rationale
LibreOffice developer shows prototype Android and HTML5 ports
arstechnica.com
The Document Foundation (TDF) announced plans last year to create mobile and cloud versions of LibreOffice. A preliminary iOS porting effort that was undertaken earlier in 2011 demonstrated the viability of the project and showed that the open source office suite could have a future beyond the desktop. In...
Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%
www.techdirt.com
Techflaws alerts us to an announcement by ZPÜ, the organization responsible for setting the levy on storage media in Germany, that fees will rise rather significantly (German original). For a USB stick with a capacity greater than 4 Gbytes, the tax would increase from 8 eurocents (about 10 cents) to...
Boo, the World's Cutest Dog, Calls a Facebook Employee "Mom"
allthingsd.com
If you’ve been anywhere near the Web over the past few years, you’ve probably come across Boo. He’s the self-proclaimed “World’s Cutest Dog” — a six-year-old pomeranian with a carefully coiffed hairdo, his own book deal, and nearly five million Facebook fans. He’s especially popular inside of Facebook, too. That’s...
The Mobile 15: Our picks for the most innovative companies
gigaom.com
The mobile industry has changed radically in just a few years: We’ve had the smartphone revolution and the app revolution. And it was only three years ago that the tablet was written off as failed experiment. Now, it is testing the physical boundaries of the internet. What’s next? Faster and cheaper...
EMC follows VMware, rest of world, into OpenStack
gigaom.com
EMC has joined the OpenStack Foundation. The news hits 3 months after VMware — 80 percent owned by EMC — signaled its intention to back the open source cloud effort. EMC joins as a corporate level member while VMware is a higher-level Gold member. The news was posted in a...
Facebook adds another partner to FB Exchange: social ad network RadiumOne
venturebeat.com
This morning social ad network RadiumOne is announcing an integration with Facebook Exchange, the social network’s real-time bidding ad engine that allows advertisers to use insights from the open web while marketing to users inside Facebook. In other words, ad retargeting of Facebook users based on pages they’ve visited elsewhere...
Waterstones deal with Amazon puts Kindle and ebooks instore
www.guardian.co.uk
Waterstones will sell Kindle ereaders on sale for the first time and offer free wifi, so customers can buy a book or download it instoreWaterstones has announced a surprise tie-up with Amazon that will enable shoppers to pluck ebooks as well as physical books from its shelves.The companies did not...
Thanks To A ‘Conflict Of Interest,’ Target Said To Stop Selling Amazon’s Kindle
techcrunch.com
If you were planning to swing by your local Target to buy a Kindle some time soon, you may want to add a little pep to your step. An inside source told The Verge that Amazon’s line of Kindle e-readers and tablets would soon disappear from Target’s store shelves, due...
ITC Postpones iPhone Ban Decision
allthingsd.com
The Joy of TechThe U.S. International Trade Commission was scheduled to issue a final decision in Samsung’s patent infringement case against Apple this week. Instead it issued a postponement. The ITC said Wednesday that it is delaying its ruling on Samsung’s complaint until May 31 while it considers the consumer...
Facebook Already Made Friend Finder Changes Demanded By German Court
techcrunch.com
A German court ruling against Facebook this morning is likely moot because the social network has already made most of the changes the court demands. See, back in 2010 a German consumer organization complained Facebook’s Friend Finder inviter feature didn’t adequately inform users their imported contacts would be used to...
Megaupload co-founder granted bail, New Zealand judge rules he's not a flight risk
www.engadget.com
After being denied twice, Megupload co-founder Kim Dotcom has been granted bail by a New Zealand judge, who ruled he isn't in fact a flight risk. To date, the court's rationale for keeping Dotcom behind bars has been that he might flee to his native Germany in a bid...
Here's why Sprint offered $2.1B to buy the rest of Clearwire
gigaom.com
Sprint said it was in discussions with Clearwire( s clwr) to buy the remaining chunk of stock in the company in a deal valued at $2.1 billion. The nation’s third largest wireless carrier is an investor and majority stockholder in Clearwire with 51.7 percent of the stock. This proposed transaction...
"Steam was broken" without a route to the living room, says Valve's Greg Coomer
www.theverge.com
In an interview with Polygon's Christopher Grant, Valve product designer Greg Coomer elaborates on the rationale behind Steam's push into the living room, first with Big Picture and now with the Steam Box. Gamers on Valve's platform wanted to play on their television sets using gaming controllers, and weren't...
The Smart Negotiating Tips Selena Rezvani Just Gave LinkedIn Employees
www.businessinsider.com
Negotiating is tough. But if you want to make it to the top, you've got to learn how to do it effectively, says career expert and author Selena Rezvani, whose latest book is Pushback: How Smart Women Ask — And Stand Up — For What They Want. Rezvani spoke to...
Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G review
www.engadget.com
Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't, but the Galaxy S 4G no longer exists at T-Mobile. Just one year ago, it replaced the Vibrant -- the carrier's first Galaxy S handset -- and now the Galaxy S 4G has similarly felt the cold embrace of Father Time. Fear not,...
