- But Fails to Reassure Analyst Day with Firm Details of Windows Slate Strategy

By Caroline Gabriel, Wireless Watch

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer adopted his usual distance from reality in the world, dismissing Android as a serious competitor in the tablet market. He failed to reveal solid details of Windows tablet...

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Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer made several statements about plans for a tablet at the company’s meeting with financial analysts last week. They provide insight into the company’s thinking. The iPad’s success has Microsoft concerned, although Ballmer said that netbooks are better for many applications. He was very clear that tablets...

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New and updated announcements are in italic

- Acer is expected to have a tablet in this year’s fourth quarter.

- Asus has two models in the works: an Android-based tablet with a 7-inch screen and a Windows 7 Premium model that uses Intel’s Dual Core processor.

- Dell...

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BP and the Feds’ point man United States Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said that BP’s top kill (static kill) effort is working.

BP successfully pumped oil-field mud down the top of the hole, which stopped the flow of oil. BP finished pumping cement into the well on Thursday after getting government...

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The Federal Communications Commission announced late Thursday that it would end its efforts on negotiating a series of "Net neutrality" rules aimed at keeping various companies and industries from discriminating against Internet traffic traveling over broadband connections.

While the FCC is cancelling its own talks with individual companies, presentations and comments...

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What a difference! Apple tries to kill rumors about its future products, going so far as to threaten arrests.Microsoft tries to start them.

Microsoft’s hardware operation is using Twitter to tease people about what could be an upcoming smartphone, tablet or gaming console that runs the company’s software. The tweets link to cropped images...

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News Corp chief and media industry legend Rupert Murdoch made several important statements about paid-for online content during a video forum with The Australian, which News Corp owns. As reported by The Australian:

- Murdoch expects Apple to sell 15 million iPads by year-end and more than 40 million by the end of 2012....

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What’s to be done with AOL, once the symbol of the Internet’s coming might and valued in the billions?

The once dominant Internet service provider but now an Internet media shop reported a decline in revenue of 26% from the prior quarter to $584.1 million. Apple chief Steve Jobs once said that...

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CBS, the most-watched US broadcaster, is in discussions to bring some of its TV shows to the popular Web video destination Hulu, according to CBS CEO Les Moonves. It is the only major broadcaster whose content is not available on Hulu.

Moonves, talking to Reuters this week, said that CBS is looking...

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Microsoft is too big, too determined and has too much technology to be dismissed in over-the-top video and home entertainment markets, two areas it’s been developing products in for over a decade.

The software giant demonstrated its latest version of the digital media home of the future last week at...

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Is there nowhere that’ll be safe from the Internet? Cars that connect to the Internet through smartphones will be a five million unit market in North America by 2015, according to Frost & Sullivan. Internet radio is expected to be one of the most popular applications in cars. Let’s hope texting...

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Reuters and CNET report that RIM is likely to launch a touchscreen Blackberry next week that’s intended to compete against the iPhone, phones that use the Android OS and other smartphones. It’s expected to be the first Blackberry with the new BlackBerry OS 6 and a new and improved Web browser.

Stieg Larsson, author of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and two similar thrillers, has become the first writer to sell more than one million Kindle e-books, according to Amazon.com. All three of his books in the Millennium Trilogy are in the Kindle top-ten list. The book business is still a...

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The BBC has started launching its mobile apps now that the BBC Trust has finished its review of the matter. The first ones will be the BBC News app for the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Blackberry. The launch was originally scheduled for last February but the Newspaper Publishers Association objected because they feared it would...

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Technicolor, née Thomson, has received a binding offer to sell Grass Valley to the high tech investment company Francisco Partners. Technicolor had previously said it wanted to sell Grass Valley.

Google is reportedly negotiating with the music publishers’ licensing group theHarry Fox Agency, for rights to offer its library in an upcoming Google music store, according to the New York Post. The Post’s source expects a Google music service by November or December.

CBS’ Last.fm, the social music discovery service, had 90% audience growth in the US over the past 12 months to a total of eight million users, according to CBS Interactive music president David Goodman. He said US users of Last.fm are generating between 30 and 40 million pieces of...

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AT&T has sold the European subsidiary of its Wayport Wi-Fi hot spot business toHospitality Services Plus, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Swisscom. Wayport provides Wi-Fi hotspots in hotels, airports, fast food restaurants and coffee shops. AT&T will continue to operate Wayport in the US and considers it "part of AT&T’s nationwide...

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Google TV may arrive and find that gaming consoles from Sony and Microsoft are already installed. The Sony PS3 is expected to be the only gaming console to offerHulu.com this year. Microsoft has said it’ll add Hulu to its Xbox 360 in 2011 with some "signature features." In June it announced a deal to...

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Sprint is expected to launch its second WiMAX handset. It’ll be the Samsung "Epic 4G" and have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 512 MB RAM, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, a 5 MP rear-facing camera with 3x digital zoom, LED flash, and 720p video capture and a VGA front-facing camera....

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Companies that are planning to make tablets to compete against the iPad had better forget about using the same display. LG, which makes the display, said it can’t make them as fast as Apple wants. LG display boss Kwon Young-Soo is quoted by Reuters as saying Apple may have to delay iPad launches in some...

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India’s government created quite a stir when it said it has designed a Linux-based iPad-like tablet that can sell for $35. It wants the unit for students and hopes to get them produced starting in 2011. It thinks it can eventually get the costs down to $10 per unit. No...

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Apple, Disney and its ABC TV, Amazon, CBS, Verizon and AT&T are not listed as members of DECE, formed last week to provide online video service for the industry. Apple and Disney generally walk together in online initiatives. Some see DECE as an attempt to prevent Apple from dominating online video in the same way...

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Grace Digital, which says it has the widest range of home and portable Internet-radio products on the market, has launched its first component-style Internet radio tuner, $219, and first portable AC/DC unit, $169. They can access about 17,000 Internet stations including 150 NOAA weather stations.

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It’s not a TV set but could become one if Apple decided to add the necessary tuners and other technology.

Apple is showing its new $999 27-inch LED Cinema Display that has 2560 x 1440 resolution, which provides 60% more screen space than its current 24-inch LED...

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Qualcomm has flipped its subscription-based FLO TV mobile TV service into the air to see where it might land.

"With respect to our FLO TV business, we’re engaged in discussions with a number of partners regarding the future direction of the business," said Paul Jacobs, president...

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AT&T says it intends to be the primary US carrier for devices that use Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7 (WP7), according to Wireless Watch, perhaps as an insurance policy against the possible loss of its iPhone exclusivity. AT&T already sells smartphones that use Android, Palm’s (now HP) webOS, Qualcomm’s Brew andSymbian.

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The momentum behind Android models like Motorola’s Droid X and HTC’s Droid Incredible indicate that the iPhone is no longer the only smartphone that appeals to high-end consumers.

The carrier to break the AT&T exclusive may turn out to be T-Mobile USA (TMo), rather than Verizon Wireless.

The latest in...

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ARM may be on a roll, but Intel fired a shot across its processor rival’s bow with a significant win this week in the burgeoning in-vehicle market –– for its new MeeGo operating platform, co-owned with Nokia. It has been selected as the basis for theGenivi Alliance’s reference standard...

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Clearwire has landed a wholesale deal that will allow Best Buy to offer Clearwire’s WiMAX 4G mobile broadband service under Best Buy’s Connect brand.

Best Buy is the first company to resell the service that is not a Clearwire investor.Sprint, Comcast and Time Warner Cable already resell the Clearwire service.Bright...

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The UK government this week instructed the regulator Ofcom to "co-ordinate a combined auction of 2.6 GHz and 800MHz spectrum "as soon as possible." The auction for the spectrum, which would be used for mobile broadband, is expected to occur by the end of 2011.

Communications minister...

