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Company: Dozens of South Korean websites attacked (AP) : Technet |
- Company: Dozens of South Korean websites attacked (AP)
- Twitter co-founder says it prizes independence (AP)
- Report: DirecTV may offer $30 “premium” VOD movies this summer (Ben Patterson)
- AT&T to support “personal hotspot” for iPhone 4, this time without the wait (Ben Patterson)
- Do You Need a Credit Report for Your Online Life? (Mashable)
- In Kadhafi, web finds a tragi-comic anti-hero (AFP)
- Nintendo has high hopes for 3DS (Reuters)
- Android Devices Pull Ahead in U.S. Smartphone Race (NewsFactor)
- Courtney Love to pay $430,000 in Twitter case (Reuters)
- Nintendo's 3DS contains Toshiba, Fujitsu chips: iFixit (Reuters)
- Microsoft adds local bargains to Bing results (AFP)
- Xperia Play will be a serious gaming contender (Appolicious)
- Disney buys Web game platform maker Rocket Pack (AP)
- Misa Kitara digital stringless guitar has touchscreen, onboard synthesizer (Digital Trends)
- Hundreds of thousands of downloads for The Daily (AFP)
- Apple releases iOS 4.3 golden master to developers (Macworld)
- Skype to hook into GoToMeeting (Digital Trends)
| Company: Dozens of South Korean websites attacked (AP) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 07:22 PM PST SEOUL, South Korea – A top South Korean cybersecurity company says about 40 government and private websites are under cyberattack. AhnLab says the targets include the websites of South Korea's presidential office, the Foreign Ministry, the National Intelligence Service, U.S. Forces Korea and some major financial institutions. The South's presidential office couldn't immediately confirm the AhnLab report. AhnLab says the attack began Friday morning. It is providing free programs to repair infected computers. The attack appears to be similar to one last year that targeted 17 South Korean websites. It's unclear whether Friday's attack has caused actual damage to the sites. |
| Twitter co-founder says it prizes independence (AP) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 01:56 AM PST SEOUL, South Korea – Twitter Inc. co-founder Biz Stone said his company wants to remain independent despite what he called "rumors" it could be acquired. "I believe there is a lot of room for another Internet giant to succeed," Stone said Thursday. "So our goal with Twitter is, has been, and will continue to be to remain an independent company no matter what rumors are swirling." Stone, who made the comments at a conference in the South Korean capital on the global economy and the future, was responding to a question from a participant about speculation in the media that Google Inc. or Facebook Inc. want to acquire the privately held social networking service. "There's always another rumor that somebody's trying to acquire us," Stone said. "But our goal is to have a positive impact on the world, build a wonderful business on top of that and have a blast doing it. That's always been our goal. That's what we want to do." The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Google and Facebook have both held talks with Twitter about a purchase. Regarding the general issue of company acquisitions, Stone said that the key factor is for the larger company to respect the culture of the smaller one. "I think Google did a really good job when they acquired YouTube because they allowed it to remain independent and they allowed that management structure and a lot of those things to stay in place that made YouTube great," he said. Stone prefaced those comments, also in response to a question, by stressing that they were meant to be general in nature. |
| Report: DirecTV may offer $30 “premium” VOD movies this summer (Ben Patterson) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 12:54 PM PST If you're a DirecTV subscriber, word is you may soon be among the first guinea pigs in the latest Hollywood scheme to boost revenue in the face of dwindling DVD sales: "premium" video-on-demand movies that arrive just two months after their theatrical debuts, for $30 a pop. We've been hearing rumblings of such "premium" VOD offerings for months now, with various reports last year claiming that Hollywood studios such as Disney, Sony, and Warner Brothers were talking to the likes of Time Warner Cable about early-release, on-demand movies for anywhere from $30 to $50 each. Now comes word that satellite TV operator DirecTV may beat its cable competitors to the punch, with the Los Angeles Times' Company Town blog reporting that the carrier is in "advanced talks" to offer $30 on-demand movies from such major studios 20th Century Fox, Sony, and Warners as early as this June. Why pay $30 for an on-demand movie, you ask? Well, the idea is that these "premium" VOD flicks would be available just 60 days after they debut in theaters, a month earlier than their typical DVD/Blu-ray street dates. Some of the biggest Hollywood moguls are said to be pretty jazzed about the idea, with Company Town reporting that Disney chief Bob Iger and Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes think premium on-demand movies might bring in "untapped revenue" in the face of plummeting DVD