Google Play combines Market, Books, Music and Videos

Android took a major step today as Google unified it's Google Music, Google Videos, Google Books and Android Market services into one. The new one-stop store goes by Google Play.

Google Play is Google's effort to put all of its downloadable content, be it apps, movies, music or eBooks and make it easily accessible using Cloud syncing. This would allow you to easily get any music tracks, videos and eBooks you purchase to all of your Android devices, just like with the apps from the Android Market so far.

To make the switch from Android Market to Google Play, the search giant will release an update for the Android Market app on devices running Android 2.2 or later over the coming days. So, from now on, it's officially Google Play, Google Play Music, Google Play Books and Google Play Movies.

How much music and videos, you ask? The company says that you can store up to 20,000 of your own songs plus any of the millions available for purchase in the Google Play itself. And with the app and video count growing literally by the minute, you can be sure that Google will certainly target global market dominance.

And to make sure it attracts more and more users, Google Play will be celebrating its launch by slashing prices on a ton of applications, books, music and movies. Sadly, the full power of Google Play will only be available in the United States at launch, while the rest of the world will have to have to sit on the sideline, looking enviously.

Finally, here's Google's introductory video to Google Play.

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Feb. 27

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle, and the previous day’s answer (in invisitext) posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

The highway that runs through Rachel, Nevada draws enthusiasts who probably enjoy what movie genre?

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER (mouseover to see):

Search [half-life cesium-137] to find that it’s 30 years. Search [half-life uranium-238] to learn that it’s 4.5 billion years, which is just a bit longer.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."
Follow @fitzwillie and @wiredgeekdad on Twitter.

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Intel unveils Xeon server chip for cloud

Intel Corp took the wraps off its newest "Xeon" server chip, seeking to capitalize on an explosion of Internet traffic sparked by Web-based cloud computing, social networking and growing smartphone and tablet computer use.

The company's "Xeon E5-2600" family of processors delivers up to 80 per cent better performance than previous platforms while consuming less energy, Diane Bryant, in charge of Intel's data center business, told reporters.

It is designed to support the servers and workstations that handle what Intel estimates will be 33 percent annual growth of data traffic through 2015.

Intel has already shipped its new platform to a host of server manufacturers. It said several - including Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc, IBM, Oracle Corp and Cisco Systems Inc - are expected to announce Xeon-based server platforms.

Smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices is also stepping up investments in enterprise processors. Last week, the perennial runner-up to Intel announced that it would buy micro-server player SeaMicro for $334 million, getting into an emergent, power-efficient server technology.

AMD has lost ground to Intel in the server market in past years but hopes SeaMicro can help its expansion into low-power solutions in massive data centers. But Intel executives said their own Xeon E5 platform can improve energy efficiency by more than 50 per cent in some cases versus the previous generation.

"We did look at SeaMicro's fabric technology. There are probably very few people they didn't come to and shop their solution to," Bryant said. "We were not impressed. We declined and very soon after our competitor acquired them."

Lagging, scrambling

Shares in Intel held steady at about $26.50 in afternoon trade, while AMD's stock was down about 3 percent at $6.86.

While Intel lags Qualcomm and Samsung Electronics in selling processors for smartphones and tablets, Intel executives have pointed to their server business as key to capitalizing on fast growth in the mobile market.

The popularity of smartphones and other mobile gadgets has increased the need for massive computer centers that store data and feed email, videos and other information to those devices.

UBS expects spending on data centers to surge 49 percent this year, driven by the likes of Apple, Facebook and Google. At Tuesday's event, Intel trotted out a variety of clients to demonstrate how its new platform might be employed.

German automaker BMW said it was using Xeon-based servers to keep its luxury cars linked to the Internet. "Soon we will have more than 10 million vehicles connected and that will lead us to 1 terabyte of data volume per day," said Mario Muller, BMW vice president of IT infrastructure.

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Google Slashes Storage Prices: Still no GDrive

Google announced today that it's dropping its pricing on Google Cloud Storage and its integration with several enterprise storage offerings. Google's updated pricing scheme puts it roughly in line with Amazon's S3, but what else does Google have to offer except a new pricing scheme?

I spoke to Google's product manager for Cloud Storage, Navneet Joneja on Monday about the pricing change and how Google stands out in storage.

First, Joneja emphasizes Google's performance and scalability. Unfortunately, Google won't make with much in the way of details about its underlying infrastructure. (For example, does Google use SSD or standard drives? They won't say.)

The big argument for Google's offering, says Joneja, is what you can do with data when you've got it in Google Cloud Storage. Developers using Google Cloud Storage can tap into Google's App Engine and Google Big Query as well.

The pricing changes, says Joneja, should drop pricing by as much as 15% – depending on how much storage is used. Like Amazon S3, Google has a tiered pricing model that includes three dimensions, how much data is stored, amount of transfer, and the requests.

The request and data transfer pricing aren't changing, but they've shaved the cost of storage. Previously the first tier, up to 1TB, was priced at $0.13 per GB. Now it's at $0.12 up to 1TB. The next 9TB was priced at $0.12 per GB, but is now $0.105 per GB.

The partnering companies Google announced today are Gladinet, Panzura, Storsimple, TwinStrata and Zmanda. So far, most of the solutions that Google is announcing don't seem to be using Cloud Storage in conjunction with other Google services, but perhaps we'll be seeing a few more offerings that combine App Engine or Big Query and storage.

Google Cloud Storage is available in two regions. Joneja says customers can choose from two containers, either in the U.S. or Europe. Currently, Google does not offer a region in Asia.

With the staggering growth of Amazon S3, it should be interesting to see if Google is able to cut in on Amazon's action significantly.

No doubt quite a bit of S3's growth owes to Dropbox, which uses Amazon S3. I did ask Joneja if the slew of partnerships announced today meant that Google preferred to let customers build solutions rather than offering is own (fabled) GDrive. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Google is still not commenting on when or if we'll be seeing GDrive.

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Android 4.0 ICS update is now seeding for Samsung Galaxy S II

Yes, yes - we know you've heard this a few times too many in the past couple of weeks, but this time it is for real, folks. Samsung Mobile's official Facebook page broke the news that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has officially made its way to Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II.

As you can notice in the screenshot above, the update is currently seeding to devices in Europe, as well as Korea. The rest of the world will follow in the nearest future.

Samsung Galaxy Note, Galaxy S II LTE, and Galaxy Tab Tab 8.9 and 10.1 are noted as next in line for the major update. The older members of the Galaxy family on the other hand, will receive updates to their Gingerbread firmware, which will bring some ICS functionality to it.

In case you have already updated your I9100, drop us a line with your impressions of the new firmware in the comments section below. We will be sure to tell you about our own shortly.

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Google to Amazon: You're not the only price chopper around

Amazon isn’t the only cloud provider slicing storage prices. Google on Tuesday cut the price on Google Cloud Storage by up to 15 percent in some cases. With this move, and the naming of five new front-end storage partners, Google appears to be making a serious play for the enterprise storage business from which it has been largely absent.

In that arena it will square off with — you got it — Amazon Web Services, which last month cut its S3 storage prices, and on Monday discounted Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) services. Standard Google Cloud Storage now costs a tad less than Amazon S3 and Microsoft Windows Azure storage. Generally, the price of cloud storage is broken out into different per-GB fees for data stored; plus network charges for data flowing into and out of the cloud, and the cost of certain requests.

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Windows Phone or MeeGo Which One Should I Buy?

A lot of Nokia fans are back and forth and back and forth. MeeGo or Windows Phones, there are people who can afford to buy both but they are few and far in between.

I am lucky enough to own an N9 plus luck enough to have a Lumia 710 demo in my house, so I made a little video side by side with both phones to try to help you out.  I did two, the first one was forty minutes!   Yeah no one is going to watch that it’s just too long. So I made the video below with plans on uploading the forty minute on later.

What I ended up doing ultimately is the short side by side video and video review of both phones!

Here is the  Side by Side Video:

Than here is the N9/MeeGo hands on:

The Lumia 710/Windows Phone Hand On:

If anyone has any questions on either device please leave them in the comment or feel free to send me Tweet.