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Sales of Wireless HD chips will increase from the current less than 1 million to around 13 million by 2014, according to In-Stat. Wireless HD uses line of sight radio signals within a room to connect HD devices such as Blu-ray players to TV sets. It’s intended to replace HDMI cables.

Verizon Wireless, which turned down the iPhone, has missed out on the extra revenue that the iPhone is bringing AT&T. Its push of handsets based on Android has worked well, however, with reports that the latest one, the Motorola Droid X, is running a week or so behind...

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What gives? According to most news reports, rebellion is in the air by iPhone users against AT&T’s wireless network. Now comes a report from Yankee Group that says 73% of iPhone users are very satisfied with AT&T’s service. It’s about the same rating that non-iPhone users give their service provider.

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KPMG’s annual "Consumers and Convergence" global survey showed that 81% of UK Web users would switch Web sites if a favorite free site switched to a "for pay" model. The remaining 19% said they would pay for online content.

Britain trailed other countries’...

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Online sales of games may presage what will happen to online sales of TV shows and movies. NPD Group said that in 2009 the number of digital downloads of PC games approached the same sales numbers as those of boxed copies at retail. It said 21.3 million games were purchased via digital...

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Shipment of netbooks will double in three years to 120 million units, according toABI Research. It said netbook sales will not negatively impact sales of PCs and that tablets will be additive.

Netbooks were first shipped in 2008. The majority currently use Intel’s Atom chips and Windows...

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A lawsuit claiming the iPad overheats when used outdoors has been filed in the US North District Court of California.

The suit says, "Using the iPad is not ‘just like a reading book’ at all, since books do not close when the reader is enjoying...

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Apple has sued seven companies and may sue another dozen or two for allegedly selling unauthorized electronic accessories such as cables, chargers and speaker cables for the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

In the suit, Apple said, "many are of inferior quality and reliability, raising...

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Virgin Media has launched a beta version of its first online and mobile TV player that’s called Virgin Media Player. It will offer content during the beta test from ITV, LIVING, Disney, Cartoon Network, National Geographic, MTV Networks UK & Ireland, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon.

Virgin Media’s...

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We don’t typically do personnel matters but this one looks important because it involves the often-delayed BBC-led Project Canvas’ attempt to become a universal standard for getting Internet video on the telly.

The widely respected and Internet-savvy Kip Meek has been named the project’s non-executive chairman...

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The percentage of TV sets with Internet connections may be in single digits today, but more than half will come with it by 2014.

There are three groups in Europe trying to develop a standard for Internet-connected TV sets and it appears the three will...

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Slovenia-based set-top box maker Antik Technology plans to include Google TV technology into its Juice brand STBs. Antik is the first company after Logitech that says it intends to do that. Sony has said it’ll make TV sets with Google TV technology, which can run Google’s Chrome browser.

Intel will supply the...

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- Set Makers Rushing to Do Deals with Online Services

3D TV sets have been getting the attention but it’s Internet-enabled TV (IETV) sets whose sales are booming in 2010, according to according to iSuppli. iSuppli expects shipments...

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TiVo continues to succeed with the marketing plan it always hoped would work: getting pay-TV operators to embed its technology in STBs that they sell. Its latest deal is with Suddenlink, the eighth largest US cableco. Tivo’s Premiere DVR and software present to the user a unified interface...

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The HomePlug Powerline Alliance this week said its Technical Working Group (TWG) has made major advancements to the upcoming AV2 specification that will improve HomePlug coverage, both in area and the ability to stream multiple HD videos.

It promises the AV2 version will be fully interoperable with...

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Are the Internet music wars over, leaving the major labels with much less revenue permanently –– the new normal? Unlike the studios, the labels have not been able to launch a new music format that would improve sound by adding more audio channels and providing better copy...

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In the aftermath of HP’s acquisition of Palm, there should be no surprise that HP has said it will not produce any smartphones that use Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system.

HP acquired Palm for its Internet-friendly webOS mobile operating system and intends to use as the...

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Technicolor, formerly Thomson, has signed a deal to provide FiOS broadband routers to Verizon. The routers, it said, are built to Verizon’s exacting specifications and support MoCA coax home networking.

It expects to start shipping the routers to Verizon in 2011.

It did...

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For the most recent quarter, BT added 96,000 net broadband customers in the quarter, which gives it a 40% share of the UK market.

It said its fiber cable to neighborhood cabinets now pass more than 1.5 million residences and it’s adding another 100,000 per...

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- Less Even Than They Are Capable of

- Ofcom Wants to Tighten Down

They wouldn’t do that, would they?

Data from the UK’s telecom regulator Ofcom shows that the gap between the speeds that broadband service providers, especially...

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Pacnet and a new company called Pacific Fibre will invest about $400 million to deploy a 13,600-kilometer (8,160-mile) undersea fiber optic broadband cable that’ll connect Australia and New Zealand directly to the US by 2013.

The two said the cable will double the telecommunications capacity and...

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Comcast, like "Ole Man River," just keeps rolling along in broadband. For the quarter, it added 118,000 net additional broadband subscribers, compared to a net of 65,000 in the year ago quarter. It also continued to bedevil the phone companies by adding 230,000 net new...

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Cincinnati Bell this week said it’ll offer multi-room DVRs from Motorola’s Mobile Devices and Home operations. Subscribers can run the multi-room function on up to eight DVR and non-DVR DCX HD STBs. They can pause live TV, record and play back, manage their entire recorded library and...

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UK-based Pace Micro Technology, which shipped more pay-TV STBs in 2009 than any other company, will acquire US-based STB maker 2Wire for $475 million. 2Wire is owned by Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Telmex, Oak Investment Partners,Meritech Capital Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures.

2Wire technology is used in the multi-room DVRs that AT&T offers.

"This...

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Virgin Media had its biggest quarterly revenue increase since the company was formed four years ago with the merger of Richard Branson’s Virgin Mobile and the cableco NTL. Revenue increased 7.1% to £964 million ($1.505 billion).

It added 25,900 broadband subscribers in the quarter to bring its...

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AllThingsDigital reports that Time is unhappy with Apple for refusing to allow it to use its app to sell subscriptions to Sports Illustrated (SI). Instead Time is reportedly forced to sell only single copies with the app. Time reportedly said that during the process to get the app approved, Apple had led it...

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Instead of out-iPadding the iPad, Amazon is going lean and mean with two new smaller and lighter Kindles that are priced to reach a larger market. The 3G version is $189, the same price as the current Kindle 2, and one with only Wi-Fi is $139. For the first...

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The iPad’s use outside of consumer applications continues to expand. Legislative aides are using them to track the different versions of a proposed bill as it winds its way to approval or rejection. Insurance companies, banks and car dealers are using them in the sales process, both...

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Motorola, which has taken the lead in the States in smartphones based on Android, may be working on a table that uses the upcoming Android 3.0, according to analyst Ashok Kumar of Rodman & Renshaw. The 3.0 version, aka Gingerbread, of Android is said to be...

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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA –– Tropical Storm Bonnie turned out to be a dud last week but its threat forced rigs in the Gulf to be dismantled and moved ashore. That led to a delay in the two attempts to cap the out-of-control BP well: one near the...

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- Bravia TVs, VAIO PCs, PS3 Drive Resurgence

A slimmer Sony, guided by chairman, CEO and president Sir Howard Stringer, became profitable again and increased sales 4% in the company’s first fiscal quarter. It also raised its financial outlook for the year. It attributed the improvement...

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ARM, which licenses processors’ designs that it develops, this week reported a 33% increase in revenue to £192.3 million ($300 million) for the six months to the end of June, due to increased demand for smartphones, tablets and automotive systems. It had a 182% increase...

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Motorola has filed papers with the SEC in anticipation of separating its Mobile Devices and Home businesses, which will operate as Motorola Mobility (shades ofAT&T Mobility).

Motorola has established a new, wholly-owned subsidiary called Motorola SpinCo Holdings Corporation (Motorola SpinCo) that is the holding company for Motorola Mobility, its main...

