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Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Obama at Facebook: New media, traditional tone (AP) : Technet

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Obama at Facebook: New media, traditional tone (AP) : Technet

Obama at Facebook: New media, traditional tone (AP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 08:29 PM PDT

By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press Marcus Wohlsen, Associated Press – 54 mins ago

PALO ALTO, Calif. – President Barack Obama likely has a few more "friends" after a town hall at Facebook headquarters Wednesday, but the real winner may be the medium of social networking itself, which commands not just the attention of politicians but now an appearance from the president.

At the same time, the openness and accessibility praised by Obama himself as a key value of social media clashed with the tightly controlled nature of the event.

Questions came from pre-screened online submissions or hand-picked Facebook employees, and ranged in topic from the national debt and immigration to education and health care.

To anyone who tuned in via a live online feed, it wasn't very different from its televised counterparts. The only difference might have been the average age of the fresh-faced audience, many of whom appeared to be the same age as event moderator and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, 26.

Zuckerberg offered the first question, asking the president about his plan to curb the federal deficit.

Afterward, employees were quickly shuttled out as they rebuffed reporters' attempts to interview them. Facebook is known for its rigorous effort to control its media image, and Zuckerberg seldom grants interviews.

An employee offering a glowing review of his employer and Obama's visit was interrupted by a company spokesman, who declined to give media access to audience members.

It was a stark contrast to Obama's easygoing introduction, when he introduced himself with a joke about the famously informal Zuckerberg.

"My name is Barack Obama, and I'm the guy who got Mark to wear a jacket and tie," he said.

At the end, Zuckerberg presented Obama with a hooded Facebook sweatshirt, the CEO's signature attire.

The event was held in a vast warehouse space on Facebook's Palo Alto campus, just down the road from technology industry stalwarts like Hewlett-Packard Co. Before Obama took the stage, the room buzzed with the anticipation as before a rock concert as employees, industry luminaries, politicians and celebrities such as M.C. Hammer gathered for the Silicon Valley social event of the season.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, posed for smartphone pictures with young admirers, while Jeremy Stoppelman, co-founder of the consumer review site Yelp.com, shared thoughts on how he believed social media could help small businesses. Members of Congress and state government mingled with hundreds of potential voters.

Obama was the first sitting head of state to visit Facebook's brick-and-mortar home, the latest big-name visitor to the tech-savvy region in Northern California that gave rise to social media and the personal computer. He will likely not be the last: the 2012 presidential race is expected to see unprecedented use of social media as a tool to reach voters.

The event capped an influential year of milestones for Facebook, which reached 500 million users last July and became the subject of a critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated movie. Zuckerberg famously built the site in his dorm room at Harvard just seven years ago as a service for classmates.

Today the privately held company is valued in the tens of billions of dollars, maintains offices around the world and has more than 2,000 employees. Zuckerberg, now a billionaire, will be 27 in May.

___

Online:

http://www.livestream.com/facebookguests

Minn. man accused of hacking Facebook accounts (AP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 08:24 PM PDT

Apple earnings strong, couldn't meet iPad demand (AP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:50 PM PDT

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson, Ap Technology Writer – Wed Apr 20, 7:50 pm ET

NEW YORK – Apple Inc. is already the envy of the technology world. On Wednesday, it rubbed it in with quarterly results that had only one blemish: It couldn't make the new iPads fast enough.

"We sold every iPad 2 we could make," Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said.

Apple sold 4.7 million iPads of both kinds in its latest quarter, below analyst expectations and the holiday quarter's sales. It launched the second version of the tablet computer two weeks before the end of the period. Prospective buyers likely held off for the new model, which then turned out to be tough to find.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook told investors on a conference call that timing production lines to the transition from one model to the next is always difficult. He said the company has to make decisions "many, many weeks in advance."

Now, he said, progress is being made on expanding iPad production. The company is expanding sales of the tablet to 13 more countries next week, bringing the total to 39.

"I'm very confident that we can produce a very large number of iPads for the quarter," said Cook, who is known for deft management of supply chains and inventory.

Apple launched the original iPad last April, and it's turned out to be the first really successful tablet computer. The company has sold 19.5 million iPads through the latest quarter.

Analysts now see it encroaching significantly on PC sales. Competitors are rushing out their own tablets, but none have come close to matching the iPad's reception.

Apple said net income for its fiscal second quarter, which ended March 26, was $5.99 billion, or $6.40 per share. That's up 95 percent from $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per share, a year ago.

Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings of $5.37 per share.

Revenue was $24.7 billion, up 83 percent from $13.5 billion a year ago. Analysts were expecting $23.4 billion.

The results were lifted by the record sale of 18.65 million iPhones, millions more than analysts had expected. Verizon Wireless started selling the phone in the quarter, ending AT&T Inc.'s three-and-half-year period of being the only U.S. iPhone carrier. In most of the 90 other countries where the iPhone is available, it is sold by more than one phone company.

Earlier Wednesday, AT&T reported strong iPhone sales, as it continued to upgrade many existing subscribers even in the face of competition from Verizon.

Apple, which is based in Cupertino, Calif., sold 3.8 million Mac computers in the quarter, a 28 percent increase over last year. The increase is particularly notable given that research firms found a contraction of 1 percent to 3 percent in the overall PC market in the same period.

