Central to the pitch will be a keynote to be delivered Tuesday by Windows Phone program director Joe Belfiore. Belfiore will no doubt discuss the status of recent updates for Windows Phone 7, including the NoDo patch, which mainly adds a copy & paste function. The NoDo rollout is now in progress but was delayed due to a glitch in an earlier patch that, ironically, was designed to ensure that future updates go smoothly.
Microsoft recently said it now has more than 11,000 apps for Windows Phone 7. While that sounds like a healthy number at first blush, it pales in comparison to the 350,000 iPhone apps currently available and the more than 100,000 apps now claimed by Google for Android. Windows Phone 7 also conspicuously lacks officially sanctioned apps from a number of major content providers, including The Wall Street Journal and Fox News.
Microsoft will try to change that at MIX 11 with a series of keynotes and sessions that aim to convince attendees that Windows Phone 7 will gain the critical mass that developers--particularly those from big publishing houses and studios who are faced with a mushrooming field of devices they need to support--require before committing to a platform.
Belfiore is also expected to provide news on Mango, an update that should be available later this year that adds Internet Explorer 9 and support for HTML 5 hardware acceleration to Windows Phone 7.
But developers' main focus will likely be on what Belfiore says, or doesn't say, about the status of Microsoft's recently announced partnership with Nokia. Nokia, which still ships more handsets than any other phone manufacturer, agreed to use Windows Phone 7 as the default OS for its smartphone lineup.
Neither Nokia nor Microsoft has provided a solid timetable on when Windows-based Nokia phones will show up in the market, and have yet to hammer out all the details of their alliance. Still, market watcher Gartner predicts the deal will eventually make Microsoft the number two player in the smartphone wars, ahead of Apple's iOS and trailing only Google Android by 2015, "solely by virtue of Microsoft's alliance with Nokia," according to a research note issued last week by the firm.
Belfiore's keynote session is slated for 9:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday.
source : http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/microsoft_news/229401357
Adobe Systems announced an update to its Adobe Creative Suite 5 software, which for the first time will be available by way of monthly subscriptions.
Creative Suite 5.5, as the new refresh is called, features new tools that will enable users to more easily create content for smartphones and tablets and do more using HTML5.
The rollout of Creative Suite 5.5, which will take place in about a month, will be Adobe's first shot at a new software release schedule, with more incremental updates between fully new versions of its main product package.
"This launch marks a major change to Adobe's product release strategy for Creative Suite," the San Jose company said in a statement. "Adobe now plans to have milestone Creative Suite product introductions at 24-month intervals and -- starting with Creative Suite 5.5 -- significant mid-cycle releases designed to keep the worldwide creative community ahead of the latest advances in content authoring."
The Creative Suite subscription editions are new for Adobe too and will let customers try Adobe products by subscribing online without having to commit to spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy the software suites.
One of Adobe's most popular products, Photoshop, sits on the low end of the subscription model at a monthly price of $49, or $35 with a one-year subscription.
Adobe's Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium package -- which includes InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional and Adobe FlashCatalyst, Acrobat X Pro, Illustrator CS5, Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended and Adobe Fireworks CS5 -- goes for $95 a month as part of a one-year plan or $139 month-to-month.
Adobe's top-of-the-line Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection can be subscribed to for $129 a month for a year or $195 month-to-month.
Creative Suite 5.5 is just a bit more expensive.
A traditional, non-subscription copy of Adobe's Creative Suite 5.5 Master Collection software will sell for $2,599, about $1,000 more than a one-year subscription to the software. The Design Premium package will sell for $1,899, or $759 more than a one-year subscription.
If you don’t get out soon, you’re going to fall asleep. Or maybe explode. Or, worse, say something you’ll regret.
Good news, Dilbert: Your problems with the boss are over if you’re using Android, the world’s most popular mobile phone operating system. The platform offers hundreds of apps for spoofing phone calls or texts — or pulling other stunts that can help get you out of work.
Compare that to the limited variety of leg-pulling apps on Apple’s iOS platform, and you’ll see why Android is the mobile OS of choice for shirkers like myself.
April Fool’s Day is a good time to give these Android exploits a look. Get out of that work meeting by using an app to program your Android phone to send yourself a fake text or a bogus phone call.
I get them from Kim Kardashian all the time, forcing me to leave meetings to attend more, um, important business. Having to excuse oneself to go to the bathroom only works so many times when it comes to escaping a meeting.
Even better, hit the boss with pre-programmed fake text messages from Ms. Kardashian. That might get him to stop talking, or it might produce the sudden need to halt the meeting. Either way, the joke’s on him.
