Technical News - 05 January 2012

• Camera industry: Beware lest Kodak's travails strike you
  January 5, 2012
  New technology helped cause Kodak's financial troubles. But stronger players such as Canon also must adapt to the digital revolution's breakneck pace.
  
• Windows 8 will refresh your PC without losing your data
  January 5, 2012
  Microsoft will offer Windows 8 users the ability to refresh the OS to a clean state while preserving all data, settings, and at least all Metro apps.
  
• Microsoft To Offer Flight For Free This Spring
  January 5, 2012
  
  
  hypnosec writes "Microsoft's Flight Simulator series, which was in dormant state until now, will see a re-launch this spring and that too for free. The name of this series will be simply Flight, and players will have free access to the digital sky with this simulator. In other words, it will be available as a free download; however, the user would need to buy additional content to enhance their experience. The content that can be purchased includes aircraft as well as new environments. Microsoft states that the most amazing part of this game is the user can experience some real life locations like Big Island of Hawaii along with 'region-specific weather patterns, foliage, terrain and landmarks.'" [Video demo here.] I'd like to know where the ESRB finds "crude humor" or "mild violence" in there.
  Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
  
• MetroPCS subscriber numbers disappoint
  January 5, 2012
  (Reuters) - MetroPCS reported fourth-quarter net subscriber growth that missed analyst expectations even as it posted a smaller-than-expected customer cancellation rate.

  

  
  
• Prepaid carriers offer mixed results in the fourth quarter
  January 5, 2012
  MetroPCS and Leap Wireless provide a sneak peak at their growth in the fourth quarter, which was exactly sizzling.
  
• Nokia prospects brighten as chairman search narrows
  January 5, 2012
  HELSINKI/TAIPEI (Reuters) - Struggling phone maker Nokia Oyj basked in brightening prospects for its much-hyped Windows phone on Thursday as it prepared to strengthen the hand of new boss Stephen Elop by replacing its old-guard chairman.

  

  
  
• SugarSync updates provide Android video auto upload and batch iPhone upload
  January 5, 2012
  SugarSync is my favorite cloud backup, access, and sync service and today launched updated Android and iOS apps to improve the service for both platforms.
  
• Barnes & Noble may split off Nook, cuts forecast
  January 5, 2012
  (Reuters) - Bookstore owner Barnes & Noble Inc on Thursday said it is considering splitting off its Nook electronic reader business and also cut its full-year earnings forecast, citing a shortfall in sales of its basic touchscreen reader.

  

  
  
• December sales rise, but discounts hurt profits
  January 5, 2012
  (Reuters) - Many retailers had to discount more than they wanted to draw customers over the holidays, cutting into profits even as December sales came in slightly better than expected overall.

  

  
  
• Barnes & Noble exploring options for Nook business (AP)
  January 5, 2012
  AP - Barnes & Noble said Thursday it is reviewing its options for its Nook e-book and e-book catalog business and might separate it from its core bookstore business.
  
• Obama plans to cut tens of thousands of ground troops
  January 5, 2012
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration will unveil a "more realistic" vision for the military on Thursday, with plans to cut tens of thousands of ground troops and invest more in air and sea power at a time of fiscal restraint, officials familiar with the plans said on Wednesday.

  

  
  
• Leap Second Coming In June, 2012
  January 5, 2012
  
  
  Zoxed writes "IERS have just announced a leap second due at midnight, June 30th this year. Are your systems ready?" The last leap second added was at the end of 2008.
  Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
  
• Credit Suisse sees sluggish growth in 2012 handset sales
  January 5, 2012
  (Reuters) - Global mobile phone shipments is likely to grow at a much slower pace of 2 percent this year as customers hold back on new phone purchases, Credit Suisse said.

  

  
  
• Credit Suisse sees sluggish growth in 2012 handset sales (Reuters)
  January 5, 2012
  Reuters - Global mobile phone shipments is likely to grow at a much slower pace of 2 percent this year as customers hold back on new phone purchases, Credit Suisse said.
  
