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WikiLeaks subpoenas spill out into public realm (AP) : Technet |
- WikiLeaks subpoenas spill out into public realm (AP)
- Ready for the Verizon iPhone? (Ben Patterson)
- Complete impressions of the Motorola Xoom tablet (Digital Trends)
- Motorola Xoom tablet crowned best CES gadget (AFP)
- Hard Drive Withstands Drops, Submersion, Shot Gun Blasts (PC World)
- JVC shows off 'world's first' full HD 3D camcorder (Digital Trends)
- Robots massage, clean, and amuse at CES (AFP)
- Commodore Returns with Gaming Strategy, Phone, Tablet Plans (PC Magazine)
- 5 Hip Bluetooth Headsets (Mashable)
- PC-Free MagicJack Coming Soon (PC World)
- Verizon Wireless to unveil iPhone Tuesday: source (Reuters)
- Twitter ordered to hand over WikiLeaks records (Reuters)
- Hackers celebrate North Korea heir's birthday (Reuters)
- Verizon iPhone Predictions: What it’ll Look Like Inside and Out (PC World)
| WikiLeaks subpoenas spill out into public realm (AP) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 09:04 PM PST WASHINGTON – Investigative documents in the WikiLeaks probe spilled out into the public domain Saturday for the first time, pointing to the Obama administration's determination to assemble a criminal case no matter how long it takes and how far afield authorities have to go. Backed by a magistrate judge's court order from Dec. 14, the newly disclosed documents sent to Twitter Inc. by the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, Va., demand details about the accounts of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who's in custody and suspected of supplying WikiLeaks with classified information. The others whose Twitter accounts are targeted in the prosecutors' demand are Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliamentarian and one-time WikiLeaks collaborator; Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp; and U.S. programmer Jacob Appelbaum. Gonggrijp and Appelbaum have worked with WikiLeaks in the past. Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller declined comment on the disclosure in the case, which intensified following WikiLeaks' latest round of revelations with the posting of classified State Department diplomatic cables. The next day, Nov. 29, Attorney General Eric Holder vowed that anyone found to have violated U.S. law in the leaks would be prosecuted. Assange said the U.S. move amounted to harassment, and he pledged to fight it. "If the Iranian government was to attempt to coercively obtain this information from journalists and activists of foreign nations, human rights groups around the world would speak out," he told The Associated Press in an e-mail. Legal experts have said one possible avenue for federal prosecutors would be to establish a conspiracy to steal classified information. "They are trying to show that Manning was more than a source of the information to a reporter and rather that Assange and Manning were trying to jointly steal information from the U.S. government," said Mark Rasch, a former prosecutor on computer crime and espionage cases in the Justice Department. The problem is distinguishing between WikiLeaks as a news organization and those who re-published the same classified information, like The New York Times, said Rasch, director of cybersecurity and privacy consulting at CSC, a Falls Church, Va., technology company. "How do they prosecute?" asked Rasch. "The answer is by establishing a unity of interest between Manning and Assange. Make it a theft case and not just a journalist publishing information case." The demand by prosecutors sought information dating to Nov. 1, 2009, several months before an earlier WikiLeaks release. Manning is in a maximum-security military brig at Quantico, Va., charged with leaking video of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed a Reuters news photographer and his driver. WikiLeaks posted the video on its website in April of last year. Three months later, WikiLeaks posted some 90,000 leaked U.S. military records on the war in Afghanistan, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings as well as covert operations against Taliban figures. The main target of the prosecutors' document demands is most likely the IP addresses of the Twitter users, said Stanford University law professor Larry Lessig, founder of the Center for Internet & Society, Stanford. Getting a list of IP addresses — specific numerical address that can identify individual computers as they interact over the Internet — could help prosecutors an effort to draw specific connections between individuals, their computers, and the information they share. "It's not very hard for an investigator to put these things together and come back and identify a specific individual," Lessig said. In a statement about the demand to Twitter for information, WikiLeaks said it has reason to believe Facebook and Google, among other organizations, have received similar court orders. WikiLeaks called on them to unseal any subpoenas they have received. The document demand ordered Twitter to hand over private messages, billing information, telephone numbers, connection records and other information about accounts run by Assange and the others. A copy of the demand, sent to the AP by Jonsdottir, said the information sought was "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation" and ordered Twitter not to disclose its existence to any of the targets. But a second document, dated Jan. 5, unsealed the court order. Although the reason wasn't made explicit in the document, WikiLeaks said it had been unsealed "thanks to legal action by Twitter." Twitter declined comment on the matter, saying only that its policy is to notify its users, where possible, of government requests for information. Neither Facebook Inc. nor Google Inc. immediately returned messages Saturday. The Obama administration volunteered little new information about its criminal investigation against Assange and WikiLeaks after news of its subpoena leaked. Under rules governing grand jury investigations — in which U.S. prosecutors present evidence and testimony to selected private citizens behind closed doors to seek their approval to formally file charges — government lawyers are not allowed to discuss the case until charges are announced publicly. It was not immediately clear how the data being requested would be useful to investigators. Twitter's logs could reveal the Internet addresses that Assange and WikiLeaks supporters have used, which could help track their locations as they traveled around the