Kevin Everett
Proud Nokia Geek since 1997 who loves to collect old Nokia phones (owns everything from the 1992's Nokia 100 up to the very latest Nokia N9) and is very happy to share his knowledge with you. He is a writer for Daily Mobile and Nokia Innovations. Enjoy his Nokia nerd knowledge and feel free to follow him on twitter https://twitter.com/#!/NokiaKnowings
http://www.nokiainnovation.com/

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12-Year-Old Sues School Over Facebook Privacy

By Melissa Daniels | Mon Mar 12, 2012 4:13 pm

A 12-year-old student is suing her school for demanding her Facebook password, escalating the growing debate over privacy and social media as profiles become public property.

The 12-year-old Minnesota student's school district demanded her passwords for Facebook and email in order to search her saved information. Her suit is backed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The suit comes as agencies, schools, and employers demand increasing access to Facebook profiles of students and employees at a rapid rate. Organizations are safeguarding against inflammatory content on social media sites, but how they handle the situation can potentially violate constitutional rights, raising questions on whether Facebook posts can be treated as public, or subject to search.

The case stems from two incidents from the girl's Facebook. In one post, she called a hall monitor "mean" and said she hated her. A screenshot of the post made its way to the district, and someone showed the postings to the principal, resulting in a detention sentence and an apology to the hall monitor.

A subsequent post calling out whoever turned in the screenshot resulted in an in-school suspension. In the second incident, a male student's parent come forward, claiming the students were having inappropriate discussions on Facebook.

Administrators then called the girl to surrender her passwords in front of a school counselor and a county sheriff's deputy, in order to check her postings and chat records. The girl's mother says the district did not ask for her consent before its request.

Schools are examining Facebook activity, so the network is no longer the perceived safe haven students think it is. However, they still use the site as a place to express views about their school that, while maybe offensive, are not necessarily incendiary or criminal. In this case, the ACLU says the school district violated the student's First and Fourth Amendments.

"Students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the school house gate," an ACLU spokesperson said in a statement. "The Supreme Court ruled on that in the 1970s, yet schools like Minnewaska seem to have no regard for the standard."

But the district says as more facts about the case come out it will be clear its actions were "reasonable and appropriate." Meanwhile, it "disputes the one-sided version of events set forth in the complaint written by the ACLU," according to a statement.

Social media profiles are an informal communications that are, at an increasingly rapid rate, treated as an extension of that person's beliefs, reputation and associated organizations. Employers, and colleges, demand access to profiles through friending an employee or staff member, a growing trend that puts profiles under the microscope.

The findings can lead to disaster if someone's posts cast an unflattering light, like the much-discussed case of Apple firing an employee over rants about the company on their private page.

Schools demanding access to Facebook activity could have a chilling effect on the speech of students to rant about their school. But beyond the immediate school setting, the case could set a precedent for more users to fire back at organizations who probe pages for details.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:13 pm | By
Scottish scientists are developing an app converting sign language into text, showcasing mobile technology's capacity to evolve communication.



Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:04 pm | By
AT&T is expanding its LTE service, and Tim Cook sold off more of his stock in Apple. Meanwhile, Verizon had some sporadic outages, Apple denies Proview's claims on its iPad name and Twitter snapped up Posterous, a blogging platform.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:57 pm | By
Anonymous hackers struck the Vatican again, wreaking havoc despite ongoing arrests, defectors and rogue members that risk impairing future operations.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:42 pm | By
Yahoo is suing Facebook over alleged patent infringement, opening up untested legal territory as the social network goes public.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 2:46 pm | By
Apple's is reducing the price of the iPad 2 with the release of the new iPad, boosting the company's educational initiatives by making tablets more affordable for schools.


Editorials & Opinion By Kat Asharya
The Justice Department approved the $4.5 billion purchase of over 4,000 Nortel patents to major Android rivals like Apple and RIM, guaranteeing no end in sight to the legal battles entangling the mobile industry.

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Amazon Leads Price War: Drops AWS Pricing Again, Leans Heavy on Reserved Instances

According to Amazon's blog today, the company is now on their 19th price cut since AWS debuted, but who's counting? Well, they are, apparently. The company is lowering pricing on EC2 instances, ElastiCache, Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) and Amazon Elastic Map Reduce are all dropping significantly. Significantly, Amazon is heavily emphasizing its price cuts on Reserved Instances.

The EC2 pricing is dropping by up to 10% for on-demand instances. If you're consuming Reserved Instances, Amazon is dropping prices up to 37%.

Amazon is also appealing to heavy users with its price cuts, offering volume discounts of 10% for customers that own more than $250,000 of Reserved Instances for additional Reserved Instances. After the $2 million mark, Amazon is offering a 20% discount, and Amazon is asking customers to call if they pass the $5 million threshold.

The prices for RDS are dropping by similar amounts. If you're using on-demand RDS, pricing drops by up to 10%. Amazon has shaved pricing as much as 42% for Reserved Instances of RDS. Likewise, ElastiCache is dropping by up to 10% if you use on-demand instances. (ElastiCache doesn't have reserved pricing on its pricing page.)

What's interesting, aside from the actual price drop, is the emphasis Amazon is putting on the Reserved Instances. By moving more customers to Reserved Instances, Amazon can better plan its capacity needs for the next few years and helps lock customers into using AWS. Companies could switch to RackSpace, Google or another provider – but they'd be losing some significant chunks of change in doing so.

This seems like a pretty smart move on Amazon's part, and I'm wondering how long it's going to take for other providers to introduce something similar. As far as I know, Amazon is the only major player offering this kind of pricing scheme and seems to be handily undercutting the other players.

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Android 4.0.3 ICS now rolling out to the Samsung Galaxy S II

Five months after the release of Ice Cream Sandwich, users will start seeing a roll out of the official ICS upgrade for their Samsung Galaxy S II device.

The update will be available in stages and will arrive first to Samsung’s home country Korea. The first European countries that will receive the update are: Poland, Sweden and Hungary. Samsung confirmed that the UK rolout will begin next week.

“Samsung UK can confirm that the roll out of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) on Galaxy S II will be available from week commencing 19th March, however the availability of software upgrades in the UK will be dependent upon each network’s own software approvals process.”

Samsung have informed users that Android 4.0 updates for the Galaxy Note, Galaxy S II LTE, Galaxy R, Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, 7.7, 8.9, 8.9 LTE and 10.1 will be coming along “Soon”. Owners of the Galaxy S, Galaxy Tab 7, Galaxy S Plus, Galaxy S Super Clear LCD and Galaxy W can all expect an update to Android 2.3 Gingerbread at the end of this month.

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Terror indictment unveiled for Norway massacre

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Anders Behring Breivik was indicted Wednesday on terror and murder charges for slaying 77 people in a bomb and shooting rampage, but prosecutors said the confessed killer likely won't go to prison for Norway's worst peacetime massacre.

Prosecutors said they consider the 33-year-old right-wing extremist psychotic and will seek a sentence of involuntary commitment to psychiatric care instead of imprisonment, unless new information about his mental health emerges during the trial set to start in April.

As expected, they charged him under a paragraph in Norway's anti-terror law that refers to violent acts intended to disrupt key government functions or spread fears in the population.

Breivik has confessed to the July 22 attacks but denies criminal guilt, portraying the victims as "traitors" for embracing immigration policies he claims will result in an Islamic colonization of Norway.

The indictment listed the names of the eight people killed when a bomb exploded in downtown Oslo and the 69 victims of a shooting spree on Utoya island outside the capital, where the youth wing of the governing Labor Party was holding its annual summer camp.

Reading from the indictment, prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh said 34 of the victims at Utoya were between 14 and 17 years old, 22 were aged 18-20, six were between 21 and 25 and seven were older than 25.

She said 67 died of gunshot wounds, and two died of fall injuries or drowning.

The indictment also listed the names of 33 people wounded in the shooting and nine people who were seriously injured by the explosion in Oslo's government district.

Police spokesman Tore Jo Nielsen told Norwegian broadcaster NRK outside Oslo's Ila prison that Breivik had been "totally calm" when he was read the charges.

The terror charges carry a maximum penalty of 21 years in prison but prosecutors are working under the assumption that Breivik is legally insane and therefore unfit for prison. However, they said that this assessment could change during the trial.

"We're keeping the possibility open that there could be things during the presentation of evidence that may change our view," Bejer Engh said.

A second, court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of Breivik is ongoing after an initial review — which concluded he was a paranoid schizophrenic — met widespread criticism. Some experts questioned whether someone suffering from a grave mental illness would be capable of carrying out attacks requiring such meticulous preparation.

