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Sony, Samsung dissolve panel joint venture (AP) : Technet |
- Sony, Samsung dissolve panel joint venture (AP)
- Physicist builds Lego Large Hadron Collider (Yahoo! News)
- Dump GoDaddy Day Dec. 29 Declared by Reddit User [VIDEO] (Mashable)
- Netflix, Gap lag in customer satisfaction online (Reuters)
- Online holiday spending rises 15 percent: comScore (Reuters)
- Woman and baby being held hostage saved after Facebook status update (Digital Trends)
- Infographic: The shrinking price of mobile (Digital Trends)
- Google+ passes 60 million users with help from the Muppets (Digital Trends)
- App downloads at Christmas for iOS and Android devices break record (Digital Trends)
- iPhone apps to properly prepare for New Year’s Eve (Appolicious)
- GSM phones vulnerable to hijack scams -researcher (Reuters)
- Google launches YouTube Slam to encourage video discovery (Digital Trends)
- Foxconn to double its iPhone plant’s size, output (Appolicious)
- UC Berkeley Moving from CalMail to Google Apps (NewsFactor)
| Sony, Samsung dissolve panel joint venture (AP) Posted: 26 Dec 2011 12:01 AM PST TOKYO – Japan's Sony and South Korean rival Samsung are dissolving their joint venture in liquid crystal display panels as Sony tries to stanch years of losses in its TV business. Sony Corp. said Monday that Samsung Electronics Co. will buy all of Sony's shares in the joint venture for about 1.08 trillion Korean won ($935 million) subject to a final agreement. The joint venture called S-LCD was set up in 2004. Sony, which fell behind in flat panel TVs, invested in a Samsung panel factory to ensure a steady supply of panels for its LCD TVs. Sony's TV operation has lost money for seven straight years and the company is straining to return that key business to profit. The prices of TVs as well as panels have been dropping so it makes more sense to buy panels at the market rate than to invest in production. Sony, which makes Bravia TV sets, does not make its own LCD panels. It said it will enter a new partnership with Samsung to buy panels, and will also continue buying panels from other manufacturers. Sony said it will suffer a loss of 66 billion yen ($846 million) for the third quarter of this fiscal year, which ends later this month, because of the declining value of investment in S-LCD. Getting out the production venture will produce substantial savings after January 2012, when the deal is completed, according to Sony. It was still unclear how Sony's profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2012 will be affected, said company spokesman Takashi Uehara. ___ Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at http://twitter.com/yurikageyama |
| Physicist builds Lego Large Hadron Collider (Yahoo! News) Posted: 23 Dec 2011 07:30 PM PST |
| Dump GoDaddy Day Dec. 29 Declared by Reddit User [VIDEO] (Mashable) Posted: 26 Dec 2011 02:56 PM PST [brightcove video="1347944471001 " /] Reddit user SelfProdigy has declared Dec. 29 Dump GoDaddy Day, following the domain registrar's short-lived public support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Although GoDaddy has announced that it no longer supports SOPA, the site is still facing the backlash from its initial position. [More from Mashable: iTunes 12 Days of Christmas App Offers Free iPad Downloads [VIDEO]]
Despite the public reversal in a press release, Dump GoDaddy Day is quickly spreading among the Reddit community. [More from Mashable: TwitWipe Gives You a Fresh Start by Deleting All Your Tweets [VIDEO]] The domain registrar reportedly lost 20,000 accounts in a single day following the SOPA outcry, but only time will tell how many accounts they will lose. This story originally published on Mashable here. |
| Netflix, Gap lag in customer satisfaction online (Reuters) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 09:07 PM PST (Reuters) – Netflix Inc and Gap Inc were among the worst performers in customer satisfaction among the largest online retailers this holiday season, according to a survey released on Wednesday. Overstock.com Inc came last out of the 40 largest online retailers, with a rating of 72 out of 100, down 4 points from last year, the survey by ForSee found. Gap.com, Gap's main website, was second last with 73 points, down 5 from a year ago. Other laggards included buy.com and websites run by Sony and Toys R Us, ForSee said. Customer satisfaction is important for retailers because it can lead to higher sales, more loyalty and increased word-of-mouth recommendations, ForSee said. Netflix saw the biggest decline in customer satisfaction in ForSee's most-recent survey after the company tried to raise prices and split its DVD and video-streaming services. The plan was scrapped after customers defected. "Netflix totally misread its customer base and is paying the price, damaging its brand among both consumers and investors," said Larry Freed, chief executive officer of ForSee. Netflix shares lost more than half their value this year, with most of the damage coming after the company unveiled its intention to split its services. Netflix had come close to customer-satisfaction leader Amazon.com in previous ForSee surveys. But in the latest poll, Netflix dropped 7 points to 79, the largest decline of any retailer in the survey. Amazon climbed 2 points to 88 to lead ForSee's survey for the 14th consecutive time. ForSee runs the poll about every six months. The biggest gainer was TigerDirect.com, a tech gadget and parts website owned by Systemax Inc, which climbed 6 points to 79. Another big gainer was JCP.com, J.C. Penney's website, which rose 5 points to 83. That put the retailer in a tie for third place with QVC.com, Apple's online store and VistaPrint.com. (Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) |