• SEC says adviser defrauded investors using LinkedIn (Reuters)
  January 5, 2012
  Reuters - Securities regulators charged an Illinois-based investment adviser on Wednesday with using LinkedIn and other social media networking websites to lure investors by offering more than $500 billion in fake securities.
  
• CES Preview: Ultrabooks to Get the Spotlight, Netbooks the Knife
  January 5, 2012
  It's a shame the tech industry never liked netbooks.
  
  
  
  
• Google prepping cheap 7-inch Android tablet to take on Kindle Fire: rumor (Digital Trends)
  January 5, 2012
  Digital Trends - Google is allegedly in the process of creating a 7-inch Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) tablet that will be priced less than Amazon’s $200 Kindle Fire, reports DigitTimes. The device will purportedly arrive sometime in March or April. The news is extremely speculative, at this point, as Google Taiwan says that they have never heard of such plans.
  
• Insight: Rivals set to pounce on Santorum's past
  January 5, 2012
  ATLANTA (Reuters) - Rick Santorum's last-minute surge in the Iowa caucus brought him neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney in the first contest of the 2012 race to select a Republican presidential candidate. But it came too late to attract the harsh scrutiny usually visited on front-runners.

  

  
  
• French costs rise but demand solid at debt sale
  January 5, 2012
  PARIS (Reuters) - French borrowing costs rose slightly when the euro zone's second-largest economy sold debt for the first time this year on Thursday but demand was solid despite concerns the country could lose its AAA credit rating.

  

  
  
• Europe still thumb-twiddling over Google search 'cooking' antitrust complaint
  January 5, 2012
  European antitrust authorities are still considering whether to bring a formal complaint against Google for search 'cooking'
  
• Nook spinoff could be next chapter for Barnes & Noble
  January 5, 2012
  The bookseller may have no choice but to spin off its Nook unit as its brick-and-mortar retail unit overshadows its digital content business
  
• ICANN to expand top level Internet domains despite critics
  January 5, 2012
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - ICANN, an independent body responsible for organizing the Internet, plans to press ahead with plans to expand the number of possible website addresses despite criticism from industry and concerns from some law enforcement groups.

  

  
  
• Ice Cream Sandwich MIA? Only on 0.6% of Android Devices
  January 5, 2012
  Google's newest version of its Android mobile operating system, called Ice Cream Sandwich, is only on .06 percent of devices.
  
  
  
  
• Mathematics Says Romney and Santorum Tied In Iowa
  January 5, 2012
  
  
  Hugh Pickens writes writes "Presidential candidate Mitt Romney received eight more votes than candidate Rick Santorum or 0.007 percent of the total number of caucus votes in the Iowa caucus, 'eking out a victory' on the path to winning the Republican nomination for president but experts in statistics say Romney and Santorum actually tied. 'From a statistical point of view, you can't say Romney won any more than you can say Santorum won,' says Charles Seife, a professor of journalism at New York University who studies election error. That's because in the Iowa caucus, where voters marked their choices with check marks or by writing the candidates' names in by hand, the error rate in counting the votes, which is also done by hand is orders of magnitude above the victory margin — around 0.5 to 1 percent. There are several sources of error that could easily render eight votes meaningless." (Read on for more.)
  Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
  
• Researcher Devises Hard-to-detect Denial-of-service Attack Against HTTP Servers
  January 5, 2012
  Qualys senior software engineer Sergey Shekyan has devised a new HTTP denial-of-service (DoS) attack method which relies on prolonging the time clients need to...
  
  
  
  
• Analysis: Texting profits at risk as users look elsewhere
  January 5, 2012
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - Text-messaging has long been a big-time profit generator for U.S. mobile operators, but they now risk losing these profits as consumers find cheaper ways to communicate.

