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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Amazon failure takes down sites across Internet (AP) : Technet

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Amazon failure takes down sites across Internet (AP) : Technet

Amazon failure takes down sites across Internet (AP)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 07:11 PM PDT

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – 2 hrs 11 mins ago

NEW YORK – Major websites including Foursquare and Reddit crashed or suffered slowdowns Thursday after technical problems rattled Amazon.com's widely used Web servers, frustrating millions of people who couldn't access their favorite sites.

Though better known for selling books, DVDs and other consumer goods, Amazon also rents out space on huge computer servers that run many websites and other online services.

The problems began at an Amazon data center near Dulles Airport outside Washington and persisted into the afternoon. The failures were widespread, but they varied in severity.

HootSuite, which lets users monitor Twitter and other social networks more easily, was down completely, as was questions-and-answers site Quora.

The location-sharing social network Foursquare experienced glitches, while the news-sharing site Reddit was in "emergency read-only mode."

Many other companies that use Amazon Web Services, like Netflix Inc. and Zynga Inc., which runs Facebook games, appeared to be unscathed. Amazon has at least one other major data center that stayed up, in California.

It's not uncommon for Internet services to become inaccessible due to technical problems, sometimes for hours or even days. But Thursday's outages were notable because Amazon's servers are so commonly used, meaning many sites went down at once.

Amazon did not respond to requests for comment. It has not revealed how many companies use its Web services or how many were affected by the outage.

No one knew for sure how many people were inconvenienced, but the services affected are used by millions.

Amazon Web Services provide "cloud" or utility-style computing in which customers pay only for the computing power and storage they need, on remote computers.

Seattle-based Amazon has big plans for AWS. Although it now makes up just a few percent of the company's revenue, CEO Jeff Bezos said last year that it could eventually be as large as Amazon's retail business. Competitors include Rackspace Hosting Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s Azure platform.

Some people consider cloud computing more reliable than conventional hosting services in which a small company might rent a handful of computers in a data center.

If one of them malfunctions, the failure can take down a website. But "clouds" like AWS use vast banks of computers. If one fails, the tasks that it performs, such as running a website or a game, can immediately be taken over by others.

When a company needs more capacity, maybe because of a surge in visitors to its website, it only takes minutes to rent more computers from Amazon.

But cloud computing isn't immune to failure, either.

Lydia Leong, an analyst for the tech research firm Gartner, said that judging by details posted on Amazon's AWS status page, a network connection failed Thursday morning, triggering an automatic recovery mechanism that then also failed.

Amazon's computers are divided into groups that are supposed to be independent of each other. If one group fails, others should stay up. And customers are encouraged to spread the computers they rent over several groups to ensure reliable service. But Thursday's problem took out many groups simultaneously.

Outages with Amazon's services are rare but not unprecedented. In 2008, several companies lost access to their own files for about two hours when one of Amazon's data centers failed. The companies included DigitalChalk Inc., which delivers multimedia training over the Web.

In general, Amazon Web Services have been more reliable and, above all, cheaper than many other hosting systems, said Josh Cochrane, vice president of product development at Palo Alto Software in Eugene, Ore.

But the firm's websites and Web-based applications that create business plans were all brought down by Thursday's crash.

"It's a pretty vulnerable feeling," he said. "This is a really big message to us that we need to revisit our strategy."

That might include spreading the applications more widely over Amazon's network, so that problems at one data center won't bring down everything, he said.

Amazon engineers struggled throughout the day to rectify the problem. Leong said the problems are of a type that's not covered by Amazon's money-back guarantees.

Apple slammed over iPhone, iPad location tracking (AP)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 09:07 PM PDT

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – 16 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO – Privacy watchdogs are demanding answers from Apple Inc. about why iPhones and iPads are secretly collecting location data on users — records that cellular service providers routinely keep but require a court order to disgorge.

It's not clear if other smartphones and tablet computers are logging such information on their users. And this week's revelation that the Apple devices do wasn't even new — some security experts began warning about the issue a year ago.

But the worry prompted by a report from researchers Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden at a technology conference in Santa Clara, Calif., raises questions about how much privacy you implicitly surrender by carrying around a smartphone and the responsibility of the smartphone makers to protect sensitive data that flows through their devices.

Much of the concern about the iPhone and iPad tracking stems from the fact the computers are logging users' physical coordinates without users knowing it — and that that information is then stored in an unencrypted form that would be easy for a hacker or a suspicious spouse or a law enforcement officer to find without a warrant.

Researchers emphasize that there's no evidence that Apple itself has access to this data. The data apparently stays on the device itself, and computers the data is backed up to. Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

Tracking is a normal part of owning a cellphone. What's done with that data, though, is where the controversy lies.

A central question in this controversy is whether a smartphone should act merely as a conduit of location data to service providers and approved applications — or as a more active participant by storing the data itself, to make location-based applications run more smoothly or help better target mobile ads or any number of other uses.

Location data is some of the most valuable information a mobile phone can provide, since it can tell advertisers not only where someone's been, but also where they might be going — and what they might be inclined to buy when they get there.

Allan and Warden said the location coordinates and time stamps in the Apple devices aren't always exact, but appear in a file that typically contains about a year's worth of data that when taken together provide a detailed view of users' travels.