and Blu-ray sales, while also providing an "alternative" to downloading the latest titles from BitTorrent sites. Well, perhaps, but try telling that to the nation's theater owners, who fear (as Company Town points out) that shrinking the usual 90-day theatrical release window for the biggest blockbusters may slash into their own profits. Of course, the holy grail for home viewers would be on-demand movies that land on cable or satellite the day they arrive in theaters. But while DirecTV CEO Michael White has reportedly floated the ideal of premium on-demand movies that arrive in as little as four to six weeks after their debut in theaters (a proposal that has unsurprisingly has movie theater owners seeing red, by the way), neither the studios nor pay-TV operators appear to be seriously talking about "day-and-date" on-demand movies—or at least not yet, according to Company Town. Then again, if you really must see "Transformers 4" at home on Day One—and money is no object—there are always luxury video services like Prima Cinema, which is reportedly looking to charge $500 for first-run movies after a whopping $20,000 setup fee. Yikes. In any case, here's the central question: would you cough up $30 for an on-demand movie just for the privilege of seeing it a month before it arrives on DVD? Before you slam the door on the idea, consider this: a $30 on-demand movie for, say, a family of four might end up being a bargain compared to paying $10 each for tickets and $10 for a (single) bucket of popcorn, not to mention the cost of a tank of gas, parking, dinner, and so on. But the prospect of $30 video-on-demand movies becomes less and less enticing (if you ask me) the closer you get to the eventual DVD release—particularly for those of us with lengthy Netflix queues and access to thousands of streaming movies via iTunes, Xbox Live, Vudu, and Amazon. Personally, I'd rather save my cash and wait one more month. That's just me, though—what about you? Would you pay $30 to watch, say, "Hall Pass" on-demand a month before it arrives on DVD? If not "Hall Pass," what about the next "Spider-Man" movie, or the latest from Christopher Nolan? Related: — Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News. |
| AT&T to support “personal hotspot” for iPhone 4, this time without the wait (Ben Patterson) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 09:00 AM PST iPhone users on AT&T had to wait until last summer before they could tether their handsets to their laptops for on-the-go data access—nearly a year after Apple first announced the feature. So when it came to the just-announced "personal hotspot" feature for iOS 4.3, which is due to launch late next week, AT&T iPhone owners greeted the news with a predictable question: how long will we have to wait this time? Well, get ready to be happy. According to Electronista, AT&T is vowing to let subscribers turns their iPhones into mobile Wi-Fi hotspots starting March 11, the day that iOS 4.3 is slated to pop up in iTunes. (Only the iPhone 4 supports the new personal hotspot feature, by the way.) Verizon iPhone users willing to fork over an additional $20 a month have already been able to wirelessly share their 3G data with up to five nearby Wi-Fi devices. But next week's iOS update will bring personal hotspot functionality to other iPhone carriers—including AT&T, which is notorious for making iPhone owners wait months and months for such features as 3G data tethering and picture messaging. AT&T subscribers wishing to share their iPhone's data connection over Wi-Fi will have to sign up for the carrier's existing $45 "DataPro 4GB for iPhone Tethering" plan, which includes 4GB of combined data for both regular and personal-hotspot use. For its part, Verizon has a $20 add-on plan offering 2GB of mobile hotspot sharing on top of its standard (although soon-to-be-extinct) $30/month unlimited 3G plan, for a total of $50 a month. That's $5 a month pricier than AT&T, but you'll also get all-you-can-eat (albeit non-tethered) 3G data on your iPhone in the bargain. Related: — Ben Patterson is a technology blogger for Yahoo! News. |
| Do You Need a Credit Report for Your Online Life? (Mashable) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 03:25 PM PST This post is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark as a new part of the Spark of Genius series that focuses on a new and innovative startup each day. Every Thursday, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they're doing to grow. Your credit score carries significant weight in your financial life. Want to rent an apartment or buy a car? Good luck doing so with a bad credit score. The same logic applies to landing a job if you have a negative online reputation. So says MyWebCareer, an early stage startup that has developed algorithms to run your "Career Score," a credit check for your professional web persona. The service analyzes your Facebook profile, LinkedIn network, Twitter account and Google juice -- evaluating more than 200 different variables in the process -- and spits out a score between 350 to 850. Where you fall could be an indicator of how employable you are and indicate your overall professional attractiveness.
