Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts

Apple may have sold up to 4 million iPhones to businesses in Q4






As we’ve mentioned countless times, it’s a good thing that RIM (RIMM) will release BlackBerry 10 soon, because otherwise Apple (AAPL) and Android will continue to wreck its market share among enterprise users. Benzinga reports that Trip Chowdhry, a managing director at Global Equities Research, has put out a research note estimating that Apple sold between 3 million and 4 million iPhones to businesses over the past quarter, some of whom have switched over from BlackBerry.


[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]






“This figure emerges from a combination of new purchase of iPhones and users switching to iPhones from Blackberry,” Chowdhry writes. “After the two-year contract expiration on Apple iPhone[s], [the] majority of the enterprises have replaced their employees’ current phones with the new iPhone 5.”


[More from BGR: Nokia predicted to abandon mobile business, sell assets to Microsoft and Huawei in 2013]


As for reasons why more companies are switching to the iPhone, Chowdhry says that salespeople for key enterprise apps such as Salesforce, Workday and VMware are increasingly “demonstrating their enterprise offering on iPhones, which is also acting as a trigger for enterprises to purchase iPhones for their employees.” Chowdhry also thinks that the advent of mobile device management software has boosted the iPhone’s security capabilities and has made it less risky for companies to adopt.


This article was originally published by BGR


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7 Apps for Creepers






1. Sneakypix


Ever been waiting on the train platform, minding your business, only to glance to your left and find yourself face-to-face with a grown-up nose picker? In this day and age, our first inclination is to snap a discreet photo. Sneakypix makes it appear as if you’re on a phone call, but instead, aim your camera lens at the nasal aficionado and the app will fire off a series of stealth photos or video. Price: $ 0.99


Click here to view this gallery.






[More from Mashable: Mom Gives Son a Christmas iPhone — With Strings Attached]


Do you have a smartphone? Then chances are you’ve been a creeper.


Now don’t get all defensive, just yet. How many times have you snapped a photo of some hipster’s pink beard on the subway? How often do you send racy pictures to your husband during his business trips? How many times have you wondered whether your teenager was smoking pot on the Williamsburg Bridge or visiting his grandma in Queens?


[More from Mashable: 9 Apps to Fast-Track Your New Years’ Resolutions]


While we’re not advocating sinister, paranoid behavior (take a hike, stalkers), sometimes it’s helpful and downright fun to act like James Bond. And it turns out, you don’t need all the slick gadgets to do it.


These seven iPhone and Android apps will get you started, secret agent-style.


But seriously, for the love of Carl, don’t do anything illegal. Mmm-kay?


Image courtesy of iStockphoto, klosfoto


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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14 Solutions to Your New Year’s Midnight Kiss






Find a Baby


There’s got to be one crawling around somewhere. What’s cuter than kissing a baby’s fat cheek? Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images


Click here to view this gallery.






[More from Mashable: Here’s a Depressing Look at Man’s Impact on Earth]


Do you find yourself in a panic every New Year’s Eve because everyone’s counting down and Billy Crystal has yet to explain all of the reasons why he’s madly in love with you?


No? Oh okay — me neither.


[More from Mashable: Watch the Scariest Skiing Lesson of All Time]


But the final holiday of the year can put a lot of unnecessary pressure on people. We want to end and begin each year with a bang — this often means the perfect outfit, an amazing soiree and the midnight kiss that will sweep you off your feet.


Instead of starting 2013 in a state of panic, then promising to be better later, enjoy New Year’s Eve and stop worrying about a silly superstition. We’ve come up with a couple solutions to the big smooch at the end of the night.


Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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It’s Easy to Save Videos From Facebook Poke Permanently






Apps like Snapchat and Facebook Poke let users send short messages, photos or videos that automatically self-destruct after a few seconds. However, it’s actually very easy for a recipient to save some of those messages permanently — and without the sender knowing.


Both apps will alert the sender if the recipient takes a screengrab of whatever was sent, of course, but by connecting your phone to a PC or Mac, the messages can be secretly offloaded without the sender knowing — a possibility first reported by BuzzFeed. For an iPhone, all you’ll need is a third-party file manager like iExplorer.






[More from Mashable: Facebook in 2013: More Growing Pains Ahead]


For Poke, only videos can be permanently stored in this manner, and only videos that you haven’t already viewed. But it’s very easy. Once you’ve installed your file manager, connect your iPhone and you should see a list of your apps. Select the Poke folder, then navigate to Library>Caches>FBStore>315_14_>MediaCache. There you should see every Poke video that you haven’t yet watched. (See screencap below.)


[More from Mashable: NYC Releases App to Tell You When the Next Subway Is Coming]


From there, all you need to do is drag and drop the files to any other folder on your computer to copy and store them. After that, you can open the file in Poke, let it self-destruct, and the sender will be none the wiser.


