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TechPinas

2012-05-21T17:24:00.001-07:00

TechPinas

BlackBerry PlayBook with BlackBerry 7 Smartphone : A Powerhouse Pair!
TechPinas is The Most Viewed Technology Blog in the Philippines on Mobile, Based on Data Gathered by Effective Measure! Thank you, TP Friends!
Nokia PureView 808 Philippines Launch Date is Sometime in June 2012! Actual Prototype Unit, Spotted at Lumianation! TP Exclusive!

BlackBerry PlayBook with BlackBerry 7 Smartphone : A Powerhouse Pair!

Posted: 21 May 2012 05:39 AM PDT

If you already own a BlackBerry 7 smartphone, why not pair it with a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to get an unparalleled messaging and multimedia experience?

I've always said that BlackBerry PlayBook and a BlackBerry 7 smartphone - even separately - are amazing devices. For me, BBPB is easily the best tablet out there in terms of true multitasking, music and video playback and web-browsing; Its easy-to-use OS, intuitive and smooth user interface, flash-support, dual 1080p video cameras and front-facing speakers truly make it - quite frankly - the tablet to beat in terms of actually getting things done. On the other hand, the security, messaging, social networking integration, enterprise applications set and web-browsing prowess that a BlackBerry 7 smartphone has definitely make it an ideal phone for people with purpose.

Now, imagine having those two devices working together to help you accomplish your daily tasks. What you'll have is a powerhouse pairing that only BlackBerry can provide.

As I've earlier explained on TechPinas, you can pair a BlackBerry 7 smartphone with a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet via BlackBerry Bridge technology. Last December, I uploaded a video on how you can use BB Bridge to connect the two devices and a use a special set of applications to access content on your BB Smartphone on your BB PlayBook tablet. Check it out via the link.

Let me share with the five BlackBerry Bridge features I truly enjoy using --

1. Access and compose messages on a bigger screen - Of course, there's nothing like seeing all the messages and emails in your inbox on a 7-inch crisp and bright display. Not only do the words become bigger and more readable, you also get bigger buttons to click to open unread messages and a big virtual keyboard for typing your emails.

BlackBerry PlayBook paired with a BlackBerry Torch 9810

2. Easily set-up appointments - Managing your calendar will be a lot easier on a large screen. Also, if you're using a BlackBerry Curve 9360, you'll greatly appreciate BBPB's capacitive touchscreen with viewing or setting up appointments.

3. Access BBM - This is a feature that many BlackBerry fans have long been asking for and BlackBerry has finally given them what they want. Yes, you can now access your BBM on a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

4. Use BB Smartphone as remote control - I find this feature particularly useful when doing Powerpoint presentations for clients. While my tablet is linked to a bigger display via HDMI, I can stand near the giant screen and still be able to jump from one slide to another using my BlackBerry smartphone. It's pure genius.

5. Type memos and tasks easily - Again, the BBPB's big high-resolution display, responsive Gorilla Glass touchscreen and large virtual keyboard make reading and typing tasks and memos fast and easy.

So there you. Let me know if you have questions and inquiries about this powerhouse pair.

Oh, and by the way, we're giving away a BlackBerry PlayBook paired with BlackBerry Curve 9360 via an essay writing contest. The deadline for submitting is at 11:59:59 PM on May 21, 2012. There's still time to join! Send your entries now!

TechPinas is The Most Viewed Technology Blog in the Philippines on Mobile, Based on Data Gathered by Effective Measure! Thank you, TP Friends!

Posted: 21 May 2012 01:32 AM PDT

TechPinas Founder Notes: Of Gratitude, Again

You made this happen, TP Friends, so I dedicate this honor to God and to all of you! Thank you so much!

In this age of smartphones and tablets, this truly means a lot to me and it couldn't have happened without your support.

According to Adobo Magazine, the leading and most respected magazine for Advertising and Media agencies in the Philippines,

Effective Measure, the leading provider of digital media planning solutions in emerging markets, today reported that Consumer Electronics and Technology websites in Philippines were the most viewed on mobile - with a significant 12% of web pages in this category viewed on mobile devices in September, a 7% increase from the "All Categories" monthly average.

Top 10 Consumer Electronics and Technology websites viewed on mobile in the Philippines

1. microsoft.com
2. apple.com
3. hp.com
4. tipidcp.com
5. dell.com
6. techpinas.com
7. techie.com.ph
8. lowyat.net
9. pinoytechblog.com
10. cgena.com

At number 4 is the most read consumer electronics website from the Philippines, TipidCP - a buy-and-sell and forums site for smartphone users and owners, which also happens to be one of my favorite local pages.

And at number 6, TP Friends - that's our site, TechPinas: The Philippine Technology Blog For the Young Tech-Informed Tech-Empowered Filipino! Again, this one's for you.

Maraming salamat!

Nokia PureView 808 Philippines Launch Date is Sometime in June 2012! Actual Prototype Unit, Spotted at Lumianation! TP Exclusive!

Posted: 20 May 2012 11:58 PM PDT

TechPinas Exclusive!

"Mark, I saw a guy playing with a Nokia 808 Pureview!" my friend Jam of JamOnline giddily told me and Martin of WidgetCity while we were having a drink at the Lumianation bar last Friday. (That's perhaps the common thing about all young tech bloggers; We all just get super-excited at the sight of unreleased - future best-selling - flagship gadgets.)

"We wanted to borrow the unit for photos but I don't think he's ready to show it to us yet. It might be confidential."

"Who's the guy?" I asked.

"He's wearing a white and grey checkered shirt, I think."

And just a second after Jam said that, almost like magic, Ms. Nikka Abes - Nokia Philippines' Corporate Communications Manager - with her husband George appeared in front of us.

Now, if there's one person who can actually give us access to that phone, I know for sure that it's Nikka. So I grabbed the opportunity and asked her about the phone, "Nikka, Jam told me there's a guy here who has a Nokia PureView 808! OMG! I wonder if we can check it out."

"Mike has a prototype. Who's the guy?"

And again, as soon as she said that - almost magically - the guy with the white and grey checkered shirt appeared behind Nikka. "Mark, that's the guy," Jam whispered to me.

"Nikka! Behind you! That's the guy!" giddily, I passed the word to Nikka.

Turns out, that guy is Noel from Nokia Philippines and he's currently reviewing the Nokia 808 PureView prototype.

So how did the story end? Well, it ended with us getting the chance to play with the undisputed best cameraphone in the world today;

Me with my future cameraphone, the handsome Nokia 808 Pureview!

Nikka holding it; Check out the face of the phone up-close!

At the back, you'll find that much-talked-about camera bump (one of the phone's distinguishing design features), which only shows you how ginormous this cameraphone's sensor is.

As I've earlier explained on TP, Nokia 808 PureView flaunts an unprecedented 41 MegaPixel camera -- That's more than thrice the resolution you'll get with the former best camera phone in the world - Nokia N8, which held the title for three straight years!

But 808's massive sensor is hardly about snapping billboard-sized shots (who needs those on a daily basis anyway), it's about having enough power to shoot regular-sized 5 to 8 Megapixel photos with stunning brilliance and clarity.

The prototype's camera in Pureview mode!

Nokia 808 PureView achieves this by using an imaging technology called 'oversampling' which compresses up to seven pixels into one 'pure' pixel - hence the name 'PureView'. This eliminates visual noise found on cameraphone shots and greatly improves 808's performance in low light conditions. On top of this, users can zoom in and out on a subject without losing a lot of details in the shot -- a feature that also makes the phone's Full HD 1080p video recorder one of the best out there.

Watch me play with the Nokia PureView 808 Prototype:

Xenon flash for stills and LED Torch light for the videos, confirmed!

TP Initial Impressions: There are at least three things that I absolutely love about this smartphone. First, the build and construction, which is very polished and feels extremely solid in the hand. Also, I noticed that the matte texture at the back helps give you an even firmer grip on the handset. Second, Nokia Belle operating system and its new gorgeous UI felt incredibly smooth on the 808 prototype; Thanks to its 1.3 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM, I guess. And lastly, of course, I love the camera; It's just the real deal. In PureView mode, details and colors appear extremely clear, crisp and vibrant; Easily the best I've seen from a cameraphone or even a full-fledged digital camera.

So when will it be available and how much will it cost? Well, Nikka told me that Nokia PureView 808 should be launched sometime in June. Usually, the actual release date follows a week or two after the launch. As for the official suggested retail price, well, we don't have word yet -- but the TP Guesstimate is around Php 25,000.

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

2012-05-21T17:02:00.001-07:00

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

LG Optimus LTE II boasts 2GB RAM
DoSomething.org – Smartphones Help to Prevent Pregnancy?
SurfEasy offers plug-in privacy
Monkey Light 8-Bit Bike Wheel Light
Zippered Vents Sleeping Bag
Contact Lens Helps you “See” Blood Sugar Levels

LG Optimus LTE II boasts 2GB RAM

Posted: 21 May 2012 11:26 AM PDT

LG Electronics has just announced the availability of their (presumably) flagship model in South Korea – the LG Optimus LTE II, and what makes this particular smartphone from LG special would be the crowning achievement of yet another first, being the first smartphone in the world that delivers 2GB of RAM for optimal LTE connectivity, speed and stability, all rolled into a single device. Folks living in South Korea will be able to get their hands on the LG Optimus LTE II from this week onwards.

Just why does the LG Optimus LTE II require 2GB RAM? The more the merrier, I say, and this amount of RAM will deliver an optimal environment for multitasking and enhance the capability of a smartphone to run large applications. It is hard to imagine that computers not too long ago came with 2GB RAM for the top end models, and here we are with a modern day smartphone featuring something of the equivalent instead.

Other hardware specifications of the LG Optimus LTE II include a rather impressive 4.7-inch True HD IPS display alongside a brightness level of 550 nits, not to mention a resolution count of 1280 x 720 pixels that ought to do its bit to impress your eyes. Not only that, the dual-core Qualcomm one-chip solution will also incorporate both the LTE modem and Application Processor (AP) for added power efficiency, so much so that the battery will be drained slower than before with the same amount of usage.

Apart from that, the LG Optimus LTE II will also sport a removable 2,150mAh battery which is touted to be the largest currently available on a LTE smartphone in the 4- to 5-inch display category. If you are too lazy to carry around a dedicated digital camera with you, then the LG Optimus LTE II will be able to function as an able replacement of sorts, where it has an 8-megapixel shooter at the back, while the front features a 1.3-megapixel shooter for video calls.

Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company, said, "The Optimus LTE II is the most powerful smartphone technology currently available in Korea. With a faster LTE network, the barrier for downloading and running very large applications is no longer a significant one for many customers, which is why LG saw a need for more RAM on high-end smartphones."

No idea on when the LG Optimus LTE II will arrive outside of South Korea though, so keep your fingers crossed!

[ LG Optimus LTE II boasts 2GB RAM copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

DoSomething.org – Smartphones Help to Prevent Pregnancy?

Posted: 21 May 2012 09:31 AM PDT

We’ve all seen the campaigns before, touting the benefits of safe sex or abstinence, mostly targeted towards our girls. Teenage pregnancy rates are astronomical, and while teen pregnancy rates in the United States have fallen in recent years, our country still has a higher rate than any other developed country. So what do we do now? Kids know how to prevent pregnancy, why aren’t they doing it?

Check out DoSomething.org, its a website that doesn’t tell you what to do, or how to do it… it suggests what your life might be like if you don’t! Utilizing everyday cell phones, kids (or parents) can turn their friend’s cell phone into digital baby for an entire 12 hours in order to simulate what it would be like to have a baby as a teen.

Users simply send their friends the message that their phone has been hijacked and turned into a digital baby that will now require their care and attention for a whole day and then, for the next 12 hours their new bundle of rechargeable joy will alert them to the fact that they require food, sleep, or diaper changing. In the end, participants are directed to challenge more friends to take on a digital baby for the day and are given some helpful info about teen pregnancy.