Credit Check
Once you grant MyWebCareer access to Facebook and/or LinkedIn, the service works to retrieve employment history and searches Google for references to you in any of the positions you've claimed to have held. The startup is also running semantic analysis on your Facebook updates, checking out your Stack Overflow profile, if you have one, and factoring in your Klout score, among other things. The resulting score -- which remains private until you opt to share it publicly -- is evaluated against your peers in three areas: your connectedness, professional online brand and internet search footprint. The service will highlight potentially offending status updates and make specific recommendations for how you can improve your score. If a search query doesn't bring up results, for instance, relating to past jobs, MyWebCareer will call your attention to these eyebrow-raising issues. The public beta service, only having launched in February, is far from complete. Co-founders Greg Coyle and Nip Zalavadia say they want to make the Career Score as reflective of your online reputation as possible. This means they'll continue to add data sources -- like Quora once there's a publicly accessible API -- in the future.
The Credit Bureau of the Web?If MyWebCareer's calculation is meant to be a credit score for your digital life, then the startup aims to be like an Experian or Equifax. This presents it with the challenge of convincing consumers, and eventually business users, that its score means something significant, beyond the novelty of the site itself. Because other startups also traffic in reputation management (Brand-Yourself) and online influence scoring (Klout), this will not be an easy sell. In a month's time, the startup has acquired more than 4,000 users, according to Coyle and Zavaladia. Not overly impressive numbers, and more interesting, perhaps, is that a significant subset of users are openly sharing their scores via Facebook or Twitter and helping to bring in new members -- 20% of new users sign-up through this network effect. In the product pipeline are new features that could better drive home the utility of the service. A premium version is slated for early April release and should offer the full breadth of everything that MyWebCareer evaluates for a small monthly or yearly fee. Also in the works is an enterprise version that will allow employers to evaluate content without giving them direct access to a candidate's Facebook or LinkedIn profile, says Coyle and Zalavadia. This will eventually be positioned as a recruitment tool that employers can use to discover potential talent with high Career Scores in certain industries. So long as MyWebCareer can figure out what their score really means, it could have bright future. Employers are socially screening candidates and employees are more likely than ever to have blemished online records, so there is an audience for the product. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sdominick
Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark
The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. |
