19 new stories on The Next Web today |  |
- EU launches antitrust probe into Google search tampering [TNW Google]
- Digitimes: Android will take Symbian’s top spot in 2011 [TNW Mobile]
- What next for the UK’s controversial filesharing law? [TNW Media]
- Server glitch causing Apple devices to randomly initiate FaceTime calls? [TNW Mobile]
- GoNabit: Kuwait City Gets Group Buying Deals [TNW Middle East]
- Kuwait DSLR Ban Does Not Exist After All [TNW Middle East]
- British households potentially miss out on £768 from unwanted mobile phones [TNW Mobile]
- Gameloft offers Sprint 4G customers buy-one-get-one-free on its Android HD games [TNW Mobile]
- Launch Party 10 In Their Own Words: Panty By Post [TNW Canada]
- China’s Counterfeit Crackdown: Is this one for real? [TNW Asia]
- Launch Party Vancouver 10: Startups in their own words [TNW Canada]
- MySpace Promotes Mike Jones to CEO [TNW Industry]
- Flock Updates: Supports Mac, Newer Chromium Engine. And…Scene. [TNW Apps]
- Apple’s iPad goes on sale in South Korea [TNW Asia]
- imo.im: Slick, new, free, IM client for iPad [TNW Apps]
- Grey market iPhones and iPads now legal in Japan thanks to iOS 4.2 [TNW Asia]
- Astral Media Launching Mobile Radio Apps for its 83 Stations [TNW Canada]
- Video: LG’s LU-3000 burns iPhone 4 and Galaxy S in speed test [TNW Mobile]
- Anheuser-Busch taking local and multilingual approach to Facebook pages [TNW Facebook]
- Nook Color rooted, is it better as an eReader or Android tablet now? [TNW Gadgets]
| EU launches antitrust probe into Google search tampering [TNW Google] Posted: 30 Nov 2010 03:48 AM PST
It has emerged that Google is currently facing an investigation by EU regulators over instances where the company has allegedly tampered with rival services and companies featuring in its search results and in some cases preventing other websites from launching ads that compete directly with its services. Bloomberg reports that the European Commission will be looking into the allegations “as a matter of priority”, checking into whether Google is restricting its advertising partners ability to place specific types of ads on their websites with the aim of reducing the ability to promote services offered by competing search tools. The antittrust complaint was filed in February by three companies; UK-based price comparison site Foundem, French legal search website Ejustice.fr and Microsoft’s service Ciao. Google isn’t necessarily at fault, the investigation is ensure that procedures are followed and any issues are identified and fixed. The company issued the following statement:
Of course, this isn’t the time Google have been subject to investigation in Europe. Earlier in the year, Google came under fire when it emerged that its Street View cars were unintentionally collecting information from wireless networks they came into contact with they travelled throughout Europe. Whilst Google escaped further action in the UK, the search giant was unable to delete the collected data initially due to the way different European authorities dealt with the privacy breaches. Last week, the UK’s Information Commissioner agreed to let Google delete its data. German citizens were offered the option to opt out of Google Maps data collections, resulting in many houses featured on Street View needing to be blurred out.Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]     |
| Digitimes: Android will take Symbian’s top spot in 2011 [TNW Mobile] Posted: 30 Nov 2010 02:04 AM PST
Currently, Symbian is the most popular smartphone operating system but the platform is expected to end the year with 35.5% share of the market. Android has risen from the fifth most popular platform to rank second with a market share of 20.8%, equating to almost 59 million units shipped during the year. Digtimes’ research analyst Luke Lin speculates in 2011, Android will grow to hold a 29.7% share of the market, followed by Symbian at 28%, iOS at 16.7%, with Apple claiming third spot from RIM who’s BlackBerry OS will hold a 14% share. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 will hold a 5.1% share as it looks to establish itself in an increasingly competitive market. Analysts are unanimously backing Android to overtake the Symbian platform in 2011, the latter now exclusively developed by Nokia. Offering an open-source customisable operating system, Google will look to increase revenue with its mobile advertising services and increased Android Market app downloads. Android is already the top smartphone operating system in Asia and the US, it will only be a matter of months until it takes top spot worldwide.Image Source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| What next for the UK’s controversial filesharing law? [TNW Media] Posted: 30 Nov 2010 01:51 AM PST
