AfterDawn: Tech news

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AfterDawn: News

Google TV users find workaround for Hulu block

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Oct 2010 1:00

Google TV users find workaround for Hulu block All Google TV devices are supposed to have access to Hulu blocked but there is already a workaround available, giving early adopters access to the popular streaming site.

The relatively easy loophole consists of "changing the user agent" in the built-in Chrome browser.

Adjusting that setting is pretty simple, even for non-techie Google TV device owners.

Now that the workaround is available in the wild it is likely that the service will soon patch it. Users of Android devices running 2.2 Froyo used the same loophole earlier this year to watch Hulu content on their smartphones but Hulu tightened up security within days.

The site now uses Adobe Flash 10.1 to identify unauthorized access attempts from 2.2 users.

NewTeeVee has video of the service being blocked:




AfterDawn: News

Apple crushes earnings but outlook, margins dip

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Oct 2010 6:25

Apple crushes earnings but outlook, margins dip Apple crushed its quarterly earnings this afternoon but shares of the stock have fallen severely after the company guided a lower outlook for next quarter.

Shares of the company are down in after hours trading to $300, after hitting as high as $319 during regular trading hours.

For the Q3, Apple topped $20 billion in revenue, whilst earning $4.31 in net profit. Analysts had expected lower profit and revenue.

Revenue surged 67 percent year-on-year from $12.2 billion and income jumped 70 percent from $2.53 billion during the same period last year.

The most impressive number from the earnings report was iPhone sales, which doubled year-on-year and jumped 60 percent from last quarter. Sales of the popular smartphone were 14.1 million for the quarter compared to 8.4 million in a relatively slow Q2. iPhone revenue accounted for $8.6 billion of the company's revenue for this quarter.

iPad sales increased to 4.19 million, for a total of 7.46 million lifetime sales.

On the downside of the report gross margins fell to 36.9 percent from 41.8 percent year-on-year thanks to lower sales of iPods, the company's most profitable device.




AfterDawn: News

'Angry Birds' for Android sees 1 million downloads in 24 hours

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Oct 2010 1:38

'Angry Birds' for Android sees 1 million downloads in 24 hours Rovio Mobile, the developer behind the blockbuster game Angry Birds, recently released a version of the game for Android devices.

The company is offering a full version of the game for free for a limited time in the Android Market after first making it available through their own servers.

Traffic was so high that the servers crashed and Rovio decided to move the app to the Android Market sooner than anticipated.

Rovio has confirmed today that there were over 1 million downloads of the game in just the first 24 hours, marking the fastest an Android app has ever hit the milestone.

Most of Google's applications, along with Skyfire, Adobe Flash 10.1 and others have all hit the milestone but each took weeks if not months to reach 1 million.




AfterDawn: News

Rumor: 11.6-inch MacBook Air coming this week

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Oct 2010 1:06

Rumor: 11.6-inch MacBook Air coming this week The latest rumor circulating this weekend is that the still unconfirmed 11.6-inch MacBook Air will be launched during Apple's October 20 event.

Sources have leaked specs today, as well, saying most notably that the computer will use a new type of SSD for storage instead of the 1.8-inch enclosed drive used in current models.

The "SSD Card" will resemble a stick of RAM but will be almost impossible for users to replace. It will also take up much less space.

There are already a few notebooks, netbooks and embedded devices that use similar sticks, such as SanDisk's pSSD but this should be the first move for the SSD into ultraportables.

Rumored processor is an Intel Core i5.

Aesthetically, the new model will resemble the current 13.3 inch model but be "more wedge-shaped" including sharper edges.

Most importantly, Apple will "almost certainly" drop the price "significantly" under the MacBook Air's current $1500 price tag.




AfterDawn: News

Fox blocked Cablevision subscribers from accessing content on Hulu

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 17 Oct 2010 3:00

Fox blocked Cablevision subscribers from accessing content on Hulu Although access has been restored, it appears that earlier in the day Fox blocked their content on Hulu to Cablevision subscribers, following the dispute between the two companies over retransmission fees.

Following months of negotiations with no resolution, News Corp. blacked out their Fox broadcast signal to over 3 million Cablevision subscribers in metropolitan New York and Philadelphia on Friday.