Although permanent storage only works for videos in Poke, performing similar steps for Snapchat will let you save both videos and photos.


While it’s a bit surprising that it’s so easy to save messages that are ostensibly deleted permanently, it may be a stretch to characterize this file caching as a “vulnerability” of the apps, which are generally intended for casual use. Facebook‘s official statement on the matter appears to take this stance:



“Poke is a fun and easy way to communicate with your friends and is not designed to be a secure messaging system. While Pokes disappear after they are read, there are still ways that people can potentially save them. For example, you could take a screenshot of a photo, in which case the sender is notified. People could also take a photo of a photo you sent them, or a video of a video, with another camera. Because of this, people should think about what they are sending and share responsibly.”



What do you think of the potential for someone to save a Facebook Poke or Snapchat message? Let us know in the comments.


Top image courtesy of iStockphoto, JimmyAnderson


Facebook Poke: Startup Screen


Poke, the new iPhone app from Facebook, lets you send short messages, photos and videos to friends that automatically self destruct after a few seconds. If you have the Facebook app on your phone already, logging in is effortless.


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This story originally published on Mashable here.


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8 Ways to Keep Your Screens Looking Brand New






1. Toddy Gear Smart Cloths


Toddy Gear brings coutre to screen cleaning with its line of Smart Cloths. Elegantly designed with dual-sided 100% microfiber cleaning surfaces, these are more than just cleaning tools — they’re a fashion statement. $ 14.99 Cleaning Pro Tip: Press gently when cleaning screens, LCD monitors in particular, because too much pressure can damage pixels or cause them to burn out faster than normal.


Click here to view this gallery.






[More from Mashable: Find the Right Maid Service with Bidmycleaning]


Holding your shiny new device in your hand — the one you’ve been cooing over since its release date was announced before the holidays — you’re giddy with excitement. All your shiny new toys have plastic factory screen protectors that you’ll soon discard, but no matter — you just can’t help but slide and swipe your fingers across your screens.


Those protectors had some merit when it came to keeping your shiny new screen clean. Over time and with use, grease and dust will accumulate and smudge across your screen. The screens of yesteryears were made of glass and could be easily cleaned with water or other household products. Today, device screen are likely LCD or Plasma and require more care than older CRT monitors did.


Relax though, no need to worry. There are ways to keep your screens looking shiny and new, like it just came out of the box.


Click through the gallery above for some tips and helpful products to keep your devices spic and span. Let us know your secret techniques for clean screens in the comments.


Image courtesy of Flickr, SJL


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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‘We Are Young’ Performed on Vintage Computer Parts






Old computer parts find new life as rock stars with a little help from YouTube user BD594. The “band” — we’ll just call ‘em the Ctrl-Alt-Deletes — perform a delightfully geeky rendition of the hit fun. song “We Are Young.”


[More from Mashable: If Santa Were a Hipster]






Vintage hard drives provide the beat as a Yamaha CX-5 tickles the ivories and an HP Scanjet 3C plays frontman with the vocals. Pssh, and you thought the Rolling Stones looked old and outdated.


[More from Mashable: 10 People Who Suffered Awkward Christmas Moments]


BONUS: Top 12 Memes of the Year


12. Photobombing Stingray


Five years ago, three college girls on a Caribbean vacation got a serious case of the heebeejeebies when a stingray photobombed their “say cheese” moment. The hilarious photograph could have ended up as just a fond vacay memory if it weren’t for a friend, who shared the image on Reddit in September of this year.


Click here to view this gallery.


Thumbnail image courtesy of YouTube, BD594


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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How ‘Doctor Who’ Kept Its Big Christmas Secret Off Twitter






Tonight Doctor Who fans get to gorge on their annual Christmas fix — a full-length special episode the series has produced every year for the holiday since 2005. This time, however, there’s some extra spice in the form of a new regular cast member: Jenna-Louise Coleman debuts in “The Snowmen” as the Doctor’s next companion.


Except it’s not her debut. Coleman actually made her first appearance in the series premiere back in September. Actually, make that surprise appearance. In preseason interviews, Doctor Who‘s producers had explicitly told fans they’d have to wait until Christmas before they’d see Coleman in the show.






[More from Mashable: Top 10 Twitter Pics of the Week]


But there she was, fighting Daleks and making soufflés, way ahead of schedule. This was unheard of for the series, which has seen major plotlines leak online — usually months before broadcast — several times over the past few years. The show had gotten to the point where it would simply announce any major developments far in advance in order to get ahead of the spoiler hunters.