Breivik himself has rejected the diagnosis and his defense lawyer Geir Lippestad told Norway's TV2 that his client was "disappointed" that it was included in the indictment.

Breivik also rejects the authority of the Norwegian legal system, calling it a tool of the left-leaning elites he claims have betrayed the country.

Investigators haven't found any indications to support Breivik's claims that he belongs to a secret anti-Muslim resistance movement plotting to overthrow European governments and replace them with "patriotic" regimes.

Tove Selbekk, a member of a support group for those affected by the massacre, welcomed the indictment but said many survivors and families of victims are dreading the start of the trial, set for April 16.

"We're very clear on the fact that it will be tough ... to hear him explain himself and to hear about all those who passed away and how they passed away," said Selbekk, whose daughter survived the Utoya massacre. "But this is something we need to go through."

___

Associated Press writer Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm contributed to this report.

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Daily Roundup: March 12, 2012

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Mon Mar 12, 2012 4:15 pm

The Apple-Samsung battle heats up, RIM's BlackBerry loses a key sector of customers and other stories from today's news.

Patent Wars: Apple Says Samsung Violated Court Order

Apple is accusing Samsung of only complying partly with a court order that requires it to offer source code for its 4G smartphones and Galaxy tablets involved in its U.S. patent lawsuit filed in California.

The U.S case is just one of dozens of similar lawsuits filed between Apple and Samsung, as the two tech giants hurl accusations about violating each others' patents and designs.

Several Sprint 4G smartphones are on sale for just a penny on Amazon, with a new activation. The sale runs through March 26, but if you buy your phone by March 19, you'll get free activation.

The phones include a few Galaxy S2 and Evo 3D devices, among others. Buyers will have to switch from their current carriers, and people using Sprint plans need to pay an extra $10 for 4G speed.

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves revealed during a talk at the UCLA Entertainment Symposium over the weekend that he had spoken with the late Steve Jobs about providing content for a subscription-based video service, but declined the idea.

Had the talks been successful, Apple TV, the set-top box that allows viewers to stream programs through the Internet, could have gotten a boost over its competitors, including Netflix, by being able to stream network programming earlier in the game.

China Telecom began selling the iPhone 4S last week, but the deal may be too late for Apple to catch Samsung, which has a market share that's three times larger and still growing.

Apple also limited itself by not making a device compatible with the nation's largest carrier, China Mobile, meaning the iPhone -- even newer models -- may not catch up with Samsung in China, despite the love the Chinese have for Apple's smartphone.

BlackBerry, once the undisputed leader on Capitol Hill, is losing traction as D.C. staffers are switching over to iPhones. The BlackBerry is still the top smartphone in Washington, but its lead is deteriorating fast, according to the National Journal.

Most alarming of all, less than one percent of all groups polled said they planned to buy a new BlackBerry, while most would buy an iPhone.

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the world's richest man, is financing an Internet TV network that will include an interview show with retired CNN host Larry King.

As more people switch to using their tablets and smartphones for Internet use, Slim's new venture could put millions more dollars in his pockets, particularly if advertisers sign on.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:04 pm | By
AT&T is expanding its LTE service, and Tim Cook sold off more of his stock in Apple. Meanwhile, Verizon had some sporadic outages, Apple denies Proview's claims on its iPad name and Twitter snapped up Posterous, a blogging platform.



Tue Mar 13, 2012 2:46 pm | By
Apple's is reducing the price of the iPad 2 with the release of the new iPad, boosting the company's educational initiatives by making tablets more affordable for schools.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 1:39 pm | By
IPads drastically help doctors boost their productivity, according to a study, highlighting how mobile technology is revolutionizing healthcare.

Tue Mar 13, 2012 10:58 am | By
Chinese factory workers say Apple overlooked safety hazards after an explosion last December, as the company struggles to maintain its reputation amid mounting public concern.

Mon Mar 12, 2012 3:24 pm | By
T-Mobile plans to sell the Samsung Galaxy S Blaze 4G on March 21 for $150 with a two-year contract, showcasing the carrier's focus on high-end services.


Editorials & Opinion By Kat Asharya
The Justice Department approved the $4.5 billion purchase of over 4,000 Nortel patents to major Android rivals like Apple and RIM, guaranteeing no end in sight to the legal battles entangling the mobile industry.

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Facebook baits Twitter, Flipboard with Interest lists

Facebook has announced a new Interest lists feature, which allows users to collate their favourite people and subjects and turn the news feed into a 'personalised newspaper.'

The Interest lists functionality, which will roll out to users in the next couple of weeks, seems to take inspiration from Twitter lists and socially-themed magazines like the Flipboard app for iOS.

'Interests' are user-generated lists which bring together, for example, news from the Facebook Pages of every Premier League team or every tech news site into collective feeds.

Whenever those are lists are updated, the stories or posts will appear also in your main news feed, making it easier for you to catch-up on the news that matters to you.

People like you

"Interests feature public figures and Pages related to a particular topic, and are put together by people like you.

"The top stories from each interest appear in your news feed so you can scan interesting headlines or click through to read more posts," says Facebook software engineer Eric Faller.

When Facebook users subscribe to Interest Lists, that subject will appear on the left hand side of the page, beneath the Friends Lists functionality.

While you can already subscribe to lists created by fellow Facebookers, for a true personalised experience, it's probably best that you get in there and create your own.

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Palin backs Gingrich, leaves door open for herself

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin threw her weight behind Newt Gingrich as Republican presidential nominee on Tuesday -- but coyly left open the door for her own White House run if need be.

The controversial former 2008 vice-presidential nominee said she voted for Gingrich in Alaska's poll to choose a Republican candidate, one of 10 states to cast ballots on so-called "Super Tuesday."

"I will tell you who I voted for tonight... the cheerful one, it's Newt Gingrich," she told Fox News, referring to the one-word description the former House Speaker gave of himself at a debate last week.

"I have appreciated what he has stood for, stood boldly for," she said. "He has been the underdog in many of these primary races and these caucuses and I've respected what he has stood for."

She was speaking as long-time frontrunner Mitt Romney edged out rival Rick Santorum as he tightened his grip on the 2012 Republican presidential nomination with a string of six Super Tuesday wins, including in Alaska, where CNN projected Romney winning with 33 percent of the vote.

But Gingrich won resoundingly in his home state of Georgia, giving him an outside chance of rebooting his bid if he can gain some momentum in a clutch of upcoming battles in the conservative Deep South.

Palin conceded that the race between Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and libertarian Ron Paul lacks excitement, but predicted it would heat up once Republicans choose a nominee -- and launched a swipe at Romney in that regard.

"There will be that zip-a-dee-doo-dah after the nominee is chosen. I guarantee there will be that enthusiasm," she said.

"But to be brutally honest -- and I say this with all due respect to governor Romney, who is obviously the frontrunner .. he's not garnering a lot of that enthusiasm right now."

Palin, a darling of the ultraconservative Tea Party movement but lampooned and vilified by the left, flirted for months last year with running for the Republican ticket, eventually deciding against it in October.

But with the Republican race showing no sign of being wrapped up anytime soon -- unusually for a party which traditionally chooses its candidate rapidly -- Palin admitted that there could still be a role for her.

Although it would be an unlikely scenario, Palin said she might consider throwing her hat into the ring if pressed.

She was asked specifically what she would do if the Republican party faced an open convention this August -- meaning none of the current candidates would have sewn up the nomination by then -- and someone asked her to stand.

"Anything is possible. I don't close any doors that perhaps would be open out there, so no, I wouldn't close that door. My plan is to be at that convention," she told CNN in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska.

The Republican party's 2008 presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, picked Palin as his running mate before losing to Democrat Barack Obama.

She was ridiculed abroad, notably for foreign policy gaffes, but became a Tea Party leading light and media pundit, lashing out at big government and the "lamestream" media as she and her family basked in the celebrity spotlight.

In Anchorage on Tuesday night there seemed little enthusiasm for any of the frontrunners -- a trend noticed throughout the race, which has seen a succession of rivals leapfrogging into the lead over Romney, before fading.

Voter Andy Kriner said that he had switched allegiance in recent months: "I started with Herman Cain, then I went to Newt Gingrich, and now Romney is probably the guy who will get the nomination.

"He seems like a good guy. I'm not passionate about him, but I'm more passionate about him than I am (about) Obama."