Sports fans are upset by the turn of events, as Fox is the broadcaster for New York Giants games and the MLB playoffs, where the Yankees and Phillies are in the second round.

Fox was looking for exaggerated fees for their signal that used to be free. Cablevision has so far refused as they do not want to tack on extra fees to consumer's monthly bill. Cablevision says they already pay $70 million per year for Fox's "retransmission fee" but now Fox wants $150 million per year. Cablevision was willing to submit the case to third-party arbitration but Fox refused.

Anybody accessing the Hulu site with a Cablevision IP address was given the pictured error screen.




AfterDawn: News

Android 4.0 dubbed 'Ice Cream'

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 17 Oct 2010 2:29

Android 4.0 dubbed 'Ice Cream' ARM president Tudor Brown has revealed the earliest detail of Android 4.0, which has been dubbed Ice Cream by Google.

Android 3.0 Gingerbread has still not been officially launched by Google, but the company has said it will have a 2010 release.

Following Gingerbread is Honeycomb, which will likely be 3.1 or 3.5.

Forbes notes that Brown's position at ARM would make him privy to Android's long term roadmap, as ARM processor technologies are used in 95 percent of the world's mobile phones.

There have been no official details on features coming with Gingerbread, Honeycomb or Ice Cream.

Ice Cream has a tentative Q2 2011 launch date.




AfterDawn: News

iOS app store hits 300,000 apps

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 17 Oct 2010 2:16

iOS app store hits 300,000 apps Apple's iOS App Store has quietly surpassed 300,000 apps available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch this week, says new data from Mobclix.

The site has total apps available tallied at 300,975 while 148apps has the tally at 334,498 including apps that have been removed by Apple or by developers.

Apple has not confirmed the number, but they do have an event coming up next week. The company tends to open their events with a status update on iOS device sales and app counts.

The App Store has seen explosive growth in the last year, moving from 100,000 to 300,000 in the time frame.

There are 100,000 apps available in the Android Market and BlackBerry users have 10,000 apps available to them.




AfterDawn: News

Global tablet sales will reach almost 20 million this year, says Gartner

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 16 Oct 2010 3:57

Global tablet sales will reach almost 20 million this year, says Gartner According to research firm Gartner, global tablet sales will hit almost 20 million for this year, buoyed by strong sales of the Apple iPad.

Forecasting into the future, the group says sales will explode to 54.8 million units in 2011 and eventually 208 million units by 2014.

For 2010, North American consumers will purchase 61 percent of the 19.5 million expected tablet sales but by 2013 that number will fall to 43 percent.

Tablets are described as "slate" touch-screen devices running a mobile operating system such as WebOS, iOS, Android or Meego.

Apple has sold an estimated 8.5 million iPads this year.

Gartner also noted that netbooks will be cannibalized as tablets begin selling for under $300 in the next couple of years.




AfterDawn: News

Rovio giving away 'Angry Birds' free on Android

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 16 Oct 2010 3:23

Rovio giving away 'Angry Birds' free on Android Rovio has made the blockbuster smash hit Angry Birds game available for free on Android devices today.

The company offers a free "light" version via iTunes for iPhone owners as well as the full version for $.99.

Says the company: "We want to make Angry Birds available for as many people as possible."

The news managed to take down Rovio's web site earlier in the day, but the site has since returned.

You can download it here: Android Angry Birds




AfterDawn: News

Video game industry sales continue their long-term slide into October

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 16 Oct 2010 2:59

Video game industry sales continue their long-term slide into October NPD has released their latest U.S. video game industry sales report, for September, which shows a continued decline in overall sales.

However, the group did not give individual sales for Nintendo, Sony or Microsoft, instead preferring to report only that overall hardware sales had fallen a hefty 20 percent to $383 million.

Microsoft was quick to boast that they had sold 484,000 Xbox 360s for the month, a 37 percent year-on-year jump.

Sony saw 312,000 PlayStation 3 sales, a steep 37 percent drop, although in August 2009 the company dropped the price of the PS3, leading to extremely strong sales.

