Just Show Me: How to use iMessage on your iPhone or iPad (Yahoo! News) : Technet

Just Show Me: How to use iMessage on your iPhone or iPad (Yahoo! News)
Tech Buzzwords Make Shortlist for Word of the Year (Mashable)
Baidu to invest 3 billion yuan to help Chinese SMEs (Reuters)
Black Friday online sales jump 26 percent: comScore (Reuters)
Shoppers spent more cash over Thanksgiving weekend: NRF (Reuters)
NSN CEO sees no more cash from Nokia, Siemens: report (Reuters)
Teen tweeter won't apologize to Kan. governor (AP)
Analysis: Sprint network upgrade may curb unlimited data (Reuters)
Yipit’s personalized daily deal aggregator goes mobile (Appolicious)
Threatdown for mobile viruses? Maybe not (Appolicious)
Why a Facebook phone is doomed to be the next Zune (Digital Trends)
Skyrim fans release all in-game books for Kindle, Nook and iOS (Digital Trends)
Online Black Friday spending is up nearly 25 percent over last year (Digital Trends)

Just Show Me: How to use iMessage on your iPhone or iPad (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 06:25 PM PST

Tech Buzzwords Make Shortlist for Word of the Year (Mashable)

Posted: 26 Nov 2011 09:28 AM PST

Lauren Drell Lauren Drell – Sat Nov 26, 12:28 pm ET

The Oxford English Dictionary has chosen its (two-word) word of the year: Squeezed Middle. Last year's word of the year was big society, and the word of 2009 was unfriend. Those who spend time on Twitter might have guessed that OWS, occupy or 99% would have come out on top this year. They didn't come out on top, but they did make the shortlist, alongside some notable tech buzzwords. Gamification, clicktivism and crowdfunding made the U.S. shortlist, while hacktivism, sodcasting (playing music on your phone's speaker in a public place) and -- not surprisingly -- phone hacking made the UK list.

Here's the full U.S. shortlist for 2011's word of the year, along with OED definitions:

Arab Spring: A series of anti-government uprisings in various countries in North Africa and the Middle East, beginning in Tunisia in December 2010.
Bunga bunga: Used in reference to parties hosted by the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, at which various illicit sexual activities were alleged to have taken place.
Clicktivism: The use of social media and other online methods to promote a cause.
Crowdfunding: The practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.
Fracking: The forcing open of fissures in subterranean rocks by introducing liquid at high pressure, especially to extract oil or gas.
Gamification: The application of concepts and techniques from games to other areas of activity, for instance as an online marketing technique.
Occupy: The name given to an international movement protesting against perceived economic injustice by occupying buildings or public places and staying there for an extended period of time.
The 99%: The bottom 99% of income earners, regarded collectively.
Tiger mother: A demanding mother who pushes her children to high achievement using methods regarded as typical of Asian childrearing.
Sifi: A bank or other financial institution regarded as so vital to the functioning of the overall economy that it cannot be allowed to fail, a.k.a. "systemically important financial institution."

The English language is ever evolving. Retweet and sexting were added to the dictionary in August, and earlier this year, Oxford acknowledged LOL, <3 and OMG.

[More from Mashable: Is Phone Hacking Ever Justified? [OPEN THREAD]]

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Baidu to invest 3 billion yuan to help Chinese SMEs (Reuters)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 07:53 PM PST

– 1 hr 52 mins ago

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China's largest search engine Baidu Inc said on Monday it will invest 3 billion yuan ($470.6 million) by the end of 2015 to help 2 million small- and medium-sized enterprises expand their businesses.

As part of the investment, Baidu will groom 100,000 search marketing professionals, help small- and medium-sized enterprises develop their service platforms, provide free marketing about less developed regions and help government departments in their research on business, Baidu said, confirming a Xinhua report issued late on Sunday.

China, with more than 485 million users, is the world's largest Internet market. Yet, with Internet penetration hovering around 36 percent and user sophistication outside the big cities still low, the potential for growth is huge.

In the third quarter, China's online search market grew 77.8 percent to 5.51 billion yuan. Baidu had a 77.7 percent share of the market, while Google had 18.3 percent, according to data from Beijing-based consultancy iResearch.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Black Friday online sales jump 26 percent: comScore (Reuters)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 06:21 PM PST

By Alistair Barr Alistair Barr – Sun Nov 27, 9:21 pm ET

(Reuters) – Online retail sales in the United States on the post-Thanksgiving shopping day known as "Black Friday" jumped 26 percent this year, led by Amazon.com Inc, comScore said on Sunday.

Black Friday online sales reached $816 million, making it the heaviest spending day on the Internet so far in 2011, according to comScore, a closely watched tracker of Internet activity.