Anyway, if you sign up and challenge 5 friends to The “Digital Baby” Pregnancy Text, you’ll not only have fun spoofing your friends while teaching a valuable lesson, you’ll have the chance to win a $2000 scholarship to boot. To learn more about the program or to sign up please visit www.DoSomething.org/baby

[ DoSomething.org – Smartphones Help to Prevent Pregnancy? copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

SurfEasy offers plug-in privacy

Posted: 21 May 2012 08:28 AM PDT

With the amount of invasion of privacies that are happening these days (especially in the lives of public figures), you can never be too safe when it comes to safeguarding your privacy, even when you are using the computer. After all, many of us are living out the connected lifestyle these days, and we tend to log in and connect from different locations throughout each moment, using different computers and networks as well. With the £59.99 SurfEasy USB device, it will help in the area of security by offering you a personalized browsing experience regardless of where you are.

Relying on an extremely speedy and super-secure SSL encryption that most major banking institutions would, SurfEasy strives to make sure your status updates remain as your own, and your banking transactions are private, so that no prying or curious eyes will be able to figure out your secrets. The SurfEasy will also ensure that you do not leave digital cookie crumbs behind for others to trace your coming and going.

[ SurfEasy offers plug-in privacy copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Monkey Light 8-Bit Bike Wheel Light

Posted: 21 May 2012 06:30 AM PDT

If you have always been the kind of attention seeking person, then the $49.99 Monkey Light 8-Bit Bike Wheel Light might be just the thing for you to tweak your two-wheeled ride. After all, you might not be able to pull off stunts like Johnny Blaze and have the Spirit of Vengeance to come upon you, but at least it will look far better than a regular bike, as the Monkey Light 8-Bit Bike Wheel Light adds patterns to your set of wheels.

There will be 20 different kinds of patterns with a bunch of different color combinations that will definitely set the tone, pardon the pun, for your journey. Do not worry about going through puddles of water or cycling in the rain, since 10 ultra-bright LEDs will come encased in a waterproof housing so that Murphy will not rain on your parade in that department. It has up to 40 hours of runtime, and makes you fall in love with persistence of vision.

[ Monkey Light 8-Bit Bike Wheel Light copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Zippered Vents Sleeping Bag

Posted: 21 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT

A sleeping bag is not exactly the most comfortable place for you to rest, but when you are out there in the great outdoors, you do not really have any more choice, do you? After all, you are not a fish who can just jump into any water to swim your way to your destination, or to hang up on a tree without a hammock like a monkey. Hence, the sleeping bag it is, but for those who feel as though something like that is way too stuffy, enter the $119.95 Zippered Vents Sleeping Bag.

The Zippered Vents Sleeping Bag is a patented sleeping bag with zippered vents so that it will cover as much of your body as you wish. There is a quartet of outer zippers which will span across the sleeping bag located near the ankles, knees, waist, and chest, letting campers to selectively cover or uncover any body segment, according to the temperature or personal preference levels. The rectangular bag features an outer shell of 210 thread-count rip-stop nylon, a soft cotton flannel lining, and is filled with four-layer microfiber insulation rated to 20º F.

Your head need not make an impression on the nearby rock or log, since it will come with a pillow that slips right into a built-in sleeve to support your head for a more comfortable rest.

[ Zippered Vents Sleeping Bag copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Contact Lens Helps you “See” Blood Sugar Levels

Posted: 21 May 2012 05:36 AM PDT

I did a post last week about a semi permanent tattoo that could monitor blood sugar in diabetics. It involved nanoparticles being injected beneath the skin that could constantly indicate blood glucose levels by changing color. There was a tremendous response to that post, and its no surprise, no one wants to be sticking themselves several times a day to test their blood.

Well, I thought you guys might be interested in another option that may not be that far off the horizon, how about a contact lens for diabetics that can change color in order to alert you to blood sugar levels utilizing a sugar sensing chemical? That would be pretty awesome right?

The contact lens senses the glucose in your tears, and if the sugar is not being metabolized correctly and glucose builds up in your body the lens will detect the problem and change color. Dr. Jun Hu explains that “it works just like the PH paper in your high school chemistry lab” Of course the person wearing the lens won’t see the change unless they look in a mirror. In order to measure actual blood sugar concentration, one would use a Smartphone app that analyzes a photograph of your eye.

The lenses have been under development for several years, and the only ones that exist are simply a prototype not yet approved for human use, however if the researches can cut through the red tape you might start hearing more about these lenses in 3 years or so. No word yet on price, but it looks like they would charge for the lenses and present the associated app at no charge. Very cool.

source

[ Contact Lens Helps you “See” Blood Sugar Levels copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Reach Millions of Potential Customers for Your Digital Products with Clickbank

2012-05-21T16:58:00.001-07:00

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Why Facebook's Tanking Today

2012-05-21T15:02:00.001-07:00

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Owning Your Own Website Has Never Been Easier

2012-05-21T14:52:00.001-07:00

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A Million Savings

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VentureBeat

2012-05-21T09:33:00.001-07:00

VentureBeat

GitHub finally releases its Windows app (looking at you, enterprise developers)
David Karp: CrunchFund now an investor in Tumblr
Ubisoft’s Chris Early chases Ghost Recon fans on multiple platforms (interview)
EU giving Google one last chance to settle antitrust search case
Fred Wilson: We invested in DuckDuckGo for the Reddit, Hacker News anarchists
Are You a Human replaces annoying CAPTCHAs with games
Threatened by wireless carriers, Time Warner, Comcast, Cox team up for CableWifi
Facebook shares fall to $33 on second day of trading
Hulu teams up with Kevin Smith on new original show for the summer
Google Chrome is now the world’s top web browser, says StatCounter
Mixin lets users insert comments into video and share with friends (exclusive)
Game of Thrones Ascent aims to please fans with a Facebook game (exclusive)
Not magic, motion control: The Leap controls your computer with a flick of a finger
Yahoo agrees to sell back half of Alibaba stake in $7B deal
Gaming art for your Facebook Timeline (Part 1: The Modern Era)
Nasdaq admits screwing up early Facebook IPO trading
Microsoft silently launches So.cl, its attempt at a social networking site

GitHub finally releases its Windows app (looking at you, enterprise developers)

Posted: 21 May 2012 09:15 AM PDT

GitHub has maintained a long and profitable love affair with all things Apple, but today, the folks behind the most popular code repository site are sullying their allegiance to Cupertino with — get ready to gasp and clutch your pearls — a Windows app.

The reason for the existence of the GitHub desktop app for Windows is easy enough to explain: GitHub users are sometimes also Windows users, and they often find collaborating on code projects to be a pain in the patootie.

“We thought Git was going to get better on its own on a couple other platforms, but it wasn’t advancing … and that’s sort of a shame,” said GitHub co-founder Chris Wanstrath in a phone conversation with VentureBeat.

“It’s the same situation on enterprise, but even more so — they want to use GitHub, but they’re having a hard time doing so,” he said. And of course, the bootstrapped startup doesn’t want to leave any of that tasty enterprise money on the table, and the enterprise is besotted with Windows.

But, Wanstrath said, the company made the decision primarily for love, not for money. “It was definitely motivated by the trouble people were having,” he told us.

Also, as the small company grows ever larger and as its userbase becomes more diverse, Windows tools are increasingly requested both inside and outside the company. GitHub has grown from a tiny collective of hackers to a 73-person small business, and naturally, some of those 73 folks are Windows enthusiasts.

“Our philosophy is that we wanted [the desktop app] to be by Windows developers for Windows developers,” said Wanstrath. “That’s been our success so far — the things we create, we want to use ourselves.”

That philosophy is part of why it took GitHub so long to roll out its Windows app in the first place: It needed to have the right people who would want to build the app for themselves and eat their own dogfood, to use a rather revolting idiom from the startup ghetto.

“We did the Mac app first because when we first started making desktop apps … we wanted to make something we’d use at the company, and most of the company was Mac users,” said Wanstrath. “We were a lot smaller then.”

The company also wanted to make sure that a desktop app would be used and loved by the community before sinking more resources into multiple applications, he said.

So of course, if you start thinking about platforms hackers love, you start thinking about Linux. But Wanstrath wasn’t ready to commit on that score — not yet, anyhow.

“We can’t really come out on that yet with a yes or no,” he said “but if that’s something people want, if that’s a neeed they have, maybe.”

Over the next few months, expect the Windows desktop app to see the same kind of loving attention and frequent updates the Mac desktop app has had since its launch. Wanstrath promised the Windows app would be maintained as well as the Mac app “if not better.”

“We’ve been growing a pretty serious team to work on this app,” he concluded. “It’s going to be a big part of GitHub.”

Filed under: dev

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

David Karp: CrunchFund now an investor in Tumblr

Posted: 21 May 2012 09:04 AM PDT

Tumblr CEO David Karp said today at the TechCrunch Disrupt event in New York that the Michael-Arrington-led CrunchFund has joined as an investor in his popular blogging company.

Karp was speaking with CrunchFund partner MG Siegel on stage at Disrupt. CrunchFund has also invested in Yammer, Highlight, Voxer, and a host of other startups.

Karp also said he will not rule out adding new promoted and advertised content on Tumblr, which could help build revenue streams. He said there is a precious balance that needs to be maintained between original and promoted content.

He also said he’s sad that he has moved away from coding day-to-day and transitioned to a true leading-vision-CEO role. While it’s tough for him to not get to develop in the trenches, he said he’s come to appreciate white-boarding an idea and seeing a team develop an idea. “It’s an amazing feeling,” Karp said.

Concerning Pinterest, which just raised a new round of funding, Karp said he doesn’t view it as competition and that other social media properties help Tumblr grow. “We’ve tried to promote content across networks,” Karp said. “Facebook and Twitter are now driving more traffic to us than Google.”

David Karp photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Filed under: social

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Ubisoft’s Chris Early chases Ghost Recon fans on multiple platforms (interview)

Posted: 21 May 2012 09:00 AM PDT

Ghost Recon is one of Ubisoft’s major video game franchises. So the French maker of console games is using the upcoming launch of Ghost Recon: Future Solder — a major cross-platform title coming May 22 — to launch a series of related social and online titles. Ghost Recon Commander, developed by Loot Drop for Ubisoft, will debut on Facebook shortly. And a free-to-play first-person shooter game, Ghost Recon Online, debuts this summer. By creating more casual, free-to-play titles, Ubisoft hopes to widen the interest in Ghost Recon and eventually convert those players into hardcore fans, said Chris Early, vice president of digital publishing at Ubisoft. Here’s a transcript of our interview with Early.

GamesBeat: How many Facebook games has Ubisoft done now?

Chris Early: More than a dozen. And I say that with the proud bruises that go along with that because most of those games were learning experiences for us. We’ve taken a route with Ubisoft of building our talents from within. We haven’t gone out and spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying a company or something along those lines. We’ve used our 26 studios around the world that we have; we’ve found out who’s interested in making these kinds of games. Some were interested at one point but aren’t anymore because they realize it takes a different mentality making a console game than it is making a game that’s a service, like a Facebook game should be.

Yet there are some studios that are doing it well — that like it. They’ve helped us move forward with that. It’s been a learning process for us, both from a development standpoint and from the operational side of things. I think our first big success you’d probably recognize is CSI Crime City, which came out a while ago now on Facebook. But really, it helped us recognize the power that our brands have, and what we can accomplish in the Facebook space.

I’m pleased to see now that a year and a half later, we’ve now begun coming out with our own game brands on Facebook as well. Earlier this month, last month, we came out with a new brand, Horse Haven, which is the first Ubisoft brand that was there. The first branded Ubisoft game. And with Ghost Recon Commander, we’ve got the first real gamer’s game coming out on Facebook.

