Sorry, you can't mail your iPhone or iPad overseas 'til next year
The United States Postal Service has put a ban the international shipment of lithium-based batteries (Lithium Metal, Lithium Alloy, and Lithium ion.) This ban includes electronic equipment with lithium batteries permanently installed such as mp3 players, tablets and smartphones, and will stay in place until January 1, 2013.
Because of the issues that Lithium batteries have with short circuiting, overheating, and exploding, special regulations have been placed on their transport for the last five years.
In-app subscriptions come to Google Play, includes 'bundling' capabilities
Google announced on Thursday that Android developers can now use in-app Billing to sell monthly or annual subscriptions from inside of apps sold in Google Play. The feature brings Google Play up to speed with Apple's iTunes App Store, which rolled out this feature over one year ago.
With the new feature, developers set the price and billing interval and Google Play manages the purchase transactions for both the seller and the subscriber. Users can view their subscriptions in the "My Apps" screen in the Play Store app, the same place they view their updates, or they can view them in the app's product details page in the Play Store app. This is where users can cancel subscriptions if they choose.
Yahoo launches the first Pinterest-integrated mobile Web browser, Yahoo Axis
After a consistent stream of bad news from Yahoo's executive offices, the fading giant search company has finally launched a big new development that takes on its core business challenge: staying relevant. The company on Thursday launched its own Web browser called Yahoo Axis.
Axis is centered around searching, bookmarking, and content syncing across multiple devices. While Yahoo says Axis is both a desktop and mobile browser, it is really just a mobile browser for the iPad and iPhone, and a plug-in for Safari/Chrome/IE/Firefox which amounts to a little more than a "next-gen Yahoo Toolbar."
Jury says Android does not violate Oracle's patents, APIs up next in landmark case
The fight between Oracle and Google over Android's use of Java took a turn in Google's favor, filings from the District Court for the Norther District of California showed on Wednesday. The jury in the patent phase of the case unanimously voted that Oracle did not prove Android had infringed on Oracle's Java patents.
This decision settles only part of the lawsuit, which Groklaw remarked has been the "longest civil trial" they have ever covered. However, it is a big part. Oracle was calling for an injunction on Android plus damages in its suit, and now that the jury has found no patent infringement, the threat of injunction is nullified.
Seagate begins its next big takeover: LaCie
American storage company Seagate announced on Wednesday its intention to become majority owner of French storage company LaCie by buying 64.5% of the company's shares from chairman and CEO Phillippe Spruch. Pending government approval of this transaction, Seagate will then buy up the rest of the outstanding stock in cash or commence a squeeze out maneuver of any minority stakeholders.
After he sells his stake, Spruch will become the head of Seagate's consumer storage products organization, above Patrick Connolly, who is currently Seagate's vice president and general manager of retail. Deputy general manager of LaCie Pierre van der Elst will also join the Seagate team. The financial terms of the new position for LaCie's CEO have not yet been determined.
Anonymous hack of DOJ causes more embarrassment than actual harm
On Monday, hacktivist group Anonymous announced it will be releasing 1.7 gigabytes of private data it has acquired from the United States Department of Justice, in an event it called "Monday Mail Mayhem." The group claimed the act was being done to "spread information, to allow the people to be heard and to know the corruption in their government. We are releasing it to end the corruption that exists, and truly make those who are being oppressed free."
New York-based security company Identity Finder ran an analysis on the data after it was released on Tuesday, and found the file dump actually contained no sensitive personal information, no secret internal documents, and no internal emails.
Raspberry Pi not enough for you? How about a $49 Android PC?
Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company Via Technologies on Tuesday unveiled its affordable, low power Android PC system, known simply as APC.
The $49 board uses the Neo-ITX form factor, which at 170 x 85 millimeters is the same length as Mini-ITX, but half as wide. It is powered by the VIA WonderMedia ARM 11 system on a chip, which is equipped with an 800MHz processor, 512 MB of DDR3 RAM, and has integrated GPU capable of video outputs up to 720p in resolution. It also has 2GB of NAND Flash storage, HDMI and VGA ports, four USB 2.0 ports, 1/8" headphone jack and mic input, microSD slot, and 10/100 Ethernet connectivity. The whole thing runs off of a 15 W power supply and is loaded with a version of Android 2.3 optimized for keyboard and mouse input.