| In Kadhafi, web finds a tragi-comic anti-hero (AFP) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 07:24 PM PST BEIRUT (AFP) – An old Arab adage has it that the worst misfortune is the one that makes you laugh, and nowhere is that truer than in Libya today, where Moamer Kadhafi's outlandish antics are causing howls on the Internet. Videos parody Kadhafi's barely intelligible speeches, while cartoons and jokes -- some verging on the macabre -- proliferate on the web, caricaturing Libya's ruler of 41 years as "mentally ill" or a "dangerous lunatic". "Libyan television threatens to rebroadcast Kadhafi's speech if the rebels do not surrender," goes one of the Arab quips, referrring to his recent rambles. At least 1,000 people have died in the uprising against Kadhafi, who has shown the rebels little mercy, referring to them variously as "rats", "microbes", youth plied with "hallucinogenic drugs" -- all while claiming his people "love" him. A Facebook page has been set up in Arabic under the name: "Urgent: Al-Jazeera can't show Kadhafi's speech because the broadcast rights belong to MogaComedy," an Egyptian satire channel. Mocking slogans abound on Facebook: "The people want to understand the speech!" and "The people want the president to undergo medical treatment!", reprising the refrain of other Arab revolts: "The people want to bring down the regime". "We will start talks with the rebels once the drugs have worn off", scoffs another of the dozens of Facebook pages dedicated to Kadhafi. "Don't knock my madness, it's all I have;" "I built Libya, so it's mine to destroy"... The list goes on. Another page offers "a priceless prize to whoever finds alive a creature as stupid as Kadhafi." However, it is videos that are all the rage, watched by hundreds of thousands of people. One has even gone viral, with nearly 2.6 million hits. It is a club beat remix made by an Israeli, DJ and musician Noy Alooshe, and entitled "Zenga Zenga."(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBY-0n4esNY&feature=player_embedded#at=43) The video features a rambling angry Khadafi speech last week in which, among other things, he threatened to root out rebels "inch by inch, home by home, alley by alley." Zanga means alleyway in the Libyan dialect of Arabic. Allooshe told AFP that "one guy even said that when Kadhafi falls we will dance to this remix in the streets of Tripoli -- that would really be something." One clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7TPhaClESk) casts Kadhafi in the "Looney Tunes" cartoons as Ga-Daffy Duck, complete with fiery cackle. Other satirists have taken to direct impersonation: at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Oz4TWXpyU, a pseudo-Kadhafi is in a cave, his head wrapped in a headscarf, long tunic and the inevitable sunglasses. He rants against imperialism and the Arabs in a flurry of gesticulations and shrugs, with only a chicken for an audience. The bird is visibly startled by the actor's screaming and table-bashing. Among videos in French, actor and comedian Jamel Debouzze has fun playing "Admiral Emperor General Colonel Sadafi", a compound of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and Kadhafi, who collects titles including that of 'King of traditional African kings'. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=girbT6o1ErY) "I did it all for you, my love. I threatened the UN, I terrorised the Commonwealth, I organised two or three very effective genocides... what more can I do?," Sadafi says to his mistress, who hassles him for failing to make it on to the newspapers' front pages. Kadhafi the "ladies' man", often surrounded by women in military uniforms -- his "Amazons" -- also appears in a clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J3CMfvyBSg) where his speech is set to techno music to which lingerie-clad women dance. The Libyan regime's repression of the insurgents seems also to have inspired Algerian singer Cheb Rochdi, who is about to release a satirical track entitled "Kadhafi, the Arabs' Hitler." But in the meantime, the situation on the ground remains far from funny.