Yet somehow the show’s producers kept Coleman’s early debut a secret — a feat made even more challenging since there were several preview screenings of the episode, each attended by hundreds of rabid fans, all carrying smartphones. How did Doctor Who keep every single one of them from tweeting about it?


[More from Mashable: How Music Ruled Twitter in 2012]


“I asked. That’s it,” says Steven Moffat, Doctor Who‘s current showrunner. “I don’t think anyone thought it would work. I certainly didn’t. At the London premiere, I just stood up and said, ‘Please, nobody, no fan, no newspaper — nobody at all — mention that she’s in it. And to my surprise it worked.”


Moffat says the idea of misleading the audience about when Coleman would debut “grew” as he was writing the current series. But it almost didn’t happen since others at the BBC wanted to get ahead of the news and announce her presence at the first preview screening. Moffat, however, was convinced (rightly, it turns out) that he could persuade the fans and journalists in attendance to guard the secret.


“They tried to talk me out of it at the last minute,” he says. “And it did involve a lot of charming journalists and saying ‘Please don’t…’ It was the polite embargo, really. We couldn’t really embargo it. And I was always clear, ‘There is no punishment here. You don’t get blacklisted — I’m just asking, and the show will be better if you keep this secret.’ And they did.”


But did really not a single person on fire off a quick tweet about Coleman being on the show? It appears so. Although Twitter doesn’t offer a way to search tweets within a specific date range, searching the Twitter domain on Google during the month of August (the series premiered on Sept. 1) for her name reveals just regular promotion for the show.


“You can get a long way just by asking politely,” says Moffat. “Who knew that’s all you had to do? What’s remarkable about it is not one single person broke. And I really didn’t think that was going to work, because if any website had broken it — if any forum had broken it — the press would have just leapt in. They would have felt no further need for restraint. But they didn’t.”


Now Coleman makes her “proper” debut in the Christmas special, but is she playing the same character as before (who was — spoiler alert — abruptly killed off), or someone different? Moffat’s already told fans not to expect any great explanations under the tree. What’s going on with Coleman’s character (characters?) won’t be fully revealed until the series returns in the New Year.


But who knows? Maybe that’s another mislead.


Will you be watching Doctor Who tonight? Does the show still surprise you? Share your thoughts in the comments.


Doctor Who Returns


Matt Smith (The Doctor) and Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) attended a special screening of the premiere of Doctor Who Series 7 at New York City’s Ziegfeld Theater. The episode, “Asylum of the Daleks,” debuts on BBC America on Sept. 1.


Click here to view this gallery.


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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Facebook’s SnapChat-Style Sexting App Is Called Poke (Seriously)






Oh, well would you look at Facebook, trying to make a Christmas funny with its SnapChat copycat app. It’s called Poke! Get it? Because SnapChat is what the kids are all using for their sexting these days, apparently, and Poke — you know, that once kinda flirty Facebook future that’s now pretty much useless — can kind of do the same thing, and it kind of sounds like some bad sexual pun, too! Funny, Facebook, very funny, and way to admit the dirty little truth behind “poking” that we knew all along.


RELATED: Facebook to Launch Its Own SnapChat as Social-Network Clone Wars Live on






Oh, wait. They’re serious? Oh, yeah: Friday afternoon Facebook released Poke, its rumored iPhone app for the incredible vanishing half-message “that makes it fun and easy to say hello to friends wherever you are.” But don’t get too heavy on the old-school “Poke” comparisons, because the new app can actually send regular messages, photos, or videos, too — but only for short periods of time, because that is apparently what the kids like doing these days, if SnapChat’s huge success is any indication. There’s more of a time-bomb component to Poke, though: users can choose how long someone sees a poke before it ceases to exist forever — so you could sext poke all day long, because that, too, is apparently what the kids like doing these days, if SnapChat’s huge, smashing, sexy success is any indication.


RELATED: The Life and Philosophy of Mark Zuckerberg


Why would anyone use Poke over SnapChat? Well, the Facebook app itself has a much smoother interface than SnapChat, and you can report people behaving badly, and everyone’s already on Facebook, right? Maybe this is the breaking point Justin Bieber could never hit, when something sexy goes from the tween set to actual human beings. We’ll let you know when Poke shows up in our iPhone’s App Store; for now we’re not entirely sure if this is just some bad joke. (Although it is in the iTunes Store, so… we’ll see?)


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Google working on “X Phone”, “X” tablet to take on rivals – WSJ






(Reuters) – Google Inc is working with recently acquired Motorola on a handset codenamed “X-phone”, aimed at grabbing market share from Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.


Google acquired Motorola in May for $ 12.5 billion to bolster its patent portfolio as its Android mobile operating system competes with rivals such as Apple and Samsung.






The Journal quoted the people saying that Motorola is working on two fronts: devices that will be sold by carrier partner Verizon Wireless, and on the X phone.


