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21
Dec 2009 |
Finnish cellphone manufacturer Nokia recently ventured into the untried netbook world and has now made the Nokia Booklet 3G available for pre-order from their website for for 650 (around R8,000).
Nokia has not revealed a release date for the UK launch of Booklet 3G but it is expected to be released somewhere in January 2010. No release date has been set for other regions, including South Africa.
Nokia's idea for creating Booklet 3G stems from the exceptional battery life that most Nokia phones have, a... |
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21
Dec 2009 |
The The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed complaints from ten privacy groups over Facebook's latest privacy changes.
In a statement the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) claimed it has been joined by 9 other privacy organisations in a bid to request the regulator to investigate recent changes to the social network's privacy settings.
Facebook has been lambasted since the changes were made, and has been slated by by groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American... |
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21
Dec 2009 |
Facebook will be redesigning their site once again, and is testing it with a select group of users. Incoming changes include a stronger focus on search, a new photo uploader, and quick overview of your new messages, notifications, and invitations.
The new emphasis on search is only part of a trial, and may never be implemented for all users. However, the redesign is in tune with plans outlined by Facebook last month. Facebook told developers in October that it intends to open up its API further in a bid ... |
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21
Dec 2009 |
Microsoft's up and coming search engine, Bing, is being sued by a small design firm from the midwest because they say that Microsoft's search engine has a name is too similar to that of their company.
The design company, Bing!, alleges trademark infringement as well as unfair competition, and claims that "Microsoft's use of the name dilutes the value of it and confuses the public about the companies' relationship to each other."
The company has a pending application for registration of the mark, and h... |
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21
Dec 2009 |
Not just a clever search engine, but clever accounting at Google helps them all but eliminate a sizeable 2008 tax bill, even with massive earnings.
Last year Google raked in £1.6 billion (+-R19.7 billion) in ad sales, which totals 14 percent of the total revenue, although they paid only £141,519 tax in the UK - which is around 0.09 percent of earnings.
The search giant diverts all of its British revenue to its European headquarters in Ireland. This means it only pays corporation tax at a r... |
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16
Dec 2009 |
URL shorteners, like bit.ly , have become a popular way for people to share links on Twitter while taking up as few of the allotted 140 characters as possible. But saving space is just one of the benefits that shorteners provide. Others include getting traffic analytics like how many people are sharing links from which sites.
Facebook hasn't made any official announcements, but shortened URLs coming from fb.me started showing up instead of the usual, very long Facebook links. For now, this is done autom... |
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14
Dec 2009 |
A standard for 7Gbps communications over wireless has been released by the WiGig industry group, and promised that products will appear by the end of 2010.
The group intends to use the unlicensed 60GHz band to enable higher speed wireless communications between devices, and will utilise Wi-Fi's higher-layer protocols, which means the new technology can be introduced without a substantial change to existing products.
The unified wireless specification announced today by the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (W... |
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14
Dec 2009 |
Vodafone has announced that it won't be restocking the HTC HD2 smartphone once its current stock has sold out, but the phone will be sold still to business users and enterprise customers.
The mobile provider offered no official reason for the decision, although rumour has it that software glitches are the main reason the device wont be sold to customers. If this were the case however, why would Vodafone continue to offer the device to business and enterprise customers if it is fraught with software probl... |
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11
Dec 2009 |
There are more than 450 million mobile Internet users around the world according to research firm IDC, and it expects that figure to more than double over the next four years, reaching 1 billion by 2013.
China, India and the USA account for 359 million users, which is expected to rise to 566 million expected in the next 3 years.
The United States leads the world with the most Internet connected devices, but China ranks tops for mobile Internet-connected devices -- 85 million, or nearly 20 percent of t... |
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8
Dec 2009 |
Google and several other Internet giants are lobbying the U.K. government to drop a proposal that would allow the secretary of state to introduce new changes to copyright law.
The UK's Digital Economy bill has caused Google to raise its concerns that Clause 17 could pave the way for heightened government scrutiny into the habits of internet users.
The proposed powers include the ability for the secretary of state to impose fees related to changes to copyright law. The official, however, would not have... |
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8
Dec 2009 |
Google has stepped up its search offering and is now set to provide search results in real-time, giving end-users the option of seeing relevant links that have just been added to its index.
The search giant and its rival Bing both announced a move to real-time using Twitter on the same day in October, and Google is set to roll-out the system over the next few days, and also include other social networks like Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca.
The move is an acknowledgement by Google ... |
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8
Dec 2009 |
Seagate makes about $10 billion a year in revenues from its 30-year-old hard drive business, but in a statement Tuesday, Seagate said it had been shipping the new Pulsar drives to select OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) since September 2009.
Designed for enterprise blade and general server applications, the 2.5-inch drive has a capacity of 200 gigabytes and is based on the SATA (serial ATA) specification. It represents one of the most significant expansions for the company in years.
Instead of ... |
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8
Dec 2009 |
Dell has unveiled the Vostro V13, a new cheap ultra-portable laptop targeted at small businesses that fits into an emerging market space between netbooks and full-sized laptops - called ultra-low voltage (ULV).
The new release from Dell is a low-priced laptop powered by an Intel processor and the Mobile Intel GS45 Express Chipset ICH9M-Enhanced. This product focuses on low cost and low power usage by making use of a power-efficient and ultra-low voltage CPU. The processor can be either the ultra-low vol... |
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8
Dec 2009 |
Burundi mobile operator Econet on Monday launched a new rechargeable solar handset it hopes will eventually boost subscriber numbers to 800 000.
Econet, a subsidiary of South Africa-based Econet Wireless International, has attracted 80 000 users since April and aims to have 100 000 signed up by the end of the year.
The African nation of eight million people saw its subscriber base grow by 78 percent to 480 000 users in 2008. Burundi's telecom regulator estimates the number of customers could reach 700... |
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8
Dec 2009 |
Joel Tenenbaum, a student at Boston University, was sued in 2007 by the Recording Industry Aassociation of Americaa (RIAA) and is now suffering the consequences.
He was sued for illegally sharing copyrighted songs over the internet, and now a federal judge signed off on a $675,000 (around R5 million) fine against Tenenbaum for illegally sharing a mere 30 songs.
U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner is amongst many who find the fine to be excessive, and she says that she has extreme concerns for the ... |
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