Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Match: BlackBerry vs iPhone


By Galen Gruman, InfoWorld
Look at any major analyst firm report since the Apple iPhone was released, and you'll see the earnest intoning to stick with the buttoned-down and pinstriped BlackBerry -- widely admired in executive corridors for its safety and security -- and beware that odd, colorful, possibly dangerous Apple device that consumers may love but professionals should avoid. If the iPhone were meant for work, it wouldn't be so much fun to use, would it?
Yes, it was Mac versus PC all over again: The iPhone was quickly pigeonholed as a fun, polished device for the cool kids to play with versus the RIM BlackBerry's rep as a corporate standard designed to get work done. As with the Mac-versus-PC dichotomy, Apple's focus on visual interface, exotic technologies like touch, and fun stuff (music, video, and games), coupled with its lack of "serious" capabilities such as encryption, let that perception take root as the conventional wisdom.
Full story...

Tracking Every Move, by Cell Phone


By Bob Tedeschi, toptechnews
The tracking is fairly accurate. As long as the phone's GPS has a line of sight to satellites, Glympse will show your location within a range of 10 paces, sometimes less. If you're in a grove of trees or something else that impedes the GPS technology, but you're still within reach of a cell tower, Glympse will use the towers to determine your location.
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O2 to get Palm Pre exclusivity in UK?


By Maggie Holland, itpro
O2 has remained tight lipped on reports suggesting that it has nabbed an exclusive deal to sell Palm's new Pre handset.
The mobile network has previously been linked to the device based on Palm’s new webOs platform, but a Guardian report published this weekend added further weight to the rumours.
Just last week, Sprint announced that it would be making the Palm Pre available in the US from 6 June, but there has been no official word as yet as to when UK users can get their hands on the device.
Full story...

Top 10 Cell Phones


By Ginny Mies, pcworld
Need a break from your laptop? These productivity phones offer a lot more than the ability to make calls. Here are the 10 best smart phones available today, according to PC World Test Center reviews.
All list...

The 3G iPhone Goes Pay-As-You-Go


skynews
Plans have been unveiled for the 3G iPhone to become available on a pay-as-you-go basis. Ahead of an official announcement by O2 and Apple, the O2 website has published pricing details on how people can get hold of the handset without committing to a monthly contract. The new iPhone 3G 8GB for Pay & Go will be available for £349.99 and the 16GB version for £399.99. These costs include unlimited browsing and Wi-Fi for the first 12 months after the phone is activated. After the 12 months is up, the browsing and wi-fi remain available for £10 a month.
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Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (Wii)


By Daniel S. Evans, pcmag
The original Donkey Kong Jungle Beat came out in 2004 for the Nintendo Game Cube, and its "bongo controllers" quickly became a fixture of dorm rooms and living rooms around the world. In order to move Donkey Kong around in the game, you played a set of bongos and clapped your hands in various ways. This was pretty innovative, but after a while you realized that there was only so much you could do with a controller like this—it limited game play. The new version has solved this problem by adopting the Wii controls. And at $29.99 (list) it's also a great bargain, considering that many Wii games retail for $49.99 list.
Full review...

Twitter and Facebook just need one thing: Cash


reuters
Facebook and Twitter have helped make social networking a household word. Now they need to make money.
Efforts to monetise the popular internet services are increasingly a priority within the two companies, with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone outlining several initiatives at the Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York this week.
And analysts and investors, in search of the next Google-like hit, are paying close attention to the breakneck speed at which Facebook and Twitter are adding new users.
While the popularity of the two social media firms has yet to translate into the kind of revenue-generating machine that Google developed with its search advertising business, some say Facebook and Twitter have become so central to the internet experience that they are inherently valuable.
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How Can You Play Wii Games From a Hard Drive?


by Matt Peckham, pcworld
Warning, I haven't personally transmogrified my Wii into a spindle-free digital data bucket (without holes, Dear Liza, Dear Liza) but it's one heck of a bold little hack if it works. Per this Gawker Media tipster, who got it from a guy who either owns or actually is Che Guevera reincarnated as a bulldog, if you're feeling equally intrepid, here's the do-it-yourself scoop.
Says hack-guru Mike Schultheisz, whose April how-to is finally splashing the info aggregators:
One of the cooler hacks that I've found for the Wii is how to store and load your games from a USB Hard Drive. The idea is that you plug a hard drive into one of the USB slots on the back of the Wii, and rip/store your games. When you want to play them, you have only to access the hard drive and select what you'd like to play
What'll you need?
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Facebook sell part of company with $200M


by Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service
Facebook, whose dizzying growth in recent years has been rumored to put a growing strain on its finances, has sold a stake to investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (DST) for US$200 million.
DST, which invests mostly in Internet companies from Russia and Eastern Europe, has acquired Facebook preferred stock equivalent to a 1.96 percent equity stake.
The investment gives Facebook a $10 billion valuation, a third less than the value of the social-networking company when it sold a 1.6 percent stake for $240 million to Microsoft in October 2007.
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10 Targeting Social Networks


by Sean Ludwig, pcmag.com
Facebook, MySpace, and other general social networks are great for connecting with friends and sharing your interests. But they serve a general audience, and they don't always do a good job of filtering information to let you focus on a particular interest—whether it be a favorite book series, a collection of wines, or a particular sport. So instead of joining yet another Facebook group, why not try a niche social network?
There are lots of them out there for just about every interest, and they are constantly being added to. Companies have launched sites for gearheads, bookworms, and dog lovers. There are also services such as Ning, which allows individual users to create their own social networks—so far more than a million individual networks have been built with it. Special interest networks give fans and devotees a forum to indulge their passions and meet like-minded friends.
Full article...

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