world. The information also might identify others with official access to WikiLeaks' account on Twitter who so far have escaped scrutiny. Assange's lawyer, Mark Stephens, said targeting Twitter showed how desperate U.S. officials were to pin a crime on the WikiLeaks founder. Stephens told the BBC it was an attempt to "shake the electronic tree in the hope some kind of criminal charge drops out the bottom of it." Jonsdottir said in a Twitter message that she had "no intention to hand my information over willingly." Appelbaum, whose Twitter feed suggested he was traveling in Iceland, said he was apprehensive about returning to the U.S. "Time to try to enjoy the last of my vacation, I suppose," he tweeted. Gonggrijp praised Twitter for notifying him. "It appears that Twitter, as a matter of policy, does the right thing in wanting to inform their users when one of these comes in," Gonggrijp said. "Heaven knows how many places have received similar subpoenas and just quietly submitted all they had on me." The news of the subpoena follows months of angry back and forth between U.S. officials and WikiLeaks, which has released reams of secret U.S. military documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and more recently, thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables. U.S. officials say posting the military documents put informers' lives at risk, and that revealing diplomatic cables has made other countries reluctant to deal with American officials. WikiLeaks denies that its postings put any lives at risk and says Washington merely is acting out of embarrassment over the revelations contained in the cables. WikiLeaks and its tech-savvy staff have relied on American Internet and finance companies to raise funds, disseminate material and get their message out. WikiLeaks' frequently updated Facebook page, for example, counts 1.5 million fans and its Twitter account has a following of more than 600,000. Until recently, the group raised donations via U.S. companies PayPal Inc., MasterCard Inc., and Visa Inc., and hosted material on Amazon.com's servers. But the group's use of American companies has come under increasing pressure as it continues to reveal U.S. secrets. PayPal and the credit card companies severed their links with site and Amazon.com booted WikiLeaks from its servers last month. The actions sparked a cyberfight with WikiLeaks sympathizers, who attacked the company's sites for days. Assange is currently out on bail in Britain, where he is fighting extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations. His next hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. ___ Satter reported from London. Associated Press writer Ted Bridis in Washington, Michael Liedtke in San Francisco and Christopher Leonard in St. Louis contributed to this report. |
| Ready for the Verizon iPhone? (Ben Patterson) Posted: 07 Jan 2011 09:14 PM PST Looks like the iPhone may have again managed to suck the air out of CES, although this time the news appears to be coming from Verizon, not Apple. Invitations for a Verizon Wireless event in New York City went out to the press Friday afternoon, just a day after Verizon's own CES press conference here in Las Vegas came and went with no mention of iAnything. The invite reads only that Verizon wants to share its "latest news" with us, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the news will be all about the iPhone. All Things Digital's John Paczkowski, meanwhile, says his sources claim that none other than Steve Jobs will (very probably, at least) join Verizon president Lowell McAdam for the event. Naturally, the reports are still unconfirmed by Apple and Verizon. But that didn't stop the blaring iPhone headlines from drowning out most of the other news coming out of CES on Fridayâ€"and indeed, I'm reminded of the day nearly four years ago when the official unveiling of the first iPhone stopped CES dead in its tracks. I happened to be in the normally chaotic CES press lounge back in 2007 as the first iPhone news was breaking, and you could practically hear a pin drop. This time around, I was so busy running around from one meeting to the next that I didn't see the screaming headlines until late afternoon, once I'd come up for air. The fact that Verizon appears to be hosting the iPhone event (assuming, of course, that the Wall Street Journal has its facts straight) also represents something of a departure for Apple, which usually reserves all the big iPhone announcements for itself. But hey, stranger things have happened. And however it happens, I can't wait for the "is Verizon getting the iPhone?" guessing game to come to an end, once and for all. In any case, all eyes will soon be on Verizon's New York press event, slated to begin Tuesday at 11 a.m. ET. And if the Big Red network doesn't produce its own iPhone that day, expect to hear loud groans ranging from the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge. — Ben Patterson is a technology writer for Yahoo! News. |
| Complete impressions of the Motorola Xoom tablet (Digital Trends) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 02:32 PM PST
The iPad has made tablets a hot commodity at CES this year. There are dozens of tablets on the show floor and, with the exception of a few highlights like the BlackBerry PlayBook, most of them are fairly forgettable. The Motorola Xoom, the first tablet to run Google’s new Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) OS, joins the PlayBook as one of the standout tablets at CES. The unit itself feels as sturdy and well constructed as the iPad, but is actually a bit larger. It has a 10.1-inch widescreen display with a 1280×800 pixel display (slightly higher than the iPad’s 1024×768 pixel display). Like the new Atrix phone, the device is running a on the 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor and has a full gigabyte of DDR2 RAM. In addition, it has 32GB of internal storage, a 2MP front-facing camera, a micro HDMI port, a 5MP rear camera with a dual LED flash, and the ability to support 4G LTE speeds with an upgrade later this year. It is a Verizon exclusive device at this time, but Motorola representatives wouldn’t deny the possible addition of more carriers in the future. The Xoom is a bit thicker than the iPad, but has a solid feel. The 10.1-inch form feels a lot more useful than the smaller 7-inch sizes offered by some tablets like the PlayBook, but size may be a personal preference. The Xoom also has a rubberized back on it that helps alleviate the fear of it slipping out of your hands at any moment.