Year-over-year growth on Black Friday in 2010 was 9 percent, so this year's 26 percent sales increase online was much stronger, the firm also noted.

Bricks-and-mortar retailers offered big Black Friday discounts much earlier this year and some companies opened stores late on Thanksgiving for the first time, hoping to grab more of the action on what is a crucial shopping day for the industry.

That sparked some speculation that online retailers may lose some sales, but comScore said that did not happen.

"With brick-and-mortar retail also reporting strong gains on Black Friday, it's clear that the heavy promotional activity had a positive impact on both channels," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said.

Fifty million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday, representing an increase of 35 percent versus a year ago, comScore data showed.

Each of the top five retail websites saw double-digit gains in visitors versus last year, led by Amazon.com. Wal-Mart ranked second, followed by Best Buy, Target and Apple, comScore said.

"Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year," Fulgoni said.

Fulgoni forecast another record for online sales on Cyber Monday, which is traditionally the first day after Thanksgiving when employees return to offices and purchase items with their work computers.

Last year, Cyber Monday sales topped $1 billion, making it the heaviest day of online spending ever, according to comScore.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Dale Hudson)

(This story was refiled to fix the spelling of comScore throughout)

Shoppers spent more cash over Thanksgiving weekend: NRF (Reuters)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 11:38 AM PST

– Sun Nov 27, 2:38 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – More people headed to stores and websites over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and average spending per person rose 9.1 percent as bargain-hunting shoppers scooped up discounts on everything from gadgets to hoodies, a National Retail Federation survey on Sunday showed.

The trade group's survey found that a record 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites over "Black Friday" weekend, up from 212 million last year.

It defines the Black Friday weekend as Thursday, Friday, Saturday and projected spending for Sunday.

The average spending for the weekend rose to $398.62 per person from $365.34 a year ago. Total spending reached an estimated $52.4 billion versus $45 billion in the year-ago period.

According to its survey, the destination of choice appeared to be department stores, with nearly half of holiday shoppers visiting at least one.

About 38 percent of shoppers said they went to discount retailers this weekend, while almost 31 percent visited electronics stores.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving that typically is seen as the start of the holiday shopping season.

(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

NSN CEO sees no more cash from Nokia, Siemens: report (Reuters)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 06:46 AM PST

– Sun Nov 27, 9:46 am ET

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The chief executive of Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), the world's second-largest maker of mobile phone network equipment, has warned employees NSN cannot expect any more money from its parent companies, a German magazine reported on Sunday.

Parents Nokia and Siemens have provided capital "for the last time" and expect this investment will provide results, Spiegel reported, citing a copy of a letter sent from Rajeev Suri to NSN's 9,000 employees in Germany.

"Our profitability is still too low, we're burning cash reserves, have too many business areas that have never produced adequate returns and regions that have always been loss-making," Spiegel cited the letter as saying.

NSN has struggled to make a profit since being set up in 2007 and last week announced plans to axe 17,000 jobs, or nearly

a quarter of its workforce.

Nobody at NSN was immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Additional reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by David Holmes)

Teen tweeter won't apologize to Kan. governor (AP)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 05:19 PM PST

Analysis: Sprint network upgrade may curb unlimited data (Reuters)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 08:50 AM PST

By Sinead Carew Sinead Carew – Sun Nov 27, 11:50 am ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sprint Nextel may be forced to abandon the biggest advantage it has over its rivals -- unlimited data services for a flat fee -- because of heavy data users and a shortage of wireless airwaves.

Moreover, the increasing likelihood that AT&T's plan to buy T-Mobile USA, the nation's fourth-largest mobile operator, will fail may have the paradoxical result of making Sprint's position even more untenable, according to analysts who follow all three companies.

Sprint, the nation's third-largest mobile service provider, is planning to upgrade its network with the latest mobile standard, Long Term Evolution. But it is launching that service with only half the wireless airwaves bigger rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc have assigned, leading experts to suggest that the popularity of Sprint's unlimited data plan could put a strain on the network or slow down Web surfing speeds.

Sprint has assigned just 10 megahertz of spectrum for the launch compared with its rivals' 20 megahertz, analysts say. It will have to reassign airwaves being used for other services in order to expand its capacity for LTE.

Unlike AT&T and Verizon, which cap data use to stem overcapacity issues brought on by heavy users, Sprint is the only big U.S. carrier still selling unlimited data for a flat fee to users of smartphones, including the Apple Inc iPhone, on its current network.

"It's a very bare-bones implementation of LTE," said Tolaga Research analyst Phil Marshall. "The risk is, if you don't have headroom as your LTE subscriber base grows, then the speeds will go down."

In that situation, Marshall does not see Sprint being able to continue to offer unlimited services.