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| Nintendo has high hopes for 3DS (Reuters) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 08:42 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Nintendo Co Ltd said it has set ambitious goals for its newest handheld gaming system despite growing competition from smartphones like Apple's iPhone. Nintendo, whose growth has been flagging, is making a big marketing push as it launches the Nintendo 3DS, the first device to offer 3D gaming without special glasses. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime called the 3DS a key revenue driver and argued that its adoption should be even faster than the original DS device, which launched in 2004 and has sold 150 million units to date. "From our perspective, we've set the high water bar for a handheld device and our goal is to try to beat that," he said in an interview on Thursday. The 3DS launched in Japan last month and will go on sale in the United States on March 27. The Japanese company is trying to stay a step ahead of rivals in the mobile market, which is in a state of flux as the iPhone and smartphones based on Google's Android have become more robust gaming platforms. Nintendo is positioning the 3DS as more of a full-purpose entertainment product. It will be able to stream Netflix movies, as many smartphones can. "This is a full-bore entertainment device, we're leading with games, but certainly we will leverage 2D and 3D video content," Fils-Aime said. Despite the gadget's unique technology, Nintendo is facing formidable competition in the market, and not just from smartphones. Sony is also launching a next-generation handheld gaming device -- code-named "NGP" -- at the end of the year. Fils-Aime refused to concede that the market dynamics had changed significantly, despite the rise of smartphone gaming. "We're not influenced by what competitive forces are out there." "In the end content is what is going to drive the purchase behavior," he said. Nintendo's Wii home gaming console pioneered motion-based gaming and was a smash with consumers. But the Wii, released in 2006, is showing some age in the face of competition from Sony Corp and Microsoft Corp, both of whom have release gesture-based gaming accessories last year. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata spoke at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday and made no mention of a next-generation console, despite the hopes of some industry watchers. Nintendo reported a 46 percent fall in profit in its most recent quarter, and cut its sales forecast for the Wii console to 16 million units from 17.5 million units for the year to March. But Fils-Aime betrayed no signs of worry about the Wii. "In our view we have a very long runway for the Wii system," he said. The Wii has sold more than 85 million units since launch, far more than Microsoft's Xbox 360 or Sony's PlayStation 3. (Reporting by Gabriel Madway; Editing by Phil Berlowitz) |
| Android Devices Pull Ahead in U.S. Smartphone Race (NewsFactor) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 12:26 PM PST A new Nielsen survey of postpaid mobile subscribers released Thursday suggests that Google's Android platform may be pulling ahead of Apple's iOS and Research In Motion's BlackBerry OS in the U.S. smartphone race. Google held a 29 percent share of the mobile platform market in the three months through January, followed by Apple and RIM, which were tied at 27 percent. Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 platform trailed at 10 percent. However, Android sales during the period were fractured among multiple vendors, including HTC, Motorola and Samsung as well as a growing list of new entrants. From the smartphone vendor perspective, Apple and RIM were tied for first place at 27 percent, followed by HTC at 19 percent (12 percent Android, seven percent WP7), Motorola at 11 percent (10 percent Android, one percent WP7) and Samsung at seven percent (five percent Android, two percent WP7). Despite buy-one-get-one promotions at both AT&T and T-Mobile, NPD analysts noted that WP7 handsets entered the market with a lower share than either Android or webOS at their debuts. Still, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 strategy should be viewed as a "long-term play which is still in the ecosystem-building phase," noted Al Hilwa, director of applications development software at IDC. Off To a Good Start Microsoft has made the case for WP7's differentiation and improved integration, noted Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD. "Now the company must close the feature gap, offer more exclusive capabilities, work with partners to deliver hardware with better differentiation, and leverage its extensive experience in driving developer communities to increase its app offerings," Ross said. Hilwa thinks WP7 is off to a good start with Microsoft's app store being one of the most successful both in number buildup and the quality of the portfolio at this stage of the game. "Most importantly, the full weight of the ecosystem will probably not come to bear