Android HoneycombLike the PlayBook, the Xoom is running a new operating system. The device was chosen by Google to debut its first version of Android built to run on touch tablet computers. Though weren’t able to spend too much time with the device, we walked away very impressed by our first look at Android 3.0 and Motorola’s integration of the operating system. The menus and speed of screen rotation are very snappy. One of the new features of Honeycomb is the new way the main navigation buttons are displayed. Instead of having permanently lit buttons on one section of the device (even the iPad has a physical button), the Home, Menu, and Back buttons are now built into the lower left of the software. This is particularly nice with a tablet because many users will tilt it on its side or hold it vertically. Having hard-mounted buttons would limit the ease of use when turning the tablet around. The menu buttons minimize to a few pixels in thickness when unused. touching them makes them larger. The homescreen has some good looking widgets and is much more flexible than the heavily gridded current Android versions like 2.2. Widgets are scrollable and you can flip between homescreens by flicking to the side or get a complete view of everything that’s running by flicking up on the device. The media player has a gridded look to it, much like the current media players in Android devices. Motorola claims that the Xoom can run continuous video for about 10 hours before needing to charge–impressive battery life, if true, but we suspect the actual performance will be about 5-8 hours. Google’s eBook reading application will come pre-installed and Honeycomb apps will have widescreen modes so they work well on both tablets like the Xoom and smaller smartphones. Like the iPad, the Xoom will also have 10-finger touch capabilities, which will make the on-screen keyboard much more useful. Also, it’s just fun to watch people move things around on-screen with all of their fingers. I suspect many tablets will move to a 10-finger touch in the year to come.
A true iPad competitorLike it did with the Droid smartphone in 2009, Motorola may be the first manufacturer to offer a competent alternative to Apple’s iPad. No pricing has been announced yet, but if it’s priced at lower or comparable prices to Apple’s tablet, I suspect Motorola may have a hit on its hands. I can’t say that it knocks the iPad out of the park, but it appears to match the device in most categories. We look forward to checking it out further when the Motorola Xoom hits shelves sometime in the first few months of this year.
CES VideoBelow is a long 6 minute demo we got from a Motorola executive. I apologize about the length, but was too fascinated to stop recording. Fair warning, the audio is a bit faint and I am no professional photographer. Thanks to our own Greg Mombert for the photos seen above.