ISPs BT and TalkTalk have been granted a Judicial Review on the Digital Economy Act (DEA) that was rushed through Parliament by the Labour government before it was dissolved earlier this year. A Judicial Review is where a court looks at the actual aspects of part of the law to decide on whether the implementation of the particular parts in question are legal or not. BT and TalkTalk are saying that aspects are against the Human Rights Act and are thus illegal. The DEA introduces what’s known as the “3 strike rule”. This part of the Act allows a copyright holder to inform an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that one of their users has violated their copyright. The ISP must then find out who the user is and inform them that they’ve violated copyright. If they violate copyright (from the same copyright holder) again they must be informed again. Then on the third violation they can be cut-off completely – their Internet connection may be terminated. This may leave the customer having to pay their way out of the contract with their ISP. As yet there’s no central database of people who have been cut off by their ISP so they may of course change providers, but that could get very expensive for the end-user. You might be an infringerOf course, many people don’t intentionally violate copyright. However, say you operate an open wireless network and someone uses your WiFi connection to share copyright material. Then it’s your IP address that will be logged. As it’s your IP address, any copyright infringement requests (CIRs) will be sent to the owner of the network (or at least whoever pays the bills for the network) and that’s probably you. You may not even be aware that any copyright infringement took place. As you never shared anything, you ignore the CIR, but whoever’s been using the network keeps on using it and another notice is sent. You’re blissfully ignorant and then you get cut-off. Even if you don’t get to that cut-off point, YOU have to prove that it wasn’t you sharing. Even if someone’s illegally used your WiFi connection YOU have to prove it and that’s a big issue. Normally the courts of the UK take the view that you’re innocent until proven guilty – the police or other agency have to prove your guilt. Under the DEA you have to prove your innocence or at least prove it wasn’t you, and that’s quite a dramatic change in UK policy which many people think is unfair and unjust. Why are ISPs really opposed to the Act?Under current regulations it’s only the 5 biggest ISPs (including BT and TalkTalk) that are affected by the DEA. To be covered, an ISP needs more than 400,000 customers and mobile operators are currently excluded. The government itself has said it will be expensive to implement measures to enforce the DEA. The upfront cost to an ISP is around £8m with a further cost somewhere between £8-25m per year. Sending CIRs will cost another £3m per year. BT and TalkTalk actually estimated the costs higher in the region of £100m per year as part of the Judicial Review request. ISPs are going to have to pass the costs on to their customers, so that means the cost of broadband going up to pay for it all. The futureIt could be that the thresholds will be lowered so more ISPs will have to implement measures to enforce the DEA. If that happens Universities could easily fit the bill as well as mobile operators. The costs to a single university may be around £40,000 which means £32m nationally. Add mobile operators and those costs jump dramatically. Though 75% of the costs have to be paid by the copyright holders, that’s still a huge bill that ISPs will have to bear – which of course they won’t and it’s the non copyright infringing users that will have to pay the bill. Maybe that’s why BT and TalkTalk are really so against the Act and want the Judicial Review.Image source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Server glitch causing Apple devices to randomly initiate FaceTime calls? [TNW Mobile] Posted: 30 Nov 2010 12:43 AM PST
Apple users have taken to the company’s official support forums for clarification and to highlight the problem, where the iPhone 4 was the most commonly affected handset. That said, iPod Touch users experienced the problem and even a user of the Mac desktop client reported their client showing a FaceTime request. Interestingly, most calls were showing request from mutual friends, some devices were even switched off when they were said to have made the call. Some amateur detective work on the forums and from users posting to iPodnn and other websites has found that the incidents were occuring around the same time that evening, “approximately 6:30PM Pacific, 9:30PM Eastern and 3:30AM in central Europe”. Because the glitch has indirectly affected a Mac dekstop user, it suggests the cause of the random calls is not Apple’s latest 4.2.1 iOS firmware. It’s highly possible that the servers that control and handle Apple’s FaceTime service could have temporarily experienced issues and sent out requests on behalf of a number of users. We have contacted Apple for an official response, stay tuned for updates.Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| GoNabit: Kuwait City Gets Group Buying Deals [TNW Middle East] Posted: 30 Nov 2010 12:37 AM PST
