According to a statement made by AT&T CFO John Stephens at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications, and Entertainment Conference 2011, AT&T will be launching its "real" 4G network this Sunday in its first five markets.

AT&T announced earlier this year that these first LTE markets would be: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. The rollout roadmap includes 15 total markets for the year 2011.

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If you’re worried about losing your smartphone or tablet then there’s no shortage of services around that claim they can help you to protect it. There’s not quite as much choice for laptop and PC owners, of course. But if you’re worried about thieves, help is at hand in the shape of a new Symantec web service, Norton Anti-Theft, released this week in beta form.

If you’ve ever tried one of the mobile device location and recovery services then Symantec’s take will seem quite familiar. After creating a Norton Beta account, all you have to do is install the Anti-Theft client and leave it running on your system. And if your laptop is stolen, then logging in to the Anti-Theft website will provide all the recovery features you’d expect, as well as one or two you might not.

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In a message to its shareholders on Thursday, DVD rental and video streaming company Netflix revealed that its subscriber acquisition has significantly slowed due to the revised subscription rates it announced two months ago.

Under the company's new pricing structure, its unlimited video streaming feature, which was previously included freely in its DVD-by-mail subscription packages, would incur its own subscription cost for all subscribers. The effect this had on the price at the consumer's end was shocking, and for some subscribers, it represented a 90% price increase in their subscription packages.

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One keynote. One word.

Used 33 times.

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Android's recent success in the tablet market seems to have hit a minor roadblock, as increased competition from RIM's PlayBook and now HP's fire-saled TouchPad chip away at its slice of the pie. Apple seems unaffected for the time being, with its market share increasing quarter-to-quarter.

Apple took a 68.3 percent share in the second quarter, up about 3 percent from the previous period, according to research firm IDC. Android tablet share on the other hand dropped significantly, falling to 26.8 percent from 34 percent in the first quarter.

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made absolutely clear today why the company continues to invest in search, even though it's a money-losing business and Google's market share is so big (and not really declining). He described Bing as a "fundamental set of core technologies" that Microsoft plans to leverage seemingly everywhere.

Earlier in the day, during the BUILD developer conference Day 2 keynote, Server and Tools President Satya Nadella gave several examples how developers can incorporate Bing datasets into their applications development. Bing isn't just about search, but about information made available for third-party applications and services and for software development.

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Make no mistake. Microsoft's big development push this week is around Windows, but Office and supporting software, such as SharePoint, are more important at the bottom line. During today's Microsoft Financial Analyst Meeting, COO Kevin Turner said that the Business division "is 32 percent of the company". Windows is 27 percent and Server and Tools is 24 percent.

Microsoft typically holds FAM during July, within weeks of closing its fiscal year on June 30. But this year Ballmer and his team delayed the annual event until this week's BUILD developer conference. That's smart, because Wall Street analysts have a chance to see some new Microsoft's products, Windows 8 in particular.

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Popular social network Facebook today unveiled a new feature to help the seven and a half year old site stay competitive as newer sites redefine the norms of social sharing.

Facebook's new feature is simply called "the subscribe button," and it lets users receive only the updates of users they have subscribed to, just like microblogging service Twitter and its progenies.

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"We still have a long ways to go with Windows 8", Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told BUILD developer conference attendees today. "We've got a lot of work to do". But the work is off to a good start, as he announced 500,000 downloads of the developer preview released last night at 11 p.m. ET.

Yesterday, Steven Sinofsky, Windows & Windows Live president, described the "re-imaging" of Windows. Today, Ballmer went further, calling the strategy bigger -- the re-imaging of Microsoft. "We're all in. We're retooling all that we do" around all Microsoft's platforms.

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Few people could imagine a TV viewing life that involved the rigid scheduling of a few years ago. The advent of devices such as Tivo and services such as Hulu and Netflix means that TV programms can be watched whenever it suits you. But while it can be useful to be able to timeshift you viewing in this way, OrbLive, used in conjunction with Orb Caster, can be used to stream video from your PC or Mac or your iOS or Android device.

Videos can be watched away from your computer without the need to synchronize files -- all that is required is that the streaming software be installed and your computer be left switched on. With these two conditions met, install the OrbLive app on your mobile and you’re good to go. The ability to stream your existing video library from one device to another is great news, but it doesn’t end there.

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Today, Microsoft dropped the other ball during the second big BUILD developer conference keynote. The company is releasing Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview and Windows Server 8 Developer Preview. The software will be available for MSDN subscribers.

Yesterday, Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows & Windows Live division, formally unveiled Windows 8, which is available in a developer preview you can download now. Today, Jason Zander, vice president for the Visual Studio team, connected the dots to developing apps supporting Azure services also connected to Windows Phone 7.5. He created the Windows 8 Metro-style game pictured above.

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Virtualization specialist VMware has announced the release of VMware Workstation 8 for PC and VMware Fusion 4 for Mac. Both tools allow users to run different operating systems in virtual windows through one computer.

Both releases include a number of new features, additional hardware support and are updated to take advantage of the latest operating systems (VMWare Fusion 4 has been optimized for Lion). VMware Workstation 8 also introduces a new system requirement: it will only run on PCs with 64-bit processors.

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Microsoft has used its BUILD developer conference to make available a developer preview edition of Windows 8, which gives the closest look yet at what the next generation of the operating system is going to offer.

And it’s going to provoke plenty of debate.

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Don't laugh. I'm quite serious.

Yesterday during the Day 1 BUILD developer conference keynote, Steven Sinofsky delivered one of the most inspiring new Windows introductions ever. He was energetic and engaging. He honed in on key product benefits -- and that's tough to do with Windows because of the breadth of supporting third-party products and connection to Microsoft stuff like Windows Phone 7.5 or Live services. He spoke aspirationally and convincingly about Windows 8's benefits to developers and their customers. Apple Chairman Steve Jobs couldn't have done better. Whereas, Jobs casts the so-called "reality distortion field", Sinofsky brought reality into focus.

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The 2012 security suite party is now well under way, and Symantec are the latest company to join in with the release of Norton Internet Security 2012. The 2011 edition was excellent, and perhaps as a result this build is more about building on that, than providing anything radically new. Still, there’s plenty to like here.

Identity Safe, for instance, the browser tool for storing your logons and other information, then automatically completing web forms, can now hold your data in the cloud so it’s accessible from anywhere. Symantec’s reputation-based system, Insight, is now being used to check your downloads, and even try to identify brand-new malware.

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