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The war of the tablet/smartphone world has Intel’s Atom chips allied withMicrosoft’s Windows 7 going into battle against ARM-designed chips in devices that run Apple’s iOS4 or Google’s Android OS. The ARM-Apple-Android sect is currently winning. The once-invincible Wintel team is left with only the remnants of the netbook market...

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- Multiple Wireless Streams of ‘Carrier Grade’ HD Videos

Israel-based Celeno Communi-cations, which produces system-on-a-chip (SoC) for Wi-Fi boxes that handle digital media, has...

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Business models that offer a pricing strategy allowing a consumer to choose how much an item is worth can boost some companies’ profits because it gives consumers a chance to directly support a cause or organization they believe in. According to a study in Science, the "pay what you want" model...

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US News and HealthiNation have partnered for a second year to present their "2010-2011 Best Hospitals" video series. The series shows an explanation of the rankings process and focuses on 5 specialty medical areas. There are 10 videos in this year’s series and HealthiNation is making them all embeddable....

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Chip maker Sigma Designs is making media processor SoCs (system-on-chip) for STB makers to use in gear for IPTV boxes that use Microsoft’s Mediaroom software. Microsoft welcomed the chip because it should reduce the cost and complexity of designing and making Mediaroom STBs, which are expected to ship to telcos this fall. Sigma...

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Apple intends to sell iPhones and iPads to the corporates. COO Tim Cook said during his discussion with analysts about the company’s quarterly results that more than 80% of the Fortune 100 are evaluating the iPhone to be a company-supported handset. "We already have 50% of the Fortune 500 that are...

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MP3tunes, a digital music locker service founded by MP3.com creator Michael Robertson, has partnered with Web-enabled STB maker Roku, to let Roku users with MP3tunes accounts stream their personal music collections via MP3tunes to their TVs. The two are running a promotion that features a year of free MP3tunes...

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Spotify has reached more than 500,000 subscribers for the premium version of its streaming music service that costs £9.99 ($15.25) per month. CEO Daniel Ek also told Music Week that the service’s US launch may be pushed back to 2011. "Will we launch this year? Yes, we think that’s...

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Rovi, the EPG giant in both patents and metadata, has signed a multi-year patent license with Liberty Global’s German cableco Unitymedia, the second largest European cableco. Samir Armaly, Rovi’s SVP of licensing, said the deal shows "the importance that our intellectual property offers to service providers, especially...

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The US Patent and Trademark Office granted HP a trademark for the term "PalmPad" last week. HP isn’t talking about it, but one can guess. It’s certainly not intended for a tablet that uses the Windows 7 or Android operating system. Companies like HP trademark and patent many things they never bring to market.

VocalTec, which says it’s the inventor of VoIP technology and the soft phone, is merging with Ymax, the developer of the MagicJack VoIP service. The merged company will be called VocalTec and traded on NASDAQ under the CALL symbol. Its primary competitor is Skype. Ymax, which was not publicly traded,...

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Nokia Siemens, the world’s second-largest maker of network gear for mobile phone operators, has agreed to pay $1.2 billion for Motorola’s wireless network assets, a deal expected to close by year-end. It sees the acquisition as helping it grow in the North American and Asian markets, where...

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The DOJ’s antitrust department has approved CenturyLink’s acquisition of Qwest, but the FCC has not yet. The combined companies, which include the ex-Sprintwireline company Embarq, will operate in 37 states and have about five million broadband customers, 17 million access lines and 1.4 million pay-TV subscribers. It’ll be the US’ third largest telco but will not...

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Netflix and Warner Bros have strengthened their streaming content deal, giving Netflix access to more TV shows available through its Watch Instantly streaming service.

The deal will make all 100 episodes of "Nip/Tuck" available to Netflix subscribers for the next four years. Also included in the...

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On its second birthday, the documentary site SnagFilms, founded by former AOLvice chairman Ted Leonsis, announced a large expansion of its film distribution efforts.

The service will now deliver content to VOD platforms from Comcast and VerizonFiOS, make some content available for purchase on iTunes and deliver other content for...

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Video rental stores in Australia are seeing their business eroded by online video services just as they are everywhere else, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. A major reason is the launch of Foxtel IQ, Telstra’s T-box and FetchTV, which allow movies to be downloaded on demand.

The paper...

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Samsung will launch in August a 50-inch 3D plasma TV that sells for less than $1,000. The PN50C490 is 720p, not the more popular. It is home network-connectable with DLNA. 3D glasses are not included. It’s $989 at:
http://www.abcwarehouse.com/product_catalog/pc_proddetails.asp~assort_id~1254~prod_ID~24016

During a recent Q&A session, Apple CEO Steve Jobs rekindled the Verizon WirelessiPhone rumors for here in the US.

When asked how the Apple headquarters in Cupertino has such good cell and data reception, Jobs said: "We’ve got strong signal here. We have AT&T and Verizon cell sites on campus."

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- Karaoke Mode Subdues Vocal, Records User’s Voice

We rarely report on MP3 players other than Apple’s, but make an exception here because Sony appears to have put a lot of thought and innovation into its...

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Streaming music service Pandora has reached 60 million registered users according to its president and CEO Joe Kennedy. Speaking at the New Music Seminar, Kennedy said the company has added 20 million users since December. "Pandora plays the music of tens of thousands of artists every day. It’s a very promising sign...

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MOG, the operator of a collection of music blogs and a digital music service, announced the release of its iPhone and Android mobile music subscription service, mirroring its existing offering.

After a three-day trial, the service costs $9.99 per month for unlimited, on-demand...

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Symbian, the Nokia smartphone OS, has announced a significant step to try to reclaim some of its presence in the market.

The Symbian Foundation has officially embraced the idea of using Web applications on its platform. These Web apps are designed to remove the differences generated by different computing...

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While users have been able to listen to Audible audiobooks on their iPhones and iPod Touchs for some time via iTunes, Audible has now launched a standalone app for these devices.

The new app, now available in the iTunes App Store, also works on the iPad and...

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- Jay Chou Too

A major reason that sales of MP3 players are declining is the increasing availability of music on smartphones.

SingTel’s AMPed cell phone music service is adding 150,000 new tracks from Sony Music, giving its 200,000 subscribers access...

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An app named Handy Light from developer Nick Lee made a brief appearance onApple’s iTunes App Store early this week, but quickly disappeared from the store on the same day it arrived.

The app was a flashlight for the iPhone that also contained code to...

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Google has confirmed that 70,000 apps have landed in the Android Market, and the company said it is on pace to surpass 100,000 apps before the end of the year.

Google’s senior VP of product management Jonathan Rosenberg confirmed the number this week, saying...

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- Microsoft Looks to Windows Phone 7

It’s obviously harder than it looks to make a successful mobile handset and companies that only do operating systems seem to have the most difficulty, namelyMicrosoft and Google.

Google has...

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Motorola’s Droid X has a new Wi-Fi hot spot feature that provides a lot more functionality for the device but also puts a strain on the device that can end up being more of a headache than a useful tool.

The Droid X...

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Four Spanish cablecos –– Euskaltel, Telecable, ONO and R –– plan to bid for spectrum next year that will allow them to jointly build a national WiMAX network, similar to what four US cablecos are doing with Clearwire. The difference is that the Spanish cablecos would totally own and operate the network.

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Four Spanish cablecos –– Euskaltel, Telecable, ONO and R –– plan to bid for spectrum next year that will allow them to jointly build a national WiMAX network, similar to what four US cablecos are doing with Clearwire. The difference is that the Spanish cablecos would totally own and operate the network.

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Clearwire and US cellcos like AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile USAwill have to prepare to compete with a new national LTE network.

Harbinger Capital Partners took two major steps forward to its goal of building a national US LTE mobile broadband network based on the use of...