We’ve following Dubai based GoNabIt ever since it opened it’s doors to the public back in May 2010. Kuwait City is GoNabIt’s 6th portal. It’s providing for Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah-Ajman-Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE. Plus Amman and Beirut with Kuwait being the 4th country to get deals from the Bayt.com backed group buying service. Ok so Stuart admits it’s not exactly a ‘local’ deal, but at least it’s a start that gives him bragging rights to being the first Group Buying site to provide for Kuwait’s buyers. It’s also interesting to know that this isn’t the first online deal this month, before that Cobone.com (Jabbar backed other regional Group Buying competitor) had provided a discounted purchasing coupon from the region’s première private shopping club & sister site (also part of Jabbar Internet Group) Sukar.com. The region’s first Group Buying service provider has recently added the ability to make direct payments using credit cards. Previously users were only able to make payments using Cash, Cheque, and Paypal. What made those methods impractical for a region wide service provider like GoNabIt is the fact Paypal isn’t supported in most MENA countries. Surprisingly there’s actually an online campaign & petition to urge Paypal to support Arab countries. GoNabit has also changed its city selector making it a drop down menu to accommodate their city expansion from which you can choose only one city instead of the upper city bar in their old design. So with this latest addition to the GoNabIt family the company now operates with a 19 strong team spread across the eastern part of the region with plans to expand to another 4 cities in Egypt, Lebanon, and 2 cities in Saudi Arabia during 2011. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Kuwait DSLR Ban Does Not Exist After All [TNW Middle East] Posted: 30 Nov 2010 12:25 AM PST
In a retraction Kuwait Times stated: “The newspaper regrets failing to verify the information” adding “This information is false. In a follow-up investigation, it was proved that no such ban has been issued”. Now as much as we’d like to shift the blame and exit the room pointing the finger in the other direction, we at TNW ME shoulder some of the blame for not verifying with sources from inside Kuwait either. So let’s take a closer look at why it was so plausible to begin with. Although Kuwait as a country has been pushing to open up, tribal and Islamist representatives dominate it’s parliament year after year clearly expressing it’s conservative and mildly moderate social fabric. This is expressed in many incidents. The attack on Valentine’s Day: reported by sources other than Kuwait Times, hardliner politicians in the Kuwaiti regime have attacked and tried to ban the celebration Valentine’s Day similar to their counterparts in Saudi Arabia who successfully have. Another thing hardliner Islamists are well-known for promoting is banning photography as a whole both inside and outside Kuwait. This has been publicly contested by public figures representing a new moderate version of Islam that’s been continuously gaining popularity throughout the region. Combining these added a plausibility factor to the story which till now, inclines us to think the Kuwait Times reported implementing the ban without getting officials on the record. Which due to the lack of official releases by the mentioned entities gave them the chance to backtrack leaving the Kuwait Times and everyone else who reported the news to take the fall. Now I’m not here to condemn or condone Islamism, or secularism for that matter. Nor am I in a position to do either, but since the news on Kuwait’s DSLR ban rumor started we have been asked how it came to spread to quickly and was immediately embraced as the truth even by publications such as the LA Times. We hope this clarifies everything, and apologize if it has caused anyone any kind of inconvenience. As for the Kuwait Times, we hope in the future those guys do a better job verifying their stories, and getting their sources on the record.Image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| British households potentially miss out on £768 from unwanted mobile phones [TNW Mobile] Posted: 30 Nov 2010 12:08 AM PST
