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RIM Indonesia boss suspect in Blackberry chaos (AP) : Technet |
- RIM Indonesia boss suspect in Blackberry chaos (AP)
- Tips For Gallery-Worthy Instagram Pics (Mashable)
- Zynga rival Nexon's Tokyo IPO set at $1.2 billion: source (Reuters)
- The best iPhone travel apps of 2011 (Appolicious)
- Microsoft rolls out Xbox TV platform (AP)
- Apps make gains while text messaging is king in phone use, comSCORE reports (Appolicious)
- Apple may build West Coast data center near newly opened Facebook server farm (Digital Trends)
- Apple fails to block Samsung tablet and smartphone sales in the U.S. (Digital Trends)
- Best Android travel apps of 2011 (Appolicious)
- Carrier IQ Is Misunderstood, Not Evil (Mashable)
- Rate anything and everything with Kevin Rose’s Oink for iPhone (Appolicious)
| RIM Indonesia boss suspect in Blackberry chaos (AP) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 09:12 PM PST JAKARTA, Indonesia – Police say a senior executive of Canada's Research In Motion is a suspect in last month's stampede at a BlackBerry promotion in Indonesia. Police spokesman Col. Baharudin Djafar said Monday that several people fainted and dozens were injured at the global debut of the BlackBerry Bold 9790. The $540 phones — commonly known as Bellagios — were being sold at half price to the first 1,000 shoppers. Djafar said Canadian Andy Cobham, the outgoing country director for RIM, is among four suspects who could face charges of negligence leading to injury. The crime carries a maximum penalty of nine months in prison. Indonesia, a nation of 240 million people, has experienced a come-from-nowhere tech frenzy in recent years. With 6 million users, BlackBerry is more popular in Indonesia that smartphones from other makers. |
| Tips For Gallery-Worthy Instagram Pics (Mashable) Posted: 03 Dec 2011 09:05 AM PST From Oct. 22-23, London's East Gallery will be hosting the My World Shared photography exhibit, which may not seem unusual, until you learn that this will be the first exhibit ever curated to feature only Instagram pics. A community of passionate "Instagrammers" have launched the exhibit and a website that's stocked with info for other Instagram addicts, like city-based groups, photo walks, and tips on how to become Most Popular, how to boost your profile, even "10 ways to make Instagram profitable." [More from Mashable: Secret Hack Reveals New Google Bar [PICS]] If you're looking to up the ante in Instagram yourself, we've rounded up a few tips on how to take better cellphone pics below. Snap away!
This story originally published on Mashable here. |
| Zynga rival Nexon's Tokyo IPO set at $1.2 billion: source (Reuters) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 07:50 PM PST TOKYO (Reuters) – Online gaming firm Nexon Co will raise $1.2 billion after setting the price of its initial public offering at the mid-point of a pre-set range amid solid demand from investors, a source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Monday. Nexon will sell shares at 1,300 yen each after sounding out institutional and retail investors for the global offering last week, settling on the middle of a tentative range of 1,200-1,400 yen, the source said. The pricing comes after U.S.-based rival Zynga, known for its success with games on Facebook, was forced to lower its expected valuation in an IPO this month, due to weak markets and macroeconomic uncertainty. While the Nexon offering was multiple times oversubscribed, a decision was made not to seek the maximum price to ensure a good mix of long-term investors and give the stock a good chance to trade higher after its listing on December 14, the source said. Nexon is due to officially announce the pricing after the stock market close in Tokyo at 01:00 a.m. EST. At the offering price Nexon will raise about 91 billion yen ($1.2 billion), making it Japan's largest IPO this year. It will give the company a market value of 560 billion yen, roughly the same as mobile-based gaming firm Gree Inc. VIRTUAL ITEMS Both Nexon and Zynga offer PC-based games for free, but charge small amounts for in-game virtual items, a business model analysts see as relatively recession-proof. Nexon, whose most successful offerings include role playing game MapleStory and KartRider, posted an operating profit of 30 billion yen in the year to December 2010 on sales of about 70 billion yen. At 1,300 yen Nexon would trade at about 15 times consensus earnings projections for calendar 2012, according to the source, roughly in line with Gree. Demand for the stock was not impacted by a cyber attack in which hackers gained access to personal information on more than 13 million subscribers to MapleStory in South Korea, the source said. Unlike Sony Corp, which was forced to close its PlayStation Network for about a month following a hacking attack earlier in the year, Nexon has kept the game running. Nexon, established in South Korea in 1994, plans to use 14 billion yen of the proceeds to pay off debt, another 9 billion yen to construct a new building for its main subsidiary Nexon Korea Corporation and the remainder on upgrading games systems, including potential investments in third-party games developers. (Reporting by Nathan Layne and Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Joseph Radford) |
| The best iPhone travel apps of 2011 (Appolicious) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 02:30 PM PST |