Asked if any of the Republican candidates could win against the incumbent president, he said: "If I had to bet on it, I'd say it would be hard for anybody to beat Obama."

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Still winless, Ron Paul campaign presses on

(Charlie Litchfield/Idaho Press-Tribune/AP Photo)

FARGO, N.D. - Presidential hopeful Ron Paul's hopes for his first win of the presidential season were dashed again tonight when North Dakota handed the libertarian leaning Texas congressman another loss.

The campaign was very optimistic about a win here, even abandoning the Super Tuesday caucus state of Idaho to campaign here Tuesday night.

He told a group of several hundred supporters earlier tonight at a caucus site in Fargo that he was going to win.

"This country is ready and raring," Paul said to thunderous applause.

Paul is sticking with his strategy of focusing on small caucus states and placed big bets on three Super Tuesday states: Alaska, Idaho, and North Dakota.

Those three states have a total of 87 delegates at stake. Paul told CBS News' Bob Schieffer on Sunday that there is a "good chance we come out with a majority of delegates."

The Texas congressman visited Alaska over the weekend.

Paul is the only candidate who made a trip up there, while others sent delegates or held teleconferences.

According to the Washington Post, it's a toss up there. Sarah Palin has ambiguously endorsed Newt Gingrich there, but it remains to be seen how far it helps him.

Paul then went to Idaho, which offers 32 delegates. And although Romney, Santorum and Gingrich have campaigned in the state, only Ron Paul actually has a campaign office there.

Paul won second place in the 2008 Idaho GOP primary and he won a Jan. 6 straw poll of 399 Republicans, the Idaho Statesman reported.

Today was Paul's third visit to North Dakota in the primary season, following a February tour of the state and an event in Fargo last November.

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have also visited North Dakota, while former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has not.

Four years ago on Super Tuesday 2008, Romney easily won North Dakota's GOP caucuses, getting 36 percent of the vote in a five-candidate field. Although Paul was third, with 21 percent, he fared better in North Dakota than he did in almost all of the 20 other states that held Republican primaries or caucuses.

Matt Becker, a spokesman for the North Dakota GOP reportedly said that the demographics of North Dakota play to Paul's strengths and Paul's North Dakota operation has been the most extensive of any of the four GOP candidates.

Paul's state headquarters, tucked into a small Bismarck office across the street from the city's federal courthouse, has been running for almost four months.

More than $50,000 of the $152,000 in North Dakota contributions reported so far have gone to Paul's campaign, according to Federal Election Commission disclosure reports.

Although Paul admitted that his chances "are slim" of winning the GOP nomination, he shows no sign of slowing down.

In a statement released to this column Monday, Paul explains: "While other candidates are focused solely on the beauty contests to get the headlines, we're undertaking a comprehensive strategy that I am confident can lead to the nomination."

Paul is already planning campaign events in Kansas on Friday and Missouri on Saturday.

Also Read

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How Social Networks are Killing the Internet

Share this on Facebook! Tweet this to your followers! Pin it to Pinterest! Submit the link to StumbleUpon and drive tons of traffic to your site! Digg it and hopefully more eyeballs will see it (and then it will end up on Facebook through the Digg Social Reader). Isn't it great? You can cross your fingers and hope that the entire social Web sees something you like if you share it to all of your social networks. After all, we are what we share.

Dictionary.com defines the verb (used with object) 'to share' as 'to divide and distribute in shares, apportion' and 'to use, participate in, enjoy, receive, etc., jointly.' The example it gives for the later is: 'The two chemists shared the Nobel prize.' They passively shared this Noble Prize, which was awarded to both of them by a committee.

Every social network on the Web asks users to do some variation on sharing. Ultimately, the goal is to get that content in front of other users. Once a user shares, he or she momentarily feels more connected to others. But this momentary connectedness is killing us. And we are, in turn, killing the Internet with our passive, networked actions.

Renowned cyberpsychologist Sherry Turkle explains it eloquently in her latest TED 2012 talk. 'Human relationships are rich, and they're messy and they're demanding,' says Turkle. 'And we clean them up with technology. We sacrifice conversation for mere connection.'

All that 'connecting' is happening on - where else? - social networks. It happens subtly, so much that we hardly notice we are spending more time texting and talking on Facebook and Twitter than we are in real life, communicating with actual living, breathing humans. We hide behind our glass screens. And we seem like it that way.

With the advent of new Timeline social apps, such as the Digg Social Reader, WaPo Social News Reader and The Guardian UK Social Reader, it's super easy to stay on Facebook and read what your friends are reading. It's so much easier to get interesting recommendations from my quirky friend who shares some of the same tech and weird news interests as I do. Why wouldn't I leave it up to the Facebook news feed's expert algorithm to figure out exactly what I want to read? It's incredibly convenient, and lets me feel alright about being lazy.

The problem comes when I click on the social reader link, and it asks me to please reveal all of my data. Once I do that, I feel psychologically more connected to, and reliant upon, Facebook. This opportunistic relationship is killing me, and I in turn am killing the Internet.

The other month, I wrote about a new StumbleUpon feature that greatly upset the Internet. Previously, StumbleUpon users could stumble around the site and then leave if a specific link if they'd like by quickly closing out the screen. StumbleUpon would send users to the original site. The company decided to eliminate that option after users kept accidentally leaving StumbleUpon, thus interrupting their stumble experience.

The user is always right. StumbleUpon exists because of its users, and so why wouldn't the company change its ways to appease those users who spend hours on end inside the site. Who could blame them? They have everything they need inside StumbleUpon, so why leave? I am not being sarcastic. StumbleUpon is a smart, creative site that perfectly tailors to its users' individual taste graph.

StumbleUpon's Marc Leibowitz left a comment on the ditching StumbleUpon for Pinterest story that I wrote. StumbleUpon's users did not complain about the removal of the Web bar. 'Given that our normally vocal members have NOT complained about the current implementation, however, leads us to believe this may not be quite as provocative an issue as this post suggests,' he says. 'Nevertheless, as I say, we are exploring other options.' Not long after that, StumbleUpon CEO Garrett Camp blogged the following:

Our previous StumbleBar design included an 'X' button (to close the iframe if you wanted to view the original URL) but we didn't initially make this as part of the redesign for signed-in members. We received several requests for this feature over the last few weeks, so as of today we will be adding this back in for signed-in members. This lets you hide the StumbleBar to see the original link, and simply click back afterwards to return to Stumbling.

There's an easier way for users to leave StumbleUpon now. But does it matter? Users of the social Web prefer to stay inside social networks, discovery engines and other insular spaces. It's safe, it's easy and most of all, it's convenient.

Not being able to share across the Web and, instead, being able to share only on social networks, isn't new. Tristian Louis of TNL.net blogged about his experience using Path, which did not allow him to share out. 'But eventually, the inability to share over the Web started grating at me as I realize that I was trapped in Path's truck,' he writes. 'I stopped using the service.'

I have daydreams of organizing all of my friends to do a mass exodus from Facebook. But truth be told, we'd probably all quit for a week and then return, hungry for status updates, viral graphics and meandering bulletpoint-y super-sharable blog posts which hardly qualify as articles.

Facebook is an alluring black hole that welcomes us in, and asks us to stay awhile. It's possible to leave, but no matter what I always come back. I have given up on the idea of leaving. Now I just check the site more from my Facebook mobile app than the Web version, and get annoyed when I can't easily share stories and images from it. Like a smoker who needs their nicotine fix, I am a social networker and I need my data.

Louis' essay delves into the dangers of quietly moving from the Web version to the mobile app, rather than trying to figure out how to fix the Web. It's easier to just think about the apps. Smartphones are must-have accessories. He continues the essay, pointing out the user-hungry move into Facebook territory, which contributes to the death of the Internet at large, and the continual push of users into social networks - like cows into a slaughterhouse:

When­ever I bumped into a silo like Face­book, I may have grum­bled but I didn't leave. In fact, I pushed more con­tent into it, not ask­ing that it push con­tent back out. I did that because that's where the read­ers were, where I could get more users, etc...

Then PIPA/SOPA/ACTA happened, and we all freaked out. For a minute. Then it went away and we forgot, content to passively share on our social network of choice.

