Monday, January 31, 2011

SECURITY BUG FOUND IN AMAZON'S LOGIN SYSTEM


Engadgetis reporting Amazon's login system has a bug in it. The Amazon.com login system will actually accept any phrase so long as it begins with your password, such as "password123" when the magic word is simply "password" by itself. That apparently makes it that much easier for a computer to guess your password via brute force methods.

The fix is relatively simple for the end user, change your password. It is suggested you use a combination letters, numbers and symbols.

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NETGEAR CEO DISSES MICROSOFT AND STEVE JOBS


At a press lunch in California Patrick Lo, CEO of NetGear, had some unkind things to say about Microsoft and Steve Jobs. About Microsoft's recently launched Windows Phone 7 platform Lo said "Microsoft is over -- game over, from my point of view." Of course this doesn't really take into account Microsoft's huge purse filled with greenbacks from its lucrative Windows 7 and Office products.

But Lo didn't stop with Microsoft. He went on to attached Steve Jobs' decision to leave Adobe Flash out of the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. "What's the reason for him to trash Flash? There's no reason other than ego," said Lo. He went on to say "Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform." Uhm, yeah way to stay classy there Patrick.

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ANDROID OVERTAKES SYMBIAN AS WORLDS SMARTPHONE OS


Canalys is reporting Google's Android has surpassed Symbian as the world's best selling smartphone OS. Android rose to 33 million units sold in Q4 2010, while Symbian made it to 31 million. For comparison Apple's iPhone only sold around 17 million units for the same time period.

Android increased their sales by around 13 million over the previous quarter while Symbian grew by only 1.1 million.

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RUMOR: INTERNET EXPLORER 9 UNVEILING FEB 10


Microsoft has announced a media event for February 10th. WinRumors is reporting Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) release candidate will be unveiled. The invite states "Members from the Internet Explorer team (and some special guests) will be visiting San Francisco in two weeks to share some important news. I know it's an extremely busy news week already, but we're hoping you can join us."

WinRumors says an escrow build of IE9 appeared online on Friday and that Microsoft has added a location privacy setting to the browser.

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Sunday, January 30, 2011

10 TIPS TO EXERCISE YOUR BRAIN


We all know we should exercise and eat right to keep our bodies healthy, but what about your brain? How do you exercise your brain and keep it healthy? Lifehackerhas put together 10 easy to do tips that will train, exercise and make your brain healthy.

10. Sudoku
Most people find Sudoku a fun and addictive game, plus it can help improve your problem-solving skills (just not your overall brain health). You can play online, on your iOS device, on Facebook, Android, and pretty much any other platform you can think of.

9. Wikipedia Random
Wikipedia Random will randomly display an article. It is a good way to learn about topics, events, people you might never have thought of before. Learning something new will exercise your brain and keep it healthy.

8. Practice simple math
Perhaps you remember the Mad Math Minute from grade school, where you'd need to solve as many math problems as possible in 60 seconds. While it may have seemed annoying then, it was excellent practice that you can still make use of now. While it's easy enough to create your own Mad Math Minute worksheets, since you're basically just writing out a bunch of simple math problems on a piece of paper, I found a Mad Math Minute generator for Mrs. Boguski's 5th grade class. It probably wasn't intended for mass consumption on the web, so here are some alternative printable worksheets. The bottom line is this: a minute of simple math can help get your brain in shape and make you far less reliant on a calculator.

7. Write instead of type
You can learn more effectively by writing longhand and so you may want to ditch the laptop when you're acquiring new knowledge. This happens because your brain's filtering system (the reticular activating system, or RAS) processes what you're actively focusing on at the moment. Writing triggers the RAS and lets your brain know it's time to pay attention.

6. Act like you are teaching
You can utilize the skills you already have more effectively by acting like you're teaching. Rather than just recalling the steps needing to complete the task at hand, pretend as though you're teaching yourself how to do it. This will help you recall the necessary information better and avoid making stupid mistakes.

5. Tell yourself stories
Storytelling cane be a good way to exercise your brain. First of all, it makes things easier to remember because it puts what you want to remember in a more compelling framework. It gives you a chance to focus on important details and associate emotion with what you're trying to remember. Even if you're not telling yourself a story to help retain the information, you'll still improve your memory just by telling stories in general. Storytelling has been used as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. If storytelling can help an Alzeheimer's patient improve their memory, chances are it can help you.