An Android application for bogus texting is “Fake-A-Text-Free.” The Android Market and third-party Android markets are littered with similar apps.
Then there’s the app “Fake Me Out of Here!” It’s for the truly lazy. No pre-programming is necessary for this app to make your phone ring with a fake call from anyone in your contact list.
But sometimes the boss just might have something relevant to say, but you still can’t stomach the thought of sitting through the meeting.If you haven’t played the “bathroom card” too many times, excuse yourself and leave your phone behind. Then secretly record the meeting. Sure, it might be illegal, but nobody has to know. Play back the recording a month later, and you’ll know why you exited stage left.
Some apps to help perform this nefarious deed are appropriately named: They are called “Informant,” “Secret Recorder” and, among others “Spy Recorder Voice Recorder.”
For the 007 diehards, why not secretly record video as well? Yep, there are apps for that.One of them is called “Spy Phone.” Position your phone, which looks like it’s off, at the correct angle and it starts recording video, and nobody will be the wiser. Another app, the “Android Spy Camera,” promises to secretly take pictures with “no flash and no shutter sound.” You better hope that app lives up to its promises or you may find yourself wishing you could attend a work-related meeting.
So what’s next? You’ve successfully left the meeting. Now it’s time to take this exploit to the next level.
Sure, you could hit the local tavern for the afternoon. But why be so sheepish? Don’t put your Maxwell Smart tendencies to waste.
Go ahead and hit the Bahamas. After your fourth beachside margarita, you’ll have completely forgotten about that work meeting.
Best of all, your boss won’t even know your lathering up with sunblock. That’s because he’ll think you’ve been abducted to one of the world’s most notorious prisons.
That’s right, go ahead and use FourSquare to check in, or Facebook to “like,” the Diyarbakir prison in Turkey by using GPS spoofing apps to fake your global positioning. Many apps allow for this digital teleportation, and they are apply named with titles like “Fake GPS Location,” ”My Fake Location” and, among others, “GPS Route Simulator.”Better yet, don’t even bother showing up to work. Send your boss a spoofed e-mail from your doctor, informing the Big Kahuna that you’ve got leprosy. There’s a bunch of apps for that. Search for them under “fake email” in the Android Market.
The practice, of course, is legally questionable.
What’s more, the e-mail spoofs might help you get a wage increase without having to explain your new tan.
Upon your return from Diyarbakir, send your boss a spoofed e-mail from your competitor with a message saying the company wants to hire you away.
Sure, it might backfire. Your boss might not give you a raise and instead point you to the door.
But don’t fret. You still got an ace up your sleeve: You used one of a host of Android apps, including “Call Recorder – Total Recall” or “HTC Call Recorder Widget” or tons of others to secretly record a telephone call between yourself and the boss. If you were able to catch him saying anything untoward — like dissing his boss — you might have all the leverage you need to keep yourself in clover indefinitely.
Sure, extortion and clandestine phone recording are illegal. But no worries, the cops might go easy on you if you can hook them up with Kim Kardashian.
Photo: Kardashian image/BiggerPictureImages.com/Flick
source : http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/android-exploits/
Apple has run out of original 16GB Wi-Fi iPads as online stock of refurbished and clearance first-generation iPads runs low, even as its successor, the iPad 2, continues to sell out.
The Apple Online Store no longer offers the Wi-Fi only version of the original iPad in its clearance section and has run out of the first-generation 16GB Wi-Fi iPad in the refurbished section, as noted by MacNN.
All three of last year's 3G iPad models remain on sale in the clearance section, priced at $529, $629 and $729 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models respectively. The refurbished versions of the 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi iPads sell for $429 and $529, while refurbished iPad 3Gs sell for $479, $559 and $659.
Shortly after unveiling the iPad 2, Apple began offering remaining stock of the original iPad for a discount. Unopened models of the iPad are on sale for a $100 discount, while refurbished models sell for as much as $170 off the original price.
Apple also offered either a $100 discount or a refund to customers who purchased the first-generation iPad within 14 days of the iPad 2 announcement on March 2.
Analysts project Apple will sell a total of 40 million iPads in 2011, including both the first- and second-generation models. Greater than expected demand for the iPad 2 has impressed Wall Street, causing at least one analyst to revise his sales forecast.
by http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/03/31/apple_running_out_of_remaining_stock_of_discounted_original_ipads.html
source : http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Mozilla_Releases_Firefox_4_for_Android/551-114960-580.html
However, an official said the iodine would have deteriorated considerably by the time it reached people.
Meanwhile, the president of the Fukushima nuclear plant operator Tepco has been admitted to hospital.
Masataka Shimizu is being treated for high blood pressure and dizziness, a Tepco spokesperson said.