on this until Windows PCs themselves are brought into alignment with this when Windows for ARM ships, and some viable Microsoft-based tablets are in the market," Hilwa explained. He also observed that the WP7 ecosystem scored a big win by bringing Nokia's manufacturing prowess into the fold. "But work is still ongoing in terms of bringing a new level of hardware to the platform, software updates to support other kinds of apps, upgrading the browser to an HTML5-capable one, and actually shipping Nokia phones, potentially by end of year," Hilwa added. A Youthful Appeal According to Nielsen's survey, Google's Android platform was a tad more popular among younger U.S. consumers aged 18-34, beating Apple by two percentage points and RIM by three percentage points. By contrast, RIM excelled by one percentage point over Android and Apple in the 45-54 age demographic, whereas Apple's popularity was actually one percentage point higher than rivals in the 65 and above demographic. Though Google's Android platform is proving popular in the U.S. only some vendors have been able to fully leverage its appeal. For example, Samsung grew its global smartphone market share by a whopping 438.9 percent year over year in the fourth quarter, according to IDC, but the Korea-based vendor continues to trail far behind HTC and Motorola in the U.S. smartphone market. Moreover, the competition is heating up with newcomers Dell, Huawei, Kyocera and Sanyo all launching their first U.S. smartphones at the end of last year. Though Gartner is forecasting that U.S. smartphone sales will grow from 67 million units in 2010 to 95 million in 2011, the firm's analysts believe the market's center of focus will be shifting to less-tech-savvy consumers. "With operators offering generous return policies on all mobile phones, it is important that handset producers offer devices that will appeal to the less technologically advanced consumer," said Hugues de la Vergne, a principal research analyst at Gartner. |
| Courtney Love to pay $430,000 in Twitter case (Reuters) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 05:49 PM PST LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Rocker Courtney Love has settled the lawsuit brought against her by a fashion designer who claims she was defamed in a series of Twitter messages. The settlement with Dawn Simorangkir (a.k.a. the "Boudoir Queen"), which sources say was being finalized Thursday and will be announced next week, will cost Love about $430,000. The first payment of cash is due Thursday, followed by a series of payments to Simorangkir stretched out until 2014. The settlement ends a case that was watched as closely for the unique legal issues in play as the often-erratic behavior of the defendant. Simorangkir, who became embroiled in a dispute with Love over a $4000 payment for clothing, accused the Hole frontwoman of ruining her business with a series of allegedly defamatory tweets posted during a 20 minute rant in 2009. The trial, which was originally scheduled for late January but was postponed when the parties began talking settlement, would have been the first high-profile courtroom showdown over what constitutes defamation on Twitter. Love argued that her rantings were merely an expression of opinion and that Simorangkir could not prove how they damaged her. The fashion designer, on the other hand, pointed to Love's influence as an entertainer and the power of social media to disseminate damaging comments, including that Simorangkir was an "asswipe nasty lying hosebag thief." "The amount of the settlement says it all," Simorangkir attorney Bryan Freedman told The Hollywood Reporter. "Her reprehensible defamatory comments were completely false and $430,000 is quite a significant way to say I am sorry. One would hope that, given this disaster, restraint of pen, tongue and tweet would guide Ms. Love's future conduct." Love attorney James Janowitz said he was pleased with the deal. "Because of the extended payout it's a modest settlement," Janowitz added, noting that Simorangkir had asked for "vastly more" in discussions. "They got out with an amount that left them bragging rights but nothing else." Will Love continue to express herself on Twitter? "I don't think she's using it anymore," Janowitz said. "But I could be wrong." |
| Nintendo's 3DS contains Toshiba, Fujitsu chips: iFixit (Reuters) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 08:01 PM PST TOKYO (Reuters) – Nintendo's 3D-capable handheld game player contains chips manufactured by Toshiba Corp, Fujitsu Ltd and Invensense Inc, technology firm iFixit said after dismantling the hot new gadget. The 3DS, the first handheld game player to provide glasses-free 3D, launched in Japan on February 26 and is set to hit stores in the United States on March 27. Nintendo expects to sell 4 million units globally by the end of March, hoping it will outpace even its popular predecessor, the DS. The flash memory chip was provided by Japan's Toshiba, the world's second-largest NAND chip maker after South Korea's Samsung Electronics. The CPU was designed by British firm ARM Holdings and the gyroscope was supplied by U.S.