Windows Phone 7's first big payout rolls in early
Microsoft on Thursday provided some good news for Windows Phone 7 app developers in the form of a handful of new information about the Windows Phone Marketplace.
In October, Windows Phone developers were told the first Marketplace payouts would arrive "some time in February 2011," but today Microsoft said payments will be processed in the fourth week of January. While tecnically only a tiny bit ahead of schedule, it's surely good to know when the money will start coming in.
Pro-Wikileaks group using Botnet to retaliate against detractors
A group that is using the name "Anonymous" is using a voluntary botnet in order to take down websites that interfere with the operations of Wikileaks. The group has taken responsibility for a denial-of-service attack on Visa on Wednesday and an attack on competitor MasterCard earlier in the week.
The two credit card firms had suspended Wikileaks' account, as did PayPal over the weekend. That company was also the victim of a DDoS attack, which Anoymous has also taken responsibility for. The creation of this botnet could be seen as the first salvo in what is sure to be an increasingly vicious war between the site's supporters and those looking to shut the site down.
Swype for Android gets fifth beta update, accepts more testers
Innovative soft keyboard Swype has released a new beta on the Android platform, and is now accepting more beta testers.
Late last year, Swype made big waves in the mobile tech world when it launched its alternative "paint to type" touchscreen keyboard software.
Level 3 Communications: 'Why doesn't Comcast accept our offer?'
Comcast, the United States' largest cable provider, and content delivery network Level 3 Communications remain at odds over how they will work together in the future. A major issue arose between the two companies in late November, after Netflix announced Level 3 would be its primary CDN, and Comcast sought to collect new fees from Level 3 due to the massive increase in traffic the Netflix arrangement would cause.
Level 3 argued that Comcast was abusing its monopolistic position to squeeze money out of a service working "over the top" of its broadband connections. Comcast, on the other hand, said it's simply re-negotiating a "peering" (free traffic) arrangement to a "transiting" (paid traffic by volume) arrangement.
EU fines LCD price fixing cartel $857M, Samsung given immunity
Wednesday, the European Commission announced the fines it will hand out to the LCD price-fixing cartel that it has been investigating since 2006. The EC first began its investigation of leading LCD panel manufacturers, which it found had been conspiring to artificially inflate the cost of LCD screens for televisions and personal computers between October 2001 and February 2006.
"In total...six manufacturers met around 60 times for the purpose of agreeing prices, including price ranges and minimum prices. They exchanged information on future production planning, capacity utilization, and trading conditions," Joaquín Almunia, Vice President of the European Commission responsible for Competition Policy said today. "All of these discussions were clearly illegal under EU competition rules. And the evidence shows that the participants were aware of the illegality of their conduct."
Net neutrality debate needs a reset, says former FCC head Powell
At the next open FCC meeting on December 21, the first order of business will be the Open Internet Order, a revision to the FCC's Net Neutrality policies that have sprung from the nearly seven-year old doctrine on preserving internet freedoms by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell.
With net neutrality policy coming to the forefront of the FCC's agenda in just a matter of days, it's only fitting to hear how former Chairman Powell assesses the state of net neutrality.
Internet Explorer 9 will feature "do not track" functionality
In light of the recent rash of "history sniffing" bugs and the Federal Trade Commission's proposed "do not track" list, Microsoft today announced that release candidate of Internet Explorer 9 will feature a new tracking protection setting that will keep a user's browsing habits private from sites looking to harvest browser histories.
The new feature of IE9 will let users opt out of sharing their browser information with sites they may not know or necessarily trust. It includes a Tracking Protection List of Web addresses that the browser will call only if the user specifically types the URL into the browser bar. That means any content from a URL that the user has blocked will also not show up in the browser.
Google announces Chrome OS hardware and first pilot program
One year ago, Google gave the world its first look at Chrome OS, a project taking a new approach to thin clients and terminal computing. The long and the short of Chrome OS is: if the browser is the most-used application on a PC, why would you load it down with anything else?
Chrome OS focuses on computers that are permanently connected, where all apps, data, and user identities and desktops are stored in the cloud. The computers running the OS are designed to be as unencumbered by software as possible, so they can run quickly and reliably. Businesses can run them in secure private clouds just as well as consumers can run them on the public Web.