4. Use Luminosity
Lumosity is a webapp that provides specialized brain-training activities. You can use it for free, but premium accounts (which you can try free for five days) have a wider range of training options. All the exercises are pretty simple to understand and are fun to play. All of my initial exercises had to do with memory, likely because I selected better memory as one of my goals when I signed up. That's to say that Lumosity's exercises may vary for you based on the information you provide. When you're done, you get a rating and your goal is simply to improve with each day you practice.

3. Meditate
Stress is one of the biggest threats to your brain. The chemicals released in the brain during stressful times makes critical thinking difficult. By meditating you are de-stressing and allowing the mind to begin the process of thinking again.

2. Learn about your brains faults and account for them
Your brain does a lot of things very, very well but sucks at plenty of others. You may not be able to fix the things your brain is bad at in all cases, but at least being aware of your inherent faults can make sure you're taking advantage of your brain's full potential.

1. Exercise and eat well
Anything you do to keep your brain sharp can be easily thwarted if you don't keep your body healthy. A little physical activity and a smart diet will make it much easier for you to your brain in top shape.

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ANDROID 2.3 SECURITY BUG DISCOVERED


Xuxian Jiang, a researcher at North Carolina State Unversity, has uncovered a security bug in the next version of Google's Android OS, Gingerbread. According to Jiang, the bug allows malicious websites to access a persons microSD card and upload the contents, including voicemails, photos and online banking information, to a remote server.

The flaw appears to be very similar to a known bug in previous version of Android that was thought to have been corrected in Gingerbread. Jiang says the fix for this bug in Gingerbread though is easily bypassed. Google is said to be working on a solution to the problem, but it is not known when a patch will appear.

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RUMOR: NEXT PS3 UPDATE TO INCLUDE 'ONLINE SAVING'


Kotaku is reporting that the next firmware update (v3.6) for the PS3 will contain the ability to save games to the cloud. During the NGP presentation, guest speaker Hideo Kojima specifically referred to saving your PS3 game on the console and resuming it on the Next Generation Portable. "Online Saving," as Sony's reputed to be calling it, would be the conduit through which that can be realized, though it doesn't appear like it'll come for free. Kotaku's sources indicate it'll be part of the PlayStation Plus subscription.

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RUMOR: AMAZON LAUNCHING STREAMING MOVIES FOR PRIME SUBSCRIBERS


A rumor is circulating that Amazon will soon be launching a Netflix movie/tv streaming service. The rumor goes on to say that the service will launch free for Amazon's Prime subscribers. Currently, Prime subscribers pay $79/year for a few reduced/free shipping options. Adding a streaming service to their subscription will definitely help boost the value.

The selection will have "unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of 5,000 movies and TV shows" with selections that mirror the Watch Instantly catalog closely. Resolution is apparently limited to a "pretty solid" 480p SD, but there's no word on audio or subtitle options.

Also helping to fuel the rumor, the domain primeinstantvideos.com has been registered by Amazon's DPReview.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011

GOOGLE HOSTING AN ANDROID EVENT FEBRUARY 2ND


Google has just announced an Android event for Wednesday, February 2nd. The event will include "an in-depth look at Honeycomb, Android ecosystem news and hands-on demos." Google wouldn't host an event just to re-hash Honeycomb, so they must have something else planned as well. There is a lot of speculation as to what will be announced (if anything) with some folks predicting Android 2.3, new tablets and even Honeycomb for smartphones.

If you didn't get an invitation or can't make it to Mountain View, CA, Google will live-stream the event on YouTube.

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HYDROGEN MICROBEADS COULD FUEL YOUR CAR FOR $1.50/GALLON


Cella Energy is working on putting hydrogen inside microbeads eliminating the need for dangerous high pressure tanks. The microbeads would then explode providing the energy necessary to run your car's engine. The exhaust would be ordinary water.

According to Cella Energy these beads can be poured into the gas tank of a car with an internal combustion engine (presumably suspended in some sort of liquid) and, with no modification, that car will run just fine. Best news is that this concoction costs just $1.50 per gallon, or will eventually once they actually get it to work.

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VERIZON iPHONE COUNTDOWN BEGINS; OFFICIAL DAY/TIME REVEALED


The official countdown to the Verizon iPhone pre-order has begun. According to the official countdown clock on the Verizon Wireless website, pre-orders will begin at 3AM EST February 3rd, midnight in Pacific time zone.