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- ‘Only Limitation on iPad Sales Is Production, Not Demand

Every other maker of CE gear was stunned by Apple’s launch of the iPad and the reception consumers have given it. They are all scrambling to produce a tablet that can compete but are...

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- Units and Revenue Down 14% in 2010

The number of MP3 players being sold and the revenue from their sales in Europe will decline by 14% this year, according to the European Information Technology Observatory (EITO), which is not part of the EU government.

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LG predicts it will sell 1.1 million 3D notebooks next year, five times as many as in 2010, according to Harrison Park, LG’s director of mobile communications PC business. It predicts 13.8 million will be sold by 2015. The company has three models of its 3D notebooks....

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Many more consumers are planning to buy an iPad, according to America’s Research Group, which said:

- 8.4% of the 1,000 people it surveyed said they had already bought an iPad

- Another 6.1% said they planned to buy one.

Britt Beemer,...

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BREIN, an anti-piracy group that works on behalf of film studios, said that it has not only shut down several major Usenet indexes and streaming sites so far this year, but also hundreds of torrent sites.

According to TorrentFreak, BREIN’s "wholesale slaughter of file-sharing...

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An Amsterdam Court has confirmed an earlier judgment and ordered The Pirate Bay to stop all their activities in The Netherlands.

The Court ruled that the site’s operators were assisting copyright infringement and if they fail to ban Dutch users, they will have to pay penalties of...

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The Performing Rights Society (PRS), the UK royalty collector for the music industry, wants to charge Internet service providers for the amount of illegal downloads that happen via their networks.

The argument is that ISPs should monitor the traffic of their users and compensate the music industry...

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Previously we reported that "Hurt Locker" producer Voltage Pictures was suing thousands of alleged pirates for downloading the film online with a little help from the US Copyright Group.

It looks like that "thousands" may be growing much quicker than anticipated.

Voltage originally sued 5,000 unidentified...

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Czech public broadcaster CT plans to launch its fifth channel in the next two years, according to the station’s news director Milan Fridrich.

Fridrich said that this new channel will be an Internet-only service that will feature content from its existing four channels as well as new...

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The Boxee Box is ready for mass production according to Boxee CPO Zach Klein. Klein has released a video showing off the production model of the highly anticipated STB.

The Box doesn’t appear to add new features or function above the existing Boxee software, at least from...

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Haier, the giant Chinese maker of CE gear, is launching a line of Internet-connectable TV sets and Blu-ray players that will be embedded with Sonic Solutions’ RoxioNow online service for movies and TV shows. Other CE makers such as LG,Samsung, Panasonic and Sony are selling TV sets with online services like...

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- The First of Several International Launches

Netflix will introduce a streaming-only service for Canadian residents to watch unlimited movies and TV shows for a monthly fee.

It’s all the joys of the Watch Instantly programming in the US without the need...

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In June, at Computex, Asus showed two new notebooks that incorporate chipmakerSiBeam’s WirelessHD technology, becoming the first to embed "the most robust wireless display solution available."

Asus’ WirelessHD notebooks allow the wireless streaming of uncompressed 1080p/60 video and a latency-free experience for gaming and entertainment.

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Wilocity and Atheros plan to work together on a tri-band chip that speaks all forms of Wi-Fi (2.4GHz and 5GHz), as well as working at 60GHz using the new WiGig Wireless Gigabit specification.

WiGig will transmit data at a raw PHY rate of 7 Gbps and...

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Netgear has selected Gigle Networks’ GGL301 HomePlug/IEEE1901 chips for a line of Netgear Powerline adapters. The chips are rated for maximum service of 200 Mbps.

Gigle said its quality of service (QoS) support enables simultaneous delivery of high definition (HD) video streams, voice over IP...

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In an ideal world, a secure, high-speed and affordable wireless network technology would be used to stream HD video and other data to devices in the home. TheWireless Gigabit (WiGig) Alliance was founded to develop a unified specification for wireless networking that would offer multi-gigabit speeds.

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BitTorrent is getting used more and more by big Internet brands, such asFacebook and Twitter, but the latter has now said that its BitTorrent-powered system has made server deployment 75 times faster than before.

Large scale Web-services like Twitter use thousands of servers to manage the...

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Social software provider KickApps announced that its App Studio will now support HTML5 and the latest version of Flash.

The App Studio is a drag-and-drop authoring tool for creating customized video players. Users can select from a pre-integrated series of plug-ins and enable end-user device playback in...

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Rarely do people scream in public, but this past weekend a man sitting quietly at a coffee shop let out a blood curdling wail because an update to the Marvel Comics app on his iPhone caused all of the comics to be removed from the app and need automatic re-downloading.

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Sharp is the first to launch 100GB triple play Blu-ray disks –– based on the BDXL format that the Blu-ray Disk Association announced in June –– and BDXL recorders. The discs are labeled BD-R and can only record once.

They’ll be available in Japan by the...

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Sweden’s pro-file-sharing Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) is partnering on the launch of a new ISP in the country, which promises to offer anonymity to file-swappers while financially supporting the Party.

The Pirate ISP will be operated by ViaEuropa, the company that also developed the iPredator Web anonymity service.

The...

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Consumers have become so accustomed to HD video that they expect it on hand-sized video recorders and smartphones to record in HD. That will increase the demand for faster broadband. Consumers will want to upload HD videos and watch them streamed over the Net.

Cisco
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A little under two months after its UK launch Apple’s iPad is now delivering 10% of all requests for the BBC iPlayer made from portable devices.

According to the BBC, during June mobile devices were the only delivery type to increase their viewing, while other delivery types saw...

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Tablets provide a clear opportunity for ARM-based processors to move upmarket from handsets into mobile computers, challenging Intel, particularly its Atom processor, dominant in netbooks. Nvidia’s Tegra, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon andTexas Instruments’ OMAP are considered to the processors with the best chances.Apple and Samsung rely on their own, closely related, ARM-based designs (A4 and Hummingbird respectively).

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The NBA plans to bring live streaming games to Apple’s iPad this fall, according toPaidContent.

"We anticipate we’ll have our live streaming games available on iPad in the fall," said NBA Digital senior vice president and general manager Bryan Perez.

"This (mobile...

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HP has confirmed it’s running through customer evaluations of a Windows 7 tablet that looks awfully similar to the device shown off by Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer at this year’s CES.

The device appears to be called the "HP Slate 500" and showed up briefly on...

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It remains to be seen whether the iPad cuts into sales of low-cost, low-power netbooks. What we do know, based on Apple’s quarterly report, is that Apple will soon be selling more iPads than Mac PCs. It sold 3.27 million iPads in the quarter compared to 3.47 million Macs, the most...

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Toshiba this week waved a prototype of its AC100 tablet at a press meeting in Australia, according to Australian PC Authority. It said it has an ARM-designed processor that’s made by Nvidia. Toshiba hinted there’ll be models that run Android and the CE version of Windows called Windows Compact...

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Ignore the rumors.

Despite what is making the rounds in e-mails, blogs and across the Web, Apple is not charging for iOS 4 upgrades this fall. Apple’s own licensing agreement states that the software update will be free to iPad owners.

Citing "top secret plans"...

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Germany-based Elgato says its newest software Turbo.264 HD converts video files to high-quality video for iPhone and iPad playback. HD camcorder users can preview and crop video before converting it.

It said the software converts "nearly any kind of video format" including downloads, MKV files and wmv...

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Continuing to open new markets for the iPad while potential tablet competitors figure out a product strategy, Apple will launch in nine countries Friday, July 23: Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Singapore.

Apple will then have iPads on sale in 19...

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After a tour of Asus headquarters, Netbooknews.com reported that Asus will use Android, not Windows 7, on its upcoming Eee Pad model EP101TC, a 10-inch tablet. Asus said at Computex that it would run either Windows Embedded Compact 7 (Windows CE) or Android.

The report said Asus will wait...