-based Invensense, iFixit said on its website. But California-based iFixit, one of the better-known among so-called teardown firms hired by clients to provide data and competitive intelligence, said it had had unusual trouble identifying the purpose of chips provided by Fujitsu and Texas Instruments. Nintendo, like other consumer electronics firms, does not reveal where it sources the parts for its products. "We just could not find out what they were," Miroslav Djuric, director of technical communication at iFixit, said in a phone interview. The manufacturers of the lithium ion battery and the 3D liquid crystal display screen were not immediately identified, though Japan's Sharp Corp showed off small 3D screens for glasses-free use at an event last year. (Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Chris Gallagher) |
| Microsoft adds local bargains to Bing results (AFP) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 04:52 PM PST NEW YORK (AFP) – Microsoft on Thursday added local bargains to results served up with mobile and desktop versions of its Bing Internet search engine in the United States. Bing incorporate offers by startups including Groupon and Living Social that alert users to deals at shops, restaurants or other nearby businesses, according to a blog post by Andy Chu of the Bing team. "Calling all bargain hunters, deal lovers, Groupon groupies and Living Social fanatics!" Chu wrote. "Things just got easier." Bing added the localized bargain results under a "deals" search filter option. Deals sifts through more than 200,000 offers in more than 14,000 cities and towns across the United States, according to Chu. Founded in 2008, Chicago-based Groupon offers discounts to its members on retail goods and services, offering one localized deal a day. |
| Xperia Play will be a serious gaming contender (Appolicious) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 12:05 PM PST |
| Disney buys Web game platform maker Rocket Pack (AP) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 04:24 PM PST LOS ANGELES – The Walt Disney Co. has acquired a Finnish company as part of its renewed focus on social and mobile games. Disney said Thursday it has bought Rocket Pack, a company based in Helsinki that gives developers tools to create games that work on Web browsers without the need to download anything. Games using the platform also work on the browsers of portable devices like Apple Inc.'s iPad and iPhone. Terms were not disclosed. The move comes shortly after Disney bought Togetherville, a social network for children aged 6 to 10, last week. Disney hopes to turn around its interactive division, which lost $234 million last fiscal year on $761 million in revenue, partly by veering away from console-based video games. The company expects the unit to be profitable in 2013. |
| Misa Kitara digital stringless guitar has touchscreen, onboard synthesizer (Digital Trends) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 06:00 PM PST
If you've already mastered the likes of Guitar Hero, it's time to move on to the next invention in digital guitars. Those old-school guitar strings are always getting in the way, right? If you'd rather play a strange, artificial instrument, Misa Digital Instruments is now taking pre-orders for their new Kitara stringless digital guitar. The Kitara ($849) uses a digital interface and 8-inch touch screen to integrate sounds of traditional guitar with digital audio production techniques. The company is aiming to bring the live musicality of digital keyboards to the guitar and allow musicians to create electronic melodies right on the touch screen. The guitar features a full fretboard, 8-inch multi-touch screen, and an onboard polyphonic synthesizer. The guitar uses MIDI controls and is made of high-density injection-molded ABS polymer. An aluminum-body special edition Kitara is available for pre-order for $2,899. We're not sure if this will ever get you the respect of actually shredding a real guitar, but it's probably a pretty fun toy to play with for any music fan or guitar fanatic. |
| Hundreds of thousands of downloads for The Daily (AFP) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 06:34 PM PST NEW YORK (AFP) – The Daily, the digital newspaper created for Apple's iPad by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, has tallied hundreds of thousands of downloads since its launch a month ago, its publisher has said. "It's going great," Greg Clayman said at the paidContent 2011 conference in New York. "We're not disclosing the exact numbers (of downloads) but it's in the hundreds of thousands." Although The Daily has extended a free trial period until March 21, Clayman said a number of readers had already opened their wallets to pay the subscription fee of 99 cents a week. He declined to say exactly how many paid subscribers The Daily has signed up, joking only that it's "more than one and less than a billion." Clayman said News Corp. had agreed to the same revenue-sharing that Apple is offering to other publishers with the California-based