GamesBeat: And Assassin’s Creed for Facebook: How do you look back on that?

Early: So we didn’t brand that on Facebook. We did Project Legacy, which is what you’re referring to, on Facebook, which was something of an experiment for us — to see if it would work. At the time, everyone was telling us that gamers don’t play on Facebook. Right? I didn’t believe that because I look at myself as a gamer and I look at my friends and people like that. I thought people were there, and that’s what we found out — that tons of people actually connected from Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood [the console/PC game] to Project Legacy. But it was such an experiment for us — we didn’t even brand the Facebook game with the Assassin’s Creed brand.

GamesBeat: So Ghost Recon, then: What does that represent for you guys now as far as progress or lessons?

Early: Well, it represents a tremendous amount of progress for us because it’s the validation point. We came from the Assassin’s Creed, Project Legacy, and CSI Crime City, and so forth. Moving forward, this is a big brand. Ghost Recon is one of the top five brands that Ubisoft has. It’s breaking the mold a little bit of what you can do on the Facebook platform. We didn’t with this franchise go after a match-three version of Ghost Recon or a bubble-popping version of Ghost Recon. We’ve already got that.

We actually set out, purposefully, to make a gamer’s game. And then tying that across to the other Ghost Recon games helps reinforce the main gaming side of things. We want to have a gamer who’s interested in the Ghost Recon franchise have a place to play, a screen to play on, wherever they happen to be. That’s why I’m interested in this. With this game, too, in a few months, we’ll also be coming out on mobile. And so whether you’re at your desk at work or at your desk at home or on your console or on your phone, you’ll have a place to play Ghost Recon.

GamesBeat: And so the purpose of the game, too, is sort of to stand alone and make money by itself, or is it feeding users into Future Soldier? What are the different purposes of a Facebook game?

Early: We look at it — at every game in the companion gaming strategy — as its own stand-alone game and its own stand-alone business venture. We are planning that Ghost Recon Commander is a profitable game on its own, that entertains players all on its own, and you never have to play another Ghost Recon game, and you’ll have a great experience playing Ghost Recon Commander. From a business standpoint, this game will stand up and be profitable on its own.

Now, we also, as you know, have a number of ties to the other Ghost Recon games. So I think in some cases that will encourage people to try the other games or encourage players of other games to go play Ghost Recon Commander. I know from my standpoint in the past when I’ve seen this advantage in other games. I’m a gamer. I’m going to take advantage of whatever I can; I’m going to play to get that advantage. And so I think there will be some crossover play — some cross-pollination between the different versions of Ghost Recon. I think probably that may happen even more with Ghost Recon Online, where you can earn some things — some of the symbols that you would ordinarily have to pay for in that game. You can earn them by playing Ghost Recon Commander for free. So we do hope that fans of the franchise now have a variety of places to go. The basic premise is to entertain Ghost Recon fans and be stand-alone games and stand-alone businesses.

GamesBeat: You hired Loot Drop to make this game. How do you benefit from having tapped into a studio that specializes in Facebook games? They’re not inside Ubisoft, but this is what they do. They make Facebook games.

Early: I’ll take a step back from your question and look at what we do overall for our Facebook games. About half of the games we make are made internally and about half of them are made with external partners. What that really brings us is the ability to develop the talents internally — from a development standpoint and certainly from an operational standpoint — and still get the freshest amount of influx that we can from people who are experts in the field. In the case of Loot Drop, I think we’re very fortunate because we have a company that has solid social gaming skills and has a deep background in hardcore games. For us, they were the perfect match.

GamesBeat: So the other internal teams: Are they coming out of Facebook studios, too, or are they actually part of the hardcore console studios?

Early: The locations of our Facebook studios are in the same places as our other studios around the world. We have some in China, we have some in Canada, we have some in India. And the people that are in those studios that are focused on the Facebook games — I would say maybe two-thirds come from within Ubisoft and other game development efforts and about a third come from the outside and the social gaming worlds.

GamesBeat: How is it coordinated so that they all finish at the same time?

Early: I don’t want them to finish all at the same time. If I look at what’s ideal for us, we want to look at the players we’re entertaining. I don’t really want to bombard you as that player with that opportunity with the next one before you’re done with the first one. Just take what we’ve launched: CSI Crime City and House. Those are both procedural drama games. In my opinion, we waited too long between those two games to launch them. Because you could have played through CSI and been interested in that overall game loop of “hey, there’s a mystery, investigate it, and solve the case,” which is essentially the same thing that you’re doing in House: “Hey, here’s an illness, let’s investigate it, and solve the case.” If that’s the style of television show you like or a Facebook game you like to play, it would have been good for us to have them closer together. I also wouldn’t have wanted to launch them at the same time because now I’m competing with myself even for somebody who likes those types of games.

GamesBeat: So this is 10 levels? That sounds like a short game. I mean, you can do things like go to 50 levels or more in Farmville, right? How much time do you think there is in the game? For how long do you think people can play it?

Early: I’m not sure what their estimate as far as hours is, but I don’t view this as a short game at all for a couple of reasons. To begin with, there are 10 levels, but there are multiple levels of accomplishment within each of those levels. You can essentially — after you solve them on the rookie level, you go back over and over again to improve your performance in each level, and you get more rewards, which allows you to build up your base camp better. So you’re going to want to, in some cases, even possibly before you finish the tenth episode, go back and play some of the earlier episodes a couple of times if you want to improve your Ghosts and your base camp. Of course you don’t have to do that — you can also use microtransactions to get there — but you may want to do that from a play standpoint. And then there are other elements and scenarios in the game that are coming as well that extend throughout this play region, which are more missions that are coming. They are under development.

GamesBeat: What are some things that you wouldn’t do in a Facebook game that you could do in the console version? As far as cooperative styles of play go.

Early: This is an asynchronous game, and as such, our multiplayer, if you want to think of it that way, is asynchronous. The mechanisms that Loot Drop used here actually make me care more about what my friend has done than just adding them to my friends bar as a place to go gather some energy because I’m building a team that’s going to help me go succeed. If you happen to be that great assault player and I’m taking on a hard mission, then I’m going to want to hire you to be part of my team. And I’m going to care more that you continue to play — that you continue to upgrade your base. And I might actually not hire you for some time when I need to go on more of a stealth mission because of the character that you’ve built up. In that way, we’re introducing the value of your friends but from less of a synchronous standpoint. I think that we’ve taken care to also not have this be a mature title because of the broader reach of the Facebook platform overall whereas what we have on the console is definitely not the same as what we have on Facebook.

GamesBeat: I guess it would make sense to do mobile versions, too, but you guys aren’t going there yet?

Early: We are. We’re launching the Facebook version first and then Loot Drop is also making a mobile client for the game. That mobile client will use the same backend, so you can carry your progression from when you happen to be at your screen at your desk, and then when you go on your phone, your character will be in the same place and you can continue on with the same missions, same progression, same statistics.

GamesBeat: And what are you buying if you’re buying something in the game?

Early: You’re buying skulls, which is the premium currency. You can earn some of them throughout the course of the game, and then you can purchase more of them. The purchasing allows you to go ahead and buy more of the base attributes, or health, or let you continue to play for a longer period of time.

GamesBeat 2012 is VentureBeat's fourth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. This year we’re calling on speakers from the hottest mobile, social, PC, and console companies to debate new ways to stay on pace with changing consumer tastes and platforms. Join 500+ execs, investors, analysts, entrepreneurs, and press as we explore the gaming industry's latest trends and newest monetization opportunities. The event takes place July 10-11 in San Francisco, and you can get your early-bird tickets here.

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EU giving Google one last chance to settle antitrust search case

Posted: 21 May 2012 08:50 AM PDT

European Union’s antitrust chief has given Google a final chance to settle matter related to anti competitiveness with its main search engine, according to a Reuters report.

The EU first opened up an investigation about the matter in November 2010 after rival companies like Microsoft accused Google of abusing its dominant position in the search market to boost up its own advertising services. If Google is found guilty, it could face a fine of up to 10 percent of its global financial turnover.

EU antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia said both regulators and Google are eager to reach a settlement, thus avoiding lengthy proceedings that risk becoming obsolete due to the rapid growth of technology, according to the report.

“I believe that these fast-moving markets would particularly benefit from a quick resolution of the competition issues identified. Restoring competition swiftly to the benefit of users at an early stage is always better than lengthy proceedings,” Almunia said. “Google has repeatedly expressed to me its willingness to discuss any concerns that the Commission might have without having to engage in adversarial proceedings, this is why today I’m giving Google an opportunity to offer remedies to address concerns that we have identified.”

In a letter to Google, Almunia is said to have given the search giant a matter of weeks to come up with a first proposal that would satisfy all the EU’s issues regarding anti competitiveness.

EU flags photo via jorisvo/ShutterStock

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Fred Wilson: We invested in DuckDuckGo for the Reddit, Hacker News anarchists

Posted: 21 May 2012 08:08 AM PDT

Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, shed some light today on why his VC firm invested in search engine startup DuckDuckGo, even as it pales next to Google and Bing.

DuckDuckGo has seen incredible growth in the past few months, and it doubled traffic from 500,000 searches a day in December 2011 to 1 million searches a day by mid-February. Union Square Ventures is one of the few investors in the search engine.

“We didn’t invest in it because we thought it would beat Google,” Wilson said today at TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York. “We invested in it because there is a need for a private search engine. We did it for the Internet anarchists, people that hang out on Reddit and Hacker News.”

Recent Experian Hitwise numbers suggest Google has about 64.4 percent of the search share, with Bing at about 30 percent. That means other search engines fight for about 6.6 percent of the remaining share. Wilson said DuckDuckGo could become a top 5 player in the search engine category because of its steep emphasis on privacy.

Fred Wilson photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

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Are You a Human replaces annoying CAPTCHAs with games

Posted: 21 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT

Websites need to verify that a visitor is a real person and not an automated bot. But the CAPTCHA test that they came up with — where you have to type in the word that you see in a blurry distorted font image — is extremely annoying and often leads to multiple failures.

So a Detroit-based startup, Are You a Human, is replacing the CAPTCHA with simple minigames instead. It is releasing its human authentication tool, PlayThru, to help companies fight spammers and bots that have begun to circumvent CAPTCHAs. Companies using it include Quicken Loans and Fat Head, and users have played nearly 2 million games to date.

The term CAPTCHA was coined in 2000 by Carnegie Mellon University researchers who based it on the word “capture” and used it to as an acronym for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The security tests have been used on sites that require users to sign up for an account, buy tickets, participate in online polls, or post comments. But since that time, hackers have figured out how to bypass the security test by re-using the session identification of a known test image.

On top of that, CAPTCHAs are frustrating to users who can’t discern the distorted text. About 20 percent of the users will leave a site rather than complete a CAPTCHA, according to the company’s research.

With Are You a Human’s tool, companies can embed a simple game instead. For instance, one minigame requires users to look at a set of five images and pick up the two tools and put them in a tool box. Or the user can drag and drop toppings onto a pizza. Since the games are dynamic and always changing, they are hard for computers to solve but easy for people to complete. PlayThru can improve security and entertain users at the same time, and it works easily on touchscreen smartphones. The company’s own survey of 1,000 users showed that they preferred PlayThru four-to-one over traditional text-based CAPTCHAs. Sites using it have seen their submission rates go up by 40 percent.

"Text-based CAPTCHAs are difficult to decipher and easy to break, which forces them to become increasingly more difficult to solve,” said Reid Tatoris, chief operating officer of Are You a Human. “This vicious cycle makes it frustrating for users, who many times will give up before following through to a site. PlayThru combines intuitive puzzles with proprietary algorithms to distinguish human interaction from malicious automated attacks, giving content providers confidence they are dealing with real humans and giving end users a much more pleasant experience."