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It’s not only iPads that will be cutting into sales of portable computers, according toVerizon Wireless’ director of new technology and development, Humphrey Chen.

Speaking at the Mobilebeat 2010 conference, Chen said it’s considering offering a smartphone docking station that has PC-like functions with a...

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- Loses 347,000 DSL Broadband Subscribers

In its quarterly report AT&T said it added 255,000 U-Verse broadband subscribers but overall lost 92,000 broadband customers. That seems to say it lost 347,000 of its legacy...

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- BP Was Closing in on Permanent Close

The possibility of a hurricane in the Gulf caused BP and the Feds to stop work on plugging the gusher on Thursday night. It takes about five days to close operations down...

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Apple chief Steve Jobs told a press conference last week that to reduce call drops on iPhone 4s that are caused by putting the antenna around the product’s sides, the company will give free bumper guards.

Apple and AT&T both offered to reimburse dissatisfied customers.

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Apple this week reported its biggest quarter ever.

Small companies get revenue increases of 87% but it was Apple that increased its quarterly revenue 87% to $15.7 billion from $9.7 billion a year ago. That’s a $6 billion increase in revenue in one year,...

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- Cloud-Based Locker Debuts

- Partners Include Pay-TV, Content, CE, Distribution and Retail

Forget all that noise about 3D and bigger Blu-ray discs! The entertainment industry has just jumped into the digital age with both feet, announcing a digital content locker that blurs the lines that...

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"We are getting closer to a convergence of TV and Internet content and that is when the game really does change. Our TV will become a giant window for the Internet. It will get to know what we like, what music to offer us, and it will connect our TV...

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Hewlett Packard has been working on multiple tablet PCs but, according to The Wall Street Journal, has put a hold on its Android tablet. The Android device was supposed to arrive in Q4, but won’t be shipping this year. HP is also said to be stopping work on...

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The iPhone 4 has antenna issues and Apple has been a bit shifty in resolving the issue, first blaming users and software before admitting to hardware issues. Apple will have a press conference Friday to address the issue, but so has only released an update that makes the reception bars easier to...

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The UK coalition government has stretched out the date for universal 2 Mbps broadband from 2012 to 2015. The aim is to use a combination of private and public funding and both wireline and wireless broadband. It blamed the prior government for failing to allocate enough money to make the...

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Taiwan-based Micro-Star International (MSI), which has been making computers for other companies since 1985, wants to become in tablets what HTC has become in mobile phones, according to the Los Angeles Times piece at:http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/07/msi-tablet-pc.html. MSI is developing a Windows 7-based tablet called Wind Pad and thinking about an Android-based tablet. HTC has said it...

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The UK Open Championship of Golf has chosen Akamai to stream HD video versions of the event throughout the world for its 150th Anniversary Championship at St Andrews in Scotland this weekend, according to Faultline. It is the first time the event has been viewable in HD over the Internet and will be...

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RIM says it’ll launch a new BlackBerry operating system called OS6 and two or more new devices by this fall. Could one of them be a tablet? Reports are that the new OS will have a dual mode function, one for business and one for personal, that...

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The first 5,000 visitors to Apple’s new store in Shanghai will get a T-shirt that has an Apple logo and says, "Designed in California, made for China" instead of the "Designed in California, made in China" that’s on Apple’s products outside of China.

Last year Microsoft made more than $10 billion from sales of its Windows OS – yep, profits, not revenue. Is there any wonder Microsoft is pushing so hard to get some Windows 7 tablets and Windows Phone 7 devices to market this year? Apple,Google, RIM and other non-Windows smartphone and tablet makers are intent on...

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The ad-free Consumer Reports rates the new iPhone 4 as the best smartphone but recommends that consumers not buy it because of antenna issues when making cell calls, much like The Wall Street Journal’s chief technologist Walt Mossberg did several weeks ago. Mossberg said if consumers get the new iPhone for Internet access, they...

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"There is a process of consumerization happening in workplaces at the moment, and although it’s still early days for the iPad to be an enterprise-grade device, it will be soon. I have no doubt the iPad will be used in workplaces, but it will take some time, in the same...

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Booming sales have caused Panasonic to raise its internal target for 3D TV sales to a million units, up from 700,000, in the first year, according to The New York Timespiece "Defiantly, Panasonic Pushes a Vast Catalog." The company had revenue of $83 billion last year and employees 385,000.

We knew Disney and Apple are connected at the head. Now we see they’re connected at the feet. Disney hired the same team that designed Apple’s stores to revamp its 300 retail outlets. Lots of technology and glitz is used to entertain customers, including interactive storytelling. The first one opened in Montebello, California on...

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Video uploading and sharing site Vimeo has added the ability for its users to offerCreative Commons licenses for the video they upload, provided that it is entirely their creation. Producers will retain copyrights for their works but will allow others to use their content in a variety of ways. Some licenses cover allowing...

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A BitTorrent-only TV show, "Pioneer One," debuted recently and in its first two weeks the show had more than 1.3 million downloads and received more than $20,000 in donations for work on future episodes.

Supported by many of the key figures in BitTorrent sites, protocols,...

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Netgear calls its new ReadyNAS Ultra digital media servers "the first-ever home storage system to support the media-shifting of multimedia content."

What makes its gear different, the company said, is that users can keep all their media on ReadyNAS and access it on any...

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The NPD Group’s latest survey shows that Apple fans would be willing to pay for subscription and cloud-based music services on the iTunes platform.

NPD recently surveyed iTunes, iPod, iPhone, and iPod Touch users about their preferences and reactions to various music subscription-model concepts. The results of the "iTunes...

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Sonos, maker of wireless, multi-room audio systems, has announced a new deal with Wolfgang’s Vault to provide a free 30-day trial to the collection of live concert recording archives to Sonos owners. Wolfgang’s Vault includes more than 3,500 concerts from the last 50 years, with performances from Bob...

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The musician Prince recently declared that the Internet is "completely over" and instead of using iTunes or another digital store gave out his latest album via UK newspapers The Daily Mirror and The Daily Record.

Good news for the papers, their sales jumped 27% on that day.

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Google launched a new development tool, App Inventor for Android, which the company hopes will get more developers and regular Web users interested in making apps for the Android Market.

The new software is said to be simple enough to allow anyone, even young...

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MP3tunes, the digital music locker service run by MP3.com founder Michael Robertson, launched a new feature that offers cable-free syncing of music betweenApple and Google devices. This is what the film industry has been hoping to do with its Sony-led DECE and Disney Keychest projects.

The "Buy Anywhere, Listen Everywhere" MP3tunes feature will...

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While rumors of an iPhone with Wi-Fi capability heading to China have come and gone throughout the years, a true device might be one step closer to existence.

According to The Wall Street Journal, an iPhone with Wi-Fi capabilities has officially received its Chinese network access...

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Microsoft has consistently said that the new Windows Phone 7 OS will launch on devices in time for the holiday season coming later this year, but details beyond that have been scarce.

A few weeks ago, a Microsoft representative said that a launch should...

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Speed, speed, speed!

By year-end T-Mobile USA intends to have its faster HSPA+ mobile broadband coverage in 100 markets with 185 million people.

In September it’ll reportedly be the first in the world to launch an HSPA+ Android-based smartphone from HTC. It’s also expected to...

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Hong Kong quad player PCCW is offering visitors free Wi-Fi access at its citywide hotspots to tourist information. A location-based digital map shows at-a-glance a visitor’s location and nearby recommended shops and restaurants.

No log-in payment is required. It takes one click to access the Hong Kong...

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In September Clear Mobitel will begin testing LTE mobile broadband technology in Cornwall as a means to bring speeds up to 12 Mbps to rural areas. The test will be for about 300 residences.

It’s using spectrum that became available when TV broadcasters switched from analog to...