The mobile phone recycling market is booming with many families deciding to cash in the value of their old mobile phones. Sell My Mobile predicts that selling different phones to specialist companies could generate over £750 for their owners, putting money back in the pockets of consumers as they look to spend during the Christmas period. The survey polled one thousand people, highlighting the high turnover of mobile phone handsets within the UK. Whilst every handset has a resale value, its modern smartphones that are the most highly valued devices, old Apple iPhones can fetch hundreds of pounds. Sell My Mobile puts the iPhone 4 at the top of its most valuable devices, giving its owners an average of £390 from phone recycling companies. If you have a Sony Ericsson Z300, however, it might be worth holding on to it, it’s only worth one pound.Telegraph, Image Source [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Gameloft offers Sprint 4G customers buy-one-get-one-free on its Android HD games [TNW Mobile] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 11:38 PM PST
Unfortunately you must be a Sprint customer and own one of the above phones otherwise the games will remain standard paid downloads. To get in on the deal, Sprint users perform the following steps on their Evo and Epic 4G devices:
The promotion is set to run throughout the holiday season, possibly into next year. The ten games available for download are:
A nice little deal to start the run in to Christmas, let us know which games you downloaded and what you think of them in the comments.Android Police, Image Credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Launch Party 10 In Their Own Words: Panty By Post [TNW Canada] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 11:10 PM PST
Yeah, make the postman blush. So I chatted with Natalie Grunberg, founder of Panty by Post…oh and it was fun. I hope you like the interview too, Natalie has a great idea and a great person to chat with: [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| China’s Counterfeit Crackdown: Is this one for real? [TNW Asia] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 11:09 PM PST
Announcing the move at a press conference, a deputy commerce minister, Jiang Zengwei promised closer cooperation with the United States, Japan and Europe. The crackdown comes after the World Trade Organisation sided with the USA in January in a complaint that China wasn’t doing enough to enforce patents, copyright and trademarks. The World Trade Organisation decision could open the doors to allow the US to claim compensation from China and even to impose trade sanctions. When most of us think about product piracy in China, we usually think about software, DVDs, luxury brand name goods and the ubiquitous watch salesmen hawking their wares wherever tourists are found. However, there is a far more serious side to the matter with a growth in the fake medicine market. American officials say fake Chinese-made heart and anti-cancer drugs have been found as far away as Africa. It is not unusual for the Chinese government to announce crackdowns on piracy, but, in the past, these crackdowns have not always been enforced as rigorously as the west would like. There has also been a tendency for the authorities to overlook smalltime offenders or copies of CDs and DVDs, for example, that have not been passed by the state censors and are therefore not available through official channels. In the software market though, the Chinese Government has already met with some success. After introducing legislation forcing all computers sold in China to be sold with an operating system installed a few years ago, the number of PCs shipped with legitimate software has risen from 88% in 2007 to 98% in 2009.Yahoo!, Brand Secure, image, imag [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Launch Party Vancouver 10: Startups in their own words [TNW Canada] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 10:49 PM PST Last Friday I had a chance to sit down with the 9 of the 10 startups to be highlighted at Launch Party Vancouver 10 this week. You can read more about the startups on the announcement post, but here is a summary of the startups:
I’ll be posting videos from the interviews in short order (and put the links here as well). So for now … hold tight! Oh and they even got some guy with a cool hat to talk about Launch Party …. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| MySpace Promotes Mike Jones to CEO [TNW Industry] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 10:48 PM PST