| Microsoft rolls out Xbox TV platform (AP) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 09:03 PM PST LOS ANGELES – Microsoft Corp. is rolling out a new interface for its Xbox game console users — one that allows you to navigate through music, movies, TV shows and games with the wave of your hand or the sound of your voice. The interface, first demonstrated by CEO Steve Ballmer in September, is set up similarly to Microsoft Corp.'s upcoming Windows 8 operating system with a series of large panes showing content options. Xbox owners with the Kinect motion controller can swipe through screens by waving their hand in the air. It also responds to direct voice commands, and incorporates Microsoft's search engine, Bing. Windows phone users can control what to watch or hear by tapping on their portable devices. The interface will be available to Xbox users connected to the Internet via a download on Tuesday. In a demonstration for The Associated Press, a Microsoft employee demonstrated how saying, clearly, "Xbox. Bing. `Iron Man,' " brought up a selection of movies, TV shows, games and soundtracks related to the title. Saying "Xbox. Show. Movies," brought up places to rent or buy the movie, including Microsoft's Zune store, Wal-Mart's Vudu, Netflix or pay TV channel Epix. Separate subscriptions are required for services like Netflix, and much of the content also requires being a gold member of Xbox Live, a connected Internet service that costs $60 a year. Microsoft expects to have pay TV channel partners, including those supplied by Verizon FiOS. There will be no broadcast partners, so fans of the ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox networks will continue to rely on standard set-top boxes or digital rabbit ear antennas for that content. Microsoft says there have been 57 million Xbox units sold around the world and there are more than 35 million users who have logged on to its Xbox Live service at least once in the last three months. It did not divulge how many Xbox Live users are paying gold members. Ross Honey, general manager of Xbox Live entertainment and advertising, said around 40 content partners were expected for the platform. Available apps from those partners will roll out gradually over time. Other partners include the British Broadcasting Company, Hulu Plus, Disney's online ESPN3 service, Ultimate Fighting Championship, YouTube and cable giant Comcast Corp.'s Xfinity on-demand subscription service. Many of the offerings require separate pay TV subscriptions or one-time payments. Honey said that many deals with content providers are still in the works. "As with any new technology that comes with the entertainment industry, it takes time," he said. "What we have here is a start." |
| Apps make gains while text messaging is king in phone use, comSCORE reports (Appolicious) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 11:00 AM PST |
| Apple may build West Coast data center near newly opened Facebook server farm (Digital Trends) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 08:03 AM PST
Apple's newly launched iCloud service doesn't actually live in the clouds; it requires some serious data-grinding horsepower. The company has a facility in Maiden, N.C. and now there's word that it's looking at a second location, in Oregon, as efforts are made to further expand its data munching capabilities. The news comes from OregonLive, which reveals via "two people with direct knowledge of Apple's plans" that the potential new data center would live in Prineville, roughly a quarter-mile south of a server farm that Facebook established there earlier this year. The report mentions that Oregon has become an increasingly popular location for such things, thanks in part to its "mild weather and relatively low power costs." The big draw, however, is tax breaks, as is often the case with such things. Apple hasn't formally commented on the development, though the company had a team checking out the Facebook facility as recently as this past summer. Oregon has been a potential data center site for a little while now, though Apple's plans for the region were held up due to power constraints. The company now has an option to buy 160 acres of land from Oregon̢۪s Crook County, an option that expires at the end of the month. This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends Desirable employers? Google and Apple, say young professionals |
| Apple fails to block Samsung tablet and smartphone sales in the U.S. (Digital Trends) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 07:03 AM PST
Apple and Samsung have been locked in a patent war for most of this year. It's a complicated situation, and you should check out Digital Trends' full breakdown of the legal dispute if you really want to understand it, but the long and short of it is: Apple alleges that several of Samsung's Android-based smartphones and tablets infringe on its own iPhone and iPad. The iThing-maker has been working to block sales of targeted Samsung devices since the dispute started, and it's a bid that has now been officially derailed. A Friday ruling from U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh officially denies Apple's request for a preliminary injunction against Samsung, Reuters reports. The U.S. is just one of the contested battlegrounds, however, with Apple scoring a victory on Friday as well, when an Australian judge extended a previously placed ban on Galaxy Tab sales for another week. The iOS maker has more than 20 cases pending in 10 different countries, with the U.S.-based lawsuit having been filed in April. Friday's ruling effectively blocks Apple's request that sales of three Samsung smartphone models, plus the Galaxy Tab 10.1, be blocked. The case is far from over for either side, but Apple's failed request is a definite setback. This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends Apple vs. Samsung explained: An overview of the patent battleground Report: Samsung counting the minutes until it sues Apple over the iPhone 5 |
| Best Android travel apps of 2011 (Appolicious) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 11:00 AM PST |