On a technical level, PlayThru integrates with multiple CMS platforms such as WordPress, Drupal, PHPBB, and vBulletin as well as libraries for all popular code formats. Tatoris said in an interview with GamesBeat that the idea came along when his co-founder Tyler Paxton, chief executive, was trying to get Hannah Montana concert tickets. Every time he snagged a seat, it was taken because he took too long to fill out the CAPTCHA.

“We stumbled on the idea of games and talked about the problem from a security view,” Tatoris said. “Natural patterns are hard for computers to pick up.”

They did a prototype in September 2010 and began working on it full-time in April 2011. They got seed money last year from Detroit Venture Partners and began testing at the end of November. The company has seven people.

Now they have more than 200 sites using it and are running 300,000 to 400,000 plays per month. On average, it takes 10 seconds to 12 seconds to play a game while the average CAPTCHA takes 12 seconds. Tatoris said the company plans to raise money in the next few months. They will incorporate branded games at some point in order to make money.

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Threatened by wireless carriers, Time Warner, Comcast, Cox team up for CableWifi

Posted: 21 May 2012 07:55 AM PDT

It’s rarely a good thing when the country’s biggest cable providers partner up, but subscribers might be okay with today’s news.

Customers of Bright House, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications, and Time Warner will soon be able to connect to each other’s Wi-Fi networks. The combined network, named “CableWifi” will vastly expand each company’s hotspot offerings under a larger, cross-compatible umbrella.

Connecting to CableWiFi will work via a single set of credentials that can be used across all of the partnership’s 50,000 hotspots in New York City, Los Angeles, Tampa, Orlando, and Philadelphia.

The offer, however, isn’t entirely new. Independently, cable companies have been offering similar deals for their customers for some time. And they’re not new to working together, either: The current partnership is an expansion of a previous one between Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner that appeared in 2010.

Instead, the news here is that the five companies, all of which have very significant user bases, are working to counter a greater threat: Wireless providers like Verizon and AT&T which threaten to steal away all of the cable companies’ customers’ mobile Internet time.

To counter that, companies like Time Warner have had to make their mobile Wi-Fi offerings more compelling — making their wireless networks as large as possible is one of the best ways to do that.

But the companies still have a while to go. While 50,000 hot spots is significant, the cable companies’ offerings pale in comparison to those of metro Wi-Fi providers like Boingo, which offers over 500,000 W-iFi hotspots.

Via CNet; Image via Shutterstock

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Facebook shares fall to $33 on second day of trading

Posted: 21 May 2012 07:26 AM PDT

Facebook’s shares tumbled this morning to a low of $33.01, well below the company’s initial price of $38 on Friday.

Pre-market trading of Facebook’s stock was already below $38, reports USA Today, but it quickly sank to $33 within the first hour of trading. At the time of this post, the stock was hovering around $33.86 with a market cap of $91.54 billion (down from its initial $104 billion valuation last week).

The company’s stock began trading at $42 last Friday, but didn’t explode like many were expecting (Nasdaq’s errors didn’t help), which led to a surprising ricochet effect with other big tech stocks. By the end of the day, the company’s stock sat at $38.23. Facebook was both criticized and praised for the stock’s performance — one camp saw the lack of a pop as a weakness, while others argued that the stock was priced perfectly.

However you frame it, there’s no doubt that Facebook’s stock will be annoyingly scrutinized for some time to come.

Images: Top via Facebook, below via Google Analytics

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Hulu teams up with Kevin Smith on new original show for the summer

Posted: 21 May 2012 07:05 AM PDT

The summer season is usually when the lesser-known cable channels decide to debut their own original programing, and this year Hulu is jumping into that game — with three original shows and seven exclusives.

Probably the most recognizable of the bunch is a new show by cult film maker Kevin Smith called Spoilers, which kicks off June 4. Essentially, the show will be a mix of group chats featuring Smith and his entourage talking about film as well as some animated shorts. And despite the likely low-budget cost of doing the show, it looks like Hulu has only ordered a 10-episode trial run of the series.

The other two series — unscripted travel show Up to Speed from acclaimed director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Slackers) and self-described “bro-mantic” basketball comedy We Got Next from Kenya Barris and Danny Leiner — won’t debut until August, according to Hulu. (List and descriptions of Hulu’s original shows included below.)

Smith’s show brings Hulu's original programming lineup to eight total, with another five said to be announced before the end of the year.

With increased competition coming from both Netflix and Amazon on the original programing front, Hulu wants to be more than just a destination that airs popular content from the big broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, Fox, CW, and the cable giant Viacom). Chief executive Jason Kilar has previously stated that the company will spend about $500 million on content for 2012, and a portion of that will go toward these new original shows.

Here are Hulu’s seven exclusive shows, which will kick off June 3:

Rev – Rev. is a contemporary sitcom about the enormous daily frustrations and moral conflicts of an inner-city vicar. Cast includes Tom Hollander ("Pirates of the Caribbean"), Olivia Colman, Steve Evets, Miles Jupp, Lucy Liemann, Simon McBurney and Ellen Thomas. Originally broadcast on BBC Two in the U.K. The series premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus on June 3rd from BBC Worldwide Americas Digital Distribution. Six (6) episodes in season one; seven (7) episodes in season two.

The Yard – A mockumentary miniseries that originally aired on HBO Canada, "The Yard" offers a bizarre juxtaposition of two rival cliques of elementary school children, where tension develops much like the quintessential crime-family thriller. The show has comically been referred to by Canadian television critics as "'The Wire' and 'The Sopranos' with kids." Premieres: June 7, 2012, entire series available July 12.

Derren Brown: Inside Your Mind – Derren Brown is a performer like none other in the world. He uses psychology, magic, showmanship and suggestion to achieve things that for anyone else would be impossible. In the U.K., he is multi-award winning performer and has done a variety of huge and baffling stunts including predicting the national lottery and playing Russian roulette on live TV. New episodes premiere every Saturday beginning on July 7; Entire series available on July 28

The Booth at the End (Season Two) – Xander Berkeley, best known for his roles as "George Mason" in FOX's "24" and "Percy" in The CW's “Nikita,” stars as an enigmatic man occupying the corner booth of a diner. He possesses the power to grant desires, contingent upon recipients performing mysterious tasks. This half-hour psychological thriller begs the question: "How far would you go to get what you want?" Directed by Adam Arkin ("Justified," "Grey's Anatomy"), season two premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus in July. Five (5) episodes.

Pramface – Jamie and Laura are two young, free and single teenagers who, after hooking up at a party, soon find they have a very big complication on their hands. Laura is pregnant. So even though they barely know each other, they now have one thing in common – and it's getting bigger. "Pramface" brings humor and heart to a tricky subject, following these two unexpected parents-to-be as they try, and frequently fail, to negotiate family, sex and what happens once nine months is up… The series premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus on July 19th from BBC Worldwide Americas Digital Distribution. Six (6) episodes. New episodes premiere every Thursday beginning on July 19; Entire series available on August 23

The Promise – The serial drama examines the origins of the Middle East conflict in events that took place under British rule sixty years ago. The bold and honest series cuts between the life of Erin, an 18-year old Londoner in present day Israel and Gaza, and that of her military grandfather who was part of the British peace-keeping force in Palestine at the end of the second World War. The series premieres on Hulu and Hulu Plus on August 11th. Four (4) episodes.

Little Mosque – Little Mosque is a light-hearted and comedic fish-out-of-water tale about a small Muslim community that rents the parish hall of a small town church to use as a mosque. It will premiere on Hulu and Hulu Plus this summer. 91 episodes.

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Google Chrome is now the world’s top web browser, says StatCounter

Posted: 21 May 2012 06:38 AM PDT

Google Chrome isn’t just for uber geeks anymore. Google’s minimalist web browser is now the most popular web browser in the world, according to the latest figures from StatCounter.

For the week of May 14th to May 20th, Chrome edged out Internet Explorer — which has been losing market share precipitously — for the first time ever. StatCounter’s data shows that Mozilla Firefox has been slowly dipping in popularity, and that Chrome surpassed it in market share in early November last year (though Firefox usage shot up a bit in recent weeks).

The news isn’t too surprising, since Google has done a remarkable job of quickly improving Chrome and adding features that tie easily tie into your Google account. Last week, the company added a useful tab synchronization feature to the latest version of Chrome, which likely helped drive new downloads.

Looking at the browser market by region, it’s clear that South America gave Chrome a big push in worldwide numbers. Chrome’s popularity skyrocketed in South America over the last year, almost doubling to 52 percent. It’s unclear what exactly is driving Chrome’s numbers in the region, though I assume the popularity of Google’s Orkut social network in Brazil has something to do with it.

In North America, Internet Explorer is still slightly more popular than Chrome, though Microsoft’s browser has been steadily dropping in popularity over the last year. That generally seems to be the story of most regions — even though Internet Explorer 9 was a surprisingly intriguing release, it wasn’t enough to fight against the rising tide of Chrome hype.

Via The Verge; Photo via Van_PC/Flickr

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Mixin lets users insert comments into video and share with friends (exclusive)

Posted: 21 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Mixin, a social video startup, is coming out of stealth mode today with a personal video sharing technology and more than 200,000 users.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company allows users to mix their personal comments into online videos and then share the customized results with their friends on their social graph, such as Facebook users. The company has gathered users quietly for more than a month and is publicly unveiling its partnership offering for other web sites today.

The technology was developed in Jerusalem, Israel. It allows people to start customizing and sharing videos within minutes on either a partner site or on mixin.com. You can add comments or a number of icons. The sharing is compatible with Facebook’s privacy settings so that users’ comments are only seen by their intended audience.

The first users of the technology include AnyClip and Viumbe. They will integrate the technology into their own video players. AnyClip allows users to access clips from over 12,000 feature films from studios including Warner Bros., Universal Studios, Vivendi Entertainment, First Look and Virgil Films. Viumbe provides 35 million video streams to 20 million users a month via properties such as eBaum’s World, Celebremix, and Your Daily Media.

"Most online video is all about searching and algorithms with some minor social features tacked on,” said Jon Goldman, chief executive of Mixin. “Mixin's technology starts with social interaction as the foundation so that videos serve as a way to connect friends and increase sharing. The customization, commenting and posting to Facebook allows users to add their personal stamp and humor to the videos they love.”

He added, “Now we are able to add this functionality to partners which means any content owner looking to add to video engagement and sharing can use our 'next generation' commenting as a solution."

Mixin users can choose to watch only videos created by their friends or select from the broader Mixin community.

"Once a user sees how much more fun Mixin can make something like Gotye's 'Somebody that I Used to Know' music video, they are hooked," says Goldman. "With our white label offering, old school scrolling-style commenting is on its way to becoming a thing of the past.

Mixin is part of Qlipso, which has funding from Jerusalem Venture Partners. Qlipso was founded in 2009 to create social videos, and Mixin was established four months ago. The division has 14 employees. Goldman is the former chairman and chief executive of video game publisher Foundation 9 Entertainment. Rivals include Chill, Frequency, Socialcam, and Viddy. Goldman said that Mixin tries to be more consumer-friendly with easier authoring capability.

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Game of Thrones Ascent aims to please fans with a Facebook game (exclusive)

Posted: 21 May 2012 05:30 AM PDT

Game startup Disruptor Beam has announced today the first Facebook game based on the award-winning novels by George R.R. Martin and the award-winning television show on HBO. Titled Game of Thrones Ascent, it is slated for an unspecified “future release” on Facebook. The developer plans to impress fans of the show and books alike with an authenticity and close-hewn relationship to the story-lines and characters of the popular series.

In Game of Thrones Ascent, players will lead the life of a noble during the time of upheaval as portrayed in the books and the series. Set in Westeros against a background of political and sexual intrigue, players will choose their allegiance to a great house, secure their holdings, develop their lands and reputation, and assign adventurers to quests while forging alliances with Facebook friends.