Motorola plans to enhance the X Phone with its recent acquisition of Viewdle, an imaging and gesture-recognition software developer. The new handset is due out sometime next year, the business daily said, citing a person familiar with the plans.


Motorola is also expected to work on an “X” tablet after the phone. Google Chief Executive Larry Page is said to have promised a significant marketing budget for the unit, the newspaper said quoting the persons.


Google was not immediately reachable for comments outside regular U.S. business hours.


(Reporting by Balaji Sridharan in Bangalore; Editing by Richard Chang)


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Reacting to users’ outcry, Facebook’s Instagram reverts to prior policy on advertising






SAN FRANCISCO – Instagram has abandoned wording in its new terms-of-service agreement that sparked outcry from users concerned it meant their photos could appear in advertisements.


In a blog post late Thursday, the popular mobile photo-sharing service says it has reverted to language in the advertising section of its terms of service that appeared when it was launched in October 2010.






Instagram is now owned by Facebook Inc. and maintains that it would like to experiment with different forms of advertising to make money.


Its blog post says that it will now ask users’ permission to introduce possible ad products only after they are fully developed.


The outcry to the changes announced earlier this week led the company to clarify that it has no plans to put users’ photos in ads.


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New Online Privacy Loophole Lets Facebook Advertise to Kids






Mark Zuckerberg‘s been eager to find a way to get more kids on Facebook for years, and on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission handed it to him on a platter. That might be overstating it a little bit. It’s more like the FTC served it to him on a platter covered in plastic wrap with a note attached that says “Do not open.” Nevertheless, should Facebook decided to see what’s inside, experts in online privacy for children say the social network could legally start peddling everything from kids’ bicycles to that new gender-neutral Easy Bake Oven.


RELATED: German Official Urges Citizens to Stop Using Facebook






After months of deliberating and plenty of lobbying on both sides of the issue, the FTC updated the controversial Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) this week. The changes were absolutely designed to better protect children in the privacy-invading era of social media, especially from the data-hungry advertisers who want to sell them things. Websites like Facebook don’t allow kids to sign up without their parents permission, generally because COPPA has prohibited them from collecting the kinds of information they need to serve them ads. And why would they want a user to whom they couldn’t serve ads? Under the new FTC rules, parental permission is required for just about anything a kid would do on Facebook, including uploading photos, videos and geolocational information. Tracking tools like cookies are also verboten without a parent’s permission.


RELATED: What Police Learn About You When They Subpoena Your Facebook Account


But there’s a loophole. The new rules say very plainly that no parental permission is needed “for the sole purpose of supporting the website or online service’s internal operations, such as contextual advertising, frequency capping, legal compliance, site analysis, and network communications.” The key phrase there is “contextual advertising,” which is an ad product Facebook has been working on for a while. Facebook’s version basically reads your News Feed and shows you ads that are relevant, or contextual, to what you’re reading. As a few people have pointed out, this opens a door for Facebook to start exploring the idea of ad-supported profiles for kids. Alan Simpson, the vice president of child privacy advocacy group Common Sense, isn’t happy about this idea. “Common Sense doesn’t like this part, and the industry lobbyists probably do,” he told TechCrunch Monday evening.


RELATED: What Facebook Does to Kids’ Brains


Now, there are a lot of ifs in this scenario. Based on the magnitude and sensitivity of the issue, Facebook probably doesn’t want to go scaring a bunch of parents by sneaking through loopholes to show their kids Easy Bake Oven ads. It has been nearly a decade and a half since COPPA got an update, though, and Mark Zuckerberg isn’t really known for his patience. Of course, Facebook could do what they’ve been doing for ages, which is look over their shoulder while kids lie about having permission and sign up anyways.


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Leak reveals Polaroid’s Android-powered camera with interchangeable lenses






Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy Camera and Nikon’s (NINOY) Coolpix S800c are just the beginning of a swath of Android-powered cameras. Newly leaked images and specs point to Polaroid reviving its camera business with what could be the world’s first Android camera with interchangeable lenses. With no official name yet, the tentatively named IM1836 camera will reportedly feature a 18.1-megapixel sensor, 3.5-inch touchscreen, pop-up flash, Wi-Fi, HDMI and Android 4.0.


[More from BGR: A guide to all the insane predictions made by Google’s new engineering director]






The Galaxy Camera and Coolpix S800c do a fine job taking pictures that are considerably better than what you get from a smartphone, but they still can’t match a mirrorless camera with a good lens. At first glance, Polaroid’s camera looks to be a rebadged Nikon 1 J2, but the resemblance only runs skin deep, as PhotoRumors reports the camera only takes MicroSD cards.