Podcast: How the internet of things may make parents less worried but more neurotic
gigaom.com
Parenting is tough. Not only are babies incapable of listening to your rationale pleas for sleep, but they are tiny, fragile things that require your constant vigilance and protection. Or at least that’s the messaging around parenting in the U.S. To support new parents an entire industry of products from...
From Instagram to MySpace: a guide to hip social startup acquisitions
www.guardian.co.uk
The list of tech giants buying up hot web firms is long, but the clear benefits aren'tSo Facebook is buying Instagram for $1,000,000,000 (in a mixture of cash and shares) even though Instagram's revenues don't add up to $0,000,000,1. Why? Because, said Mark Zuckerberg, he wants to "offer the best...
Mobile app development: 94% of software developers betting on HTML5 winning
venturebeat.com
A few months ago when Facebook admitted defeat and went native with its iOS app, some thought it was a death-knell for HTML5. But most of the 4,034 developers in a recent survey disagree — vehemently. In fact, according to a recent survey by mobile app tools vendor Kendo, 94...
Apple Strikes Back In Jailbreak-Siri Arms Race
techcrunch.com
When Siri was announced strictly for the iPhone 4S, the mod community likely took that as a challenge. Before long, the service had been hacked and shortly thereafter ported to a number of potentially compatible devices. The problem, of course, is that Apple gets to decide what devices are compatible,...
Google and sponsored search results: is there a "war on free clicks?"
venturebeat.com
What’s happening to Google? The search engine that famously barely tolerated paid links has transformed into a high-powered advertising engine that, in some cases, leaves just 15 percent of page space for regular, non-paid, organic listings. Wordstream, the online marketing company, just completely a study of “high commercial intent” search...
iKamasutra: A Tale Of Sex, Love, And Apple App Store Rejection
techcrunch.com
I’ve seen plenty of apps get yanked from Apple’s App Store in my day, but the news of an app called iKamasutra getting that same treatment really has me scratching my head. I won’t rehash the entire story, but here’s the gist of what happened: Apple pulled the iKamasutra from...
AT&T should be investigated for ‘fraudulent’ data policies, public interest group says
www.bgr.com
AT&T on Monday announced a new plan that will let developers pay for the data used by their apps and services. The data consumed by apps that make use of this new feature would not apply toward a user’s data cap. The new service was pitched as a way...
With Presence app, People Power pulls a pivot
gigaom.com
People Power, a company that since 2009 has managed to make open-source home-energy tracking hardware and software, an enterprise-focused energy-tracking cloud service, and a consumer-facing mobile app that tracked home energy usage, has a new plan for itself. A plan that involves the internet of things. The company is launching...
YouTube Star Managers The Collective Buy Web Video Pioneer MetaCafe
allthingsd.com
MetaCafe was a Web video pioneer that fell behind YouTube and never caught up. And now it has a new, slightly unconventional home: Hollywood management agency The Collective is buying the video site. I don’t have deal terms, and don’t know what will happen to MetaCafe’s site and staff. But...
Why you should have comments, even when they are bad
gigaom.com
If you spend long enough reading blogs — or even newspapers, for that matter — you will eventually come across an essay about how a site is struggling with the question of whether to allow comments, or has decided to shut them down. The latest example of this genre...
Cloud computing to generate 14 million jobs, according to Microsoft-commissioned study
seattletimes.nwsource.com
Research firm IDC, in a study paid for by Microsoft, predicts that cloud computing will generate nearly 14 million jobs globally by 2015 -- based on the premise that companies that move to the cloud will see increased revenue growth and cost savings that will lead them to create jobs....
Kindle Touch To Debut In Europe On April 27, Still No Kindle Fire In Sight
techcrunch.com
For all the benefits that come with living in Europe — sharing a unified currency, easy access to medical care — getting timely access to Amazon’s popular line of Kindle e-readers isn’t one of them. While Amazon begun shipping their WiFi-only Kindles to a handful of new markets this past...
Madison Logic launches scary-good lead-gen platform retargeting your customer database
venturebeat.com
Imagine a prospect in your marketing automation system, or an infrequent customer in your corporate database. Now imagine surrounding that person with ads both subtle and overt on dozens of her favorite websites, all around the internet. In other words, everywhere she turns, a few or many times a day,...
Editor's Note: Welcome To The New ReadWrite
readwrite.com
Welcome to the new ReadWrite. Today we are relaunching this legendary tech site with a new name, a new design and a new approach. I'm thrilled to be joining ReadWrite as the site's new editor-in-chief, and to be teaming up with Fredric Paul, a veteran tech journalist who is our...
Bait and switch: What's behind AT&T's stance on FaceTime
gigaom.com
AT&T’s decision to block Apple’s video-calling program on its cellular network for certain customers has raised the ire of consumers and public interest groups, and it may even draw the attention of the Federal Communications Commission. And after the wireless carrier posted its rationale on Wednesday on its decision to...
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