Free Reebok Shoes on Purchase of MBlaze Data Card

The festive season has started and in order to attract the customers, the mobile phone operators are coming out with interesting offers and schemes and in the same row, MTS has made an announcement about the launch of its latest offer called “Speed Ka Double Dose”.

This latest initiative has been launched by MTS in association with Reebok and the offer will enable the customers to get a free pair of specially designed Reebok sports shoes worth Rs.3499 on the purchase of its MBlaze Data Card.

Besides free Reebok Shoes, the customers will also get the advantage of data usage of 1500MB and that too just for Rs.2999. This latest offer will be available in all the 84 towns under the network of MBlaze across the country.

Once the customers have purchased the services of MBlaze through any of the branded retail outlet of MTS they will get the scratch card with unique code which they will have to enter at the site www.mtsindia.in/MBlaze to get the free shoes of their size.

Government Rules on Blackberry met by Tata Teleservices and Bharti Airtel

Tata Teleservices and Bharti Airtel has recently conveyed to the government of the country that their networks have been upgraded so as to allow the security agencies to monitor the messages which are sent through the Blackberry devices.

The compliance reports has been sent by Airtel and Tata Teleservices to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) which states that they have carried out with the necessary upgradation.
60 days of time period is given to Blackberry makers, Research in Motion by the India, last month for providing lawful access of its data by the security agencies. As per the Indian Law, the telecom operators must make sure that the security agencies can get all the access to the services which are carried on their networks.

The services of Blackberry are offered in India through various mobile phone operators like Tata Teleservices, Airtel and others and the Canadian company wants to be as co-operative as possible with the Government of the country for ensuring its security needs.

Apple Allows Previously Banned Ringtone Makers Into App Store [Ringtone Makers Make Mark On App Store, Give Previously Banned Apps New Hope]

When the original iPhone first launched back in 2007 there was no official way to get third party applications onto the device. The only way to do such a thing was to break just about every rule in the book and jailbreak the device. Going this route gave consumers access to an expansive line up of applications developed specificially for the phone rendering it far more useful than when it originally launched.

However, when 2008 rolled around with the iPhone 3G, Apple introduced to the world the App Store. This new virtual mobile application retail outlet gave consumers official access to both paid for and free applications. Over the years the App Store has seen immense growth with over 6.5 billion downloads and over 250,000 appliactions available on the market to date.

Up until now, Apple has been pretty strict about which applications actually make it into the App Store. In fact, every one of those 250,000+ apps were subject to Apple’s intensive approval process. Due to these strict guidelines, many applications were denied access to the store if they even remotely replicated a feature already in the phone. Google Voice applications, for example, were originally allowed onto the market and then quickly pulled for duplicating a service already found within the iPhone.

India in talks on BlackBerry e-mail access: source

India, which along with several other countries has expressed concerns that BlackBerry services could be used to stir political or social instability, had threatened RIM with a ban if it were denied access to data.

A spokeswoman for RIM, which has never commented on whether the Indian government has access to BlackBerry services, was not immediately available for comment.

The Indian interior ministry said on Aug. 30 that the Canadian firm had offered several ways to allow authorities to monitor BlackBerry communications. The government said it would check their feasibility over the next 60 days.

Saudi Arabia, fretful over services such as online pornography, has reached a deal with RIM on access to the BlackBerry Messenger instant messaging service, a consumer product that operates outside of the secure corporate domain, according to government sources.

Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have raised similar concerns, with the UAE setting an Oct. 11 deadline for RIM.

Apple To Acquire Polar Rose Face Recognition Firm

Apple has acquired Polar Rose, a Swedish company that makes facial recognition software that can be used in the cloud, on a computer or on iPhone and Android smartphones.

Norwegian Mac site Mac1 reported the acquisition on Monday, according to a translation of the site via Google Translate. Financial details were not disclosed. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Polar Rose has developed  technology that uses complex algorithms to identify photos, so they can be linked to other information. The company focuses on facial recognition, making the technology particularly useful in social networks. For example, the technology could be used to identify and tag people in a group photo.