[More from BGR: How not to fix Apple Maps]


Polaroid might not be a major player, but as more companies start incorporating Android into their cameras, there’s going to be a shift in the features consumers expect from them. In the next few years, novelty features such as Wi-Fi, cellular data and photo editing apps will be the norm and we’ll laugh at how we ever lived without them.


This article was originally published by BGR


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Judge rejects Apple injunction bid vs. Samsung






(Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Monday denied Apple Inc‘s request for a permanent injunction against Samsung Electronics‘ smartphones, depriving the iPhone maker of key leverage in the mobile patent wars.


Apple had been awarded $ 1.05 billion in damages in August after a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad. The Samsung products run on the Android operating system, developed by Google.






Apple and Samsung are going toe-to-toe in a patents dispute that mirrors the struggle for industry supremacy between the two companies, which control more than half of worldwide smartphone sales.


For most of the year, Apple had been successful in its U.S. litigation campaign against Samsung. Apple convinced U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California to impose two pretrial sales bans against Samsung — one against the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the other against the Galaxy Nexus phone.


Apple then sought to keep up the pressure after its sweeping jury win. It asked Koh to impose a permanent sales ban against 26 mostly older Samsung phones, though any injunction could potentially have been extended to Samsung’s newer Galaxy products.


Yet the jury exonerated Samsung on the patent used to ban Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales, and Koh rescinded that injunction. Then, in October, a federal appeals court reversed Koh’s ban against the Nexus phone.


In her order late on Monday, Koh cited that appellate ruling as binding legal precedent, ruling that Apple had not presented enough evidence that its patented features drove consumer demand for the entire iPhone.


“The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple’s patents,” Koh wrote.


“Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple,” she continued, “it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions.”


An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on Koh’s ruling, and a Samsung representative could not immediately be reached.


In a separate order on Monday, Koh rejected a bid by Samsung for a new trial based on an allegation that the jury foreman was improperly biased in favor of Apple.


The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Apple Inc. vs. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 11-1846.


(Reporting by Dan Levine in Oakland, California; Editing by Ron Popeski)


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Top 5 Apps for Kids This Week






1. PHLIP


Ages 4-up Overall rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars Why we like it: PHLIP is a spatial relations puzzle where you “flip” or turn your screen left or right, like a steering wheel, to change the orientation of the set of tiles, in order to reassemble the picture. You can use photos you take, or choose one from your photo library. Need to know: The more tiles, the harder the puzzle. You can lock any tile by tapping on it. The physical rotation of the device develops motor and cognitive skills and hand-eye coordination. It can also cause your heavy iPad to slip out of your hands. This is a game that works much better on an iPad Mini. Ease of use: 8/10 Educational: 9/10 Entertaining: 7/10 $ 0.99


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[More from Mashable: How to Crowdsource Your Job Hunt]


Chris Crowell is a veteran kindergarten teacher and contributing editor to Children’s Technology Review, a web-based archive of articles and reviews on apps, technology toys and video games. Download a free issue of CTR here.


In this week’s Top 5 Kids Apps, your kids can play with a spatial puzzle that lets them reassemble photographs they upload themselves. There’s also a chance to learn and have fun with geography trivia and explore Australia with an illustrated story.


[More from Mashable: 4 Benefits of a Job Search Community]


Our friends at Children’s Technology Review shared with us these 5 top apps from their comprehensive monthly database of kid-tested reviews. The site covers everything from math and counting to reading and phonics.


Check back next week for more Top Kids Apps from Children’s Technology Review


Photo via iStockPhoto, cglade


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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Games top App Store revenue in 2012






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Microsoft plots living room domination with 43 new entertainment apps for Xbox 360






Game consoles are no longer simply for video games, as evidenced by last week’s announcement that the PlayStation 3 is the top Netflix (NFLX) streaming device of the year. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s (MSFT) chief marketing officer for its Interactive Entertainment Division, said this past March that Xbox 360 owners were spending more hours watching online entertainment than playing online games. And now, in a bid to bolster its efforts to conquer the living room, Microsoft Director of Programming for Xbox Live Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb announced in a blog post that 43 new entertainment apps (mostly video) will launch between now and spring of 2013 in various regions. Ten new apps including ARTE, CinemaNow, CNET, Karaoke, Maxim, Napster, SkyDrive, SPORT1, VEVO and Zattoo will arrive this week. Microsoft’s full list of upcoming apps follows below.