There will be an open beta for Game of Thrones Ascent, details of which can be found at Disruptor Beam's website or their Facebook page.

"Everyone at Disruptor Beam was a huge fan of Game of Thrones long before we began working on the game, so we recognize that other fans expect character-driven conflict and intrigue to take center stage in our new game,” said CEO of Disruptor Beam, Jon Radoff, in an exclusive interview with GamesBeat. He promised this won’t be just another media tie-in experience.

Disruptor Beam is a Boston-based game company backed by a group of technology and gaming entrepreneurs from the Boston area. HBO is a premier-content cable entertainment company that produces and airs Game Of Thrones, a television show based on fantasy novels by George R.R. Martin. Radoff was the former chief executive and founder of gamer social network GamerDNA.

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Not magic, motion control: The Leap controls your computer with a flick of a finger

Posted: 21 May 2012 05:00 AM PDT

Anyone who has wanted to point their finger at their computer to make something happen will appreciate the Leap, a new motion control peripheral from startup Leap Motion. The small aluminum device uses finger waves and hand gestures to interact with operating systems and computer programs.

Thanks to Microsoft’s Kinect, motion control has gained more popularity and better precision in recent years. While the creators of the Leap, David Holz and Michael Buckwald, admired the Kinect’s motion sensing abilities, they knew they could create a much more precise device in a tinier package.

Holz and Buckwald’s goal was to create a device that takes the place of a mouse. Instead of being hunched over in front of a computer using a mouse and keyboard, people could use the Leap to browse through their computer with a finger, Holz told me.

Slightly larger than a USB drive, the Leap is accurate to 1/100 of a millimeter according to the company. This means it is responsive to small finger movements, even if your finger only moves a few millimeters.

The Leap device

The Leap creates a four cubic feet interactive space around it, where it can detect finger, hand, and arm movements. Depending on the program connected to the Leap, you can create drawings, zoom in and out of maps in Google Earth, play touch-based games, or interact with 3-D models with the device and you fingers.

At Leap Motion headquarters, I got a demo of the technology and spent some time playing the mobile game Fruit Ninja with the Leap. The precision and fluid motion of the Leap’s technology was impressive. Playing Fruit Ninja with the Leap was faster than on my smartphone, which suffers from friction between the screen and my fingers.

Leap Motion’s technology is an extension of what we’ve seen from the Kinect and webcam-based motion control systems. Flutter, for example, developed a program that uses your webcam to control music and video playback. The Kinect senses your hand movements when browsing through the Xbox’s interface and people have hacked the device for other motion sensing projects.

The Leap has the benefit of working with computer programs and operating systems, giving it access to a vast number of programs. Anything a mouse can do, the Leap can do, said Holz and Buckwald.

Beyond the novelty of flicking your finger to scroll through a webpage, the Leap can benefit people who are unable to use a mouse because of physical limitations. It’s also useful for presentations, as I saw during the demo — you can make drawings on a presentation or flip through PowerPoint slides with the flick of a hand.

Leap Motion is accepting pre-orders for the Leap starting Monday. It will retail for $69.99 and will begin shipping in winter 2012. Software developer kits are also available so developers can create Leap-based programs.

Leap Motion was founded in 2010 in San Francisco. The company has raised $14.55 million from Highland Capital Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, and other angel investors to develop its motion sensing technology.

Magical hands image via Shutterstock

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Yahoo agrees to sell back half of Alibaba stake in $7B deal

Posted: 20 May 2012 06:24 PM PDT

Yahoo and Alibaba have finally hashed out terms that will see Yahoo sell back half of its stake in the Chinese e-commerce site in a $7 billion deal, according to an AllThingsD report.

Yahoo will sell half of its 40 percent stake, and with Alibaba valued at $35 billion, the value of Yahoo’s holdings are worth around $7 billion. The taxable Yahoo-Alibaba deal has reportedly been cleared by Yahoo’s board. After taxes and fees, Yahoo should end up clearing about $4 billion.

Both Yahoo and Alibaba have been bickering over the terms of their relationship for years, so it only makes sense for Yahoo to finally give up a portion of its stake in the company. And Yahoo seriously needs cash to help it come up with new direction and new products, especially in light of the company losing CEO Scott Thompson recently in an embarrassing resume-padding scandal.

Photo credit: Flickr/Yahoo

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Gaming art for your Facebook Timeline (Part 1: The Modern Era)

Posted: 20 May 2012 05:00 PM PDT

Facebook’s Timeline lets you place an image at the top of your profile. Sure, you could add a crummy, awkwardly cropped family photo — or you can use a kick-ass cover from your favorite video game.

We’re releasing seven days’ worth of artwork, each with a different theme, that you can use to decorate your Facebook profile:

Sunday: The Modern Era (today)
Monday: Modern/Retro
Tuesday: The Indies
Wednesday: 8/16-bit
Thursday: Social & Mobile
Friday: Arcade
Saturday: Future Games

Today’s batch of covers features 10 titles from the current generation of games. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge the pictures, then right-click (or ctrl-click for Macs) them and hit “save image as” to save to your computer.

Asura’s Wrath

Battlefield 3

Rayman Origins

Killzone 3

Dead Space 2

Halo: Reach

Red Dead Redemption

Final Fantasy XIII

Mirror’s Edge

Infamous

Check back tomorrow for more Timeline covers.

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Nasdaq admits screwing up early Facebook IPO trading

Posted: 20 May 2012 03:57 PM PDT

Nasdaq chief exec Robert Greifeld admitted Sunday that the exchange was at fault for some glitches in early trading of Facebook’s IPO but said it had nothing to do with the stock’s uninspired performance.

Social networking service Facebook went public Friday with the largest tech IPO in history. Facebook expected trading to begin at 11 a.m. ET, but it did not begin until about 11:30 a.m. The stock did not “pop” in early trading and ended up disappointing many analysts and social media enthusiasts by closing 9.5 percent down from its $42 opening price and just barely above its $38 original IPO price.

Greifeld told a handful of reporters Sunday that the Nasdaq’s systems got backed up because there were quite a few order cancellations that came in late in the IPO process. In turn, the entire system was backed up and did not let some traders know their orders went through until after 2:30 p.m., according to the New York Times.

The New York Times reports Greifeld said the exchange was "humbly embarrassed" about the delay in confirmations, but that it was not responsible for losses incurred by trading. Charlie Gasparino at Fox Business says angry traders are demanding that Nasdaq repay them for “$100 million or possibly more.”

At the least, the SEC plans to look into the Nasdaq trading debacle.

Read more about Facebook:

Filed under: social

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Microsoft silently launches So.cl, its attempt at a social networking site

Posted: 20 May 2012 11:26 AM PDT

Microsoft has officially launched an “experimental” social networking site called So.cl, which combines facets of social networking, search, and media sharing with a user interface resembling Google+.

When we last heard about it, So.cl (pronounced “Social”) was being billed as an "experimental research project" and was only available to students studying information and design at the University of Washington, Syracuse University, and New York University. While the project is still billed as experimental, it’s now open to anyone who wants to give it a shot.

To get access to So.cl, you sign up using your Facebook or Windows Live ID. When you sign in for the first time, the site describes the experience as such:

So.cl is an experiment in open search. That means your searches on So.cl are viewable by other So.cl users and will also be available to third parties.

So.cl does not automatically post your searches, comments, or likes to your Facebook stream unless you choose this option. Also, we don't contact your Facebook friends unless you invite them.

After logging in you’ll notice the layout closely resembles Google+’s layout, but it also takes ideas from Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can follow other So.cl users or follow interests like food, art, or movies. There’s also a “bookmarklet” feature that adds a “Share on So.cl” button to your bookmark bar so you can share content anywhere around the web with other So.cl users. Additionally, So.cl naturally appears to have close ties with Bing’s recently revamped social search.

Looking at the “Everyone” feed, it’s easy to see what all So.cl users are searching for and sharing with the world. But alas, one of the biggest problems with “social search” is that we don’t always want to see what everyone else is searching for:

You can read more about So.cl at the site’s FAQ page. Let us know in the comments what you think of it.

Filed under: social

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Order James Patterson "11th Hour" Today and Enjoy the Ride

2012-05-21T08:33:00.001-07:00

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Review

FANS LOVE THE WOMEN'S MURDER CLUB!

"Those who haven't read any of the novels in the Women's Murder Club series are cheating themselves." (BookReporter.com )

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"Patterson and Paetro are at their best here, weaving a number of plots together to create a novel that dips and flows across genre lines.... A series that shows no signs of fatigue or flagging." (BookReporter.com )

Review

Order Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy New york Times Bestseller

2012-05-21T08:21:00.001-07:00

Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating. The unworldly, innocent Ana is startled to realize she wants this man and, despite his enigmatic reserve, finds she is desperate to get close to him. Unable to resist Ana's quiet beauty, wit, and independent spirit, Grey admits he wants her, too—but on his own terms.

Shocked yet thrilled by Grey's singular erotic tastes, Ana hesitates. For all the trappings of success—his multinational businesses, his vast wealth, his loving family—Grey is a man tormented by demons and consumed by the need to control. When the couple embarks on a daring, passionately physical affair, Ana discovers Christian Grey's secrets and explores her own dark desires.

Erotic, amusing, and deeply moving, the Fifty Shades Trilogy is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.

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Give Your Child an Advantage in Life

2012-05-21T07:16:00.000-07:00

ABCmouse.com offers more than 2,000 fun and engaging books, games, songs, puzzles, and art activities that help prepare young children for success in preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten classes and to develop a lifelong love of learning at an early age.

Searching for Andy Cohen "Most Talkative"

2012-05-21T06:22:00.001-07:00

From a young age, Andy Cohen knew one thing: He loved television. Not in the way that most kids do, but in an irrepressible, all-consuming, I-want-to-climb-inside-the-tube kind of way. And climb inside he did. Now presiding over Bravo's reality TV empire, he started out as an overly talkative pop culture obsessive, devoted to Charlie's Angels and All My Children and to his mother, who received daily letters from Andy at summer camp, usually reminding her to tape the soaps. In retrospect, it's hard to believe that everyone didn't know that Andy was gay; still, he remained in the closet until college. Finally out, he embarked on making a career out of his passion for television.

The journey begins with Andy interviewing his all-time idol Susan Lucci for his college newspaper and ends with him in a job where he has a hand in creating today's celebrity icons. In the witty, no-holds-barred style of his show Watch What Happens Live, Andy tells tales of absurd mishaps during his ten years at CBS News, hilarious encounters with the heroes and heroines of his youth, and the real stories behind The Real Housewives. Dishy, funny, and full of heart, Most Talkative provides a one-of-a-kind glimpse into the world of television, from a fan who grew up watching the screen and is now inside it, both making shows and hosting his own.

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GeekAlerts: “Archer Suit Costume T-Shirt” plus 6 more

2012-05-21T05:07:00.001-07:00

GeekAlerts: “Archer Suit Costume T-Shirt” plus 6 more

Archer Suit Costume T-Shirt
Pet Emergency Evacuation Jacket
Flowers In a Can
Bacon Lovers Gift Basket
Color Changing LED Cube Stool
Dragon Age Origins Grey Warden Render Sword Letter Opener
Red Hot Chilli Gummy Candies

Archer Suit Costume T-Shirt

Posted: 21 May 2012 03:19 AM PDT

If you want to look like a super spy, but can’t afford a fancy new suit, check out this Archer Suit Costume T-Shirt. It is a long sleeve shirt that’s printed to look like the suit Sterling Archer often wears on the hit FX Network show, Archer. It costs less, and is far more comfortable [...]