For the current quarter, Apple said it expects revenue of $23 billion and earnings of about $5.03 per share. Both figures are below analyst expectations of $23.9 billion and $5.26 per share, respectively. Apple commonly lowballs its forecasts, but Cook said the effects of the earthquake on the Japanese economy would lower revenue by $200 million, or about 1 percent.

Electronics manufacturers are struggling with disrupted supplies of components from Japan, but Cook said there are no unsolvable problems for Apple in sight.

After the release of the results, Apple shares rose $14.34, or 4.2 percent, to $356.75 in extended trading, climbing more than half of the way to the all-time high of $364.90. They rose 1.4 percent in regular trading earlier.

CEO Steve Jobs went on medical leave in January and did not participate on Wednesday's conference call (he typically didn't participate in earnings calls even before his leave). Cook is running day-to-day operations.

"We do see him on a regular basis and as we've previously said, he continues to be involved in major strategic decisions," Cook said.

There has been speculation that the next iPhone model would arrive some months later than the usual June-July time frame. Cook said nothing substantive in response to analyst questions on the subject.

Cook reiterated Apple's position on 4G "Long-Term Evolution" chips, used for super-high data speeds on Verizon's new network. He said they force design compromises that Apple isn't prepared to make. Competitor HTC Corp. is already selling an LTE phone that uses Verizon's network, but Cook's comments appear to make it unlikely that Apple's next phone would do the same.

Judge to Facebook Debt Collector: Stop. Now. (Mashable)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 03:39 PM PDT

Charlie White Charlie White – Wed Apr 20, 6:39 pm ET

Debt collector stalking you on Facebook? Melanie Beacham says it's harassment, and took debt collector MarkOne Financial to court, trying to get the company to stop sending her Facebook messages about the debt she owed. The company also allegedly sent such messages to everyone else on her Facebook friends list.

Behind on her car payments, Beacham started receiving as many as 23 calls per day from MarkOne Financial before it found her on Facebook, according to the Orlando Sentinel. A Florida judge put a stop to the phone calls and online messages in a preliminary ruling, barring the debt collector from calling her, or from contacting her, anyone in her family, or any of her Facebook friends.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, this is the first court decision of its kind, and it could strike fear in the hearts of debt collectors everywhere, who are eager to use any legal means necessary to get that money back.

The woman didn't have enough money for car payments, but she somehow was able to get an attorney to represent her in court. However, that attorney is Billy Howard, who's in charge of the consumer protection department at personal-injury law firm Morgan and Morgan, a well-heeled outfit that includes big names such as former Florida Governor Charlie Crist. We're guessing the firm is taking care of the expenses of this high-profile lawsuit.

There's another side to the story: The woman needed to pay her bills, or sell her car. She signed a contract to do so. Or, she never should have bought a car she couldn't afford in the first place. But there are always extenuating circumstances. There's middle ground here, where debt collectors should be able to reasonably collect their debts, but within limits.

The question is, where is that line debt collectors shouldn't cross? Commenters, tell us what you think.

Image courtesy Flickr/eric731

Tsunami auction gets $73 million bid for piano (AP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 08:01 PM PDT

– 1 hr 22 mins ago

TOKYO – Yahoo Japan says an online bidder has pledged a staggering $73 million for a crystal piano put up for a tsunami charity auction by a heavy metal band musician.

Yahoo Japan spokesman Kimihiko Sato says they had to suspend the auction after the bidding price for the piano belonging to Yoshiki of X Japan hit six billion yen ($73 million) earlier this week.

Yahoo has emailed the bidder to confirm the intention to buy the piano. Sato said Thursday that the bidder has not yet responded. Yahoo will wait for several days.

The March 11 earthquake and tsunami decimated much of northern Japan, leaving more than 27,000 people dead or missing.

Yoshiki is among 280 artists, athletes and celebrities who joined the auction to raise money for reconstruction efforts.

Prosecutions turn online poker into a shaky bet (AP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 06:20 PM PDT

By OSKAR GARCIA, Associated Press Oskar Garcia, Associated Press – Wed Apr 20, 9:20 pm ET

LAS VEGAS – America's multibillion-dollar run at the online poker tables has been interrupted by what could be a killer hand: federal prosecutions of the three biggest websites.

The government has blocked U.S. gamblers from logging on to the offshore sites, which are accused of tricking and bribing banks into processing billions of dollars in illegal profits. Now gamblers who dreamed of enormous prizes in Las Vegas, or even used online poker to make a living, can't access online bankrolls that in some cases reach six figures.

Some predict the American online poker industry, estimated to be worth up to $6 billion, may fold under the weight of the investigations as it threatens amateur and professional players, televised tournaments and the marketing machine that helped Texas Hold 'em emerge from smoky casinos to become a dominant form of gambling on the Internet.

"It just cut the head off of everything," said Robert Fellner, a 27-year-old Las Vegas poker pro whose roughly $250,000 bankroll on PokerStars was frozen after the indictments. "It's scary. It's much more scary."

Pay-to-play poker sites have been on shaky legal ground for years in the U.S., but the government hadn't prevented gamblers from playing on the three biggest sites — PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker — before last week's indictments of 11 executives and bank officials.

More than 75 company bank accounts in 14 countries have been frozen, and authorities are seeking $3 billion in fines and restitution.