I will not summarize all of Louis' smart article here. Instead, I will send you out to the Internet, to the original site where this story lives. I hope you won't share the story to Facebook; instead, email it to your friends. Tell your friends to go online and Google it. Print it out and pass it around to some of your Internet-obsessed friends, in person. I promise you won't kill too many trees in the process. Do not tell your friends to do anything that feels like sharing it on a social network. Then think about it. Reminder: Don't share it on Facebook.

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Dual-core Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 goes on pre-order in the UK

The smartphone that many of you have been expecting eagerly is just about to hit the shelves in UK. The Samsung Galaxy Ace 2, which is supposed to bring dual-core power to the Android mid-range, just went on pre-order and it's carrying a pretty attractive price tag.

The asking price for the Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 is ?249.98 and the smartphone is said to come in stock by April 23. That's certainly a long wait, but the price is really great for a dual-core smartphone with WVGA display.

Even better, the Galaxy Ace 2 will probably drop a further few quid a few months after it hits the shelves, so we are realistically looking at mid-range dual-core smartphones by the middle of the year.

Via

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Apple allegedly offered Motorola and Samsung patent licensing

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Nokia: Our Windows Phones Need To Get Even Cheaper

There’s little question that Nokia is taking the low-end of the smartphone market very seriously these days. They just kicked off their race to the bottom with the colorful, budget-conscious Lumia 610 at this year’s Mobile World Congress, and while it’s far and away the least powerful of the Finnish company’s Windows Phone brood, it’s certainly priced to move at €189.

According to Nokia EVP Niklas Savander though, that price tag isn’t quite cheap enough. In a brief interview with Pocket-lint, Savander revealed that in order to better compete with Android, Nokia is very concerned with getting their hardware to even lower price points.

“Android is in many markets at the €100 price already, so that would suggest that if we are at €189 with the Lumia 610 we still have work to do when it comes to creating a lower-end first-time user smartphone.”

Now, Nokia is no stranger to pushing out low-cost, no-frills hardware — their venerable Nokia 1100 once held the crown for the best-selling bit of consumer electronics in the world, but getting their Windows Phones to that level of ubiquity will take a bit of doing. While Nokia toils away on the hardware front in an attempt to cut costs without stymieing performance too much, Microsoft’s Windows Phone Tango update will make sure that the eventual end-users don’t lose too much functionality in the process.

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Why Give Up Facebook for Lent, or Ever?

Lent is in full swing, and so are the commitments to 40 days without Facebook. In this framework, Facebook use is seen as negative and an addiction. It becomes just another one to add to Americans' list of overindulgences, of things that push us away from each other and further into self.

'The idea of giving up Facebook for Lent goes with Internet use as addiction,' says Alexandra Samuels, who penned 'Plug In Better': A Manifesto' on The Atlantic. 'I think one of the things that we experience, certainly those who spend a significant amount of time online and especially on social media, is you develop this sort of porousness between self and other when you're constantly disclosing thoughts via Facebook, Twitter, email. The intellectual habit of writing your thoughts as you have them has become widespread. It is a distancing kind of experience.' But is that act an addiction, or just a byproduct of using social media?

Duluth-based freelance writer Felicia Schneiderhan decided to give up Facebook for Lent this year. She says that she didn't think too much about the decision, but that it's turned out to be pretty hard.

'I use it throughout the day just to check in,' Schneiderhan says. 'If I am online and I need a mental break, I'll just glance at it quickly.'

Like everything new, the first few days were the hardest because Facebook had transcended just a random, once-in-awhile kinda thing. It had become a habit.

'Last night my son was in bed, I was tired, I went to my computer and didn't want to do emails - I wanted to see Facebook,' she says. 'But I can't. I've been calling people more, like my brothers, but I've been missing events.'

The break from Facebook has helped Schneiderhan realize how much she actually uses Facebook for legitimate purposes, and has helped her rethink how to use it more effectively.

'Once Lent is over, I think I'm going to restrict my time to just once in the morning and once at night,' she says.

For Schneiderhan, Facebook is a useful tool and not an addiction. Yet there is still a cultural undertone which implies that Twitter, for instance, is as addictive as alcohol and cigarettes.

'Addiction has become this framework we use in our culture to contain and medicalize dysfunctional behavior,' says Samuels. 'So anytime you stop doing it, you will have withdrawl symptoms. You have to ask yourself, what do we eliminate and obscure by framing that behavior as addiction?'

Samuels suggests that this framework is indeed counterproductive because it purports that people should quit Facebook cold turkey. To Samuels, this sounds 'hopeless and counterproductive.' Instead, she offers some practical advice.

'Ask yourself: Is my use of the Internet helping me create the life I want? I think part of it is that people are not clear with what they're trying do with their life,' she says. 'If you get up from the computer on a regular basis and you wonder where the time went and you don't feel very good, maybe you should reassess your Internet use.'

But for those devoted to a Facebook-free 40 days of Lent, that's not going to happen. We're talking about the devout here.

'I'm doing it again this year,' writes Rosie Perera on the blog Faith and Technology. 'I'd been planning to just give up procrastination but one of my biggest ways of procrastinating is checking Facebook ('just one quick little check' and then I get sucked in), so I think that really needs to go too.'

Perera takes it one step further, suggesting that people who want to give it up actually deactivate their accounts. She files her blog post under the topic 'Tech Sabbath.'

But the idea of giving up Facebook completely may not really be a positive thing.

'When I go back to regular non-Lent Facebook usage, I wonder if I'll go back to my old pattern,' says Schneiderhan. 'I don't think Facebook is a bad habit to have, for me. And that's a good question because I thought it would be a huge time-waster.'

If you're still devoted to a Facebook-free Lent, be sure to check out the Pope's Twitter feed. He's tweeting Gospel themes or messages until Easter.

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Yelp is worth $1.5 billion... Now what?

So Yelp shares popped in the company’s first full day of trading, closing up more than 60 percent over the initial price of $15 per share. This is just the latest in a string of tech IPOs — after Brightcove and LinkedIn — with big first-day gains.  And now at $24.58 a share, Yelp has a market cap of about $1.5 billion.

So what’s Yelp to do with its new riches? Well, if it’s anything like LinkedIn or Zynga, it will start sniffing around for acquisitions to augment its existing platform, to integrate new features and to add talented engineers. Here’s a list of some interesting possible acquisition targets for the company.

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Huawei Vision review: Farsighted

With Incredibly Fast and About to Take Off written across their flag, Huawei took this year's MWC by a storm. Firing up on all cores - four of them, in case you've missed it - they pinned themselves emphatically on the Android map with an impressive new lineup of smartphones and a shocker of a tablet.

Their rise didn't happen overnight of course. And although we're about to look back at a less glorious chapter of their history, phones like the Vision and the Honor deserve credit for helping the company get where they're now.

So, what about the Huawei Vision? Incredibly like an HTC Desire S and About as Smart makes a good motto. Come on, the Vision is no droid if it can't take a joke. And by the way, it looks strong enough to take a beating.

Quad-band GSM and dual-band 3G support14.4 Mbps HSDPA and 5.76 Mbps HSUPA3.7" 16M-color capacitive LCD touchscreen of WVGA resolution (480 x 800 pixels)Android OS v2.3.5 GingerbreadSPB Shell 3D launcher preloadedQualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 chipset, 1 GHz Scorpion CPU, Adreno 205 GPU, 512 MB of RAM and 2 GB ROM5 MP autofocus camera with LED flash and geotagging720p video recording @ 30fpsWi-Fi b/g/n and DLNA, hotspot functionalityGPS with A-GPSmicroSD slot, up to 32GBAccelerometer and proximity sensorStandard 3.5 mm audio jackStereo FM radio with RDSmicroUSB port (charging) and stereo Bluetooth v2.1Front facing cameraCompact aluminum unibodyBelow-par sunlight legibilityNo dedicated camera keyNo video calling out of the boxNon-user-replaceable batterySPB Shell 3D launcher looks messyNon-hot-swappable microSD slot

The Vision reports to the Honor in the previous generation of the Huawei Android lineup. By far the better-equipped smartphone, the Honor was let down by a stark lack of style. The Huawei Vision must've been quick to grab the chance. Not that it's propelled to staggering heights of finesse but the unibody design is a source of strength and credibility.

The Huawei Vision at ours

The Vision risks being soon overshadowed by its younger and more gifted siblings, and faces frightening competition. No one can reasonably expect Samsung, HTC, LG and Sony Ericsson to be nice to newcomers. With dual-core phones becoming more and more affordable, the Vision needs to be prepared to battle some tegra 2-yeilding brutes too.