Pet Emergency Evacuation Jacket

Posted: 21 May 2012 02:23 AM PDT

Japan has experienced its fair share of natural disasters, so it’s no surprise that the Japanese have created such gear as the Pet Emergency Evacuation Jacket. But we’re all subjected to emergency situations when we have to get the hell out of dodge, and many of us would rather die than abandon our beloved pets. [...]

Flowers In a Can

Posted: 20 May 2012 04:26 PM PDT

The simple gift of flowers to loved ones can get you out of a lot of problems and you never know when you’re going to need them. With Flowers in a Can you never have to worry about closed flower shops again. If your girlfriend finds out that you were out partying late without her, [...]

Bacon Lovers Gift Basket

Posted: 20 May 2012 02:19 PM PDT

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, mathematician, or neurosurgeon to know that bacon is one of the finest foods man will ever taste. It’s so complex, and it’s hard to explain why pig fat and sodium nitrate can yield something so magical. For the bacoholic you know (it could be yourself), spoil him/her with the gift of [...]

Color Changing LED Cube Stool

Posted: 20 May 2012 12:37 PM PDT

Cubed-shaped furniture, such as ottomans, has become very practical and popular lately. It doesn’t take up much space, it looks modern, and it conveniently doubles as an accent table or extra seating. But do cubes know how to party? This funky Color Changing LED Cube Stool does. A good-looking, white cube by day; a strobing 16-color-changing cube by night. If your [...]

Dragon Age Origins Grey Warden Render Sword Letter Opener

Posted: 20 May 2012 09:24 AM PDT

Dragon Age Origins was an amazing game and if you are a fan, check out this Dragon Age Origins Grey Warden Render Sword Letter Opener. Everytime you open a letter you will be reminded of the game since you are opening it with a miniature Grey Warden sword. Mostly Grey Warden swords are used in [...]

Red Hot Chilli Gummy Candies

Posted: 20 May 2012 06:44 AM PDT

People who enjoy bringing the heat when it comes to food and drink are already enjoying the 100,000 Scovilles Chilli Vodka and Evil Hot Gummy Bears, and now you can add another tasty jelly to your party collection. The Red Hot Chilli Gummy Candies have the consistency of gummy bears or other jellies, but pack [...]

TechPinas

2012-05-20T17:27:00.001-07:00

TechPinas

Unlock Smart Live More Foursquare Badge at Lady Gaga Concert at SM Mall of Asia Arena on May 21 and 22, 2012 and Get a Chance to Win a Samsung Galaxy Nexus!

Posted: 20 May 2012 01:00 PM PDT

Am I seeing you at the #SmartLadyGaga Born This Way Ball at SM MOA Arena tonight or on Tuesday? Are already you on Foursquare?

Well, don't forget to check in at the concert venue and unlock the Smart Live More Foursquare Badge to get a chance to win an Android ICS-powered Samsung Galaxy Nexus!

Smart partners with Foursquare to bring the very first Philippine country-badge! This partnership will also bring more fresh and innovative programs from the biggest telecommunications company in the Philippines and the leading location-based social networking company.

Here's how you can join the raffle to win this amazing handset:

OK, so what's hot about this handset? You can learn more about Samsung Galaxy Nexus Philippines and Smart Samsung Galaxy Nexus via our exclusive TP posts!

1. Everyone with a Foursquare account can join.
2. The Badge unlocks on May 21, 2012 and May 22, 2012 from 6:00pm-2:00am, so hold on to your smartphones!
3. Check-in while dancing with Lady Gaga during her concert (May 21 and 22 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena). 6:00pm to 2:00am only! People who are not in the SM Mall of Asia Arena can still check-in and join the promo. We allow jumpers and we like to share our badge to everyone -- even if you're just at home while we are dancing with Mother Monster!
4. Check-in and you unlock the sexy Live More badge – the first ever Philippine badge on Foursquare.
5. As a bonus, those who checked-in automatically qualify for a raffle.
6. Two lucky Live More badge owners will win Samsung Galaxy Nexus each night – to be announced a week after the concert. Both of them will be chosen via electronic raffle.
7. Prizes aren't convertible to cash but are transferable.
8. If you think you won, please wait for a call from a representative a few days after you receive the announcement.

For clarifications, just visit the official promo page.

Alright?! Don't forget to tell your friends about the promo.
See you at the SM MOA Arena! Just dance! Live more!

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

2012-05-20T17:17:00.001-07:00

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

Optrix Extreme Sports Case

Posted: 20 May 2012 08:30 AM PDT

If you love getting an adrenaline rush simply because your life at the office is very boring, then you might want to live it up a little whenever you have ditched the tie and suit. Enter the £69.99 Optrix Extreme Sports Case, which is a device that can be mounted on helmets in a jiffy. Not only that, it is full well capable of being riveted on to handlebars, boards and perhaps even car bonnets if you are up to it. Just like how you need some safety gear for your precious iPhone, just like how you pad yourself up with knee pads and a mouth-guard whenever you get involved in a rough sport or potentially risky activity.

The Optrix Extreme Sports Case will feature special anti-vibration sleds that ensure the video recordings remain nice and smooth. Not only that, the addition of the transparent touchscreen membrane would mean that you are free to review all of the recorded action live, with the option of saving it up for editing later on one of the compatible video Apps. Constructed using military-grade materials and using 'ultrasonic welding' techniques and silicon gaskets, the Optrix Extreme Sports Case is water-resistant to boot, so what are you waiting for?

[ Optrix Extreme Sports Case copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Sony NEX-F3 digital camera delivers a power packed performance

Posted: 20 May 2012 08:12 AM PDT

Once in a while, we get a digital camera that offers the best of both worlds – a relatively portable size, not to mention a performance level that is high enough to be considered as semi-professional. Well, it is worth noting that the recently announced Sony NEX-F3 digital camera is one of those machinations, where it is capable of shooting professional looking photos despite housing its innards in a compact, pocket-sized chassis. This enables budding shutterbugs to explore the creative world of high-quality, interchangeable lens photography without breaking their back in the process.

The Sony NEX-F3 will come with a similar space-saving mirrorless design that can be found in other models within Sony’s E-mount family, in addition to featuring the more advanced, 16.1-effective megapixel Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor, which is actually identical in size to the sensors that can be found in traditional DSLR shooters, now how about htat? The large sensor is capable of drinking in more light whenever it wants to capture images, resulting in flawless, low-noise photographs and crisply detailed Full HD videos (60i/24p) if you so desire.

Not only that, photographers with a simple working knowledge of the system can also create images with beautiful defocus effects in a jiffy, where the subject will remain focused sharply against a smoothly blurred background. Want to capture self portraits? That is not a problem, as the NEX-F3 camera will also be able to let you capture decent looking self-portraits for once, thanks to a 180° Tiltable LCD display, which is a first of its kind where Sony’s E-mount camera line is concerned. All you need to do is hold the camera at arm’s length, flipp the LCD screen vertically, make the necessary adjustments via the on-screen preview image, and you are enroute to properly framing your self portraits.

The Sony NEX-F3 will play nice with the FDA-EV1S viewfinder accessory that is sold separately, and will also come with a high-quality, premium-feel grip for a more comfortable handling experience and can be juiced via either USB or a standard AC outlet. Prices start from around $600 onwards, whole those who want the bundle with a new SEL18200LE telezoom lens can pick one up for approximately $850.

Press Release

[ Sony NEX-F3 digital camera delivers a power packed performance copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

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2012-05-20T14:41:00.001-07:00

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2012-05-20T11:28:00.001-07:00

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2012-05-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

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2012-05-20T10:49:00.001-07:00

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2012-05-20T10:30:00.001-07:00

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VentureBeat

2012-05-20T09:29:00.001-07:00

VentureBeat

Pakistan blocks Twitter over ‘blasphemous’ Muhammad drawings
Ever-busy Zuckerberg marries sweetheart the day after Facebook IPO
Would Facebook’s IPO have been bigger if it went with New York Stock Exchange?
Google’s acquisition of Motorola gets the go-ahead from Chinese government
Pets.com and Midwestern moms: Another look at what happened to Facebook
Silicon Valley needs humanities students
No liftoff for SpaceX: Launch aborted early Saturday
How were these Silicon Valley VCs so wrong about Facebook’s IPO?
2-D books are over: Augmented reality breathes new life into the classics

Pakistan blocks Twitter over ‘blasphemous’ Muhammad drawings

Posted: 20 May 2012 08:36 AM PDT

Social networking service Twitter has been blocked in Pakistan after the site refused to remove tweets concerning “blasphemous” Muhammad cartoons, according to Pakistan’s Express Tribune.

Twitter was targeted by the Pakistani government after some users organized a competition for people to draw the Prophet Mohammed, something that many Muslims consider blasphemous. Pakistan reportedly asked Twitter officials to stop tweets about the Prophet Muhammad, but “Twitter refused our request,” Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Mohammad Yaseen told the Express Tribune. Yaseen said that once Twitter removes the offending tweets, Twitter will be unblocked.

The Associated Press reports that Facebook complied with Pakistan’s requests about the competition. Facebook site was banned briefly in Pakistan about two years ago for refusing to remove a similar user-created contest. After two weeks, it eventually complied and removed the offending content.

A Pakistani government official claimed yesterday (on Twitter!) that Facebook and Twitter would not be blocked, saying, “Dear all, I assure u that Twitter and FB will continue in our country and it will not be blocked. Pl do not believe in rumors.”

Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, criticized the move to block Twitter, saying it hindered users’ right to free speech.

"The government of Pakistan's ban on Twitter is ill-advised, counterproductive and will ultimately prove to be futile as all such attempts at censorship have proved to be," Hasan said, in a statement. "The right to free speech is nonnegotiable, and if Pakistan is the rights-respecting democracy it claims to be, this ban must be lifted forthwith. Free speech can and should only be countered with free speech."

Officials from Twitter and Facebook did not immediately respond to us with request for comment about the ongoing event.

Photo credit: Andreas Eldh/Flickr

Filed under: social

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Ever-busy Zuckerberg marries sweetheart the day after Facebook IPO

Posted: 20 May 2012 06:49 AM PDT

As if Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t busy enough readying his company to go public this past week, he also somehow found time to marry long-time sweetheart Priscilla Chan yesterday.

Social networking titan Facebook went public Friday in the largest tech IPO in history. While the stock disappointed many analysts and social media enthusiasts by closing 9.5 percent down from its opening price, it still remained above the original offering price of $38 a share. Now Facebook will face a new level of scrutiny as it continues monetize its 900-million-strong user base.

But even with all the Facebook IPO madness, Zuckerberg and Chan got married yesterday at Zuckerberg’s home in Palo Alto, Calif. The couple was surrounded by 100 guests who thought they were there to attend a party for Chan’s graduation from University of California’s medical school. Instead of a hoodie, Zuckerberg dressed in a slick suit and tie, while Chan wore a white wedding dress.

A guest of the wedding claims that the couple had always planned to get married right after Chan finished medical school and the timing with the IPO was coincidental, according to the Associated Press. Zuckerberg gave Chan a ring he had made with a “simple ruby” although he could have easily bought her one of the world’s most expensive diamond rings if he wanted.

We wish Zuckerberg the best on his journey with his lovely new wife. While he may not be able to fix any future relationship problems with an all-night hackathon or an algorithm change, we’re sure he’ll figure it out. Congrats Zuck!

Read more about Facebook:

Filed under: social, VentureBeat

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Would Facebook’s IPO have been bigger if it went with New York Stock Exchange?

Posted: 19 May 2012 03:45 PM PDT

The all-computer run NASDAQ could be to blame for a lack of a Facebook stock pop Friday, when the social network started its first day of trading. Orders flooded in for the stock, but overwhelmed computers and glitches slowed trading down because stock orders couldn’t be processed, leaving investors wonder if their orders had gone through. If Facebook had gone with the New York Stock exchange, where there are redundant backup systems, it might have been a different story.