As CEO, Jones, who previously founded and sold Userplane to AOL, “is responsible for setting the overall direction and strategy for Myspace and will drive the development of the company's core technology, infrastructure and design,” according to a press release sent out by MySpace tonight. In addition to Jones’ promotion, Dustin Finer, who transferred from parent company News Corp’s Digital Media Group a year ago, was promoted to COO, which is traditionally the second-in-command position. Finer, “will now lead business development, customer care and international operations in addition to his previous oversight of human resources, administration and office services, and IT,” at MySpace – obviously he’s going to have a lot on his plate. MySpace has recently rolled out a major site redesign, a new logo and a “mashup” with Facebook through Facebook Connect, which many have called a capitualtion of sorts to the now much larger social network. Also, just today, Reuters reported that News Corp’s COO said that the parent company is open to selling MySpace and that he expects the social network to be profitable in a matter of quarters, not years. That task will now officially rest on Mike Jones’ shoulders (though of course he was top dog before this announcement as well).Press release, Techmeme, Image credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Flock Updates: Supports Mac, Newer Chromium Engine. And…Scene. [TNW Apps] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 10:26 PM PST
Right. Today Flock released version 3.5 that not only supports Macs, but also jumps from Chromium 5 to Chromium 7 (for the beta crowd, Chrome itself is on v8 and dev builds are v9). Flock certainly must have been feeling the pressure with RockMelt not only horning in on their turf, but using the same browser engine as they were. After seeing reports from GigaOm and Mashable that Flock 3.5 was out, I thought I’d take it for a spin. I was a big fan of Flock for a while. It did a lot of cool things other browsers (read Firefox) needed a ton of plugins to do. With social media and social networks built into the core of the application, Flock ran fast and slick. But then I ran into the problem of trying to get Firefox extensions I needed to run under Flock. This was not always an easy task and consider I didn’t mind hacking install files sometimes to make things work, that’s saying something. So now Flock is waving for our attention to remind us that the idea of a social web browser isn’t new, but even after trying it…I’m just not convinced. I admit, it’s very cool to use the Explore feature to search for a topic and see what my Twitter and Facebook friends have to say about it (click the image above to see an example). Beyond that though, I just don’t see the purpose or need for another browser, and, although both Rockmelt and Flock should behave the same as Chrome, I wouldn’t bet they would always behave like Chrome when push came to shove. I want to be happy for Flock, especially since a lot of their dev team is based up here in near-by Victoria, BC, but I think the better route would be to make a really, really great single extension that will pull all these social media feeds into Chrome (and Firefox and Safari and IE). Instead of trying to get people to switch browsers for you to be successful, what about just get everyone to use your killer extension? Social media and social networks are killer, here to stay, and are how we at TNW get the news to bring to you, but none of us who tried RockMelt are using it still. And while Flock offers more than Facebook, there just isn’t enough of a compelling reason for me to switch to it. And the thinking that Flock or RockMelt are going to be good for novice users is hogwash. The first time they hit a site that doesn’t like the browser and they can’t do what they want to do, it’s back to Firefox or IE for them. I think the real battle isn’t in building better browsers, but better extensions for the great browsers we have.GigaOm, Mashable, photo credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Apple’s iPad goes on sale in South Korea [TNW Asia] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 09:13 PM PST
According to Channel News Asia, Apple’s world conquering tablet is now officially on sale in South Korea. The company have been taking pre-orders since November 17 and have announced that deliveries of those orders have started today. South Korea is probably one of the most interesting markets for tablet watchers in Asia. South Korea’s own Samsung Electronics, who must be acknowledged as one of Apple’s biggest rivals in the tablet market, released their competing, Android based, Galaxy Tab on November 14 in South Korea and have already clocked up more than 30,000 sales in that country and over 600,000 sales worldwide in its first month. In comparison, Apple’s iPad sold over a million units in its first month. Korea Telecom’s announcement that they have taken more than 60,000 pre-orders for the iPad in South Korea suggest that they will take a quick lead in the market, but, will the iPad dominate Samsung’s home market in the same way that it has dominated world markets? Only time and an increasingly competitive market will tell.image, image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| imo.im: Slick, new, free, IM client for iPad [TNW Apps] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 09:05 PM PST