Mr Shimizu has barely been seen in public since the earthquake and tsunami on 11 March which damaged the Fukushima plant.
Engineers are battling to restore power and restart the cooling systems at the plant.
Tepco has been accused of a lack of transparency and failing to provide information more promptly. It was also heavily criticised for issuing erroneous radiation readings at the weekend.
Tepco officials have announced a news conference for 1500 local time (0600 GMT).
'Unpredictable' Earlier samples had put the iodine level in the sea at 1,850 times the legal limit.
The new readings were near reactor No 1 - 300m from the shore.
Much lower - but still elevated levels - of the same radioactive element have been found in seawater as far as 16km to the south.
The BBC's Mark Worthington in Tokyo says the discovery is the strongest indication so far that highly radioactive water is leaking into the sea.
Tepco and the safety agency say the exact source of the leak is unknown.
"Iodine 131 has a half-life of eight days, and even considering its concentration in marine life, it will have deteriorated considerably by the time it reaches people," Hidehiko Nishiyama, deputy director-general of Japan's nuclear safety agency told a news conference.
Radioactive materials are measured by scientists in half-lives, or the time it takes to halve the radiation through natural decay.
Iodine 131 was blamed for the high incidence of thyroid cancer among children exposed to fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan discussed the crisis at Fukushima with US President Barack Obama.
Highly radioactive liquid has been found inside and outside several reactor buildings.
Small amounts of plutonium have also been detected in soil at the plant - the latest indication that one of the reactors suffered a partial meltdown.
But, like the discovery of plutonium, the high levels of radiation found inside and outside reactor buildings are likely to have come from melted fuel rods.
Theories for the leak centre on two possibilities - steam is flowing from the core into the reactor housing and escaping through cracks, or the contaminated material is leaking from the damaged walls of the water-filled pressure control pool beneath the No 2 reactor.
The plutonium - used in the fuel mix in the No 3 reactor - is not at levels that threaten human health, officials said.
more : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903072
The New York Times subscription service kicked in on Monday afternoon, requiring the most active readers to pay for full access to the publication. Initially, the paywall did not apply to e-book subscriptions, but Amazon announced that those who subscribe to the Times via the Kindle will also get access to the paper's site for free.
"Customers love reading the New York Times on their Kindles," Russ Grandinetti, vice president of Kindle Content, said in a statement. "Given the Times' transition to a digital subscription model, we're excited to be able to offer Kindle subscribers online access to all the digital content available at NYTimes.com at no additional cost."
Amazon said the New York Times is the best-selling newspaper in the Kindle Store. The Times subscription service, also known as a "paywall," offers readers metered access to the publication, depending on the level of service. A $15 monthly fee buys unlimited access to the Times Web site and the premium smartphone app, $20 per month covers online access and the Times iPad app, and $35 a month buys access to the full range of the Times' digital products. All of this is available to print subscribers are no additional cost. Perhaps to hook more readers into subscribing, the Times is offering the first four weeks at a discounted rate of $0.99.
Non-subscribers can view up to 20 stories for free each month, and stories linked on Facebook or Twitter can be read at no cost.
A subscription to the Times on Kindle is $19.99 a month, pretty much the same as a subscription that includes iPad access, so it makes sense that these readers wouldn't have to pay more.
The paywall was announced earlier this month, and at the time, the paper said digital subscriptions did not include access on e-readers like the Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon Kindle.
Since the Times made its announcement, detractors have argued that there are too many ways to skirt the paywall, which the Times spent $40 million erecting.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Amazon.com wants to be more than a destination for shopping online — it also dreams of being a place where you can store your music, photos and videos and access them any time, from any computer.
The online retailer launched two new offerings late Monday: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player. The first lets you upload and store files like music, videos and photos on Amazon's servers, which you can get to from a Web browser on a Mac or PC. The second lets you play songs you've uploaded on your computer or on a smartphone that runs Google's Android operating software. The "cloud" in the services' names refers to the practice of storing content online and streaming it to a computer over the Internet.
Amazon's move is beating Google Inc. and Apple Inc., which are believed to be working on similar services that would allow consumers to access their content when away from their home computer.
While Amazon will charge for the Cloud Drive service, it's offering anyone with an Amazon account 5 gigabytes of free storage. That's less space than you'd get on the smallest iPod Touch, but it's a move that's likely to woo plenty of users who might later decide to pay for more storage space.
The Seattle-based company, which already runs an online storage service for companies called Amazon S3, decided to roll out a consumer cloud service to make it easier for customers to access digital content no matter where they are, Amazon music director Craig Pape said.