The Huawei Vision looks good and is more than decently equipped to be a trusty day-to-day companion or your first smartphone to learn the basics with. All it needs is the right price and an audience to make happy. It has all our attention. Let's see if it can keep it.

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Twitter Executive Says Site's Interface Needs An Overhaul

If you've ever sent a tweet and thought 'That seems so 1998' you're in good - and perhaps surprising - company.

Let's face it: Twitter doesn't let you hyperlink text, it doesn't thread conversations and, despite a redesign late last year, it still doesn't showcase video and photos as well as, say, that 845 million member social network that's about to go public. And Mike Brown, director of corporate development at Twitter, thinks its time for the microblogging service to drop its 'command line' style in favor of something more contemporary.

'This isn't the voice of Twitter speaking, this is my personal opinion,' Brown said in an address to the CITE Conference in San Francisco Tuesday. 'We have an opportunity to up-level the chatter on Twitter to share a story in photo, in video and in narrative that helps people understand the story and if they want more detail they can dig into it and see what the conversation is behind the story,'

Brown, according to ComputerWorld, also hinted that Twitter plans to offer expanded analytics as a way to boost revenue. The expanded analytics will cover advertisers, 'very important tweeters' and third-party application developers and will allow users to be better targeted with promoted tweets and ads.

'I'd say we're in the second or third inning of the ball game,' Brown said. 'We've got a long ways to go to get our analytics to where it needs to be.'

Twitter's plans to offer an expanded suite of analytical tools was first reported by ReadWriteWeb in January. On Tuesday, Brown narrowed the timeframe for the release of those products to three to six months

'I think there are something like 350 million tweets a day ... and that number is growing very quickly,' Brown said. 'To keep up with that so that we can provide real-time analytics for those three constituencies is a major challenge.'

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Gmail users accuse Google of sending e-mails in their name

Some Gmail users are disturbed that Google appears to be sending e-mails using their names. The messages encourage friends of theirs not on Gmail to use Google products.

We are not only the product these days. We are also the product marketers.

Yet some Gmail users have, in recent days, become increasingly upset that Google appears to be using their names in order to sell Google products to non-Gmail users.

A Google forum discussion offers the spontaneous distaste of users who claim that Google has co-opted them as salespersons.
"STOP IT!" reads a post from someone with the handle Mrcheck. "At no point did I say it was ok for google to send email messages to my non-gmail contacts recommending they sign up for gmail."

The contents of the e-mails are reproduced on the forum. The subject line is "(My Name) wants to chat."

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The truth behind online sales

Call them flash sales, secret sales or private sales, they all mean one thing: deals that promise heavy discounts for a limited period of time. A concept that is extremely popular abroad, online flash sales have now found their way into India.

But how is an online flash sale different from a store sale that luxury brands and designers often hold? Vehbi Sinan Tunalioglu, CEO, Brandmile.com, an Indian flash sale portal, explains the difference: "While both processes help suppliers liquidate their excess inventory, our main difference (when compared with brick and mortar stores) is the reach that we provide as our customers can buy the merchandise from any part of the country."

But are these 'super-saver deals' as great as the online sellers make them sound? Let's take a look at what lies beneath.

The lure of discounts It's hard not to reach for your wallet instantly when you come across a deal promising a 50% discount. Such heavy discounts are par for online sellers, who even claim to offer up to 70% discounts. But it's tough to determine the genuineness of these. As most sceptical buyers will tell you, sellers often hike the mark-up price and then offer a heavy discount. For instance, a flash sale portal was offering a designer handbag from Coach on 23 February at a discounted rate of Rs 16,999, claiming the original shelf price as Rs 33,525.

Evidently, the rate has been slashed by about 50%. However, when cross-checked on the US retail website for Coach, the same bag was priced at $298 (Rs 14,602). Amazon too had a similar bag which it can ship to India for a total delivery charge of $47 (Rs 2,303). Obviously, your total expenditure would be Rs 16,905. So, would you actually end up saving money if you buy from the sale?

The tag of exclusivity
Indian luxury flash sale portals claim to offer exclusive memberships. However, this is just an illusion. You don't strictly need to be 'invited-in'. Anyone can become a member by registering directly on the portal and then inviting anybody they want. In fact, some websites reward you with credit points each time one of your referrals makes their first purchase on the portal. So, if 99labels.com boasts about four lakh registered users, it would make your 'exclusive access' seem like a pin in the haystack.

Another hitch is that though you'll get trendy designer wear, it's going to be, unfortunately, last season's trends. Most of these sites, such as Fetise.com, mention clearly that they sell previous seasons' garments which have not deteriorated in quality. Other sites, such as Exclusively.in, will offer products from up-and-coming designers like Namrata Joshipura, Anaikka, and Raakesh Agarvwal, who would like to liquidate their unsold and excess inventory through these sites. Abdul Halder, a Bangalore-based fashion designer, says, "Usually, the products offered on flash sale sites are from a designer's existing collection. They often include products that haven't been showcased previously but are included to widen the product range, and, to an extent, make the deal more viable economically." So, if you are coveting a designer dress for less, be prepared to compromise a bit on the 'current season's trends.'

There is no race
Flash sales cash in on the urgency factor. They last for a day or two, or a week at the maximum. The deals are available for a limited time, but, you must ignore the ticking clock before you buy. Says Naina Singh, a 30-year-old advertising executive: "I came across a so-called exclusive deal on a sale portal, which was offering a six-piece Giordano travel combo set for about Rs 7,000, for only three days. I was still trying to make up my mind when the deal got over. After almost a month, I saw the deal again on the same website. What's more, the same set was also being offered under my credit card reward point scheme."

Though most websites feature only a handful of deals at a time, they need to constantly bring out new deals every week. There's no guarantee that their inventory will be sold, which is why the old deals get repeated after some time.

Check whether the product being sold for a limited period is also available on other sites. For instance, at a perfume sale for four days on FashionandYou.com, a 100 ml bottle of Hugo Boss No. 6 eau de toilette was available for Rs 2,975, while the online retailer Perfume2order.com is offering the same product for Rs 2,790. The more interesting part: While the former claims the original price to be Rs 3,800, the latter says it's Rs 4,900. No wonder, buyers are wary of the claims made by most online sellers.

Should you go with the crowd?
Flash sales on a group deal site, such as Crazeal.com and Mydala.com offer discounts on restaurants, trips and events only if a certain minimum number of buyers opt for the deal. So, the first thing you need to check is whether the booking amount will be refunded to you if the deal is cancelled due to a lack of buyers. Some consumer forums have complaints lodged by buyers of how the travel vouchers they had bought from deal sites were not honoured by the hotel or tour organiser, which claimed that they had no vacancies.

This led to the vouchers expiring and a loss for the buyers. However, sale portals are taking measures to resolve these issues. Says Ankur Warikoo, CEO, Crazeal.com: "We have proactively taken steps to review our customer policy which has led to a 90% drop in complaints. For travel deals, the merchant contact is always visible and we have put in place a 100% refund policy on travel deals within 14 days of purchase."

So, check the fine print carefully before opting for a travel deal from any flash sale portal. For how long is the travel voucher valid? Is it inclusive of everything or only the room rate? Will you have to pay a penalty if you cancel after booking?

Flash sales work best for discerning shoppers who can trawl the Net or those who are well aware of the retail store prices. For the newbie who wants to indulge in retail therapy online, it might be better to visit lots of similar sites and compare the prices of the deals before zeroing in on one.

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Apple awarded major 'iWallet' patent for future NFC-enabled iPhone

Apple on Tuesday was granted a significant patent by the United States Trademark & Patent Office, Patently Apple reported. The technology, which is supported by 23 Patent Claims, allows credit card companies to send statements directly to a user’s iTunes account for purchases made using an NFC-enabled iPhone. Account holders will also be able to allow a secondary account holder, such as a child, to make purchases on the same card while allowing the primary account holder to control spending and implement various limits. Even though NFC technology has been featured in a number of Android devices, some believe that the technology won’t go mainstream in a number of markets until an iPhone is equipped with a mobile payment solution.