  

  
  
• Gartner lowers global IT spending forecast for 2012
  January 5, 2012
  Spending on tech products and services around the world is now expected to rise 3.7 percent from last year, a dip from Gartner's prior forecast of 4.6 percent growth.
  
• Samsung readying Series 5 Ultrabooks with prices starting at $900
  January 5, 2012
  And here come the Ultrabooks. We all know that the explosion of new laptops based on Intel platform are coming to CES this month, but the leaks and announcement are already flying fast and...
  
• Euro woes may affect Google ad sales: Benchmark
  January 5, 2012
  (Reuters) - Benchmark Co analysts downgraded Google Inc to "hold" from "buy," citing a decline in advertising revenue from Europe and an uncertain outlook for the first half of this year.

  

  
  
• Is Pinterest the 'next big thing' in social media?
  January 5, 2012
  Some say so. The site saw its traffic grow by 4,000 percent in just six months and is now the 10th-largest social networking Web site.
  
• Barnes & Noble eyes Nook spin-off amid sales shortfall
  January 5, 2012
  Barnes & Noble may have no choice but to spin off its Nook unit amid a sales miss.
  
• EU Moves To Ban Iran Crude Oil
  January 5, 2012
  
  
  rtoz writes with this snippet from the BBC: "EU member states have agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian crude oil to put pressure on the country over its nuclear programme. ... The US, which recently imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, welcomed the news. ... The Iranian state gets more than half of its revenue through the export of crude oil, says the BBC's James Reynolds. If Europe does stop buying, Iran will have to turn to countries in Asia to replace its lost trade, who will demand a discount, he adds."
  Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  
  
• Ride Along with the Memphis Police Department Precrime Unit
  January 5, 2012
  In the January 2012 issue of Scientific American , author James Vlahos explores the world of predictive policing--precrime, to you Philip K. Dick fans--through the eyes of the Memphis Real Time Crime center. The center assembles both real-time and historic data on criminal activity to create forecasts of where crime is likely to happen and when. Here Vlahos shows us how the the work of the center can lead to on-the-ground arrests.
  [More]
  
  
  
  
• Can Thompson Rejuvenate Yahoo?
  January 5, 2012
  Analysts split on whether the new CEO is just what Yahoo needs, or whether the move is 'deja vu all over again.'
  
  
  
  
• Can Machines Predict Where Crimes Are about to Happen? (preview)
  January 5, 2012
  Patrolman joseph cunningham and I are hunting for criminals. not just any crooks but home burglars. And not just anywhere: although the city of Memphis covers 315 square miles, our search area has been narrowed to just a few square blocks of low brick apartment buildings in a crime-plagued part of town. The search date and time, too, have been tightly defined--Thursday, between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. The shift begins now. “I don’t anticipate any car chases tonight, but if one happens, be sure to put your seat belt on,” Cunningham says as we pull out from the station.
  [More]
  
  
  
  
• The Facebook Timeline's anti-drug campaign
  January 5, 2012
  The Facebook Timeline is being used to promote anti-drug messages. What might future Gen Y users expect to view?
  
• Global IT spending to grow 3.7 percent amid Europe worries
  January 5, 2012
  Gartner said that hardware, enterprise software, IT services and telecom equipment and services will see slower growth than the research firm projected.
  
• Music retailers cheer first sales increase in 7 years
  January 5, 2012
  A 3.2 percent uptick in overall sales may not seem like much, but it's the first glimmer of hope since 2004.
  
• Sweden's file-sharing 'religion'
  January 5, 2012
  An organisation dedicated to file-sharing is officially recognised as a religion in Sweden.
  
• Ray Ozzie starts new venture Cocomo
  January 5, 2012
  The former chief software architect at Microsoft and Lotus Notes creator is assembling a team for a company to make a new communications product for social interaction.
  