"We're not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it's clearly intentional, as the database is being restored across backups, and even device migrations," they wrote in a blog posting announcing the research.

Allan said in an email to the AP that he and Warden haven't looked at how other smartphones behave in this regard, but added there's suspicion that phones that run Google Inc.'s Android software might behave in a similar way and is being investigated.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Alex Levinson, a security expert, said the tracking Apple's devices do isn't new — or a surprise to those in the computer forensics community.

The Apple devices have been retaining the information for some time, but it was kept in a different form until the release of the iOS 4 operating software last year, Levinson, technical lead for the Katana Forensics firm, wrote on his blog.

Through his work with law enforcement agencies, Levinson said he was able to access the location data in older iPhones and warned about the issue over a year ago. The location data is now easier to find because of a change in the way iPhone applications access the data, he said.

"Either way, it is not secret, malicious, or hidden," Levinson wrote. "Users still have to approve location access to any application and have the ability to instantly turn off location services to applications inside the settings menu on their device."

The existence of the location-data file on the phone is alarming because it's unencrypted, the researchers said, which means that anyone with access to the device can see it.

Charlie Miller, a prominent iPhone hacker, said a security change that Apple made last month would make extracting the file from the phone in a remote attack very difficult. Even if an attacker were to break into someone's phone looking for the file, he wouldn't have the right privileges to access the file.

The data is "pretty well-protected on the phone," Miller, principal security analyst with Independent Security Evaluators, said in an interview.

"On the phone, they take a lot of precautions." He said. "It's sort of frightening in the sense that it's there, and it's full of information about where you've been, but the good news is it's not easy to get to."

But it's a different matter when the data is transferred to another computer in a backup. If the backup computer is infected with malicious software, the file could easily be located and sent to the hacker. A way to protect against that is to encrypt the iPhone backup through iTunes, the researchers said.

The issue has prompted several members of Congress to write letters to Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., to answer questions about the practice.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said it raises "serious privacy concerns," especially for children using the devices, since "anyone who gains access to this single file could likely determine the location of a user's home, the businesses he frequents, the doctors he visits, the schools his children attend, and the trips he has taken — over the past months or even a year."

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., questioned whether the practice may be illegal under a federal law governing the use of location information for commercial purposes, if consumers weren't properly informed.

"Apple needs to safeguard the personal location information of its users to ensure that an iPhone doesn't become an iTrack," he said in a statement. "Collecting, storing and disclosing a consumer's location for commercial purposes without their express permission is unacceptable and would violate current law."

Apple shares rose $9.20, or 2.7 percent, to $351.71 on the strength of the company's latest quarterly financial results, which showed Apple's net income nearly doubled, in large part on strength of iPhone sales.

Verizon rakes in subscribers with help of iPhone (AP)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 08:17 AM PDT

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – Thu Apr 21, 11:17 am ET

NEW YORK – Helped by the iPhone, Verizon Wireless is pulling in more high-paying subscribers than it has in a year, and 15 times more than rival AT&T.

Verizon Communications Inc. on Thursday said it added 906,000 wireless subscribers on contract-based plans in the January to March period, more than double the number of a year ago.

The increase corresponds neatly with the half-million iPhones Verizon sold to new subscribers. Verizon started selling the iPhone on Feb. 10, ending AT&T's exclusive grip on the device in the U.S.

In total, Verizon said it had activated 2.2 million iPhones, with most of them going to customers upgrading from other Verizon phones.

Wall Street analysts had expected slightly more. Verizon shares fell $1.15, or 3.1 percent, to $36.63 in morning trading, retreating from a three-year high of $38.95 hit three weeks ago.

Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo defended the iPhone sales performance on a conference call with analysts,

"We really weren't 100 percent out there with distribution until mid-March," he said.

The true test, he said, will be when Apple launches it next phone, which will put Verizon on "an equal footing" with AT&T, he said. This confirms speculation that the next iPhone launch will be simultaneous for Verizon and AT&T subscribers. Apple has previously launched new iPhone models once a year in late June or early July, but analysts believe the next model might be delayed a few months.

Shammo said Verizon is still basing its forecasts on the sale of 11 million iPhones this year.

Shammo also said the next Verizon iPhone will be a "global" device, implying that it would work on overseas "GSM" networks, just like AT&T's version. This also confirms speculation. Shammo's comment may have been inadvertent, given the secrecy that surrounds Apple devices. In a later interview, he said he didn't want to comment further on Apple's plans.

AT&T said Wednesday it had added 3.6 million iPhones to its network in the first quarter, helped by the $49 price on the older iPhone 3GS, which Verizon does not sell. Verizon had less time to sell the phone, but the two carriers activated nearly the same number of iPhones every day — about 40,000.

The difference appears to be that while AT&T was selling iPhones to people who were already subscribers, the phone drew new customers to Verizon. AT&T added a net of just new 62,000 subscribers under contract in the first quarter, a record low.

However, there was no sign that AT&T's iPhone subscribers were defecting to Verizon for the sake of its more reliable network. Since most subscribers are tied up by two-year contracts, it may take some time for the full effects of Verizon's iPhone to show up in AT&T's numbers, but AT&T's Chief Financial Officer, Rick Lindner, said he was confident subscribers won't start bolting later this year.