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Amazing time-lapse video captures the night sky

Temporal Distortion from Randy Halverson on Vimeo

Think you've seen the night sky? Not like this. Photographer Randy Halverson took months (when the weather was clear) to shoot the stars overhead of the White River in central South Dakota, Arches National Park in Utah, Canyon of the Ancients area of Colorado, and Madison, Wisconsin. He put it all together in a time-lapse video set to music by the out-of-this-world composer Bear McCreary, who wrote the moody soundtracks to "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Walking Dead."

Along with a star-filled sky, the photog caught the tail of a meteor and the northern lights. The score adds a dramatic and other-worldly counterpoint. Feast your eyes. Here, Halverson takes us through "Temporal Distortion." If you can't get enough of this amazing light show, check out the extended 23-minute version.

What made you think to do this?
I've been shooting time-lapse for over two years. I really just wanted to get some unique angles of the Milky Way; the aurora were mostly unexpected. On a few of the nights I was actually set up to shoot the Milky Way. When it showed up I had to turn the cameras to the north to shoot it. I contacted Bear McCreary last fall and asked him if he was interested in collaborating with me and doing the music for it. I thought his music would fit perfectly with it, so I held on to the footage until he had time to do it.

Seems like a great way to get people to appreciate astronomy who might not ordinarily be stargazers. Was that your goal?
My goal really was just to get some good Milky Way shots, but when I ended up getting the meteors, aurora, and other phenomena like airglow or noctilucent clouds, I thought it would make the video more interesting. I'm an amateur at astronomy myself, but I can always ask a real astronomer if I have questions about what I catch.

Have you done this before?
I've been shooting just time-lapse for over two years, but my most popular have been my last two: Tempest Milky Way and Plains Milky Way.

What is the technique?
I use Canon DSLR cameras and take still images, not video. The shutter is open for 20 to 30 seconds on most of the shots. This allows the sensor on the camera to gather more light than the eye can see and makes the stars, Milky Way, and aurora appear brighter than they are to the eye. I also have the camera mounted on a Stage Zero Dolly from Dynamic Perception. This motion-controlled rig moves the camera slightly between each exposure, and gives the camera the motion you see in the time-lapse. I then have to edit the thousands of still images together in a computer, to assemble it into a movie.

Are you surprised by the response?
Yeah, I am. I think music is really important on these videos, and I think Bear McCreary's music works really well with the video, and that helps.

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ASUS confirms 'Jelly Bean' as codename for Android 5.0

Among the many Android manufacturer's out there, ASUS has a good reputation for offering quick software updates for its devices, with the recent Transformer Prime being one of the first to get the Ice Cream Sandwich update. According to ASUS' Corporate Vice President Benson Lin, this is due to the good relationship between his company and Google.

But while he was boasting about his relationship with Google, Lin also let go of a tiny bit of information regarding the next version of Android, which as the rumors often told us, will be named Jelly Bean.

Speaking to TechRadar, Lin said:

"Asus is very close to Google, so once they have Android 5.0 I think there will be a high possibility that we will be the first wave to offer the Jelly Bean update."

This, along with the bowl of jelly beans at Google's booth at MWC makes it clear that the next version of Android will in fact be called Jelly Bean.

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Warm reception seen for Israeli leader in Congress

WASHINGTON (AP) — Israel's prime minister didn't close ranks with President Barack Obama on how to deal with Iran's suspect nuclear program, but he can expect a warm reception to his tough talk when he visits Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

Benjamin Netanyahu got a preview of what to expect when Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told the pro-Israel lobby on Monday that the U.S. should use overwhelming military force against Iran if it learns Tehran has decided to build a nuclear bomb or has started to enrich uranium to weapons-grade level.

"In the weeks and months ahead, Israel and the United States face a day of reckoning," the Kentucky Republican told the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. "We either do what it takes to preserve the balance of power within the broader Middle East or risk a nuclear arms race across the region that's almost certain to upend it."

On Tuesday, three Republican presidential candidates will address the AIPAC gathering, trying to establish their own pro-Israel credibility on the same day 10 states hold primary voting contests. All have said Obama has mishandled Iran.

At the start of their White House meeting Monday morning, Obama and Netanyahu tried to present a united front on the nuclear threat emanating from Iran. The U.S. leader reaffirmed that he would resort to military force, if necessary, to keep Iran from getting a bomb and said the U.S. "always has Israel's back where Israel's security is concerned."

But the two men were unable to plaster over differences on how urgently military force might be needed.

For the second time in two days, Netanyahu ignored Obama's appeal to give diplomacy and sanctions time to percolate, emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself militarily and suggesting he would not be swayed from going it alone if he thought Israel had to move faster to protect itself.

The very purpose of the Jewish state, he told Obama in a mildly lecturing tone, is "to restore to the Jewish people control over our destiny," he said.

Later in the day, before a record turnout of the pro-Israel lobby, he reasserted Israel's right to defend itself and said his country had "patiently waited" for diplomacy and sanctions to work.

"None of us can afford to wait much longer," he told AIPAC. "As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation," he said to a roaring standing ovation.

Tehran claims its nuclear program is designed chiefly to generate electricity and does not have a military component, but neither the U.S. nor Israel believes that. The head of the U.N. nuclear agency fed concerns further Monday by saying his organization has "serious concerns" that Iran may be hiding secret atomic weapons work.

Israel feels especially vulnerable to the Iranian nuclear threat because of Tehran's repeated references to the Jewish state's destruction and its arsenal of ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to the Jewish state.

Israel is much more openly skeptical than the U.S. about stopping Iran through sanctions and diplomacy because years of talks and penalties have so far failed.

Disagreements between the two allies also run deep over when a strike might be appropriate and how effective a unilateral Israeli attack might be against scattered and heavily fortified Iranian nuclear facilities.

Israel says it has not made a decision on whether to launch an attack. But some Israeli officials say the time to strike is growing short, and say Israel must act by summer if it is to act at all.

The Obama administration sees this course as dangerously premature, arguing that Tehran has not yet decided whether to actually produce atomic weapons and might still respond to non-military pressure. Because of its superior firepower, the U.S. reasons it would be able to act many months after Israel could.

Political considerations have also come into play. A unilateral Israeli strike in the coming months would threaten to ignite the Mideast, drag the U.S. into another conflict and drive up global oil prices just before U.S. presidential elections in November.

Despite the history of tension between them, Obama and Netanyahu tried to downplay their differences Monday.

Obama has little appetite for taking on Israel in an election year. And Netanyahu would have little to gain from sparring with a president whose support might be crucial if Israel decides to act alone against Iran.

But if Netanyahu has not publicly played up differences with the Obama administration over Iran, then Republican supporters in Congress have done that job for him.

Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will be addressing AIPAC by video in between campaign stops Tuesday. They have all tried to paint Obama as an undependable partner for Israel, and as weak on Iran.

Obama noted the campaign-season rhetoric in his own address to AIPAC on Sunday, and assured conference participants that he was solidly committed to guaranteeing Israel's security.

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AP survey: More optimism about US jobs and economy

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy is improving faster than economists had expected. They now foresee slightly stronger growth and hiring than they did two months earlier — trends that would help President Barack Obama's re-election hopes.

Those are among the findings of an Associated Press survey late last month of leading economists. The economists think the unemployment rate will fall from its current 8.3 percent to 8 percent by Election Day. That's better than their 8.4 percent estimate when surveyed in late December.

By the end of 2013, they predict unemployment will drop to 7.4 percent, down from their earlier estimate of 7.8 percent, according to the AP Economy Survey.

The U.S. economy has been improving steadily for months. Industrial output jumped in January after surging in December by the most in five years. Auto sales are booming. Consumer confidence has reached its highest point in a year. Even the housing market is showing signs of turning around.

"The economy is finally starting to gain some steam, with consumers and businesses more optimistic about prospects in 2012," said Chad Moutray, chief economist at the National Association of Manufacturers.

On Friday, the government will issue the jobs report for February. Economists expect it to show that employers added a net 210,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate remained 8.3 percent.

The AP survey collected the views of two dozen private, corporate and academic economists on a range of indicators. Among their forecasts:

— Americans will save gradually less and borrow more, reversing a shift toward frugality that followed the financial crisis and the start of the Great Recession.

— Obama deserves little or no credit for declining unemployment. Only one of the 19 economists who answered the question said Obama should get "a lot" of credit. They give most of the credit to U.S. consumers, who account for about 70 percent of economic growth, and businesses.

— The economy has begun a self-sustaining period in which job growth is fueling more consumer spending, which should lead to further hiring.