By now you know that Facebook’s stock didn’t pop in its first day of trading, closing the day at $38.06. Reports emerged yesterday that trading didn’t begin until 11:30 EDT because of computer glitches on the NASDAQ. Investors were left waiting for computer confirmation on their orders and the price they paid for the stock. The NASDAQ’s automated system relies completely on computers that are supposed to be faster and more efficient than human traders.

On the New York Stock Exchange computers run the show as well, but human traders work as a backup. If the computers slow down or crash, real people keep the trading going and can tell you immediately the status of your order and the price of your stock.

Keith Bliss from Cuttone & Co. explained the human trading system on the NYSE in an interview with Bloomberg:

“There is no redundancy inside their (the NASDAQ) market so they’re solely dependent on the computers being able to handle…what’s happening not only inside of the market, but also inside an IPO. Down here on the New York Stock Exchange, we have redundant systems and the redundant systems are the human-based traders who can have an open outcry auction market. If the systems go down, we can get the stock open and get orders into the market, they can execute them and can give you a report immediately.”

In Silicon Valley, we keep hearing that computers are getting closer to replacing humans as processors get more powerful. Researchers are continuing to work towards the singularity, in which we create computers that are smarter than humans (and probably more powerful too — cue a robot uprising).

While it will be decades, if not hundreds of years, before a computer has even close to processing power of the human brain, leaders in the industry are praising computers as faster and smarter than human beings. It’s ironic then that the largest tech IPO in U.S. history may have been hurt by computer-based system.

Do you think if Facebook had chosen the New York Stock Exchange for its IPO that it would have done better? Answer the poll and sound off in the comments.

Filed under: VentureBeat

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Google’s acquisition of Motorola gets the go-ahead from Chinese government

Posted: 19 May 2012 11:43 AM PDT

Chinese antitrust and competition authorities have approved Google’s deal to purchase Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. The merger, which was announced nine months ago in August 2011, will likely close next week.

China was the last regulatory hold-out to approve the merger, which was approved by the United States Department of Justice and European Union regulators in February 2012. Now that China has given the go-ahead, the deal can be finalized. Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick confirmed the news, according to the Associated Press.

Antitrust issues were a major reason that regulatory boards had to mull over before approving the deal. Mainly, there were concerns that Motorola would be given preferential treatment for the Android operating system, which runs on Motorola devices. New updates or brand new versions of Android might go directly to Motorola, while taking much longer to reach other smartphone manufactures.

Google defended itself saying it has no intentions of giving Motorola special treatment over other Android-running OEMs such as HTC, Samsung, and LG. Apparently the argument was enough for Google it get over all of the regulatory hurdles it needed to close the deal.

Google is interested in purchasing Motorola mostly for its patents. Motorola holds 17,000 patents and 6,800 pending patent applications, many related to smartphone technology. Now that Google is duking it out in court with Oracle over Java-related patents, its more important than ever for Google to have a large patent shield so it can defend itself against future Android lawsuits.

Google lego sign image via Flickr user Simon Law

Filed under: mobile

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Pets.com and Midwestern moms: Another look at what happened to Facebook

Posted: 19 May 2012 10:36 AM PDT

Hoo boy, anything tech-related that happened over this past week was dwarfed into oblivion by Facebook’s IPO.

Many of us were expecting a glorious event with massive profits for early shareholders, but the day’s events ended in disappointment.

The stock closed at just over $38 — exactly Facebook’s original offering price. In fact, NASDAQ revealed that the deal’s underwriters had to make supporting bids to keep the price from dipping below the $38 mark.

Also, unexpectedly low figures for Facebook’s share price led to a price slump for other tech stocks, as well. Zynga had a NASDAQ-mandated halt in trading not once but twice during the day when it fell by more than 10 percent.

“Ouch” doesn’t begin to cover it.

Still, there’s hope. We’re just at the beginning, and the mainstream market’s lack of faith in Facebook doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re heading for another dotcom-esque bust. My mom said so.

Filed under: video

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Silicon Valley needs humanities students

Posted: 19 May 2012 10:30 AM PDT

Quit your technology job. Get a Ph.D in the humanities. That's the way to get ahead in the technology sector. That, at least, is what philosopher Damon Horowitz told a crowd of attendees at the BiblioTech Conference at Stanford University in 2011.

Horowitz is also a serial entrepreneur who co-founded a company, Aardvark, which sold to Google for $50 million. He is presently the In-House Philosopher / Director of Engineering at Google. Wait, you say, that's insane. At a time when record numbers of people, among them those with high-level degrees, are receiving public assistance, what kind of fool would get a degree in a subject with no clear job prospects beyond higher education or teaching?

In Silicon Valley, engineers are honor students and everyone else is taking remedial math. Venture capitalists often express disdain for startup CEOs who are not engineers. Silicon Valley parents send their kids to college expecting them to major in a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) discipline. The theory goes as follows: STEM degree holders will get higher pay upon graduation and get a leg up in the career sprint.

The trouble is that theory is wrong. In 2008, my research team at Duke and Harvard surveyed652 U.S.-born chief executive officers and heads of product engineering at 502 technology companies. We found that they tended to be highly educated: 92 percent held bachelor's degrees, and 47 percent held higher degrees. But only 37 percent held degrees in engineering or computer technology, and just two percent held them in mathematics. The rest have degrees in fields as diverse as business, accounting, finance, healthcare, arts, and the humanities.

Yes, gaining a degree made a big difference in the sales and employment of the company that a founder started. But the field that the degree was in was not a significant factor. Over the past two years, I have interviewed the founders of more than 300 Silicon Valley startups. The most common traits I have observed are a passion to change the world and the confidence to defy the odds and succeed.

Any discussion of this nature must return to a comparison of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. True, Jobs was technically competent. But he had, if anything, an eclectic educational background where he spent as much time in seeming arcana such as philosophy and calligraphy as he did on math and engineering.

I'd take that a step further. I believe humanity majors make the best project managers, the best product managers, and, ultimately, the most visionary technology leaders. The reason is simple. Technologists and engineers focus on features and too often get wrapped up in elements that may be cool for geeks but are useless for most people. In contrast, humanities majors can more easily focus on people and how they interact with technology. A history major who has studied the Enlightenment or the rise and fall of the Roman Empire may be more likely to understand the human elements of technology. She may more readily understand how ease of use and design can make the difference between an interesting historical footnote and a world-changing technology. A psychologist is more likely to know how to motivate people or to understand what users want.

This brings me back to Damon Horowitz. He was a highly accomplished artificial intelligence (AI) researcher with a master's degree from MIT. Damon was in hot demand, making big bucks and founding companies, several of which were acquired for nice, tidy sums. The trouble was, he realized his work was not actually solving the underlying problems of AI in any meaningful way. Damon felt he didn't understand the philosophy of intelligence and human thought well enough to get beyond the beautiful, "intoxicating" prison of computer code he lived in.

So Horowitz quit his tech job and went to Stanford to get his doctorate in philosophy. He was amazed at how much he had to learn. For Horowitz, going back was a transformational shift that opened his eyes not only to key foundational arguments and theories about the nature of intelligence, but it also gave him improved capabilities in strategic vision, creative problem solving and other critical traits. Horowitz believes his degree helped him envision Aardvark, which was an interesting hybrid search system that involved people sending out queries to fellow users who were connected through an automated interface that helped askers properly shape and target their questions.

Don't get me wrong. The world needs engineers. And no, I am not actually advising people to quit their jobs and get Ph.Ds in philosophy. For some people, it might make sense, but for others it wouldn't. The point I'm trying to get across is more nuanced: We need musicians, artists, and psychologists, as much as we need biomedical engineers and computer programmers.

For tech entrepreneurs and managers, there is no "right" major or field of study. While having a degree in slinging code may present a short-term advantage at startup time, it may comprise an equally important disadvantage if the degree came at the cost of other critical "soft leadership" skills required to focus, lead and grow companies. So, it's time for Silicon Valley to get over its obsession with engineers. And, if you run a startup, hire that psychology Ph.D. You may get a lot more than you bargained for.

Wadhwa is a fellow at the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford University and is affiliated with several other universities. Read more about Vivek Wadhwa's affiliations.

Originally published on WashingtonPost.com.

Photo credit: mararie/Flickr

Filed under: Entrepreneur

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No liftoff for SpaceX: Launch aborted early Saturday

Posted: 19 May 2012 09:45 AM PDT

The launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket came to an abrupt halt early Saturday. The rocket’s computer detected too-high levels of pressure in engine number five, causing the launch to stop a half-second before liftoff.

The Falcon 9 rocket held cargo destined for the International Space Station (ISS) and was scheduled for liftoff at 4:55 a.m. EDT Saturday morning from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Had it taken off, it would have been the first commercial rocket to dock with the ISS.

Just after 2:01 am PDT (5:01 am EDT) SpaceX tweeted ”Launch aborted.” A few minutes later SpaceX c0-founder Elon Musk tweeted ”Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.” The engine problems came as a surprise to NASA commentator George Diller who was announcing the countdown.

“Five, four, three, two, one, zero and lift…off. We’ve had a cutoff. Liftoff did not occur. We’ve had a launch abort.” Diller said in rapid succesion.

According to NASA, the next opportunity for the Falcon 9 rocket to take off is Tuesday May 22 or May 23. The engine will be inspected before another launch is scheduled.

SpaceX Falcon 9 static fire test

Saturday’s mission was a demonstration launch intended to prove to NASA that SpaceX’s rocket can replace the now-retired Space Shuttles. The Space Shuttles mostly served as cargo ships to transport supplies to and from the ISS. Due to budgetary constrictions, NASA had to end the 30-year Space Shuttle mission run.

The engine hiccup hasn’t hurt SpaceX’s reputation yet, but the pressure is on for SpaceX to prove its rocket launches are safe. If the company ever wants to send humans into space, it will need a strong track-record of safe unmanned flights.

SpaceX is a commercial company hoping to eventually send humans into space for a fee, but for now it’s starting with sending cargo into space. The company currently holds a $1.6 billion contract to send supplies to the ISS.

Falcon 9 launch image via NASA TV

Filed under: VentureBeat

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How were these Silicon Valley VCs so wrong about Facebook’s IPO?

Posted: 19 May 2012 09:35 AM PDT

Before Friday, almost every Silicon Valley insider was saying Facebook stock would finish its first day between $50 and $60 per share.

In reality, the share price at the closing bell was a pathetic $38.37.

How were these masters of the universe — some of them the most powerful investors on the West Coast — so woefully inaccurate in their predictions?

Facebook closing price predictions were coming in fast and furious over the past several weeks, but as Facebook’s pre-trading pop fizzled, estimates dwindled lower and lower.

Still, few thought the price would dip as low as it did — almost a full $4 below the $42 opening price and just 37 cents higher than Facebook’s offering price.

Here’s a graph we made to name and shame (just kidding … sorta) those who aimed way, way too high on Facebook’s value in the open market.

If you don’t recognize the last names, you probably don’t have your head deep enough inside the navel of startup culture, in which case, good for you! If you’re still curious, they are, from left to right:

Lars Hinrichs, Xing founder, predicting $45
Michael Yavonditte, FF Ventures partner, $49
Chris Dixon, angel investor, $50
Josh Felser, Freestyle Capital founder, $50
Shakil Khan, Spotify investor, $50
Jason Calacanis, serial entrepreneur and investor, $52
Chris Sacca, Lowercase Capital founder, $56
Josh Kopelman, First Round partner, $57
Ryan Sarver, Twitter dev guru, not an actual investor, $60
Shervin Pishevar, Menlo Ventures partner, $63

Interestingly, in the week before the IPO, all the Wall Street analyst types we talked to were not nearly as optimistic as their tech-obsessed counterparts on the West Coast. As the opening bell rang, we published their conservative estimates — low $40s, maybe $44 by the end of the year.