Poker players, meanwhile, now see an FBI notice where the websites once were. Some of them had treated their poker accounts like savings accounts, leaving significant portions of their net worth online and ready to wager anytime.

It appears that they will get that money back, though it's not clear when. The government said Wednesday it had reached agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to restore the companies' domain names so they can return money to U.S. players. PokerStars said on its website that said it expected cashouts to be available to U.S. residents within several weeks

Full Tilt said in a statement that the agreement was a good first step, but that it won't be able to give players refunds until the government gives up control of those funds. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York, however, said in a statement that "no individual player accounts were ever frozen or restrained."

Fellner, who won more than $57,000 at a small World Series of Poker tournament in 2007, is more concerned about how he would make a living without online poker. He said cards have been his only source of income since he was 19, when he matched his annual salary working at a dry cleaner by playing online poker for three months.

Since then, he said he's made more money each year and now plays for stakes that require $5,000 to $15,000 just to comfortably buy in and compete. He wouldn't specify how much he has earned so far this year.

Fellner relies on online poker because the Omaha game he prefers isn't normally offered at his stakes in the vast majority of Sin City casinos. He said he could support himself with savings while he waits for things to play out, but doesn't know what he'll do if he can't replace his income.

"I have friends on Wall Street — they could always get me an interview," he said.

Federal authorities consider the poker sites illegal and follow a 2006 law that made it a crime to process financial transactions related to illegal online gambling. But last week's indictments are the government's first attempt to hold poker site operators to that law.

Players and companies have long argued that the 2006 law didn't properly define illegal gambling or outlaw online poker, which many consider a game that involves more skill than luck.

Unlike games such as blackjack, players gamble against each other, not the casino. Casinos and Internet sites that host poker collect a small percentage of each pot for running the game.

PokerStars and Full Tilt have stopped offering real-money play in the United States, while Absolute has not, according to PokerScout.com, a site that tracks traffic and real-money play on online poker sites. All three sites have free sites using ".net" domain names, and have switched to European domains to keep the gambling flowing outside the United States.

PokerStars and Full Tilt have been telling players through Twitter and other means that their balances are safe.

A customer service representative for Absolute who did not provide a last name said in an email to the AP that the company has suspended deposits, withdrawals and transfers for customers based in the United States.

After the indictments, dubbed "Black Friday" in poker circles, worldwide online poker traffic dropped 22 percent from the prior week, said Dan Stewart, the owner of PokerScout.com.

Before Friday, an average of more than 77,000 players were playing poker for real money in cash games online at any given moment over four days last week. That number dropped to just over 60,000 between Saturday and Tuesday, Stewart said.

PokerStars traffic fell 24 percent, Full Tilt traffic fell 49 percent and traffic on the network that includes Absolute fell 45 percent.

Other sites like Bodog.com and CarbonPoker.com have remained open to American players and saw spikes in traffic in the past week, but their increases are meager compared with the number of players that have stayed offline, Stewart said.

Alexander Ripps, a legal analyst in Washington for independent gambling market analysis firm Gambling Compliance, said it's not yet clear who might step in to take over the U.S. market. The firm estimates the market to be worth $4 billion to $6 billion, but the government's pursuit of the top companies suggests the entire industry is in danger.

Brian Balsbaugh, an agent for famous poker professionals including Daniel Negreanu, Tom Dwan and Phil Hellmuth, said the effects go far beyond players. Full Tilt and PokerStars have spent some $200 million per year on marketing, he said, directly or indirectly funding almost all poker-related television shows, news websites, magazines and several live tournaments.

"These companies, Full Tilt and PokerStars, were wholly responsible for the poker economy and its growth over the last five years," Balsbaugh said.

Cable network ESPN, which counted Full Tilt and PokerStars among its sponsors for poker programming, said in a statement that it has moved quickly to remove TV shows and Web content related to the companies, though it still plans to air the World Series of Poker, by far the most popular tournament for fans and players. An airing of part of the North American Poker Tour — a live tournament organized by PokerStars — was pulled on Monday.

World Series of Poker officials declined to comment, and it's not immediately clear how the indictments will affect its attendance. The 2011 series in Las Vegas includes 58 bracelet tournaments that cost at least $1,500 to enter, including the main event, poker's richest tournament.

Last year's $10,000 buy-in main event attracted 7,319 players and was won by a previously unknown Canadian professional, Jonathan Duhamel, who took home $8.9 million.

There haven't been many major studies on Internet poker and addiction, but a Harvard Medical School study from 2009 said most people who gamble online do so moderately.

For Michael Borg, the loss of online poker has meant he's already started sending resumes for 9-to-5 jobs just three months after deciding to try to make it as a full-time pro. Like Fellner and many others, he is more frustrated with the U.S. government than the companies that hold his $3,000 bankroll.

"It's like we're collateral damage in a war," he said. "What it comes down to is the government wants a piece of that money."

The 25-year-old Sacramento, Calif., community college student said he planned to use poker income to put himself through college without debt, but now he thinks he'll have to find another way.

"It's been stripped away from me," he said. "It's actually really frustrating because I'm pretty good at it."

Fellner said he's not in a rush because he's saved and invested money elsewhere. He said he's waiting to see how the industry will react, and trying to stay optimistic.

As a last resort, Fellner said he'll consider moving out of the country to keep playing online.

