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Galaxy Tab 10.1 Faces Ban in U.S.

Posted in : New Technologies

(added 1 days ago)

Galaxy Tab 10.1 Faces Ban in U.S.Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet PC looks highly likely to be banned in the U.S. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday accepted part of a request from Apple for a preliminary ban on the sale of four Samsung products -- the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and three smartphone models.

The court accepted Apple's request to ban the Galaxy Tab 10.1 -- one of four tablet PCs Samsung sells in the U.S. -- and returned the case to the district court for a retrial. But it rejected the call to ban the three smartphones. As a result, the district court will have to reopen the case over the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as soon as possible. Given that the appellate court recognized the need to ban it, the district will most likely follow suit.

No date for a retrial has been set. Apple appealed after the district court dismissed its claim late last year that all four Samsung products violate its design patents. But a ban of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 would inflict no great losses on Samsung since it is an old model released last summer and only has a small market share, a Samsung spokesman said. The two electronics giants face each other in a series of suits and counter-suits around the world over patent violations.

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(added 1 days ago) / 4 views

ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II Top Unveiled – Features 1137MHz Boost Clock

Posted in : New Technologies

(added 7 days ago)

ASUS’s GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II top graphics card has been unveiled, the card features a non-reference design along with the DirectCU II cooler which allows for extreme overclocking for hardware enthusiasts.

ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II Top Unveiled – Features 1137MHz Boost Clock

The GTX 670 DirectCU II Top is equipped with the Digi+ VRM which offers improved stability while overclocking. The card itself features a Boost clock frequency of 1137MHz and memory clock of 6GHz. The GPU is bundled with ASUS’s GPU Tweak utility which allows users to tune their GPU in real-time. The card is cooled by the dual slot DirectCU II Cooler which is offers 20% better cooling compared to the reference version. The card would hit store shelves by tomorrow for an MSRP over $400.

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(added 7 days ago) / 9 views

Twitter account details exposed on website

Posted in : It News

(added 8 days ago)

Information posted on Pastebin.com appeared to be from about 35,000 Twitter accounts, said the San Francisco firm. "We're looking into the situation and have pushed out password resets to potentially affected accounts," Twitter said.

Twitter, which rocketed to popularity by letting people fire off short text messages to limitless numbers of people using smartphones, recommended users change their passwords. The list at Pastebin included spam accounts and incorrect login credentials, according to Twitter. The data breach came as Twitter yesterday challenged a court order to give US authorities data on one of its users involved in Occupy Wall Street.

The motion, filed on Tuesday in a New York state court, said the order would require Twitter to violate federal law and denies the user the ownership rights to his Twitter messages. The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday applauded Twitter's action.

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(added 8 days ago) / 13 views

How small investors can get in on Facebook IPO

Posted in : It News

(added 10 days ago)

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- You might think that scoring a stake in Facebook's initial public offering if you are an average investor is like trying to change your privacy controls on the social networking site -- seemingly impossible.

But it turns out that Facebook is making an effort to have some of its hotly sought after shares accessible to all. In its updated IPO prospectus filed late Thursday, Facebook added E*Trade, the popular low-cost online trading firm, to the list of what is now 33 underwriters of its offering.

"The only reason Facebook would ever authorize E*Trade as an underwriter is because it wants broad retail distribution of its IPO," said Scott Sweet, senior managing partner at IPO Boutique, a research firm tracking new offerings.

That means that users of E*Trade's online brokerage service will have an opportunity to buy shares of Facebook at the IPO price, which should be between $28 to $35 per share. E*Trade (ETFC) has 2.8 million brokerage accounts..

Shares of an IPO are primarily distributed to institutional investors, mutual funds and hedge funds who are the biggest clients of the major Wall Street banks that manage the sale of the shares. On average, these brokerages only allocate 15% of their initial offering to retail investors, said Sweet.

Zuckerberg courts investors in Facebook's online road show
But Wall Street executives estimate that small investors could get a bigger piece when it comes to Facebook's offering -- between 20% and 25%, according to a report in the New York Times. Facebook declined to comment for this story.