Verizon said its net income climbed to $1.44 billion, or 51 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, up from $443 million, or 16 cents per share, a year ago, when results were weighed down by a charge for costs associated with the health care reform package.

Analysts polled by FactSet were on average expecting earnings of 50 cents per share.

Verizon's revenue edged up 0.3 percent to $26.99 billion from $26.91 billion a year ago and slightly exceeded analysts' average estimate of $26.87 billion.

Though the iPhone is a highly coveted device both for consumers and carriers, it doesn't lead to an immediate bonanza. Verizon's operating income was flat with the year before, as growing revenue from the wireless business was offset by increasing costs due to sales of heavily subsidized smartphones like the iPhone.

New York-based Verizon Communications owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless, so only that portion of the wireless profits flow to its bottom line. The remaining 45 percent is owned by Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.

On the wireline side of Verizon, margins are tiny in a shrinking business, but the company managed to cut costs faster than revenue slid in the first quarter.

Verizon's introduction of the iPhone helped Apple sell a record 18.65 million iPhones in the quarter, as it reported Wednesday.

Verizon reported strong sales of another groundbreaking new phone in the quarter: the HTC Thunderbolt. It's the first phone to use Verizon's ultra-fast new LTE data network. LTE, or Long-Term Evolution, is what the industry considers a "4G," or fourth-generation data network, but the 4G term has been borrowed by AT&T and T-Mobile USA, who are applying the term to 3G networks with upgraded speeds.

Shammo said others are putting "lipstick on 3 to make it a 4, but this is truly a 4G device with the speeds of 4G."

Introducing An App Store for Microsoft Outlook (Mashable)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 04:05 PM PDT

Jennifer Van Grove Jennifer Van Grove – Thu Apr 21, 7:05 pm ET

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.

In your inbox, who can matter more than what. If the sender is someone you know, a coworker you collaborate with or a sales lead you've identified, the email becomes infinitely more meaningful.

Dallas-based RedCritter connects the who to the what with RedCritter for Outlook, an app store for Outlook that includes 25 applications ranging from the social to the practical.

RedCritter's approach is not dissimilar from Xobni's. The email add-on lives in the right-hand side of the user's inbox and displays a plethora of dynamic data on the sender or emails.

Founded in January 2010, RedCritter aims to be more than just a tool to enhance your email experience. It wants to be a company that builds enterprise software that incorporates the latest technologies and social media innovations to make business systems easier to use.

"I want to build a new breed of enterprise application," says RedCritter CEO Mike Beaty. "It's always been an interest of mine to streamline business processes."

Apps for Outlook

RedCritter's most consumer-friendly product is the Outlook app store, where you can install any of the company's 25 Outlook applications. Beaty describes it as converting standard email to Inbox 2.0.

Many of the apps simply add a social media layer. The Tweets app cycles through your email senders' recent Tweets. The Klout app displays contacts' influence scores. The Foursquare app highlights their profiles and badges.

Business users can opt to install the sfContacts app, which creates a connection between Salesforce and Outlook. The Attachments app highlights attachments from senders, while the Office Docs and Google Docs apps find documents related to your email or contacts.

With a Basecamp app, Highrise app, Constant Contact app and even a Dual Clock app for seeing the email sender's time, there's no shortage of convenience and context that can be added to the inbox experience.

RedCritter Labs

The startup is developing more enterprise products, such as RedCritter Guide and RedCritter Tracker. Beaty lumps them all under the RedCritter Labs label but suggests that individual products may be spun out as their own entities in the future.

RedCritter Guide is for website owners and is designed to help them enhance the usability of websites with easy-to-create interactive guided tours and online product demos for site visitors. The product is in an invitation stage, but readers can enter "MASHABLE" as the invitation code to gain access.

RedCritter Tracker, a web-based project management tool slated for July release, aims to improve the work relationship between companies and their developers. Tracker weaves gamification elements into the project management experience -- so companies can reward developers for completing tasks.

"RedCritter Tracker offers streamlined project management for Agile methodology along with tightly integrated message feeds, gamification and rewards," Beaty says.

The product includes a rewards store so developers can exchange their achievements for gift cards and other prizes.

"Developers will have a day-to-day incentive to complete more complicated tasks," says Beaty, himself a long-time developer.

Critter Who?

RedCritter has been under the radar, Beaty says, focused on building and releasing new products. Meanwhile, other startups in the email-meets-social intelligence space command headlines on a regular basis.

Still, Beaty says investors are very excited by the Outlook tools. They have the opportunity to reach more than 500 million Outlook users. The investors he has talked to are also enthusiastic about Tracker's gamification elements.

Beaty's next big decision will be whether to take funding and move out west. While he doesn't need outside capital to continue research and development on RedCritter products, he admits to being at a disadvantage by not being in Silicon Valley.

"You're not in the club if you're not out there," he says.

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.

Google loses exec to Groupon, preps rival service (Reuters)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 04:48 PM PDT

By Alexei Oreskovic Alexei Oreskovic – Thu Apr 21, 7:48 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Online coupon service Groupon has hired a Google Inc executive to be its new chief operating officer, as Google began rolling out a new service aimed directly at Groupon's thriving business.