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| Grey market iPhones and iPads now legal in Japan thanks to iOS 4.2 [TNW Asia] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 07:44 PM PST
Invariably when this happens, a healthy grey market in illegal imports rapidly develops. This was the situation in gadget hungry Japan with the iPhone and the iPad. Most countries have their own laws regarding wireless transmission devices such as mobile phones or wifi enabled computers. The manufacturers are legally bound to comply with these laws and, often, have a legal requirement to display this compliance on the devices before they can sell them on the local market. This usually takes the form of a tiny engraving on the back of the device or a sticker in the battery compartment. Of course, iPhones and iPads imported to Japan on the grey market do not carry this engraving and, even though they may comply with the law technically, have been considered illegal because they don’t display that compliance information. In March, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) announced a small change in the law stating that it is acceptable for devices to display their legal compliance electronically. Last week’s release of iOS 4.2.1 by Apple was the final piece in the jigsaw. Apple’s iPhones and iPads, now carry that compliance notice within their software and are therefore now officially legal in Japan, no matter where they were imported from. So, if you’re in Japan with an iPhone or iPad imported from overseas, upgrade to iOS4.2.1 now for that warm fuzzy feeling that you’re now officially legal.Akihabara News, image [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Astral Media Launching Mobile Radio Apps for its 83 Stations [TNW Canada] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 07:40 PM PST
The whole idea of radio apps on mobile devices is pretty interesting. First there was the kerfuffle around Apple approving (or not) iOS apps that were for single stations. It isn’t clear how Astra plans on doing their app, but from what we know now, they might have to be careful if they are making one app for each station that doesn’t really differ except for the station that they are tuning into. My CHUM and Corus apps are both national apps so I can listen to any station on the network. Personally I like this better. I listen to a lot of different stations depending on my mood, so only having to download a few network apps is great. So, let’s hope Astral Media follows the model of one app for all stations. But bigger than this, I think, is almost a resurgence of radio by streaming the signal over the Internet instead of over the air. It might be my perception of radio stations trying to recapture a market now flooded with streaming music services, but maybe people do want to hear their local station more. How many of us have actual radios sitting as a point in the room? I remember making sure that I had my radio set up just right to get the stations I wanted. Listening to the radio while studying for exams. You know that wasn’t that long ago. Today I do have a real radio, but it isn’t a focal point in my office. I have an iPad and a myriad radio and music apps so I can listen to more than my own music collection. I think the next step for large radio syndicates to make is what CBC Radio 3 does: make their entire library available to be played by anyone, any time. Fine, throw in a couple commercials an hour, but let me tap into your vast record library to make playlists I like and want. What better way to market your station as the coolest for an audience than to say “we have the most indie rock in Vancouver, listen all you want, when you want…” Yeah, that would be awesome. Until then, I’ll just flip among my various radio apps and I’m looking forward to trying the Astral Media app when it launches. [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Video: LG’s LU-3000 burns iPhone 4 and Galaxy S in speed test [TNW Mobile] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 07:38 PM PST Well, well, well, what do we have here? A mysterious LG device called the LU-3000 has appeared on camera blowing Apple’s iPhone 4 and Samsung’s Galaxy S out of the water in a speed test. Here have a look for yourself: Is your jaw on the floor? Thought so. There’s more too. Here are some the specifications according to Akihabara. It has a 3.8" WVGA IPS display, Android Froyo, 5 megapixel camera, HDMI out, 1080p video capabilities, and an OMAP 3630 1GHz for a processor. Not bad at all. And remember, this isn’t the only speedy smartphone LG has up its sleeve. They also are going to be releasing a Tegra 2 powered Android device, codenamed Star, sometime in Q1 of next year.Phone Arena [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Anheuser-Busch taking local and multilingual approach to Facebook pages [TNW Facebook] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 06:55 PM PST