• U.S. 'threatened to blacklist Spain' over SOPA-style law
  January 5, 2012
  Spain has introduced a thought-to-be-dead SOPA-style anti-piracy law. But it now appears that the U.S. government pressured -- and threatened -- Spain's vulnerable economy.
  
• Apple coughing up $5 million to settle patent infringement suit
  January 5, 2012
  Company agrees to pay $5 million to settle a suit launched by Taiwan-based Elan Microelectronics, which had accused Apple of infringing on an Elan multitouch patent.
  
• Broadcom to unveil four faster Wi-Fi chips
  January 5, 2012
  The International Consumer Electronics Show next week may be a major launchpad for a new, faster generation of Wi-Fi that goes about three times faster than current gear, with at least one major silicon vendor announcing and demonstrating a set of chips for the IEEE 802.11ac standard.
  
• Oracle gears Netbeans for building better user interfaces
  January 5, 2012
  With its newly updated NetBeans Java IDE (integrated developer environment), Oracle has focused on updating the tools and libraries so they can be used to build more sophisticated user interfaces.
  
• Adding Twitter Feed on Website & Blog
  January 5, 2012
  Twitter is a one of the place were people look for information other than three search giant Google, Yahoo and Bing (MSN).

  
  

  By following the below simple 10 steps you can easily setup custom Twitter search results for your query or search keyword in your website that may help your readers.

  
  

  Make your site interesting with custom twitter search results. Easy way to setup custom twitter search results related to search phrases for your website without the help of widget. Try Now. It's interesting!

  
  Step 1: Visit Twitter Search

  
  

  Click Twitter Search URL http://search.twitter.com/ or Copy & Paste to your browser address bar.

  
  

  

  
  

  Step 2: Use your search term

  
  

  Now, I would like to display twitter search results for the term "Google". You may try with the same or any other search term you like or something related to your specific page or profile

  
  

  

  
  

  
  The result URL would be http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Google

  
  

  Step 3: Select your tweet language

  
  

  Now the tweets are displayed for all the language. You may selcet your language using the option "Show tweets written in:" right site of the search page. I have selected "English"

  
  

  

  
  

  The result would be http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Google〈=en

  
  

  Step 4: Select "Feed for this query"

  
  

  Once you are done you may click on the option "Feed for this query" in top right side of the search page and it looks like image below. Now you have a feed for the search results and language specified

  
  

  

  
  

  The result URL would be http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?lang=en&q=Google

  
  

  Step 5: Login Google Feedburner

  
  

  Now login to Google feedburner using your Gmail account

  
  

  

  
  

  Step 6: Adding Twitter search results feed

  
  

  In the Feedburner dashboard you will have an option to paste the tweeter search results feed link in an text box as seen in below

  
  

  

  
  

  
  

  On the next screen you may alter your Feedburner title and feed address and click again next. Now your feedburner would have been created for the specified title and address. You can see a screen as below image

  
  

  

  
  

  Step 7: Feed Management for Twitter search results

  
  

  In Feedburner created page you have options to move to next step to configure stats or to skip to feed management page as seen in below screenshot

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  Step 8: Activation

  
  

  Now you can click on “Publicize” button and you will be landing to a page "publicize your feed". In this, on left side you can see services listed and from that you can click “Headline Animator”.

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  Now, you have a page were you can change your theme, colour code, wrap long headlines and font size and click on the Activate button as seen in the below screenshot

  
  

  

  
  

  
  

  Step 9: Selecting Twitter search results display code

  
  

  Now your "Headline Animator" is ready for your twitter search results. You may select the option select other (just gimme the code) as seen in the screenshot below and click next

  
  

  

  
  

  Step 10: This is how it looks!

  
  

  You have the code now. Place it in the website or blog HTML and publish. Now you are done. Your "Custom Twitter Search Results" will look something like below, animating real time twitter search results for your query. Here the search results are displayed for the term "Google".

  
  

  

  
  

  Feel free to post your feedback and suggestions in below comment section.