The hiring and roll-out come as Groupon and Google increasingly go head-to-head in the vast market for local advertising, with each company pitching its online marketing services to small businesses such a restaurants and nail salons.

Google, the world's No. 1 Internet search engine, tried to acquire Groupon for $6 billion in December, but was rebuffed, according to a source familiar with the matter.

On Thursday, Google began running ads on several websites inviting consumers in Portland, Oregon, to sign up for a new service dubbed Google Offers.

Google Offers will allow consumers "to get great deals delivered right to their inboxes," a Google spokeswoman said in a statement.

The popularity of so-called daily deals services has surged since Groupon launched less than three years ago. The privately held company does not disclose its financials, but says it has been profitable since June 2009.

Also on Thursday, Groupon announced that Margo Georgiadis, vice president of global sales operations at Google, will become COO at Chicago-based Groupon, overseeing the company's global sales, marketing and operations.

The hiring of Georgiadis comes a month after the current COO said he would step down. It fills a key slot in Groupon's management team ahead of a potential initial public offering.

Groupon, which recently raised $950 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Greylock Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has met with bankers to discuss a possible IPO, CEO Andrew Mason told Reuters in January.

Georgiadis represents the second high-level executive Groupon has poached from Google in recent months. In February, Groupon hired Google's Jason Harinstein, a director on the search company's mergers and acquisitions team, to serve as its senior vice president of corporate development.

Nikesh Arora, Google senior vice president and chief business officer, said in an emailed statement to Reuters that he was excited that Georgiadis was joining "a terrific company and a great partner for Google."

The online coupon and group-buying market, in which consumers are offered daily deals promising big savings at local merchants, is among the fastest-growing sectors of Web commerce. In December, Amazon.com Inc invested $175 million in start-up LivingSocial, which has said it expects to generate more than $500 million in revenue this year.

Google plans to test its new Offers service in Portland first, followed by New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, though the company declined to provide a timeframe for when the service would launch in any of the markets.

Groupon, which ended 2009 with 1.8 million subscribers, signed up 50 million by the start of 2011 and now has more than 70 million users in 500 markets in 45 countries.

Georgiadis had been with Google for two years and was based in its Chicago office. Groupon's previous COO and president, Rob Solomon, said in March that he planned to leave the company in the coming months.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; additional reporting by Jennifer Saba; editing by Maureen Bavdek, Gary Hill)

Sword & Sworcery EP Micro tops iPhone Games of the Week (Appolicious)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 04:00 PM PDT

Apple, Google tap phone location data: WSJ (Reuters)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 07:29 PM PDT

– 1 hr 54 mins ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc's iPhones and Google Inc's Android phones send back data about the locations of the users to the technology companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

These phones regularly transmit such data to Apple and Google as the two build databases that could help them tap a market for location-based services, the Journal reported, citing data and documents it had analyzed.

The paper cited a research by security analyst Samy Kamkar that said the HTC Android phone sent such information several times every hour after collecting the data every few seconds.

Google and Apple were not immediately available for comment to Reuters late on Thursday.

The phone also sent information about wireless Internet networks in the area, the paper said.

The iPhone transmits data about the user's location and Wi-Fi networks to itself every 12 hours, the paper said.

(Reporting by Paritosh Bansal; Editing by Anshuman Daga)

Skype update tops Android Apps of the Week (Appolicious)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 01:20 PM PDT

Obama Facebook Visit Latest Repeat of 2008 Campaign Formula (ContributorNetwork)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 08:18 PM PDT

7 Everyday Toxic Things You Shouldn't Toss in the Trash (LiveScience.com)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 04:01 PM PDT

LiveScience.com livescience.com – Thu Apr 21, 7:01 pm ET

Not sure what to do with your old plasma TV? Leaving it on the curb for the garbage man to pick up may seem like the most reasonable thing to do, but it's definitely not the most environmentally-friendly option. We'll show you how to properly get rid of household trash so that you don't leave a toxic -- or even downright radioactive -- footprint.

From paint to lightbulbs, Life's Little Mysteries has rounded up the top seven things people shouldn't throw in the trash -- but often do.

#7 Motor oil

In most states, it's illegal to pour motor oil down the drain -- or even on the ground.

That's because pouring motor oil down the sink or toilet can diminish the effectiveness of waste water treatment process. Motor oil spilled into storm drains or on the ground can also contaminate waterways, harming aquatic life.

"One gallon of motor oil can contaminate 1 million gallons of freshwater," said Jennifer Berry, a representative for Earth911.com, a government-recommended website that provides directories for finding local recycling and disposal resources.

The only proper -- and legal -- way to get rid of motor oil is to place it in a clean plastic container with a tight lid and bring it to a location willing to take it off your hands, such as recycling centers, car service stations and automotive stores.

One important note is that used motor oil shouldn't be mixed with anything else -- such as paint, gasoline, solvents and antifreeze -- because that will render it unsuitable for recycling.

#6 Electronics

Old TVs, DVD players, VCRs, cassette decks, CD players, cell phones, alarm clocks, video cameras, desktop computers, laptops, printers, video game consoles, iPods … how many of these electronic waste (e-waste) items do you have stashed away in your basement, attic or storage unit?