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Comcast is expanding its High-Speed 2go-brand WiMAX mobile broadband network to areas in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC. High-Speed 2go was already available in all or parts of Texas, Oregon, Washington and Georgia.

Comcast’s WiMAX network is the one that Clearwire is building and is...

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Ericsson has demonstrated an end-to-end TD-LTE system at an event in Shanghai organized by China Mobile, according to Wireless Watch. The report said the major equipment vendors are stepping up their efforts to get TD-LTE kit to market. China Mobile is planning to initiate live LTE services next...

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Polish cableco Inea has launched a WiMAX Internet access service. When taken with fixed-line telephony, users get the WiMAX service free for two months.

About 200,000 residences in western Poland can access Inea, which has about 138,000 subscribers. It expects its WiMAX service will be available to...

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German cableco KabelBW has made a wholesale deal with O2 Germany so KabelBW can offer a mobile broadband service. Access speed is 7.2 Mbps.

The entry-level service is €14.90 ($18.75) a month. Subscribers need to buy aHuawei-made USB stick, which is €29.90 ($37) for those subscribing to...

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- OTT Services to Proliferate

Tiered pricing for 4G networks with LTE and WiMAX technology will become the norm over the next five years, according to a report from IBM Global Business Services. The company sells products and services to cell phone companies.

It said...

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Intel plans to close its WiMAX promotion and support office in Taiwan, according toDigitimes. The company said the closure is not due to lack of interest in WiMAX but because WiMAX has reached the point it doesn’t need the promotion.

Intel said that WiMAX...

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While app stores are growing faster than urban sprawl, there is finally some information coming out about trends in the market as a whole.

According to reports that hit this week from ABI, GetJar, VisionMobile and others, the market is doing well and has two years of growth left...

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Nearly two-thirds of US mobile subscribers used text messaging in May, while roughly one-third used mobile Web browsers or downloaded apps, according to a new report from comScore.

All three categories rose about 2% from figures released in February.

Social networks and blogs saw...

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About 90% of all locally broadcast TV shows from the main networks –– CBS, NBC,Fox, ABC and The CW –– are now available for free on the Net, according toClicker.com, an Internet TV guide that lets viewers search, discover and watch TV shows. All of The CW shows are online.

"I...

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Shipments of media tablets like the iPad to the Asia-Pacific region but excluding Japan are expected to increase from 1.3 million units in 2010 to 9.6 million in 2014, a year-to-year growth of 65%, according to Gartner.

It may still be in fourth place in US smartphone OS market share but Google’s Android was the only major to increase market share during the three months ending in May, according to comScore.

BlackBerry maker RIM led with 41.7%. Apple followed with 24.4%. Microsoft was still in third with 13.2%.

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Sales of single-track digital music downloads in the US fell 0.2% to 597 million units in the first half of 2010, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.

While the decline is only a fraction of a percent, many are seeing this as a sign that the market is...

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- France Telecom’s Orange May Replace Five

This article originally appeared in Faultline.

For several years some UK constituencies have fought tooth and claw against the growing influence of BBC, fighting off Kangaroo and forcing it...

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Russian police have opened a criminal investigation into a married couple that is believed to operate the site Interfilm.ru, which bills itself as a ‘pre-release’ movie download service. The site is charged with copyright infringement with damages exceeding $1.25 billion, according to published reports in Moscow.

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Judge Nancy Gertner and everyone else at this point know that Joel Tenenbaum, the second US target of the RIAA’s litigation campaign to complete a trial, did it. After admitting to music-sharing on the stand, Gertner issued a verdict against him and the jury returned a $675,000 verdict...

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While Lime Wire founder Mark Gorton made and spent a few million over the past decade helping people share billions of pirated songs, the RIAA claim that Gorton positioned his earnings in a way to prevent court seizure.

In court papers, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) once...

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In less than two years, the RIAA said it has sent out copyright infringement notices to 1.8 million Internet users as well as roughly 270,000 notices to colleges and universities in the US.

The numbers are pretty staggering, but there seems to be a disconnect between the...

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Two of the UK’s larger Internet service providers are joining forces to challenge the country’s Digital Economy Act.

TalkTalk and BT are requesting that the High Court examine the Act and make sure it followed proper parliamentary procedures. The two ISPs and other groups have previously...

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A troop of Argentinian hackers gained access to The Pirate Bay’s (TPB) administration panel and were able to delete torrents and expose a variety of user content earlier this week.

TPB users had their IP addresses, e-mail addresses and passwords exposed, some of which has been...

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The Australian government has stopped plans to rollout a national Internet content filter that would target any and all material that is prohibited or "refused classification" by Australian censors.

The countrywide filter will be delayed for at least a year while the nation’s Broadband Minister...

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When it first launched, Hulu’s new Hulu Plus was mum about gaming console support, but as suspected it has made its way to Sony’s PlayStation 3. The Hulu Plus preview is available to a small group of PlayStation 3 users who currently subscribe to PlayStation Plus, a recently launched subscription service that offers and...

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Rumors of a new Apple TV, or at least a major update, won’t die anytime soon, and the latest comes from a NewTeeVee report that suggests Apple aims to include streaming TV show episode rentals for 99¢.

Streaming content will be a big part of a new Apple TV,...

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Set-top boxes that connect TV sets to the Net, receive free over-the-air broadcasts and offer video-on-demand services can offer free-to-air broadcasters a way to sell subscriptions, according to Australia’s Fetch TV, 40% owned by Malaysia’s Astro All Asian Networks (Astro), and operated by Australian broadband service provideriiNet. See "iiNet...

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Financially troubled Five is withdrawing from Project Canvas. It does not appear that the problem is Project Canvas, because RTL, Five’s owner, has put Five up for sale.

BBC, BT, ITV, Channel 4, Carphone Warehouse’s Talk Talk and Arqiva are the remaining members.

Charles Constable, director of strategy at Five, said, "We...

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Makers of TV sets and Blu-ray players know they must offer online-delivered content in order to prosper in first-world markets.

Panasonic, continuing to fight off the South Koreans and remain a strong seller of TV sets, has a non-exclusive deal with Acetrax to offer a...

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Roughly one year ago ItsHidden, a virtual private network (VPN), launched, gave users the ability to use and share torrents while hiding their identities and locations from third-parties seeking to monitor P2P networks.

The VPN recently announced that it has surpassed 300,000 members.

As...

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- If Symbian Fails, Nokia Will Have To Accept A Large Part Of The Blame

In a commentary piece titled "Is Symbian re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?," Gartner analyst Nick Jones provides a stinging analysis of the current Symbian state of play, admonishing the less than impressive...

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Countries like Finland and Australia have mandated 100 Mbps broadband networks that every home can access.

The UK is talking up universal broadband by 2015 in a promotion called Networked Nation, saying, for example, all applications for school places and free school meals will be...

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The Chinese State Council has designated 12 cities and regions to test the Three Network Convergence, which includes IPTV, mobile TV and online broadcasts, according to the Xinhuanet news agency.

The move allows telcos and broadcasting companies to compete by offering IPTV, mobile TV and online broadcasting on a...

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The telco Movistar, Spain’s largest broadband provider by number of subscribers, is upgrading its double- and triple-play fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service. In mid-August it will offer 50 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up and re-price the service to attract more subscribers.

The price for the Movistar Futura...

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There are still different opinions about whether telcos should run fiber all the way to the home, as Verizon is doing, or only the neighborhood, as AT&T and many other telcos are doing. Barring a breakthrough in DSL broadband technology, a distinct possibility, it seems certain that fiber will have to...

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LG Electronics is pushing its 3D technology by pairing it with as much Web content as it can fit into those slim screens and Blu-ray players.

Using its NetCast Entertainment service, the company is pairing its latest TVs withNetflix, Vudu, YouTube and all the TV apps covered...

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The DVB said it will begin work on Phase 2 of its commercial requirements for 3D TV on July 28. The meeting follows the recent publication of specifications for a 3D TV system in line with current 3D broadcasts.