1. All3M (United Kingdom, United States)
2. Ameba TV (Canada, United States)
3. ARTE (Germany, France)
4. Azteca (Mexico)
5. Canalplay Infinity (France)
6. CBC’s Hockey Night (Canada)
7. CrunchyRoll (Majority of LIVE Regions)
8. Deezer (Majority of LIVE Regions)
9. Eredivisie Live (Netherlands)
10. Fightbox (Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom)
11. Flixster (United States)
12. GameTrailers (Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States)
13. Globosat Muu (Brazil)
14. Gulli Replay (France)
15. HBO Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
16. IndieFlix (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States)
17. Livesport.tv (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom)
18. Machinima (Majority of LIVE Regions)
19. Maxim (United States)
20. MTV (United States)
21. MyTF1 (France)
22. MyTF1VOD (France)
23. Napster (Germany, United Kingdom)
24. Pathe Thuis (Netherlands)
25. PBS (United States)
26. PopcornFlix (United States)
27. Rai TV (Italy)
28. Sainsbury (United Kingdom)
29. Saraiva (Brazil)
30. SBS (Netherlands)
31. SF Anytime (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
32. Slacker Radio (Canada, United States)
33. SPORT1 (Austria, Germany)
34. The CW Network (United States)
35. Televisa (Mexico)
36. TV3 (Spain)
37. Viaplay (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
38. Vidéo à la Demande d’Orange (France)
39. Vimeo (United States)
40. VIVO Play (Brazil)
41. Watchever (Austria, Germany)
42. Zattoo (Germany)
43. Ziggo (Netherlands)







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Panasonic may sell Sanyo digital camera business: source






TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp may sell its Sanyo digital camera business to Japanese private equity fund Advantage Partners by the end of March, a source familiar with the plan said.


A final decision on the sale will be made by the end of the year, the source said on condition he was not identified.






Advantage Partners will pay several hundreds of millions of yen for the business, which makes digital cameras for other companies, including Olympus Corp, the Nikkei business daily reported earlier.


Panasonic declined to comment saying it had not announced the plan.


The Japanese company aims to sell 110 billion yen ($ 1.34 billion) of assets, including buildings and land by the end of March to boost free cashflow to 200 billion yen for the business year. The company expects an annual net loss of close to $ 10 billion as it writes off billions in deferred tax assets and goodwill.


Panasonic acquired rival Sanyo, a leading maker of lithium ion batteries and solar panels, in 2010. Sales of compact digital cameras are under pressure from increasingly powerful smartphones.


Panasonic’s shares gained as much as 4 percent in early trading in Tokyo, compared with a 0.5 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index. ($ 1 = 82.3900 Japanese yen)


(Reporting by Reiji Murai; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)


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In giant “garage sale”, Japan’s TV giants hawk $3 billion of assets






TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp, Japan‘s struggling maker of Viera brand TVs, owns more than 10 million square meters of office and factory space, dormitories for its workers and sports facilities for its rugby, baseball and women’s athletics teams.


As it battles for Christmas shoppers’ wallets in the year-end holiday season, the sprawling electronics conglomerate is also seeking buyers for some of those properties to trim its fixed costs and improve cashflow at a time of intense competition, particularly from South Korean rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co.






Japan’s other troubled TV makers, Sony Corp and Sharp Corp, are also selling buildings and businesses in a giant ‘garage sale’ that could raise a combined $ 3 billion.


Panasonic plans to raise $ 1.34 billion from offloading property and shares in other Japanese companies by end-March, the group’s chief financial officer Hideaki Kawai told Reuters.


“We have a lot of land and buildings in Japan and overseas,” he said in an interview at the company’s head office in Osaka, in western Japan. He declined to list which properties would go on the block, but said most are in Japan.


Included is a 24-storey central Tokyo block – built in 2003 with more than 47,300 square meters and housing 2,000 Panasonic workers – a source familiar with the plan told Reuters.


Kawai added that Panasonic would raise about a quarter of the sell-off funds by getting rid of shares it owns in other companies – a common practice of cross-shareholdings in Japan.


The proceeds would help bolster free cashflow to 200 billion yen ($ 2.43 billion) for the business year to March, Kawai said, and allow Panasonic to reduce its debt and maintain its crucial research and development effort as it revamps its business portfolio.


It will sell more assets in the year starting in April if cashflow dips below 200 billion yen, Kawai added. Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga has promised to shut or sell businesses operating at below a 5 percent margin. Those sales could start as soon as April.


Panasonic’s fixed assets of $ 21 billion are around 30 percent more than those of Apple Inc, and are almost double the company’s market value. The company, founded almost a century ago as a small electrical extension socket maker, trades at around half its book value – which includes intangible assets such as patents. Sony trades at 39 percent of book, Sharp at 30 percent.


The fixed assets – buildings, land and machinery – of the three companies that were not so long ago a byword for innovation in household gadgetry total around $ 42 billion, while their combined market value is $ 24 billion.


CASHFLOW IS KING


The three firms have been downgraded by credit ratings agencies, making it tougher to raise funding on capital markets, and making asset sales more urgent.