The Nintendo Wii saw a huge 45 percent drop to 254,000 units as it becomes increasingly clear that Nintendo's current generation console has reached sales fatigue and market saturation.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

Sony sells 1.8 million PlayStation Move units

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 16 Oct 2010 2:36

Sony sells 1.8 million PlayStation Move units According to Bloomberg and one analyst, Sony has sold 1.8 million PlayStation Move units since launch, with an overwhelming amount of sales coming from Europe.

Andrew House, Sony Europe's boss, says 1.5 million units were sold in Europe since launch on September 19th.

The company is now looking to ramp up production in the region.

"The initial sales response has been so far in excess of our initial plan that we'll probably be looking at accelerating production," says House.

Wedbush Morgan video game industry analyst Michael Pachter says Sony has sold 300,000 units in the United States, including console bundles. Sony America has not confirmed those sales, however.




AfterDawn: News

Cablevision and Fox don't reach deal, stations now blacked out

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 16 Oct 2010 2:11

Cablevision and Fox don't reach deal, stations now blacked out Following months of negotiations with no resolution, News Corp. has blacked out their Fox broadcast signal to over 3 million Cablevision subscribers in metropolitan New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Cablevision refused to negotiate any longer and declared an impasse at 8 p.m.

Says president of Fox Networks Affiliate Sales and Marketing Mike Hopkins: "We started this process in May and made numerous reasonable proposals. We remain far apart and Cablevision has made it clear that they do not share our view regarding the value of Fox’s networks."

The blackout affects Fox, Fox Business, Nat Geo Wild and Fox Deportes.

Sports fans should be incredibly upset by the turn of events, as Fox is the broadcaster for Giants games and the MLB playoffs, where the Yankees are in the ALCS.

Following the impasse, News Corp. began urging Cablevision subscribers to switch to Verizon FiOS or a satellite provider.

Read more...


AfterDawn: News

France will subsidize music purchases in effort to fight piracy

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 15 Oct 2010 3:05

France will subsidize music purchases in effort to fight piracy Ars is reporting today that France will begin subsidizing legal music purchases for teens and young adults in an effort to fight piracy.

Citizens aged 15-25 will be able to purchase "carte musique" prepaid cards for certain subscription-based music websites. The cards will give users €50 of music, but the price will be €25.

The French government is subsidizing the rest.

Government officials say the program will run for two years and the government expects to sell one million cards each year.

The program is intended to ward off piracy, and to get younger consumers into the "good habit" of purchasing their music.

European Commission officials also applauded the move, calling the program "well designed" to fight piracy.




AfterDawn: News

U.S. teens average over 3000 texts per month

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 15 Oct 2010 12:09

U.S. teens average over 3000 texts per month According to new figures from Nielsen, U.S. teens average 3,339 texts per month as of the Q2 2010.

The company says that averages out to about six messages for every hour the teen is awake during the month.

Furthermore, teens are also using more Internet data on their phones, up from 14MB per month last year to 62MB per month now.

Growth in texting has also resulted in a drop in voice calls, with teens averaging 646 minutes per month in the Q2 2010, compared to 737 in the same quarter last year.

In the survey, teens said texting was easier, faster and more fun than calling. 62 percent also sent messages with content (MMS) including audio, video and pictures.

When asked for their top reasons for owning cell phones, the most teens answered "texting." A full 43 percent gave that response. 35 percent said "safety" and 34 percent also said "keeping in touch with friends."

Girls averaged 4050 messages per month with guys lagging behind at 2539.

Nielsen surveyed 3000 teens for the figures as well as analyzing mobile phone bills for 60,000 wireless subscribers.




AfterDawn: News

Oracle patches 29 Java, OpenOffice vulnerabilities

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 14 Oct 2010 6:48

Oracle patches 29 Java, OpenOffice vulnerabilities Oracle has issued Java and OpenOffice patches today, patching 29 vulnerabilities that would allow attackers to take control of exploited computers.

28 of the vulnerabilities "could be remotely exploitable without authentication (over a network without the need for a username and password)," says Oracle, via ZD.

The patches are available for users running Windows, Linux and Solaris. Mac users are also vulnerable, but security updates are not expected for another month.

Alarmingly, 15 of the vulnerabilities were given a 10.0 Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS-SIG) severity rating. The scale goes from 1 to 10.

Given the severity, Oracle says you should update your system "as soon as possible."

Check your system for updates here: http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp





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