Only current Verizon Wireless subscribers are eligible for the pre-order with all others having to wait until the launch on February 10th. Pre-orders are on a first come first serve basis, so set your alarm clocks early to ensure snagging one. Visit verizonwireless.com/iphoneorder if you have a individual/family account and verizonwireless.com/businessportals if you have a business account.

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SONY RELEASES UPDATE FOR PS3; HACKERS PROMPTLY CRACK IT


Sony has released an update to the PS3, bringing the firmware to version 3.56. The firmware update was designed to close the security hole in the PS3 that allowed hackers to obtain the master key and allow them to run any code on the console.

Unfortunately, within hours of the update being released, hackers were able to crack it and open the consoles up once again. The problem is that the master key is out on the internet for anyone to find and use. Sony can't stop this without producing new hardware and then it still has all the original consoles to deal with.

With the master key hackers have the ability to anything they want on the consoles, allowing them to cheat at online games and play games for free potentially taking money out the pockets of game developers.

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Friday, January 28, 2011

VERIZON TO ELIMINATE REBATES FOR SOME SMARTPHONES


Android Central is reporting Verizon is looking to eliminate rebates for all smartphones with a net price of $150 and up. Smartphones priced $149.99 and lower will still maintain the associated rebate, usually $50.

The rebate for the high-end phones will be directly applied to the cost, instead of requiring the subscriber to mail-in for the rebate. The new move, which comes just ahead of Verizon Wireless’ iPhone 4 launch, is likely a result of the imminent release of Apple’s smartphone as the carrier will not require a rebate with iPhone purchases.

AT&T BRACING FOR ROCKY FEW MONTHS


According to The Wall Street Journal, AT&T is getting ready to face a rough few months as their biggest rival, Verizon, is set to launch the iPhone.

Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said "“It may be rocky in the beginning of the year, kind of volatile, hard to predict, but we think as we work through it and the market stabilizes, we’ll be able to grow through it.”

He also mentioned a few statistics that will have an impact. Of most importance is that over 90% of AT&T's iPhone subscribers are under contract. In order to switch to Verizon those subscribers would have to pay a somewhat hefty early termination fee. In addition, Stephenson stated that AT&T sold more than 4 million iPhones in Q4 even though there were credible rumors of the impending Verizon iPhone (of course there have been credible rumors of the iPhone going to Verizon since 2008 as well).

To help counter Verizon's entry into AT&T's iPhone space, Stephenson said "We have not been very aggressive in the Android portfolio and we’re bringing Android into the mix very aggressively this year.”

VERIZON BUYS DATA CENTER OPERATOR TERREMARK


The Wall Street Journal is reporting Verizon Communications Inc. will pay $1.4 billion to acquire Terremark Worldwide Inc., an operator of data centers, in a move aimed at selling more computing services to business customers.

The deal, Verizon's largest since its $6.8 billion purchase of MCI in 2005, comes as telecom operators are moving deeper into selling processing power, data storage and software hosting services over the Internet as their landline businesses shrink.

The acquisition could help the company secure more deals for such services—collectively known as "cloud computing"—and compete with companies like Amazon.com Inc., which runs a cloud-services business alongside its giant online store.

Kerry Bailey, Verizon business group president of cloud services, said the carrier has made cloud computing a key part of its growth strategy, in addition to the wireless business it runs with Vodafone Group PLC.

Verizon already operates more than 220 data centers in 23 countries. The deal for the Miami-based company would bring another 13 in the U.S., Europe and Latin America, as well as a strong position in federal government work.

Verizon said it plans to keep the Terremark brand and operate the new unit with its current management team as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Terremark's clients include the Federal Communications Commission and the Library of Congress, a Terremark spokesman said. The federal government accounts for 21% of Terremark's revenue, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick.

As revenue growth slows in the traditional phone business, it makes sense for telecom companies that serve business customers, such as Verizon, to "creep deeper into the information-technology environment," said Steve Hilton, an analyst at research firm Analysys Mason.

Verizon is paying $19 a share in cash, a 35% premium to Terremark's stock, which was up 35 cents at $14.05 on Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Verizon said it expects to close the deal late in the first quarter.

