Archive for November, 2010


What Your iPad Cover Says About You

case-mate-pink.jpg
A shiny new iPad is going to be on many a holiday wish list this season, and that means accessories galore! Instead of opting in for the black, utilitarian Apple case (B-O-R-I-N-G) show your personal style with some of the fun and stylish, yet substantial new cases on the market.

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Microsoft says Kinect sales steady: more than 100,000 units per day

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Kinect
Microsoft on Monday announced that Kinect, the sensor attachment for the Xbox 360 that supports motion-based controls, has been sold to more than 2.5 million customers worldwide in just 25 days.

“We are thrilled about the consumer response to Kinect, and are working hard with our retail and manufacturing partners to expedite production and shipments of Kinect to restock shelves as fast as possible to keep up with demand,” said Don Mattrick, president of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft.

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Google Earth 6.0 beta has 30% more of Earth’s surface in 3D (i.e. trees)

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Google on Monday released an update to its 3D globe and map software, Google Earth. This milestone beta version, classified Google Earth 6.0, doesn’t add any huge new features, but increases usability and realism by tying the 3D Earth images to those captured in Street View, and by adding 3D rendered trees.

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Verizon Wireless capitalizes on 700+ Web retailers’ use of ‘Cyber Monday’

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Though “Cyber Monday” was already a painfully outdated-sounding term when the National Retail Federation’s Shop.org began using it as a marketing buzzword five years ago, the phrase appears to be sticking around, and Verizon Wireless grabbed a firm hold of it today.

Verizon Wireless bought the hashtag #CyberMonday on Twitter, which turns the term into a “Promoted Trend” that all users of the microblogging service see in their list of trends.

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Simplehuman Sensor Trash Can

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In a perfect world, everything would be run by sensors. If you’re Bill Gates, your house is already programmed with sensor technology: when you walk in a room sensors track your presence and lights purr to life, paintings come alive, and a soundtrack starts to play in the background.

But until Gates bequeaths us his house, we’ll make do with the Simplehuman multi-sense trash can. As simple humans can deduce, the can works by sensing your presence and conveniently opening the can.

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The App Store model faces disruption from HTML5

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

iTunes App Store, Android Market, and Windows Mobile Marketplace

Today’s Wall Street Journal features an article by Christopher Lawton that talks about the difficulty independent app stores face when competing with Apple and Google for developer and consumer attention. Paul Reddick, chief executive of third-party app store HandMark told WSJ that he couldn’t simply bet the whole company’s fate on independently distributing apps with a presence like Google to compete against.

It may not even be a prudent bet to be in the app store business at all.

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Court fines SAP for downloading rival Oracle’s software

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

In what is being called the biggest judgment ever for software piracy, German business software provider SAP has been slapped with a .3 billion verdict for stealing rival Oracle’s software. At issue were the actions of TomorrowNow, a subsidiary SAP purchased in 2005.

TomorrowNow provided third party support for a host of applications, including those developed by Oracle. Oracle became suspicious and then filed suit after it noticed unusually high downloads by SAP, which came as a result of TomorrowNow downloading support materials and software from the Oracle website.

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Will Santa stuff your stocking with Windows Phone?

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Two days from now, Black Friday officially kicks off the holiday buying season — although some retailers are off to an early start. I’ve been wondering; What about Windows Phone? I recall how last holiday sales season, Verizon cranked up Droid sales with two-for-one deals. Yesterday, I got e-mail from AT&T announcing four days of Windows Phone buy one get one free, or what Stephen Baker, NPD’s vice president of industry analysis, calls BOGO. Can the offer, presumably others coming later in the holiday season and Microsoft’s aggressive Windows Phone 7 advertising campaign jumpstart sales? I refer to jumpstart in context of new software and devices, like Verizon Droids were last year.

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Vudu movies begin streaming to PlayStation 3 consoles today

By Tim Conneally, Betanews

Sony PlayStation 3 users can now download and stream high definition movies from Wal-Mart’s video on demand service Vudu, with an application released in the PlayStation Store today.

Unlike Netflix and Hulu Plus, two streaming content services previously available on the video game console, Vudu is not subscription-based. It is instead a pay-per-view or download-to-own service like the “Movies” section in Sony’s own PlayStation Store.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Sells 600,000 units in first month

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

Samsung Galaxy Tab on Sprint
Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet is selling remarkably well globally, according to a report in the Korea Herald. Since its launch last month, the device has sold about 600,000 units across the 30 countries where it is currently available.

While that is nowhere near the million-per-month sales rate of the iPad, Samsung’s success in the space shows that there is space for another tablet device to do well. Executives say that they expect to sell about one million Tabs before the end of the year, and the company expects sales to accelerate as the entire market grows in 2011.

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