___

Associated Press writer Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.

Appeals court confirms TiVo patent infringed by Dish (Reuters)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 05:34 PM PDT

By Liana B.Baker Liana B.baker – Wed Apr 20, 8:34 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal appeals court upheld a ruling that EchoStar infringed TiVo patents for digital recording technology, raising hopes the long legal battle could end with a TiVo victory.

TiVo shares shot up after the ruling, trading more than 30 percent higher in the early afternoon.

The legal battle dates back to 2004, when TiVo accused satellite TV provider EchoStar's Dish Network of violating TiVo's patent for Time Warp software that allows users to record one TV program while watching another.

"The ruling does seems skewed in TiVo's favor," said Maxim Group analyst Mark Harding. "I'm upbeat about the company benefiting from not only a damages award, but potentially from a licensing agreement with Dish."

Dish Network and EchoStar are now sister companies.

Harding did not have an estimate for how much TiVo could get from Dish Network, but added that a licensing agreement could take the form of a "a large upfront cash payment."

The next step is for the patent fight to be sent to a lower court in Texas, where the judge has the authority to shut down Dish digital recorders that infringe on TiVo's patents.

"Faced with an imminent shut-down of millions of DVRs, we believe Dish will be faced with a gun-to-the-head settlement," said Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett in a research note.

Moffett added that shutting down and replacing DVRs could cost Dish upward of $3 billion, saying that figure could wind up as a "benchmark" in a "potentially very costly" settlement with TiVo.

Dish said in a statement it was working as quickly as possible to upgrade customers who might own boxes covered by the lawsuit to newer digital recorders that use different technology.

Dish added in the statement it was "disappointed" by the decision and intends to seek a review, as well as seek a stay of the injunction.

But some analysts said the court decisions were not entirely in TiVo's favor and may not lead to an immediate end to the fight. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit did ask a lower court to reconsider how it reached its decision that EchoStar was in contempt of a permanent injunction related to the infringement of a patent for TiVo's Time Warp software.

For that ruling, TiVo said it "intends to pursue the most rapid path to resolution."

The extended legal battle hurt TiVo's ability to profit from its software patents. California-based TiVo pioneered digital TV recording software, but has posted quarter after quarter of losses as cable companies crowded into its market with cheaper recording boxes.

(Additional reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington; editing by Andre Grenon)

Poor households take lead in abandoning landlines (AP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 03:16 PM PDT

By NOMAAN MERCHANT and ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Nomaan Merchant And Alan Fram, Associated Press – Wed Apr 20, 6:16 pm ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A growing number of Americans are getting rid of their old landline telephones and using only cellphones, a trend led not by the high-tech elite but by people in poorer states trying to save money.

Government estimates released Wednesday show at least 30 percent of adults in 10 states rely entirely on cellphones, with the highest percentage in Arkansas and Mississippi, where many cannot afford to pay for two separate lines.

Wealthier households have been slower to use wireless technology as their sole means of making calls.

"The answer's obvious: No one has money here," said John N. Daigle, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Mississippi with broad experience in the telecommunications industry. "If they can do without a landline, they'll do it to save money."

William Phillips of North Little Rock says he grew tired of paying for a landline his family rarely used. So he and his wife dumped their old phone and now rely instead on prepaid cellphones that cost a total of $75 a month.

Phillips, a 39-year-old commercial pilot, taught his 12-year-old son, who doesn't have a phone, how to email him rather than call when the boy is at home.

"I've heard people talk about it, that they ought to do it," Phillips said. "They're just hanging onto that phone number."

About 35 percent of adults in Arkansas and Mississippi have only cellphones, according to figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In New Jersey and Rhode Island, the states where the smallest proportion of people depend solely on wireless phones, that figure is only 13 percent.

Mississippi has the highest poverty rate in the nation — 21.9 percent in 2009, according to the Census Bureau. The Arkansas figure was 18.8 percent. The nationwide rate is 14.3 percent.

In 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau defined poverty as a single person making less than $11,000 a year or a family of four making less than $22,000 a year.

"I think people decide, 'I can afford one but not the other,'" said Ellen Reddy, who works for a nonprofit community center that helps low-income residents in Holmes County, Miss. She said poor people in her area often have cellphones with a limited number of minutes.

"When the minutes are gone, oftentimes we can't reach our families," Reddy said. "I think people are making choices."

The number of American households that rely exclusively on cellphones has been growing steadily nationwide, hitting 27 percent in the first half of 2010, an eightfold increase in just six years. Arkansas has had the greatest increase, with 15 percentage points. New Jersey's 7 percentage point growth was the lowest.

Donielle Flowers of Little Rock doesn't remember the last time she had a landline. She's chosen to carry one of two cellphones — a free, government-subsidized phone with 250 minutes a month, and a prepaid phone that costs $60 a month.

"It's an extra bill," Flowers, 34, said of landlines. "I'm rarely at home, so I just need a cellphone. I'd be lost without it."

That matches the conclusion of Stephen Blumberg, a senior CDC scientist and an author of the survey. Over the years, Blumberg has found that lower-income people are more likely than higher-earning Americans to have only wireless phones. Younger people and renters are also quicker to shed traditional landlines.

New Jersey is neither young nor poor, and that's keeping it at the bottom of the list, Blumberg said.