Application hosting, in particular, is a rapidly growing market. Increasingly, "this is the way people are going to consume" computing resources, rather than building their own data centers, said Lew Moorman, chief strategy officer at Rackspace Hosting Inc., another data center operator.

The deal reflects the long, slow rebound of the data-center business, an industry burned by the dot-com bust. Demand for the facilities housing thousands of computers has exploded in recent years, as Web traffic grows and companies look to centralize storage and computing power.

NETFLIX RELEASES ISP STREAMING DATA


Netflix has released data on how the top networks rank for streaming Netflix content. Coming out on top is Charter and Clearwire bringing up the rear.

To get a handle on which broadband service providers offered the best service to Netflix's streaming-video customers, the company compiled data from October 2010 to January 15, 2011. Netflix tracked the performance of customers streaming high-definition video over their broadband connections. A time-weighted bit rate metric was used to represent the effective data throughput subscribers received over many of the top ISPs.

In its study, Netflix averaged the performance of these network providers throughout their footprints. This means that Verizon's results include data about performance on its DSL network, as well as its faster Fios, fiber-to-the-home network. And AT&T's results include DSL, as well as its fiber-to-the-neighborhood U-verse service.

Rank of networks:

1. Charter
2. Comcast
3. Time Warner
4. Cox
5. Suddenlink
6. Cablevision
7. Cable One
8. Verizon
9. AT&T
10. BellSouth
11. Embarq
12. Windstream
13. Qwest
14. Century Tel
15. Frontier
16. Clearwire

EGYPT PULLS PLUG ON INTERNET AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS DURING UNREST


In a stunning development unprecedented in the modern history of the Internet, a country of more than 80 million people has found itself almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the world.
The near-disconnection--at least one Internet provider is still online--comes after days of street protests demanding an end to nearly three decades of autocratic rule by President Hosni Mubarak. Those followed this month's revolution in Tunisia, another country with little political freedom and high levels of corruption, and reports of overnight arrests and clashes with security forces.

Jim Cowie, chief technology officer at Internet-monitoring firm Renesys, said that at approximately 2:34 p.m. PT, his company "observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet's global routing table." (See CNET's earlier coverage of network disruptions.)

"Virtually all of Egypt's Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide," Cowie wrote in a blog post this evening.

A major service provider for Egypt, Italy-based Seabone, reported that there was no Internet traffic going into or out of the country after around 2:30 p.m. PT (12:30 a.m. local time), according to an Associated Press dispatch.

Al Jazeera English reported that the Mubarak government "denied disrupting communications networks" in advance of widespread protests planned at more than 30 mosques and churches on Friday, which is a day off in Egypt with banks and many businesses closed. (A spokesman for the Egyptian embassy in Washington, D.C. also denied earlier reports that Facebook and Twitter were selectively blocked.)

While the cause of the disruption remains unknown, it seems clear that yanking Egypt's Internet addresses was a conscious decision, not the result of a fiber cut or a natural disaster. That means Egypt will be conducting a high-profile experiment in what happens when a country with a $500 billion GDP, one that's home to the pyramids and the Suez Canal, decides that Internet access should be restricted to a trickle.

That trickle can be found at the Noor Group, which appears to be the only Internet provider in Egypt that's fully functioning. (Cairo-based bloggers are speculating that its unique status grows out of its client list, which includes western firms including ExxonMobil, Toyota, Hyatt, Nestle, Fedex, Coca-Cola, and Pfizer, plus the Egyptian stock exchange.)
An analysis posted by network analyst Andree Toonk, who runs a Web site devoted to monitoring networks, shows that yesterday there were 2,903 Egyptian networks publicly accessible via the Internet. Today, there are only 327 networks.

Noor is "the only provider that doesn't seem to be impacted by this," Toonk wrote.
That's led Egyptian Internet users, at least the ones still connected, to go on Twitter to urge others to use Noor's dial-up numbers if their own network was down.

Unconfirmed reports from Egypt suggested widespread telephone outages as well. Early in the morning in Cairo, a series of complaints of mobile phone outages said Mobinil, the country's largest mobile provider, was no longer providing service. Other reports said only land lines were working. Complaints about SMS outages have become common.

There are some parallels. Wired magazine's HotWired, succeeded by Wired.com, reported in 1996 that "the U.S. government has quietly pulled the plug on Iran's Internet connection." During a state of emergency in Bangladesh in 2007, satellite providers were ordered to cease airing any news shows. And in Burma later that year, the country's ruling military junta pulled the plug on the nation's limited Internet access.