| Carrier IQ Is Misunderstood, Not Evil (Mashable) Posted: 03 Dec 2011 05:54 AM PST Look out! Your phone knows what you're doing. It has your contacts, email messages, SMS text, pictures and video. It gets worse. Your carrier -- AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon -- has to handle some of this information. You hit "send" and then their networks pass along personal email messages to your contacts. Some of these messages also contain your photos and even, if bandwidth permits, video. Horrifying, I know. Now for the worst possible news: Carrier IQ is also, possibly, running on your phone. It was put there by the manufacturers and carriers to help improve network and handset performance, and it can see everything you're doing. That's right -- every action. It's watching. It doesn't stop there. Your computer also has software on it that knows every keystroke, every email and photo. It's called the operating system, and it basically runs everything. But who knows what it's doing with all it knows. Sometimes, you can tell, especially when it tries to help you. Say you're using universal search. How does that work, exactly? Well, it has to index everything on your hard drive and then maintain and update a database so you can find everything matching a keyword search. Some people install powerful system search software like Google Desktop, which can even index chats and instant messages. [More from Mashable: Carrier IQ: We're Not Wiretapping You] Smart systems, in other words, know pretty much everything about us. And when our computer or phone can't find what we need and acts, on occasion, like it doesn't know everything -- like it can't connect the dots between our data and, say, our social and business connections -- we get annoyed. Now, what Carrier IQ is doing is, to be fair, deeper than just pure data. It's watching, at least according to this research, all activity on the phone: Every keystroke and action. This must be a whole new level, right? What kind of software would look at system activity, user actions, which applications are running? [More from Mashable: Carrier IQ and Your Phone: Everything You Need to Know] Debugging software. From the moment I read about Carrier IQ's explanation about what its software does and watched this video, I recognized it as pretty much run-of-the-mill debugging and diagnostic software. If you watch the video you'll notice that while it is in fact recording virtually all activity, it would be nearly impossible for anyone without a programming degree to decipher it. The hieroglyphics spit out by Carrier IQ actually reminded me of code I had seen before. Not on an Android device or even another mobile phone, but on a PC and from a pretty long time ago. Back in the early days of Windows there was a diagnostic utility called Dr. Watson. On Windows 95 and 98, you could run it to collect system activity into a log file that, if you were savvy enough and had some of the right decoding tools, you could use to figure out what was triggering your system crashes. Yes, Windows users -- well most in my industry, at least -- were aware of Dr. Watson. However, on Windows NT, whether you were aware of it or not, Dr. Watson was running, watching and collecting errors -- and potentially more. There were posts online about how to disable Dr. Watson on the OS, but it wasn't easy. You had to dive into Windows Registry. No one was ever harmed by what Watson collected, and the reason most people wanted to disable it was that some thought the doctor was slowing down their PCs. There is, of course, a big difference between good old Dr. Watson and Carrier IQ. Dr. Watson ran, primarily, on desk-bound computers (and early laptops). Carrier IQ runs in your pocket. You could lose your phone and whatever Carrier IQ has collected could be on there. A would-be thief then simply has to, well, unlock your phone, hope you don't remotely brick it, find the Carrier IQ log file, and then figure out a way to read Carrier IQ-speak. On the other hand, if Carrier IQ were removed from all phones -- including yours -- and a thief found one of them, he could still access all recent emails, contacts, and texts, view videos and photos and do a whole lot more, as long someone left the phone unlocked. (Admit it, you don't always lock your phone). My point? This situation is way overblown and spiraling out of control. However, when I asked the relatively tech savvy Google+ audience why people didn't understand that complex systems are always running diagnostic software, they surprised me. Most sided with those who find the very existence of Carrier IQ on phone troubling. Many believe that Carrier IQ is collecting emails and SMS messages and passing them along to carriers (Carrier IQ says it's not). They were also concerned that there's no way to shut down the software or opt out. The last point is somewhat laughable. Do a Ctrl Alt Delete on your Windows computer sometime and look at the process tab. There are dozens of processes running on your computer at any given time, most of them likely unidentifiable to you. Microsoft runs some, other software and utilities you're running are responsible for the others. You didn't explicitly ask for those processes to run, but they come as part of the system or software you're using. You can shut any of them down, but at the risk of harming your computer. For carriers and handset manufacturers, Carrier IQ is very much like one of those processes. I bet it never even occurred to them that they should inform consumers, let alone offer a way to disable the diagnostic tool. Carrier IQ, though, is not blameless -- and I think this whole mess would have disappeared in a hurry if Carrier IQ had not dropped a Cease and Desist order on researcher Trevor Eckhart, who discovered the diagnostic software, wrote a post about it and then and documented Carrier IQ's abilities (virtually unstoppable, voracious tracking on an HTC Android phone) in video. That is, at least in some people's eyes, the act of a company that has something to hide. The reality is it's an act of a company that's not used to dealing with the public. Carrier IQ operates in the background and only deals directly with carriers and manufacturers. Now consumers are looking for ways to disable Carrier IQ on their phone, as if that will in some way improve their mobile experience or protect them from identity theft. This is misguided and in the end, could end up hurting more than it helps as Carrier IQ's carrier and manufacturer customers suddenly find themselves with far less diagnostic information and fewer avenues for measuring service and network quality. If service quality degrades, consumers will finally be harmed -- but not by Carrier IQ. This story originally published on Mashable here. |
| Rate anything and everything with Kevin Rose’s Oink for iPhone (Appolicious) Posted: 04 Dec 2011 10:30 AM PST |
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