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| Motorola Xoom tablet crowned best CES gadget (AFP) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 01:49 PM PST LAS VEGAS (AFP) – Motorola Mobility's Xoom tablet computer powered by new "Honeycomb" software from Google was crowned the best gadget at the giant Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Saturday. Along with being declared the top creation at the dazzling gadget extravaganza, Xoom was also honored as the best of the scores of tablets introduced here as fresh competitors in a market dominated by Apple iPads. Motorola also scored a victory with its Atrix smartphone designed to work with high-speed 4G wireless networks and which can be used in a dock to power a laptop. Atrix won the top spot in a smartphone category at the official Best of CES awards. "We took big risks and they paid off," said Motorola Mobility chief software engineer Seang Chau. "We didn't know if people would get it; but obviously they got it." US telecom maker Motorola Mobility jumped into the bustling tablet computer market Wednesday when chief executive Sanjay Jha unveiled Xoom at CES. Motorola Mobility's hotly awaited tablet computer, the "Xoom," will be available in the first quarter of the year, Jha said. With a 10.1-inch (25.6-centimeter) screen, the Xoom is about the same size as Apple's iPad, which hit stores in April and has other leading technology companies around the world scrambling to catch up. Xoom will be a fierce competitor in the marketplace because Google built Honeycomb software specifically to power tablet computers, according to Jha. "This is really the next generation of tablets," Motorola Mobility device team head Alain Mutricy said as he held a Xoom in one hand at the awards ceremony. "Our partnership with Google has been very intense and has enabled some great technology." The CES accolades came just four days after Illinois-based Motorola split into two companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions. Motorola Mobility will focus on mobility, the Internet and computing markets while Motorola Solutions will target next-generation communications solutions to government, public safety and enterprise customers. "This has been a great week for us," Mutricy said of Motorola Mobility. "It is a good beginning." The official CES awards were sponsored by tech news website Cnet, which had editors pick the winners. Japan-based Wii console maker Nintendo took top honors in a gaming category with a version of a DS videogame handset that allows 3D play without the need for special glasses. A Sony "HandyCam" handheld video recorder with a built-in projector placed first in a Digital Imaging category, while a Casio Tryx digital camera was deemed the slickest gadget design at the show. US chip giant Intel got some of the spotlight, with a speedy new generation of "Sandy Bridge" chips that thwart film piracy and enable quick handling of data-rich video and games rated the best computer innovation at the show. A Toyota Entune innovation that makes fun or helpful software applications available while driving won top spot in a car category. A Vizio TV that features Internet television from Google and online videogames from OnLive was declared the best in its category. A sleek Razor Switchblade laptop that packs desktop computer gaming power into a small "netbook" won a People's Voice award based on votes logged on the Internet. Meanwhile, a dual-screen Acer Iconia laptop with a second screen, touch controlled, where a keyboard would usually be won "Last Gadget Standing" honors at another CES competition. A color version of the Nook electronic reader was the favorite in online "Last Gadget Standing" voting. |
| Hard Drive Withstands Drops, Submersion, Shot Gun Blasts (PC World) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 12:20 PM PST ioSafe's Rugged Portable hard drive launched at the Consumer Electronics Show this week withstood drops, submersion and even blasts from a 12-guage shot gun. "It has a full metal jacket and it is machined out of a solid billet of aluminum," ioSafe CEO Robb Moore said. Watch a video of the shootout on YouTube. The drive ranges in size from 250GB to 1TB and is priced starting at US$150. The case is waterproof and can protect the data for up to three days in salt or fresh water at a depth of 10 feet, or 30 feet in the case of the titanium SSD version. The aluminum drive can withstand drops from 10 feet and the titanium from 20 feet. But the most impressive demonstration of the drive's durability was at a Las Vegas gun range where data was recovered after the drive was shot with six blasts from a 12-gauge shot gun. The outer case was peppered with buckshot but there was no loss of data. Moore never claimed the drive could withstand gun blasts but said the demonstration was a fun way to show its durability. From the arsenal then came an M16 automatic rifle capable of firing six rounds per second. One shot grazed the case, blowing off the back plate of the drive. If it had hit the center of the drive it would have been destroyed but because it hit only the side the photos Moore had loaded earlier could still be viewed. The rugged drive has USB 3.0 and FireWire connections. Any model purchased comes with one year of data recovery service. Three years costs $50 and five years costs $100. The service includes data recovery even in cases of accidental deletion, according to ioSafe. Nick Barber covers general technology news in both text and video for IDG News Service. E-mail him at @nickjb. |
| JVC shows off 'world's first' full HD 3D camcorder (Digital Trends) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 09:26 AM PST
