Spot expands lineup with satellite-powered Global Phone

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

(Credit: Spot) Satellite phones may seem like a niche technology, and in many ways they are. You won't need one while roaming city streets, but they can be invaluable if you're ever trekking far from civilization -- though that didn't ...

Flickrs 1TB for photos is great but how about a smart shoebox

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

commentary More space for online photo storage is a welcome move, but it's also like having a bigger "shoebox" where more of your photos get lost. How about an increase in ...

UPDATE 2-Sprint receives SoftBank waiver to consider Dish offer

Reuters - Monday 20th May, 2013

Mon May 20, 2013 11:26pm EDT * Sprint gets waiver to consider $25.5 bln rival offer from Dish * SoftBank to issue 300 bln yen ($3.9 bln) in bonds in June - filing * Sprint says recommendation in favour of SoftBank offer not changed TOKYO, May 21 (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp said its Japanese suitor SoftBank Corp granted it a waiver allowing it to consider a $25.5 billion rival bid by Dish ...

DealBook Column But Wait. Didn’t Yahoo Try a Deal Like This Before

International Herald Tribune - Monday 20th May, 2013

Yahoo bought the company for $3.6 billion. When Yahoo announced its headline-grabbing acquisition, it boasted that the deal gave it access to an "unduplicated" audience of users and that its target was a "popular personal publishing" platform. "Yahoo will be able to integrate and distribute a powerful set of state-of-the-art editing tools and content published through ...

Oil Prices Dip to Around $96.50 as Supplies Weigh

CNBC - Monday 20th May, 2013

U.S. crude futures eased to about $96.50 a barrel in early trading in Asia on Tuesday as ample supplies weighed on prices, despite support from equity ...

SoftBank grants waiver for Sprint to talk more to Dish

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

The Japanese wireless carrier is letting its rival Dish go into further talks with Sprint, saying that "we are providing this waiver because we are confident in the value of our ...

Tough Cat B15 Android phone marks U.S. debut

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

Cat B15 Android smartphone is the newest entrant to the U.S.' rough and ready durable phone tussle. I got my hands on the B15 this past March when it first appeared on the world stage at Mobile World Congress. This U.S. variant is essentially the same handset, except for the cellular support -- AWS bands 1700/2100 to complement GSM 850/1900 support. There's no launch date yet, since ...

Google breach may have led to sensitive data leaks

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

Chinese hackers were blamed for breaking into Google's servers in 2010; now, U.S. officials say these cyberattacks may have led to the release of secret government ...

UPDATE 1-Sprint gets waiver from Softbank permitting discussions with Dish

Reuters - Monday 20th May, 2013

Mon May 20, 2013 9:02pm EDT May 20 (Reuters) - Wireless service provider Sprint Nextel Corp received a waiver from SoftBank Corp on various provisions of their merger agreement permitting it to engage in discussions with Dish Network Corp. Satellite TV service Dish made a $25.5 billion counter bid last month for Sprint against SoftBank's October agreement to pay $20.1 billion for 70 percent ...

Should we let wunderkinds drop out of high school

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Monday 20th May, 2013

Francis Howell senior shortstop Zac Perkins broke two school records in the Vikings' Class 5 District 8 championship win against Holt last ...

Yahoo reboots Flickr offers 1 terabyte of storage

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Monday 20th May, 2013

Fresh on the heels of its $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, Yahoo says it is rebooting its languishing photo-sharing site Flickr with plans to make it "awesome" again.Yahoo Inc. said at an event in New York City's Times Square on Monday that it is now offering users 1 terabyte of online storage for free. One terabyte is 1,024 gigabytes _ enough to store more than 500,000 images ...

How Apple sidestepped U.S. taxes The Senates version

CNN Money - Monday 20th May, 2013

"The hearing will examine how Apple Inc., a U.S. multinational corporation, has used a variety of offshore structures, arrangements, and transactions to shift billions of dollars in profits away from the United States and into Ireland, where Apple has negotiated a special corporate tax rate of less than two percent. One of Apple's more unusual tactics has been to establish and direct ...

Apple set for DC tax fight

CNN Money - Monday 20th May, 2013

Apple executives are set to defend the company's tax practices and call for corporate tax reform on Capitol Hill Tuesday amid harsh criticism following a Senate ...

Dish eyes LightSquareds Spectrum for $2 billion - Bloomberg

Reuters - Monday 20th May, 2013

(Reuters) - U.S. satellite company Dish Network Corp has offered to buy bankrupt broadband company LightSquared Inc's radio frequencies for $2 billion, Bloomberg said, quoting people familiar with the ...

Microsoft to build Australian cloud computing centers

Reuters - Monday 20th May, 2013

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is expanding its services for hosting and processing online data in Australia with the establishment of two new "cloud" computing data centers in the ...

Flickrs new $499.99 per year Doublr service explained

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET) Yahoo on Monday increased the amount of storage Flickr users get by 70-fold, and at the same time quietly introduced a new pro tier that costs users 20 times as much as the one it replaces. That ...

Flickrs free terabyte not big enough

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

languish with a fresh coat of paint and a free terabyte of space. Too bad today's photo-sharer has found a home elsewhere and is already accustomed to free. Monday at a press event in New York, Yahoo announced major changes ...

NY official Airbnb stay illegal host fined $2400

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

(Credit: Screenshot by Donna Tam/CNET) New York City officials have determined that a man who rented out part of his apartment on Airbnb should pay $2,400 for violating the city's illegal hotel law, despite Airbnb stepping in on the host's behalf. The city initially asked host Nigel Warren ...

Google Checkout to check out

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

blog post Monday . Even though Checkout was replaced by Wallet in 2011, it still has been an option for those merchants who are adamant about using the old service in their operations. But on November 20, that will come to an end. Google said by that time merchants who use Checkout will have two options: (1) move to another service, such as Google partners Braintree, Shopify, or Freshbooks, if ...

Samsung Galaxy Tablet may run on Intel chip

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

Android tablet allegedly will sport a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom CloverTrail+ chip, industry sources familiar with the product told CNET. The plus sign means the CloverTrial chip packs a high-performance PowerVR SGX544 MP2 graphic processing unit from Imagination Technologies. Other specs include Android 4.2.2 and a 1,280 x 800 display. Samsung is expected to reveal the Galaxy Tab at ...

Apple dodged paying billions in taxes subcommittee says

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

report Monday detailing how it believes the tech giant has avoided paying its fair share of U.S. taxes. "Apple is an American success story," the report reads. "Today, Apple Inc. maintains more than $102 billion in offshore cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities (cash). Apple executives told the Subcommittee that the company has no intention of returning those funds to ...

How to create custom PDF compression filters in OS X

Cnet - Monday 20th May, 2013

Apple's Preview program is the default PDF viewer in OS X, and has a number of options for annotating and otherwise managing PDF files. One of its features is support for Quartz filters, which can be applied to PDFs and image files to convert them, for example into sepia, black-and-white, or gray scale. A Quartz filter can be used to reduce the PDF's file size, but while it's ...