"Unlimited is going to kill them," he said. "I think they're going to have to back off from the all-you-can-eat plan."

Unlimited data is a strong selling point for Sprint, which has been struggling for years to retain customers. For Sprint to keep the marketing advantage it has over rivals, one option could be for it to institute usage caps that are considerably higher than those of its competitors.

"That's a lever they can play if they run into being constrained," said an industry source who asked not to be named due to a lack of authorization to speak publicly. "It's inevitable that they will eventually have to put caps (on their data use)."

SPRINT: NO HEADACHE

Sprint, which is spending $7 billion to upgrade its network to LTE by the end of 2013, says concerns about its capacity are overblown, arguing that advanced technology allows it to make the most of its spectrum resources. Bob Azzi, a Sprint executive in charge of the company's network, said the company's plans assume that it will keep its unlimited data service during the LTE rollout.

"I don't consider it a headache," he told Reuters, "We have a good understanding of the nature of those plans and what they do."

Azzi added that the section of the 1,900 megahertz spectrum band Sprint has set aside for LTE is currently unused. He also plans to reallocate spectrum in its 800 megahertz band to use for the high-speed service by early 2014, provided it can secure regulatory approval to do so. That spectrum is currently being used by the aging iDen service Sprint hopes to shut down in mid-2013.

Sprint is also in talks with Clearwire Corp, its majority-owned venture, about expanding their partnership to cover LTE. Sprint currently depends on Clearwire's network for its fastest service based on WiMax technology, and the latest talks are aimed at allowing it to piggyback on Clearwire's LTE to help it boost capacity in the "hottest of hotspots" by 2014 when Azzi says Sprint will need more capacity.

But the future of Sprint's tempestuous relationship with Clearwire is murky since it is not yet certain if Clearwire will raise the roughly $1 billion in new funding it needs to upgrade its network to LTE.

Clearwire lost one-third of its value after Sprint said on October 7 that a bankruptcy filing by the company could be "constructive." Clearwire shareholders again fled on November 18 after the company said it may skip a debt interest payment due December 1. Many analysts saw that pronouncement as a negotiating tactic to try to force Sprint's hand into an agreement with favorable terms for Clearwire.

SOAP OPERA

One investment manager described the Clearwire/Sprint relationship as a "soap opera" that will end with an agreement because they are both heavily dependent on each other.

"In the short term Sprint doesn't need them beyond (WiMax) but they do need them later," said the manager, who asked not to be named.

Even if Sprint and Clearwire reach an agreement, however, Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett is skeptical about how much it would help because of the frequency Clearwire's spectrum is on, which he said causes signal problems within buildings.

"Now that the person next to you at the conference table is surfing away on Verizon ... the shortcomings of Clearwire become painfully apparent," Moffett said.

Moffett also noted that even if Clearwire upgrades its network, it will still have coverage for only about one-third of the U.S. population because it would need to raise a lot more funding than it is currently seeking to extend its network into new markets.

Since Sprint has already had to tap capital markets for $4 billion in debt and needs up to $3 billion more in funding for its own network upgrade, analysts are skeptical it can come up with the money to help Clearwire expand further.

"What are you going to do with the (rest) of the United States? You can't just limp around on one leg," said Moffett, who has a "hold" rating on Sprint due to the uncertainty around its strategy.

The uncertainty around AT&T's deal for T-Mobile USA is another big wrinkle in the Sprint story. On Thursday, AT&T withdrew its application for deal approval with the Federal Communications Commission, saying that it would focus on its legal battle with the Department of Justice. If that deal is approved, it leaves Sprint as a distant No. 4. But if it is blocked, as many analysts now expect, T-Mobile USA may look for another partner, according to the investment manager.

Instead of forging a deal with Clearwire or Sprint, Moffett suggested that T-Mobile USA would instead turn to U.S. cable operators such as Comcast Corp and Time Warner Cable. Some investors had hoped these companies would come to Sprint's aid as they are part-owners in Clearwire. But since the cable operators have unused spectrum in the same band as T-Mobile USA, Moffett suggested that the cable providers would instead create a partnership with that company if it has to abandon the AT&T deal.

Sprint has loudly opposed the AT&T/T-Mobile USA deal, a position that Moffett said was against its best interests.

"Now Sprint loses its logical partners in the cable operators," said Moffett, who described a potential cable/T-Mobile deal as a "match made in heaven."

Moreover, some analysts said that the $6 billion breakup package AT&T will have to pay T-Mobile if the deal fails would make T-Mobile into a more formidable rival to Sprint in the market for cost-conscious mobile consumers.