If you’re an amateur filmmaker, but plain old 2D just ain’t doing the trick anymore, you might want to check out JVC’s new full HD 3D camcorder. We got a chance to check it out at JVC’s booth at CES and it was pretty impressive. To create full 3D images, the camera mimics the human eyes to some degree, using two full HD camera lenses to record slightly differing images of the same object simultaneously. Though we’ve seen quite a few 3D camcorders at this year’s show, JVC claims this is the first to truly record in HD 3D. We’ve seen fully-3D camcorders from Panasonic, but perhaps the claim has merit. Judging by the results, JVC definitely knows its 3D. The live 3D demonstration (using passive glasses) at the show had more depth than we’ve seen in any other 3D demo at the show so far–more than any 3D TV or camcorder. This is likely due to the settings being maxed out, but it showed that the device is indeed recording professional quality 3D images. The GS-TD1, as it’s called, also offers a side-by-side shooting format for 3D shooting and a 2D mode as well. It has an automatic axis stabilization system to give depth to the 3D images and JVC’s Biphonic technology, which is a buzz word for a type of surround sound. You can also adjust the depth of the 3D effect. The “world’s first” 3D camcorder hits shelves in March for about $2000. JVC showed off one more 3D-capable camera, the HD Everio HZ-HM960. It won’t win any naming contests, but the HM960 is capable of recording 2D images and converting them to a form of 3D. You can view the 3D images right on the camera too. It has a glasses-free 3D display built into it. We did not get a chance to demo the 3D on this device, but other 2D-to-3D camcorders from companies like Sony offered very limited 3D (just about an inch or two of depth, it looked like). The GZ-HM960 will be available in February for abotu $950 bucks. |
| Robots massage, clean, and amuse at CES (AFP) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 09:02 AM PST LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) – The world's first massage robot was at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to soothe those sore from dashing about the gargantuan gadget extravaganza. Palm-sized WheeMe massagers made by Israel-based startup DreamBots were in a newly established CES robotics zone with creations ranging from therapeutic mechanical seals to playful lifelike baby dinosaurs. "It gives you a nice tickling feeling," Karen Slutzky of DreamBots said as a WheeMe maneuvered independently on the back of a woman laying on a massage table at CES, which ends Sunday. "It is a gentle skin massage; very relaxing. And, it doesn't fall off." Curvy, car-shaped WheeMe units have wheels designed with "fingerlettes" and the robots vibrate. Invented by Slutzky's husband, Eyal Avramovich, the robots use feedback from sensors to not ride off backs or stomachs and to stop at waistlines. "It doesn't know where it has been, but it knows where not to go," Slutzky said. "We are working on making it smarter so it can go up onto the bum and down onto the leg." The couple was showing prototypes at CES and looking for a partner to bring models to the US market late this year. Elsewhere in the robotics zone, Takatoshi Kuno of Cyberdine in Japan demonstrated a mechanized "suit" for helping the elderly or paralyzed walk. Robot Suit HAL (hybrid assistive limb) consisted of a waist harness and mechanized extensions strapped to a user's legs. The suit read impulses from nerves in the legs to enable people to walk. "I want to make a Tony Stark 'Iron Man' suit, but it will take a while," Kuno said in a playful reference to the comic and film hero. About 160 HAL suits are being rented by hospitals or home care facilities in Japan for use by the elderly and Cyberdine was also at CES looking for a partner with the clout to get the robotic devices into the US. Paro was in the zone with fluffy robotic seals certified as a medical devices by the US Food and Drug Administration. The Japan-based company pitched the seals as therapeutic aids for older people suffering from depression or dementia. Sensors in the 6,000-dollar robotic seals let them react to light, touch, and voices. "Over time it develops a personality and can be trained like an actual pet," a Paro spokesman said. "But, they can go places pets are not allowed." A third-generation of Pleo toy robot dinosaurs first released in 2007 touted improvements including voice recognition and reacting to temperature and odors. If left out in frigid weather, a Pleo RB (reborn) will catch a cold. On hot days the robots pant from exertion. The faux dinosaurs will play tug-of-war with human companions. If a Pleo RB falls from a table, it will be sore and need to be nursed back to health, according to Derek Dotson of US-based Innvo Labs, the company behind the robotic toys. "It can learn tricks, and when it dances it even shakes its booty a little," Dotson said. "It has always been our goal to blur the line between the robotic and the biological." Pleo RB hit the market days before Christmas with a 469-dollar price tag and has "pretty much sold out," according to Dotson. The zone also featured small robots for vacuuming or mopping floors, and a 400-dollar Windoro robot that cleaned windows. Square, lightweight Windoro halves used magnets to sandwich glass and then zipped about, scrubbing one side at a time with microfiber pads. |