What Apple has planned for the Polar Rose technology is not known. The company does not comment on future product plans. However, Apple uses facial recognition technology in iPhoto to help users organize their photos based on particular people.

Google's social network building blocks

Google has quietly been stocking up on tools it will need to challenge Facebook in the social networking game, and says it's on the verge of launching a "social component" to a number of its core products.

Over the past month, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) has made five acquisitions in the field: SocialDeck, a mobile social gaming company; Angstro, a social networking search application; Like.com, a social fashion store; Jambool, a social gaming virtual currency; and Slide, a social game maker. It also has a large stake in gaming giant Zynga.

But before you start to arrange the puzzle pieces, analysts say don't bother.

"Trying to predict how Google will put everything together using acquisitions is a fool's game," said Josh Bernoff, analyst at Forrester Research. "It's highly unlikely that the pieces will emerge into some form."

Google has a habit of making acquisitions to buy up talent, not products. Bernoff believes many of the recent deals were done to pick the brains of the companies' engineers, who have experience with social networks.

Germany seeks Internet data protection code

Germany's government urged the Internet industry on Monday to produce a voluntary data protection code to cover services like Google Inc.’s  “Street View” mapping service.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere met with representatives of Google and Apple Inc. Among others after Google's plans to introduce “Street View” in Germany ignited concerns in the privacy-conscious country over the extent to which people's personal data are accessible on the Internet.

De Maiziere said he proposed that the industry draw up a data protection code by Dec. 7, and “this met with approval.”

The industry should commit to “data protection-friendly basic settings” and give information “in a user-friendly way” about the gathering and intended use of data, the minister said.

China gains ground in solar

Among solar cell manufacturer shipments in the second quarter, the top 5 were represented by First Solar, Suntech Power, JA Solar, Yingli Green Energy and finally Trina Solar, according to a report issued by Solarbuzz. First Solar is based in the U.S., while the others are based in China. 

Among the top 12 cell manufacturers in Q2 '10, six Chinese manufacturers accounted for 55 percent of shipments, up from 43 percent a year ago, according to the firm.

Meanwhile, after a slow start in 2010, global photovoltaic (PV) demand soared to 3.82 GW in the second quarter, up 54 percent from the previous period, according to Solarbuzz. The PV industry remains on target to deliver over 15 GW installations this year, according to the research firm.

Total industry revenues were approximately $17.2 billion in Q2 2010, compared to $12.0 billion in Q1 '10 and $6.2 billion in Q2 '09, according to the firm.

Halo Reach General Public Gaming Industry

Today, the game industry is nothing like that. It is dominated by a handful of companies who want a quick profit. And they believe that franchises are one of the best ways to do so. In the process, they have actually forgotten the unique games of the past and grappling with what the players know.
Precisely why RPGs are hard to find today. This is also why many unique titles that attract a cult, but fail to reach the general public never heard of him.

Certainly there are other elements to this argument. main promoters stick with franchises that do well. And, for the most first-person shooting, sports games, and titles of other actions are selling well. Thus, developers are feeding the beast. It is also interesting to note that there are still unique and fun titles in the wild. But in my case, there is not nearly as much as it should.

So, like Halo Reach receives all the honors that most players say he deserves, I’m asking again. The game can be fun to play. It could be a big step up over predecessors. But for me, is all wrong about the gaming industry. The game is part of a major franchise. This is yet another shooter first-person. And he does not push the industry forward in any measurable way.

Reach Halo hit store shelves this week, and already Microsoft is boasting it as the best version of Halo it ever was. In fact, the game has generated $ 200 million of revenue for the company. Since the launch, the game has been extremely popular on Xbox Live. And most people who have had the chance to express their opinions about the title said it was an exceptional offer that puts a nice end to the franchise from Bungie-developed Halo.