While E*Trade would not specifically speak about its role as a co-manager in Facebook's IPO, the company has participated in over 600 public offerings in the past, including MasterCard (MA, Fortune 500) and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500). The company explained its typical IPO process to CNNMoney. Those who have a brokerage account with E*Trade can participate in a company's IPO, in this case Facebook, through the firm's IPO center. Users can place a so-called conditional offer by indicating how many shares of Facebook they would want to buy, and the maximum price per share they are willing to pay.

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Facebook encourages users to become organ donors

Posted in : It News

(added 15 days ago)

From social networking to social encouraging: Facebook on Tuesday said it would allow users to say on their personal pages whether they would like to be organ donors. The suggestion aims to reduce the thousands of people who die awaiting organ transplants. “This is a really tremendous breakthrough,” said Ryan Taylor, a transplant hepatologist at the University of Kansas Hospital. “You reach a point where donor awareness can plateau, and using social media to get the word out on a grass-roots level is good.”

Facebook users can add donor plans to their profiles, just as they already note a hometown or alma mater, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a blog post. There will also be a link to an official donor registry, the company said.

“Medical experts believe that broader awareness about organ donation could go a long way toward solving this crisis,” Zuckerberg and Sandberg said on the blog. “By simply telling people that you’re an organ donor, the power of sharing and connection can play an important role.”

Taylor, who specializes in liver transplants, said Facebook exposure could be the answer to the question he hears most often. “Loved ones of patients always ask me, ‘What can I do to help?’ I always say: ‘Sign your organ donor card. You may not be able to help this patient, but you may turn into a potential donor some day for someone else.’ That’s what’s important here — spreading that word of mouth.”

Though not an official registry and without any force of law behind it, Facebook has the power to simply spread the word about organ donations. Authorities emphasize that putting the information on Facebook won’t replace the need to register with existing state donor registries, either by going online or by visiting driver’s licensing bureaus.

Facebook has about 161 million U.S. members and about 30 million in Britain, the two places targeted by the initiative. That network, advocates say, will raise exposure, broaden the pool of potential donors and probably produce more matches for some of the 114,000 Americans currently registered on the U.S. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.

Only 28,535 transplants were performed in the United States last year, and 6,000 to 7,000 patients die each year awaiting transplants. “We’re so excited about the Facebook news when we think about the reach,” said Jan Finn, chief operating officer of the Midwest Transplant Network, who was at a national industry meeting in Dallas on Tuesday. “The word we’re all already hearing back is that people are going on their sites and registering.”

But she made it clear: “People are still going to have to sign up on a state registry to be considered a real donor. That’s still where we’re going to look for valid authorization of the deceased’s wishes. Facebook isn’t enough.”

Some privacy advocates said it was important for the Facebook listing to be self-generated and that compiled lists of would-be donors not be used for other purposes.

If used as intended, “I wouldn’t automatically be opposed to it,” said David Jacobs, consumer privacy fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. “Organ donation shortages are a huge problem, and anything that can alleviate that shortage is obviously beneficial.

“At the end of any data collection, there are issues of disclosure, of storage. But if it’s used for the purpose of matching organ donors, who have registered themselves, there isn’t a principled reason why Facebook shouldn’t do this.”

According to the Midwest Transplant Network, there are about 2,000 people in Missouri and 1,000 in Kansas who are awaiting “life-saving” transplants. Fewer than half of Americans are registered as donors.

About four out of five transplanted organs come from deceased donors. Karen Glickstein, who specializes in social media law at Polsinelli Shughart in Kansas City, agreed that a Facebook notation “is a fabulous idea from a social conscience standpoint and as a way to get the message out.”

“But I don’t know how binding it will be. States differ on what constitutes informed consent, so we’ll have to watch and see what happens when and if (a Facebook notation) is challenged.”For example, if a minor registers as a donor on Facebook, family members may disagree that it’s a valid expression of intent.

The Facebook listing will appear in a section called “Health and Wellness.”“If you don’t want to answer the donor question, you don’t have to. You can leave it blank,” said Rebecca Jeschke, digital rights analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in California. Jeschke downplayed any privacy concerns.