— European leaders will manage to defuse their continent's debt crisis and prevent a global recession. But the economists think Europe's economy will shrink for all of 2012.

— The economy will grow 2.5 percent this year, up from the economists' earlier forecast of 2.4 percent. In 2011, the economy grew 1.7 percent.

The brighter outlook for jobs follows five straight months of declining unemployment. Employers added more than 200,000 net jobs in both December and January. The unemployment rate is at its lowest level in nearly three years.

One reason the rate has fallen so fast is that fewer out-of-work Americans have started looking for jobs. People out of work aren't counted by the Labor Department as unemployed unless they're actively seeking jobs.

Many economists have been surprised that the stronger economy hasn't led more people without jobs to start looking for work. If many more were looking, the unemployment rate would likely be higher.

Manufacturers have been hiring more consistently than other employers. Moutray expects factory output to rise 4 percent this year, better than in 2011. Manufacturers will have to continue hiring to keep up with demand, he said. That will help lower the unemployment rate to 8 percent by Election Day, he predicts.

"Manufacturers are relatively upbeat about production this year," Moutray said. That will require expanding factories and buying more machinery.

"All that plays into a better year than some people might have been expecting," he added.

The economists forecast that employers will add nearly 1.9 million jobs by Election Day, up from their December projection of nearly 1.8 million.

But Mike Englund of Action Economics is among those who noted that the declining unemployment is due, in part, to fewer people seeking work. Millions of those out of work remain too discouraged to start looking again, or, in the case of many young adults, haven't begun to do so.

"Most of this recent drop in the unemployment rate is due to a mass exodus" from the work force, Englund said.

The economy still has about 5.5 million fewer jobs than it did before the recession began in December 2007.

Still, the falling unemployment rate appears to be raising the public's view of Obama's economic stewardship. In an Associated Press-GfK poll last month, 48 percent said they approved of how Obama was handling the economy, up 9 points from December. And 30 percent of Americans described the economy as "good" — a 15-point jump from December and the highest level since the AP-GfK poll first asked the question in 2009.

The U.S. economy remains under threat from Europe's debt crisis. But those concerns have eased, the AP survey showed.

Several economists credited the European Central Bank's move to provide unlimited low-interest loans to banks with helping prevent an international crisis

"Time fixes all wounds," said Marty Regalia, chief economist at the U.S Chamber of Commerce. "Europe didn't come apart at the seams, and we haven't fallen into the abyss. Every day ... it becomes a little less likely that it will happen."

___

AP Economics Writer Derek Kravitz contributed to this report.

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HTC One S and One X displays detailed

One of the best bits about the HTC newly unveiled smartphone lineup that we saw at the MWC is undoubtedly the screens of the One S and the One X. The displays of both new flagship droids of the Taiwanese company represent a major step forward, compared to their predecessors and we imagine you are as curious as we are to learn more about the underlying technology.

Fortunately, the guys from BestBoyZ managed to get their hands on the two and put them under a microscope to examine what was going on beneath the surface. There were a couple of interesting findings to be noted.

HTC One X SLCD2 matrix (left) vs LG Optimus 4X HD AH-IPS matrix (right)

It turns out the HTC One X HD SLCD2 uses virtually identical matrix to the one found on the LG Optimus 4X HD. That's the same AH-IPS screen we loved so much on the LG Optimus LTE and it's hardly a surprise it led to some great results on the One X. The curious omission of the IPS technology from the One X official specs sheet was explained with trademark reasons.

As for the HTC One S - we got confirmation that its qHD Super AMOLED uses a PenTile RGBG matrix, instead of a conventional RGB matrix. This will probably lead to the familiar dottiness in some images, but it seems HTC has designed its interface cleverly enough to make that less apparent.

HTC One S PenTile matrix

We spent quite some time with the One S at the MWC in Barcelona and we weren't bothered by the missing sub-pixels at all. Here?s hoping this won't change when we get the smartphone for a full review.

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Facebook: The Wimps Will Inherit the Data Center

Facebook hardware man Frank Frankovsky outside the company's new HQ -- aka the former home of onetime hardware giant Sun Microsystems (Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired)

Unlike Google, Facebook believes the wimps have a future in the data center.

As various academics and free-thinking startups seek to reinvent the server using ultra-low-power processors — aka “wimpy cores” — Google continues to downplay the idea, and because it’s Google — the company that led a data-center revolution over the last several years — people are listening.

But Facebook is now leading a data-center revolution of its own, and the social networking giant cum hardware designer is rather high on the wimpy-core idea.

“I think it’s going to shake things up sooner than you think,” says Frank Frankovsky, the man who oversees Facebook’s effort to design its own servers and other data-center hardware.

The idea is to save power and space by building servers equipped with hundreds of processors not unlike the one in your iPhone. Rather than running your applications on traditional “brawny core” server chips, you break your software up into tiny pieces and spread them across a much larger number of “wimpy cores” — a “core” being a single microprocessor. Startups such as SeaMicro and Calxeda are actually stuffing hundreds of individual chips into each server, while another outfit, Tilera, is stuffing hundreds of cores into a single chip.

The wimpy-core movement is part of a larger effort to re-imagine hardware in the data center so that it’s suited to big-name web services and other operations that juggle unusually large amounts of data. Google was at the forefront of this movement, designing its own data centers and its own servers, and a big part of its philosophy was to break its software into pieces that could be run across a large array of servers. While other big businesses were using enormous monolithic servers to run their software, Google was using thousands of commodity machines equipped with commodity server chips.

In a way, Google pioneered the wimpy-core movement. But the company is believes there’s a limit to how wimpy your cores can be. As you spread your application thinner and thinner, says Google distinguished engineer Luiz André Barroso, the spreading gets harder and harder. And at a certain point, he argues, it’s just not worth it to go any further. “There’s easy parallelism, but then there’s harder parallelism,” Barroso recently told Wired. “There are some parts of a program that are trivial to chunk into pieces, that don’t necessarily have to interact with each other … but eventually you’ve exhausted this, and you have to go down to other pieces of the code that are hard to parallelize.”

The wimpy-core evangelists see Google’s point, but they don’t necessarily agree with it. SeaMicro CEO Andrew Feldman believes that Google takes this stance because its particular infrastructure isn’t suited to wimpy cores, and Dave Andersen — the Carnegie Melon professor who coined the “wimpy node” name — says much the same thing. Both acknowledge, however, that some applications must be heavily rewritten for wimpy codes, and that many others — not just Google’s — are completely unsuited to the setup. Because some potential customers were cold on the wimpy core idea, SeaMicro is now offering a version of its servers based on traditional Intel Xeon “brawny cores.”

At Facebook, engineers have been tracking the progress of wimpy-core hardware for years, including gear from SeaMicro and Tilera. According to Frankovsky, the social networking giant is “actively testing hardware from both these outfits, and the company has employees dedicated to working with such hardware makers, “making sure Facebook code can run on alternative technology” to Intel’s x86 instruction set, the technology used by today’s brawny cores.

Facebook has yet to adopt this hardware for its live service, in part because the hardware from companies such as SeaMicro and Tilera can’t handle as much memory as the massive social network requires. But the hardware makers are working to eliminate this restriction. “We’re getting very promising results on our tests,” Frankovsky says. “What we’re focused on when it comes to CPU selection — or really any selection [of hardware in the data center] — is what can deliver the most useful work per watt per dollar. If that comes from Intel or AMD or Tilera or an ARM vendor, it’s all good with me.”

Part of the problem with using wimpy cores is that you have to move far more information between cores, and that can bog things down. But Tilera’s hardware alleviates this problem by putting all the cores on a single chip, and Frankovsky points out that the problem goes away once you build new protocols for moving data between cores — something that Facebook and others are now working on as part of the Open Compute Project. Frankovsky acknowledges that there may be limits to the wimpy-core setup, but he says it’s too early to actually identify them. “At this point,” he says, “those limits are all theoretical.”

As Dave Andersen points out, some software “workloads” are suited to wimpy cores, and others are not. But when we asked which Facebook workloads might benefit from wimpy cores, Frank Frankovsky was unequivocal. “Within the Facebook environment, I haven’t seen a workload that would be exempted from wimpy cores,” he says. “But it’s all a matter of time.”

Cade Metz is the editor of Wired Enterprise. Got a NEWS TIP related to this story -- or to anything else in the world of big tech? Please e-mail him: cade_metz at wired.com.

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