But all the praise and gushing over the game does not work for me. I’ll be the first to admit that the Halo games are fun to play. But for me, Halo Reach – and all the hoopla that surrounds it – is what is wrong with the gaming industry.

During this decade, the game industry has been a very different space. There was a lot of developers and none was large enough to be called the dominant market players (possibly with the exception of Sega and Nintendo). At that time, budgets were playing small, and the industry itself was a niche market.

And yet, it could very well be the golden age of games. There was a time that was led by very unique and fun games. It has also been a time when the lure of profit enterprise made up the will of a handful of people in a room to create a gaming revolution. Indeed, it was still a business. But it is one that is coveted and cultivated originality.


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Sony PS3 Ceramic White Heading Games

Sony has officially announced the console today, and that previously leaked Candy Pink PS3 controller we have attracted your attention too long. Ceramic White PlayStation 3 will include a 320 GB hard drive, and even white PS3 dual Shock 3. It’s the same idea that the white console that came out earlier this year, but it has more storage space.

The console will be available in Japan on October 21 and will be $ 410 after conversion. Unfortunately, Sony has not said anything on the console to come to the United States, or any other international market for this question. Thus, you can start to cross your fingers.

If you’re not a fan of Gran Turismo, the racing simulator fan favorite, but you’re aching to get their hands on a PS3 which has a color different from him, then you’re lucky. Sony just announced that it is a new version Ceramic White console video game popular in Japan position.



This post Sony PS3 Ceramic White Heading Games brough to by Netbook Review. Visit Electronics Review for information about gadget and technology

Yahoo CEO Says 'Total Control' Will Hurt Apple's iAd

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz thinks Apple's iAd initiative will "fall apart," Reuters reported Thursday. In an interview, Bartz pointed to Apple's "total control" over ads for its new advertising platform.

Apple launched the iAd service this summer to deliver ads to its iPhone and iPad. The advertising platform began with Apple's acquisition of Quattro Wireless earlier this year. Apple plans to shutter Quattro on Sept. 30.

'Total Control' a No-No
Advertising on the iPhone must be done through iAd or pure-play mobile Relevant Products/Services networks such as Jumptap and Millennial Media. That blocks ads from Google's AdMob and other advertising companies. Apple is reportedly asking for $1 million commitments to run iAd campaigns and is said to be requiring some creative control over advertising content.

"That's going to fall apart for them," Bartz said. "Advertisers are not going to have that type of control over them. Apple wants total control over those ads."

A key feature of iAd is interactivity, which is intended to keep ad viewers within apps from Apple's App Store and generate revenue for third-party developers. Apple takes 40 percent of the advertising revenue and some advertisers, including Nissan, have reported much higher click-through rates than other mobile ads.

Bartz also said Yahoo's transition to Microsoft's Bing search engine should be complete next month. The companies have agreed on a 10-year partnership to take on search market leader Google.

She predicted that online advertising will pick up in 2011. "After the transition, I think we'll see a dip for a while just because it will be inefficient for a while, but by mid-next year I think we'll see the [revenue per search] come up on the site," Bartz said. She added that demand for Yahoo video ads remains strong.

Samsung Unveils iPad Competitor: Galaxy Tablet

Samsung Electronics has struck deals with four U.S. carriers to begin selling a Google Android-powered tablet computer during the coming holiday season, taking on Apple's iPad on its home turf.

Samsung on Thursday announced details of its new 7-inch touchscreen Galaxy, to be sold through Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and AT&T, which also carries the iPad.

The Korean electronics giant has secured deals with Viacom's MTV Networks
and Paramount and NBC Universal, which ComCast Corp is buying, to buy or stream TV episodes, full television seasons, and new and old movies.

Unlike the iPad, the Galaxy -- which shares many of the same features as the Galaxy S smart phone launched during the summer -- has front- and back-facing cameras for video conferencing, Samsung said in a statement. For example, just like the Galaxy S smart phones, the Galaxy Tab includes Samsung’s Social Hub application and the new Media Hub content service, offering premium movies and TV episodes from some of the biggest entertainment companies.