“In my opinion, there’s far more sensitive information than my organ donation status,” she said. “Personally, this doesn’t feel sensitive to me at all.”

Facebook officials said the donor option was part of a broad intent. “We hope to build tools that help people transform the way we all solve worldwide social problems,” Sandberg said.

Facebook last year began a “lifeline” service to link people with suicide-prevention counselors or to report people who appear to be in crisis. The company also has an anti-bullying campaign.

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(added 15 days ago) / 18 views

Facebook pays Microsoft $550M for AOL patents

Posted in : It News

(added 23 days ago)

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook will pay Microsoft Corp $550 million US in cash for hundreds of patents recently sold by AOL, the social networking company’s latest move to bulk up its intellectual property in the wake of a lawsuit filed by Yahoo.

The deal will give Facebook 650 patents and patent applications, as well as a license to another 275 patents and applications owned by Microsoft. Microsoft trumped Amazon, eBay and other tech giants earlier this month with its more than $1 billion purchase of most of AOL Inc. patent trove.

Facebook’s deal with Microsoft comes as the world’s No.1 social networking company is preparing for an initial public offering that could value it at up to $100 billion and as Facebook fights a legal battle with Yahoo Inc.

Yahoo sued Facebook earlier this year, alleging that Facebook infringed 10 Yahoo patents, including several that cover online advertising technology. Facebook countersued Yahoo in April, alleging that Yahoo infringes 10 of Facebook’s patents. In March, Facebook acquired 750 patents from International Business Machines Corp.

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(added 23 days ago) / 24 views

NVIDIA hands out a Crowbar for use in case of Zombies or something else – Another GeForce GTX 690 Teaser?

Posted in : New Technologies

(added 24 days ago)

NVIDIA has sent out a crowbar labled with the GeForce logo to the guys at Hardwareheaven, The crowbar reads that it could be used during a Zombie invasion or for something else indicating that this may well be another teaser for the GeForce GTX 690 – NVIDIA’s flagship dual kepler based GPU. This is also the second teaser, first one was announced last week which you can see here.

The question is what else could it be used for? Obviously! NVIDIA wont hand out a bunch of crowbars to crack their GPU’s. As far as i think, the crowbar would be used to unbox the packaging of the GeForce GTX 690 as we all remember that NVIDIA’s GTX 590 also come with quite a hefty packaging so this could be even bulkier.

The GTX 690 if that’s what the teaser is all about would pack two GK104 cores each holding 1536 Cuda cores. The launch is expected during the week starting 30th April, it could be the same day or as source suggest 5th May. Price of this card would range between $799-$899.

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(added 24 days ago) / 18 views

Lava XOLO X900 kicks off Intel's smartphone foray

Posted in : New Technologies

(added 27 days ago)

Indian phone manufacturer Lava has launched new XOLO X900 - the world's first mobile phone powered by Intel.  Priced at around Rs 22,000 it will be available in the Indian market from April 23. Lava XOLO X900 is powered by a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor and 1GB RAM, it aims at delivering fast web browsing, and multitasking.

Lava XOLO X900 kicks off Intel's smartphone foray

Lava XOLO X900 comes with a 400MHz graphics processor unit and uses Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), which can be upgradable to Android 4.0. Lava XOLO X900 features an 8 MP rear camera and 1.3 MP front camera. The 4.03'' LCD display offers a resolution of 1024X600 pixels.

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Google Street View may face further scrutiny

Posted in : It News

(added 29 days ago)

A U.S. congressman and an Internet privacy group are calling for further scrutiny of Google's Street View street-mapping service, which collected and stored data from unencrypted wireless networks. Google's Street View cars, which were supposed to collect the locations of Wi-Fi access points, also inadvertently collected data about people's online activities from unsecured Wi-Fi networks for four years.

"The circumstances surrounding Google's surreptitious siphoning of personal information leave many unanswered questions," Rep. Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a statement today. "I believe Congress should immediately hold a hearing to get to the bottom of this serious situation."Meanwhile, the Electronic Privacy Information Center sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder asking the Department of Justice to look into Google's information gathering related to the mapping service.