Selling assets “is good in terms of their credit ratings because, for all three, it will lower fixed costs and they can reduce their capex requirements. Eventually, this could improve operating margins and, more importantly, cashflow,” said Alvin Lim, an analyst at Fitch Ratings in Seoul.


Fitch, which makes its ratings without input from company management, last month cut Panasonic to BB and Sony to BB minus, the first time one of the major agencies has relegated either company to junk status. Sharp is ranked B minus, adding to its borrowing costs.


“We rate Panasonic as investment grade, and it should have various funding options. Selling assets it can do without, to avoid raising additional borrowing, can be an option,” said Osamu Kobayashi, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s.


While Korean rivals have also benefited from a weaker local currency, data from the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association shows that Japanese production of consumer electronic equipment fell to just above $ 15 billion last year from more than $ 19 billion a decade ago. Output in September was just $ 980 million, half last year’s level.


“The gap with Korean makers seems to be widening. It’s going to be very difficult for them to regain their top-tier position,” said Fitch’s Lim.


As the three Japanese firms, all under new leadership, have sketched out restructuring plans, the cost of insuring their debt against defaulting in 5 years has dropped from spikes just a month ago. Credit default swaps for Sharp and Sony are down to levels last seen 3 months ago, while Panasonic’s have dropped 40 percent in the past month.


THREE PATHS


While Panasonic is looking to revamp its business around batteries, auto parts and household appliances, Sony is doubling down on smartphones, gaming and cameras. Sharp, meanwhile, is focusing on display screens and is forging alliances with the likes of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry and U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc.


Sony may also take the real estate sale route to raise much-needed cash, with a possible sale of its 37-storey New York headquarters, dubbed by New Yorkers as the ‘Chippendale’ because of its design that is reminiscent of the period English furniture. Selling that jewel could raise $ 1 billion, media have reported.


The maker of Vaio laptops, PlayStation gaming consoles and Bravia TVs may also sell its battery business, which makes lithium ion power packs for tablets, PCs and mobile phones. The company has been approached by investment banks offering to sell the unit, which employs 2,700 people and has three factories in Japan and two overseas assembly plants. Sony values the business’s fixed assets at $ 636 million.


Potential buyers could include BYD Co Ltd, a Chinese carmaker backed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, and Taiwan’s Hon Hai – which part owns Sharp’s advanced LCD panel plant in Sakai, western Japan, and is in talks to buy TV assembly plants in China, Malaysia and Mexico for $ 667 million, Japan’s Sankei newspaper has reported.


Sharp has mortgaged nearly all its properties to secure a $ 4.6 billion bailout from Japanese banks and so has few assets to offer in a grand garage sale.


Instead, it’s selling part of the garage.


Qualcomm has agreed to buy a 5 percent stake in Sharp, making it the largest shareholder. Hon Hai, which earlier this year agreed to invest in Sharp – before its stock slumped in the wake of record losses – has said it remains interested in taking a stake.


“Whatever they can get to get through this fiscal period by scaling down their operation is a critical step for them to remain afloat,” said Fitch’s Lim.


($ 1 = 82.4700 Japanese yen)


(Additional reporting by Reiji Murai; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)


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T-Mobile to Offer Cheapest iPhone 5 in 2013












T-Mobile, the smallest of the “big four” wireless carries in the United States, already offers the country’s cheapest iPhone service — if you have an unlocked iPhone. And according to Engadget’s Brad Molen, more than a million unlocked iPhones are on T-Mobile‘s network already.


Now, T-Mobile has announced that it will “add Apple products to its portfolio in the coming year,” according to parent company Deutsche Telekom AG. And while that could mean anything from the new iPad Mini to an as-yet-unreleased Apple product of some kind, many expect T-Mobile to finally get the iPhone, making it the last major carrier in the United States to get it.












If T-Mobile does, and it continues to offer its $ 30 “Unlimited Web & Text with 100 Minutes” plan, that may make T-Mobile’s iPhone the cheapest one out there — even if it costs hundreds of dollars more up front than on AT&T.


Subsidies aren’t just for big corporations


Most of the big-name wireless carriers in the United States offer what are called “subsidized” smartphones, meaning you don’t pay their whole cost up front. Instead, you pay a discounted price (which can be as little as $ 0.01), but are locked into a wireless contract for up to 2 years. Wireless customers who switch before their contract is up have to pay an “early termination fee,” which can go over and above the actual cost of the smartphone.


Buy now, save later


With prepaid smartphone plans, on the other hand, you pay the whole cost of the phone up front and afterward it’s yours to keep (whether its SIM card is locked into one network or not). And with the announcement that T-Mobile is going prepaid-only starting next year, that means any iPhone the company carries will be of the unsubsidized variety.