On Wednesday, many people walking around the capital city of Trenton were talking on cellphones or texting family, friends and colleagues. Among them was Harry Weaver, a 46-year-old insurance agent who said he loves the freedom and convenience his smartphone provides.

Weaver acknowledged that he "pretty much lives" on his smartphone but said he has no plans to pull the plug on his home landline. As the father of three teenage daughters, Weaver says he wants a "dependable" phone line in case his girls need to reach their parents in an emergency. Some customers feel landlines offer more security, especially if they ever needed to call 911.

"We could probably end our landline service and save some money, but it gives me peace of mind to know there's another way they can reach us if needed," Weaver said.

The latest state-by-state figures, which cover the 12 months through June 2010, may indicate changes are needed in the way some public opinion polls are conducted, Blumberg said.

As the use of cellphones has grown, major pollsters have routinely included cellphone users in the people they call randomly. The number of cellphone users they call reflects national cellphone use, but Wednesday's findings suggest those numbers may need adjustment in states with especially high or low cellphone dependence, he said.

In addition to those in Arkansas and Mississippi, at least 30 percent of adults in eight other states — mostly in the West — rely strictly on cellphones. Those states were Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas.

In eight states besides Arkansas and Mississippi — mostly in the West — at least 30 percent of adults rely strictly on cellphones. Those states were Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas.

At the other end, only six states — mostly in the East — joined New Jersey and Rhode Island in having fewer than 17 percent of adults using only cells. They were Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.

The estimates were based largely on data from the CDC's National Health Interview Survey, for which the agency has interviewed 109,187 households over the past 3 1/2 years.

The government also uses statistics from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey taken between 2006 and 2009, plus information from listed telephone directories. The figures are then blended to produce a single estimate.

The report is available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr039.pdf.

But even in Arkansas, some people are holding tight to their landlines.

"I was taught to have a house phone at home, whether you use it or not," said Dale West, 40, who carries a $60-a-month cellphone and pays about $35 a month for his landline. "Even though you got a cell phone, you never know."

___

Fram reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Miss., and Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, N.J., contributed to this report.

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Obama calls GOP Medicare, spending plan 'radical' (AP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 08:24 PM PDT

By JULIE PACE, Associated Press Julie Pace, Associated Press – 59 mins ago

PALO ALTO, Calif. – President Barack Obama declared Wednesday that congressional Republicans are pushing a radical plan to trim Medicare and Medicaid, ramping up the rhetoric before a friendly Facebook crowd at the headquarters of the popular social networking site.

Still, as Obama and Congress approach crucial decisions on spending and the national debt the president said he thinks a bipartisan accord is possible.

"I think it's fair to say that their vision is radical," Obama told a town hall gathering that included questions posed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and sent in by site users.

"I don't think it's particularly courageous," he said of the GOP plan to convert Medicare to a voucher program and make big cuts to the federal-state Medicaid program for the poor.

"Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor, or people who are powerless, or don't have lobbyists, or don't have clout," Obama said.

Republicans in Congress argue strenuously that Obama's deficit prescription would accomplish far too little and relies on economically damaging tax increases.

The president said he would raise $1 trillion by returning income tax rates for high earners to the levels from Bill Clinton's administration, when the economy prospered. That would force wealthy people like himself and Zuckerberg to pay "a little more in taxes," he said.

"I'm cool with that," Zuckerberg replied, as his employees laughed and applauded.

Other Democrats have called the GOP plan "radical," but the president generally uses less pungent language. Despite the sharp tone on Wednesday, he said he believes his administration and Congress can agree on long-range plans to cut deficits by about $4 trillion over 10 years.

Republican lawmakers have used similar rhetoric in the past to describe Obama's own spending proposals. In March, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Obama's refusal to accept GOP spending cuts would lead to a "radical" decrease in benefits for seniors.

Obama made his comments in a cozy environment — one with 19 million friends, in fact. He told Facebook employees and others watching online the nation must invest vigorously in education, clean energy and research that are vital to future jobs and a strong economy.

Obama's own White House Facebook page is among the most popular anywhere. Some 19 million network users have electronically "liked" it.

Making the case for his deficit-cutting plans, Obama said that one way to trim health care costs could involve doctors sharing medical information on Facebook. Health care is one of the last major industries to rely heavily on paper records, he said, "because a large chunk of our provider system is not automated."

Obama's 2008 campaign used Facebook and other social networks to reach voters, volunteers and donors, especially among young adults. Such outlets will play even bigger roles in the 2012 campaign that's already under way.

Obama, beginning a three-day Western tour pitching his budget plans and raising re-election cash, said trimming $4 trillion from the nation's deficits sounds like a lot but can be done.

He will hold another session Thursday in Reno, Nev., with his message that his approach is more balanced and less painful than the rival House Republican plan.

Obama favors tax hikes on wealthy Americans, which GOP lawmakers oppose. He called for further cuts in the military and other agencies.

The Republican plan would cut tax rates for corporations and high earners, but also close some tax loopholes. It would achieve nearly $6 trillion in savings from spending cuts and overhauling Medicare and Medicaid.

To the average viewer, there was little to distinguish Obama's Facebook town hall from previous question-and-answer sessions he has held with voters, other than the fact that the event could be viewed live by Facebook users.

Zuckerberg was the moderator, asking the first question himself, then calling on Facebook employees in the audience and reading the president questions submitted online.