| Online holiday spending rises 15 percent: comScore (Reuters) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 03:33 PM PST (Reuters) – U.S. consumers spent more than $35 billion online this holiday season, up 15 percent from the same period last year, comScore Inc (SCOR.O) estimated on Tuesday. Online spending reached $35.27 billion from November 1 through December 26, versus $30.59 billion during the corresponding days of the 2010 holiday season, comScore reported. (Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) |
| Woman and baby being held hostage saved after Facebook status update (Digital Trends) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 08:24 PM PST
According to a story in the Associated Press, a woman in Utah and her 17-month old baby were removed from a home where they were being held captive for the past five days after the woman posted a Facebook status update pleading for help. According to an account from the hostage, she ducked into a nearby closet with her laptop and wrote "Hello…is anyone out there? I am having a serious problem and me and (my son) will be dead by morning," on her Facebook page on December 24. Friends of the woman were able to determine where she was being held and alerted the authorities of her dire situation. Critchfield had previously been convicted of felony assault on the same victim during 2010 as well as obstruction of justice charges. While the judge sentenced him to a five year prison term, that punishment was suspended for a 120-day jail term and three years probation. Facebook also played a role in the capture of a fugitive earlier this year as well as a standoff with a SWAT team in Utah This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends NYC fugitive busted after taunting police on Facebook ‘Offensive comments’ tops reasons Facebook users delete friends: Nielsen Dutch airline wants you to use social sites to choose who you sit by Microsoft’s So.cl learns a lesson from Facebook and puts college students first |
| Infographic: The shrinking price of mobile (Digital Trends) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 07:53 PM PST Those old enough will recall the days when a mobile phone really wasn't that mobile at all, requiring a trolley to push the giant block around and a winch to lift it to your face. Thank goodness those days are long gone, and with every new mobile device comes a slew of new features, with each model better value for money than the last. A neat little infographic, which first appeared on the savings.com blog, gives some great examples of just how much technology has progressed in the last three decades. Called The Shrinking Price of Mobile, it focuses on how consumers get more features for their buck with the passing of time, beginning with the foot-long $3,995 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X that could do little more than make calls (with its one-hour talk time). Oh, you could store up to 30 numbers on it, too. Weighing in at two pounds, you could also give your arm a workout every time you wanted to use it. The infographic ends with the mobile phone of 2020. Priced at around $200, it expects that the device of tomorrow will come with even longer battery life, e-payment support and better graphics, together with all of the other features we enjoy today. But as savings.com points out, it's not all good news for our wallet, as while the cost of phones comes down, the increasing number of features on the phones helps to ensure that the monthly bills stay high. This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends Samsung suing Apple over emoticons Telenav announces free turn-by-turn navigation in any HTML5-capable browser |
| Google+ passes 60 million users with help from the Muppets (Digital Trends) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 08:58 PM PST
According to unofficial tracking conducted by Google+ watcher and Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen, the upstart social network is rapidly gaining new users and recently passed 62 million users as of December 25. He also estimates that approximately 625,000 people are signing up for Google+ each day and the network will likely break through 100 million users by late February 2012. Assuming that the current rate of growth continues over the next year, Google will have nearly 300 million users by the end of 2012. However, Allen predicts that the rate of growth on Google+ will accelerate and the search company will have over 400 million Google+ users by the end of next year. While the rapid growth of the Google+ user base is definitely a promising sign for the search company, the amount of active users is still a mystery and recent estimates seem to indicate that it's a small fraction of total users. Experian Hitwise recently tracked a bit over 9 million visits to Google+ during the week ending December 17, but that trails far behind the 15 million visits during launch week in September with a much smaller user base.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends Google+ expected to pass 18 million users, growth rate slows Google+ Hangouts head to wall posts and Messenger |
| App downloads at Christmas for iOS and Android devices break record (Digital Trends) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 06:23 PM PST
From its research, Flurry discovered that a record breaking 242 million app downloads took place on Christmas Day, more than double the 108 million daily average downloaded from December 1 to 20. That's an increase of 125 percent. "Nearly a quarter of a billion downloads occurred on Christmas Day 2011, which is more than double any other day in the history of iOS and Android devices, except December 24, which delivered roughly 150 million downloads," Flurry Analytics said on its website. The analytics firm has come up with a neat chart (below) showing an hour by hour breakdown of how many apps were downloaded by smartphone and tablet owners on Christmas Day, compared to the average for December 1 to 20. To obtain the data, all time zones were normalized so that 7am in London matched 7am in, for example, San Francisco. On Christmas Day, it appears that an average of around 14 million apps an hour were being downloaded by users between roughly 10am and 9pm, where the number begins to