"E-waste in general contains heavy metals such as cadmium and lead, meaning that your electronics should not go in the trash," Berry told Life's Little Mysteries. "Although e-waste accounts for only 1 to 4 percent of municipal waste, it may be responsible for as much as 70 percent of the heavy metals in landfills, including 40 percent of all lead."

The most environmentally friendly way to dispose of e-waste is to donate it for reuse or drop it off at a recycling center. The EPA website offers many e-waste reference tools, from directories of local and government-supported drop-off centers to manufacturers' mail-in recycling and trade-in programs.

Recycling your old cell phone isn't just a way to be green for the environment; it can also put some green in your wallet. Companies such as YouRenew.com, Gazelle.com and Flipswap.com will pay you to mail them your old e-waste.

#5 Paint

Oil-based paints, coatings, stains, varnishes, paint removers and strippers qualify as household hazardous waste (HHW) because they contain chemicals that can be harmful to humans, animals and the environment. HHW items should never be disposed of in the trash or down the drain.

Full cans of paint should be returned to the point of purchase, or you can donate excess paint to a school, theater group or non-profit agency such as Habitat for Humanity. Take any leftover oil-based paint products to an HHW collection facility in your area, which you can locate on Earth911.com or by calling 1-800-CleanUp.

Latex (water-based) paints are not considered hazardous, so lidless, dried-out cans of the stuff can be disposed of with regular trash. If you have 1 inch or less of leftover latex, open the lid to dry it out, away from children and pets. Larger amounts of latex paint can be dried out by using waste paint hardener or by mixing it with kitty litter. You can place empty metal paint cans in your recycling bins.

#4 Batteries

Different types of batteries have to be disposed of in different ways, but none of these include tossing them in the recycling bin. Rechargeable batteries (including nickel cadmium, nickel metal hydride, small sealed lead acid and lithium ion batteries) can be recycled at participating retail collection points, which can be found at stores including Ikea, Walmart, Staples and Radio Shack.

Alkaline and zinc carbon batteries should be dropped off at an HHW facility. Watch batteries, which contain silver oxide, can be recycled at many jewelry and watch stores. They can also be given to an HHW center, as can the lithium batteries commonly used in portable electronic devices such as PDAs, cameras and remote car locks. Another type of battery that should be deposited at an HHW facility is a zinc-air battery, which is used in hearing aids.

Lead acid automotive batteries contain corrosive and toxic chemicals that are very harmful to the environment, making them illegal to discard in your garbage or recycling bin. Instead, bring your car battery to the store when you buy a new one -- retailers are required to take the old battery.

For more information about where to drop off batteries, call 1-800-8-BATTERY.

#3 Light bulbs

Fluorescent light bulbs and compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) -- while much better for the environment than regular light bulbs -- contain a miniscule amount of mercury (about 5 milligrams) that is released when the light bulb is broken.

For this reason, all florescent bulbs should be taken to an HHW facility. Locate one near you on Earth911.com. CFLs can also be dropped off at any Home Depot or IKEA store.

#2 Smoke detectors

First, you need to determine what type of smoke detector you have. Ionization chamber smoke detectors (ICSDs) contain a small amount of ionizing radiation in order to detect the presence of smoke. Because of this radioactive material, ICSDs are categorized as a hazardous substance by the Fire Protection Agency. For this reason, it's extremely important to properly dispose of old smoke alarms.

After removing its batteries -- see #3 for how to get rid of those -- mail the ICSD back to the manufacturer. The address of the supplier is usually listed in the product warranty or user's manual. Send it by ground delivery, not air, because there are laws restricting radioactive materials on airplanes. You can also find a drop-off location or HHW event in your area if the manufacturer will not accept the unit.

Photoelectric smoke detectors, which use a photo sensor and light beam to detect smoke, do not contain radioactive material  and can be taken to any electronics recycling facility (see #5).

Dual or combination smoke detectors have both ionization and photoelectric smoke sensors, so they do contain a tiny amount of radioactive material and should be disposed of in the same way as ICSDs.

#1 Mercury thermometers

Those old-school glass thermometers that mom used to take your temperature with may have been edged out by electronic thermometers, but many households still have these relics lying around.

The average mercury thermometer contains 500 milligrams of mercury, which can become a health hazard if the thermometer is accidentally broken. Mercury is a neurotoxin that especially poses serious health risks to pregnant women and kids because it can harm an unborn baby or young child's developing nervous system. This potential danger has caused several states, including New York, California and Connecticut, to ban the sale of mercury-fever thermometers.

To get rid of your old thermometer, use the EPA's website or earth911.com to find household hazardous waste collection programs in your community. Some areas even offer exchange programs that will trade you a new electronic thermometer for your old mercury one.

This story was provided by Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience.

Groupon Takes a Trip to the Supermarket (Mashable)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 02:46 PM PDT

Jennifer Van Grove Jennifer Van Grove – Thu Apr 21, 5:46 pm ET

Daily deals juggernaut Groupon has partnered with consumer packaged goods giant General Mills to offer subscribers a first-of-a-kind home delivery grocery deal Thursday.

The "Redeem From Home" General Mills Sample Pack features $40 worth of General Mills products -- including a coupon book and breakfast, lunch and dinner fare -- for $20.