| Commodore Returns with Gaming Strategy, Phone, Tablet Plans (PC Magazine) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 08:44 AM PST LAS VEGAS—In March, Commodore plans to unveil a gaming-focused lineup of laptops, desktops, and even a tablet and smartphone, executives said at the Consumer Electronics Show on Saturday. The company showed off its E715 all-in-one PC behind closed doors on this week at the trade show, as well as a new downloadable game service that works with a technology that turns a smartphone into a Wii-like motion game controller. Peter Bromage, the director of sales and marketing for Commodore, declined to discuss the specifics of the new offerings, but allowed PCMag.com to take photos of the new game service and controller, both in joystick form as well as the smartphone application. He called the company's CES showing a "soft launch" in advance of a more formal rollout, currently scheduled for March. Commodore also announced a collaboration with Aibelive, a Taiwan developer which developed the controller technology as well as created some games themselves. "Our plan is to deliver to deliver a range of games through a range of mobile platforms..." Bromage said. "Our focus is to focus on the gaming market. So if someone wants a gaming laptop, we can focus on the hardware, the software, the support, the gaming control, and the mobile phones that we can deliver on the go as well." Bromage specifically mentioned developing at least one Android phone and tablet, although he didn't discuss specifics. The hope, he said, was that Commodore will develop the first generation of the technologies itself, and then hand them off to partners. Although Commodore celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2007, the company has languished in obscurity for many of those years, a faint shell of the company that helped launched computing and computer games. "I'm sure you'll appreciate the Commodore thing has been in a state of flux over the last 20 years," Bromage said. "But now the ownership is resolved, we 100 percent own the brand." Commodore also plans to bring back virtually the entire archive of Commodore 64 games, Bromage said, making them available to consumers via an online games store. There will be two sections: a "nostalgia" archive of the Commodore games, plus new games created for the Aibelive controller technology as well. "It's staggered me, the number of people who are enthusiastic about the old Commodore games," Bromage said. Bromage - and his son, who served as a games demonstrator - showed off "Virtua Tennis 2008," both using a Commodore-branded motion controller as well as the smartphone. "Street Fighter 4," and one of the "Need for Speed" games are also available. Aibelive devloped the Aiwi application for both the iPhone and Android platforms, which seemed to work quite well as a controller for the "Virtua Tennis" game. "You can actually play tennis properly," the elder Bromage said, with the appropriate racket spin. Aibelive has published an API for the technology, which Bromage said he hopes will get picked up by developers who have already produced games for the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect. While Bromage didn't talk about the E715 all-in-one, a flyer near the door reveals the specs: a 23-inch monitor, Windows 7 Home Premium, a wireless keyboard and mouse, "powerful bass reproduction," and DVR functionality. |
| 5 Hip Bluetooth Headsets (Mashable) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 12:04 PM PST Once upon a time if you wanted to use your phone hands-free you were forced to look like an extra from Star Trek with an unwieldy earpiece hanging from your head. However, there are now some seriously sleek options out there. We've hand-picked five classy Bluetooth headsets that will keep you connected on the go, without attracting unwanted attention from the Style Police. Have a look below for our quintet of cool cellphone headsets, and let us know in the comments which ones you wouldn't be ashamed to be seen wearing out and about.
1. Plantronics Discovery 975
Gorgeously minimal, Plantronics' Discovery 975 is ideal for anyone looking for a particularly elegant solution for wireless cellphone conversations. Striking in its simplicity, the 975 is more than just good looking -- its carry case conveniently charges the earpiece, a clever design that means you can juice up on the go. Cost: $129.99
2. Motorola Oasis
Boasting all day comfort, the Oasis is no slouch in the looks department, with a modern black and chrome finish and a tidy, behind-the-ear design. Motorola claims the Oasis is the lightest headset available, but it still manages to pack in voice prompt commands, dual-mics for noise cancellation and the ability to pair with two Bluetooth devices at the same time. Cost: $79.99
3. Jawbone Icon
Jawbone makes hip headsets for the cool kids. The Icon is the company's flagship model (in Jawbone's words, "simply the best friggin' headset on the planet"). It's available in 10 unique styles, all of which are cool and contemporary. The gadget also comes with seven different earbud options, so it's safe to say you'll almost certainly find a combination to suit your taste. Cost: $99
4. BlueAnt Q2
With a classic design, the Q2's simple good looks are backed up by some serious technology. This high-end headset won't draw unnecessary attention to itself, yet it will offer you comprehensive voice recognition commands and text-to-speech technology that announces the names of incoming callers and reads aloud SMS messages. You can get all of that wonderful Star Trek tech with none of its clunky looks. Cost: $129.99
5. Jabra Stone
Arguably the most dramatic design on this list, Jabra's Stone headset is about as far removed from your standard wireless Bluetooth accessory as you can get. The Stone boasts cool, curvaceous looks, as well as a portable charging unit that the headset slots neatly into, and it is available in both black and white. If you want to stand out from the crowd, the Stone is a rocking option for you. Cost: $129.99
More Tech Resources from Mashable- Tough Tech: 10 Rugged Gadgets That Will Go the Distance - 6 Great Gloves for Touchscreen Gadget Lovers - 5 Stylish Computer Mice for the Design Aficionado - Especially For You: 8 Great Gadgets You Can Personalize - 5 Beautiful Keyboards to Spice Up Your Boring Desk |