“We've added location and language targeting for Page publishing using the Graph API. This enables developers to send more relevant posts to users and brings these APIs to parity with the targeting options accessible from the Pages publisher.” One prominent brand, Anheuser-Busch InBev, is set to put the new capabilities to the test by establishing local and multilingual Facebook Pages. According to a report, the company will test geographic and language targeting features on its Facebook pages starting this week. Some of the pages managed by the company include: Budwesier, Bud Light, and regional brands such as Becks, Chelada, Stella Artois and Harp. Brands can use the new features through Facebook page’s backend dashboard, allowing them to post targeted offers to those who “like” a brand in a certain country, state/region, or city. Moreover, brands can target by language on their pages. The company will use Syncapse‘s platform to test the new features according to the report. Based in Toronto, Syncapse can store data on geo-targeted posts, making it possible for marketers to compare engagements and test messaging tactics. Anheuser-Busch InBev’s use of Facebook’s new capabilities is a deft move and should extend their brand presence. According to the company’s most recent annual report, the company generated revenues of 36.8 billion USD, with strong growth worldwide. North America saw sales-to-retailers increase 55 percent, Latin America North enjoyed 70 percent market share growth, with similar stellar growth in both the European and Asia/Pacific regions. What are your thoughts on new local and multilingual targeting options on Facebook? Do you think more brands will adopt similar strategies and will they prove effective?ClickZ [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
| Nook Color rooted, is it better as an eReader or Android tablet now? [TNW Gadgets] Posted: 29 Nov 2010 06:40 PM PST
We’re hardly surprised at this news (the root was accomplished by XDA) – it was inevitable. The root probably isn’t perfect and will get better/easier over time for sure, but that’s the not really the interesting part. The real question now is about the Nook Color arises: is it an eReader or a tablet? With the e-ink WiFi-only third generation Kindle being sold by Amazon for $139, and the tablet leader the iPad at $499 for the cheapest model, the $249 price tag of the Nook Color must be making a number of people pause when deciding on what to buy. With the device now rooted, it could become an even harder task to make this decision, as essentially you’re getting a quality-built touch device (according to nearly all reviews) at half the price of the iPad and $350 less than the also-Android Galaxy Tab (no including the data plan of course). Of course, now that it’s rooted, it’ll only be a matter of time before Android 2.2 builds appear (it should have the hardware to handle it) making it all the more attractive. However, the Nook Color does have some drawbacks if you want to use it as a dedicated Android tablet (i.e. reading won’t be your primary use). The most glaring problem is a lack of a camera, which of course also afflicts the iPad. Also, battery life is a bit of an issue, as it’s only about half as good as the iPad with WiFi running. On the other hand, the thing is just $249, is light and is attractively built. So if you don’t yet own a Kindle (or perhaps you do, but don’t want to spend the money on an iPad) this could be a great compromise between the heavier Apple device and the black and white Kindle.Gizmodo, Electronista, Image credit [Notice: this is the RSS feed for ALL stories from across The Next Web - that means a lot of stories every day - for just our top stories, subscribe to our Top Stories RSS feed here.]    |
More to follow…
Chinese industry publication 
Research by phone recycling comparison website Sell My Mobile has found that almost nine in ten British households have at least one old mobile phone stored away in their homes that has the potential to earn its owner money via resale.
Sprint customers owning either an HTC Evo 4G or a 
The Chinese government has launched a new crackdown on product 
Previously the co-president of MySpace and then the sole president when Jason Hirschhorn 
If you’re like me, you’re probably reading the headline of this story and saying to yourself, “Huh? I thought the iPad was 
TNW Quick Hit
When Apple releases hot gadgets like the 
Wednesday in a blog post, 
Unsurprisingly, the Android 2.1 Nook Color has been rooted, less than two weeks after it hit the market.| You are subscribed to email updates from The Next Web To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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