The grocery deal was offered solely in San Francisco and Minneapolis. Eligible consumers responded with alacrity and snatched up the groceries before day's end. In Minneapolis, for instance, the deal sold out at 3:05 p.m. local time with all 4,500 Groupons purchased.

General Mills believes itself to be Groupon's first consumer packaged goods partner. There's no indication that the soon-to-IPO company is exploring other consumer packaged goods deals, and we suspect that most big brands are likely to balk at the company's margins, but there's still something fresh about this supermarket sweep.

As for General Mills, the brand is hoping the deal will turn Groupon samplers into grocery-store name brand buyers.

"We're always looking for efficient ways to sample our products and given Groupon's scale, we thought this would be a way to reach a sizeable audience," General Mills' director of product marketing Karl Schmidt told Advertising Age. "Our goal is to get trial across a breadth of products and get people to go into the grocery store with follow-up purchases."

Image courtesy of Flickr, Artbandito

Apple numbers soaring despite iPad losses (Appolicious)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 06:00 PM PDT

Sprint Spits Fire at AT&T-Mo FCC Filing (PC World)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 03:38 PM PDT

Mark Sullivan Mark Sullivan – Thu Apr 21, 6:38 pm ET

AT&T filed documents with the FCC today seeking approval of the company's planned $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile, and Sprint responded in harsh terms.

Specifically, AT&T is asking for the commission's approval to transfer spectrum licenses now held by T-Mobile USA to AT&T as part of AT&T's proposed takeover. It's an important initial step in one of the regulatory approval processes the AT&T must manuever (the Department of Justice being the other), and it states publicly why AT&T believes the takeover is in the public's best interest (details below). The Senate and the State of New York also say they'll have a close look at the proposed takeover.

What Sprint is Saying

But it's Sprint that is making the most noise today. The company issued a statement voicing in no uncertain terms its belief that the AT&T/T-Mobile merger carries an enormous number of risks both to U.S. consumers and to the wireless industry overall.

"It is an indisputable fact that this takeover would create an entrenched duopoly with control of approximately 80 percent of wireless industry revenues," says Vonya B. McCann, Sprint's senior vice president of government affairs. "This kind of leverage could strangle competition and give AT&T the power to increase prices, threaten innovation critical to this industry and eliminate American jobs."

The deal would make AT&T the biggest wireless carrier in the US, followed closely by Verizon. Together, AT&T and Verizon would indeed control more than 80 percent of wireless revenue in the US. Sprint, meanwhile, would be relegated to a distant third-place contender.

Some analysts have predicted that the AT&T takeover will be approved, but with the proviso that the telecom giant divest of certain network assets and move out of certain markets. Sprint's having none of that either. "This proposed takeover cannot be fixed with conditions or divestitures," McCann says. "We believe the facts and the law dictate that this transaction must be blocked, and are confident that the Department of Justice and FCC will determine that this takeover is not in the interest of the American public."

Why AT&T Believes the Deal is in the Public's Best Interest

In a nutshell, AT&T argues in the filing that the combination of the two networks would make better use of wireless spectrum, and create "synergies" (the removal of redundant equipment and people) in the combined network that would eventually improve service. Here are some of the more interesting tidbits.

On spectrum: "The network synergies of this transaction will free up new capacity - the functional equivalent of new spectrum - in the many urban, suburban and rural wireless markets where escalating broadband usage is fast consuming existing capacity."

On "synergies": "The combined company expects to integrate a significant portion of T-Mobile cell sites into the AT&T network. Upon network integration, which will benefit customers in as little as nine months, this will equate to "instant" cell splits - increasing cell density and effectively doubling the amount of network traffic that can be carried using existing spectrum in the areas served by those cell sites." AT&T and T-Mobile both currently operate GSM/HSPA+ networks and the spectrum to match."

On the benefits to consumers: "This transaction will thus benefit consumers by reducing the number of dropped and blocked calls, increasing data speeds, improving in-building coverage, and dramatically expanding deployment of next-generation mobile technology."

Sprint Isn't Alone

If you think Sprint's mad about AT&T-Mo, check out consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge. "Over the next few weeks and months, AT&T will spend millions of dollars to persuade the government and the American people that their takeover of T-Mobile is in the public interest," says Gigi B. Sohn, president and co-founder of the group.

"They will hire faculties worth of economists who will produce libraries worth of "research." They will donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to outside groups. They will equip themselves with battalions of outside lobbyists, including prominent former members of Congress and will spend millions more in campaign and other contributions. They will blanket the airwaves with ads."

"All of that effort and all of that money cannot disguise the simple, fundamental fact that AT&T in this one transaction will fundamentally reshape the wireless industry in ways that will hurt consumers, raising prices, restricting innovation and limiting choice," Sohn says.

I'm personally sympathetic to Sohn's and Sprint's view. I might believe AT&T's claims that its service could get better, faster, with the takeover. The addition of the T-Mobile network resources might improve voice call quality and enable AT&T to move more quickly toward providing fast 4G LTE service everywhere.

But I don't find much comfort in AT&T's argument when I think about what the cost of wireless services might be well after the takeover is done. AT&T is doing this deal to get more users paying more of their paychecks for more wireless services. It's not doing it to make things easier on consumers' pocketbooks, or (chuckle) create jobs. The simple fact remains—there will be less competition in the wireless market if AT&T-Mo comes to pass.