The company's youthful founder was a friendly referee, praising Obama's education policies. Obama returned the favor, applauding Zuckerberg for the $100 million donation he made to help improve schools in Newark, N.J.

Asked by an employee what he would do differently as president, Obama looked forward, not back. He said he wants to control the debt and deficit, overhaul the immigration system and make the country less dependent on foreign oil by developing domestic and alternative sources of fuel.

He said the legislative battle over the 2010 health care law was long; it consumed more than a year. But Obama said he wasn't sure it could have been done more quickly because the health care system is big and complicated.

The president acknowledged the pain that rising gasoline prices are causing.

"These gas prices are killing you right now," he said, "and so this is the reason why I've said that it is so important for us to invest in new approaches to energy."

Addressing immigration, Obama cast the issue in economic terms and said the long tradition of people coming from other countries with their ideas has helped make America great. He referred to Andy Grove, the Hungarian-born founder of computer chip maker Intel Corp., and said he wants more skilled immigrants like Grove to come and start businesses in the U.S., not in China or in France.

"If we've got smart people who want to come here and start businesses ... why wouldn't we want them to stay," he said. "Why would we want to send them someplace else? Those are potential job creators. Those are job generators."

Amazon to allow library lending of Kindle books (Reuters)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 05:31 PM PDT

– Wed Apr 20, 8:31 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc will start allowing users of the Kindle to borrow e-books from many U.S. public libraries later this year in its latest move to speed the adoption of its electronic reading device.

Amazon, the world's largest online retailer by sales, said that Kindle owners will be able to borrow e-books from 11,000 libraries and make electronic annotations in the books but did not give the exact timing of the service's launch.

Amazon introduced the market-leading Kindle in 2007 and has priced most of the e-books it sells for less than $9.99 to speed up adoption and ward off competition from devices such as Barnes & Noble Inc's Nook and Apple Inc's iPad.

Barnes & Noble introduced library lending at the same time it launched Nook in October 2009.

Amazon shares rose 2.2 percent in morning trading.

(Reporting by Phil Wahba, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

Conga: A Proximity-Based Social Network for Missed Connections (Mashable)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 02:28 PM PDT

Jennifer Van Grove Jennifer Van Grove – Wed Apr 20, 5:28 pm ET

If life is comprised of moments defined by people, places and time, then startup Conga is a matchmaker, weaving together these elements to help users turn missed connections into shared experiences.

Conga, launching in public beta in New York and San Francisco Wednesday, defines itself as a proximity-based social network. It's designed to connect individuals from different social spheres who have or will gather at the same place at the same time.

"It started with a simple idea," explains co-founder Ryan Kennedy, "What if it was possible to go back in time, to nearly any moment in life, and reconnect with people around any of the places we'd ever been?"

Kennedy tells me that part of the motivation for starting Conga came from a personal desire to uncover missed romantic connections -- he was, of course, single at the time. Now happily off the market (but not thanks to Conga), Kennedy still believes that there's something magical about making missed connections not so missed.

"We go through life and interact with all these people, but how do we tap into relationships with people sitting right next to us?," he says. "We're looking to fill that gap."

Conga is structured around the notion of the moment, tapping into the user's location history via Foursquare and Twitter to build out a replete record of where he's been and who else has been. The user can manually enter moments as well.

Each moment has its own page and serves as a point of rendezvous. The site manufacturers a layer of collaboration over these moments to introduce users who have crossed paths and give them a means to communicate and share information.

The startup's most intriguing feature is its ability to list the people the user "congas" with (ie. crosses paths with) under the People tab. Here, Conga unravels the mystery of the unknown and presents the user with his most frequent missed connections. I can, for instance, see that I've crossed paths with Noah, someone I do not know, at least 13 times. Clearly, Noah and I have more in common than we may realize. Conga has merely surfaced these commonalities to subtly suggest that we should connect.

But Conga's purpose extends beyond these person-to-person connections. The founders speak of Conga as a place to reconnect with people you've interacted with in the real world. Weddings, conferences, reunions and other group gatherings are all Conga-worthy because users can come together around a specific place and time to share things that happened at that moment.

The service has a few drawbacks. At launch, it's limited to users in New York and San Francisco, the site is a bit difficult to navigate and overlapping activity will be minimal until more users sign on. Still, there's certainly something to the notion of using location data to fill in the blanks.

Conga is self-funded by co-founders Ryan Kennedy and Todd Fast. The startup is in the midst of raising an angel round to finance operations.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, RonTech2000

iPhone 5 to ship in September (Appolicious)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 06:15 PM PDT

Qualcomm beats Street, raises 2011 targets (Reuters)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:59 PM PDT

By Sinead Carew Sinead Carew – Wed Apr 20, 7:59 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wireless chip maker Qualcomm Inc posted better than expected quarterly results and raised its full-year financial targets on improving demand for advanced phones, and its shares rose 5 percent.

The company, which also sells technology licenses, said demand was strong in most regions of the world and that investor concerns about the wireless phone sales fall-out from massive earthquake in Japan were overdone.

"It was a very strong quarter," said Williams Financial analyst Cody Acree who also noted that the boost to guidance was a good sign for the wireless industry.

"It quells any fears of cellphone weakness similar to Intel's quieting of concerns about PC weakness," he said referring to a bullish forecast from personal computer chip giant Intel Corp the day before.