Much like the wildly popular Raspberry Pi project PC which debuted last February, the APC is meant to be a "technology enabler" more than a powerhouse for computing. The board gives users with few resources the ability to build a cheap, usable computer without having to roll in the superfluous features associated with full-scale desktop OS computing.
Leap promises a pocketable, compact 3D user interface
San Francisco startup Leap Motion today unveiled its killer product, a small USB-attached three dimensional sensor (a la Microsoft's Kinect) which is meant for use in small spaces on small screens. The product is called Leap and is available in limited quantities for just $70.
Leap creates an eight cubic foot interaction space, and Leap Motion says the tiny device is "200 times more sensitive than existing touch-free products and technologies." This is appealing because the current motion control interface of choice, Microsoft's Kinect, is a "living room" experiences which requires users to stand anywhere from six to eight feet away from the sensor. Leap can sit right on your desk and utilize only the space in front of you and around your PC if you so choose. This is one of the next big frontiers in interface design, as Belgium's Softkinetic announced a similar innovation at CES earlier this year, and notebook PC makers are looking to integrate similar features with stereoscopic webcams.
HTC says some of its blocked phones have passed customs
Last week, the news broke that some of HTC's new Android smartphones, including the One X and EVO 4G LTE were being held up in U.S. Customs for potentially violating an ITC exclusion order.
HTC last Wednesday confirmed that these two phones were delayed due to "a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments" that was required as a result of the ITC order. The company said "We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval." The customs delay caused the launch of the EVO 4G LTE to be postponed.
Microsoft Socl opens to all, the social network where search queries = status updates
Microsoft on Monday opened its experimental social search service called So.cl, which lets users socially broadcast their search queries and attached results. Socl is the product of Microsoft's Fuse labs, and has been open to limited user groups at the University of Washington, Syracuse University, and New York University, for the last five months.
Unlike the recent revamp of Bing, which integrates a user's social graph into their search base, Socl is something entirely different. The new service combines the "social broadcasting" aspect of Twitter and applies it to search queries and research.
Facebook's IPO is a jackpot for some, despite dark shadow of mobile
Today is Facebook Day, the day when the most-successful-social-network-so-far opened up to public investment and outshone all other American IPOs up to this point.
With shares initially priced at $38, Facebook (FB) opened at $42.99 on the Nasdaq at 11:30am EST on Friday. After a brief delay in trading on Friday, a reported 82 million shares (of 421.2 million) were traded in the first 30 seconds of availability, totaling $116 billion.
Trackerbird launches, lets you collect user analytics in your .NET apps
Cloud-based desktop software analytics platform Trackerbird completed its beta phase and launched to general availability on Thursday. The platform lets .NET software developers and vendors embed tracking mechanisms in their software to watch installations, trends in feature usage, user behaviour, demographics, and license conversions.
It's similar in concept to Concerity Analytics, which we launched here on BetaNews two years ago. By integrating Trackerbird's SDK into a desktop application, developers can collect anonymized reports and detailed conversion funnel analysis in real time. All software usage metrics collected by Trackerbird are totally anonymous and no IP addresses are stored. Developers can make Trackerbird analytics collection an option that the end user can choose to run.
Blackbaud CRM for nonprofits gets major feature upgrade, Web interface
Catering to the special marketing needs of nonprofit organizations, Blackbaud Inc. on Thursday released a new version of its Blackbaud CRM software which expands the software's functionality with a new browser-based dashboard, new fundraising and membership management functionality, and improved overall data management.
The major addition to Blackbaud CRM 2.93 is its Web dashboard. Previously, the software was only available as a Windows application, but now it can be accessed through Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Safari for iOS, and Android. The dashboard features a new, streamlined user interface and new batch commit functionality.
LG actually did some cool stuff with its new Android UI
There are many manufacturer-created user interfaces for Android, and sadly, most of them are unpleasant.
Some are polluted with unremovable bloatware, some are sluggish performers, and some are just badly designed. For as many different versions of the Android user experience as there are, there are very few major builds that add remarkable innovations on top of the Android platform.
Apple patents block HTC One X and EVO 4G LTE from U.S. market
"The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order," a boilerplate statement from Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC said on Wednesday.
The company's flagship smartphones are being held up in customs as a result of patent litigation with Apple, and their availability to consumers is currently on hold. Though it only launched on May 6, AT&T currently lists the One X as "sold out," and Sprint's EVO 4G LTE which was slated to launch on Friday, May 18, will be delayed. Pre-orders of the device do not have a guaranteed ship date.