Am I supposed to believe AT&T when it says that will make things better, not worse?

Exclusive: Apple to beat Google on cloud music: sources (Reuters)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 03:34 PM PDT

By Yinka Adegoke Yinka Adegoke – Thu Apr 21, 6:34 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc has completed work on an online music storage service and is set to launch it ahead of Google Inc, whose own music efforts have stalled, according to several people familiar with both companies' plans.

Apple's plans will allow iTunes customers to store their songs on a remote server, and then access them from wherever they have an Internet connection, said two of these people who asked not to be named as the talks are still confidential.

The maker of the wildly popular iPhone and iPod, Apple has yet to sign any new licenses for the service and major music labels are hoping to secure deals before the service is launched, three of the sources said. Apple has not told its music partners of when it intends to introduce its music locker, they said.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Amazon.com Inc launched a music locker service earlier in April without new licensing agreements leading to threats of legal action from some music companies. At the time, Amazon argued that its so-called Cloud Drive service does not need licenses, and said uploaded music belongs to the users.

Last week, however, Amazon held talks with some labels to reach agreements for a new, more sophisticated locker service.

Apple, Amazon and Google are battling for control of new digital media platforms through which everyday users will access their music and videos.

While Amazon is the leading e-reader maker, Apple and Google are competing on mobile platforms like smartphones and tablet devices.

Google had been expected to launch a music service as a feature of its Android mobile operating system as far back as last Christmas.

"They keep changing what they're asking for," said a label executive who asked not to be named because the talks are confidential.

Two of the sources said Google originally wanted to launch a basic locker service and an 'iTunes-like' store. In recent weeks it has suggested exploring licensing for a subscription service, they said.

Talks are ongoing with major music labels including market leader Universal Music Group, owned by Vivendi, as well as Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group.

Music industry executives are pointing to changes in top management at Google as a possible reason for the technology company's uncertain music strategy. On April 1, co-founder Larry Page took over as chief executive with Eric Schmidt moving up to executive chairman. Android chief Andy Rubin led most of the early talks with the labels.

Apple and Google are keen to offer services that give music fans more flexibility to access their media wherever they are rather than tying them to a particular computer or mobile device.

In late 2009, Apple bought Lala, a cloud-based music company, but closed it down in April 2010, leading to speculation that it would launch an Apple-branded cloud service.

Earlier this month, Google bought Canadian mobile music company PushLife as part of its drive to help Android users share and purchase content across devices. Last May, Google also bought Simplify Media, a remote media company, but has since closed it down.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke)

A Market for iPads, Not for Tablets (PC World)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 05:52 PM PDT

Mark Sullivan Mark Sullivan – Thu Apr 21, 8:52 pm ET

I chuckled at Apple's explanation yesterday of its tablet sales coming up short of expectations: "We can't make them fast enough," Apple's COO Tim Cook said during an earnings call with analysts. Were he speaking for any other company, his statement would have smacked of PR bluster, but Cook meant it literally: Apple's suppliers can't make the components for the iPad 2 as fast as Apple can sell the device.

Apple has sold more than 12 million iPads already this year, and believes it can sell 40 million of the devices by year-end. Meanwhile, Samsung has downgraded its 2011 Galaxy Tab sales estimates from 10 million to 6-7 million. We hear that sales of the much-anticipated "iPad killer", the Motorola Xoom, are dismal so far (100,000 units since its launch in February). RIM's Playbook may have a better chance against the iPad--RBC Capital Markets says 50,000 of them sold on opening day--but it's still too soon to make any rosy projections.

It should be obvious by now that the market wants iPads, not other kinds of tablets. It's the iPod all over again, as Ed Albro rightly points out in his April 17 blog.

What is it that has prompted all those iPad buyers to make the decision to buy? It wasn't the form factor of the device that drew them to it. Were these buyers thinking "hmm, I need a computing device that's bigger than my iPhone yet more portable than my Macbook Pro"? I doubt it.

The iPad is selling well because of the Apple-ness of it, not because of the tablet-ness of it.

What is Apple-ness? To my thinking, it’s two thingsâ€"the actual products, and the powerful bubble of excitement Apple’s marketers are able to create around the products.

The Products

Apple seems to have captured something with the iPad that is far more than just a tablet-shaped computer. They hit upon some “X factorâ€

This X-factor, whatever it is, will be very hard to duplicate by companies that aren't Apple. Other companies will build products to compete with it, but they'll never manage to build anything that comes close to what consumers see as the real thing. In fact, I'm not sure that tablets will ever be a space where numerous brands with strong product offerings will constantly fight it out for market share. The "front-runner and also-rans" dynamic will always exist.

The Buzz Bubble

And it's not just the actual device that sets the iPad apart. Part of the iPad's wild success is because of the way Apple talks about the product.

Apple has a knack for creating huge buzz around its products, but in the iPad's case I don't think it's right to call it the "reality distortion field," as some (including me) have suggested in the past. The marketing around the iPad doesn't misrepresent the capabilities of the product, it just has a way of distracting people from the question of whether they really need the thing or not.