It runs on Google's fledgling Android operating system, which has taken market share away from Apple, and has access to some 80,000 applications on the Google apps store.

Review: Zombie Escape for iPhone

Vigua Games’ Zombie Escape for the iPhone takes the classic zombie game format and turns it on its head. The purpose of the game is not to kill zombies, but to survive them. In this top-down path-drawing game, your task is to get as many humans evacuated to safety as possible. With a diverse set of challenges and a unique style, Zombie Escape offers a refreshing take on the path-drawing genre.

Zombie Escape, you take control of a military commander tasked with evacuating civilians from zombie invested parks, airports and avenues. From your overhead view, you'll see zombies, humans, and the helicopter safe zone which is your goal. If you tap a human with your finger, you can draw a safe route to a helicopter. Thanks to a warning system, if zombies ever get too close to the humans, you can quickly adjust evacuee routes to avoid the brain-eating monsters.

If drawing avoidance routes doesn’t work, you can use a variety of different weapons to fend off zombies. Weapons include sleeping gas, sniper rifles, and bombs. Other avoidance techniques include flinging meat at zombies and setting down safety zones that keep zombies away from your humans. If you fail to protect three humans from a zombie, you fail a level. If you get almost every evacuee to a helicopter, you succeed in a level and move on to another rescue location.

The linux desktop is dead!

     "The linux desktop is dead! Or so it will be, soon, if these guys get their way.

    "Apparently, and this has been the hot new idea for the last year or two; for Xserver 1.10 people want to get rid of one of the greatest things that XFree86 brought us, and one of the better changes that happened after the X.org fork: modular graphics drivers.

    "While the current proposal is simply to undo the modularization work of the mid-naughties (thanks jezza!), it immediately sparked the imagination of others to go even further (to which Alanc answered rather strikingly). But merging drivers back is in itself already a very damaging move."

Complete Story

Parent of raped teen ‘a ball of rage’

 It’s a double hurt, and the pain is evident in every angry, halting word.

Not only has the 40-ish, self-employed contractor had to weather the alleged gang rape of his 16-year-old daughter, graphic pictures of the disturbing incident have been widely circulated on the Internet.

“It just makes you sick,” the girl’s father said Friday in an interview. “I’m still a ball of rage.”

The Fraser Valley resident said the Internet photos, which police have been working feverishly to erase, make healing from the brutal assault even more difficult.

“We are certainly going after what can be sent, but there’s stuff in personal devices that you’re never going to be able to stop,” he said. “For us, this may just go on and on. To call it a parent’s worst nightmare is an understatement … and we’re living it.”

The father’s name is not being used to protect his daughter’s identity.

Circulation of the cellphone pictures on a number of Facebook sites has prompted widespread public outrage and soul searching over whether adolescents are increasingly desensitized by their social networking and easy access to extreme online images.

Microsoft takes Oracle side in Google Java-phone attack

Microsoft has jumped on Oracle's prosecution of Google to attack Android and promote Windows Phone 7, while revealing a limited US rollout for its mobile phone platform.

Even before Android's day in court, the chief financial officer of Microsoft's mobile phone group is reported to have taken Android's patent infringements as a fact.

Tivanka Ellawala told a financial analysts' conference Thursday that the "fact" Android infringes on patents means there's a financial cost associated with the free operating system.

Ellawala is reported to have said:

    At the most simplistic level, the IP [intellectual property] issues around the Android situation and certainly the IP issues that we have discussed, it does infringe on a bunch of patents and there are costs associated with that. And this is not just an issue for us. It may also be an issue as some companies have already stated. So there is an upfront fee cost associated with Android that, I think, doesn't make it free.

Microsoft charges OEMs to license its operating systems, adding to the costs of making a product. In the competitive world of phones, that eats into makers' already tight margins. Also, the Windows code is closed, so OEMs cannot easily make customizations.