Apple currently sells the 16 GB iPhone 5 for $ 649, contract-free, on its website. It also sells the 16 GB iPhone 4S for $ 549, however, while contract-free carrier Virgin Mobile sells the same phone unsubsidized for $ 449 with a $ 35 per month data plan — not too much more expensive than T-Mobile’s.


Lessons of the past


It’s hard to say how much T-Mobile would offer an iPhone 5 for if the device landed on its network. Virgin Mobile started out charging more up front and offering a $ 30 plan, while Cricket currently sells the contract-free iPhone 5 for $ 499 but its service starts at $ 55.


Assuming T-Mobile continues to offer its current “web exclusive” $ 30 unlimited plan for a hypothetical iPhone 5 on its network, it’s not likely to be discounted much if at all from Apple’s asking price. Just paying for 5 GBs of data per month from AT&T would cost $ 1,200 over 2 years, however, plus the $ 199 cost of a subsidized iPhone (and you have to pay for voice minutes and texting on top of that). Meanwhile, it’s possible right now to buy an unlocked iPhone 5 from Apple and get 2 years of T-Mobile’s $ 30 service for $ 1,369. That includes 5 GBs of data before connection speed throttling, plus unlimited texting and 100 voice minutes per month.


​Looking to the future


T-Mobile offers the cheapest iPhone 5 service right now. And if the “Apple products” T-Mobile is getting next year include the iPhone 5, T-Mobile customers may see even better offerings coming their way in the near future.


Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.


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Apple, Samsung spar in court, ruling to come












SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) – Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics squared off again in court on Thursday, as the iPhone maker tried to convince a U.S. district judge to ban sales of a number of the South Korean company’s devices and defended its $ 1.05 billion jury award.


Apple scored a sweeping legal victory in August at the conclusion of its landmark case against its arch-foe, when a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad and awarded it damages.












Both sides re-convened on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh listened to a range of arguments on topics from setting aside the jury’s findings on liability to alleged juror misconduct and the requested injunction.


The hearing concluded with Koh promising to rule at a later date.


Twenty-four of Samsung’s smartphones were found to have infringed on Apple’s patents, while two of Samsung’s tablets were cleared of similar allegations.


Koh began by questioning the basis for some of the damages awarded by the jury, putting Apple’s lawyers on the defensive.


“I don’t see how you can evaluate the aggregate verdict without looking at the pieces,” Koh said.


Samsung’s lawyers argued the ruling against it should be “reverse engineered” to be sure the $ 1.05 billion was legally arrived at by the jury and said that on that basis, the amount should be slashed. Apple countered that the ruling was reasonable.


“Assuming I disagree with you, what do I do about Captivate, Continuum, Droid Charge, Epic 4G, and Gem?” Koh asked Apple’s lawyers, referring to the jury’s calculation of damages regarding some of Samsung’s devices.


FIERCEST RIVAL


Samsung is Apple’s fiercest global business rival and their battle for consumers’ allegiance is helping shape the landscape of the booming smartphone and tablet industry — a fight that has claimed several high-profile victims, including Nokia.


While the trial was deemed a resounding victory for Apple, the company has since seen its market value shrink as uncertainty grows about its ability to continue fending off an assault by Samsung and other Google Inc Android gadgets on its home turf.


Apple’s stock has nosedived 18 percent since the August 24 verdict, while Samsung’s has gained around 16 percent.


Most of the devices facing injunction are older and, in some cases, out of the market.


Such injunctions have been key for companies trying to increase their leverage in courtroom patent fights.


In October, a U.S. appeals court overturned a pretrial sales ban against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone, dealing a setback to Apple’s battle against Google Inc’s increasingly popular mobile software.


Some analysts say Apple’s willingness to license patents to Taiwan’s HTC could convince Koh it does not need the injunction, as the two companies could arrive at a licensing deal.


Apple is also attempting to add more than $ 500 million to the $ 1 billion judgment because the jury found Samsung willfully infringed on its patents. A Samsung lawyer argued against willful damages and said the base amount for calculating any potential willful damages should be just $ 10 million.


Samsung wants the verdict overturned, saying the jury foreman did not disclose that he was once in litigation with Seagate Technology, a company that Samsung has invested in.


“He should have been excused for cause,” said Samsung lawyer Charles Verhoeven. “Such a juror was a juror in name only.”


The juror misconduct charge is “unlikely to have much traction,” said Christopher Carani, a partner at Chicago-based intellectual property law firm McAndrews, Held & Malloy, Ltd.


Both Apple and Samsung have filed separate lawsuits covering newer products, including the Samsung Galaxy Note II. That case is pending in U.S. District Court in San Jose and is set for trial in 2014.


(Reporting By Noel Randewich; Editing by Kim Coghill)


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