Wikileaks' Assange denied bail after surrendering to UK authorities
After surrendering to UK police on Tuesday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was denied bail after being deemed a flight risk by a British court. Swedish officials are asking for his extradition to face rape and molestation charges, however Assange has refused.
With that refusal, a lengthy legal process that could take weeks or months to resolve begins. While this is being decided, the courts have taken Assange into custody until December 14.
Sprint aims to phase out iDEN over next two years
Aiming to streamline operations and reduce operating costs, Sprint on Monday said it would begin the process of transitioning Nextel customers to its CDMA network beginning next year. The process of phasing out iDEN cell sites will begin in 2013, it said.
Combining the two technologies is expected to save Sprint up to $11 billion over a seven year period. It will also phase out a technology that has increasingly become obsolete as consumers and businesses alike require more robust data technologies.
Google's Nexus phone gets second chance thanks to Samsung
As previously rumored, Google on Monday confirmed that it had tapped Samsung to manufacture the second incarnation of its Nexus Android phone, which will be the first to run the company's Android 2.3 "Gingerbread OS."
The Nexus S will sell for $199 with a two-year service contract through T-Mobile here in the US beginning December 16. It will also be offered without a contract for $529. Either way, Google has hopes that the second incarnation does a whole lot better than the first.
Is someone fixing ebook prices?
Google's rumored ebookstore is here at last, begging the question: Who has the better price on ebooks? It's certainly the question I'm asking looking ahead to holiday shopping. Ebooks are definitely on my list of gifts this year -- and yours? Early this afternoon, I did a quick comparison, so you won't have to. The results are disturbing. Something stinks like a diaper. It's not the differences in pricing but the uniformity across ebookstores that surprises. Shouldn't competition in a hot new category drive pricing variations?
The first consideration buying ebooks is consumption. On what device? Google's new store appeals for much the same as Amazon's: Broad device support. While Amazon and Google approach the solution in different ways, the result is essentially the same -- ebooks available for reading on Macs, PCs, smartphones and tablets. Uh-oh, there's no native Google ebookstore app for BlackBerry, Kindle or Windows Phone 7. Hey, but Google has got Barnes & Noble Nook and Sony Reader. Eat those bananas, Amazon. Of course, Nook does run Android. I wonder how those B&N folks are feeling about open source -- in this case open competition -- now?
What's new in Android 2.3 'Gingerbread?' Tablets, NFC, Games
Monday was a big day for Android as Google simultaneously unveiled the latest Android Developer phone, the Samsung-built Nexus S, and Gingerbread, the newest version (v 2.3) of the Android mobile operating system.
Android 2.3 includes performance upgrades and a few superficial additions for users, but the major new additions to the platform have been made with developers in mind, and they may not be visible to users right away, but they will result in exciting new devices a little further down the road.
Google launches eBooks, cross-platform e-bookstore and reader
On Monday morning, Google officially unveiled its entry into the hotly competitve e-book market with an e-reader app called Google eBooks and a store called the Google eBookstore. The products are not new, but are rather a unification of many of Google's digital book efforts.
Like Amazon has done with its own Kindle platform, Google eBooks is a cross-platform solution for reading digital books across multiple devices. Currently, users can read Google eBooks in JavaScript-enabled browsers, in iOS and Android-powered devices, and on any e-reader supporting Adobe's eBook platform (which includes Barnes and Noble's Nook, Sony's Reader, and at least one of Borders' many e-readers.) There is not yet support for the Amazon Kindle, Kobo, BlackBerry, or Windows Mobile 7.
Facebook makes user profiles more visual
Though it is primarily known as a social networking site, Facebook is actually one of the top destinations for photo sharing, and a new user profile design change unveiled Monday ups the visibility of Facebook photos and encourages users to share personal information in a more visual way.
Two years ago, Facebook came forward with some staggering figures about the photo sharing taking place on its sites, which amounted to between 2-3 Terabytes of photos being updated daily with a peak of 300,000 images per second. Facebook would serve about 15 billion photos, and the storage dedicated just to photography amounted to more than a petabyte.
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