Windows Phone 7 Tools Out as MS Woos Developers

Microsoft released its Windows Phone 7 developer tools to the web on Thursday, just two weeks after the release of Windows Phone 7 Series to manufacturing. To avoid making the same mistake as Apple -- which soured its relations with developers by imposing strict app guidelines last April -- Microsoft said it won't introduce arbitrary restrictions on the apps that developers can submit to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.

"The developer platform is really all about enabling developers to build whatever they can dream up," wrote Microsoft blogger Brandon Watson. "The unique capabilities built into the application platform, manifesting in distinctive UI and great user experiences, mean that developers can take a fresh start and rethink the experiences they are delivering to the mobile Relevant Products/Services screen."

The development environment is shaping up to be Microsoft's biggest differentiator, noted Al Hilwa, director of applications development software at IDC. "They appear to have made things simple, transparent and effective for some five million Microsoft developers to jump into the mobile fray," Hilwa said.

A Loophole Big Enough for a Cookie to Fit Through

If  you rely on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer’s privacy settings to control cookies on your computer, you may want to rethink that strategy.

Large numbers of Web sites, including giants like Facebook, appear to be using a loophole that circumvents I.E.’s ability to block cookies, according to researchers at CyLab at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Engineering.

A technical paper (note: clicking on the link will initiate a download of a pdf) published by the researchers says that a third of the more than 33,000 sites they studied have technical errors that cause I.E. to allow cookies to install, even if the browser has been set to reject them. Of the 100 most visited destinations on the Internet, 21 sites had the errors, including Facebook, several of Microsoft’s own sites, Amazon, IMDB, AOL, Mapquest, GoDaddy and Hulu.

Typos and honest mistakes likely explain many of the errors, says Lorrie Faith Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory and one of the paper’s authors. But she estimates that more than half represent deliberate efforts to keep I.E. from blocking certain types of third-party cookies based on privacy policies.

Cookies are used to store information about a user or computer’s Web use so sites can customize that user’s experience, including what ads they see. So-called persistent or tracking cookies are data placed not by the site visited, but by other third-party Web sites that have placed content or advertising on the visited Web page. These types of cookies can stay on computers for long periods of time and gather data about surfing habits, and have long raised hackles among those concerned about privacy online.

Yahoo has no plans to sell Alibaba stake

Yahoo Inc.Chief Executive Carol Bartz does not want to sell the Internet search company’s stake in Alibaba Group, despite persistent overtures from the Chinese Internet firm.

Alibaba “constantly” approaches Yahoo about repurchasing its stake, Bartz told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview on Wednesday, but Yahoo has no plans to sell it.

“It’s very strategic,” Bartz said, adding that it also is a great investment.

Bartz’s comments come after a report that a deal is pending for Yahoo to sell its roughly 39 per cent stake in Alibaba for between $8 billion and $11 billion.

In a note to investors, Susquehanna Financial analyst Marianne Wolk referred to a report on a Chinese website about such a deal.

Bartz told Reuters that Alibaba was a smart way to invest in China, the world’s largest Internet market by users and a region that has challenged other Internet companies such as Yahoo’s rival Google Inc.

She played down reports suggesting tension between Yahoo and Alibaba, noting that she recently sat next to Alibaba CEO Jack Ma all day during a Microsoft summit.

Google Seeks Access To User Data as It Fires Engineer

CEO Eric Schmidt said Google wants more access to users' social-networking data even as the company fired an engineer for improper access to private information. Schmidt asked Facebook to open its data, and added, "there are other ways to get that information." Google is said to be developing a Facebook competitor called Google Me.

Google will be getting deeper into social networking and users' data. That's the word Tuesday from CEO Eric Schmidt -- on the same day that Google announced it had fired a software engineer for improper access to customers' private information.

Schmidt said his company is looking to embed new social-networking functionality throughout its product line, and he is calling on Facebook to provide greater access to members' information, with their permission. Schmidt made the remarks Tuesday at the Google Zeitgeist conference in Scottsdale, Ariz.