The offerings could also benefit Amazon's bottom line: The company realized customers were hesitant to purchase MP3s at work because they didn't want them tied to their office computer, Pape said, so Cloud Drive and Cloud Player may drive more impulse music shopping.
"At the end of the day we're trying to delight customers, but we're trying to sell more music, too," he said.
The company also wants to sell cloud storage. If your tunes and videos take up more space than the 5 GB Amazon is giving out, you can pay an annual storage fee to use Cloud Drive: The use of 20 GB of storage, for example, will cost $20 (and this includes the 5 free GB). For an undisclosed period of time, however, Amazon is offering 20 GB of free storage to those who buy a digital album from its Amazon MP3 store.
Documents or videos you've uploaded to Cloud Drive will open with programs on the computer you're using, Pape said, while songs in MP3 or AAC files will be playable through the Web-based Cloud Player.
The player offers simple controls — you can play, pause or skip tracks, or build your own playlists. For users who want to listen while on the go, an updated version of the Amazon MP3 digital music-buying app will include Cloud Player, letting users play music they've stored with Amazon's service on their cell phone as well as tunes that are already on their handsets.
source : google
"Facebook’s foray into pay-per-view does not impact our Netflix estimates," she said in a report. "However, Facebook represents a new potential entrant that few in the investment community were concerned with prior to this announcement, so we believe it does indeed represent an incremental negative for Netflix shares."
She added that Facebook "could some day become a credible threat to Netflix."
For now, Facebook seems to position itself as a pay-per-view platform, "which is more of a threat to other forms of VOD (such as iTunes or Amazon)," Chung said. She added that the social networking site "lacks content, does not have wide distribution across devices that connect to the living room TV, has few people on the payments platform and does not have an incumbent business that is under threat from increasing online video viewership."
Longer-term, it could become a challenger and concern for Netflix, she argued, citing Facebook's more than 500 million active users, compared with Netflix’s 20 million subscribers.
"The “wisdom of friends” could be a bigger driver of movie viewership than the “wisdom of crowds"," Chung also said. Plus: "We believe that many of the issues outlined above could be fixed over time, including the gap to the living room TV."
Netflix shares had opened lower on Tuesday following the Facebook-Warner Bros. news.
Goldman earlier this year invested $450 million in Facebook.
source :
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/facebook-could-become-a-credible-165335
Going forward, users will be able to clear local storage - sometimes known as "F
Adobe on Tuesday released Flash Player 10.3 beta, which provides users with greater control over the program's privacy and storage options.
Going forward, users will be able to clear local storage - sometimes known as "Flash cookies" - on versions of Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox. "Cookies" are little bits of data collected about your Internet activity. They can be useful - like remembering passwords and settings on sites that you surf to frequently - but there are also concerns about targeted advertising and how much data is really collected.
Web cookies can be deleted, but management of cookies inside products like Flash are a bit more complex. Adobe said Tuesday, however, that Flash Player 10.3 Beta "integrates control of local storage with the browser's privacy settings," something the company promised in January.
As a result, "users will have a simpler way to clear local storage from the browser settings interface, similar to how they clear their browser cookies today," Adobe said.
In Firefox 4 (right), the "Clear All History" option will have a "Cookies" option. Check it and click "Clear Now" to delete.
Mozilla executives said Tuesday that the release candidate for Firefox 4 is expected sometime this week, with a final release expected later this month. Firefox 4 also includes a "do not track" component, which will give Web users the option not to have their activity tracked by third-party sites.
On IE, the "Delete Browsing History" window will also have a "Cookies" option, which reads: "Files stored on your computer by websites to save preferences such as login information." Check it and hit "Delete."
The 10.3 beta also simplifies the Flash Player settings manager as it relates to privacy, security, and storage settings. Windows, Mac, and Linux users can now access the Flash Player settings manager directly from the Control Panel or Systems Preferences on their computer.
Flash cookies, or local shared objects (LSO), made headlines recently when the Federal Trade Commission released a report that called on browser makers to include a "do not track" option in their products. The FTC also mentioned Adobe because it said the cookies gathered by Flash are collected regardless of the browser's settings.
Adobe added an in-private browsing option to Flash Player 10.1, which allows users to surf and play video content without having their activity tracked. But going forward, users will also be able to delete LSOs from their browser settings, whether they are using normal browsing or private.
Early last month, Adobe released Flash Player 10.2, which includes a feature known as Stage Video that promises increased performance while using less processing power. Adobe also promised other additions that were previewed in the beta version, including custom native mouse cursors, multiple monitor full-screen support, Internet Explorer 9 hardware accelerated rendering support, and enhanced sub-pixel rendering for superior text readability.