Discussions at the upcoming meetings will focus on...

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Users that chose Sony’s PlayStation 3 for its built-in Blu-ray player over other consoles are getting one more reason to be happy for their choice, Sony has confirmed that in September the console will receive a firmware update allowing it to play 3D Blu-ray discs.

"In...

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Apple has opened its second store in China, this one in Shanghai. The store is located in what is considered China’s financial center. It has 16,000-square-foot showroom.

Apple said it will open more stores in China over the next two years but did not...

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Nokia still makes more mobile handsets than any other company but has been unable to develop smartphones and tablets to compete against Apple and Google at the high end of the market where sales are booming and profit margins are higher.

This article first appeared...

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- iPad to Have 70% Market Share Long Term

Microsoft and its coterie of Windows PC makers must be staying awake at night if they believe the iPad will impact sales of their portable computers as Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes predicts.

Reitzes said...

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Looking ahead, Ballmer predicted that portable, Internet-connected devices will come in a plethora of form factors, prices and features.

"This is a terribly important area for us," he said. "We are hardcore about this."

Windows 7 is a wonderful and reliable operating system...

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At Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Washington DC this week, Microsoftchief Steve Ballmer said there will be Windows 7 tablets on the market before this year’s holiday shopping season.

VP of Windows Tami Reller showed two tablet prototypes, including a dual-screen Libretto from Toshiba. A Chinese company...

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Could there be trouble in the future between Hulu.com’s three owners: Disney withABC, News Corp with Fox and soon Comcast’s NBC Universal. Each owner has a very different view about how to profit from Internet video. Disney wants to put its goodies on as many devices as possible as soon as possible and then figure out how to make...

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Operating under government guidance, BP this week placed a 75-ton, 3-story cap over the pipe that was gushing oil. At 2:25PM CDT Thursday BP said it had closed all the valves in the cap, which stopped all oil had from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. If leaks start...

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Having admitted that the company missed out on an entire generation of mobile phone technology, Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer knows well that the upcoming Windows Phone 7 has to be a hit. The company may be running short on innovation but it’s still got a very large pot of...

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For the June quarter, Intel showed no indication that the iPad has negatively impacted sales of its Atom chips, primarily used in low-cost, low-power netbooks. The unanswered question is whether iPads will cut into sales of netbooks.

Intel this week reported that sales of the Atom microprocessor...

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- Will It Kill Blu-ray?

Consumers are getting Internet-connectable TV sets and buying devices like AppleTV or Blu-ray players that perform that function faster than we at The Online Reporter had ever hoped, according to a report from the research companyRetrevo.

The Retrevo report says about...

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The Internet was late to HD and 3D. YouTube, by far the largest online video service, wants to make sure the Net is the first to 4K, the next high def standard 4K.

Video in 1080p HD may seem high-quality, but Google wants you to think much, much...

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France’s coming three-strike policy has gotten some teeth. According to a new review of the policy, one of its protocols to combat piracy will be enabling a P2P network monitor that can identify 25,000 suspected music copyright infringements daily, as well as 25,000 video infringements each day. The anti-piracy firm Trident...

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Qualcomm might be in the market to sell off the FLO TV service that Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs called "just cable TV content sold primarily through cellular operators." According to Jacobs’ comments and other news from the company, Qualcomm was not looking to be in the service provider business and...

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Netflix is looking to further its mobile rollout with an Android app, according to various sources and reports. What we have been able to nail down is that Netflix is doing in-house tests with Android-based devices for use over Wi-Fi and 3G networks, and that it is looking into working...

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According to emails allegedly written by Apple’s Steve Jobs and posted byMacRumors, Jobs and Apple think Blu-ray "will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats." The emails concerned the new Mac Mini which lacks Blu-ray support but does support HDMI-output. "The downloadable movie business is rapidly moving to free (Hulu) or rentals...

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Finland is the first country to say that every citizen is entitled to high-speed Internet connection. For starters it’ll be 1 Mbps but the goal is to give every home 100 Mbps by 2015. "Internet services are no longer just for entertainment," Finland’s communication minister Suvi Linden told the BBC. The...

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Despite the iPhone 4 and iPad being launched, Apple rumorville keeps churning. Citing two sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg News reports that Verizon Wireless will start selling the iPhone this January, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Verizon Wireless is the biggest outlet for RIM’s Blackberry and a main reseller of Android-based phones.

Lest we forget. The main theme will be mobile devices. Perhaps Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer, CES’s opening keynoter, will present a winning mobile strategy for his company. Right now Apple, Google, LG and Samsung appear to have the momentum. And, once again, Apple, the reigning king of mobile devices, won’t be at CES.

Telstra and Huawei are testing LTE technology in the state of Victoria to understand the technology’s characteristics and application in different spectrums

Sony, perhaps licking its wounds from its failures in the market for tablets and eBook readers, has cut the price of its entry-level eBook reader to $149.99 from $169.99. It reduced the price of the Touch Edition to $169.99 from $199.99 and the Daily Edition to $299.99 from $349.99. Amazon recently cut...

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Sales of iPads have topped two million per month, according to Digitimes analyst, Mingshi Kuo.

Musical artist Prince told The Mirror that "The Internet’s completely over," and intends to nix downloads for his next record, instead distributing CDs in copies ofThe Mirror. "I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else," Prince told the newspaper. "The Internet’s like MTV. At one time...

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Faultline reports that Dutch public broadcaster NPO will test torrent downloads using a P2P network to deliver a catch-up TV service called Uitzending Gemist in a six months trial. Programming will be downloaded and can be viewed offline. Originally the BBC used P2P technology but after struggling with it for about...

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After shying away from digital content, Apple Corps and EMI have announced plans to reissue 15 albums originally released by Apple Records, the label launched by The Beatles in 1968, as both CDs and digital albums. The reissues, which mark "the first ever Apple Records releases to be available via digital download," are slated for...

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The difference between IPTV and the Internet is getting a little more muddled.

Portugal Telecom’s IPTV operation Meo has unveiled Meo Interactivo, an application store that will host apps from Facebook, Oceanlook, Picasa andFlickr, among other yet-to-be named partners.

It will allow users to watch TV while simultaneously...

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YouTube has added a new feature that lets users easily send an appeal when their videos are taken down for a violation of the service’s own guidelines.

"As you can imagine, with the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong...

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Sometimes the best thing to do is try to beat them at their own game.

Netflix often has no luck getting streaming access to movies held by HBO,Showtime and Epix during the initial period they control rights to the films, so Netflix is trying a new way to...

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MOG, the operator of a music blog network and recently a digital music subscription service, said that a new partnership with Roku will deliver its MOG unlimited music service across the company’s broadband set-top boxes. Roku owners will be able to stream more than 7.5 million songs to their TVs for $4.99...

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After roughly 40 years of broadcasting on traditional airwaves, the syndicated show of radio veteran Dr Demento is heading to the Web, according to the AP. Dr Demento, or the 69 year-old writer and ethnomusicologist Barret Hansen, made a reputation by mixing political satire music with upcoming artists and parody work....

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It seems a Google Android product manager told an Israeli news agency that the company plans to debut a music service alongside the release of Android 3.0 (codenamed "Gingerbread") at the end of the year. Google announced plans to develop a music service out of its existing music search offerings back in...

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Google has made an additional large investment in the Chinese digital music serviceTop100.cn, according to Chinese media reports.

The reports indicate that both Google and NBA basketball player Yao Ming participated in the second round of funding for the service, totaling nearly $1 million in new funds.

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LG has become the latest phone maker to join in the app store games with the launch of its LG Application Store.

LG promised to deliver apps to smartphones and most of its feature phones as well, and also said it will help users pick...

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Wi-Fi is looking to be the new pay TV service.

According to a study from Juniper Research, Wi-Fi networks will soon carry more TV traffic and drive a large part of the revenue growth for mobile TV as more services roll out.