Twitter and Facebook have become effective communications tools during social unrest and protests--in Iran and Moldova, along with Tunisia and Egypt, more recently. YouTube videos, too, have documented the massive street protests in Cairo.

Egypt's Internet disruptions coincided with activist action. Anonymous, the group that launched distributed denial-of-service attacks on Web sites of financial institutions and others opposing WikiLeaks last year, released a video in which it threatened to launch DoS attacks on Egyptian government Web sites if the authorities did not curtail censorship efforts. Earlier today, five people were arrested in the U.K. in connection with those attacks.

The threats weren't necessary. Egypt's new firewall has brought down almost every entry on a list of the 25 most popular Web sites in the country, including egypt.gov.eg, presidency.gov,eg, and cabinet.gov.eg. The exceptions are ones like jeep.com.eg, which are hosted in the United States. The Web site for the U.S. Embassy in Egypt was unreachable.

In a YouTube interview today, President Obama stressed that Mubarak has "been an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues" and has "been very helpful on a range of tough issues in the Middle East." Obama added, however, that political reform "is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt."

Egypt receives over $1.3 billion annually from U.S. taxpayers in the form of military aid, according to the U.S. State Department. [CNet]


Thursday, January 27, 2011

NINTENDO'S PROFITS DOWN; SLASHES CONSOLE SALES PROJECTIONS


In the critical holiday shopping season (October - December) of 2010, Nintendo's profits plummeted 46%. The drop is attributed to weak DS and Wii sales along with a strong Yen.

Nintendo also announced it was dropping its sales projections for Wii consoles from 17.5 million to 16 million and DS sales from 23.5 million to 22 million sold for Q1 2011.

SONY EVENT ROUNDUP; NEXT-GEN PSP, PLAYSTATION SUITE


Sony held an event today to launch their new PSP (codenamed NGP) and the Playstation Suite.

The NGP is the successor to the popular PSP handheld gaming device. It has a quad-core Cortex-A9 and a quad-core Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX543MP4+ GPU doing the grunt work within. Front and rear cameras and a multi-touch capacitive screen are also included. Bluetooth, 3G and wireless b/g/n are baked in as well. Games will come on "new media," not UMD anymore, but we're unclear on what sort of flash memory is being used. Sony's rather proud of the fact it's offering the world's first dual analog stick combo on a portable device, though we're more geeked about the quadrupling of pixel count from the original PSP.

Playstation Suite is a cross-platform software framework. What this means is Sony will have a whole Playstation Store filled with Sony games available for the Android tablets and phones. According to Sony the Playstation Suite will be "hardware neutral" and make games portable for "all kinds of handsets".

NOKIA SMARTPHONE MARKET SHARE PLUNGES TO 31%


Stephen Elop's first quarterly results as Nokia CEO have just come out, and while the company's still growing, others seem to be speeding ahead of it. Nokia's reporting its converged mobile devices (smartphones, to you and us) reached volumes of 28.3 million during Q4 2010, which is a neat bump from 20.8 million at the same time last year and 26.5 million in the previous quarter. However, in the context of the broader smartphone marketplace, that figure now amounts to only a 31 percent share, according to Nokia's own estimates, which is a major dip relative to its 40 percent slice in Q4 2009 and 38 percent in Q3 2010.

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AT&T POSTS Q4 RESULTS; REVENUE UP 2.1%


AT&T's numbers are up, and they're good: $31.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, $653 million more than Q4 the previous year. 4.1 million iPhones and 442,000 tablets were put online by the company that quarter, helping to drive 2.8 million new wireless subscribers, 95.5 million total, and a boost in revenue per subscriber of 2.2 percent. That's $62.88 average per month per subscriber -- maybe ditching unlimited data is paying off. Additionally, the company posted its best ever Q4 wireless churn (subscribers switching carriers) of just 1.32 percent.

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FACEBOOK CLOSING SECURITY HOLE SWITCHING TO HTTPS FOR LOGINS


Facebook has at long last offered an option to use the encrypted "HTTPS" protocol, a feature it will begin rolling out today but won't finish for a "few weeks." You should check now if it's available, and sign up as soon as it is enabled for your account.