fall off sharply. Presumably the large dinner and consumption of one too many alcoholic beverages are beginning to take their toll at this point, with many a smartphone and tablet no doubt sliding off a bloated tummy as its owner sits snoring on the sofa. There were plenty of people clearly in no mood for a lie-in on December 25, with an astonishing 720,000 apps downloaded between 5am and 6am. Perhaps the figures aren't so surprising when you take into account that on Christmas Day a record 6.8 million new iOS and Android devices were activated, way more than the daily average for the first 20 days of December of just 1.5 million. Christmas Day 2010 saw only 2.8 million device activations in comparison. Flurry arrived at its findings by collecting data from over 140,000 apps using its software, which is able to detect almost 100 percent of all iOS and Android device activations that take place each day. [Image: Reno Martin / Shutterstock] This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends Hands-on with the Google+ app for iPhone Lodsys switching tactics, now going after Android developers |
| iPhone apps to properly prepare for New Year’s Eve (Appolicious) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 01:27 PM PST |
| GSM phones vulnerable to hijack scams -researcher (Reuters) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 12:44 PM PST BERLIN (Reuters) – Flaws in a widely used wireless technology could allow hackers to gain remote control of phones and instruct them to send text messages or make calls, according to an expert on mobile phone security. They could use the vulnerability in the GSM technology -- which is used by most telecom operators globally and by billions of people -- to make calls or send texts to expensive, premium phone and messaging services in scams, said Karsten Nohl, head of Berlin-based Security Research Labs. Nohl is a well-regarded expert on mobile security who last year identified a bug in GSM technology that makes calls vulnerable to tapping. He says he is calling attention to these flaws to pressure the industry into beefing up the security of their products. Mobile security is a hot issue because hackers are paying unprecedented attention to the devices as smartphone sales have outpaced sales of PCs. Only a few flaws have been found in GSM technology - which stands for Global System for Mobile Communications - over its 20-year history. Industry lobby group GSMA said on Tuesday it did not expect the new findings to affect its views on the security of the technology. "The GSMA and its mobile network operator members are confident in the security of existing 2G GSM networks and real attacks on real networks against real customers are most unlikely," it said in a statement, adding that newer technologies are safer and not impacted by the new research. GSMA's statement "on anticipated GSM security announcements" did not make clear whether the industry group had actually seen Nohl's latest research. Security experts have previously identified a small number of viruses designed to infect smartphones, allowing hackers to take control of the devices and force them to make calls or send text messages. But Nohl said he has discovered a way to leverage previously disclosed vulnerabilities in GSM technology that could potentially threaten hundreds of thousands of phones. "We can do it to hundreds of thousands of phones in a short time frame," Nohl told Reuters ahead of a presentation on the topic at a hacking convention in Berlin on Tuesday. SECTOR IN FOCUS Smartphone malware is popping up at an unprecedented rate as people put more and more valuable information on the devices, using them to hold corporate secrets, conduct banking and function as digital wallets. GSM became the dominant mobile technology globally in the late 1990s and even though new, faster mobile networks have been rolled out across the world, operators have stuck to their GSM networks to support older phones and to offer service when new networks fail. The Berlin convention takes place just days after U.S. security think tank Strategic Forecasting Inc (Stratfor) said its website had been hacked and that some names of corporate subscribers had been made public. Activist hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility. Attacks on corporate landline phone systems are fairly common, often involving bogus premium-service phone lines that hackers set up in countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. Fraudsters make calls to the numbers from hacked business phone systems or mobile phones, then collect their cash and move on before the activity is identified. The phone users typically do not realize the problem until after they receive their bills, and telecommunications carriers often end up footing at least some of the costs. Even though Nohl will not present all details of possible attacks at the conference, he said hackers will usually replicate the code needed for attacks within a few weeks. T-MOBILE, SFR LEAD NEW RANKING Mobile networks of Germany's T-Mobile and France's SFR offer their clients the best protection against online criminals wanting to intercept their calls or track their movements, according to a new ranking Nohl will unveil at his presentation. The new ranking, at gsmmap.org, is conducted by security researchers, who hope this will heighten the awareness of operators and consumers on the vulnerability of their mobile communications. Researchers reviewed 32 operators in 11 countries and rated their performance based on how easy it was for them to intercept the calls, impersonate someone's device or track the device. "None of the networks protects users very well," Nohl said. The sample is set to grow from 32 carriers dramatically next year as the tool enables anyone to participate in data gathering by downloading measuring software to their phones. Nohl said mobile telecom operators could easily improve their clients' security, in many cases by just updating their software. Researchers reviewed operators in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Slovakia, Switzerland and Thailand. (Additional reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Matt Driskill, Vinu Pilakkott and Matthew Lewis) |