Qualcomm's Chief Financial Officer William Keitel said demand for high-speed wireless devices was stronger than expected in every region around the globe, helping both its chip and licensing business.

"The total market for 3G devices grew at a much faster pace than we expected and the licensing business benefited very nicely from that," Keitel told Reuters in an interview.

Several analysts said China was a key factor in Qualcomm's strong growth in the quarter.

Analysts had also been expecting strong second-quarter growth partly due to the launch of the first Apple Inc phone using Qualcomm chips and being sold by Verizon Wireless, a unit of Verizon Communications and Vodafone.

While Keitel said iPhone was helping Qualcomm's business he would not comment specifically on the Verizon device.

Qualcomm raised its fiscal 2011 revenue target to a range of $14.1 billion to $14.7 billion from its previous expectation for $13.6 billion to $14.2 billion.

It forecast 2011 earnings per share in a range of $2.51 to $2.59 up from its previous expectation for $2.32 per share to $2.46 per share.

Some investors had worried that industry supply issues stemming from the Japan earthquake would hurt Qualcomm's growth this quarter but Keitel said Qualcomm was not affected.

However the company said that some of its customers were having supply issues in Japan. If they manage to overcome these issues, it would result in higher chip sales, it said without giving specific estimates.

"The impact we're able to see from our vantage point doesn't seem to equate to the level of investor anxiety we've been seeing," Keitel said.

Specific to the U.S. however, the executive said one "pleasant surprise" was strong smartphone upgrades at smaller operators such as Leap Wireless and MetroPCS, which tend to cater to more budget conscious customers.

Qualcomm on Wednesday posted net earnings of $999 million, or 59 cents per share, for its second quarter ended March 27 compared with a profit of $774 million, or 46 cents per share in the year-ago quarter.

Excluding unusual items, it earned 86 cents per share compared with Wall Street expectations for 80 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose to $3.88 billion from $2.66 billion in the same quarter the year before and was ahead of analyst expectations for $3.6 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Qualcomm shares rose to $58.17 in after-market trading after already rising 3.5 percent to finish at $55.27 in the regular Nasdaq session.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Carol Bishopric)

Summary Box: Directors slam early home video plan (AP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:20 PM PDT

By The Associated Press The Associated Press – Wed Apr 20, 7:20 pm ET

HOME PREMIERE: Starting Thursday, DirecTV is offering subscribers a way to watch new-release movies just 60 days after coming out in theaters — half the normal wait — for a rental price of $30.

DIRECTORS CUT: Action directors including James Cameron and Michael Bay have come out against the plan, saying it could cut into theater ticket revenue and result in cinema closures.

SPLIT DIFFERENCE?: Most movies make almost all their theatrical revenue within two months anyway, so the offering may entice families with young children to pay for new movies if they can't leave the house.

Apple crushes forecasts again, iPad backlogged (Reuters)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 04:42 PM PDT

By Poornima Gupta and Noel Randewich Poornima Gupta And Noel Randewich – Wed Apr 20, 7:42 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc's results smashed Wall Street's expectations after iPhone and Mac sales scaled new heights while iPad supplies could not keep up with roaring global demand.

Shares of the world's most valuable technology corporation rose 3 percent after it said a record 18.65 million units of the category-defining iPhone -- its flagship product -- moved in the March quarter, outpacing the 16 million or so expected.

Apple sold just 4.69 million iPads -- which command an 80 percent share of a burgeoning tablet market in which Motorola Inc and Samsung Electronics also compete -- but investors argued that would not detract from strong long-term demand.

But investors largely ignored the lower-than-expected sales for iPads during the quarter as company executives said they were scrambling to meet "staggering" demand and were heavily backlogged for now.

"I'm not going to predict when supply and demand will come into balance," Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said. "I can only be confident on supply side."

Apple's iPad 2 dominated the nascent market for tablets with competing products like Research In Motion's PlayBook receiving poor reviews from customers and experts.

The stellar results on Wednesday came as concern is growing over how component supply constraints after Japan's earthquake and tsunami would squeeze margins and restrain iPhone and iPad sales in coming months.

"Dynamite numbers across the board. The only hiccup is lower than expected iPad numbers," said Capital Advisors Growth Fund portfolio manager Channing Smith.

"We can attribute some of the weakness to stocking issues at some of the retail outlets and obviously the supply chain issue in Japan. Unfortunately, the supply chain issue will likely persist for the coming months but once we get past summer and the supply chain issues are resolved it's all systems go again for Apple."

Apple executives told analysts on a conference call they foresaw a hit to revenue this quarter of about $200 million -- less than 1 percent of projected global quarterly sales -- but expected no cost impact.

The company, known for its tight relationship with Asian suppliers, stands at the head of the queue for electronics components even if the supply crunch continues. Japan accounts for an estimated 6 percent of overall revenue.

"We source hundreds, literally hundreds, of items from Japan, and they range from components such as LCDs, optical drives, NAND flash and DRAM, to base materials such as resins, coatings," Cook said.

Apple did see some revenue impact from the crisis during the second quarter but it was not material to the results, Cook said, adding that he does not see any unsolvable problems related to the disaster.

On rising prices for memory chips, Cook said he felt "good" for the third quarter as the company does not typically buy in the spot market.