The uncertainty means that Sprint does not "know exactly how desperate they are at any given point in time," the investment manager said, noting that Sprint's $2.38 share price speaks volumes about investor confidence in the operator's strategy.

"It shows there's not a whole lot of faith out there that they'll be able to successfully execute on these things," this person said.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Peter Lauria and Matthew Lewis)

Yipit’s personalized daily deal aggregator goes mobile (Appolicious)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 11:30 AM PST

Threatdown for mobile viruses? Maybe not (Appolicious)

Posted: 27 Nov 2011 10:00 AM PST

Why a Facebook phone is doomed to be the next Zune (Digital Trends)

Posted: 26 Nov 2011 04:45 AM PST

Rob Enderle Rob Enderle – Sat Nov 26, 7:45 am ET

In the list of bad ideas, the rumored "Facebook phone" (which will apparently be built by HTC and may fork the Android code base) is arguably one of the worst ideas since… well, the Zune. Let's explore that today by looking at some of Microsoft's own missteps with the ill-fated PMP, and where Facebook and HTC seem to be repeating them.

Zune

To recap the history of the Zune, Microsoft made three massively strategic mistakes over the last three decades. The first mistake Microsoft made was to build the Zune MP3 player. The company started off in media players by helping create the "Plays for Sure" platform with hardware partners like SanDisk and Samsung. One of the things partners are often afraid of in this situation is the platform creator becoming too powerful and effectively replacing them altogether, which is effectively what Microsoft did by creating the Zune MP3 player. In effect, (though I doubt it thought this through at the time), Microsoft could have helped lay the groundwork for Android. The other two similar mistakes were the original Xbox and the Kin phone, in my opinion.

You never want to put yourself at odds with your key revenue source and sow seeds of distrust, but the Zune did that with partners. It was also a colossal failure at the same time, which upset retailers and made them lose their trust in Microsoft.

How did Microsoft arrive at the decision to make the Zune? By looking out at the "Plays for Sure" partners and concluding they were all idiots because not a single one had come up with anything as popular as the Apple iPod. Yet the Zune failed massively, suggesting a good chunk of the reason for that was not (as Microsoft assumed) the partners' fault, but Microsoft's own lack of resources to the effort.

Arguably, the Zune is one of the most expensive failures that Microsoft has ever had, all because it betrayed its partners and then under-resourced the effort. What a waste.

Facebook Phone

Facebook isn't in Microsoft's business, so its mistake isn't identical, but it's also massively counter-strategic (in this case more for HTC than for Facebook). You see, HTC is on the other side of the Zune problem. Just as Microsoft lost trust from its hardware partners, an OEM like HTC stepping out against their software partner should have the same kind of collateral damage.

In this case, HTC has strong relationships with both Google for Android and Microsoft for Windows Phone 7. One of the key standout features for Windows Phone 7 is social networking and in particular, Facebook integration (Facebook and Microsoft are partnered). Google, on the other hand, is at war with Facebook with Google+, and monetizes Android after-the-fact with services like Google+. On paper, Android's connection to Google services is what makes it works. (I could argue that economically this actually doesn't work, because by competing with Apple and Microsoft, Google lost more than they gained… but we'll save that for another time.)

So, HTC taking Android and possibly forking it (effectively denying Google at least some of the revenue and breaking the hard connection to Google+) would really upset Google. Meanwhile, taking Android to build a Facebook phone rather than a Windows Phone 7 would really upset Microsoft. In effect, both Microsoft and Google could put HTC in the doghouse at once, making the other phone makers really happy. Samsung, the company that has never met an OS it didn't like, is thinking of doing one of these as well, which should alone, be a red flag for everyone else.

Then we look at Facebook. Is it really going to be able to promote a piece of hardware? Does it really want to go to war with Apple and every other device manufacturer? Right now Apple, Microsoft and others spend lots of time on Facebook, but they aren't likely to continue if they view Facebook as a potential competitor.

Facebook should be focused on building the best Facebook app for every major platform. Going into competition with these platforms and phone providers could alone turn them into the next Netscape. This may partially explain why Microsoft is thinking of building its own social network all of a sudden.

Opportunity cost and collateral damage

What the hell goes through executives' minds when they make mistakes like the Zune, Kin, and this foolish Facebook phone?

They're dreaming of the upside of being the next Apple, without considering the collateral damage and opportunity cost that is more likely to make them the next Netscape. The reason for this is that they apparently are hardwired to fail. This post suggests that decisions like this come out of a need to assure status at all costs. Sounds whacked, until you read the post. But for me, I think a Facebook phone is just plain stupid.

Guest contributor Rob Enderle is the founder and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, and one of the most frequently quoted tech pundits in the world. Opinion pieces denote the opinions of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Digital Trends.

This article was originally posted on Digital Trends