gadget-maker taking a 30 percent cut of each subscription. "We get the same revenue share that everybody else does," he said. Clayman said News Corp. was not "locked into" a single platform for The Daily, which is currently only available on the iPad, and it would eventually be offered on tablet computers running Google's Android software. "We want to be where the consumers are," he said. Apple is the tablet market leader with sales of more than 15 million iPads, Clayman noted, but "we do expect the Android tablet market will grow." Describing The Daily, which News Corp. launched on February 2 at an event in New York attended by the 79-year-old Murdoch, the publisher said "it really is something new." "It's not a magazine," he said. "It's not a newspaper and yet it is because it publishes news every day. It's not a website and yet we're connected to the Internet. "What the iPad does is it allows you to create something brand new." Clayman said The Daily, which was developed at a cost of around $30 million, was distinct from other News Corp. properties, which include newspapers in Australia, Britain and the United States and the Fox television networks. "The key is we're building a brand," he said. "We do work with other News Corp. entities... (but) we're not an aggregator aggregating content throughout News Corp." The Daily, which has hired a staff of about 100 people from the New Yorker, Forbes, the New York Post and other publications, arrives on a subscriber's iPad every morning. The digital publication is Murdoch's latest attempt to find a way to charge readers for content online in an era of shrinking newspaper circulation and eroding print advertising revenue. Speaking at the launch event a month ago, Murdoch said he would consider it a success "when we sell millions." |
| Apple releases iOS 4.3 golden master to developers (Macworld) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 12:40 PM PST In preparation for iOS 4.3's release next week, Apple on Thursday released the golden master of the software to members of its iOS Developer Program. The golden master version of software is usually the version that actually ships to users. Steve Jobs publicly unveiled the features of iOS 4.3 at Apple's iPad 2 launch yesterday, among them support for AirPlay video in third-party apps and on Websites, the ability to stream music from your computer's iTunes library directly to your iOS device via Home Sharing, and an option to use the iPad's side switch as an orientation lock or a mute control. In addition, Mobile Safari features improved JavaScript performance thanks to the inclusion of the Nitro JavaScript engine from the desktop version of Apple's Web browser, and the iPhone 4 gains the Personal Hotspot feature. Now that the software is available in a final version, expect to begin seeing iOS 4.3-compatible updates of third-party apps wending their way to the App Store ahead of next week's official release. The GM release marks the first update to the iOS 4.3 since the third beta was released in early February. The full version will be available on March 11 as a free download to owners of the iPhone 3GS, the GSM iPhone 4 (that is non-Verizon iPhones), the iPad, and the third- and fourth-generation iPod touches. Developers who are members of Apple's iOS Developer Program can download the seeds now. |
| Skype to hook into GoToMeeting (Digital Trends) Posted: 03 Mar 2011 10:38 AM PST
VoIP leader Skype and Citrix Systems have announced a partnership that will see Skype adding Web and audio conferencing capabilities to its service lineup, based on technologies from Citrix's well-regarded GoToMeeting software. Skype is looking at the capabilities as a way to expand Skype's appeal to business and enterprise users, but enabling them to use online collaboration features to show presentations, demo software, train employees, and more. "GoToMeeting is used by millions of people around the world, which is testament to our unrelenting focus on ease of use and delivering a superior customer experience," said Citrix online services senior VP and general manager Brett Caine, in a statement. "Teaming with Skype further extends our high quality capabilities, enhancing the collaboration experience for business users and workshifters everywhere." Skype plans to integrate the audio and Web conferencing capabilities into its Skype for Business desktop offering, which currently included instant messaging, group video calling, file sharing, and voice and video calling capabilities. With additional capabilities from GoToMeeting, users will be able to set up audio conferences with users on landlines and mobile phones, as well as engage in interactive screensharing, enabling hosts to share a live version of their computer screen with others, enabling easy demonstrations and presentations. GoToMeeting has generally been praised for simple setup and use by attendees. Skype and Citrix expect the new capabilities will be available by the end of the year. The companies didn't offer any pricing information. |
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