"Google's 'Street View' program has given rise to numerous investigations and lawsuits, but none have adequately determined whether Google's conduct violated the federal Wire Tap Act," Marc Rotenberg, EPIC's executive director, said in the letter (PDF). "Given the inadequacy of the FCC's investigation and the law enforcement responsibilities of the attorney general, EPIC urges the Department of Justice to investigate Google's collection of Wi-Fi data from residential Wi-Fi networks."On Sunday, the FCC imposed a $25,000 fine on the company, alleging that the Web giant "deliberately impeded and delayed" its probe into the policies governing the mapping service. Google representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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(added 29 days ago) / 37 views

Oracle says Google’s own emails show its guilt

Posted in : It News

(added a month ago!)

San Francisco: An Oracle attorney cited emails between top executives at Google as prime evidence that Google took its intellectual property to gain an edge in the lucrative smartphone market, at the start of a high stakes trial between the two tech giants.

Opening statements between Oracle Corp and Google Inc began on Monday in a San Francisco federal court. Oracle sued Google in August 2010 over patent and copyright claims for the Java programming language.

According to Oracle, Google’s Android operating system tramples on its intellectual property rights to Java, which it acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010. Google says it does not violate Oracle’s patents and that Oracle cannot copyright certain parts of Java. The trial before US district judge William Alsup is expected to last at least eight weeks.

Oracle attorney Michael Jacobs said Google took copyrighted Java “blueprints” to harness the creative power of millions of Java software developers, so they then could write applications for Android. However, Google never obtained the proper license, he said.

“You can’t just step on someone’s IP because you have a good business reason for it,” Jacobs said. Google’s opening statement is scheduled to take place on Tuesday morning. Spokesman Jim Prosser said Google is confident in its defenses, and that Oracle’s legal claims threaten the broad goal of making software systems work together smoothly.

Jacobs displayed several Google emails to the jury, which were relayed to the courtroom gallery on a high definition screen. In 2005, Android chief Andy Rubin sent one to Google co-founder Larry Page proposing to take a license to Java.

“We’ll pay Sun for the license,” Rubin wrote. But according to Jacobs, a May 2007 email from Rubin to then-CEO Eric Schmidt shows that Google consciously decided against taking a license. Some spectators in the packed courtroom strained to read the email, displayed alongside photos of Rubin and Schmidt.

“I’m done with Sun (tail between my legs, you were right),” Rubin wrote to Schmidt. “They won’t be happy when we release our stuff.”Google’s Prosser said Java inventors cheered Android when it was released. But Jacobs told the jury that Sun executives were not happy behind closed doors, regardless of what they said publicly.

Before jury selection began, Alsup warned both companies that they should not expect to keep sensitive financial information secret. “This is a public trial,” he said.

Jacobs did not divulge any financial details about Android during his presentation on Monday. Early on in the case, estimates of potential damages against Google ran as high as $6.1 billion. But Google has narrowed Oracle’s claims to only two patents from seven originally, reducing the possible award. Oracle is seeking roughly $1 billion in copyright damages.

A retired teacher, a US postal worker and a store designer for Gap Inc were among the jurors selected on Monday to decide the case. The seven-woman, five-man jury also included a retired photographer, an avid hiker and a nurse.

Jacobs told Alsup that Oracle’s CEO, Larry Ellison, would likely be Oracle’s first live trial witness. Ellison could take the stand as early as Tuesday. Oracle also said in a court filing on Sunday that it expected Google CEO Larry Page to be among its first witnesses.

Ellison will testify about the importance of Java to Oracle’s business and the harm Android has caused the company, according to the witness list. The testimony from Page, a relatively reclusive figure, could include details about Google’s business plan and marketing strategy for Android, including the company’s recent acquisition of Motorola, the witness list shows.

The trial will have three phases: copyright liability, patent claims, and damages. Page could also testify about revenue and profit projections for Android, including advertising revenue, the witness list said. The case in US district court, Northern District of California, is Oracle America, Inc v. Google Inc, 10-3561.

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