| PC-Free MagicJack Coming Soon (PC World) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 12:41 PM PST The voice-over-IP company that owns MagicJack -- the USB stick that enables phone calls on a PC -- is getting ready to release a new version of the device that doesn't need the PC. The MagicJack Plus plugs into a power outlet and requires only a network connection -- either to a Wi-Fi or 4G adapter, or an Ethernet port on a router -- to enable voice-over-IP phone service. VocalTec, which merged with MagicJack creator YMax last summer, demonstrated the MagicJack Plus to journalists at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. The company says it expects to ship the device within 90 days at an expected price of $50, which will include a year of free local and long distance calls. (The origi nal MagicJack costs $40, also including a year of free service.) After that, service costs $20 a year. You can opt to have your own phone number, and you can still choose to power the new version by plugging it into a USB port on a PC, the way the original version works. Either way, you plug a standard phone into the RJ-11 port at the other end of the device to make the actual calls. Check out our complete coverage of CES 2011. |
| Verizon Wireless to unveil iPhone Tuesday: source (Reuters) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 03:54 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters) – Verizon Wireless, the top U.S. mobile provider, plans on Tuesday to unveil a version of the Apple Inc iPhone for its service and will kick off sales of the device a few weeks later, a source told Reuters. Verizon Wireless will offer the iPhone to its customers under its existing wireless service price plans, said the source, who asked not to be named as the plan has not yet been announced. Apple and Verizon Wireless declined comment on Saturday. Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc, will announce pricing for the device at an event to be held in New York on Tuesday. The agreement between Verizon Wireless and Apple marks the end of AT&T's iPhone exclusivity. AT&T Inc, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service, has been the only operator to sell iPhone since it launched in 2007. Since AT&T has been heavily dependent on iPhone for customer growth in the last few years, some investors have worried that it could face a mass exodus of subscribers once its bigger rival starts selling iPhone. AT&T's reputation for network performance problems, particularly in cities such as New York and San Francisco, could exacerbate the problem. But some analysts have said that the loss of customers will be tempered by the fact that most of AT&T's iPhone customers subscribe via family plans, which are trickier to exit as they involve more than one customer. (Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Xavier Briand) |
| Twitter ordered to hand over WikiLeaks records (Reuters) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 01:57 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. court has ordered Twitter to hand over details of the accounts of WikiLeaks and several supporters as part of a criminal investigation into the release of hundreds of thousands of confidential documents. The December 14 subpoena obtained by the Department of Justice and published by online magazine Salon.com on Friday said the records sought from the microblogging website were "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation." It ordered Twitter to provide account information on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking Pentagon documents made public last year by WikiLeaks. The information sought by the government includes all connection records and session times, IP addresses used to access Twitter, email and residential addresses plus billing records and details of bank accounts and credit cards. The subpoena included the accounts of WikiLeaks supporters Jacob Appelbaum, Rop Gonggrijp and Birgitta Jonsdottir, a former WikiLeaks volunteer and member of Iceland's parliament. "WikiLeaks strongly condemns this harassment of individuals by the U.S. government," WikiLeaks said in a statement issued to Reuters by its London lawyer, Mark Stephens. Iceland's Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson told Icelandic media on Saturday his government planned to lodge a protest on Monday with the U.S. ambassador in Reykjavik. Speaking on state radio, Skarphedinsson said the U.S. authorities' behavior was unacceptable and his government would do everything in its power to protect Jonsdottir. The U.S. government is examining whether criminal charges can be brought against Assange for helping to make public hundreds of thousands of confidential U.S. diplomatic cables that embarrassed Washington and several of its allies. WikiLeaks said three of the four individuals targeted by the Department of Justice had never worked for WikiLeaks and were private citizens who supported its public disclosure work voluntarily as activists or politicians. Two of them were instrumental in helping WikiLeaks make public the Pentagon video that showed a U.S. helicopter crew firing on Iraqi civilians, the statement said. WikiLeaks is instructing its U.S. lawyers to oppose the subpoena, he added. Jonsdottir, a member of Iceland's foreign relations committee wrote on Twitter that she was seeking legal advice and had spoken to Iceland's minister of justice, who was looking into the case. Speaking to Sky News on the telephone from Reykjavik, she said the U.S.'s actions were outrageous. "I have not conducted any criminal activity. I find it to be troublesome because the vice president of the United States has labeled WikiLeaks as a cyber-terrorist organization," she said. The subpoena gave Twitter Inc three days to provide the records and ordered the San Francisco-based company not to inform the users under investigation. A federal judge unsealed the order on January 5 after Twitter requested the right to inform the people involved. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on the subpoena but added: "To help users protect their rights, it is our policy to notify users about law enforcement and governmental requests for their information, unless we are prevented by law from doing so." In its statement, WikiLeaks said the legal step taken by Twitter had made public the existence of a criminal investigation by the U.S. government into the website's work. WikiLeaks called on Facebook and Google to unseal any similar subpoenas requesting information about its operations. Stephens said the subpoena showed that the U.S. authorities were having difficulty putting together a case "criminalizing the actions of a journalistic source" as they try to identify the source of the leaked documents. "What they are trying to do is hoover data up to see if anything can identify the source," the lawyer told Reuters. Washington has accused WikiLeaks of acting without regard for the safety of those named in classified cables containing candid remarks about foreign leaders and governments. The State Department said on Friday it has warned several hundred people worldwide it believes may be imperiled and has helped a handful relocate to safer places. Link to subpoena: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/07/twitter/subpoena.pdf (Writing by Anthony Boadle, reporting by Stefano Ambrogi in London and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Omar Valdimarsson in Reykjavik; Editing by Paul Simao) |
| Hackers celebrate North Korea heir's birthday (Reuters) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 07:57 PM PST SEOUL (Reuters) – Hackers have attacked North Korea's official Youtube and Twitter accounts, posting a cartoon showing Kim Jong-il's heir apparent driving a sports car into a crowd of starving countrymen. The cyber attack on Saturday, believed to be leader-in-waiting Kim Jong-un's birthday, also called for an uprising against the communist nation's ruling dynasty. The online embarrassment comes at a time when North Korea has called for dialogue with South Korea to defuse tensions aggravated by an exchange of artillery fire and the sinking of a South navy ship last year. One of the messages posted on the North's official Twitter account said the ailing Kim Jong-il and his son were sworn enemies. Another called for the removal of Kim Jong-il for hosting drinking parties at his lavish cottage while 3 million countrymen starved to death. Several people on a South Korean internet forum, Dcinside, claimed responsibility for the attack. A two-minute spoof posted on the North's official youtube account showed Kim Jong-un running over a group of starving people and a train, laden with birthday gifts for him, derailed after hitting children on the tracks. The Youtube account is often used by the North to communicate with the outside world. There was no immediate comment from the North on the cyber attack. The North Korea's official mouthpiece, KCNA news agency, also did not report any public events or festivals to mark Kim Jong-un's birthday. Very little is known about Kim Jong-un outside North Korea, who is the youngest son of Kim Jong-il. (Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani) |
| Verizon iPhone Predictions: What it’ll Look Like Inside and Out (PC World) Posted: 08 Jan 2011 12:16 PM PST The long, long, long awaited Verizon iPhones is very probably going to be announced by Verizon and Apple in an event in New York on Tuesday. Of course nothing is official, but the time is certainly right. If the Verizon iPhone is announced, here's what I believe the phone will be. First of all, the phone will look just like the iPhone 4 looks now, and the interface will look exactly the same. The phone will likely be called the Verizon iPhone. But later, another phone called the Verizon iPhone 4G (the LTE version) will show up. A Dual-Mode iPhone? Under the hood, of course, there will be differences. The phone will support CDMA Rev A -- the wireless technology used by the Verizon 3G network. That will enable to Verizon to sell the phone in all its markets. I think the phone will be a dual-mode phone that will also support GSM/UMTS/HSPA+, the technology used in the AT&T 3G network. This way, Apple will be able to manufacture one phone that it can sell to both Verizon and AT&T. In theory the phone could be sold by Sprint (CDMA) and T-Mobile (GSM/UMTS/HSPA+). I'm not suggesting that Sprint and T-Mobile will begin selling the iPhone anytime soon, just that it would be technically possible. What About LTE? If Verizon gets a CDMA phone from Apple it will almost certainly get a LTE iPhone. Who knows? Maybe Verizon and Apple will trot out a brand new LTE iPhone at the event Tuesday. It certainly announced a lot of LTE devices at CES 2011. An LTE iPhone might send shockwaves through the wireless world; it would be a combination of (arguably) the best and certainly America's favorite smartphone with the best wireless network in the US. Two Tribes Anyway, the tension is high as phone geeks anxiously await the big show in New York on Tuesday. The Wall Street Journal is even saying that Steve Jobs will show up. Aside from the phone(s), it would be a joy to see Mr. Magical on the same stage with the buttoned-up, stuffy folks from Verizon. You couldn't find two companies with more different cultures, but for the sake of smartphone users (and people who like to make clear, uninterrupted telephone calls) I hope the two have a happy and fruitful relationship. A Ready-made Market The bottom line: As was seen in Consumer Reports recent phone and network satisfaction report, there's still a major stigma around AT&T wireless service. PCWorld tests show that the AT&T data network is pretty fast and reliable, but we have reason to believe that the carrier's phone service on the iPhone remains very unreliable in many areas. This really involves two groups of people -- current iPhone users who would rather give up the phone than sign another service contract with AT&T, and people who want to get an iPhone but have heard over and over that the AT&T network is, uh, unsatisfactory. These are large groups of people, and many of them would buy a Verizon iPhone. |
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