard. With only 312 minutes of talk time and 149 hours of standby, it lags behind even competitors like the notoriously quick-to-drain iPhone 3GS. By contrast, the HD2 boasts 380 minutes of talk time (on the GSM version) and a whopping 490 hours of standby.

Portability

Winner: HTC Incredible
That massive 4.3-inch screen may help the HD2 conquer the movies, photos and Web surfing, but it also pays a price for it on the scales. Weighing 5.54 ounces to the Incredible’s 4.59 ounces, it’s not only heavier, but taller and wider than its little brother. Depth of only 0.43 inches makes the HD2 a few playing cards thinner than the 0.47-inch thick Incredible, but we can hardly call that a saving grace beside all its other dimensions.

Storage

Winner: HTC Incredible
Both phones sport microSD expansion slots that will carry cards up to 32GB, but the Incredible comes with an additional 8GB of internal storage, eliminating the need for a card right off the bat, and boosting total combined storage to 40GB, should you decide to plunk down $200 for one of SanDisk’s new 32GB microSD cards.

Overall Winner: HTC Incredible

On a category-by-category basis, you could call this a tie, but as with most simplifications, that doesn’t come close to telling the whole story. The supremacy of Google Android alone would make us reconsider the Incredible over the HD2, but better portability, storage and a superior camera are just icing on the cake. The enormous screen on the HD2 is certain enough to give pause to those who will use their phones as portable TVs or Web surfing platforms, but not quite enough to justify switching to a massively inferior operating system. The HTC Incredible takes the cake.
We also compared the HTC Incredible to the Motorola Droid and the iPhone 3GS.
Check out our full HTC Droid Incredible Review.
Source: http://asurl.net/kXY

Picasa Now Has Twitter, Buzz and Blogger Sharing

2010-04-30T07:23:00.000-07:00

Google’s photo sharing platform Picasa has received a small update today allowing visitors and album owners to share photos with users on different social networks.
Now, if you visit a Picasa photo album, you will instantly recognise the three new sharing options; Twitter, Google Buzz and Blogger.
Users simply have to click one of the icons and a small pop-up will appear that facilitates the sharing of an album or singular photo to the chosen social network.
Ping Chen, Software Engineer at Google posted:

Like many other things in life, photos are best when shared. I share the majority of my photos on Picasa Web Albums, but I also sometimes tweet about specific photos or share them on my blog. Today, we’re making it a little simpler to share your PWA photos to whichever destination you want, with the launch of easy share buttons for Google Buzz, Blogger and Twitter.

Google understand that album owners may not want to share their albums publicly so a feature has been added enabling an owner to share single photos without revealing the whole album. Chen writes: “We’ve now made this possible, by updating the “Link to this photo” URL so that the album name is hidden on the viewer’s photo page (the “Share” button still works as normal).”
It’s a feature that has been long coming but might not be enough to tempt users of Yahoo owned Flickr to switch photo hosts just yet. Flickr users have had Twitter functionality and a URL shortener for quite some time.
Google’s addition, at present, is almost half baked.
[Via - Google Photos Blog]
Source: http://asurl.net/kTD

Google integrates virtual keyboard into Search

2010-04-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

Google’s taken strides to make their search engine easier to use for non-English searches.
Where it was once very difficult to perform searches in non-Roman script without a specialized keyboard, now it is relatively simple. Google rolled out language-specific virtual keyboards in 35 languages, from Albanian to Uzbek. This move, it is hoped, will help make Google easier to use for the six billion people in the world that don’t speak English.
While this seems like a small step, this could actually be a boon for Google.
Google’s had some difficulty gaining traction in certain non-English markets. While Google’s clearly got the best algorithm for searching, they often face local competition from better entrenched competitors in the non-English world.
By providing the virtual keyboard, which is a feature that will likely appeal to expats and others who’ve been forced to use an English-language keyboard, they hope to remedy this. This provides some users a useful reason to switch from their local alternatives and start using Google.

Source: http://asurl.net/kPR

Microsoft cancels the Courier, the Internet sheds a tear

2010-04-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

The Microsoft Courier will never make it out of Microsoft’s labs and into consumers hands. The project is dead. Kaput. Finished. At least that’s what two sources told Gizmodo.
Apparently the Courier team got an email from Microsoft execs that stated the project will “no longer be supported,” which pretty much means the project is dead. Even though it’s somewhat surprising that the project was axed seeing as it was reportedly close to completion, it’s not unheard of in other industries for companies to spend untold fortunes on a concept just for the hell of it.
The auto industry has been doing it for years. Some of the concept cars that are rolled into auto shows are fully-functional models, complete with advance drivetrains and electronics. But yet they never hit the streets in a mass-market form. Perhaps the Courier was always designed as such, a technology research project and/or marketing ploy. It always seemed like a “don’t forget about ol’ Microsoft” item anyway.
But it doesn’t matter any more. The Courier that we came to know from a series of orchestrated leaks is no more. But it makes you wonder what else Microsoft is working on…(that’s what Microsoft wants us to think, btw).
Source: http://asurl.net/kMs

Call of Duty 7 to be Set in Vietnam

2010-04-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

The next Call of Duty game will be based in Southeast Asia, and is tentatively being called Call of Duty: Vietnam.