By default, Facebook sends your access credentials in the clear, with no encryption whatsoever. HTTPS solves this longstanding problem by encrypting your login cookies and other data.

A blogger using a freely available program called Firesheep was able to steal up to 40 Facebook logins in 30 minutes in a New York Starbucks recently.

You can sign up for Facebook HTTPS by going to Account Settings and then selecting "Account Security," third from the bottom. Then click under "Secure Browsing" — if it's there. Facebook says everyone should have this by the end of the day, but in the meantime you might be missing the relevant option toggle.

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LEAKED: HTC FLAGSHIP PHONE


The newest HTC flagship mobile phone was spotted in a Taipei train station. Not much is known about the device other than it has a arcing earpiece, a front facing camera surrounded with a chrome ring and runs Android.

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LG REPORTS Q4 LOSS


Korean manufacturing giant LG released its Q4 results and they were not good. The company posted a net loss of $230 billion compared to a profit of $325 billion for Q4 2009.

Overall shipments were down 10% to 30.6 million units, pushing LG into the No. 5 spot globally behind RIM. The company will look to new high-end smartphones like the Optimus 2X, Optimus Black and Optimus 3D as it attempts to reverse its declining mobile trend. LG remains the No. 2 TV company globally, as sales in its home entertainment division increased 15.8% compared to the third quarter of this year. Because competition forced LG to drop the average selling price on its television sets, however, the company’s home entertainment business still posted an operating loss in the quarter.

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MOTOROLA MOBILITY RELEASES Q4 AND FULL YEAR EARNINGS; Q1 2011 FORECAST BLEAK


Motorola Mobility on Wednesday reported its fourth quarter and full year 2010 earnings. It also gave grim but anticipated guidance for the first quarter of 2011 as Verizon Wireless, the company’s top carrier partner, prepares to launch the iPhone 4. Motorola’s revenues were up 21% year-over-year to $3.4 billion and net revenues from the company’s Mobile Devices division grew 33% year-over-year to $2.4 billion. Smartphone shipments were well under Wall Street’s consensus, however, coming in at 4.9 million units. Some analysts’ expectations were as high as 5.6 million units. Shipments totalled 13.7 million smartphones for the full year, and the company shipped 37.3 million feature phones and smartphones combined in 2010. Motorola forecasts a loss of between $26 and $62 million in the first quarter of 2011, which amounts to $0.09 and $0.21 per share in the red. Analysts had projected a profit of $0.01 per share in the quarter.

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2 MILLION WINDOWS PHONE 7 DEVICES SHIPPED


Microsoft confirmed to Bloomberg that its partners sold over 2 million Windows Phone 7 devices to carriers and retail partners last quarter. The company also claimed that according to its findings, 93% of Windows Phone 7 customers are satisfied with the operating system and brand awareness has increased by half to 66%. “Sales are an important measure, but for a new platform we think customer satisfaction and active developer support are more important indicators of how sales will be over the long term,” senior product manager Greg Sullivan said in an interview. Sullivan stated that there are 24,000 developers signed up to build apps for the Windows Phone 7 platform, and 6,500 apps are currently available in Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace.

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NEWS CORP DAILY iPAD NEWSPAPER "THE DAILY" COST REVEALED


It’s looking like the digital publication could be available within the next two weeks according to News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch’s son, James Murdoch. The Daily was originally rumored to launch on January 19th but was later postponed due to a reported delay in the iTunes subscription feature that Apple has been preparing. Other rumors have also linked the delay to Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ medical leave, however, as he presumably would have appeared at the launch event. The Daily will cost subscribers $0.99 per week and will be iPad only at first.

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ANDROID 3 (HONEYCOMB) SDK RELEASED TO DEVELOPERS


Google has just revealed the Android 3.0 SDK, which not only includes a refined UI framework for large-screen devices and all sorts of other tablet-centric tweaks, but also support for multi-core processors, high-quality 2D and 3D graphics, Bluetooth A2DP and HSP.

The new Honeycomb UI stretches the system bar at the bottom of larger displays and gives global status info, while a top action bar allows for app management. The browser gets multiple tab support, allowing for more comfortable full-screen navigation, and it even supports Chrome bookmark syncing, multitouch support for JavaScript and plugins, and auto-sign-on into Google accounts.

Honeycomb also gives enterprise customers some new stuff to love, including support for encrypted storage, password expiration and e-mail.

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