Instead we get swept away in the coolness of the product and the excitement of the launch. And there’s something more, something deeper, too. Apple makes products that project some idea, some image of what many people aspire to be (or be seen as)--hip, affluent, tech-savvy, forward-thinking.

It almost worked on me. I came very, very close to buying an iPad, despite the fact that I have no real need for one. All it took for me to seriously consider buying one was a visit to the Apple Website, where I looked at glamour shots of the cool-looking device and watched some really convincing videos.

And I’ll admit that I saw some apps (like gaming, mapping and video) that I really think may work better on a tablet than other bigger or smaller devices. But I realized that I wouldn’t want to use those apps on just any kind of tabletâ€"I wanted to use them on an iPad.

The media, whether we like it or not, do our part to amplify the buzz. We have to, because people want to read about Apple stuff. So they do. And they talk about it. Interest grows. We write more stories. The cycle continues.

I have no idea if the tablets we're seeing on the market today will be widely used five years from now. Some people seem certain that the tablet will be around for a long time, but most of those people are iPad owners. I believe we'll only know for sure when all the buzz around the iPad has worn off and we can judge by how useful it really is on a day-to-day basis.

I wouldn't be surprised if the iPad is used for a long time to come. But until the companies that are making competing tablets learn to bake their own magic into their products—their own X-factor—there will be no real "tablet space", only an iPad space.

Adobe Updates Acrobat, Reader to Guard against Flash Zero-Day (PC World)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 01:41 PM PDT

Tony Bradley Tony Bradley – Thu Apr 21, 4:41 pm ET

Adobe is once again releasing software updates to address a zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash. Adobe already unleashed an updated version of Adobe Flash itself, but today it is also releasing updated versions of Acrobat and Reader which both rely on a vulnerable component of Flash.

The updates arrived sooner than expected, perhaps in response to new exploits in the wild. The Adobe security advisory explains, "There are reports that this vulnerability is being actively exploited in the wild against both Adobe Flash Player, and Adobe Reader and Acrobat, as well as via a Flash (.swf) file embedded in a Microsoft Word (.doc) or Microsoft Excel (.xls) file delivered as an email attachment targeting the Windows platform."

Qualys CTO Wolfgang Kandek describes the current threat in a recent blog post. Kandek says that the malicious Word document file attachment typically has a legitimate sounding name to lure users into opening it. But, as soon as the victim opens the attachment, the Flash zero-day vulnerability is exploited to install a remote control agent, and then a second Word document is opened which contains the real content. The insidious part is that it all happens in the blink of an eye--much faster than most users would even notice.

I have pointed out that the similarities of the back to back zero-day flaws in Flash seems to indicate they are related, and suggest that perhaps Adobe rushed the patch so much the first time around that it missed some key element of the vulnerability. But, an Adobe spokesperson stressed that the two Flash vulnerabilities are completely unrelates, explaining, "The two vulnerabilities existed in entirely different parts of the code and different ActionScript Virtual Machines (AVMs)."

The affected software includes Adobe Reader X (10.0.1) and earlier versions for Windows, Adobe Reader X (10.0.2) and earlier versions for Macintosh, and Adobe Acrobat X (10.0.2) and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh. Users of these products are strongly encouraged to download and install the updated software as soon as possible.

Adobe is still holding out for the regular quarterly update cycle in June to patch the Windows version of Adobe Reader X. Adobe states that the Protected Mode sandbox security in Reader X for Windows will prevent any exploit from executing, so it does not consider it a priority for developing an out-of-band update.

Amazon cloud disruption hits some startups (Reuters)

Posted: 21 Apr 2011 11:04 AM PDT

– Thu Apr 21, 2:04 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Disruption to Amazon.com Inc servers that host Internet services took down a raft of social networking websites including Foursquare and Quora early on Thursday, underscoring concerns about reliability as more companies turn to the "cloud."

Amazon's "Elastic Compute Cloud," part of the online retail company's cloud-computing service that hosts websites for startups, experienced latency problems and other errors, according to Amazon's status page.

The company said it was dealing with capacity issues amid a flood of queries and information.

Amazon is "now seeing significantly reduced failures and latency and ... continuing to recover. We have also brought additional capacity online in the affected availability zone," it said in the latest update on its status page.

Foursquare, one of the best-known location-based social services from which users can "check in" or broadcast their locations to friends, said it was experiencing technical difficulties as a result of Amazon's service.

"Our usually amazing data center hosts, Amazon EC2, are having a few hiccups this morning, which affected us and a bunch of other services that use them," read a message on the homepage of Foursquare's website on Thursday. The message said "everything looking to be getting back to normal now."

Quora's homepage said the site was down but should be back up shortly.

Cloud computing, or the hosting of sites and services on the Internet, is viewed as the future of computing for consumers and corporations in an increasingly mobile, connected world.

Though experts have warned of security, privacy and reliability issues, corporations -- especially cash-starved Internet startups -- are increasingly seeking to outsource such functions as web-hosting to third-party servers to hold costs down.

Others rely on the cloud to host services -- such as storage of multimedia content -- across a plethora of wireless Internet devices, like smartphones and tablets.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment beyond the messages on its status page.

Shares in Amazon were holding steady, up 0.6 percent at $184.89 in afternoon trade.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Jessica Wohl, editing by Dave Zimmerman)
at 9:44 PM

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