Activision’s in-house development team, Treyarch, are poised to release the next in the series of those “other” Call of Duty games. But it looks like this year might see the end of the tried-and-true (and tried again) formula of World War II that has dominated the Call of Duty franchise right up until Modern Warfare showed that there was money to make away from the historical settings. Lots and lots of money.

According to Venture Beat, the next Call of Duty entry, due out later this year, will be based in Vietnam. This will be the seventh game in the Call of Duty series, and the third from Treyarch. The series has seen one game released per year since Infinity Ward’s original Call of Duty debuted in October of 2003.

Treyarch’s last offering, the World War II based Call of Duty: World at War was released in November of 2008, and quickly became a best seller.

It has been a big week for Activision. From the lows of lawsuits and accusations of prison-like conditions, to today’s game-changing announcement of an exclusive deal with Halo creator’s Bungie, the company will likely be discussed to pieces for months to come.

Vietnam games have rarely done well, but the risk may be necessary since the World War II setting has been mined so deeply, and by many people. It has almost gotten to the point that it can be awkward for the average gamer to meet a German person in real life knowing they have probably slaughtered thousands upon thousands of his or her digital ancestors in increasingly fantastic and graphically pleasing ways.

Yet, even though the choice of Vietnam, or at least the Vietnam era, is something of a logical step between the exhausted World War II era and the next Modern Warfare setting that will be out next year (lawsuits permitting), it is still likely to garner some controversy to set an action game in the middle of an unpopular war that still resonates through America more than 40 years later. Gamers that are burned out on the standard war shooter will likely wait and see what Treyarch offers before judging, but Activision might have difficulty in convincing the average person to play a game set during the Vietnam War.

Details are still scarce, but the game is expected to debut at the end of the year. Assuming it follows the traditional pattern set by the last few games, expect a heavy emphasis on multiplayer, and an engrossing, but short single player experience. Expect to hear more about this game (and hopefully see a playable demo) at E3.

The game will officially debut with a trailer on Spike TV, and on GameTrailers Friday night or early Sunday morning.
Source: http://asurl.net/kI2

Google tweaks Image Search for iPhone and Android.

2010-04-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

Google is making some hefty changes to Image Search for the iPhone and Android platforms. According to the Google Mobile Blog:

The thumbnails are square to maximize the number of images we can get on the screen at one time so you can scan them quickly
You can swipe to see the next or previous page of results, or tap the large, stationary ‘Next’ and ‘Previous’ page buttons
We optimized for speed so that the images appear quickly when you browse

More details, and a video after the jump.
So far the search is available in 38 languages, with enhancements that extend into the full image viewer as well. You’ll notice images on a black background, with swipe-to-next controls available.
And what would a feature release from Google be, if it didn’t include a video?

Source: http://asurl.net/k1i

Apple Acquires Personal Mobile Assistant Siri

2010-04-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

According to a number of well-informed sources, Apple just acquired Siri, the personal mobile assistant that won the SXSW BizSpark Accelerator competition last month. Nobody at Siri is allowed to talk about this acquisition before Apple makes its own announcement, but our own sources confirm that this acquisition has indeed happened. These rumors are also substantiated by this recent FTC disclosure (PDF) by Apple and Siri.

The first person to notice this acquisition was Robert Scoble, who found a reference to it in this FTC document (PDF). While we are still waiting for official confirmation, our sources tell us that the acquisition is basically a done deal at this point.

Why Apple?

For Apple, this acquisition makes perfect sense. Siri was spun out of SRI International, and its core technology is based on the ambitious DARPA-funded CALO artificial intelligence project. With VoiceOver, Apple already features some voice recognition in its projects. This acquisition, however, will allow the company to take it to a completely new level. You can, for example, ask Siri - by voice - to check for a dinner reservation through OpenTable at a local Italian restaurant nearby or check on local movie listings.

When we first looked at Siri in February, we described it as one of the "most ambitious mobile services we have seen in the last few years." Siri's ability to understand natural language will give Apple a major advantages over other players in this market.

It remains to be seen, however, if Apple will continue to develop Siri in its current form, or if the company is mostly interested in Siri's intellectual property. When we first talked to Siri about its roadmap, the company's CEO, Dag Kittlaus, told us that Siri also planned to offer an API and versions for other mobile operating systems in the future. After this acquisition, it is probably safe to say that we won't see Siri for Android anytime soon.
Source: http://asurl.net/9bw