| Google launches YouTube Slam to encourage video discovery (Digital Trends) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 06:53 PM PST
Announced within an official blog post earlier today, Google rolled out a method of comparing two videos called YouTube Slam. Designed by a team of developers within Google Research, the video discovery tool places videos into five different categories including dance, music, bizarre, cuteness and comedy. The user clicks a category and launches a new page with two competing YouTube videos. After the user watches both videos, they click the blue voting button underneath one of the videos. If the user chooses the video that's the most popular among other YouTube users, they receive two points as well as increases the multiplier between votes. If the user chooses the most popular video several times, the multiplier continues to double and the amount of points could earn the user a spot on the Slam leaderboard. Since the launch of the project, the most popular category has been Comedy resulting in over 200,000 votes from approximately 25,000 people. Google plans to roll out new selections each week and the choices are curated by internal employees likely using an algorithm to categorize each video. With the creation of YouTube Slam, Google hopes to encourage more YouTube users to discover new videos while participating in a game at the same time.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends More from Digital Trends Viral Video: FedEx delivery man throws computer monitor over fence YouTube creates a school-friendly version with access to thousands of educational videos |
| Foxconn to double its iPhone plant’s size, output (Appolicious) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 07:24 AM PST |
| UC Berkeley Moving from CalMail to Google Apps (NewsFactor) Posted: 27 Dec 2011 10:18 AM PST A major university has decided to migrate to Google Apps for Education as its cloud-based email and calendar provider. The decision by the University of California at Berkeley represents a substantial victory for Google's cloud-based platform in its ongoing effort to catch Microsoft Office 365. Google contends that its approach was built entirely with the cloud in mind, while Microsoft has expanded and optimized its widely-used local apps to the cloud. In an attempt apparently to garner greater market share, Google offers its solution to educational institutions for free, although the University said it looked at other factors besides price. Transition Time The entire campus community, including students, faculty, and staff, will migrate to Google Apps next year. The current CalMail system, which recently suffered an outage, and CalAgenda will remain in effect until the transition is completed. Microsoft software will still be used on campus, as local installations under a site license agreement. Both Advantageous With regard to its comparison of Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps, the University said in a statement that both products are feature rich and offer advantages over the current environment. However, the analysis concluded that the Google offering would be a better overall fit for the campus at this time. In the category of Speed of Migration and Deployment, for instance, the evaluation gave the advantage to Google. One of the stated advantages in this factor was that, with a "multiple Google Apps instances" model, they could allow for large subdomains to independently plan and execute their own migrations. Support of Migration and Deployment also went to Google, at least in part because of support the University hopes to receive from peer institutions, including UC Santa Cruz and the Lawrence Berkeley Lab. The University pointed out that the University of Nebraska has not yet completed its migration to Microsoft Office 365, although the process began during the summer. Not All Thumbs Up for Google While the Berkeley decision represents a win for Google, actual implementation represents the next hurdle. In fact, Google Apps has had a number of failed migrations. Last week, the City of Los Angeles announced that its police department was abandoning plans to migrate to the 'Google Apps for Government' cloud platform because of FBI security concerns. Reports indicate the L.A. Police Department will remain indefinitely on Novell GroupWise apps, although other city departments will use the Google platform. On the plus side, Google won the Ease of Tools Development in the UC Berkeley comparison, as well as migration of Mailman migration lists, and Administration. Google also won the comparison for Integration with Collaboration Tools, although Berkeley noted that both Google and Microsoft offer "a more integrated collaborative environment than what currently exists on campus." Advantage Microsoft Office 365 The University analysis gave points to Microsoft for its high-level of integration between the Office 365 components, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online. While integration between Office 365 and third-party apps was available through PowerShell and Exchange Web Services APIs, the University noted that it does not widely support those technologies. Microsoft scored higher than Google Apps on Authentication, in part because Google does not allow all passwords and authentication information to be kept on-site. Microsoft also won On-Premise Integration with email or calendar software, which Google Apps does not offer. In User Familiarity, Google took the win for Overall, for Current Google Users, and for Users with Multiple Berkeley Accounts, while Microsoft won for current Outlook and Exchange Users. Mobile Integration was determined to be a draw. As the next step, the University is hoping to make its move from CalMail to Gmail within six to ten weeks. |
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