"Beyond Q3, I'm saying I'm not sure because it's tough to see that far," he said.

IPAD SALES MISS TARGETS

The March quarterly report was Apple's first under the stewardship of Cook after Chief Executive Steve Jobs went on his third medical leave in January.

Cook, who is known as an operations and supply chain maven, said his boss -- who has undergone a liver transplant and survived a rare form of pancreatic cancer -- still played an active role in important decisions.

"He is still on medical leave but we do see him on a regular basis. He continues to be involved in major strategic decisions. I know he wants to be back full time as soon as he can," Cook told analysts.

Apple's iPad sales in the quarter fell well short of Wall Street's expectations: some analysts had projected shipments of closer to or even more than 6 million for the tablet computer launched on March 11.

But the lower-than-expected number could be attributed to the fact that Apple recognizes revenue from its stores when its customers receive the products. The initial wait time for the iPad 2 was four to five weeks.

"We sold every iPad 2 we could make and the demand was stunning," Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer told Reuters in an interview.

Apple's results come as it prepares to build the next iPhone model with a faster processor, which will begin shipping in September, three people with direct knowledge of the company's supply chain said on Wednesday.

Cook declined to comment on launch plans for the next iPhone.

It reported a net profit of $5.99 billion, or $6.40 a share, while revenue surged 83 percent to $24.67 billion. That surpassed expectations for $5.37 in earnings and $23.4 billion of revenue.

A large spike in sales of Mac computers, driven by the refreshed MacBook Pro, beefed up March-quarter earnings. Apple said it sold 3.76 million Macs, up 28 percent from a year ago.

Gross margins in the fiscal second quarter came to 41.4 percent, above Wall Street's average forecast of 39.03 percent.

Apple, which generally provides an ultra-conservative forecast, said it expected June quarter earnings of $5.03 a share on revenue of about $23 billion.

"IPad shipments were significantly lower than my estimates I think because of supply constraints," said Gabelli & Co analyst Hendi Susanto. "What impressed me was the gross margin."

Shares of Apple rose 3 percent to $353.67 after hours, from a regular session close of $342.41 on Nasdaq. They had fallen about 3 percent since Japan's quake.

The company's stock -- which is trading at roughly 18 times forward earnings, versus 19 times for Google and 10 times for Microsoft -- is considered a must-have in any technology portfolio.

(Additional reporting by Jennifer Saba and Yinka Adegoke in New York, writing by Edwin Chan; Editing by Edwin Chan and Richard Chang)

Apple devices logging movements: researchers (AFP)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 12:37 PM PDT

– Wed Apr 20, 3:37 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A pair of British security researchers said Wednesday that the latest version of Apple's operating system for the iPhone and the iPad is constantly recording the location of the devices and storing the information in a hidden file.

Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden said the position-logging feature is contained in iOS 4, the operating system for the Apple devices which was released in June of last year.

"Ever since iOS 4 arrived, your device has been storing a long list of locations and time stamps," they said in an article posted at the website radar.oreilly.com.

"We're not sure why Apple is gathering this data, but it's clearly intentional," the researchers said, adding that it raises a number of "security and privacy implications."

"By passively logging your location without your permission, Apple have made it possible for anyone from a jealous spouse to a private investigator to get a detailed picture of your movements," they said.

"What makes this issue worse is that the file is unencrypted and unprotected, and it's on any machine you've synched with your iOS device," they said. "It can also be easily accessed on the device itself if it falls into the wrong hands.

"Anybody with access to this file knows where you've been over the last year, since iOS 4 was released," they said.

Allan and Warden announced their findings at the Where 2.0 conference in San Francisco. They were first reported in The Guardian newspaper.

Allan and Warden said they had contacted Apple's product security team about their findings but had not heard back.

They said the device stores latitude and longitude coordinates along with a time stamp, probably through cell-tower triangulation,

They noted that cellphone companies typically have access to this data but it is not usually stored on a mobile device itself.

Google to Offer Cloud Service for Digital Maps (PC World)

Posted: 20 Apr 2011 10:30 AM PDT

Juan Carlos Perez Juan Carlos Perez – Wed Apr 20, 1:30 pm ET

Google will open up to third parties its digital maps infrastructure so that enterprise organizations can use it to store and serve up geospatial data to their end users.

Called Google Earth Builder, the new cloud service will be unveiled on Wednesday and is expected to be commercially available in this year's third quarter. Google will provide pricing information later on.

After putting their mapping data on the Google cloud, enterprises can make it available to their employees, partners or customers through end-user tools like Google Maps online service and API or the Google Earth desktop application.

"Google Earth Builder is Google's mapping platform in the cloud, for organizations that deal with mapping data, whether it's hundreds of terabytes or a few base maps layers," said Dylan Lorimer, Google's enterprise Earth and Maps product manager.

"They can upload that content to the cloud and have access to push-button tools to process that data, build Maps and Earth layers from it, and securely publish those layers to their end users who are going to access the layers through familiar tools like Google Maps and Earth," he added.

By relying on Google Earth Builder, enterprises can save on storage and server provisioning, maintenance and tuning, which can be substantial and complicated when dealing with mapping data, he said.

Google Earth Builder will be officially unveiled at the Where 2.0 Conference in Santa Clara by Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of location and local services.
at 9:34 PM

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