According to...

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YouTube has one-upped itself with the updated version of its YouTube Mobile Web site, m.youtube.com, that’s designed to deliver video to HTML5-capable browsers like the iPhone’s Safari and those available on Android mobiles.

The new updated site " incorporates the features and functionality you’ve come...

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After countless photos and videos of picnics and fireworks were uploaded overAT&T’s 3G network over the holiday, reports started pouring in of slower than normal upload speeds for iPhone 4 users all across the US.

In more than two dozen US cities, consumers have found upload...

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So much for Microsoft as a threat to Apple at making smartphones!

In another sign that Microsoft’s mobile devices operations are out of synch with the market, Microsoft has killed its recently-launched and barely-noticed Kin (nee Pink) handsets that were aimed at the social networking set a mere...

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- HP Devices with Palm webOS Expected Shortly

HP’s acquisition of Palm has been finalized. HP devices with Palm’s webOS are expected, soon such as one to replace the tablet HP "previewed" at CES in January, with help from Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, but never shipped.

HP...

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Japanese wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo is talking with video game console makers over adding 3G network connections to the next generation of handheld consoles or possibly introducing 3D to regular mobiles, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"Videogame makers know that in order for portable game machines to take...

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Private-label mobile broadband is coming as shown by Best Buy’s announcement that it will kick off a Best Buy-brand service for laptops in July. It’ll use Sprint’s 3G network but not Sprint’s Clear WiMAX 4G service, which is based in Clearwire’s WiMAX service.

It’ll be called Best Buy...

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Most US and European broadband subscribers currently get 4 Mbps to 8 Mbps speeds on their wireline broadband network. Mobile broadband technology has been developed and is beginning to be deployed that offers speeds up to five times as fast.

Japan’s DoCoMo, generally considered the cellco...

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YouTube drew more than 14.6 billion online video views in May, roughly 43% of all video viewed online, and hit a record according to the company.

Hulu was the only other video site to top the one billion views milestone, securing 1.17 billion streams...

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Non-voice data usage on mobile phones has grown substantially over the last year with video seeing the largest increase in usage.

Roughly 60% of US adults now access the Internet wirelessly from a phone or laptop, up from 51% in April 2009, according to the Pew...

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About 55% of the more than 100 million portable devices such as such as e-readers, tablets and portable game players will come with mobile broadband embedded by 2014, according to Parks Associates. They will have 3G or faster 4G connectivity. CE makers will not only embed mobile broadband...

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Here’s another statistic the iPad is likely to bend sharply upwards: only about 10% of airline passengers are accessing the plane’s Wi-Fi, according to a USA Todayarticle. There’s so little elbow room these days that it’s hard to use even the smallest of netbooks. Then there’s the excessive...

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Almost six million 3D TV sets will ship worldwide in 2010 and over 218 million 3D TV sets will ship cumulatively from 2010 to 2015, according to IMS Research. It says that the main driver is that CE suppliers have developed strategies that will result in quick proliferation...

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- HSPA Wireless Accounts for 17% of All European Broadband

- Double Digit Growth Rates

European carriers have led the way in promoting 3G connections as their customers’ main broadband connection, wireless or wireline. Mobile-only operators like O2 aim to increase their ARPU and customer...

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Older adults watch significantly more TV than younger viewers, but they get a lot less out of it. According to a new study from the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, older viewers get less pleasure and stress relief from watching TV than do their younger counterparts. The study found that older...

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Settlement talks ordered by a judge have broken down in the ongoing copyright infringement proceedings against Jammie Thomas-Rassett. A joint motion from the case said that the settlement talks "have, unfortunately, been fruitless because of the substantially divergent views of the parties regarding copyright law and the...

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The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has shut down nine movie piracy sites in what could be the first major crackdown from federal officials in the US.

The anti-piracy initiative, dubbed "Operation in Our Sites," is aimed at taking down sites that stream or offer downloads...

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Law firms can indeed sue up to 5,000 accused P2P pirates from across the US in one fell swoop and in a single court, for now at least.

In a 45-minute hearing before federal judge Rosemary Collyer of the Washington, DC District Court, attorneys from the ACLU, EFF and Time...

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In December of last year, a 22-year old woman was arrested in Chicago for recording three minutes of the latest "Twilight" film with her digital camera at the movie theater and ended up spending two days in jail awaiting a hearing.

The problem for Samantha...

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The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is slowly rolling along with negotiators wrapping up the latest talks in Switzerland after meeting with civil liberty and society groups.

More than two years into the ACTA process, these meetings focused on some consumer protections, though there was little...

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Care to make an extra $41,000? That’s about how much Samsung Electronics is willing to shell out for ideas and plans for new Web-enabled TV apps.

In an effort to strengthen its Web capabilities, Samsung previously launched a Korean contest seeking developers to submit apps for its...

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France’s public broadcaster France Televisions launched a catch-up TV portal called Fluzz.fr this week. It’s available on the Net and from IPTV services Orangeand Free.

It’s ad-supported. Access is free.

FPluzz.fr will add 72 hours of new shows per day. They will be available for seven days....

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Microsoft does not report how much revenue it gets from its Xbox 360 Live service, but some folks at Bloomberg estimate the number at $1.2 billion or more last year.

It multiplied the number of users Microsoft admits paid the annual Xbox Live fee, half of 25...

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Popbox should be arriving in two weeks to early adopters as Syabas has announced July 23 as the shipping date for the highly anticipated media player.

Popbox is an app-based media player that will feel similar to Roku for many at first glance. Some of the initial ‘Popapps’ available...

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Set-top boxes based on Project Canvas technology are still a gleam in the eye, but already Carphone Warehouse’s TalkTalk operation is talk talking about giving them away when they go on sale in 2011, according to The Daily Telegraph.

The box will be free for consumers who subscribe to...

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Elephants give birth in 22 months.

The BBC Trust has approved the BBC’s continued development of Project Canvas after a public consultation period. It said it’ll review the matter 12 months after Project Canvas’ launch. Channel 4, Carphone Warehouse’s TalkTalk, ITV, Five, BT and media services company Arqiva are also involved in Project Canvas.

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Motorola has filed SEC documents that give more details of how it plans to split itself into two organizations, and reveal more detail of its past business shape. For instance, it reveals for the first time in two years how much (or rather how little) revenue its Home set-top...

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- This One’s in Spain with ONO

TiVo has a new agreement that makes Spain’s largest cableco, ONO, its exclusive Spanish distributor. It’s TiVo’s second major European deal, following a similar one with UK cableco Virgin Media.

Both cablecos will deliver broadcast, cable TV and...

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- 10 Gbps at Birth and Ready to Take on HDMI, G.hn and MOCA

- The Same Ethernet Cable as at the Office

While MoCA and G.hn are slugging it out for both the current and future generations of wired TV connections, another technology called...

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For digital rights managemen (DRM), Project Canvas will use the Marlin DRM technology that Intertrust, Panasonic, Phillips, Samsung and Sony jointly developed.

It is sensitive to making its technology as open as possible to all content providers. It wants to make sure they will be able to implement a subscription or download...

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- Aims to Broaden How Companies Can Violate Antitrust Rules

- Apple App Store Called "Closed Environment"

Adobe’s Flash 10.1 is poised to roll out across most key smartphone platforms and now Microsoft has released its own rich media technology, Silverlight, forSymbian. Both plug-in environments...

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Google has started working on a long laundry list of technology and features aimed at making Web applications run as smoothly on PCs as apps that run natively on the machine’s own OS, and first up to bat is an interface that tells the device which way...

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A coming version of Blu-ray discs called BDXL will allow storage of up to 128GB. TheBlu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has released specifications for BDXL that allow manufacturers to begin making drives and discs.

BDXL has triple layer 100GB RE (rewritable) and R (write-once) discs and quadruple...

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