Of all the Valley dudes and dudettes we called, however, only one man gave an accurate estimate of Facebook’s closing price. Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of this guess-how-many-jellybeans-are-in-Facebook’s-jar contest is … Menlo Ventures managing director Mark Siegel!

Siegel told us the day before the IPO that he thought the company’s $38 asking price “certainly fully values the company based on today’s financial metrics. I think they know how oversubscribed their book is, but I don’t think it’s going to leave too much money on the table.”

When we floated the $60 figure by him, he practically snurffled his coffee in surprise, saying there was “no way, not a chance” Facebook’s numbers would get that high any time within the next year or so.

Siegel bought his Facebook shares today, as did fellow Menlo Ventures VC Shervin Pishevar (who guessed $63) and Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital (who guessed $56).

But for those of you who didn’t hit your closing-price target Friday, don’t dismay. Facebook still has a long way to go, and we’re just at the beginning in almost every way.

Filed under: deals, VentureBeat

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2-D books are over: Augmented reality breathes new life into the classics

Posted: 19 May 2012 09:30 AM PDT

Augmented reality, which bridges the divide between virtual and physical worlds, has crossed into a new frontier: print media.

Penguin Books recently unveiled a surprising partnership with Zappar App, an augmented reality entertainment channel, to bring four novels from the English Library to life. Augmented reality, known as “AR,” is type of virtual reality that overlays objects and scenes in the real world with digital information.

To access the content, just download the free Zappar mobile app, available on Android and iOS, and select a Penguin novel on the drop-down menu. Point your smartphone camera at the cover of popular titles such as Moby Dick and Great Expectations to unlock an interactive and highly visual experience. Hover over the Moby Dick cover page, and a whale swims across your phone screen, as you’re prompted to “like” Penguin Books on Facebook.

Publishers have been experimenting with integrating AR for years (in 2010, GQ ran a series of enhanced Calvin Klein underwear ads), but this futuristic technology has not yet been incorporated into classic novels until now.

“Gimmicks are easy, compelling value-adds in transmedia are hard,” said Marshall Kirkpatrick, chief executive of Plexus Engine, on the topic of the AR-enhanced Penguin novels.

The jury’s still out on whether AR can help print publishers attract a younger generation of ADD-riddled readers.

Nicola Hill, marketing director for Penguin Press, is optimistic about the opportunity to turn static print into an interactive experience. Hill describes this partnership as an “inventive” and a “fresh publishing idea.”

But managing director for Zappar, Caspar Thykier, said augmented reality is in its nascent stage. According to Thykier, publishers should take AR with a pinch of salt. “We are taking a measured approach to this,” he said. “It would be crazy to say that we are revolutionizing publishing.”

Still, Thykier said there are limitless possibilities for AR. “It’s a bit of magic isn’t it?” he said. “It’s about exciting and surprising people with additional layers of content.”

Underwear ads are one thing, but there’s something unnatural about waving a smartphone over a classic work of fiction.

Experts say we’ll see a series of magnificent experiments over the next few years. “Most will fail,” said Chris Grayson, Director of Digital, humble.tv. “The hint of what we’re seeing on mobile today is a tease of what is to come.”

Filed under: media, VentureBeat

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At Home Work Opportunity-Doing Something You Do Everyday Anyway

2012-05-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

You Share Links with Friends and Family everyday.

You don't even give it a second thought, it's become second nature to you.

What if I told You that now you could Earn Cash with every Link you Share?

Would You be interested?

Of course!

Take a minute to Join Linkbucks for Free.

The Exiled Element (James Becker Suspense/Thriller Series) is Simply a Great Read

2012-05-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

Feed: great: Newly tagged products at Amazon.com
Posted on: Thursday, May 17, 2012 2:17 PM
Author: great: Newly tagged products at Amazon.com
Subject: The Exiled Element (James Becker Suspense/Thriller Series) (Kindle Edition) newly tagged "great"

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GeekAlerts: “Geek Hand Towels” plus 4 more

2012-05-20T05:17:00.001-07:00

GeekAlerts: “Geek Hand Towels” plus 4 more

Geek Hand Towels
Star Wars Stormtrooper Helmet Speaker
CPU Wars Trump Card Game
Scalemail Dragonhide Armor Bracers
Looxcie 2 Instant Streaming Video Camcorder

Geek Hand Towels

Posted: 20 May 2012 03:18 AM PDT

Hand towels are a cheap and easy way to decorate and express yourself; and they help lower your paper towel usage. The Geek Hand Towels are made from 100% cotton and come as a set of two. Each towel is 28″ x 26″ and features annotated screen-printed sketches that make your ordinary day a little [...]

Star Wars Stormtrooper Helmet Speaker

Posted: 19 May 2012 12:23 PM PDT

The Empire may be evil, but you have to admit, their Stormtrooper suits are amazingly designed. They just look cool. That’s probably why we love them so much. Now you can have a small Stormtrooper head on your desk that will take care of all of your musical needs. The Star Wars Stormtrooper Helmet Speaker [...]

CPU Wars Trump Card Game

Posted: 19 May 2012 10:34 AM PDT

This CPU Wars Trump Card Game is a great idea and is sure to be a fun game for all of us tech nerds. It is a game by computer geeks for computer geeks. You will be battling with 30 important CPUs from recent desktop computer history. On each card there are specs for each [...]

Scalemail Dragonhide Armor Bracers

Posted: 19 May 2012 08:50 AM PDT

If you liked the handmade DnD Dragon Dice Bag we had on GA earlier this year, you’re also going to like these matching Scalemail Dragonhide Armor Bracers. This decorative arm gear has a lot going for it. The style could be described as a mix of Dungeons and Dragons, Vikings, and edgy rocker chic. Wear [...]

Looxcie 2 Instant Streaming Video Camcorder

Posted: 19 May 2012 05:43 AM PDT

GeekAlerts first introduced you to Looxcie last year with the Looxcie LX1 Bluetooth Camcorder. Now we want to share the new and improved Looxcie 2 Wear-and-Share Instant Streaming Video Camcorder with our readers. With features like video looping, video recording and live video streaming, this handsfree, wear-and-share video cam allows your friends to instantly share [...]

Acer Iconia Tab A501-10S32u 32GB Android Tablet - $449.97

2012-05-19T20:13:00.000-07:00

Feed: Top 10 Tablets Deals - Official TigerDirect.com RSS Feed
Posted on: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 2:26 PM
Author: TigerDirect.com
Subject: Acer Iconia Tab A501-10S32u 32GB Android Tablet - $449.97

Try your hands on the latest, advanced form of computing with the Acer Iconia Tab A501-10S32u XP.H73PN.001 Tablet!

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TechPinas

2012-05-19T17:24:00.001-07:00

TechPinas

Nokia Lumia 900 Price and Release Date, Announced at Lumianation : Php 27,990 Only and You Get a Free Nokia Purity Stereo Headset WH-920 by Monster!

Posted: 19 May 2012 10:38 AM PDT

TechPinas Exclusive!

Last night, we finally saw the light -- that new dawn for Nokia.

The jampacked, slammin' Nokia Lumianation Event held at the Amphitheater in Bonifacio High Street last Friday, May 18, officially marked the beginning of the new Windows Phone Era for Nokia in the Philippines.

There was a lot of dancing, drinking, and partying with DJ Nina and the Jump Smokers (because really, it's more fun in the Philippines) - but of course, the true stars of the show were Nokia's new WP smartphones, namely, Nokia Lumia 800, 710, 610, and the biggest and most powerful of the bunch, the much-anticipated Nokia Lumia 900!

This smartphone will make your everyday amazing with its powerful, smooth and easy-to-use Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system perfectly complemented by its gorgeous unibody design and powerful multimedia features including an 8 MegaPixel camera with dual LED flash.

Here's how the top-of-the-line handset looks in the flesh --

This demo unit flaunts a Black polycarbonate monoblock shell, wrapped in Cyan silicon case. In front, you'll find the 4.3-inch AMOLED Nokia Clear Black display beneath the capacitive Gorilla Glass touchscreen and the 1.3 MegaPixel front-facing camera, which is one of the key features that set it apart from the more affordable Lumia releases. You can learn more about this handset - including its internal specifications - via our Nokia Lumia 900 Philippines post.

At the back, you'll see the 8 MegaPixel autofocus camera, which also works as an HD 720p video recorder. As I've mentioned in earlier TP posts, what makes this camera special compared to 8 MegaPixel shooters on other smartphones is that it comes with Carl Zeiss optics.

Oh, and I also scored this short in-the-flesh demo video of Nokia Lumia 900 for you:

Hopefully TP gets a Nokia Lumia 900 unit soon so I can shoot a longer demo video.

So how much will it cost and when will it be available? Well, according to Nokia, Nokia Lumia 900 will be officially available at all Nokia Stores and select retail outlets across the archipelago around a week or two following its launch; So I guess, that's going to be the either the last week of May or the first week of June. The official suggested retail price is only Php 27,990 and if you're one of the first to get it, you'll receive a free Nokia Purity Stereo Headset WH-920 by Monster! Isn't that great?

To wrap this up, let me share with you some photos from last night's landmark event;

Gotta love the drinks! Guess which one I got?!

Blue Hawaii!

The view from the media area.

The view from the party area -- where the real action is!

Bumped into other Pinoy tech bloggers; (L-R) Me, Mark Guim of TheNokiaBlog, Rapunzel, Jam Ancheta of JAMOnline and Alexei Rivera of TheTechnoclast (Thanks for the photo, Mark!)

Me and Jam

Me and Martin Bornilla of WidgetCity. Yes, he owns that ultra-successful online gadgets shop.

Alright, that's it for now. Stay tuned for more TP posts on Nokia Lumia 900. From the looks of it, this handset should become one of the more successful releases by any company this year so expect to read more about it on TechPinas.

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

2012-05-19T17:19:00.001-07:00

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

LG Optimus LTE II boasts 2GB RAM

Posted: 19 May 2012 10:00 AM PDT

No idea on when the LG Optimus LTE II will arrive outside of South Korea though, so keep your fingers crossed!

Press Release

[ LG Optimus LTE II boasts 2GB RAM copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

SurfEasy offers plug-in privacy

Posted: 19 May 2012 09:40 AM PDT

[ SurfEasy offers plug-in privacy copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Wiser Buddy

TechPinas

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

Reach Millions of Potential Customers for Your Digital Products with Clickbank

REACHING MILLIONS OF POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS

Step 1: Create a Digital Product

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Step 1: Create a Digital Product

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Why Facebook's Tanking Today

May 21st, 2012Top Story

Here Comes the Drop

Artificial Flooring

Fair Is Fair

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Owning Your Own Website Has Never Been Easier

Owning Your Own Website Has Never Been Easier.

VentureBeat

Order James Patterson "11th Hour" Today and Enjoy the Ride

Review

Review

Order Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades Trilogy New york Times Bestseller

Give Your Child an Advantage in Life

Searching for Andy Cohen "Most Talkative"

GeekAlerts: “Archer Suit Costume T-Shirt” plus 6 more

TechPinas

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets

Search and Win at Swagbucks

Sell Your Digital Product Today at Clickbank

Save Up To 70% at Active Forever on Medical Supplies where Discount is Our Regular

Turn Your Backyard into a Great Escape Today

Fwd: Excellent Prices and Information About Walt Disney Vacations in Orlando

VentureBeat

At Home Work Opportunity-Doing Something You Do Everyday Anyway

The Exiled Element (James Becker Suspense/Thriller Series) is Simply a Great Read

GeekAlerts: “Geek Hand Towels” plus 4 more

Acer Iconia Tab A501-10S32u 32GB Android Tablet - $449.97

TechPinas

Latest Posts on Coolest Gadgets